Book Club: Ghost Summer (Part 1)

A good short story can evoke so many thoughts and emotions. Tananarive Due's short story collection Ghost Summer does just that. Anney and Samantha break down the some of the haunting and powerful themes that will linger in part one.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:05):
Hey, this is Annie and Samantha, and welcome to stephan
never told your prediction about her Idio.

Speaker 2 (00:18):
And welcome to Feminist Book Club. We're a little late
on this one because we had so much good stuff
for February, and you know, with a small month, including
our return on with one of our favorite people's bridget
so we pushed this back a little bit. So we're
just going to say we're extending Black History Month and
letting it overlap with the Women's History Month, as it should.

(00:40):
So we'll just we're just gonna blend the two from
February to March to fully celebrate all of that, and
that means we are going to do an amazing short
story collection.

Speaker 3 (00:51):
I'm so excited. I love short stories so much.

Speaker 1 (00:54):
I did too, and I love when they have little
pieces that connect to each other, and this one does sometimes.

Speaker 2 (01:01):
Yeah, I feel like they overlap in so many characters,
including cats. Oh so at the very beginning of this,
let's go ahead and put content warning. There's a lot
of heavy subjects in this one. I will tell you.
For me, it was a slower listen slash read because
of the intensity of the subjects. So we're talking about
enslavement and slavery. We're talking about death and murder, even

(01:23):
death of animals, sacrificing of animals, which, by the way,
I was not in a great.

Speaker 3 (01:28):
Place for that.

Speaker 2 (01:30):
No, I will tell you this a lot of historical
contexts that bring a lot of sadness. So just as
a reminder, you know, if you need to take time,
you should, but you should absolutely read this book when
you can get into a good headspace if you can.
Since it is a short story collection, you can read one,
put it down, come back, So you know you should
absolutely do this. And we are talking about Tanana Revedo

(01:54):
and her first short story collection, Ghost Summer, which was
published as the actual collection in twenty fifteen. But a
lot of these stories she's published previously, so I know
some of them goes as far back as two thousand
and even though that doesn't sound like a long time
ago to me, it actually was twenty five years ago,
so oh dear gosh. So anyway, all of that to say,

(02:17):
is amazing collection of works. But not only is she
a writer, she's a professor of black horror as well
as executive producer for documentaries such as A Horror Noir,
A History of Black Horror, which I think was featured
on Shutter And she's also a screenwriter with her husband,
who is also collaborated with her on several stories within

(02:39):
this collection.

Speaker 3 (02:39):
So really really great if you have the time. Like
I said, it is ghost stories, it is.

Speaker 2 (02:45):
It is very haunting. Even if it wasn't and it
was just like historical tales, it's still haunting.

Speaker 1 (02:52):
Yeah, it creaked me out, to be honest, and I
loved it, but it creeped me out. We've been trying
to read something from her for a long time because
she comes up on a lot of lists, and you
know we love horror here, right, so I was very
very excited to finally get to do it.

Speaker 2 (03:09):
She has another short story collection which we need to
revisit anyway, but yeah, so this is gonna be a
long detailed look at this one collection called Ghost Summer.
What we're gonna do because there are they are short
stories and are kind of interlinked, but not necessarily interlinked
through theme. I mean, there's definitely a common three theme throughout.

(03:29):
But with that, we're gonna do a synopsis of the
story and then we'll do the theme after that story immediately.
So instead of doing our typical tell you the plot,
tell you what's going on in the book, and then
do themes and have a discussion.

Speaker 3 (03:44):
We're gonna do it as we go per story.

Speaker 2 (03:46):
So let's write down the stories and do the themes.
We're gonna start with the first story. We are going
through the order that she has them in the book,
including I believe the three towards the end, not the
last three, but towards the end they are actually collect together.

Speaker 3 (04:01):
Yeah, we'll let you know which ones though.

Speaker 2 (04:03):
So we're going to start with the lake, and I'm
telling you it has hard and fast at the very beginning.

Speaker 4 (04:10):
YI.

Speaker 3 (04:10):
So this first story again came.

Speaker 2 (04:12):
Out with a bane, not only confronting us to the
horrors and suspense of a lake. And if you know
about han Lakes, you understand us from Georgia.

Speaker 3 (04:20):
We know about Hanted Lakes.

Speaker 2 (04:21):
Lake Lanier is a legend in itself, as it should be,
and it has a lot of that dark history that
Odo actually talks about often throughout her stories, but also
inside the mind of a sexual predator. So we have
teacher Abby Lafleur who just moved to the town of
Gracetown and there she escaped from her previous area, moved

(04:42):
near lake to her new home. She was isolated, but
she had a new start as she made plans for
the upcoming school year. She enjoyed her new home and.

Speaker 3 (04:51):
Her new lake.

Speaker 2 (04:52):
Though the town knows better than just swim during this time,
I think it's summertimes.

Speaker 4 (04:56):
This summertimes, it's all summer.

Speaker 3 (04:57):
Yeah, yeah, summertimes. You don't swim in the lake, she
goes for it anyway, even though she's not a great swimmer.
Soon she becomes an avid water person. All the while,
she has met her new students and has focused on
one specific boy, young boy. But at the same time,
she's also become obsessed with the lake, and the lake

(05:17):
was becoming obsessed with her, or better possessing her. Her
feet got larger and she starts to grow webs on
her feet, and then there's this need for her to
be in the water. She even has dreams of it
going back. Soon she starts having the young boy whose
name is Derek, come over to help remodel the home,
and I'm putting that quotes. She Soon he and his

(05:40):
cousin start coming to help and fix our home, which
also turns into them going and swimming in the lake,
even though the boys know better than to go swimming
in the lake. They're they're her blood less tests, and
she is contemplating on whether to give into her new
desire to eat one of the young boys. And that's
how it ends.

Speaker 1 (06:00):
Yeah, it ends with like a it sounds like that's
what's going to happen, because she's like, I can see
the scandal play out now. I could have avoided it
if I hadn't torn open his stomach coming right WHOA.

Speaker 2 (06:13):
Yeah, Like she has this back and forth of like
he's someone's son, he hasn't lived his life, blah blah,
and it wasn't Derek. The original boy actually was the
cousin who dared to go swim with him.

Speaker 3 (06:25):
It was so dou wrote this.

Speaker 2 (06:27):
At the end of each story, she gives a kind
of like a summary, a little bit about what has
been published in as well as some of her thoughts
or the reason that she wrote it, the theme. She
might have been given a prompt about what to write,
and this one she wrote This was using the prompter
theme of monsters perspective, and she talks about it being
a true predator. A sexual predator was the one she

(06:48):
used as her monster.

