'Talc: A Haitian Zombie Story' with Special Guest Jenna Chrisphonte | Zombie Book Club Ep 88 - Zombie Book Club

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:20):
Welcome to the Zombie Book Club, the only book club
where the book is a chillingreminder that people in power
can make any of us into zombies.
I'm Dan, and when I'm outtrying to decide if my anxiety
is a mental health issue or justa rational response to living
in a world built on genocide andexploitation, I'm writing a
book about how the powers thatbe love to use genocide and
exploitation to line theirpockets and how a zombie
outbreak might just be the besttool for them to achieve all of

(00:42):
their goals.

Speaker 2 (00:43):
That doesn't sound good.
It's already bad out here, DanI don't want to let that not
become real.
They need to stop taking myideas.
They really do, and I'm Leah.
And today we are beyond honoredto have Jenna Crisfanti with us
to talk about her excellentnovel Talc, a Haitian Zombie
Story.
Born in Haiti and raised in NewYork, jenna's novel follows

(01:03):
characters tied to Haitianculture across national
boundaries as they navigate aglobal zombie apocalypse.
Jenna is also an accomplishedplaywright, whose work has been
presented at venues like theClassical Theatre of Harlem and
so many more, and she previouslyserved as the director of Civic
Alliances at the PerelmanPerforming Arts Center and has
held key roles with theDramatist Guild of America and
Global Affairs Canada.

(01:24):
Welcome to the show, jenna.
We are so thrilled to have youhere.

Speaker 3 (01:27):
I'm excited to be with you today, absolutely,
absolutely overjoyed and excited.

Speaker 1 (01:35):
Me too.
We've got some rapid firequestions for you.
Don't worry, because we'lljudge you on your answers to
these questions.
Alright, so you get to choose.
You know there's zombies, weknow this, they're just out
there.
But you get to choose.
Are they fast or are they slowzombies?

Speaker 3 (01:55):
Are they fast or are they slow?
I can tell you it's the wrongquestion.
The question is are they weakor are they strong?
They are strong, and that iswhy this book was written on
this issue.
We'll get into that later, butI'll let you go with the other
question.
The question is are they weakor are they strong?
They are strong.

Speaker 1 (02:15):
That is an interesting question.
That's something that we don'ttypically ask.
Usually we just think of thespeed, because they catch up to
us fast.

Speaker 2 (02:25):
But if they're strong .

Speaker 3 (02:27):
That's also a problem but no, but if we're going back
to your faster slow, then theyare fast, because track stars
are strong too and they are fast, that's true they retain their
physicality yeah, so if they'reweak then they're slow that
makes sense.
Yeah, that makes sense right,stars are fast, but they are
strong.
If you were to punch a trackstar, it would hurt.

(02:48):
If a track star would havepunched you, it would hurt yeah,
I'll try not to um.

Speaker 1 (02:55):
I haven't been in any beefs with track stars, so I
think I can avoid that I thinkthere's other people much more
worth punching yeah, um, dondon't look at my blue sky.
Uh, so you know, you got, yougot your, you got your zombies.
Um, wait, did you choose weakor strong?
Strong, strong, strong, strong.

(03:15):
Okay, you picked your strongzombies, which also happened to
be fast.
Um what is your weapon of choice.
Weapon of choice for zombies isfire.
You know nobody's I don't thinkanybody's told us fire, but
it's definitely the best, thebest tool, guaranteed.
You know the fire does the workfor you.

(03:37):
Really, you know once you setit, it just goes.

Speaker 2 (03:41):
Yeah, you don't have to get in close contact.
That's also really smart.

Speaker 3 (03:44):
Well, you definitely avoid an after and, unlike
bullets, you can run out of.
Bullets you can run out of.
You know, you still have tosharpen knives or or blades or
swords.

Speaker 2 (03:56):
We don't run out of fire as long as you don't let's
just do this in california,though some places this might
not be the right strategy.

Speaker 3 (04:04):
If you think that, historically, whenever you had
extreme amounts, like in ancientRome, when they used to bury,
when they were treating bodies,they didn't bury them, they
burned them because it was oneto contain.
I mean, they didn't uselanguages like germs and
biomicrobial, they didn't havethat kind of language, but they
understood that if there wassomething that killed people and

(04:25):
you know the body is rotting,that other people could get sick
and that burning it keeps,whatever the insect I mean they
don't again, they didn't use theterms we use today, but they
understood, they knew inherentlythat the fires helped protect
everyone yeah, um, yeah, as longas that we're.

Speaker 1 (04:41):
we're watching a show called alone and currently
currently it's in Tasmania,australia, and it is so wet
there that nobody can start afire.
And, yeah, as long as thingsaren't wet, then I think the
fire is a good tool, but once itgets wet, oh my God, those poor

(05:02):
people.

Speaker 2 (05:03):
They're in trouble.
But also, I think this is a keypoint here, which is that when
the body is dead, you need toburn it.

Speaker 1 (05:08):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (05:09):
It doesn't matter if it's moving or not, you still
need to burn it.
This is a key thing that Ithink is a lesson here that
you're teaching us with zombies,yeah, and just for health.

Speaker 3 (05:18):
Yeah, we know that.
I mean that's one of you know.
They always tell you don'tserve raw chicken, you have to
cook it all the way.
There's no medium rare chicken,you have to cook it all the way
.
I think it's the same thingthat certain bacteria or certain
things that cause infectionshave to be cooked.
They have to be burnt, theyhave to be cooked to a certain
degree for it to go away.
I would follow that train ofthought.

Speaker 1 (05:41):
Speaking of food?
Okay, of thought, uh, speakingof food.
Okay, it's the zombieapocalypse and you get to choose
just one unlimited, shelf,stable food item to read, to eat
for the rest of your life.
Uh, what do you pick?

Speaker 3 (05:53):
self-stable product for the rest of your life.

Speaker 2 (05:56):
I think I'm gonna go with peanut butter yes, yeah,
this is becoming the best answerwhere it's starting to become a
theme, and I think it's alsoprobably the smartest answer.
But tell us why for you peanutbutter?
Because historically.

Speaker 3 (06:09):
Again, I'm going back to before all of these, because
now, today, in the year 2025,in the United States and so many
countries, meat is standard,but if you go back 2,000 years
ago, people did not eat meatevery single day.
Yeah, so that's first andforemost.
Secondly, when you saystabilize, so we're thinking,
okay, we have no power.

(06:29):
So even if I were to have a canof spam or a can of tuna fish,
I open it.
I, technically, we need to eateverything that's in that can
right then and there that day.
Because within what?
24, 36 hours?
Again, we don't have a fridge,it would go, it could go bad.
Whereas peanut butter, even ifit's a can or a jar, I open it.

Speaker 1 (06:47):
Even without refrigeration, it will hold yeah
, and there's just so much inthere too and it's like really
healthy, yeah, and yeah, I lovepeanut butter.

Speaker 2 (06:55):
I think it is the right answer to this question
which, if you're a future personthat's going to be on this
podcast one day and you'relistening you have to give us a
new, unique reason for peanutbutter.
I really think you have a goodreason.

Speaker 3 (07:12):
Yeah, the oil.
So peanut oil, because you know, if you use like the not the
fancy ones like Jif or Skippywhere it has, like, the honey in
it, not those, but the naturalones the oil separates from the
peanut butter.
You got to stir it back in thator you can use it for your skin
if you're going to use it, ifyou have a cut like, if you need
something to put on like,because sometimes if you take a

(07:32):
little bit of that oil, like ifyou have something on your hand,
you get it.

Speaker 1 (07:35):
You could use that too for other things that are
topical yeah, that is, you cancook with it if you find other
food out there.

Speaker 3 (07:42):
You got peanut oil for deep frying if it's raining,
if you have something else inyour body that's ailing, a
little bit of peanut oil that'sin the peanut because it
separates.
It doesn't spoil but it doesseparate a little bit of peanut
oil.
You could use it for yourelbows if you have a cut, if you
have a gash.
That could help to.
You know, there's no neosporinin the apocalypse, so a little

(08:03):
peanut oil might be a neosporinsubstitute.

Speaker 2 (08:06):
Honestly, I just want to keep my lips hydrated, and I
think you've solved my problem,because one of my fears of the
apocalypse is like what if Idon't have chapstick, jenna,
it's not going to be good.
You're going to have to testthis out.

Speaker 1 (08:19):
Maybe you'll be making the switch to peanut oil.

Speaker 2 (08:21):
Well, I've used coconut oil, but I'm like this
is not really.
You know, Vermont is not theplace where coconuts come from.
Well, peanuts either, but Well,that's true, but I think it's
going to have an easier timefinding peanuts.

Speaker 1 (08:32):
Yeah, I have one last question.
Yeah, and I almost skipped thisone because my eyes weren't
working right, but you know, yougot your zombie apocalypse.
You got your strong, fastzombies.
You got your peanut butter.
Um, yeah, you got your weaponof choice, fire.
You got a lot so much fire, uh,but, um, would you choose that

(08:57):
zombie apocalypse or would youchoose a 40-hour work week?

Speaker 3 (09:02):
a zombie apocalypse or a regular?

Speaker 1 (09:05):
40 hour work week.

Speaker 3 (09:06):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (09:07):
Only 40 hours, not any more than 40 hours, but you
definitely have to put in the 40.

Speaker 3 (09:13):
I could do the job.
I mean, that means I'm stillhaving all my, I still have
access to my car, I still haveinternet, I still have my phone,
I have all my clothes, heat andair conditioning.
But you know, I got to be to mycar.
I still have internet, I stillhave my phone, I have all my
clothes, heat and airconditioning.
But you know, I gotta be alittle nicer.
Maybe I work.
I would do it.

(09:33):
I think I could get through it.
I think I could.

Speaker 1 (09:35):
Ah, you know I I salute you because that sounds
tough for me.
You're braver than I can do it.

Speaker 3 (09:50):
I can do the 40 hour work week and be happy and like
good mood, understanding that onthe other end would be a zombie
apocalypse.
I'll play, I'd be happy.

Speaker 2 (09:55):
I'd be grateful it's a good point.
Yeah, to be like.
You know.
We should be grateful it's nota zombie apocalypse.
I think that might be.
I might need to like make asign in our house says it's okay
, it's not a zombie apocalypse.
There are people who listen tothis show, jenna, who really
want and would prefer a zombieapocalypse, so they're going to
disagree with us.

Speaker 1 (10:13):
We need us.

Speaker 2 (10:14):
Well, I've told you before I joke when I say I want
the zombie apocalypse.
I don't actually want it, Iwould.
I don't think that anybodyreally wants that, except for
you, maybe, and a few of ourreally intense listeners.

Speaker 3 (10:28):
True, I'm not wishing that on anyone.
No, I'm not wishing that onanyone.

Speaker 1 (10:33):
My comparison is the current apocalypses we face at
all times which is kind of whatyour book is about, in a way.

Speaker 3 (10:41):
Yeah, it is Overall and I don't want to give it away
, but overall it's about.
Well, I'll start with where itcomes from.
My husband is a huge fan ofwalking dead nice.
When it came out the very firstseason, he was hooked, and we
and my husband's white american,fourth generation italian

(11:02):
american from Queen and I wouldwatch the show with him and he
would hear me and I would justhe's like what you hemming and
hawing for?
What are you hissing about?
I'm like this is not whatzombies are like, and he's like
Gemma, zombies don't exist.
I go, but this is not whatzombies are like.

(11:24):
He goes what are you talkingabout?
I's like Gemma, zombies don'texist, I go, but this is not
what zombies are like.
He goes what are you talkingabout?
I was like zombies are strongand that's why because I
explained it and I'll explain itto you now, and this is the
explanation Coming from Haitizombies are a part the story of
zombies.
The idea of a zombie is quitereal.
So if you were to ask a Haitianperson who was born in Haiti,

(11:45):
reared in Haiti, grew up inHaiti, wherever they are in the
world right now have you everseen a zombie?
They would swear on their kids?
Yes, wow, not.
Oh, yeah, I think so.
No, they would swear on theirkids' lives Like you don't have.
That's an intense kind of appof information of like you know,
when they say, swear on theBible, swear on court.
No, I'm talking about myHaitian Santa Swear on my kids.

