April 19, 2022 • 38 mins
Cultural critic Margo Jefferson deconstructs her nervous system… or at least explains to Roxane how the culture, not just family, has made her who she is. She talks about her new memoir, which situates cultural criticism alongside personal memories. Also, Roxane reflects on what memoirists reveal, and don’t reveal, to their readers.
Mentions:
● C.J. Hauser’s essay “The Crane Wife” https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2019/07/16/the-crane-wife/
● C.J. Hauser’s memoir “The Crane Wife” https://bookshop.org/books/the-crane-wife-a-memoir-in-essays/9780385547079
● Margo Jefferson’s “Negroland” https://bookshop.org/books/negroland-a-memoir/9780307473431
● Margo Jefferson’s “Constructing a Nervous System” https://bookshop.org/books/constructing-a-nervous-system-a-memoir/9781524748173
Credits: Curtis Fox is the producer. Our researcher is Yessenia Moreno. Production help from Kaitlyn Adams and Meg Pillow. Theme music by Taka Yasuzawa and Alex Sugiura.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
I am reading a lovely memoir and essays called The
Crane Wife by C. J. Houser. I first read the
title of essay a few years ago in the Paris Review.
It's about the dissolution of a relationship between the author
c J. And her fiancee, who was emotionally withholding distant,
a cheater and a gas lighter. It's about what we need,
(00:23):
what we can survive with, what we deny ourselves while
lying to ourselves. And it's no surprise to learn that
the entire memoir is as outstanding as that initial essay,
which I'm going to link to in the show notes.
The writing is elegant, very precise. The author has a
really compelling voice. I'm reading an advanced copy, but the
memoir comes out on July twelve, so I highly urge
(00:46):
you to add it to your to read list if
you enjoy the title essay from Luminary. This is the
Roxanne Day Agenda, The Bad Summit, this podcast of your Deans.
I am Roxanne Day your favor, a bad feminist on
the rocksand Gay Agenda. I talk about things that are
on my mind, and then I find interesting people to
(01:07):
speak with about what's on their mind. This week, we're
talking about the art of memoir and cultural criticism and
the intersections between. I do not think of myself primarily
as a memoir writer, because I write cultural criticism, infection,
and screenplays and all kinds of other things. But once
in a while, sometimes more, I do delve into the personal.
(01:30):
I like to hold things close, maybe too close, but
sometimes my work demand's disclosure. I try to be careful
about the when and the how, but it requires a
willingness to be vulnerable, or an ability to tolerate vulnerability
despite feeling terrified. And a lot of times people will
phrase this as courage, but it's not. It's not like
(01:51):
courage is courage, and being able to withstand terror is
something entirely different, at least from me. But one of
the most curious things I have found in writing about
the personal is that people assume that they know the
entirety of who you are, when in fact you know
very selective pieces of information. Most of the memoirsts I know,
(02:12):
myself included, are some of the most private people you
will ever meet. The reason that they disclose is because
they have the ability to do so on their own terms,
and they have the ability to withhold all of the
things they truly don't want you to know about. I've
been thinking a lot about the ways in which we
can bring the personal into our writing, as I've been
(02:34):
thinking about the work of today's guest. Margo Jefferson came
to Memoir after a long and illustrious career in cultural journalism.
In the nineteen eighties, she was a contributing arts editor
at Vogue, and she went on to become a book
reviewer and theater critic for The New York Times. She
won a Pulitzer Prize for her book reviews and cultural criticism,
(02:57):
and then she started writing books, first a cultural study
of Michael Jackson, and in two thousand fifteen she came
out with Negro Land, a memoir. Negro Land is, in
fact the book I know pretty well by now. I've
not only read it probably ten times at this point,
I've been working on a TV adaptation of it that
will hopefully be on your television screens in the next
(03:18):
two years. It focuses on the world of upper middle
class black people in Chicago in the nineteen fifties and sixties,
and it is at once incisive and lush and absolutely brilliant.
Margot has a new book out and this one is
called Constructing a Nervous System. Margo Jefferson, Welcome to the
Roxanne Gay Agenda. Well, thank you, Roxanne. I'm happy to
(03:42):
be on this agenda. Excellent. I wanted to start with
your writing process. I've heard that it's very involved and
it doesn't begin with writing. I would love to know
what does a good writing day look like for you?
Good writing day looks like. First, I'm that I'm ready
(04:02):
in some way to sample and improvise that maybe to
get the mind and the heart and the spirit operating
that maybe particular kind of music. It may be some reading,
maybe a poem, or when I was doing reviews regularly,
I had a very adept sense of what reviewer I
(04:26):
might read, maybe from several centuries back, maybe last week,
who in some way would be kinetic, would would get
me interested, get me on the page. I also tend
a good writing day starts with a certain amount of
I wouldn't say exactly free association, but association. I I
often use song lyrics that I will just scribble out
(04:48):
or you know, juxtaposed to get myself going. And I
think all of this has to do with waking up
all your senses as well as your brain. But giving
myself the we writers need the illusion that we have
lots of choices each day, right absolutely, So you know
it's my workout. Why you have choices? Workout? Margot? Where
(05:09):
do you go from sort of getting yourself creatively invigorated?
What kinds of research do you do? Because one of
the things I've noticed, especially about your criticism is the
depth of knowledge. I was reading your new book, and
I learned so much about Ella Fitzgerald that I had
no idea about. So I would love to know more
(05:30):
about like where you get to those details and then
how you connect them to these like larger cultural points
that you want to make. I start with the most
obvious biography. There were some very good essays in the
last several years about well reportage about Ella and the
(05:52):
school for Wayward Girls, the instigation for Wayward Girls she
was in. So I start collecting material, I take no,
it's on it, and I start. As I'm getting all
the material I need, I do two things. I start
organizing it according to where I think I'm going. That's one.
I start or check off the points that even if
(06:15):
they don't seem to fit. They interest me. Also with music,
I always, whether I'm writing about a singer or a a musician,
a dancer, I will go back and look at YouTube,
at videos over and over and over. That level of immersion,
you know that takes so much time and dedication. I
(06:36):
love that you are willing to put in that work
because a lot of times, as I'm sure you've noticed
a lot of critics today, are because of the demands
of the market force to really get something out almost
immediately when something happens. I have emails in my inbox
like literally thirty seconds after it happens, and then they
say can you can you file within two hours? Yeah, exactly,
(06:58):
and no good work is really going to happen. What
was it like, you know, writing in the nine nineties,
especially at the times when it was a different era
and you were given more time. Have you found that
you've had to change your process as you've sort of
written your way into present day? You mean written my
way from pieces of a certain length review whether they
(07:20):
were reviews or as we sometimes were loftily aspire to
think of them and call them essays. As I moved
from those to writing a book, Yes, well, first of all,
you know, the flip side of having a limited period
of time is instant gratification. You get excited and you
(07:41):
basically you're pleased. A book it requires delayed gratification. You
have to keep finding ways to go forward. Um each
day feels different. I really had to keep reminding myself
that they that it was going to come together. Yes, exactly, exactly. Yes,
(08:04):
I'm in the middle of a book right now, and
I am trying to remind myself that ultimately all of
these little pieces that I'm working on are going to
cohere into a singular narrea. And you have to tolerate
more false starts, don't you find? I do find, especially
with I'm writing a book of writing advice, and you know,
I know, I know, and a lot of my writing process,
(08:26):
you know, certainly I do research, and I spend a
lot of time reading, and it's hard to articulate how
I then translate and sort of digest everything that I'm
learning into an essay or a short story or a novel.