Speaker 1 (06:51):
Yeah, so here's the quote from do the theme stories
from the monster's point of view. Some of my favorite
stories have been written to themes from places I would
not have explored otherwise. The first monster that came to
mind a sexual predator. If only real monsters grew webbed
feet and gills.

Speaker 3 (07:10):
So, and I don't talk about the different perspectives because
obviously is a lot.

Speaker 2 (07:14):
I don't want you to. I don't want to reread
the story to you. I want you to tell you
what it's about, but you need to go back and
read read. One of the perspective is that she has
a close co worker as well as a friend who
has been accused also of sexual advances to a young child,
so being a child molester one of her students as well,
and she had to run away from that scandal, which

(07:36):
that scandal had that point of like eating up young
boys essentially, but yeah, and how she didn't want that
to follow her. She got away from that, but her
friend wasn't so lucky. Type of conversation. So it is
really interesting. It's an interesting perspective because we also don't
see oftentimes when teachers who are women who pray on young.

Speaker 3 (07:58):
Boys are at c as predators.

Speaker 2 (08:01):
Oftentimes they're seen as like fempatales type of thing, in
that level of being sexy and seductive and almost like
idolized in the it was really refreshing to see this
perspective of seeing her as a monster, as a predator
as she should if she is, you know, honing it
on young boys and plotting for these young boys. But yeah,

(08:25):
like I said, the first story hit with a bang.

Speaker 1 (08:26):
I was well, damn, yeah, yeah, it sure did. And
I have to say we didn't say this at the top,
but one of the things I really liked about this
book is it's so many different genres, so many different things.
So here I am, I'm reading this like, oh, okay,
monsters and then different things.

Speaker 4 (08:49):
A lot of different things happened.

Speaker 2 (08:51):
Right, And I love that too. I think she does
such a great job and overlaying what horror can be,
whether it is h monsters or apocalyptic or ghosts yeah,
or possessions.

Speaker 4 (09:07):
Yeah, it's good.

Speaker 2 (09:10):
She also has a like common use of places and
lands and people. Yeah, so I don't always know because
like we're about to come into another story and it's
gonna also feature fictional place of Iceland, which is like
at the border of Florida, like near Georgia border, So
there's so many things here. She also talks about like

(09:30):
I two eighty five, which if you're from Atlanta, you know,
and like I'm like, I think I could find a
spot Atlanta Highway is like, yeah that exists.

Speaker 1 (09:38):
Yeah, it's very southern. A lot of it is very southern. Yes,
so it's really interesting. We were like, hey, I don't
know where that is. Oh wow, yeah, why we were.

Speaker 2 (09:47):
Talking about Anie's hometown even we are. But anyway, so
that's the lake. So she's got us with the very beginning.

Speaker 3 (09:55):
Of like, well, here you go.

Speaker 2 (09:57):
It's some deep things here, and we're jumping into the
next story called Summer. And in this one we have
Danielle and her baby Lola, who have come to Grace Lane.
While her husband Carl was gone with the military, she

(10:20):
came back and lived in her late grandmother's home.

Speaker 3 (10:23):
Lola.

Speaker 2 (10:24):
Lola, the baby seemed pretty fussy and who didn't mind
seeing her mom in pain, would laugh when things would
happen like grabbing our hair, grabbing our earrings, making her
bleed like so pretty fussy baby. At the same time,
in this area, she's talking to all her people that
she knows, and they talk about deaths in the area.
Seven bodies have been unaccounted for, and the mccormicks an

(10:47):
old white family with a lot of rumors around that
area that they are involved in this. So when I
say old white family, this family is the quintessential owned slaves,
had money from that era and was not apologetic. So
that's that. We have Odetta, who is Danielle's older cousin

(11:09):
who kind of helps her throughout this time and one
of the only family members that she gets along with.
And she talks about the swamp leeches, which here's quote
from that swamp leeches are different. It's just the name
Mamma used to call them by. You could call them
lots of things. Mostly people call them demons, I guess.
So these leeches possess you. And though Danielle doesn't really

(11:32):
believe her, soon after we find that Lola has been
possessed to the point like the tail goes that something
comes to get them. Lola the next day seems weirdly perfect,
and when she's changing her diaper, a leech comes out
and she's like, oh my god. So she's screaming and
like the like of course, all the normal reactions I
think you would have after seeing that, and Lola becomes

(11:55):
a whole different baby who adored her mother, or pretends
to as I'm like, she knows this what normal babies
should be doing. And Danielle goes to Adetta and Odana's
uncle to get help, and they are like, they really
treat this like, eh, it's not a big deal and
it's not your typical demon possession where they're trying to
do anything bad. No one knows why. They just stay

(12:17):
around for maybe a couple of years and that's it, and.

Speaker 3 (12:20):
Then they just leave.

Speaker 4 (12:21):
I thought it was just summer.

Speaker 3 (12:23):
Was it summer? I thought it was a couple of years.

Speaker 1 (12:25):
It could be, but it's summer is when it happens.

Speaker 4 (12:27):
Yeah, but it goes away.

Speaker 2 (12:30):
It goes away, and there's nothing that happens to the baby.
Lola is fine. The child may never remember, but that
the entire time, the child will be well behaved, who
acts like they adore the mother. She even can repeat words,
so all these different things soon, but you know, Danielle's
freaking out. She wants a remedy whatever, but the remedy

(12:50):
is not like anything. She knows about, so she doesn't
quite know what's in this remedy that the uncle has.

Speaker 3 (12:56):
So Danielle gets.

Speaker 2 (12:57):
It though, and takes it with her, and she debates
whether or not to give it to her at all.

Speaker 4 (13:02):
So yeah, because it's nice because baby.

Speaker 3 (13:07):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (13:08):
So du speaks about her own experiences of motherhood and
it's many challenges, but also opens up to the histories
of enslaved people and the many who went missing. So
that is also a theme that we're going to go
back into in the next story. But just like and
I think we've had like the historical amounts of people.
I know a lot of the stories from uh, Mississippi

(13:29):
and Alabama, and I'm sure there's some in Georgia, but
for some reason, I hear the Mississippi Alabama versions like
mass graves of enslaved people who just went missing and
disappeared that were just covered late Land near like there's
tales of so that I do know people from. I
do know things from Atlanta. Yes, from Georgia, late Land
near like that that the entire area, which was mainly

(13:51):
like a black community, was flooded and so there's literal homes,
literal houses under that lake.