(12:07):
I've seen a zombie.
Why is that?
Here in New York City we haveour subway system.
I don't know if you've been toNew York City subway system.
It's its own thing, it's itsown maze of everything and this
is what I would compare it to InNew York City.
I grew up here in New York Citya lot of times you have, you
know, the diversity of people interms of everything, in terms

(12:28):
of education, money, age.
When you're in the subway, youreally do have so many people
coming into one space that younormally would not interact with
in any other city.
So in LA and Houston and Miami,you just don't.
I mean, you're three inchesaway from the other person and
you might just like you're threeinches away from the other
person.
So in New York City there's aterm it's a derogatory term, but

(12:50):
there is a term that is usedtoo often the term of crackhead.
Mind you, people don't knowthis person, they don't know
what happened to this person,they have no evidence of this.
But New Yorkers will see acertain person or certain
someone in the subway systemacting a certain way and, again
knowing nothing about thisperson in their head, will say,
oh, that's a crackhead, that's avery new york thing to see

(13:12):
someone and just say, well, it'sfucking crackhead, that is very
new york.
If you were to take what newyorkers you know too often label
as a crackhead and fly thatperson and drop them off in the
streets of haze patient people,that will that be zombie.
They would call the, they wouldcall that person a zombie.

(13:32):
That is the real part.
So in their head they're not.
I know from a sort of western oramerican point of view, they
think haitians are beingsuperstitious, like where and
that's what my book looks atit's like well, why is that?
And one of the things that Ilook at is big money because
quite often, huge pharmaceuticalcompanies.
Historically, how did they runtheir tests?

(13:53):
They ran their tests in poorneighborhoods, poor black
communities in the United States, poor black communities in the
Caribbean.
This is documented.
This happens in the Caribbean.
This is documented, thishappens.
So one of the things I look atis what happened?
How did that happen?
Because quite often it'sattributed to the culture of
Vodou.
Vodou is a religion in Haitiand often people say, well, they

(14:16):
were casting spells, they werecasting spells, they were
casting spells.
But the question is what doesit mean?
To cast a spell If someonecomes to youah or to you, dan,
and puts poison in your turkeysandwich?
That's not a spell, that'spoisoning.
Yeah, that's not magic, that'spoison.
But let's go back over 200 yearsago, more than that, because we

(14:38):
had our independence in 1804,but, let's say, during the time
of enslavement, when there weresome certain slave members who
refused to acquiesce or to givein.
It's an idea that I'm exploring.
This is completely fiction.
This is not scientific at all.
This is a fictional work, butit's the idea that one of the
ways that they controlledenslaved Africans on the island

(15:01):
of Haiti back thenSaint-Domingue, was to drug them
.
We've heard the story Peoplegot beat, some people got
amputated, some people gotseparated from their family and
sold somewhere else.
There are tales of how they,what techniques they would use
to control those who didn't wantto obey.
One of the ideas I explored wasokay, because I've asked,

(15:22):
because so many people haveasked me.
They describe what you see as azombie To me, and not just that
.
You see pictures of people thatthey've described as a crack of
asking me as a zombie in Haiti.
To me, having grown up in NewYork City, though I would in a
New York perspective point ofview, this person looks like
they're under the influence ofdrugs.
To me, that's what I see.
So my book looks at that wholething the question of big money,

(15:46):
big pharma, and what would havehappened over 200 years ago.
And remember, you know, whenyou think of certain countries,
you think of cocaine.
Haiti is not known for cocainebut in terms of climate, coca
leaves can be grown in Haiti.
So even though Haiti was not amanufacturer or export of
cocaine itself you know it wasnever that but it's sort of like

(16:07):
when you look at things likemangoes or guavas or pineapples,
climatically Haiti can growthose things, colombia can grow
those things.
By climate, even though Canadais beautiful, canada cannot grow
pineapple, and mango,culturally, physically, in terms

(16:28):
of climate zones, can be grownin haiti.
So I look at it and I just askmyself the question, because
they're adamant, like I mean anypatient person you would have
met, grow up in haiti, and askhave you seen some zombie?
Yes, we.
So what they all do this?
It's not one person, it's notone region, it's not one class,
it's not a question.
They all.

(16:48):
I've met haitian people, phds,haitian people who are
illiterate.
They all say yes, me, I don'tbe icy, yes, and I'm like.
Because I've heard this tillthe child, I was like they're
joking.
This thing must be joking butthey're not they, they're not
joking.
I've grown up and I've looked atdifferent things and then again
, the descriptions that Haitianpeople will give of zombies are

(17:11):
always strong, because, again,going back to the idea of
enslaved Africans who did notwant to obey, again compare that
to what New Yorkers call acrackhead Crackheads, even
though they're strugglingmentally, mentally, physically,
you would never step up to acrackhead, no, and think you
could do something, but you know, physically he could punch you
in your face.
He's retaining his physicality,his strength.

(17:32):
Now the question is in regardsto forced labor.
If the question is okay, I'llgive you this bits of cocaine in
some form, way or powder Idon't know what it would have
been, but but something derivedfrom cocolate at the time and
then you do the labor for 10hours a day and then you come
back, which is what a lot ofdrug addicts do.
They do how many things toobtain access to drugs.

(17:55):
And then they do that, butthey're not complaining anymore.
They'll do what you want.
And then they go to work.
They do what you want and theyto make work, but they still are
strong.
So they need them to, like,literally, plow fields.
They're plowing the field.
They need them to cut sugarcane.
They're cutting sugar cane.
So in my mind, I'm justexamining what it could have
been that so many Haitian peoplesay this outside of the context

(18:17):
of food, that they say that.
So I always look at it and allHaitian people believe in this.
Haitians in Haiti.
Again, there's a distinctionbetween Haitian people who grew
up in the United States andCanada and France and elsewhere,
but Haitians in Haiti, if yousee zombies, like the last time
I was in Haiti was 2018 andthere were a lot of unrest.
You know, can I confess what Idid, knowing Haitian people the

(18:38):
way I know Haitian people,because I am Haitian and I was
by myself.
I was in to do somethingadditional, but I was by myself
and I had to get around.
I was running a lot of errands,but you know, there's always a
risk.
You know what I carried with me?
I carried a little thing ofJohnson Johnson baby powder.
You know why?
Because I know the Haitianmentality so well and I had it

(19:00):
ready.
I was like if anything pops offat any time and I had it ready.
I was like if anything pops offat any time because I wasn't
going too far from my hotel,because everything was still
walkable because I wasn't doinglike more.
I wasn't going anywhere morethan like 10 or 15 miles.
I was like, if anything popsoff, I'm going to douse myself
in this Johnson Johnson babypowder, because if I walk
through the streets of Haitilooking like that, it would

(19:23):
classify me as a zombie.
So whatever is popping off be itgang, anything, political
unrest, whatever it would havebeen, or just someone wanting to
rob you Forget about politicalor gang and someone is like she
looks like she came in from NewYork two days ago.
Let me see what she got on.
Just the appearance of anythingzombie-like was like no, that's
not.
It Just like.
Again, if you're in the subwayin New York City and you think,

(19:43):
ok, I'm going to rob someone,you can go for the person in the
nice clean suit.
You're not going to go for theperson who looks like they
haven't bathed, because, again,that's that sense of like zombie
type.
It gives you that sort of like.
It looks like a zombie,literally.
You've been out in the streetfor too long.

Speaker 2 (20:05):
That's not the brilliant.
And your book is called Talk.
Your book is called Talk, yeah,and it's like in your book.
There's both these kind ofmoments where, like, talk has
this positive association, likewith Carnival, and then it also
has this really dark association, which is it's being used as
preparation to make people intozombies and then they're being
paraded and the smell of Talkand the powder you can see
coming when there's, withoutgiving anything away, there is

(20:26):
an army of zombies in this bookand it is intense and very scary
and I'm curious if you couldexplain that connection for the
listeners of talk and voodoo,voodoo.
I feel like you said it in away that I've never heard before
, which means I've been sayingit an American way.

Speaker 3 (20:41):
It's pronounced voodoo.

Speaker 2 (20:42):
Voodoo.

Speaker 3 (20:44):
Voodoo and yeah, so it's pronounced voodoo.
Voodoo and yeah so talc.
And it's fascinating to mebecause I watch it.
First of all, when I smellJohnson Johnson baby powder.
It smells like childhood, right, it's a friendly smell, it's a
familiar smell.
But you know it's been pulledoff the shelf.
It was lint-canned, that's myunderstanding.

(21:06):
There were so many lawsuits interms of it being carcinogenic.

Speaker 1 (21:09):
Wow.

Speaker 3 (21:10):
And that the company knew that it was carcinogenic
and it didn't tell people, andso many people got cancer from
it.
They had to pull it from theshelf and the lawsuits were
intense.
I wouldn't be surprised ifthey've had to pay out close to
a billion dollars by now.
Okay, I wouldn't be surprisedif they've had to pay out close
to a billion dollars by now.
But again it's a question of isit science or is it magic?
So, again, going back 200 yearswhen they're making because

(21:32):
again it's a question is itmagic, is it science?
And that's really the questionI'm asking, when people say, oh,
they cast so-and-so's cast aspell, did they cast a spell or
did they use poison you?
And the question is the sort ofvougon which is sort of like a
vaudou priest did he cast aspell or did he just poison you?
And the powder one of theingredients that quite often

(21:54):
would have been in such a powderwas talc.
So talc is a mineral at itscore, and talc does exist in
Haiti in terms of its.
What's the term Geology?
Oh, I does exist in haiti interms of its.
Um, what's the term geology?
Oh, I didn't know that.
It's like a mineral, like amineral.
So, like you know, iron, sulfur, all these it's in, it's in the
land.
So 100, over 200 years agothere was, there is still, talc

(22:15):
in haiti.
So what was it used for?
That's and that's the questionhow, and that maybe what was
going on in Haiti over 200 yearsago were early forms of
pharmacology, apothecaries, etc.
All of those type of things.
But yes, because, again, ifanyone puts, we all know now,
today, 2025, in the UnitedStates, if you ingest too much

(22:37):
health, you're going to get sick.
We didn't know that when wewere kids.
So when I'm 45 now, when I wasfive years old, that was not the
standard understanding oftalcum powder by Johnson and
Johnson.
Today it's different.
So imagine, and that's treated,that's assisted, that's
purified, it has perfume in itto make talc I mean Johnson and
Johnson baby powder, talcumpowder.

(22:57):
But let's imagine over 200years ago there's talcum powder
in Haiti.
What effect did that have onpeople?
So those are the questions thatI'm asking in the book.
Is it magic, is it science?
But it does have an effect.
So if we know today, talcumpowder in its best form, like
Johnson Johnson's powder in itsbest form, makes people sick 200

(23:18):
years ago, if people weretrying to use it to cause harm.
There's the other deep anddisappointing question and I
think it did.
I think it to cause harm.
There's the other deep anddisappointing question yeah, and
I think it did.
I think it did cause zombies orhad such an adverse effect that
people literally just likesomeone who's using drugs too
much or too often.
It happens so often that peopleliterally lose their capacity

(23:38):
to function and reason all theway, and that's what I'm sort of
examining in the series.

Speaker 2 (23:44):
It makes a lot of sense and it goes back to what
you were saying about like whyburn bodies?
Or like why is fire the bestweapon, and that in egypt they
burned bodies.
They didn't have the words thatwe have, but they had the
knowledge.
They just had a different wayof talking about it.
And I think there's this reallyamazing juxtaposition in your
book between this uh farmpharmaceutical company, which I

(24:05):
know is uh, diva.
I don't think I'm saying, am Isaying that right?

Speaker 3 (24:08):
diva pharma I mean, it's not a.
It's not a real word, it's just, it's a made-up name.
It's not a real word.