It just kind of happens, And so how do you
just tell people, like sometimes you like it happens, and
so I just keep going down these words trying to
(08:48):
figure that out. But you know, I I like this,
this this expression that I started to use. I think
maybe after I left the time dream space. You know,
that's what's going on. You're reading, you're researching your thinking,
and then there's that dream space where you're doing something else. Often,
don't I find when I'm researching, if I'm feeling okay,
(09:12):
I'm in the group researching his calming, you know, reading
other books is calming that helps with the dreams face.
Something unconscious or semi conscious can be going on when
you're doing this more formal work, and then that might
show up the next day. I love those unexpected moments
when something you don't think is going to show up
actually ends up showing up. It's incredibly satisfying, Like, ah,
(09:35):
that's why I learned that little piece of exactly exactly
where when you're writing cultural criticism and essays, do you
need to feel a personal connection to the work to
really be moved to engage with it? That is very
much my preference. You know, Periodically, when you're on a beat,
(09:56):
you know, as I was for years before The Times too,
as a book reviewer or a theater critic, you have
to find you know, if there's a play, big Broadway opening, um,
you know, or just a well regarded writer who's got
something on stage or published it and you're assigned it.
You have to find a way to be interested. You know.
(10:18):
That can be arduous and irritating, but it can also
be useful. It can try out different muscles. I am
much happier when I'm picking the piece or the editor
and I you're totally agreed. You know it's a good fit,
and I start off by feeling some kind of connection.
You know, even if again it it transmutes itself into
(10:40):
into something I didn't expect or oh god, I'm more
ambivalent about that, or well wait, I'm angry at this
far part of that, Okay, but the connection is there,
and I find the same thing. If I'm invested, if
I care, the writing is going to be that much better.
And you know, I can do passible writing if I'm
(11:01):
not feeling the connection. Certainly, because not not anymore, but
especially early in my career, you just have to be
able to get it done. And now I do try
to only work on things that I really want to
work on, and just say no to the things that
I don't honestly have any interest in. And you know,
especially as a black woman, people often think that the
(11:23):
only thing I want to write about is going to
somehow connect to race. And you know, that's so limiting.
There's so much more to who I am and how
I understand the world. And I know for you, you
were doing cultural criticism, especially earlier in your career, at
a time when not a lot of black women were
doing it. And what was that experience like, having to
(11:45):
be sort of the only one? Oh? It was um sometimes,
you know, some days they were ordinary, you know. I
I simply felt okay, here I am. Um. There were
many more women, usually white, and blacks, usually men in
(12:08):
the world of journalism. Um, when I entered it, you know,
in which was in the seventies. That actually did help.
It meant I wasn't in every way in terms of
gender and race alone, um, you know, And so it
meant there were common um grounds for for the problematic,
shall we say. Um. I was very aware that nothing
(12:32):
I said or wrote would be taken for granted, that
it was always being filtered through um, other people's perceptions,
some of which were complementaries, some of which were very negative,
some of which were as you were saying about memoir readers, thinking, oh,
I know you, some of which were smart enough but
(12:55):
kind of presumptuous. Um. Yeah. I was also very aware
that this goes back to something you were saying too.
I was there, and I was being a critic because
I wanted to bring attention to what we now call
these canons in the making, you know, of women writers
(13:16):
and international writers and black writers and indigenous writers. And
I couldn't pretend I knew all those worlds equally well.
So you know, I had to do my research. But
I knew that was um an agenda in my heart
as well as my mind. I also felt very strongly,
I'm involved with a lot of cultural um artifacts, experiences, artworks. Um,
(13:41):
I'm not going to be stopped from writing about, you know,
anything that you know, let's say it's white male, heterosexual art.
You know. I had a lot of training and all that, Yes,
and I you know, I had I had judgment and preferences,
is in taste, and I felt I have contributions to
(14:03):
make here too, So I I really made sure stay
a moving target in these ways. I can really relate
to staying a moving target. You know, I often say,
you're never gonna know what I'm going to do from
one project to the mass the thing. And that's also
how you keep yourself interested. Absolutely. I find that it
(14:24):
keeps me creatively nimble, and it helps me to be
better and try to write some more effectively and just
challenge myself because I don't want to write the same
old sort of criticism over and over. I want to
try new things. And I also am interested in art
visual art. I'm interested in theater, both musicals and plays.
(14:44):
I'm interested, of course in books and music. And so
by focusing on a lot of different things, you know,
I also get to sort of keep that muscle flexible. Yes,
And you know, it's also the way one attends to
how these cultural warms, their their status, their their experiments
of how they change. Um. You know, when when I
(15:07):
was a child in the fifties, we were all obsessed
with TV, but it was monitored. You can't watch but
so much because it's basically fun junk, except for those
uplift programs like The Voice of Firestone are opposite would
always appear. Television has changed wildly in many ways. It's
it's what it's willing to do. It's experiments, it's formed,
(15:30):
and so you have to adapt to that. You know,
you you have to retune and a tune yourself. Um,
you know, to a world that's operating differently and that
requires different things of you and even requires you to
look back on the things you took for granted. You know,
whether it's Amos and Andy or I Love Lucy, and
you know, reconfigure them now. I know in want to
(15:54):
Pulitzer Prize, and for many of us, that is the apex.
So how do you day ambitious after reaching the mountaintop?
You know, I think at first I was in shock
and I didn't feel, oh, this is Everything's finished. But
I did feel huge stage right, with a little bit
(16:14):
of paralysis. You know, what, what can I live up to?
What can will the world see that I'm living up to?
But I knew I hadn't written among other things, there
were there were kinds of journalism I still hadn't done yet.
I was mostly doing books. I had started to do
more cultural criticism, but I hadn't yet done theater. I
(16:35):
hadn't yet done my column, which was my critics notebook,
which was really about whatever in the culture I wanted
to write about. So I knew there was more, and
I hadn't written any books, and I knew that I
wanted to, so these resources needed to be gathered. Um,
you know, I wasn't old enough to feel you can
(16:56):
end it. Now you know you can. You can be
retired to that, to marriage this board. So you know
it was it was nerve racking and it was yeah,
but I knew maris required, Miss Jay, is where I
do myself. Yes, you pivoted to memoir, or not necessarily pivoted,
but you expanded your repertoire to memory. I was it
(17:17):
was a pivot too, It was yeah. And one of
the things that first struck me I read negro Land
when it came out, because I reviewed it. I remember
it was not a typical memoir. It wasn't I was born,
I lived, and here I am today. Instead, you were
really chronicling negro Land. How did you decide I'm going
to write about this community I was raised in. I
(17:39):
had again, these ideas, these worlds sit in your mind
for years, and you keep saying, I need to write
about this because it's not very well known. It's often misunderstood.