Speaker 1 (13:59):
Uh so there's a horror movie about it. I don't think, well,
I haven't seen it, so I don't know if it's
any good. But there is a horror movie about it,
and there is a podcast about it that my friends
listen to. And it's funny because they pronounced it like
the meear. They did something interesting with the pronunciation. But yes,

(14:23):
it has been discussed.

Speaker 3 (14:26):
I think it's a French name, right.

Speaker 4 (14:29):
I always thought it was, but you know.

Speaker 3 (14:31):
It is, so we definitely don't pronounce it right.

Speaker 1 (14:33):
No. That's the funny thing is you know when you're
from a place and it's not like you're pronouncing it correctly.

Speaker 3 (14:40):
No, we're definitely not.

Speaker 2 (14:41):
But I mean we had that moment we're going to
talk about your hometown, Dalanago. He says, yeah, though correct pronunciation.
I was like, I never knew that, and that makes
a lot of sense.

Speaker 1 (14:54):
Yeah, yeah, but that's just not how we pronounce it.

Speaker 2 (14:59):
But with all all of that, that does come up,
and I think with something that we need to know
because do thus use her historical own history as well
as the area's history of enslavement and the people who've
been mistreated and abused or ousted throughout her stories and
though that's not the central theme obviously, that's definitely a theme.

(15:22):
That's something that needs to be said, that needs to
be told, and she does a great job in intertwining
those tales, so very good.

Speaker 3 (15:29):
But yeah, this one is about like what would you do?

Speaker 2 (15:32):
And she talks about her own experiences like b it, man,
I don't know if that baby you stop crying for
a minute, I'm not being okay, And it didn't really
harm them, why not?

Speaker 1 (15:42):
Yeah, And it's also like I think the baby just
doesn't really need to sleep or eat.

Speaker 2 (15:50):
It's just quiet, like happily staring at the mother and
just staring. That would unnerve me, just having them staring
me the whole time, smiling smart.

Speaker 1 (16:01):
Yes, yes, And it was interesting how Odetta and the
uncle were so it's fine whatever. And at first Danielle
was so freaked out, but by the end of the day.

Speaker 2 (16:12):
She was like, oh, nap, like she's not fussying, and
her hair is looking good and she looks like a
really well behaved baby. As before people would give her
looks and this then she was getting compliments all of
a sudden about how great the baby she had, and
you know that does feed a lot. Like I get
that because it does feel like like just a person

(16:33):
as who take care of children and have children as
a nanny, Like even though it was obvious that they
weren't mine, Like if they misbehaved, it embarrassed me, and
I would give them the mom look and they would
calm down, do not embarrass me.

Speaker 3 (16:46):
So like you understand that level.

Speaker 2 (16:48):
Of like needing that peace because you get judged as
a mom or a caretaker if the baby is unhappy
for some god for God forbid, make a loud noise.

Speaker 3 (16:58):
You know, like an understanding moment of like.

Speaker 2 (17:01):
Oh, this is peaceful, if I could just have this.
Because she also talks about the fact that her husband
is gone, but when her husband is around, the baby
is so much better.

Speaker 4 (17:09):
Yeah, she really thinks the baby hates.

Speaker 3 (17:12):
Her and she goes to be postpartum.

Speaker 1 (17:17):
She talks about that a little bit too, but dismisses
it pretty quick like no way, I'm too strong for that.

Speaker 3 (17:24):
Right, A lot of themes in that short story. It's
not even that short.

Speaker 2 (17:28):
None of these stories are that short, but definitely, like
I believe the next one is actually could be qualified
as a novella, and I think was a novella.

Speaker 4 (17:36):
Yeah, it's it's much longer.

Speaker 3 (17:38):
So this one's a little longer, a little more detailed.

Speaker 2 (17:41):
I will say this one got me like I was
like seated where I had to be like I can't
get up yet I have to keep listening. I can't
do this other thing, so I have to finish the story.

Speaker 3 (17:52):
It was one of those.

Speaker 2 (17:53):
So it is titled Ghost Summer, and we meet Davey Stevens,
a twelve year old boy whose mom is from God
and father from the US, Gracetown specifically, his mom had
decided to go back to Ghana to see her family
for a few months, while he and his younger sister,
Nima went with his dad to visit his grandparents in Gracetown. Now,

(18:15):
yes they went with him, but all of this was
weird set up in which Davies and Nima had a
choice of whether or not to go to Ghana with her
his mom, or go with their father, and they chose
to go with their father. They had reasons and were
about to find out the reasons, but it almost looked
like his mom was hurt that she chose they chose that,
but she accepted it. And it's like the way that

(18:36):
they said goodbye was odd. He was just kind of like,
I honestly expected her to die in a plane crash
or something.

Speaker 3 (18:42):
Or that she was already a ghost. I thought she was.
She was our ghost.

Speaker 2 (18:45):
The way it began, yeah, I was like, what's happening?
But it did not turn that that way. But the
way it was set up, I was ready for it. Yeah,
it wasn't, but he was excited.

Speaker 3 (18:57):
Oh.

Speaker 2 (18:57):
His older sister, who was also kind of around, was
heading to Northwestern for the summer, so she didn't carry
either way.

Speaker 3 (19:04):
He is excited to go.

Speaker 2 (19:05):
Not because it was fun, because there were ghosts and
he wanted to be able to record and prove the
existence of ghosts. And so during this time, it turns
out everybody, any child that is under twelve can see ghosts,
but after that age you no longer see them. And
so his sister, his older sister, even talks about it.

(19:27):
She had seen them as well, and she knew what
he was talking about, and she believed him. Other adults
oftentimes would believe him as well, not necessarily the grandmother.
The grandmother didn't remember anything. I don't think she was
actually from there. I can't remember. His grandfather was and
grandfather wanted to leave and run away, and then they
did for a while, but then came back. I think
they went to Miami and came back. His father was

(19:49):
not there during his childhood. They had left and because
the grandfather refused to be there with him, So this
is kind of that setup. But when they retired, they
decided they wanted more land, more space, like all that,
and came back to Graystown.

Speaker 3 (20:03):
So all that.