Speaker 2 (24:13):
It's not a real company, yeah I mean, but I,
yeah, and you know I don't thinkanyone here is fan of
pharmaceutical companies.
I'm gonna take a wild guess,but there's.
So there's devotee pharma,pharma.
And then there is a verypowerful man in haiti, uh guo
piero, and both of them aremaking potions that involve
things like talc and they'redoing other things to well, and

(24:36):
the pharmaceutical company isdoing like weird genetic
manipulation stuff, but they arealso using talc in some ways.
But both of them are makingpotions to control people and to
profit, and they just havedifferent explanations for the
same phenomenon.
And I think that what I reallyappreciate about that is in the
way that I grew up and how whatI was taught is like science is

(24:58):
the way to know things, it isthe superior way, and I don't
think that that's true.
I think that lots of cultureshave ways of sharing knowledge.
That's just a different way ofsharing the same thing, and
that's what I feel like ishappening in your book.
There's these like reallystrong parallels for me the
whole way through.

Speaker 3 (25:13):
Yeah, and I think the other part of Gualtiero is that
he's a pharmacist himself,because that was part of
European culture too, thatapothecaries hundreds of years
ago were classified in some way,shape or form, under magic, and
then it became, you know,apothecaries became pharma, you
know pharmacists and somethingelse.
But there was a tremendoushistorical overlap between the

(25:35):
use of pharmacology and the useof apothecaries.
And then magic to medicine andmedicine to match.
There was huge it does.
I don't think I don't knowwhere one starts and one ends.
I know that they go back andforth quite often, but I don't
know where one starts and oneends.
And that's very true in Haiti,because quite often, you know, I
want to say, with the fall ofthe Juvia regime in 1986, over

(26:00):
51% of the Haitian populationwas illiterate.
In 1986, when it fell, theregime fell, over 51% of the
Haitian population wasilliterate.
In 1986, when it fell, theregime fell, over 51% of the
population was illiterate.
So how were they surviving?
If you can't read, so, you'redefinitely not understanding
full medical discourse onanything.
So they were going back to thestory in terms of what they had
and what they're doing, and theonly thing I can say to that is

(26:24):
right now.
The Haitian population isestimated to be somewhere at 11
million, whereas very, verywealthy countries like Japan, a
lot of the EU countries, arestruggling with fertility rates
right now, struggling withfertility rates as a country
full countries struggling,whereas Haiti does not have
universal health care.
Countries are struggling,whereas Haiti does not have
universal health care.
I don't know if it's still.

(26:45):
The majority of the populationis illiterate, but it's
interesting to me.
How does that work for theHaitian population Technically,
even with not enough food,certainly not enough education,
struggling with running water,have been able to maintain their
collective health?
That's a question.
I'll be very honest with you.
Out of my four grandparents,three of them died in their 80s.

(27:08):
My family was literate, likeall four of my grandparents, but
most of them weren't.
I think it was a testament toHaitian understanding of trees
and plants and leaves and fruitand vegetables, inherently
inherent understanding of what'saround them, so that they could

(27:28):
survive, because there wasn'tthe capacity to go to doctors at
every single turn.
So if something was wrong orscratched you with your throat,
they knew exactly which kind oftea to make you.
There are certain types of teasthat my mom used to make for us
.
She used to make the peels fromthe garlic that wasn't thrown
away.
The garlic peel, that's tea andsomething's scratching your

(27:51):
throat.
You've got to have garlicpeeled tea.
Then go and ask for a few hours, see how you feel and it works.
That's one thing that, to me,is Haitian culture is that, even
though Haiti is notindustrialized, when you talk
about doing the best with whatyou have, that's the spirit of
Haiti.

Speaker 1 (28:09):
A big part of what I love about the zombie apocalypse
and, just in general, theculture of people prepping and
becoming more self-reliant, iswe're realizing that there are
these old ways of doing thingsthat worked for thousands and

(28:29):
thousands of years that oursociety has kind of forced us to
forget.
You know, a lot of people don'teven realize that, like, if you
walk past a lemon tree in la,that lemon is the same lemon you
would buy in a store.
You can.
You can pick it off of the treeand eat it.
Well, I mean, maybe not eat thelemon, but you know use the

(28:50):
lemon, yeah, yeah and uh, andwe're kind of coming back to
that and I think, like thinkingabout the zombie apocalypse has
always like given me like a, afun way to think about studying
these things, and I think thatit's interesting how um haiti is
already.
You know, they've, they've,they've maintained this
knowledge because they've alwaysneeded the knowledge yeah, yeah

(29:14):
, they've had.

Speaker 3 (29:15):
You know, um, they have to, they've been forced to.
That's because I mean, yes,they're, they're right now.
The political unrest right nowis intense.
So many of the doctors and thenurses and fully certified
doctors and nurses have had toleave Haiti because the violence
is so intense.

(29:35):
So hospitals have shut down,not because they don't exist,
but there's no one to staff them.
Wow.
But even with that, you know,especially in the outer
provinces I'm not talking aboutthe capital of Port-au-Prince,
but the exterior provinces,people who live on the outside
for some families, they'resurviving on what's there when

(29:56):
it comes to sort of healthcare.
So, whatever their familieswould have done.
I mean, the favorite thing thatHaitian people love, it's like,
if you want to get ready forthe zombie apocalypse, I can
tell you what Haitian peoplelove.
It's like, if you want to getready for the zombie apocalypse,
I can tell you what Haitianpeople would have survived on
it's castor oil.
In Creole it's calledrin-ma-ki-ti, but you have
something wrong with your skin,something wrong with your body.

(30:17):
You have a swollen, anything,something they're going to rub
you down in castor oil and bringyou back.
Castor oil can also be ingested.
Oh, it can be ingested.
So if someone were sufferingfrom any sort of intestinal or
tummy issue, they're going tohave you sit down some castor
oil.
So I mean there are a thousandand one reasons or ways that
Haitian people have survived offof just castor oil.

(30:39):
No doctors, no health care, noinsurance.
They're surviving off of cash.
I'm not saying I obviously Iwant haiti to have full
industrial, 21st century healthcare, but I'm just telling you
how they survive yeah, that'sfascinating because I don't
think I've ever had castor oilin any home I've ever lived in
it's here right now it

Speaker 2 (30:58):
is.
This is what shows you.
This is what shows you a genderbreakdown.
Is that?
I know castor oil from a beautyperspective.
It can supposedly help screwyour hair.
I put it on my eyelashes, myeyebrows, I've used it on my
skin, but yeah, as a white cisman over there, I'm sure the
Western one, but I didn't knowabout its healing properties and
I think, like, obviously, Ithink it goes without saying.

(31:20):
I agree with you, like Haitideserves and the people of Haiti
deserve to have all of thethings that I have access to
here in North America as amiddle class person, and I think
that capitalism and the waythat it works has deliberately
abstracted those things from usso that we think we have to take
a pill all the time and I'm notsaying we don't need pills.

(31:41):
I'm on medication that I need,but we don't know that it comes
from plants.
We don't know that we can usecastor oil.
You just taught me about peanutoil.
I've never thought about peanutoil as a healing thing and we
really need, as a people in thisworld, to get more in touch
with what's around us and how wecan connect with it and use

(32:01):
that for how we survive and dowell and also have running water
and all the wonderful thingsthat we're lucky to have here.
Yeah, I want to dive into someof your characters, because
you've got some really awesomecharacters and you follow four
people throughout.
There's lots of other greatfolks, but the four folks are T
Joseline, samantha Savin,guopiero and Chris the Cop.

(32:23):
I forget what his last name is,but I think of him as the
Golden Retriever Cop and Iwanted to start.
Since we talked about Guopieroa little bit, I wanted to hear a
little bit more from you aboutwhat inspired his character,
because he's complex, he's notgood and he's not bad.
He's a lot of things in thisstory.
So who is he to you?

Speaker 3 (32:42):
So for me, Gopal represents a ruling class in
Haiti.
There is a ruling class inHaiti.
People don't see that, butthere is a ruling class in Haiti
.
Definitely part of that.
In his way, I think, whatpeople don't realize about Haiti
, the majority of Haiti, eventhough the majority of Haiti
again, I can't speak to thenumbers now, but with the fall

(33:03):
of the Javadiyah regime in 1986,the majority of the Haitian
people were illiterate.
But today I would say with anutter confidence that the
majority of Haitian people,meaning 51% of the Haitian
population, in Haiti they speakdifferent amounts French,
English, Spanish and HaitianCreole.
Because I remember the last timeI was there in, I was in front

(33:25):
of the Marriott Hotel.
There was an older woman, asbeautiful as she was, but she
was older.
I couldn't tell.
She could have been 75, 80years old, you can't tell.
Sometimes with an older ladyand she was so canny and sweet
to the tourists.
She was doing it in French, inSpanish, and she was counting
out the money in Spanish, inEnglish, in French.
Ninety-nine cents, Dos cientos.
She was giving it to them infour languages.

(33:46):
And I'm looking at her.
I was like she might not beliterate, but she knows that she
has to count out her money infour languages, and to me,
that's the spirit of Haiti.
What it shows is that, eventhough he was educated in france
because there's a huge part ofthat population that will I mean
, even before castro.
Let's even go further back whenhaiti gained its independence,

(34:08):
when the us closed or um,essentially um implemented trade
embargoes against haiti.
It could no longer sell itscoffee, its chocolate, its
commodities to the United States.
So what happened was one of theways that they did it.
They started shipping thingswith Spain, so, even though it
wasn't independent yet.
But what was Cuba then and whatwould eventually become the

(34:30):
Dominican Republic?
That's how Haitian peoplestarted.
And then you go to what becamewhat would become now Colombia,
Venezuela, Ecuador.
That's such a part of Haitianculture to speak Spanish.
People don't realize that somany Haitian people will speak
English to a certain degree howwell, I don't know, but in a
functional way.
It's the exact opposite of alot of Americans who, even if

(34:52):
they're wealthy and have hadaccess to I mean literally
cotton-level universityeducation, if you ask them more
than two sentences in English,they can't give a cheat, Because
it's the expectation that theUnited States is the best.
Why do I have to keep theseother languages?
People said that I rememberthis and I went to public
schools here in New York Citybut there were kids every
semester, every single term,would say why do I have to learn

(35:15):
Spanish?
I'm not going there was thatpart I've never had.
Why y'all learn Spanish, I'mnot going?
There was that part Not.
Who had kids in Queens who wouldsay things like that out loud,
yo, mister, I'm not trying to beout loud in Colombia or in
Spain.
Why y'all be learning Spanish?
Not who had Queens spirit, butit's bigger.
Because the United States islike that.
You have very wealthy Americanswho say that same thing.

(35:37):
Well, you know, english isenough.
I don't really need it and theydo that.
You'll see them go into their Imean, I used to live and work
in Paris.
Americans go into establishmentsspeaking English under the
assumption that everyone mustspeak English with them.
They do that in countries allthe same, and people are looking
at them as Haitian people, evenif your family, specifically,

(35:59):
is wealthy in Haiti.
That is not the expectation.
The expectation is that if I'mHaitian and when I travel abroad
, I must speak the otherlanguage.
So so many Haitian people arepolyglot.
You won't realize that, but alot of Haitian people are
polyglot.
It's inherent to Haiti, just tosurvive.
So the wealthy families inHaiti, like a in Haiti that
would own a chain of pharmacies.

(36:21):
Imagine this, let's just put usin 2025.
Whoever's running, let's say,the pharmacies in Haiti today,
they close the airports and theports in Haiti.
What is that person doing tobring in goods or commodities?
That means he's sending a truckinto the Dominican Republic.
When he calls DominicanRepublic, they don't speak
Creole, they don't speak French.

(36:41):
And then he has to place thatorder in Spanish and send his
staff and his truck to go pickup his deliveries and his
commodity.
You know whatever he's lookingfor.
So it would be the same formedicine, for fresh eggs and
milk, for petrol, whatever he'slooking for.
That is part of Haitian cultureand the very poor in Haiti too,

(37:03):
when you think of people who arereally living day-to-day.
They all go into the DominicanRepublic to pick mangoes or cut
sugar cane and again, whenthey're in the Dominican
Republic, no one's speakingCreole or French to them.
They have to speak French.
So that part of Gopiero isinherent Haitian.
People have to be internationaljust to survive, and I think
Gault Pierrot represents thegrowing class in Haiti in that

(37:24):
he is international.
The fact that he lives inFrance, the fact that he can
speak perfect English, the factthat he is still in Haiti, it
shows what's going on, becausethat's part of Haiti.
They all are like that.