It's my parents were aging, you know, And I wanted
to ca upture things that would never you know, that
(18:03):
would disappear with them all they were part of this
ongoing history and they stretched back. Um. So I that
was in my mind after I've finished Michael Jackson, Um,
I thought, you have to take this risk. I have
always been when that always that sounds a little grandiose.
But this space where um, the cultural and what we
(18:28):
think of as the personal mingle and intermingle, and the
ways in which, I would say particularly for um, for
people's of color, the ways you are always modulating over here,
even with your family. You maybe I'm playing the good
(18:48):
the good child, the good black child. At a certain
point in history. Then you know you're doing something else
that's entirely you know, you're listening to a song, you're
reciting a poem, you're acting out in some way that's
entirely as you see it yourself, you know. So there
are also many, many roles, many many masks that you
(19:08):
are required to don um, the mask of the perfect student,
the mask of the very very bright no um child,
the mask of the decorous girl, the mask, the mask
of ambition. That and this is so true for women
in the fifties ambition that makes clear you know you will,
(19:30):
you will succeed, You will use your brain and your
good education, and you will be a credit to your
race and sex. But you're not going to overdo it.
You're not going to let those ambitions and achievements get
in the way of your proper destiny as a as
a female, marriage and children, which it seemed I did
not do. And yet and yet, so you know, all
(19:54):
of that, um those that it's so performative, that culture.
It's a word we overuse, but it really is. That
helped me because I realized, I don't this world is
not set up so that there is one uniform line
of how you live, how you behave my particular historical
(20:15):
situation growing up in the fifties, then turning twelve thirteen,
as the sixties approached, and you know, and the world
broke open um with all these movements. Of course that
couldn't be an orderly arc. I also kept coming up against,
if you will, what I thought of as the memoirs,
(20:38):
scene making and confessional and meditative voice, and what I
knew was my critics voice. Um So, when I realized
that being a critic was as crucial to identity, which
is always a key subject of memoir. When I realized
that was just as crucial as my relations with my parents,
you know, my my car, shoes, etcetera, then I could
(21:02):
go forward. I was very stymied at one point until
the other thing that was a realization was how I
virtually opened the book where I say I was taught
not to not to reveal unflattering, unseemly facts about myself
or about the world around me, because that would be
turned against our race. And once I put that down,
(21:25):
I could violate it. You know, it's interesting that modulation.
I grew up in a strict Haitian household, Haitian American
always sort of comporting ourselves the right way a huge part.
It was just a huge part. And I always found
that writing was the place where I could step away
from that level of comportment and modulation and express myself.
(21:50):
Was writing a sort of that for you? Or did
you find yourself? And do you find yourself modulating yourself
and thinking about comportment, achievement, reflection on your community in
your writing? It is both. I am always negotiating or
crossing back and forth that space between ah, I can
(22:12):
say what I want to say, and I can try
out this and and this also has to do with,
you know, having been a critic in mainstream publications for
years and a certain kind of call it critical comportment,
a certain temperature um. And that also has to do
with assignments. You know, every magazine has its own or
(22:32):
newspaper has its own particular temperature, its own way of modulating.
They want your individuality, you're not an interesting critic with
our persona that interests, but they wanted also within the
conventions that they have, so that's always been tricky. That's
another reason I first of all, started with Michael Jackson.
(22:53):
I did need to transition to memoir, but I knew
everyone's opinions, feelings, researches into him. We were all totally torn, conflicted, uncertain, vulnerable,
um tempastuous, adoring, And I thought, Okay, that's going to
be good for me, because that has to be folded
(23:14):
somehow into the text. One of the things that struck
me most in negro Land was the way that you
were both incredibly critical of the community but also nostalgic.
There were so many things about the community that you
clearly were connected to that you loved, and of course
that's understandable. I think we all have that affinity and
(23:35):
ability to criticize the communities that we rise from. And
so how do you manage to hold space for nuance
in your work and especially in your memoirs? M I
think by continually rereading myself as if um I were
(23:56):
not only the participant, you know, the aloguist, but as
if also I were um a critic, assessing exactly those distinctions,
differences when I even say at times in the book,
am I being sentimental? Am I being um so? Am
(24:16):
I being a little self indulgent? Here? Um oh, I
guess I'm angry? Or I'm going to switch from first
to second to third person. And this is why it's
a form of surveillance in a way, but it's also
critical inquiry, and it's not exempting yourself from that. Also,
I believe in trusted friends who are really good readers,
(24:37):
And by trust them, I mean not only do you
love them and respect their mind and brain, you can
trust them to say you're indulging yourself there. I'm grateful
for having that. Yeah, yeah, for good readers, because sometimes
you look at work in the world and you think
you don't have any friends to tell you step back
(25:01):
from that ledge. Yet you don't do it, and you
can't step back all the time. There are so many
times where I look at something and I'm just so
attached to it. Without external feedback, I am not able
to step away from that ledge. That's why I'm incredibly
grateful for my editors and my most trusted readers. I
don't have many trusted readers, that's not but I have
(25:23):
enough exactly, exactly, And all you need is one good
book editor. And if you've got that too, yeah, it's
a gift. It is absolutely a gift. Now, your new
memoir is called Constructing a Nervous System, which is such
an interesting title and conjures up a lot of different things.
For me, what is behind that title for this book,
(25:47):
What's behind it is my desire to and my sense
that these experiences, these objects, this ephemera, all this stuff,
it's part of our personal culture, has marked and shaped
us every bit as much as the psychological material, the
(26:08):
historical material, the geographical and that if you are continually
looking at what is there, rearranging it in some way,
curating it inside your own psyche, and letting new materials
come in and market. Then it is possible to to
stay stay alive, actually not to keep repeating yourself emotionally,
(26:34):
psychologically as a writer. This book, also like Newgoland, is
not a typical memoir with that a beginning, a middle,
and an end, which I loved. It's very circuitous. It's
kind of like a nervous system and that reaches everywhere.
And so I was wondering how you thought about structure
when you were putting this book together, because I loved
the structure, you know, thank you very much. First I
(26:58):
really focused on these subjects, the figures, the um, the
memories that I knew I was obsessed with, and then
I began to think, through, feel through how are they
connected to each other in this brain and psyche of mind?
What's the relationship between how I rationally connect them and
(27:22):
what's in fact irrational? I mean nothing I wrote about
our turner is exactly rational? Right? Okay? Um? How do
I get passed through what my own past relationship with
these figures has been? And how are they how are
(27:43):
they set in motion by? How do they affect this
this personal life of mine? This these particulars. I can't
you know that The first part of the piece that
ends with Ella Fitzgerald is really about Bud Powell. And
it turned out all my intense feelings about Ella Fitzgerald
(28:04):
were also connected with the powers of black male jazz musicians.