Speaker 2 (20:04):
However, at Gracetown he discovered that his mother and grandfather
were possibly separating. He says the D word as a divorce,
and that he and his sister maybe moving to Ghana.
But soon he was distracted by the ghosts. So all
these overlaying traumpas were happening. He was both excited about
ghosts and then scared about the ghosts, but also hearing
about the divorce that's happening at his father breaking down

(20:24):
and possibly losing the children. All those things were happening.
At the same time. He had ran into three young
boys in the woods and it looked like they were
burying their dog, so he tried to He got the
attention of the youngest one, but they didn't react much.
He just kind of looked and looked away. So after
that he was like, you know what, I'm gonna go.
I'm gonna go, So he leaves. Soon after, he heard

(20:45):
what sounded like a dog sniffing at his doorway. So
bedtime has happened. He's in bed and all of a
sudden he's hearing dogs sniffing at the door. In fear,
he tried to stay quiet, but the next day he realized, oh,
I missed my chance. So he decided he needed to
see and prepare himself with dog biscuits and flashlights and
video recorders and other recorders and all that stuff, so

(21:06):
he was ready. He was on the ghost hunt. He
decided to stay up in the living room. But during
all of this, Niema decided she wanted to join as well,
so he let her and she did a pretty good job.
At first, she was whiny, but then soon she was
into it. That night, not only did they hear the dog,
but they also saw three young boys walking through the
waters away from dog. The dog they felt the water

(21:30):
that night, they felt the dogs heard the boys and
tried to follow them, and Davy was able to capture
an image through a doorway. All the while, we find
out that there's a redevelopment near the McCormick land. So
the mccormicks are back. This is the white family that
had had slaves on their land and would not admit
they did anything wrong. But grandma, his grandma is against

(21:51):
us and have attended the meetings to try to stop
this redevelopment. We learned that there was a dark history
of the land and that is why conversations bodies being
missing and buried in this area has been around for
a while, and during a faithful visit to the library,
Davy discovers the history of what was happening. Three young
boys had gone missing, and many blamed that on the mccormicks.

(22:13):
The young boy's father, Isaiah Timmins, a black man who
was somewhat successful in the area and had dreams of
leaving Gracetown and being with his brother in New York
with his family. So because he was somewhat successful and
I don't mean really successful, he was able to work
and get money and save some money and have land,
and that was successful to them. Many of the white people,

(22:34):
including the mccormicks, really hated him and took advantage of him,
like wouldn't pay for things wouldn't pay for his services,
would like all those things. But soon there was a
fire that took Timmins's barn. So there was a barn fire.
Timmins decided they needed to leave immediately. Isaiah was sure
it was McCormick who had done this out of spite

(22:56):
and racism and hate, and he just wanted to get
his family out for safety. He was like, I'm so
grateful that no one got hurt, but this is a warning.

Speaker 3 (23:03):
This is a warning we have to go.

Speaker 2 (23:05):
And as they were preparing to go, the three boys
disappeared without a trace, which ended with the murder of
Isaiah and his appearance and a murder of a lot
of black men in the area because he had, in
his fit of trying to find the boys, he had
pointed a gun at McCormick, and that enough was a
death sentence for him and other men other black men

(23:27):
in that area. So Essie, Isaiah's wife, is in mourning
and she stays behind to try to search for the boys,
and during the time she also has a young daughter
with her, but like the young daughter kind of get
cast aside because she is in such mourning and trying
to find the boys. So that's the story of the
Timmins kids. At the beginning of the story, we find

(23:48):
out that where his grandparents' house was, it was a
swamp area, so that's why the water comes into play,
and that's why they fill it. So with that his
time with his grandfather and and father, they proceeded to
do their hunt. The waters returned and the boys and
the dogs. However, once again the older men the adults

(24:08):
could not see or feel any of this. It was
just Nima and Davy explaining what was happening. As they
were going about during their hunt, they hear a horrible
streak and stop the search, to the point that all
of them the that Neimo got very scared and so
they stopped as well as Davey obviously, but Nimo was
the focus point. So the next day, even though Grandma

(24:31):
wasn't happy, they talked to her into allowing them to
have another hunt. So she was like, you know what,
if you're gonna do this, I'm gonna give you more supplies,
including a rain jacket and a more powerful light. She's like,
if you're gonna do this, you're gonna have stacks they had.
I'm like, yes, Grandma prepped them up. That night, the
four went searching again. This time the noise and the
shouts and things were so loud that the windows in

(24:52):
the house cracked, two of them.

Speaker 3 (24:53):
Grandpa was not happy.

Speaker 2 (24:55):
He didn't hear anything, but saw obviously as a window cracking,
and he was like, what are you doing, like yelling
at the quite funny almost and Grandpa was like, I'm
done because at this point, the ghosts and the dog
there's a dog in this whole thing, have gone outside
of the house, and he says, I'm not leaving. I'm
gonna sit here. Y'all do your thing. So Dad agreed,

(25:15):
which was very surprising for Davy to go and follow
them into the woods and they go together. Nima, Davy
and the Dad go into the woods. And at this
point we know that the barn fire from years ago
actually wasn't because of the mccormicks. No, we learned that
it was an accident that the three young boys had
caused while they were cooking and having a fire up
a food fire. They were afraid to admit it and

(25:38):
thought it would be better for Dad to believe it
was the white man, you know, like, you know what,
We're gonna let them be blamed. They probably would have
done it anyway, so we're gonna go ahead and say, yeah, sure.
But when they found out they would be leaving the
next day, the oldest one wanted to say goodbye to
his girl. So we have this conversation about him, like
need to say bye, it's his girl, you know, all
these things. So he snuck out with the other two
who had begged to come with him that night. Unfortunately,

(26:01):
they had to cross McCormick land, which was guarded by
McCormick's German shepherd, and soon the boys ended up being
chased by this very giant, mean dog, who they said
the mccormicks had trained to hate black people. So as Davy,
his father, and Nima followed the ghosts, they realized that
they too were being followed by this dog. They were
being now hunted by this dog. Nima is bitten by

(26:25):
the invisible dog, and slowly their father, who was not
able to who has never heard of these ghosts, or
had never heard or seen these ghosts, all of a
sudden can hear them as well, and he can hear
the dog. He's freaking out, He's like, what is going on?
And he can fill the waters for the first time,
and as they tried to escape, the dog going the
same direction as the three young boys the ghosts, Davy

(26:47):
is attacked as well. Dad attacks the dog with a
shovel and they try to escape. Davy then falls into
a giant hole which but is saved by roots that
his jacket gets caught on. And this hole was from
like an older building that had caved in a long
time ago. Their Davy c's three sets of eyes at
the bottom of the darkness in that hole, just staring

(27:08):
back at him. His Dad was able to get him
out of that hole, thank goodness. And then they were
still running away from that dog, so they ran to
a nearby.

Speaker 3 (27:16):
Barn and locked the doors.