Speaker 2 (37:36):
This is an amazing conversation, and what I love
about talking to folks like youis I just never know what we're
going to talk about in aninterview.
I think I'll just say brieflythat the United States and I'd
say a lot of Canada, although atleast we are required to learn
French from a young age has somearrogance that we should assume
that everybody speaks English,and I think that we would all be

(37:57):
better served to take on thatpolyglot perspective and realize
that it's when you're going tosomebody else's house you follow
their rules, you speak theirlanguage, you try at least.
So I want to no, it's very true, go ahead.
Oh, no, it's okay, I wanted totalk with you about or actually
I'm going to pass it to you, dan, it to you, dan to talk about

(38:19):
chris oh, chris the cop, andthen we'll talk about t just
jocelyn and samantha.

Speaker 1 (38:21):
Yeah, so, uh, you have a character, um, chris,
he's a cop.
Um, who's leah has referred toas the uh, a golden retriever of
a character um, I can kind ofimagine what she means by that
um, but he's not like a typicalcop character.
He's kind of like he's asocially conscious type of

(38:42):
person, supports Black LivesMatter, reads NASA articles.
Again, this is another complexcharacter.
What made you want to flip theusual cop stereotype on its head
in that regard?
In that regard, Because I think.

Speaker 3 (38:59):
Well, I think to me, the most interesting part of
that, of his character is thefact that he's wealthy, because
wealth is not always expressedthe same way, right?
So when people say, you know,they use the term new money,
that's a thing.
People who've got to like wearthe Gucci glasses and I've got
to show you I've got a Versacebelt, like that whole thing.

(39:20):
That's so new money.
There are people who literallyhave never experienced the lack,
and I've seen this in real lifetoo often and I've seen it so
often that it's scary.
There's so many people thatI've met who truly grew up with
money, who truly grew up withtheir parents going to some of
those name brand universities orbeing extremely well known in

(39:41):
their communities, like I'mtalking about in terms of
government or politics orbusiness sectors you name it.
The people I met whose familiesreally grew up in abundance, in
all forms of abundance.
I found that they're not theracist ones, but I'm not joking,
I'm being sincere.
I felt like the people whoreally had things are not the

(40:05):
ones out here doing all this.
I feel like you know the abuse,the mistreatment comes from the
lack.
I really do.
I've seen that so often it'sscary.
So when I meet someone and thisis probably a punishment I see
someone and they're doing toomuch, the car's too flashy, the
clothes are too flashy, it'sthis sort of like flashy, flashy

(40:26):
, flashy, look at me.
I always step back like why areyou doing too much?
Why are you doing all this?
You know, I think, to speakabout police here in New York um
, a lot of families, a lot offamilies that were once working
class became little class byjoining NYPD.
So remember, to join the NYPD,I mean they just changed it.

(40:48):
They lowered the amount ofcredits.
I don't know what they loweredit to, but officially for New
York City, for NYPD, you have tohave 60 credits.
Not an associate's degree, nota bachelor's degree.
You have to have 60 creditsBecause remember the finished
degree you need to have tofollow very specific rules.
Even for associates that meansyou have to have this credit and
this and this and this and mathand math.
You know it's very specific toget the degree.
Like, you need to have thismuch in science, this much in

(41:09):
math, this much in this to getthe degree.
Same thing for bachelor's.
There's a structure.
You're why it's not that forNYPD you have to have 60 credits
.
So the kid wants to go in anddo 60 credits of physical sports
therapy.
If he does those 60 credits hecan become NYPD.
He has to complete the credits.
They just lowered that now andI think that's the way

(41:32):
Truthfully.
And I've met great cops and it'snot to insult cops.
There's been so many lives lostby cops across the country but
again, I really found thatpeople who come from actual
abundance don't act like thatsincerely, and that's not trying
to prop up the rich or toglorify the rich, because this
billionaire culture is a newthing.

(41:53):
Right, this is a very new thing.
This billionaire culture, seenright, this is a very new thing.
That billionaire culture, didit exist?
Did it exist?
I don't know, I was born in1979.
Maybe Warren Buffett was abillionaire in 1979.
Was he?
I think he was probably one ofthe few yeah, probably.
I think it was Warren Buffett, Ithink there were corporations
of billionaires, but individuals, when we talk about wealth and

(42:17):
abundance in the American sortof environment, it meant a very
specific thing.
It meant you owned your house.
It meant that your parents heldsort of advanced educations or
positions.
It meant that you were not indebt anywhere.
You know what it meant.
It meant that you traveled anda certain thing, but I just I
don't know.
So that's where Chris comesfrom.
Chris comes from thisunderstanding that the best

(42:40):
people are not trying to hurtpeople because they weren't hurt
.
They came from a differentperspective and they're not
trying to do all this extrastuff.
I think that's where Chris comesfrom.

Speaker 1 (42:50):
So they're like not you know down here like trying
to scrape for everything they'vegot, and they have a lot of
opportunities to like educate iswhat you're saying.

Speaker 2 (42:59):
And they also don't have the risk, and that's why.

Speaker 3 (43:02):
Chris is handsome.
I'm a guy who's handsome and wasnever broke.
I promise you he's not going tounderstand why people out here
fight.
I'm sincere.
Look at a man.
I think it's for women too.
Look at someone who isnaturally not plastic surgery,
not makeup, just naturally had apretty face.
They're not out here doing allthis stuff.

(43:24):
They're not out here causingpeople problems.
In the same way, there'ssomething that's missing, that
causes the attacks, the abuse,but there's something that
happens.
But for me, because I've metpeople like this, I've met men
who were tall, who were handsome, who never experienced poverty,
and when you talk to themyou're like nothing's wrong and

(43:44):
they don't get.
And I think that they don't getwhy I'm out here fighting, like
what's the issue?

Speaker 2 (43:50):
I think that is because I've met so many people
like that I mean that makessense just from the um, the
premise that billionaires andthe powerful class need to point
at somebody.
So if you're thinking about,like a poor white person or a
person who has a history offamily that struggled, we all
know that we don't want uslooking up right so that we have

(44:11):
to create this idea of race andcreate this idea that, like, we
deserve at least a little bitmore than these other people who
we've decided are a differentrace from us.
And then now this is like thisreality that we're all living in
with racism.
So I think what I'm hearing yousay is like that's less
necessary for a person who haswhat they need.
They're not as gullible forthat.
That perspective.

(44:31):
Is that what I'm hearing, orwould you say more?

Speaker 3 (44:34):
I think so.
I think there are people whoare, because it's not just
wealth, it's also the internalpart, that piece, that sense of
actual.
Some people actually have that,because I know that a lot of
marketing companies or designerclothing companies or you know
whoever they're trying to makeus think we need to wear a
$3,000 dress to be pretty.

(44:56):
But if I promise you AngelinaJolie or Halle Berry wearing a
Hanes t-shirt, they don't needthe $3,000 dress.
They knew, I mean I'm talkingabout.
Take the cheapest Hanes t-shirtand put that on Halle Berry,
put that on Angelina Jolie whenthey were 15, they were pretty

(45:16):
without the designer theme and Ithink that's an acknowledgement
that a Chris type would haveknown that.
So if you're tall and you'rehealthy and you really did grow
up with parents who were, youknow, all teenagers at some
point found their parents out oftheir nerves.
That's a different thing.
But overall you were fine.
You were never like strugglingin such a way.
I think it's a thing I reallydo.

Speaker 1 (45:44):
Because if you look at people around here causing
the most harm they live throughharm, that's a real thing.
Yeah, that makes sense.
Um, something that I, uh, I'veI really found interesting in
your book was how, um, your book, you know, while it's, while
it's a a work of it alsoincludes a lot of real-life
stuff that's actually happeningin Haiti, like the cholera

(46:04):
outbreak, and some other things,too, that we might talk about
later.

Speaker 2 (46:08):
Oh, we're talking about Clinton.
We can't not talk about that.

Speaker 1 (46:25):
From my own point of view, I haven't really known a
whole lot about these thingsother than the brief little
snippet that you see on the news, maybe.
So this was kind of interestingto see that perspective built
into this story and see it fitso clearly.
What made you want to includereal-world things into this
story?

Speaker 2 (46:41):
Yeah, real world tragedy amidst also a zombie
apocalypse.

Speaker 3 (46:45):
Well, I think it's always there.
It's always there, like whenyou read regular fiction,
regular novels.
They always allude to thingsthat are real.
If you read Jane Austen, thereare allusions to the queen.
Whoever would have been king orqueen at that time they're
referenced.
It's a time tool, right, it's atime tool.

(47:06):
Trump is listed in therebecause he was president when
that book came out.
It's a time tool, so it letsyou know that shit's already hit
the fan, literally right.
If you're reading a book andthey reference the president as
FDR or Eisenhower or Kennedy, italready places you in your
sphere.

(47:26):
It's a writing tool to name thepresident or to name whoever
would have been the head of themonarchy at the time.
It's a writing tool Instead ofsaying it's 1936 or 1936,
because that's a harder, morebulky.
But if you say Trump saidPresident Trump said, we know
what century we're in, we knowwhat decade we're in, and I

(47:47):
think it makes it clearer to thereader.
But it's not.
I mean, that's another bookthat you could just use to
attack Hitler's state.
But for me it's more aboutreferencing time and again, even
referencing clinton.
That references time.
But we know, once we sayclinton, we know it's past
jubilee yeah, and it's also.

Speaker 2 (48:09):
It also taught it also like refers to the power
dynamics at that time, like thefact that the cholera outbreak
is caused by the un, for example.
Um, which, like these, arethings I didn't know, so thank
you for putting that in yourbook, cause then I spent down a
rabbit hole reading about allthis stuff and being like whoa.
Like whoa that's my mostarticulate quote for this
episode.

(48:29):
That was how I felt when I wasreading it.
But, like, the UN wasresponsible in some ways for
that cholera outbreak, or how,um, the clinton foundation
exploited a catastrophe with thehurricane to actually um not
actually put all the moneytowards haiti, and other people

(48:49):
were profiting uh, non-profitswere profiting.
So those power dynamics, Ithink, are also really important
in the book.

Speaker 3 (48:55):
Uh, and that they're absolutely there, absolutely
there, like I mean, people don'tsee it that way.
The haiti, in many, many ways,is like hey, america's you know
bastardized, unclaimed,illegitimate child that they
don't acknowledge.
So like if your father was they.
I mean, if you're a whitefamily, middle class or you know

(49:16):
wealthy white family, yourfather had a black mistress on
the other side of town and then,yeah, somewhere else he's a
half-sister.
Wow, that no one wantsknowledge who your father's
name's not on their birthcertificate.
But when you see her,everyone's like, oh my,
truthfully, it's like ArnoldSchwarzenegger, who has a kid

(49:36):
with his housekeeper.
He has, like how many.
I think he has four kids in therestrival, beautiful kids.
But of all the four kids he hasin the restrival, the kid he
has with the housekeeper looksjust like him Fitting image.
And I think Haiti, in many ways,is like you know, the United
States is.
You know, undeclared,bastardized, illegitimate child.

(49:59):
We're always here.
If there had not been anAmerican Revolution, there would
not have been a HaitianRevolution.
They're one and the sameAmerican trade between Haiti and
the United States back andforth.
That was its economy.
When America imposed a tradeembargo, it was severe.
It's like we're not going togive you anything.
Stay out there.

(50:19):
Meanwhile, the reason why allthese Africans were brought onto
the island of Saint-Germain wasto grow the chocolate and the
coffee and all these othercommodities to send to the US.
That's why we were there.
If there had not been a UnitedStates, there would not have
been a Haiti.
So it's that part that I thinkAmericans don't want to
acknowledge.

(50:39):
It's that part they don't wantto acknowledge where it comes
from when people talk about thispart.
Just to go back to the UN, whenUN workers came into Haiti, it
was documented.
This is not gossip, this isproven that a lot of UN workers
raped women and children.
Wow, un workers raped women andchildren in.
Wow, un workers raped women andchildren.