Um how a black female with very few of the
usual um flamor tropes, how she could as a genius,
how she could make her way, what disguises were necessary
(28:24):
for that? U my father showed up my own class anxieties,
and you know, sweat is kind of lower class. It
should from childhood and adolescent all of that found its
way um in And that's what I was after. That's
the nervous system. That's interesting, and also things you can't
fully resolve necessarily in a certain way. I did resolve
(28:47):
the Ella because her genius resolved it, but many of
the other things there are not. Willowcather is not resolved.
The Willo Cather was eye opening. I mean, I learned
a lot reading this book. And I'm from Nebraska. Oh
my god, I didn't know ye Omaha, Nebraska and Vilikather
is a very big deal in Nebraska. And this offered
(29:10):
really a more complex portrait of some of her issues.
As all of the writers from that time, had you
know race, either they ignored it, or they exploited it,
or they took things for granted that we now recognize
as absolutely unacceptable. And so to see her, who's so revered,
(29:30):
getting that kind of treatment was wonderful and unexpected. Good.
I'm glad there too, you know. Part of the critique
was very firm and finished and final. And the fact
is I still love summer for work, so that's there too.
So I was so interested in how can you how
can love dislike hate uncertainty? How how can they mutate?
(29:57):
Can they take more than one form? How can they collaborate?
You write about your parents in the memoir. You also
write about them in negro Land, but in this one
you bring out more, especially your father's depression and the
ways in which you were wounded by that depression. Now
that they've passed on, was that freeing you up in
(30:17):
some way to write more about them? Yes, absolute, negotiate
with their lives. Absolutely absolutely. My mother was still alive
while I was writing a lot of negro Land, though
she died before, and she was alternately, oh, I'm so
excited that you're doing this. I was not showing her
what I was doing. And you know, Margot, I'm a
very private person and don't you worry, Do not worry.
(30:44):
And many of her friends were still alive, and a
part of me was still the daughter and the you know,
the niece, the whatever Amran Ronald's child who wanted in
some way to please. So I had to really protect
that material for myself. It definitely helped me find access
to a wider range of feelings, responses, of ways of
(31:08):
seeing them. Um. I don't think I ever let myself
show all out anger UM to my mother in negro Land.
And I adored her. That's one reason. She was funny,
she's charming, she's all of that. The fact in part
of her death helped me access not only how much
I missed her, but how angry I wasn't some of
(31:30):
that legacy um of course, And that comes through in
the second book, in Constructing a Nervous System. And because
the negro Land you seemed very upfront but respectful, I mean,
and and this book is extraordinarily respectful too. But here
we seem that you peel back more layers. And the
same with my father, I think, UM understanding his melancholia,
(31:55):
his depression, UM, and the sort of ardor with which
she kept going. I had, I think I would had
worked on that, or I wouldn't be able to talk about,
you know, depression myself. But I wasn't ready to make
it public. And I'm wondering now because he had already
died when I wrote negram. So I'm wondering now if
(32:16):
in some some part of me was still protecting the upright,
honorable exemplar of the race figure of my father, and
depression in some way maras that or undermines it. Yeah,
it can't, I mean, especially I think in black community exactly,
we do tend to keep mental health not only private
(32:38):
but incredibly intimately secret exactly, And it can, which means
if we're saying private and secret, then the word shame
is not far about right correct. And it's interesting to
see how many men of that generation, my father's generation,
carried quite a lot on their shoulders, and I think
quite a lot could use with some that oh my God,
(33:01):
which in his later years was it wasn't prozac. It
was one of those. It wasn't something like Milltown. My
father in his later years was often doing these mild
versions of these tranquilizes. Yes, just to keep a steadicale,
just to keep going. You know, one of the things
you do tackle in constructing a nervous system is the
ways in which your father's memories of the past were
(33:24):
shaped and really marred by racism, and your mother's resented
that at times, and you've tried to resist taking those
memories on. How have you tried to reconcile the ways
in which racism really, I think probably contributed to your
father's melancholia and the ways he understood the world. I
(33:46):
don't know if one ever reconciles it. UM. I recognize,
and in that way Negro lends historical parts were helpful.
I recognize that no, no man of that generation, no
black man of that generation, escaped um. Whether you know,
I read other other black writers have really in fiction
(34:10):
and nonfiction documented this. UM. So it helps when you
can see that something that marked and maybe maimed you,
not maybe did maim you in some ways personally, and
it made him more distant. That's another thing. When those
things are historically grounded, that calms you. You can still
(34:30):
be deeply angry, but there's not that I have to
take this personally all the time. This is what was
done to me. It's also what was done to him
now and I'm here and I'm younger, and I, in
some certain ways had it easier. So it interests me,
and it's I think it's also my job to make
(34:51):
real sense of it. One of the things this book
really does illustrate is that we are made by culture
in addition to our family ease and the communities, and
that we are shaped by the significant cultural events of
our our of our lives, not only books, but movies, music,
(35:12):
cultural incidents like the Oscars. Yes, thank you, Hello, Yes,
we've been We're going to be talking about that for
a minute exactly. And so what kinds of cultural events
in recent years have grabbed your attention, both as a
critic and as a person. Ah. You know, that's tricky
(35:33):
because the last couple of years I've been so immersed
in writing this book. Um. But I mentioned earlier, UM,
you know TV. Um, of course I'm interested in all
the permutations and surprises of Atlanta. I've been watching more
African and Korean film than I ever had before because
(35:55):
it's available. Um. I keep up with postmodern black dance,
one might say, and postmodern white and mixed the dance
One of the things culturally that's interesting to me is
how much one is still I listened to myself talking
involved in these binaries. It's white, this, it's black that.
The fact is our cultural world. Yes, I mentioned Koreans,
(36:18):
but the cultural world is extremely varied, and we might
find that we are in one part of it that
we know very very well and then suddenly exposed to traditions,
um and legacy. However sympathetic and supportive we are, that
we are kind of ignorant of that. So I'm finding
so often I'm a I'm a novice again, including with
(36:41):
with pop music. You know, I don't mean don't get
me started on music, Yeah, don't get me started. Every
time I watched the Grammys, now I'm just like, wait,
who are these people? That's right, I don't know, and
I never thought I would get there. I always thought, no,
I stay current, I'm on top of this. And then
I watched the Grammys and I just think, I know Beyonce,
(37:02):
we do know, we do know her. That's right, and
that's you know. But I also take note and then
I go try and listen to their music so that
I can not necessarily keep up, but just know what's
happening exactly in the way, Because left to my own devices,
I'm going to listen to nineties R and B in
hip hop. That's just what I'm gonna do, and musicals,
and so I stay in my lane and then i'd
(37:25):
like pop out every now and again. You stand. Yeah.
Now that I've finished this book, I'm also curious about
where I'll be led next, what I'll decide, Margo, get
it in gear, you know, and really check this out.
Margot Jefferson, thank you so much for coming on the rock,
sand Gage, and you know what we used to say
in Good Girlhood, Thank you so much. I had a
(37:48):
very nice time, as did I, as did Margot Jefferson's
latest book is Constructing a Nervous System, a memoir. It
is on April twelfth at your favorite bookstore or library.