Speaker 2 (27:18):
So the next day they are found by rescue crew
and they tell everybody what they discovered, including Davy saying,
I know where the boys are and I know what
happened to them. A crew came and dug up the
hole where they found the bodies of the three boys,
a mystery that had finally been solved. The boy's sister,
who had stayed to get justice, watched as they pulled

(27:40):
out the remains and as Davy is leaving because they
had come back to witness this the digging. They all
give him a standing ovation for his heroism.

Speaker 1 (27:59):
And this one do has a real interesting connection to
she said, this story and the previous one Summer are
a kind of odd prophecy. In twenty thirteen, I received
a call from the Florida Attorney General's Office informing me
that my late mother, Patricia Stevens Dew, had an uncle,

(28:20):
Robert Stevens, who probably was among dozens of children buried
on the grounds of the Doziers School for Boys, a
reform school in Marianna, Florida, where boys were tortured and
killed for generations. I had never heard of the Dozier
School buried children or Robert Stevens, my great uncle, who
died there in nineteen thirty seven at fifteen. But months

(28:41):
later my father, husband, son and I would go to
the excavation site in the woods in Marianna, where University
of South Florida researchers sifted through the soil in search
of bones, just like I had written in Ghost Summer
five years earlier.

Speaker 2 (28:55):
Right, that's such an interesting and interesting like what, yeah,
this was so personal to her, but she'd written this beforehand,
Like wow, and then that takes place in Florida. Yeah,
this should be too shocking, but yeah, that whole story
was intense, and I was also like what happened in

(29:16):
trying to figure out a lot of it, Like I said,
was like, is this the ghost?

Speaker 3 (29:19):
Is this?

Speaker 2 (29:20):
Because like there's a bit where Nima is sleeping in
a room with all these old dolls by the way,
hele no, hell no, I would never. I would never,
and thinking that they may be coming to life or whatever.
So I thought maybe that was a point of the story.

Speaker 3 (29:34):
Nope, that was not. That was literally like just a
like distraction.

Speaker 1 (29:39):
A red hair it was. Yeah, And also we should
mention the dad. Davy's dad is a producer film producer,
and he was documenting all of this and planning on
making it into a documentary. And so at the end
he's like, now, if we make this, I can go
to Ghana with y'all. Maybe we can you and me

(30:02):
and your mom can repair a relationships.

Speaker 2 (30:04):
So right, so he does not want to get divorced,
but the mom has been alone so often.

Speaker 3 (30:10):
Yeah, she was weren't kih so much with that.

Speaker 2 (30:13):
Documentary and he's not like they made made sure we
knew he wasn't making money, it was just minimal. So
this if he could sell this story well, which he
was doing, and he's like he said, us, me and you,
Davy and Davy, who had been trying to do some
type of documentary, could be together.

Speaker 3 (30:31):
So oh.

Speaker 2 (30:33):
And it talks about how he had to grow up
so quick just to learn about this history and seeing
this conversation and that he did really like unravel a
huge burden that had been over the town.

Speaker 3 (30:47):
But it was such a sad tale.

Speaker 4 (30:49):
It was very sad, and and it.

Speaker 1 (30:52):
Also relates, yes, back to I think in the past
two stories we've discussed, they mentioned the finding of the bodies, right,
and so this is sort of the not necessarily resolution
to that, but a resolution to part of that.

Speaker 2 (31:06):
Right, Why there was soondy So the explanation of so
many bodies were that when essentially they called it a
riot because the black men were trying to search for
these boys and then they all got murdered by the
white men daring to ask questions. Yeah, and that's where
they were buried.

Speaker 4 (31:25):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (31:27):
It was really sad, and it's you know, so like
it was told. She does such a great job at
writing from the perspective of a child, which happens a
couple of times throughout, and it was really sad when
you're reading from the three boys and you, as the reader,
know something bad happens to them.

Speaker 4 (31:47):
You're not quite sure what it is yet.

Speaker 3 (31:48):
You don't know why he disappeared, but.

Speaker 1 (31:50):
But you're reading their kind of perspective, and when it's
just such an innocent like they started to fire like cooking,
but they don't want to in trouble, so they don't
say anything, right, it's just so sad.

Speaker 2 (32:03):
And had they known how that would end, they probably
would have rather told the truth.

Speaker 3 (32:07):
Yeah, but they probably would have tried to still leave.

Speaker 4 (32:10):
But but yeah, exactly, that's what they would have.

Speaker 3 (32:13):
Gone through all of that so quickly.

Speaker 2 (32:15):
And then there was a bit that I did leave
out that does haunt me, because this story will haunt me,
like I will have memories of this story for a while.
But the mom searching for her son, and at one
point that she did search in that area, she just
didn't know and they think the uh. They talked about
how each one died slowly in that hole, and I
was like, that's unnecessary, dude, that was unnecessary.

Speaker 3 (32:39):
I break their neck. Don't do this to me.

Speaker 1 (32:41):
I love it the top. She there's a forward by
a friend of hers and it's like, she's such a
lovely woman and she's so happy.

Speaker 4 (32:48):
So did I read her work? And I'm like, oh,
she's got a dark side.

Speaker 2 (32:54):
I think all that she's like, she's so kind and
then but but yeah, so it is a compelling story
and again very haunting. It.

Speaker 1 (33:05):
It freaked me out, like the just the the way
the imagery unfolds, of like feeling the water and it's
going up and rising and the dog is barking loudly.

Speaker 2 (33:16):
The young man and Davy being like I can't, I can,
I can. My head is like almost like my neck
is in the water. I can't do this much longer,
like it was the whole thing. Yes, so there's that one,
and I say, you can find that as a novella somewhere.
M m. But you should definitely buy this. Oh, by
the way, I also checked it out to the library.

Speaker 1 (33:39):
Oh and this story was a great a great, like
oh to librarians, because that library.