(51:00):
And then Haiti.
I mean, it's those things thatI get upset about.
It's just that because whenpeople malign and insult Haiti
or Haitian people, they don'twant to talk about their own
behavior and the things thathave occurred.
And that's why I always comeback and bring it to them,
because I do, and that's why Iwas coming back and bringing to
them Because I do.

(51:20):
I have worked with people fromvery, very from the UN and all
these different institutions andfoundations.
I've been to these places, butI always looked, I would sit in
the back and just like listen.

Speaker 2 (51:32):
I'm like okay, because they're bullshit, yeah,
and they're just as sorry,they're just as bad with the aid
, the aid organizations, a lotof the time as the more overt
acts like interfering in Haitianelections and the embargoes,
right, and I think that was akey thing that I really
appreciated being pointed out inyour book.
Just a little bit of backgroundabout myself, my background in

(51:55):
international developmentstudies, and so I went into that
thinking, jenna, like oh, I'mgoing to go.
I had like full weight saviorcomplex, I'm going to go, I'm
going to save the world, I'mgoing to do all these great
things.
And then, thankfully, I had alot of really good professors.
That was like wait a second,leah, let's talk about how we
got to this place where placeslike Haiti have all of these

(52:16):
struggles and places like Canadaare doing so well.
It is not because one of thosecountries is just not figuring
it out right.
It's a very deliberateoppression and exploitation.
And I realized it was a reallyharsh reality to realize when I
had that naive, 18-year-old viewof myself that, in actuality,

(52:36):
so much of what we get incountries like the United States
and Canada and Europe is on thebacks of exploitation of
countries like Haiti, and thatincludes aid.
It includes the things that aresupposedly good, quote unquote
that we're doing for othercountries that ultimately are
very often about just makingmore Americans or more Canadians
more money.

Speaker 3 (52:55):
This is all true.
This is all true.
You know what I think of now,because Americans have taken so
much for granted Again to me.
I always try to be grateful.
So Dan's question of would yourather a zombie apocalypse or a
40-hour workweek I will alwayspick the 40-hour workweek
because it's not a joke, youknow, it's real.
I mean real catastrophes happen.

(53:16):
I don't think the Americanpopulation understands, because
Haiti's had puppet government.
Haiti has had people who servedas head of state who were
appointed by an outside figure.
This is the first time thatthis has happened in the United
States to such an extent.

Speaker 1 (53:31):
Yeah, we're dipping our toes into it.
Give it another try.

Speaker 3 (53:35):
Not even dipping our toes.
We're fully on the end of thepool, like it's all the way, and
I look at this.
I'm like this is insane, butthis is what has happened to
Haiti for a very long time thatdifferent heads of state were so
.
The last time Jean-BaptisteMoise was assassinated and I
think, the one I would reallyhighlight in terms of

(53:57):
ridiculousness the presidentbefore him was Michel Martelly.
Michel Martelly is a very, veryaccomplished musician.
So start like 1980s, all theway until his election.
When was he elected?
2010?
You know, he was arguably themost famous, most accomplished
musician and he's so popularwith the people that when he ran

(54:20):
for president, he won.
How Michel Martelly is that?
He and this is not slander andthis is not defamation, because
there are pictures of thisonline he's a crackhead.
There are pictures of himsmoking crack.
There are songs where he talksabout cutting up the cake,
cutting up the coupe g.
I think that I believe that's acocaine reference.
I believe so.
No, I'm wrong.
He's very handsome.

(54:41):
Again, polyglot.
You can find videos of MichelMarceli as head of state of
Haiti in French and Spanish andEnglish and Creole, delivering
speeches with a suit like,looking like the head of state
he's supposed to be, but thatwas not him operating in real
time.
That was not him operatingindependently.
He was under the influence of adrug that I believe controlled

(55:01):
by the United States.

Speaker 2 (55:03):
I feel like I just keep saying wow in this
conversation, jenna, yeah.

Speaker 3 (55:08):
He was a zombie.
Yes, exactly, it's about azombie.
So what Dan mentioned beforeabout is it fast or is it slow?
But for me, the way I wouldalways answer that question,
above all else it's about yourphysicality versus your mind.
Because zombies, there aresicknesses that people get that

(55:30):
render them frail, where theycan never cause harm.
So if someone has I don't knowlymphoma, or someone has
leukemia, or someone has arespiratory ailment, they cannot
, even if they wanted to punchyou.
So certain illnesses or certainthings you physically cannot
inflict harm.
So that sickness takes yourphysicality, it upends your

(55:53):
physicality.
But I think about what uniteszombies even if they're slow,
they still have some measure oftheir physicality which allows
them to inflict harm, slow orfast, yeah.

Speaker 1 (56:05):
And that's by their numbers.
That tracks across all zombiemedia as well.
While they're rotting andshuffling along, they grab you
or they bite you, it doesn'tmatter what you're wearing, they
go right through it.
So it does make sense thatyou're that you know zombies
would be physically strong.
It's like they ignore.

Speaker 2 (56:25):
They ignore their frailty, yeah we're gonna have
to I think we're to revise ourquestion.
Yeah, uh, because of thisconversation, um, but I do want
to make sure that we give the uhtime and space to two of your
other really powerful characterst j Jocelyn and Samantha Savin.
They're two main Haitian femalecharacters and they have some
similarities but also strikingdifferences.

(56:46):
In some ways, they felt liketwo sides of the same coin and I
wanted to know a little bitmore about what inspired you to
create both of these characters.

Speaker 3 (56:53):
Sure so in Haiti it's like a coin cloth.
I'm glad you use the word coinbecause it's like a coin toss,
unlike the United States orCanada and EU countries.
Even if you're not born intowealth, because the public
education system is so strong,it's so hard.
I'm not trying to oversimplifyor talk about fairy tales.

(57:16):
I'm not even talking aboutfairy tales but the educational
system is so established that,even literally, if you grew up
with just regular working classparents or, let's say,
illiterate, you really go.
You know who I think of this.
Remember Faith Hill, thecountry singer?
Say the name again, faith Hill.
She had that song that saidbreathe yes.

(57:36):
Faith Hill talked about this.
Her father was illiterate andshe spoke about that.
She spoke about thatextensively, that growing up
down south and her father wasilliterate, what that was like
for her.
But the example you know.
And she's older.
How old is she?
She has to at least be 50, 50.
She has to at least be 50 yearsold.
Now she is older than I am, butthat shows you that at the

(57:56):
united states, at a basic, thateven if you're born to a family
that was illiterate just theeducation, wherever you are in
the 50 states, you will betaught to read because it's
institutionalized.
I think the character betweenSamantha and Tijousli, the
difference in Haiti, shows whereit's a twin cost.
So if you're born to a familyand they don't know how to read,

(58:18):
your life will not have thesame courses, whereas Samantha
was born into a family that hadthe full capacity to read and
then that means they moved tothe United States.
They had regular To be animmigrant and to move to the
United States or Canada orEurope and you don't know how to
read.
It's too much impossible tomake any.
It's not even about writinghoity-toity academic papers.

(58:42):
You have to be able to read,you have to Like if you're going
to get through the streets ofNew York, if you can't read, you
can't ride the subway.
I mean, I think people try, butit's I'm talking about like
1970s New York you have to knowhow to read, whereas for C
Joseph, you grow up with afamily that didn't know how to
read and it was stuck.
And those are the parts.
That's the difference withinHaitian culture, that it's not

(59:05):
guaranteed, whereas here in theUnited States, for whatever
reason, if your parents wereliterate, if you enter a public
school in any of the 50 states,you will read, reading I mean,
assuming that you're not alearning disability or something
else but you're going to haveaccess to reading.
I think that's the differencewith the Indonesian culture that
people don't understand is, ifyou don't have access to a

(59:26):
school, you really don't haveaccess to a school and you don't
know what's new next.
And I think Tijosi's characteris special because she does find
Gopiabu and Gopiabu gives herthe opportunity to come into

(59:47):
another element of herself andto grow past what she's already
been, because a lot of patientwomen do that too.
A lot of patient women do that,that they're born into the most
abject and dire situations, butthey come through beautifully
and she just didn't represent alot of patient women who've done
extraordinary things withliterally nothing.
Nothing there's nothing and theydone extraordinary things with
literally nothing, nothing Withnothing.
And they do extraordinarythings just through grit, pure
grit.
And Samantha, you know, I thinkshe represents Haitian people

(01:00:08):
who grew up outside of theUnited States, excuse me,
outside of Haiti, be it in theUnited States or in France or in
Canada.
It's a very different thingthat you're still Haitian, cause
we're always reminded thatwe're Haitian.
Canada, not as much because youcan have a French last name.
In Canada, they assume you'refrom Quebec.
But in the United States youhave a French last name.
If you are nowhere near thestate of Louisiana, people are
like where are you from?

(01:00:28):
And it just feels like a Blackperson.
Like if I were a white womanand I had a French last name,
they would assume I'm fromFrance.
But if you're Black English,French, latin you're like.
That's why you said my name inEnglish is Chris Fonte, but in
French it's Chris Font.
It's a huge difference.
When I'm in France or I'm inMontréal, quebec, no one ever

(01:00:50):
mispronounces my name, ever.
Every time they get it right.
It's weird.
It's weird because it's alwaysfunny.
You want to know?
My trick to tell someone fromharvard is ridiculous enough.
Yes, this is.
And I judge them harshly.
I don't care.
Do not care if they look at myname and they hold a harvard
degree and they don't know p andh make f.

(01:01:13):
I'm looking at the sideways,looking at the.
Looking at them sideways.
I'm like English is the onlylanguage you speak.
You know PNH make out.
You're not out here sayingAl-Pah-Ha-Bet, you're not out
here saying Katasha-Pah-He.
Why are you looking at ChrisFonte saying Chris Pah-Ha-He,
pnh, make out.
So yes, those are the kind ofthings I look at.

(01:01:35):
When Americans speak to me,they don't realize I'm judging
them Sideways.
They do that all the time Ican't even count.
I don't have enough to count howmany people from Harvard and
Yale really look at my last nameand say Chris Pottante.
I'm looking at them like reallyI don't say it because it would

(01:01:57):
be contiguous.
My husband doesn't like when I.
He doesn't want me to beconfrontational, but every
single time I'm looking at themsideways, like can you make my
guess?
I feel like a Haitian person,even a more Haitian person.
If they met someone they didn'tknow, they would ask how do I
connect to me?
They would just ask Because,again, to be from Haiti, it
means that you're not comingfrom this exorbitant like like
first in the world imperialhistory wealth.

Speaker 2 (01:02:18):
But you gotta have some sort of humility yeah, we
need a lot more of that from ourleadership right now.
Any at all, any, any humilitywould be great.
I want to.
I want to talk briefly aboutsamantha's mantra.
Um.
So, samantha, just a little bitof backstory for folks who have
not read this yet which, by theway, you need to go get it.
Uh, samantha is uh, I am not ascientist and I gotta say I had

(01:02:43):
to look up some of the stuff tobe like is this real, this like
this gene technology is wild.
Um, but samantha is a scientistand she studied the cholera
outbreak in haiti and that'swhere she wanted to spend her
time, but she had to.
In order to survive and get ajob, she had to work, work for
this devotee pharma and put hereffort there, and so she's,

(01:03:04):
while she, compared to T Jocelyn, has a lot of opportunity and,
yeah, I guess, a lot ofopportunity and comfort in her
life and, like, good thingshappen in her life.
Good things happen in her life.
She's also been through somehard stuff and there's a
particular moment in the booktowards the end, where the
zombie outbreak is happening andsamantha shares that.

(01:03:25):
Her mantra is beauty and terrorhappen, keep going.
And that felt really like.
When I read that I got chillsand I wanted to know what the
origin of this is I think it'sthe truth.

Speaker 3 (01:03:36):
I think it's the same thing again.
I think it's two sides of thesame point.
I think it's the truth.
I think it's the same thingAgain.
I think it's two sides of thesame point.
I think it's the truth.
I'll be very honest with you.
I've been recently, especiallywith the administration.
I've just been like this is soscary that to be a Haitian
immigrant means to understandwhat a coup d'etat is sincerely
and how it literally uproots youfrom where you are.