You can keep up with me and the podcast on
social media on Twitter at our Gay and Instagram at
(38:10):
Roxanne Gay seven four. Our email is Roxanne Gay Agenda
at gmail dot com from Luminary. The Roxanne Gay Agenda
is produced by Curtis Fox, our researchers Yasagna Mareno. Production
support is provided by Caitlin Adams and Meg Pillow I
am Roxanne Gay, your favorite, that feminist. Thank you so
much for listening.
I am reading a lovely memoir and essays called The
Crane Wife by C. J. Houser. I first read the
title of essay a few years ago in the Paris Review.
It's about the dissolution of a relationship between the author
c J. And her fiancee, who was emotionally withholding distant,
a cheater and a gas lighter. It's about what we need,
(00:23):
what we can survive with, what we deny ourselves while
lying to ourselves. And it's no surprise to learn that
the entire memoir is as outstanding as that initial essay,
which I'm going to link to in the show notes.
The writing is elegant, very precise. The author has a
really compelling voice. I'm reading an advanced copy, but the
memoir comes out on July twelve, so I highly urge
(00:46):
you to add it to your to read list if
you enjoy the title essay from Luminary. This is the
Roxanne Day Agenda, The Bad Summit, this podcast of your Deans.
I am Roxanne Day your favor, a bad feminist on
the rocksand Gay Agenda. I talk about things that are
on my mind, and then I find interesting people to
(01:07):
speak with about what's on their mind. This week, we're
talking about the art of memoir and cultural criticism and
the intersections between. I do not think of myself primarily
as a memoir writer, because I write cultural criticism, infection,
and screenplays and all kinds of other things. But once
in a while, sometimes more, I do delve into the personal.
(01:30):
I like to hold things close, maybe too close, but
sometimes my work demand's disclosure. I try to be careful
about the when and the how, but it requires a
willingness to be vulnerable, or an ability to tolerate vulnerability
despite feeling terrified. And a lot of times people will
phrase this as courage, but it's not. It's not like
(01:51):
courage is courage, and being able to withstand terror is
something entirely different, at least from me. But one of
the most curious things I have found in writing about
the personal is that people assume that they know the
entirety of who you are, when in fact you know
very selective pieces of information. Most of the memoirsts I know,
(02:12):
myself included, are some of the most private people you
will ever meet. The reason that they disclose is because
they have the ability to do so on their own terms,
and they have the ability to withhold all of the
things they truly don't want you to know about. I've
been thinking a lot about the ways in which we
can bring the personal into our writing, as I've been
(02:34):
thinking about the work of today's guest. Margo Jefferson came
to Memoir after a long and illustrious career in cultural journalism.
In the nineteen eighties, she was a contributing arts editor
at Vogue, and she went on to become a book
reviewer and theater critic for The New York Times. She
won a Pulitzer Prize for her book reviews and cultural criticism,
(02:57):
and then she started writing books, first a cultural study
of Michael Jackson, and in two thousand fifteen she came
out with Negro Land, a memoir. Negro Land is, in
fact the book I know pretty well by now. I've
not only read it probably ten times at this point,
I've been working on a TV adaptation of it that
will hopefully be on your television screens in the next
(03:18):
two years. It focuses on the world of upper middle
class black people in Chicago in the nineteen fifties and sixties,
and it is at once incisive and lush and absolutely brilliant.
Margot has a new book out and this one is
called Constructing a Nervous System. Margo Jefferson, Welcome to the
Roxanne Gay Agenda. Well, thank you, Roxanne. I'm happy to
(03:42):
be on this agenda. Excellent. I wanted to start with
your writing process. I've heard that it's very involved and
it doesn't begin with writing. I would love to know
what does a good writing day look like for you?
Good writing day looks like. First, I'm that I'm ready
(04:02):
in some way to sample and improvise that maybe to
get the mind and the heart and the spirit operating
that maybe particular kind of music. It may be some reading,
maybe a poem, or when I was doing reviews regularly,
I had a very adept sense of what reviewer I
(04:26):
might read, maybe from several centuries back, maybe last week,
who in some way would be kinetic, would would get
me interested, get me on the page. I also tend
a good writing day starts with a certain amount of
I wouldn't say exactly free association, but association. I I
often use song lyrics that I will just scribble out
(04:48):
or you know, juxtaposed to get myself going. And I
think all of this has to do with waking up
all your senses as well as your brain. But giving
myself the we writers need the illusion that we have
lots of choices each day, right absolutely, So you know
it's my workout. Why you have choices? Workout? Margot? Where
(05:09):
do you go from sort of getting yourself creatively invigorated?
What kinds of research do you do? Because one of
the things I've noticed, especially about your criticism is the
depth of knowledge. I was reading your new book, and
I learned so much about Ella Fitzgerald that I had
no idea about. So I would love to know more
(05:30):
about like where you get to those details and then
how you connect them to these like larger cultural points
that you want to make. I start with the most
obvious biography. There were some very good essays in the
last several years about well reportage about Ella and the
(05:52):
school for Wayward Girls, the instigation for Wayward Girls she
was in. So I start collecting material, I take no,
it's on it, and I start. As I'm getting all
the material I need, I do two things. I start
organizing it according to where I think I'm going. That's one.
I start or check off the points that even if
(06:15):
they don't seem to fit. They interest me. Also with music,
I always, whether I'm writing about a singer or a a musician,
a dancer, I will go back and look at YouTube,
at videos over and over and over. That level of immersion,
you know that takes so much time and dedication. I
(06:36):
love that you are willing to put in that work
because a lot of times, as I'm sure you've noticed
a lot of critics today, are because of the demands
of the market force to really get something out almost
immediately when something happens. I have emails in my inbox
like literally thirty seconds after it happens, and then they
say can you can you file within two hours? Yeah, exactly,
(06:58):
and no good work is really going to happen. What
was it like, you know, writing in the nine nineties,
especially at the times when it was a different era
and you were given more time. Have you found that
you've had to change your process as you've sort of
written your way into present day? You mean written my
way from pieces of a certain length review whether they
(07:20):
were reviews or as we sometimes were loftily aspire to
think of them and call them essays. As I moved
from those to writing a book, Yes, well, first of all,
you know, the flip side of having a limited period
of time is instant gratification. You get excited and you
(07:41):
basically you're pleased. A book it requires delayed gratification. You
have to keep finding ways to go forward. Um each
day feels different. I really had to keep reminding myself
that they that it was going to come together. Yes, exactly, exactly. Yes,
(08:04):
I'm in the middle of a book right now, and
I am trying to remind myself that ultimately all of
these little pieces that I'm working on are going to
cohere into a singular narrea. And you have to tolerate
more false starts, don't you find? I do find, especially
with I'm writing a book of writing advice, and you know,
I know, I know, and a lot of my writing process,
(08:26):
you know, certainly I do research, and I spend a
lot of time reading, and it's hard to articulate how
I then translate and sort of digest everything that I'm
learning into an essay or a short story or a novel.