Speaker 2 (33:47):
She's like, maybe it's Maybell, right, but yeah, so you
I found this at our local library, So I'm sure
you can find this if you want to go read
this you should, yes, And the next story we kind
of would alluded to a few times. It's called Free
Jim's Mind and literally talks about how it's based in Delanaga, Georgia,

(34:08):
which you have probably hard us talk about because Annie
is from Delanica, Georgia. We meet Lottie along with her husband,
trying to escape, so this is during the times of
enslavement here in the US. She had been enslaved and
was pregnant and she knew she had to escape in
order to save her baby. Like the dude who owned
her essentially said I'm gonna kill your baby. She ran

(34:29):
to find her uncle, who had been freed and had
owned a mine. She had hoped he would help her escape,
like he tried to actually buy her previously. They refused,
but she knew that he her he wanted to help her,
or so she thought he had bought a powerful luck
pouch that may have helped him be freed, so it

(34:49):
says Mojo powerful Mojo. Soon they found him, but he
was unhappy, saying he could not help her and that
she doomed herself. And William, which who is her husband
who is younger than him, and also I believe Native American,
but they had been ousted at the same time, so obviously,
but Jim did hide them in his minds after like

(35:11):
a whole back and forth of exchange about how they
were fools and they were not doing this ridiculous thing
and that his luck came with a cost, and like
it wasn't a good thing, like all these things, saying,
you know, you were fools. But he takes them down
to the mines. It's like you have to sleep in
here for a while, and that he would be back
for them the next day with a wagon and some
money and some food is in them on But in

(35:34):
this minds there are creatures, lots of different things, maybe coyotes,
but there's one big creature that William sees immediately, and
it is a giant frog like creature that has been
of like legacy to the Native Americans, Kadawa Lassie William
saying that he has to be a man, he has
to protect his family and that those who in the

(35:56):
story there's a warrior who kills it and conquers and
like helps his his women and families, And he says,
I've got to do this. So he tries to fight it,
but all of a sudden he's gone. He disappears. Lottie
filling alone, hoping that he will come back, counting counting
how long he can hold his breath and thinking that

(36:16):
he may come back, is also attacked by this well
Lossie and she fights it off, stabbing it with her
dull knife that William had given her previously, and she
just injures it and it goes away.

Speaker 3 (36:30):
She just says theres and prays that he doesn't come back.

Speaker 2 (36:32):
The well Lassie doesn't come back, also hoping that maybe
William will. But soon her uncle comes down to get her.
He never questioned where William was and took her to
the wagon.

Speaker 3 (36:44):
Good story.

Speaker 1 (36:46):
Yeah, He basically said, one of you is not going
to come out. That's how this luck thing is going
to play out for you, like good.

Speaker 3 (36:54):
Luck so and this do rights.

Speaker 2 (36:57):
The story was inspired by a trip to a golden
in Delanaga, Georgia, where I first heard that a black
man had owned a local gold mine. The mine was
called free Gem's Mind, and he was indeed named James
waclair Uh. And she said, during my research, I learned
that the little known Georgia gold Rush displays the Cherokee
people and set them on the Trail of Tears. I

(37:19):
will say we did learn about that, because Georgia has
infamy when it comes to the Trail of Tears and
the Cherokee Nation and Cherokee people. But Adie, you were saying,
you actually know and you've gone to this place, right,
I didn't even know this existed.

Speaker 1 (37:32):
Yes, So Delanaga is it's like where the Gold Rush
was centered in Georgia, right, And so we have a
gold Rush museum that a lot of people in Georgia
ended up going to. A lot of students end up
going to. It's the center of our square, our town square.
And then we have you can visit some of the

(37:56):
gold mines. There's like one that's really popular, and we
also have a big event called gold Rush and it's
our biggest tourist event and you can like fake pan
for gold. But yes, I did know about this. I
think in middle school in Georgia studies that we.

Speaker 4 (38:13):
Had a whole kind of here's what Delanaga is all about.

Speaker 1 (38:19):
Here's the history of Delannaga specifically, we learned about we
learned about that. I told you I actually wasn't sure
if it's true, if it was true, just because you
know some of those stories in small towns. You're like,
I don't know how true this actually is.

Speaker 4 (38:36):
So when I was reading this, I was like, oh,
oh right.

Speaker 1 (38:41):
But yeah, the the like kind of weaving in of
that with the Trail of Tears, because we did learn
about that as well, and the Cherokee people. And also,
I have to say, there is a line about how
to pronouncedalanaga in there, and I felt really bad because
I actually did a whole paper on how to pronounce
dalanga and I can't remember. I did write about how

(39:02):
the Cherokee pronounced it, but I probably I probably messed
it up.

Speaker 2 (39:07):
Yeah, but I did read that, like obviously reading it
versus hearing it. So Doue does read most of these tills,
I think, and she does pronounce it. And I was like, oh,
well that makes sense. I can't remember it either because
I'm so ingrained with delaniga. Yeah, the linga or something
like that. It was very like it starts with a

(39:29):
tea too, linga or something like that. Yeah, it's really
sad because a lot of the roots are gone because
of colonization. And yeah, I could understand why you wouldn't
believe it because it's still a red state, Like it's
still a red area, and it's very conservative and hasn't

(39:51):
always been so, so it would be hard to believe
that they would allow, even if they are afraid, black
person to own.

Speaker 3 (39:59):
Some thing here.

Speaker 2 (40:03):
Yeah, especially as valuable as a mine.

Speaker 4 (40:06):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (40:07):
And I think a lot of people can connect to this,
especially if you're from the South or a red state.
But you know that story, like especially the Trail tears,
I can see it in my head when I was
reading this, and they were.

Speaker 4 (40:23):
Like two paragraphs.

Speaker 1 (40:25):
That story about Freedom's mind was one really and you know,
it was like very it was still centered on white
people because it was very like, yeah, this black person
had a mind, how nice we were?

Speaker 2 (40:40):
Like because also remember we also grew up in and
still this honestly teaching enslavement as being states rights, so
teaching the Civil War being about states rights, teaching the
fact that the enslaved people wanted to be enslaved because
they were provided by for by their owners, Like that

(41:01):
was the things that we were taught. Not only that
that they sold themselves. It really wasn't white people, it
was their own people, right, Like all of these narratives
that are very false and very like white saviorism. So
for us to hear this or like, that's probably not true.
And also the trail of tears was literally like, yeah,
it was really sad, But they don't talk about the deaths,
the murders, the rapes, that like kidnapping, all of that.

Speaker 3 (41:23):
They don't talk about the decimation.

Speaker 2 (41:24):
They're like, they just sadly walked with food provided for
they re guarded by soldiers.

Speaker 3 (41:31):
Nah.

Speaker 2 (41:32):
No, so like all of these things that are what
we grew up with being told it really wasn't that inhumane.
People make it sound worse than it is, and I'm like, well,
owning people.

Speaker 3 (41:42):
That sounds bad.

Speaker 2 (41:44):
Importing people and then trading them off, it sounds pretty bad.
But they try to distance those bad guys, those bad
white people.

Speaker 3 (41:51):
Versus what really happened.