(01:03:59):
I don't think most Americansunderstand that at all, what
that means.
I think Haitians, we have anexcellent understanding of what
a coup d'etat means Becausewe've had so many heads of state
come in and disravel, break,destroy.
We've had it too often that wesee it like.
It's like oh, we know what thisis.
When you say beauty, when yousay terror people, I think don't

(01:04:20):
see it when it comes.
I think that's why it is thething.
For me, beauty can be simple.
Really, beauty can be a sparrow.
It's not a sparrow, it's brownand gray.
It's not as beautiful, let'ssay, as a blue jay or a cardinal
, or a red robin, but it's small.
To me it's beautiful.
I think terror is the same way.
People, when terror comes,they're expecting pitchforks or

(01:04:43):
military tanks all at once.
No, I think they come in verysubtle, subtle ways and you have
to really pay attention to getit or to see it, because if
you're not paying attention,you're going to miss it and it's
going to lead to it either way.
So if something's reallybeautiful or really kind or
really wonderful for you, ifyou're not paying attention,
you're going to miss it and it'sgoing to lead to it Either way.
So if something's reallybeautiful or really kind or
really wonderful for you, ifyou're not paying attention,
it's going to come back and seeit and it's going to go away.
And then, if terror comes in,if you're not paying attention

(01:05:06):
and you don't see it, it canwreak havoc.
I think it's about payingattention and seeing it,
understanding what's going on,but still moving forward.
It's a question of concentration.
I think we all can do it, andthat's the thing for me.
I think we can all do it.
It's a question of are weconcentrating, are we being
distracted, are we allowingourselves to be distracted?
But I think we can all do it.

(01:05:27):
It's just like when we sayremember to drink your water
today.
It's like that.
I think we just have to makethat.
It's like some days, we days weremember, okay, get our eight
glass of water, and others likeI don't think I had half a glass
of water today.
But I think it's like did wetake the time?
Did we look around us?
Um, because it can come at anytime.

Speaker 2 (01:05:46):
All the good things and the bad things I think it's
a mantra we really need for thistime.
That's what I felt.
I felt like there were a lot ofthings in this book that are
specific in time and place and,uh, like a power, dynamic
dialogue between the UnitedStates and Haiti, but also
there's just some fundamentaltruths of like human existence
and the reality we're facingright now that are encapsulated

(01:06:07):
in that one statement.
So I just want to say thanksfor that, because I will be like
the other one.
What was the other one?
I said I was going to write onmy wall.
I've already forgotten.
I'll have to listen to my ownpodcast to remember.
You said something else.
I was like that's smart.
I think I'm going.
I'm an artist, I love to paint.
I think I'm going to make alittle message for myself about
this, because we do need to payattention, and both are here all

(01:06:28):
always.
Yeah, not just now, but beforeand after yeah, they're always
here yeah, there's somethingabout paying attention to that.
I think that will um help me seethe beauty in the hard times,
but also keep going when there'sterror and know and be ready to
respond in this weird time thatwe're in, by looking at the
small things.

Speaker 1 (01:06:47):
Absolutely so hard pivot we're gonna talk about
clinton.
Yeah, so, something that Ithought was fascinating, I
learned, I learned somethingfrom your book Well, lots of
things, but this one was weirdand I did not know anything
about this.
So you, you talked a little bitabout Bill and Hillary Clinton

(01:07:13):
in your, in your book, and howthey came to Haiti a long long
time ago and, uh, yeah, made a,made a deal to become, uh,
president of the united states,and I'm like, I'm like this must
be made up.
So we looked it up and, sureenough, what was it?
1974, bill and hillary clintonwent to something like that.

Speaker 2 (01:07:36):
Yeah, they went to haiti for their, their honeymoon
, and they actually saw a voodoopractitioner.
Um, we don't, I don't think weactually know what.
Well, I don't know whathappened, I wasn't there, but
but can you tell us a little bit?
More for those who don't knowif it's true or not.

Speaker 3 (01:07:51):
I don't know if it's true or not, I don't know.
I'm just telling you whathaitians will say about them.
Oh, most haitian people whogrew up in Haiti would say this
is not me saying this, I'mtelling you what it's said about
.
It's sort of like how you knowa rumor about you.
It follows you, like there'salways rumors about certain
famous people, right?
I'm trying to think like a goodrumor.

(01:08:12):
That's not true.
You think like who's a goodrumor?
I mean like who's a good rumor?
I mean there's no such thing asa good rumor, like here's a
rumor.
This is a rumor in new york.
I don't know if it's true, buthere's a rumor from new york
city.
Mayor ed Koch was mayor 70s and80s in new york city.
There were rumors that he wasgay.
Remember this is before membersof the gay community were were

(01:08:33):
allowed to be public.
But there were always rumors innew york about ed Koch being
gay and to this day I don't knowif it's true.
I haven't read anythingofficial, official, official,
official that it may exist, butI haven't looked for it.
But that's like a rumor thatpeople say.
Is it true?
I don't know, but it's said sooften that people assume it's

(01:08:56):
true at this point.
It's said so often.
So in Haiti, haitian peoplehave been saying for so long
that Bill and Hillary came toHaiti while they were.
I don't know if they came toHaiti for that, but they were in
Haiti and they met a voodoopractitioner who cast a spell so
that they could get thepresidency.
That is what I said by a lot ofHaitian people about the

(01:09:18):
Clinton.
That is what they say thatabout.
I'm not even joking, I don'tsay that, but a lot of haitians.
If you say that, if you sayhillary in front of in a room
full of haitians, someone'sgonna like.
You know how it's like there'ssomeone that says something out
the middle of the back, someonewould say that.
Someone would say that in a ina room of mixed company, they
would.

Speaker 2 (01:09:36):
They would say that i's what they think of them.
I kind of want to believe this.

Speaker 1 (01:09:39):
Yeah, I'm going to adopt this.
Believe it 100.

Speaker 3 (01:09:43):
It's fact now no, I can't say fact, because I've got
to be alive.
I wasn't.
I wasn't alive in 1974.
When did they write 1974 and 75?
I wasn't alive.
So I certainly don't know.
But I'm just telling you therumor that follows them in Haiti
.
That's what people say aboutthem they're back.

Speaker 1 (01:10:04):
So, following the earthquake relief that Hillary
Clinton was in charge of and themisappropriated money that
never went to Haiti, and thenthat's also believed that that's
why she lost the 2016presidency- because the voodoo

(01:10:24):
practitioners said, basically,we're not going to keep helping
you anymore.

Speaker 3 (01:10:28):
Yeah, this is fiction , this is, oh, darn it no, it's
true.

Speaker 1 (01:10:32):
I believe that that is.

Speaker 3 (01:10:36):
That is complete fiction, that that part I made
up, because that again, that'slike a Haitian.
Haitian people holding a grudgeis definitely part of Haitian
culture.
Someone would have held agrudge.
I'm like, no, no, no, that ispart of Haitian culture.
The whole grudge is in there.
It's based in the Haitianculture.
So, yes, I added that becausethat fits the color of Haiti,

(01:10:58):
the character of Haiti, the wayhaitian citizens reasons and
things like what you did, thatand you didn't, and people.

Speaker 2 (01:11:05):
That's grunt, that's begging for a grudge can I add
my conspiracy theory to this?
Or, dan, it's yours originallyactually, so we have it.
We've decided to add to thisrumor mill.
Yeah, we're gonna add a rumorum.

Speaker 1 (01:11:19):
So I was, I was, I was thinking, I'm like, okay, so
, um, haiti wanted to punishhillary clinton for screwing
them over by taking away thepresidency from her, but that
left donald trump in instead.
And I'm like, why?
Why would that make sense?
That wouldn't make sense.
But what if donald trump isamerica's punishment from haiti?

Speaker 3 (01:11:47):
oh, that's a bigger question.
I mean, first of all, itwouldn't just be haiti.
Right, when you think aboutmilitary, military coups, I had
to state across africa, acrossSouth America, in Asia, eastern
Europe, let's take it out ofHaiti.
Let's take it out of Haitibecause I don't know if that's
true, I have no idea.

(01:12:07):
But if we were to apply anIndian standard of karma against
the United States, it's welldocumented A lot of Americans
you know, know was the term thatI would use a lot of American
interference in nationalelections across the world have
taken place.

(01:12:28):
I mean, there's so manycountries that couldn't start to
name which one.
So, if we're just going to,let's just go back to the idea
of Hinduism and the idea ofkarma, because that's what it
feels like to me.
To me, it feels like karma.
It feels like you have replacedtoo many heads of state.
There have been too many headsof state in too many countries
and too many continents thathave been appointed or they've

(01:12:50):
had elections interfered with byAmerican government, and now
it's coming back.
It feels, and no one has everanticipated it could happen to
such a extent.
That's what it feels like,because it's not just that, it's
not just okay, he won, but Ifeel like his first term.
Yes, he won, but it felt morelike him, like, if it makes
sense, it felt like it was him.

(01:13:11):
Now this really feels like he'sworking, like he's working for
the Russian government.
Yeah, he's definitely a zombieseriously.

Speaker 2 (01:13:19):
It feels like he's working for the.

Speaker 3 (01:13:20):
Russian government.
Yeah, he's definitely a zombie.
Seriously, it feels like thatto me.
Is that true?
I don't know, but it doesn'tfeel American it doesn't feel
American at all.

Speaker 1 (01:13:30):
It did have me thinking is Donald Trump a
zombie?
Is that why he wears so muchbronzer?

Speaker 3 (01:13:35):
I don't know, I don't know, but again, zombie is
about losing control of yourmind.
That's what it's for me atleast, zombie because you still
retain the reality, the use ofyour body.
It's your mind that's gone.
Um, I don't know.
I really don't know, because,you know, when I watch the news
and I watch, you know I see theimagery of the videos.
I'm like it.

(01:13:55):
This is a horror that peopleyou know, people patient, I'll
say this most Haitian peopledon't like to discuss zombies.
They do not.
So that's kind of how a lot ofAmericans don't like to read.
Steve King, what made you writea book about?

Speaker 2 (01:14:11):
zombies then.

Speaker 3 (01:14:13):
I told you, my husband didn't like the fact
that I was criticized andwalking dead and he didn't enjoy
zombies Stop when walking dead.
I was like zombies are not.
And he didn't adjourn zombiesdon't exist.
Stop saying these things.
I said well, zombies are notlike this.
So what do you think zombiesare like?
I said, well, zombies have tobe strong.
Zombies have to be able to move.
Zombies have to have aphysicality.
A zombie's not going to be slowenough.

(01:14:35):
I said no, a zombie has tophysically move.
But that's tied to the Haitianunderstanding of labor, for
Haitian labor for over 200 yearsago.
There's a physicality behindlabor.
To plow fields, to cut sugarcane, to harvest coffee, you
have to be physical.
That's not a desk job.
I think it comes from there.

(01:14:55):
It's tied to field work,agricultural work, all these
things that are not desk jobshistorically, that you need to
physically be able to use.
So that's where, for me, thestand is, and I think it's
broader for Haitian people too.
All the descriptions I've everheard Haitian people provide to
zombies, there's a physicalityto them.
It's not the sort of yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:15:19):
They're afraid Donald Trump doesn't meet the
physicality criteria.
Like, I'm not afraid of Donald,but he wields other power.
He's strong in other waysmentally, though, I think
laughing.

Speaker 3 (01:15:32):
I think he understands what he's doing.
I think he doesn't care whichis worse, yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:15:37):
Yeah, that's a good point.

Speaker 3 (01:15:38):
I think it's worse.
I think actual zombies don'tactually understand what they're
doing.
That's why a lot of people likeagain, using the idea that sort
of New York City has aboutpeople who are drugs, and they
call again.
They don't know what thesepeople are on, but they call
everybody a crackhead.
A lot of times, when people areactually fully under the
influence of drugs, they don'tknow what they did, not.

(01:15:59):
That it's their behavior.
I'm not trying to accuse theirbehavior, but quite often they
don't know what they did.
I think I would say that I don'tknow.
I think this administrationsees and I think they understand
what they're doing.
Technically, I wouldn't givethem the title.
You know who I would give thetitle of zombies.
I would give it to their voters.
I don't think they understand.