It just kind of happens, And so how do you
just tell people, like sometimes you like it happens, and
so I just keep going down these words trying to
(08:48):
figure that out. But you know, I I like this,
this this expression that I started to use. I think
maybe after I left the time dream space. You know,
that's what's going on. You're reading, you're researching your thinking,
and then there's that dream space where you're doing something else. Often,
don't I find when I'm researching, if I'm feeling okay,
(09:12):
I'm in the group researching his calming, you know, reading
other books is calming that helps with the dreams face.
Something unconscious or semi conscious can be going on when
you're doing this more formal work, and then that might
show up the next day. I love those unexpected moments
when something you don't think is going to show up
actually ends up showing up. It's incredibly satisfying, Like, ah,
(09:35):
that's why I learned that little piece of exactly exactly
where when you're writing cultural criticism and essays, do you
need to feel a personal connection to the work to
really be moved to engage with it? That is very
much my preference. You know, Periodically, when you're on a beat,
(09:56):
you know, as I was for years before The Times too,
as a book reviewer or a theater critic, you have
to find you know, if there's a play, big Broadway opening, um,
you know, or just a well regarded writer who's got
something on stage or published it and you're assigned it.
You have to find a way to be interested. You know.
(10:18):
That can be arduous and irritating, but it can also
be useful. It can try out different muscles. I am
much happier when I'm picking the piece or the editor
and I you're totally agreed. You know it's a good fit,
and I start off by feeling some kind of connection.
You know, even if again it it transmutes itself into
(10:40):
into something I didn't expect or oh god, I'm more
ambivalent about that, or well wait, I'm angry at this
far part of that, Okay, but the connection is there,
and I find the same thing. If I'm invested, if
I care, the writing is going to be that much better.
And you know, I can do passible writing if I'm
(11:01):
not feeling the connection. Certainly, because not not anymore, but
especially early in my career, you just have to be
able to get it done. And now I do try
to only work on things that I really want to
work on, and just say no to the things that
I don't honestly have any interest in. And you know,
especially as a black woman, people often think that the
(11:23):
only thing I want to write about is going to
somehow connect to race. And you know, that's so limiting.
There's so much more to who I am and how
I understand the world. And I know for you, you
were doing cultural criticism, especially earlier in your career, at
a time when not a lot of black women were
doing it. And what was that experience like, having to
(11:45):
be sort of the only one? Oh? It was um sometimes,
you know, some days they were ordinary, you know. I
I simply felt okay, here I am. Um. There were
many more women, usually white, and blacks, usually men in
(12:08):
the world of journalism. Um, when I entered it, you know,
in which was in the seventies. That actually did help.
It meant I wasn't in every way in terms of
gender and race alone, um, you know, And so it
meant there were common um grounds for for the problematic,
shall we say. Um. I was very aware that nothing
(12:32):
I said or wrote would be taken for granted, that
it was always being filtered through um, other people's perceptions,
some of which were complementaries, some of which were very negative,
some of which were as you were saying about memoir readers, thinking, oh,
I know you, some of which were smart enough but
(12:55):
kind of presumptuous. Um. Yeah. I was also very aware
that this goes back to something you were saying too.
I was there, and I was being a critic because
I wanted to bring attention to what we now call
these canons in the making, you know, of women writers
(13:16):
and international writers and black writers and indigenous writers. And
I couldn't pretend I knew all those worlds equally well.
So you know, I had to do my research. But
I knew that was um an agenda in my heart
as well as my mind. I also felt very strongly,
I'm involved with a lot of cultural um artifacts, experiences, artworks. Um,
(13:41):
I'm not going to be stopped from writing about, you know,
anything that you know, let's say it's white male, heterosexual art.
You know. I had a lot of training and all that, Yes,
and I you know, I had I had judgment and preferences,
is in taste, and I felt I have contributions to
(14:03):
make here too, So I I really made sure stay
a moving target in these ways. I can really relate
to staying a moving target. You know, I often say,
you're never gonna know what I'm going to do from
one project to the mass the thing. And that's also
how you keep yourself interested. Absolutely. I find that it
(14:24):
keeps me creatively nimble, and it helps me to be
better and try to write some more effectively and just
challenge myself because I don't want to write the same
old sort of criticism over and over. I want to
try new things. And I also am interested in art
visual art. I'm interested in theater, both musicals and plays.
(14:44):
I'm interested, of course in books and music. And so
by focusing on a lot of different things, you know,
I also get to sort of keep that muscle flexible. Yes,
And you know, it's also the way one attends to
how these cultural warms, their their status, their their experiments
of how they change. Um. You know, when when I
(15:07):
was a child in the fifties, we were all obsessed
with TV, but it was monitored. You can't watch but
so much because it's basically fun junk, except for those
uplift programs like The Voice of Firestone are opposite would
always appear. Television has changed wildly in many ways. It's
it's what it's willing to do. It's experiments, it's formed,
(15:30):
and so you have to adapt to that. You know,
you you have to retune and a tune yourself. Um,
you know, to a world that's operating differently and that
requires different things of you and even requires you to
look back on the things you took for granted. You know,
whether it's Amos and Andy or I Love Lucy, and
you know, reconfigure them now. I know in want to
(15:54):
Pulitzer Prize, and for many of us, that is the apex.
So how do you day ambitious after reaching the mountaintop?
You know, I think at first I was in shock
and I didn't feel, oh, this is Everything's finished. But
I did feel huge stage right, with a little bit
(16:14):
of paralysis. You know, what, what can I live up to?
What can will the world see that I'm living up to?
But I knew I hadn't written among other things, there
were there were kinds of journalism I still hadn't done yet.
I was mostly doing books. I had started to do
more cultural criticism, but I hadn't yet done theater. I
(16:35):
hadn't yet done my column, which was my critics notebook,
which was really about whatever in the culture I wanted
to write about. So I knew there was more, and
I hadn't written any books, and I knew that I
wanted to, so these resources needed to be gathered. Um,
you know, I wasn't old enough to feel you can
(16:56):
end it. Now you know you can. You can be
retired to that, to marriage this board. So you know
it was it was nerve racking and it was yeah,
but I knew maris required, Miss Jay, is where I
do myself. Yes, you pivoted to memoir, or not necessarily pivoted,
but you expanded your repertoire to memory. I was it
(17:17):
was a pivot too, It was yeah. And one of
the things that first struck me I read negro Land
when it came out, because I reviewed it. I remember
it was not a typical memoir. It wasn't I was born,
I lived, and here I am today. Instead, you were
really chronicling negro Land. How did you decide I'm going
to write about this community I was raised in. I
(17:39):
had again, these ideas, these worlds sit in your mind
for years, and you keep saying, I need to write
about this because it's not very well known. It's often misunderstood.
It's my parents were aging, you know, And I wanted
to ca upture things that would never you know, that
(18:03):
would disappear with them all they were part of this
ongoing history and they stretched back. Um. So I that
was in my mind after I've finished Michael Jackson, Um,
I thought, you have to take this risk. I have
always been when that always that sounds a little grandiose.