Speaker 2 (41:53):
And they're like, so when we talk about things like wow,
we don't truly believe, especially if we've been around long
enough to know that how bad history has been skewed
to make them look better than being white people. Yeah,
it's hard to believe. So I wonder I would. This
is why I'm surprised more than anything else, And I'm

(42:14):
sure this is also why I do put that as
he had to sacrifice so many other things in order
to have this.

Speaker 1 (42:20):
Yeah, yeah, which I thought was a really interesting take.
I'll have to go back. I mean, I still visit
semi regularly and see if I can.

Speaker 3 (42:29):
Does already actually own that property? Now?

Speaker 4 (42:33):
I'm sure it's like a tourist.

Speaker 2 (42:35):
Yeah, I just wonder I feels like it in someone's
family lineage, like is it true? Because in Jim's family heritage,
like wouldn't they still own it? And when can they
validate this history? That's the whole yea'll see what we
were saying. I knew this was gonna be a whole
conversation about this one.

Speaker 1 (42:49):
Yes, I mean when I was like, oh, no, what's said?

Speaker 3 (42:55):
Yeah, I was like, oh, there it is. Oh anyway, content.

Speaker 4 (43:01):
I'll investigate, investigate.

Speaker 2 (43:13):
So we're at the knowing is the next story that
we get to and we meet a young girl named
Nikki who talks about her having to constantly move with
her mother, her mama, and they end up in Miami
Beach where they met Rosa, who hired Mama to tell
fortunes and help out the shop. So essentially, her mom
has this gift in which is she can stare at

(43:34):
see someone's death and they know the time. She knows
exactly the date, and at times she knows what happens,
how how they die. And she meets Rosa, the mother
who she says, your aunt is about to die essentially
when she does, and I believe her aunt's the one
that is doing the fortune telling. At this point, she's like,

(43:55):
when she does, you should hire me. Yeah, yeah, like
we find this out. And then she comes, and Rosa
does come, who speaks mostly Spanish, but like understands enough
to hire Nicki's mama. So Nicki's mama has been through
so many things. She just yells out dates has gone through. Like,

(44:15):
I mean, if I knew everybody's death, I think I
would not be completely whole. Like I think there'd be
so much trauma just knowing people's deaths. So she obviously
goes through some things, to the point that at one
point Nikki gets removed by CPS and then she finally
gets her back. All these things, so they often move
when things happen, when when things fall apart, or when,

(44:37):
as Nicki says, Mama has one of her.

Speaker 3 (44:39):
Bad days, they leave.

Speaker 2 (44:42):
So they're there in Miami and they're doing pretty well
thus far as she works with Rosa and they're pretty
much like best friends.

Speaker 3 (44:50):
They actually get along really well.

Speaker 2 (44:52):
As I said, Mama could see people's death and she
often did so with or without being asked, so sometimes
she would just abruptly tell it.

Speaker 3 (44:59):
Really be upsetting.

Speaker 2 (45:00):
In a fight with Rosa, she tells her her death
even though Rosa has already said, don't do this, do
not tell me.

Speaker 3 (45:07):
Stop. So because of all of that, it kind of
gets her fired. Though Nicki is.

Speaker 2 (45:12):
Unhappy, she loves and supports her mama, especially knowing Rosa
was commenting about her parenting about the fact that, you know,
Nicki was not getting all these things and needed these things,
and so Mama was not happy. And in that fight,
that's what she used against hers her death date. As
see we see them resolved to leave. Nicki says, you're

(45:35):
taking care of me, Mama, better than anybody, surea, Mama said,
still looking at me. And then Nicki says, I got
to until May twelfth, two thousand and five, I said,
squeezing her hand again, and Mama just closed her eyes.
So essentially she got in a fight with Niki. Mama
did and she said and I'm gonna and you're gonna

(45:57):
be gone this date and told her her the date,
which was May twelve, two thousand and five.

Speaker 4 (46:01):
Of her think she's gonna be fifteen.

Speaker 2 (46:03):
She's gonna be young, Yeah, fifteen. So she was like,
and that's where Nikka just accepted it. I was like, yeah, okay,
I got till that point.

Speaker 4 (46:12):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (46:15):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (46:15):
And it was a really interesting look at how that
knowledge affects some people, because some people saw it as like,
you know, I only have this much time, so it's
almost a newly some life, oddly enough, and then some
people that're just devastated even if they have a long
time left.

Speaker 5 (46:33):
Uh.

Speaker 1 (46:34):
And so here's what Deu said about it. This story
speaks to the fear of mortality that underlies much of
my work. Nicki's mature perspective on his own brief life
gives me strength.

Speaker 4 (46:44):
Which, yes, we've been saying Nicki as her, but I've.

Speaker 3 (46:47):
Been saying that I really thought of as her.

Speaker 2 (46:49):
I realized just in my head the entire time, I
didn't really know that I knew a young boy talks
to them.

Speaker 3 (46:54):
For some reason, I thought it was a young girl. Okay,
that was on me.

Speaker 2 (46:58):
Nicky's tricky because it could be like, I know, Nikki's
usually with an eye at the end, so I guess
that could have been my clue.

Speaker 1 (47:05):
But in my head it was, Well, some of these
it is because it's when it's told from a this case,
from the perspective of a child, it's not as easy
to pick up on.

Speaker 3 (47:15):
So I get you anyway.

Speaker 2 (47:18):
But yeah, so obviously I'm talking about death and trying
to deal with death, and like the mama talks about
how she predicted all of her family's death and even
when they did try to avoid it, they still died
maybe in a different way.

Speaker 1 (47:29):
Yeah, and that kind of got her cut out of
her family, and her mom especially was not talk to her, yeah,
because she kind of blamed her for all of it.
I mean, she'd lost two children and her husband.

Speaker 2 (47:42):
Right, Yeah, she was going to live a long time,
and I'm happy about that. And then the other fact
is that you can die earlier than the date.

Speaker 4 (47:51):
Someone yeah got a free date because.

Speaker 3 (47:55):
He thought he was immortal till that point.

Speaker 4 (47:57):
Yeah, and then he got killed.

Speaker 2 (48:00):
Oh yeah, So all these things like on this level
of like these powers and these understandings. So oh, it
was one of those that I'm like, oh my god,
Oh my god, did she say what I think she said?

Speaker 4 (48:13):
They did he just say?

Speaker 3 (48:15):
Now it becames that perspective in my head.

Speaker 1 (48:18):
Yeah, yeah, it is like an xpin power.

Speaker 4 (48:24):
I would be like, why did I have.

Speaker 3 (48:25):
To get the most useless power? And I don't want it?