(01:16:20):
I really don't.
I don't think they understandwhat they're supporting.
I don't think they understandwhat's occurring.
They're like, yeah, this isgoing to be good.
I don't think they understandand to me that's what makes them
the zombies.
They're still walking around.
They're still walking around.
They're still doing this, butmentally they don't see it.
And even worse, someone wassaying this on one of the shows

(01:16:41):
that they'll never come back.
That's the other part of thezombie.
It's not like, okay, I have theflu and I'll be back, I'll see
you in three weeks, like whenyou enter that sort of zombie
realm.
You don't come back.
In a way, you don't come back.
I think I would call the peoplewho voted for me.
I would call them zombies.

Speaker 1 (01:17:01):
Yeah, I have to agree .
I read a book a long time ago Ithink it was called Zombified,
and it's kind of like thispsychological look at zombies,
an anthropological look atzombies too, and it defines

(01:17:22):
zombies as a an organism who istaken control of by another
organism.

Speaker 2 (01:17:25):
Um, and I think that fully describes your zombies and
also definitely trumpeters yeah, for sure oh, it's depressing
because I want to believe andfor a long time I really wanted
to believe that that like it'spossible to break through those
differences.
And I think there are peoplelike there are certainly people
who I think that is still truewho voted for trump, but I think

(01:17:48):
a large number, unfortunately,you're right, there's there's
not, uh, reaching them anymore,and that's that's hard to
reconcile, because I want tobelieve that we can.
I think I say it every episodewhy can't we all just get along?

Speaker 3 (01:18:05):
I think, where I see hope, I think the number I saw I
could be wrong with this number, because 33% of Americans
didn't show up to vote at all Ithink that part, that part that
doesn't mean just because youdon't show up doesn't mean
you're a zombie.
I think some people just I'mnot dealing with this and they
just because that happens a lot,that people just don't want to
deal with something or they'relegitimately busy with other

(01:18:26):
things, or they have otherthings.
Like that happens, you can getbusy and doing other
responsibilities.
My hope is that the 33 thatdidn't vote they show up and
they start paying attention.
Yeah, yeah, that I think couldbring us into something new,
because, again, it's a questionof using our lives.

(01:18:49):
You know, I think truthfully Iwas having this conversation
with someone the other day Ithink they're also playing their
hand because and here's wherethe difference, here's the huge
difference between Haiti and theUnited States Someone who's
born in Haiti with nothingmeaning their parents are
illiterate, they're living inone of the sort of outer
provinces and they really areliving in truly, truly abject

(01:19:12):
poverty.
Yes, they know things aren'tright and even if they throw
protests or they riot.
That's not the United States,even in this.
And defining poverty isdifferent in the United States.
So if you live in the UnitedStates and poverty quite often
is defined as living in aproject or living in a trail, in
parks, right, those are definedas poverty.
But even within that realm ofpoverty, you still have shelter,

(01:19:36):
you still have access to food,you still have access to free
education, you still have accessto hot water.
You still have because Americais so wealthy that even if
you're poor in the United States, what you receive being poor in
the United States is still morethan what people are
experiencing in abject povertyoutside the United States.

(01:19:56):
I don't think the people inthis current administration
understand what that means.
Someone who's always hadrunning water their entire life,
if all the water remember whathappened with Flint, michigan.
If we see that happening toooften, it becomes scary If
people who were living oncounting on sort of food stamps

(01:20:17):
and SNAP benefits to help feedtheir families all of a sudden
so many groups don't have accessto the basics.
That's going to cause a problem.
I think the expectation acrossthe United States is much higher
than Haiti did support thisadministration when, all of a
sudden, things that they took asstandard, because a lot of

(01:20:42):
those cuts are for Medicare,social Security, snap, benefits,
because, again, someone comingto Haiti doesn't expect that
they have nothing.
Like I said, they're literallypicking the lemons, picking the
dandelion.
They're picking things tosurvive because that's where
they're starting from.
The American starting point ismuch higher than that.
Do you know the last estimateof what people in Haiti live off
a year?
What to survive?
Because that's where they'restarting from.
The American starting point ismuch higher than that.
Do you know the last estimateof what people in Haiti live off
a year?
What?
$500, $600 a year, the poorestone.

Speaker 1 (01:21:04):
Wow.

Speaker 3 (01:21:05):
Even someone who's living on post security and
Medicare and welfare who's them.
They're doing $500, $600 amonth.
You know what I mean.
So I don't think thisadministration understands what
poverty absolutely is.
I think too many of them havenever experienced poverty.
It's just too much.
I think it could be devastating, just to safety.

(01:21:28):
And they think it's a joke.
I don't think it's a joke.
I think Luigi Mandione has seta new template Because
historically, when you look atgovernmental agencies, what they
did was they went after groups,so like, let's say, the Black
Panthers, or like organizations,like they looked at
organizations but or highprofile not just that or high
profile so like OK, some havesaid that you know Malcolm X was

(01:21:51):
assassinated, in some way shapeor form tied with the
government.
I don't know if that's true, butthat's what's been said in some
way shape or form tied with thegovernment.
I don't know if that's true,but that's what he said.
Even though he left the nationof Islam, he was independent at
that point, but he was so highprofile.
If you look at Luigi Maggioni,he was not famous, he was not
high profile, he was not part ofany group, he wasn't out there
protesting anything.
He just woke up and said you'rea fucking problem.

(01:22:15):
What are they going to do withthat?
I'm not joking.
That's another template.
He didn't even buy a gun.

Speaker 2 (01:22:23):
He's an engineer.

Speaker 3 (01:22:23):
He did a 3D gun.
I'm not even joking.
The United States is so huge,the wealthiness even I would use
the term that even thoughpeople consider themselves
impoverished in the UnitedStates, they're still wealthy
compared to other countriesglobally.
Yes, so you have again a crazytemplate and I was like I don't

(01:22:46):
think they see that coming fromthem.
I don't think they see thatcoming from them and it's real
and I don't think they see that.
So my hope is sincerely that wedo not enter a zombie
apocalypse Because again Haitiright now is going through and
you know.
The other thing I didn't mentionis where the idea comes from,
where it actually comes from.
You know, the US militaryoccupied Haiti between 1914, I

(01:23:10):
think, until like 1935.
And the whole story of zombieapocalypse it comes from Haiti.
People don't realize that Sortof like how a lot of people
think yoga comes from BeverlyHills.
It actually comes from India.
But the zombie story it comesfrom the fact that US military
when they occupied Haiti, theyhad stories about voodoo and

(01:23:30):
zombies and magic and again theapocalypse, because what had
happened was the head of state,the government collapsed, so
there was an apocalypse.
Everything had to stand still.
The US sent in their troops tobring back some order.
So it was an apocalypse.
So when we see the video games,the TV shows, the films, it's
based on the fact that thoseAmerican servicemen, when they

(01:23:52):
were turned, they came back withstories about zombies, because
they saw them too.
That's fascinating.
They saw zombies.
When they returned, they cameback with stories about zombies
because they saw them too.

Speaker 1 (01:23:57):
That's fascinating.

Speaker 3 (01:23:58):
They saw zombies.
What Haitian people saw is like, again, this is what they label
.
I don't know if it's true, butthis is how they labeled them.
So when a Haitian person wouldhave seen, you know, the
American military, because theywere there they stationed for
months and years at a time.
That's a zombie.
So they came back.
You know, I saw zombies andthat's a zombie.
So they came back.
Yo, I saw zombies and what'sthat?
And then they started to writetheir own story, which became

(01:24:20):
the zombie genre.
But it came from Americanmilitary servicemen, soldiers in
Haiti, coming back writingabout zombie stories.
So if you look at it, it'salways the same thing it's a
collapsed government, acollapsed state.
The zombies are in the state.
There's collapsed states.
The zombies are in the street.
There's this overarchingpoverty.
There's that violence thatarises and comes out of nowhere,

(01:24:41):
and then it's trying to figureout what to do next.
What to do next?
What are we going to do next?
That's what the service, that'swhat the american soldiers
experienced in haiti 19, like100 years ago, and it's become
the genre.
But if you look at it, theactual root of it, the
foundation of it, it comes fromhaiti yeah, that makes so much
sense yeah, like I knew that thezombie was haitian, but I

(01:25:01):
didn't realize the origin ofthat.

Speaker 2 (01:25:03):
Like zombie apocalypse template of a story.
Yeah, yes, it is, don't get mewrong.

Speaker 3 (01:25:08):
You have zombie stories in, like an ancient
chinese story.
They have their version, whichis very different.
Um, so, I can't say all zombiescome from Haiti, but the way
that it's depicted in AmericanTV shows, video games and films
because if you look at World WarII with Brad Pitt and then you
compare it to Walking Dead,again it's a collapsed

(01:25:29):
government.
People don't know where to go.
It's that part.
It's the fact that the Americansoldiers arrived in another
place, government toppledbecause that's the way they get
that from.
The American government hadnever toppled it like that.
I mean, civil War is somethingelse, but they came in toppled.
They came in with arms,remember, and not just that.
Look at that.
They always have guns.
They always have a gun withthem Because you ask, well,

(01:25:51):
which weapon would you use?
But the American story I thinkthis is where it diverges.
The American story reliesheavily, heavily, heavily on the
guns, whereas Haitian people inHaiti themselves, historically
not now, because everybody usesguns for everything now, even
from playing games, like peopleare shooting a Campbell's food

(01:26:12):
can.
So that's not now, buthistorically, let's say again,
going back 200 years ago, theywould not have had access to all
these guns, so they would havebeen more reliant on things like
fire and things that they wouldhave had at their disposition,
where guns are something thatare more contemporary.
But that's what I would say.
The biggest differences wouldbe because of how Haitian people
are looking at it, but in thebook, if you remember, gorpio

(01:26:35):
does use guns.

Speaker 2 (01:26:36):
Yes, he does.

Speaker 3 (01:26:37):
Even though he's Haitian.
It's contemporary.
It is contemporary, but it'ssort of like looking at what he
had access to.
The question is what would heuse if he had no, because, again
, bullets run out.
What would you do?
I have my heart and in my mind.
I just feel like if they didn'thave access to guns and bullets
, mind, I just feel like if theydidn't have access to guns and
bullets, the guns would stay,but if they run out of bullets,

(01:26:58):
I feel like they would turn tofire, and they do burn the body.

Speaker 2 (01:27:02):
I hope that's not a spoiler.
There's burning of bodies afterthey use the guns, and the
other difference that I think isworth pointing out is that the
Walking Dead zombies and mostzombies that are in the
mainstream you have to shootthem in the head.
These ones, they just need tobleed out because they're not
truly dead.
And you explained that Like Iwanted to say thank you for
somebody who's not from theHaitian culture and knew a

(01:27:23):
little bit, but not a lot, Likeyou do such a helpful job of
just weaving in explanationsthroughout the book, so it was
like a teaching moment too.
I was like, oh okay, Like it'sa different.
It's the version of the zombiethat I have grown up with has
its roots in Haitian zombies,but also there's some rules that
we've made up about, likeshooting in the head and that
they have to be dead and comeback that are not actually like

(01:27:44):
the same rules that apply to aHaitian zombie, One of my former
co-workers.

Speaker 3 (01:27:48):
she's a writer.
I worked with her at theDramatist Guild.
I won't say her name, but sheknows who she is.
She's a writer and she's fromromania.
I was like I want to read yourvampire story, because most
vampire stories are not writtenby romanians like I want to know
from your.
I want to see a vampire storyfrom someone like her who is

(01:28:10):
romanian, to see what are, whathaven't we seen or what are we
missing or what did we get wrong?
And I think and I did I I'vebeen encouraged I don't know she
hasn't done it yet, but I'vebeen encouraging her.
I would love to read a vampirestory from a Romanian
perspective.
And what do they see?
Or what do they know?
How did it originate for theAmericans or the British?
I think Mary Shelley, she wasAmerican, but I think Bram

(01:28:32):
Stoker was he British?
kevin burley order I think hewas british, but I'm I might
just be guessing, but theyweren't.
Either way, neither one of themwere romanians.
I mean, most of the time whenpeople think of like heart it
comes from yeah, I say it comesfrom uk or somewhere else, but
it doesn't come from romania,for vampires and I think for
this, for me, I wanted it totake the haitian point of view

(01:28:54):
and just understanding of howhaian people view, because,
again, I promise you go find aHaitian person who grew up in
Haiti and asked them are zombiesreal?
They don't swear on their kidsand say, yes, they're like, yes,
zombies are real and they'renot joking, they're not
exaggerating and they're notlying.
They're like I saw one.
Yes, Me.
I saw a zombie.
Yes, I know they don, but again, I think it comes from the fact

(01:29:19):
of seeing someone who's beenunder the influence of drugs in
some way, shape or form.