But this space where um, the cultural and what we
(18:28):
think of as the personal mingle and intermingle, and the
ways in which, I would say particularly for um, for
people's of color, the ways you are always modulating over here,
even with your family. You maybe I'm playing the good
(18:48):
the good child, the good black child. At a certain
point in history. Then you know you're doing something else
that's entirely you know, you're listening to a song, you're
reciting a poem, you're acting out in some way that's
entirely as you see it yourself, you know. So there
are also many, many roles, many many masks that you
(19:08):
are required to don um, the mask of the perfect student,
the mask of the very very bright no um child,
the mask of the decorous girl, the mask, the mask
of ambition. That and this is so true for women
in the fifties ambition that makes clear you know you will,
(19:30):
you will succeed, You will use your brain and your
good education, and you will be a credit to your
race and sex. But you're not going to overdo it.
You're not going to let those ambitions and achievements get
in the way of your proper destiny as a as
a female, marriage and children, which it seemed I did
not do. And yet and yet, so you know, all
(19:54):
of that, um those that it's so performative, that culture.
It's a word we overuse, but it really is. That
helped me because I realized, I don't this world is
not set up so that there is one uniform line
of how you live, how you behave my particular historical
(20:15):
situation growing up in the fifties, then turning twelve thirteen,
as the sixties approached, and you know, and the world
broke open um with all these movements. Of course that
couldn't be an orderly arc. I also kept coming up against,
if you will, what I thought of as the memoirs,
(20:38):
scene making and confessional and meditative voice, and what I
knew was my critics voice. Um So, when I realized
that being a critic was as crucial to identity, which
is always a key subject of memoir. When I realized
that was just as crucial as my relations with my parents,
you know, my my car, shoes, etcetera, then I could
(21:02):
go forward. I was very stymied at one point until
the other thing that was a realization was how I
virtually opened the book where I say I was taught
not to not to reveal unflattering, unseemly facts about myself
or about the world around me, because that would be
turned against our race. And once I put that down,
(21:25):
I could violate it. You know, it's interesting that modulation.
I grew up in a strict Haitian household, Haitian American
always sort of comporting ourselves the right way a huge part.
It was just a huge part. And I always found
that writing was the place where I could step away
from that level of comportment and modulation and express myself.
(21:50):
Was writing a sort of that for you? Or did
you find yourself? And do you find yourself modulating yourself
and thinking about comportment, achievement, reflection on your community in
your writing? It is both. I am always negotiating or
crossing back and forth that space between ah, I can
(22:12):
say what I want to say, and I can try
out this and and this also has to do with,
you know, having been a critic in mainstream publications for
years and a certain kind of call it critical comportment,
a certain temperature um. And that also has to do
with assignments. You know, every magazine has its own or
(22:32):
newspaper has its own particular temperature, its own way of modulating.
They want your individuality, you're not an interesting critic with
our persona that interests, but they wanted also within the
conventions that they have, so that's always been tricky. That's
another reason I first of all, started with Michael Jackson.
(22:53):
I did need to transition to memoir, but I knew
everyone's opinions, feelings, researches into him. We were all totally torn, conflicted, uncertain, vulnerable,
um tempastuous, adoring, And I thought, Okay, that's going to
be good for me, because that has to be folded
(23:14):
somehow into the text. One of the things that struck
me most in negro Land was the way that you
were both incredibly critical of the community but also nostalgic.
There were so many things about the community that you
clearly were connected to that you loved, and of course
that's understandable. I think we all have that affinity and
(23:35):
ability to criticize the communities that we rise from. And
so how do you manage to hold space for nuance
in your work and especially in your memoirs? M I
think by continually rereading myself as if um I were
(23:56):
not only the participant, you know, the aloguist, but as
if also I were um a critic, assessing exactly those distinctions,
differences when I even say at times in the book,
am I being sentimental? Am I being um so? Am
(24:16):
I being a little self indulgent? Here? Um oh, I
guess I'm angry? Or I'm going to switch from first
to second to third person. And this is why it's
a form of surveillance in a way, but it's also
critical inquiry, and it's not exempting yourself from that. Also,
I believe in trusted friends who are really good readers,
(24:37):
And by trust them, I mean not only do you
love them and respect their mind and brain, you can
trust them to say you're indulging yourself there. I'm grateful
for having that. Yeah, yeah, for good readers, because sometimes
you look at work in the world and you think
you don't have any friends to tell you step back
(25:01):
from that ledge. Yet you don't do it, and you
can't step back all the time. There are so many
times where I look at something and I'm just so
attached to it. Without external feedback, I am not able
to step away from that ledge. That's why I'm incredibly
grateful for my editors and my most trusted readers. I
don't have many trusted readers, that's not but I have
(25:23):
enough exactly, exactly, And all you need is one good
book editor. And if you've got that too, yeah, it's
a gift. It is absolutely a gift. Now, your new
memoir is called Constructing a Nervous System, which is such
an interesting title and conjures up a lot of different things.
For me, what is behind that title for this book,
(25:47):
What's behind it is my desire to and my sense
that these experiences, these objects, this ephemera, all this stuff,
it's part of our personal culture, has marked and shaped
us every bit as much as the psychological material, the
(26:08):
historical material, the geographical and that if you are continually
looking at what is there, rearranging it in some way,
curating it inside your own psyche, and letting new materials
come in and market. Then it is possible to to
stay stay alive, actually not to keep repeating yourself emotionally,
(26:34):
psychologically as a writer. This book, also like Newgoland, is
not a typical memoir with that a beginning, a middle,
and an end, which I loved. It's very circuitous. It's
kind of like a nervous system and that reaches everywhere.
And so I was wondering how you thought about structure
when you were putting this book together, because I loved
the structure, you know, thank you very much. First I
(26:58):
really focused on these subjects, the figures, the um, the
memories that I knew I was obsessed with, and then
I began to think, through, feel through how are they
connected to each other in this brain and psyche of mind?
What's the relationship between how I rationally connect them and
(27:22):
what's in fact irrational? I mean nothing I wrote about
our turner is exactly rational? Right? Okay? Um? How do
I get passed through what my own past relationship with
these figures has been? And how are they how are
(27:43):
they set in motion by? How do they affect this
this personal life of mine? This these particulars. I can't
you know that The first part of the piece that
ends with Ella Fitzgerald is really about Bud Powell. And
it turned out all my intense feelings about Ella Fitzgerald
(28:04):
were also connected with the powers of black male jazz musicians.
Um how a black female with very few of the
usual um flamor tropes, how she could as a genius,
how she could make her way, what disguises were necessary
(28:24):
for that? U my father showed up my own class anxieties,
and you know, sweat is kind of lower class. It
should from childhood and adolescent all of that found its
way um in And that's what I was after. That's
the nervous system. That's interesting, and also things you can't
fully resolve necessarily in a certain way. I did resolve
(28:47):
the Ella because her genius resolved it, but many of
the other things there are not. Willowcather is not resolved.