Speaker 2 (48:29):
Yes, I'm just gonna be upset and never attached to
people ever.

Speaker 1 (48:33):
Like, Yeah, I think that is a plot of a
lot of I mean, clearly we think about that a lot.

Speaker 4 (48:39):
When are we gonna die?

Speaker 2 (48:40):
Right?

Speaker 1 (48:41):
But I know I think it's a plot of a
movie and a music video where somebody can see like
the time.

Speaker 3 (48:47):
Yeah, it does not to get it as a movie.
I've seen that.

Speaker 2 (48:50):
Yeah, there's a lot of death in this one obviously.
Uh So we go on to the next hill, which
is like daughter, this one was a different one, Like
this one was like such a different genre that it
thrown me off.

Speaker 3 (49:05):
So let's start.

Speaker 2 (49:06):
This is a haunting tale of motherhood. We meet Denise
and Paige. Denise had gone through years of childhood trauma
but always had her friend Paige. As she got older,
Denise decided she wanted a perfect life that she couldn't
have before. I had a whole plan was able to
get money to be a part of the new copycat
babies program, so essentially being able to clone whatever in

(49:29):
order to have children. And this was cloning yourself, I
guess if you're the mother to have a child for
this child. Three months later it was banned, but Denise
she got her baby, and right under that ban. Many
call the creations soulless and unethical, so these were soulless babies,

(49:50):
and many people wanted this destroyed, this thing ideal destroyed,
and though Denise did try, the perfect life didn't work. Sean,
who answered an Internet ad post, had left her. They
had gotten married with this idea, not necessarily because they
liked each other, but was an arrangement, and the niece

(50:11):
and Nisi, who was just the name of her child,
are all alone. And Denise couldn't stand to be with
this child. She couldn't stand to see her, she couldn't
stand to be around her, and asked Paige, the friend,
to come and get her. Paige was also very much
against this as well, and actually very freaked out by
this child because this is an identical replacement of her

(50:32):
childhood friend who had gone through so much trauma so
all the things that she remembers about her childhood with
Paige and even with Denise, and even Denise talking about
how she had wished she was Paige's sister instead of
living the life that she had, so all these things,
and even to the point like when Denise was like,
you come and get her. I don't know what I'm

(50:53):
going to do to her. So she had made a
promise to their mother, yeah, to Page's yes, that she
would take care of that child because she I think
Page's mother knew something.

Speaker 3 (51:05):
This was not going to go well.

Speaker 2 (51:07):
So she did follow that through and went to go
pick up the child. The child was very upset and confused,
and she was like, where's daddy, And the conversation was
like he was. The child was so freaky that the
father Sean would beat on her as well, and that
she looked at this young replica and would see the

(51:30):
haunted sadness and could understand why Denise could not look
at her anymore because it was a reflection of her
own sadness and to see it replicated was too much.
And so she takes the child and that's the end.
It was. I had to go back three times. I
was like wait, what, who's Nissi and who's Denise? Because

(51:53):
when Denise was younger, they called her Nisi. So they
would go back and forth, and I was like, I'm confused.
I don't know what's happening. Not realizing act, I was like, okay,
they are talking about cloning, right, is this cloning?

Speaker 3 (52:04):
And in it At the end.

Speaker 2 (52:06):
Du says it was inspired by goat cloning and asking
why would someone want.

Speaker 3 (52:10):
To clone themselves or herself? And I was like, yeah,
why would you?

Speaker 4 (52:15):
Why? What'd you? I loved this one.

Speaker 2 (52:19):
This one freaked me out more than like the ideal
freak me out.

Speaker 4 (52:23):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (52:25):
It was tricky and it did not go I tell
you that copycat baby thing came out of nowhere?

Speaker 3 (52:30):
Does this fit anywhere else in here?

Speaker 1 (52:32):
But yeah, the story, I was like, wait, whoa Okay, what.

Speaker 4 (52:38):
Are we talking about?

Speaker 1 (52:41):
But I was confused by the name for I was
like wait what Anyway, By the end, it was so
creepy because Paige was almost she was seeing like her
childhood friend, Like she was not seeing this child as
a separate person, and she was seeing like that is

(53:02):
my childhood friend. And Denise had wanted to give herself
this perfect life which of course is never gonna write,
never going to happen.

Speaker 4 (53:15):
Yeah, it was good.

Speaker 1 (53:17):
I mean, it's an interesting thought experiment of what happens
if you clone two people and they have two different lives.

Speaker 4 (53:25):
Right, I don't know.

Speaker 1 (53:27):
I don't know.

Speaker 5 (53:28):
I liked it though, it was like, even thinking about
it is that creeps me? I was like, no, why,
it gives you a lot of thubs, like trying to
find like it does have that conversation like she does.
I don't know if she meant to, but the lying
of that perfect life and trying to fix your childhood
by using that daughter like which often happens when I
have my own kids. I'm going to do this better.

Speaker 1 (53:49):
Yeah, yeah, And this is just like a much more
scientific way. I also has interesting conversations about the soul
and what is the soul? Which, yes, we as humans
love to talk about that. But it was cool to
see it play out in like the Supreme Court where
they were debating, right, what is the soul? That's the question,

(54:15):
I know, And that's when we got into someone that's mess. Okay,
we're okay, Well, clearly we have a lot to say
about a lot of these stories. So we're gonna put
this one in too, but really go read this book
if you have interest. If you can, it is so good.

Speaker 2 (54:36):
Take this break to go get this book and read
it all and then come back with us for the
second part.

Speaker 1 (54:40):
Yes, you know one day, I think that was like
our original intent we should do a more interactive book club.

Speaker 2 (54:46):
Think that.

Speaker 3 (54:47):
Yeah, it's because we stopped doing social media. We're like, yeah,
I can't because we were gonna.

Speaker 1 (54:52):
Yeah, yeah, that's true. But now you have a chance
for the second half to go read up. But yes,
if in the meantime, if you have thoughts about any
of this or any other suggestions, you can email us
at Hello at stuff one Never Told You dot com.
You can find us on blue Sky at mom Stuff podcast,
or on Instagram and TikTok at stuff I'll Never Told You,

(55:15):
also on YouTube. We have a tea public store, and
we have a book you can get wherever you get
your books. Thanks as always to our super producer Beustine, are,
executive producer My and our contributor Joey. Thank you and
thanks to you for listening. Stuff Will Never Told You
is production of iHeart Radio. For more podcasts on my
Heart Radio, you can check out the heart radio app,
Apple podcasts, or if you listening to your favorite shows,