The Willo Cather was eye opening. I mean, I learned
a lot reading this book. And I'm from Nebraska. Oh
my god, I didn't know ye Omaha, Nebraska and Vilikather
is a very big deal in Nebraska. And this offered
(29:10):
really a more complex portrait of some of her issues.
As all of the writers from that time, had you
know race, either they ignored it, or they exploited it,
or they took things for granted that we now recognize
as absolutely unacceptable. And so to see her, who's so revered,
(29:30):
getting that kind of treatment was wonderful and unexpected. Good.
I'm glad there too, you know. Part of the critique
was very firm and finished and final. And the fact
is I still love summer for work, so that's there too.
So I was so interested in how can you how
can love dislike hate uncertainty? How how can they mutate?
(29:57):
Can they take more than one form? How can they collaborate?
You write about your parents in the memoir. You also
write about them in negro Land, but in this one
you bring out more, especially your father's depression and the
ways in which you were wounded by that depression. Now
that they've passed on, was that freeing you up in
(30:17):
some way to write more about them? Yes, absolute, negotiate
with their lives. Absolutely absolutely. My mother was still alive
while I was writing a lot of negro Land, though
she died before, and she was alternately, oh, I'm so
excited that you're doing this. I was not showing her
what I was doing. And you know, Margot, I'm a
very private person and don't you worry, Do not worry.
(30:44):
And many of her friends were still alive, and a
part of me was still the daughter and the you know,
the niece, the whatever Amran Ronald's child who wanted in
some way to please. So I had to really protect
that material for myself. It definitely helped me find access
to a wider range of feelings, responses, of ways of
(31:08):
seeing them. Um. I don't think I ever let myself
show all out anger UM to my mother in negro Land.
And I adored her. That's one reason. She was funny,
she's charming, she's all of that. The fact in part
of her death helped me access not only how much
I missed her, but how angry I wasn't some of
(31:30):
that legacy um of course, And that comes through in
the second book, in Constructing a Nervous System. And because
the negro Land you seemed very upfront but respectful, I mean,
and and this book is extraordinarily respectful too. But here
we seem that you peel back more layers. And the
same with my father, I think, UM understanding his melancholia,
(31:55):
his depression, UM, and the sort of ardor with which
she kept going. I had, I think I would had
worked on that, or I wouldn't be able to talk about,
you know, depression myself. But I wasn't ready to make
it public. And I'm wondering now because he had already
died when I wrote negram. So I'm wondering now if
(32:16):
in some some part of me was still protecting the upright,
honorable exemplar of the race figure of my father, and
depression in some way maras that or undermines it. Yeah,
it can't, I mean, especially I think in black community exactly,
we do tend to keep mental health not only private
(32:38):
but incredibly intimately secret exactly, And it can, which means
if we're saying private and secret, then the word shame
is not far about right correct. And it's interesting to
see how many men of that generation, my father's generation,
carried quite a lot on their shoulders, and I think
quite a lot could use with some that oh my God,
(33:01):
which in his later years was it wasn't prozac. It
was one of those. It wasn't something like Milltown. My
father in his later years was often doing these mild
versions of these tranquilizes. Yes, just to keep a steadicale,
just to keep going. You know, one of the things
you do tackle in constructing a nervous system is the
ways in which your father's memories of the past were
(33:24):
shaped and really marred by racism, and your mother's resented
that at times, and you've tried to resist taking those
memories on. How have you tried to reconcile the ways
in which racism really, I think probably contributed to your
father's melancholia and the ways he understood the world. I
(33:46):
don't know if one ever reconciles it. UM. I recognize,
and in that way Negro lends historical parts were helpful.
I recognize that no, no man of that generation, no
black man of that generation, escaped um. Whether you know,
I read other other black writers have really in fiction
(34:10):
and nonfiction documented this. UM. So it helps when you
can see that something that marked and maybe maimed you,
not maybe did maim you in some ways personally, and
it made him more distant. That's another thing. When those
things are historically grounded, that calms you. You can still
(34:30):
be deeply angry, but there's not that I have to
take this personally all the time. This is what was
done to me. It's also what was done to him
now and I'm here and I'm younger, and I, in
some certain ways had it easier. So it interests me,
and it's I think it's also my job to make
(34:51):
real sense of it. One of the things this book
really does illustrate is that we are made by culture
in addition to our family ease and the communities, and
that we are shaped by the significant cultural events of
our our of our lives, not only books, but movies, music,
(35:12):
cultural incidents like the Oscars. Yes, thank you, Hello, Yes,
we've been We're going to be talking about that for
a minute exactly. And so what kinds of cultural events
in recent years have grabbed your attention, both as a
critic and as a person. Ah. You know, that's tricky
(35:33):
because the last couple of years I've been so immersed
in writing this book. Um. But I mentioned earlier, UM,
you know TV. Um, of course I'm interested in all
the permutations and surprises of Atlanta. I've been watching more
African and Korean film than I ever had before because
(35:55):
it's available. Um. I keep up with postmodern black dance,
one might say, and postmodern white and mixed the dance
One of the things culturally that's interesting to me is
how much one is still I listened to myself talking
involved in these binaries. It's white, this, it's black that.
The fact is our cultural world. Yes, I mentioned Koreans,
(36:18):
but the cultural world is extremely varied, and we might
find that we are in one part of it that
we know very very well and then suddenly exposed to traditions,
um and legacy. However sympathetic and supportive we are, that
we are kind of ignorant of that. So I'm finding
so often I'm a I'm a novice again, including with
(36:41):
with pop music. You know, I don't mean don't get
me started on music, Yeah, don't get me started. Every
time I watched the Grammys, now I'm just like, wait,
who are these people? That's right, I don't know, and
I never thought I would get there. I always thought, no,
I stay current, I'm on top of this. And then
I watched the Grammys and I just think, I know Beyonce,
(37:02):
we do know, we do know her. That's right, and
that's you know. But I also take note and then
I go try and listen to their music so that
I can not necessarily keep up, but just know what's
happening exactly in the way, Because left to my own devices,
I'm going to listen to nineties R and B in
hip hop. That's just what I'm gonna do, and musicals,
and so I stay in my lane and then i'd
(37:25):
like pop out every now and again. You stand. Yeah.
Now that I've finished this book, I'm also curious about
where I'll be led next, what I'll decide, Margo, get
it in gear, you know, and really check this out.
Margot Jefferson, thank you so much for coming on the rock,
sand Gage, and you know what we used to say
in Good Girlhood, Thank you so much. I had a
(37:48):
very nice time, as did I, as did Margot Jefferson's
latest book is Constructing a Nervous System, a memoir. It
is on April twelfth at your favorite bookstore or library.
You can keep up with me and the podcast on
social media on Twitter at our Gay and Instagram at
(38:10):
Roxanne Gay seven four. Our email is Roxanne Gay Agenda
at gmail dot com from Luminary. The Roxanne Gay Agenda
is produced by Curtis Fox, our researchers Yasagna Mareno. Production
support is provided by Caitlin Adams and Meg Pillow I
am Roxanne Gay, your favorite, that feminist. Thank you so
much for listening.
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