Speaker 1 (01:29:23):
I think we should add this question to our rapid
fires have you seen a zombie?
Are zombies real?
Have you seen one?

Speaker 2 (01:29:30):
Why not?
I think it's a good new one andyou actually have two other
zombie books, are they a?

Speaker 3 (01:29:39):
continuation of talk.
Yes, they are, they're coming.
I'm finishing up rum right now.
Finishing up right now I'mworking on my editor and pushing
that up right now, and thenit's going to be with iron.
So it's rum and then iron.

Speaker 2 (01:29:50):
I get out some of the other really excited for the
rest of this trilogy.
Let me tell you, you left it.
You left us at a cliffhanger,like you.
It was good because you explainthe things that need to be
explained so folks don't thinkyou're going to be like left
wondering too much.
But then there's a whole newcharacter that's introduced.
You hear about him before, butthen there's this new character,
the chairman, and we're reallyat the breaking point of a

(01:30:13):
full-on zombie apocalypse whenwe end the book and so very
anxious to read the next one andI wanted to know is there any
chance you would ever do anaudio book?

Speaker 3 (01:30:24):
Yes, that is absolutely on my to-do list.
I do need to do it.
You're right.
I've been asked that.
I want to say at least ahundred times now I do need to
do it.
Well, that's good.
I'm not exaggerating, becausethis book is 2019.
We're six years later.
I've been asked that so manytimes.
I do need to put that on mypriority list.
So we go back.
They do work.

(01:30:45):
You know, during the day I workwith regular office type job
things.
But yes, the audio book willcome out.

Speaker 2 (01:30:54):
It will come out.
When it does, I will bespreading it far and wide to the
folks who I know are likeexclusive audio book listeners.
There's one friend of ourswho's a listener of the show too
, who's driving across countryright now.
They'll be there when they hearthis come out in a couple of
weeks.
But I was telling them aboutthis book and they're like oh,
it's an audio book.
And I was like, no, and they'relike it would have been perfect

(01:31:15):
.
The physical book is available.
Could you let us know wherepeople can find your book and
learn more about you?
Sure.

Speaker 3 (01:31:24):
Honestly, if you Google tell a Haitian zombie
story, it pops right up.
No one else got it.
There's no confusion, because Iknow that you did have a
gentleman on who wrote a Haitianzombie story, but it's not
listed as zombie per se.
It's his own accomplishment,you know.
It has its own rigor.
If you Google, my name isJennifer Santi, it pops up.

(01:31:46):
If you Google tell Haitianzombie, it pops right up.

Speaker 1 (01:31:50):
I'll also have links in the description.

Speaker 3 (01:31:52):
Yes, and it's on different sites.
It's on different sites.
It's like on if you're fromCanada.
It's like on if you're fromcanada.
It's on the indigo website forcanada.
It's on amazon, it's on it's up.
It's because I think the waygoogle works, um, I know when
I've traveled, like I google itto see how you know google they
control, they do.

(01:32:12):
I'm not joking, I believe theydo, but when you're depends on
where you are, because when Iwas in montreal last month, I
googled, the first thing thatpopped up was indigo and I
walked into the sunset.
Oh yeah, I forgot about indigo.
I mean, I've been there dozensof times but I forgot.
But it pops up.
So now I googled someone else,since I was in montreal last

(01:32:33):
month and I physically walkedinto indigo.
Now one of the first things Ipop up is Indigo.
I'm like where's the poor?
I don't know.
But yeah, that's anotherquestion.
But it's on Amazon, it's ondifferent sites.
Just Google the book and,wherever you are, it'll show you
, it'll come up and you can getit Well.

Speaker 2 (01:32:51):
It is one of my favorites to read in the last
little while, so thank you for atruly harrowing journey as I
was going through this bookknowing what was going to happen
next.
I'm so grateful, I'm sograteful.

Speaker 3 (01:33:04):
Thank you.

Speaker 2 (01:33:04):
Well, we're glad we could have you on the show, and
I do want to also just finishoff by saying that you are not
just an amazing writer of aHaitian zombie story and some
more to come.
You've also written achildren's book, which is, by
the way, but my favorite flower,the dandelion, which I will be

(01:33:24):
checking out.
I think adults might need thisbook too, and you're a
playwright and you have writtenseveral plays, so is there
anything else that you want toshare about, like what you're
doing now, uh, with our audience?

Speaker 3 (01:33:30):
well, the thing that's top, top, top of mind
right now is mariela musical.
It's based on the life ofmarlle Franco.
She was a Black lesbian electedofficial in Brazil, in Rio de
Janeiro.
She was assassinated in 2018.
Just to tell the truth forspeaking truth to power, she was
assassinated 38 years old and Iremember it made me so upset,

(01:33:53):
so upset.
I was in tears when I saw her.
You know why I was in tears?
Because when I was young, likeyou were saying when you were in
grad school, I'm going to workin international aid.
Me at 15, I was I'm going to goback to Haiti and become
president.
That was where I was at 15.
That was where that was avision I had of myself at 15.
I'm going to go back to Haitiand become president.
My beloved husband, who again isfrom New York.

(01:34:16):
But when I say that there areguys or there are men who grew
up in privilege and who are goodpeople, my husband grew up here
in New York.
He followed the banker, he grewup really comfy and he, coming
out of law school, he's workedin politics his whole life,
essentially.
And when I told him that hegoes and you know what's funny,
his parents used to collectHaitian art.
So my husband, before we evermet, my husband grew up going

(01:34:39):
back to Haiti because hisparents used to collect Haitian
art Wow.
So he had an understanding ofthings from me, right.
And when I told him when wefirst started dating well, I
want to go to Haiti.
And you know that was alwaysthe dream.
That was always a deep you know.
When you have't want to do this, I want to try that.
It was a deep dream for me at15, 16,.
I gotta go back and be pregnant.

(01:34:59):
My husband heard that he goesdon't you dare, you'd be shot
dead, Don't you dare.
And he's so calm Like he'sItalian-American.
So usually when they talk aboutItalian-Americans, they make
them sound like they're all 22pounds.
This is not true.
My husband's Italian-Americanhistory.
He's more like Columbo.
You remember Columbo A littlebit.

(01:35:19):
He didn't you know, becausethat was his profile.
He didn't know anything.
He never raised his voice, buthe always understood what was
going on.
He always knew what was goingon.
My husband's very much likeColumbo, but when I used to tell
him I'm not going to hate you,I'm going to become the
president of Haiti, don't youdare, you'll be shot dead in a
year, don't you dare.

(01:35:40):
He gets like very, very testy.
So and that's you know, thatwas years ago when we first
started doing it.
So when Marielle, who wasexactly my age, born in 1979,
but in Brazil, she was inBrazilian politics and she got
shot.
I promise you, when I saw it Istarted crying, flooding out of
fear.
But she was shot, she wasmurdered.

(01:36:00):
She was fighting the good fight, she was doing what she was
supposed to do and they murderedher for telling the murder
truth.
So you know, when I saw that, Iwas like, well, we're going to
tell her story, because thepeople who are trying to silence
Marielle Franco, we're going tomake her.
We're going to make her, we'regoing to, we're going to
literally bring her back fromthe dead, we're going to
resuscitate her and that we'regoing to put her life to song.
We're going to make it brightand happy and joyful.

(01:36:23):
We're going to celebrate thelife that she did live.
Because that's what's happened.
I think the people who killedher in brazil, they thought, oh,
it's going to go away.
We're going to make her sign.
She's had streets named afterher in france and germ, she's
become a martyr.
Like you, google MarielleFrancis.
It's tremendous.
Every time something majorhappens to her it makes the

(01:36:43):
newspapers in Tokyo.
It's international.
Now she's become literally astar.
So they turned her into amartyr.
So I wrote a musical based onher life using the music.
I was given permission totranslate the songs of Marcino
Davila.
He's one of the absolute starsof samba music.

(01:37:04):
So if you think of like thelike stevie wonder in the united
states, you know how like, whenyou say stevie wonder, like
like, because when I meet peoplewho are resilient and I tell
them, well, yeah, machino devila, I, I met with him and he's
given me right to translate anduse his songs, they're let me
be marchino davila it's like ifyou're an american, doesn't
matter which state you live in.
He's like you mean steviewonder.
Stevie wonder because it's sobig.
Yeah, he really is that gentlelike you can.

(01:37:26):
When you think of stevie,wondering his impact on american
music, but I just go, you know,like marching to do, those
songs are like that in brazilthat when you play them, doesn't
matter who you are, where youare.
You know, like, marchina deVil's songs are like that in
Brazil, that when you play them,it doesn't matter who you are,
where you are.
You know all the lyrics.
You don't know how she's like.
She gave me permission totranslate her songs into English
and to use to serve as asoundtrack of the music of her

(01:37:49):
life, and right now that's whatI'm working on sort of bringing
it to the stage here in New Yorkand hopefully to the world, and
that's what I'm doing.

Speaker 2 (01:37:58):
No big deal.
No big deal.
Just you know writing a reallypowerful musical, and I think
this is the first time in a longtime, as a very hermity person
who lives in the mountains ofVermont, that I'm like you know
what?
I think I'm going to have to goto New York to see this.
You're going to get me out ofmy little rural hole and I'm
gonna come to new york city towatch this.
It sounds incredible.

Speaker 3 (01:38:18):
I promise, when it comes to the stage, you and dan
have free tickets to come.
I promise you you will get the.
I'm serious, I'm sincere.
When it comes out, you will getfree tickets.

Speaker 2 (01:38:30):
Come on down thank you so much.
I would love Because, eventhough it's politics- zombie
apocalypse.

Speaker 3 (01:38:39):
Overall, we're talking a lot about politics.
Marielle was politics and inthat case, when she was murdered
truthfully, many say that's whyBolsonaro lost his presidential
campaign.
Bolsonaro had a state in Brazilwhen she was assassinated.
The people flooded the streetsin Brazil, people flooded the
streets.
I, the people flooded thestreets and I can't remember.

(01:39:01):
Can I read so many politicalarticles?
I can't even keep thejournalist's name straight, but
someone wrote I found a veryinsightful piece comparing the
havoc in Brazil to the havoc inthe United States and they felt
that the people in Brazil reallyshowed up.
Right now they have a moreprogressive president, but the
people showed up in such a waythat they clapped back.
You can't assassinate one ofour elected officials.

(01:39:24):
This doesn't work, this doesn'tmake sense, and Bolsonaro lost
his presidential campaign.
The two elected officials whowere accused of her
assassination are currentlyunder trial.
And not just that.
This administration invitedBolsonaro to come to the
inauguration in DC on January20th.
The judges in Brazil seizedformer President Bolsonaro's

(01:39:46):
passport.
You're not going anywhere, sohe had to watch it on TV, even
though he was invited.
Sit up front, I'm not joking.
So the journalist who wroteabout the difference between the
United States and Brazil'sresponse said that the people
themselves of Brazil showed upand said no, you're not going to
put us in something now.
So in my heart, I'm counting onthe 32% that didn't vote to see

(01:40:10):
this to sort of come on out,stop playing video games just
for a little bit, come off thesofas, come join us out here.
It's for all of us, not justfor individuals.
But I know that they're there.
I know that they're there, comeon out, come on out.
I know some people will neversee it, but the 33%, I think

(01:40:31):
they can do it.
If Brazil can do it, I know theUnited States can do it, I
believe in us?

Speaker 2 (01:40:35):
Yeah, do it.
I know the united states can doit.

Speaker 1 (01:40:39):
I believe in us.
Yeah, we're gonna make a goodruckus.
I think it's time.
It's uh, we need to.
We need to study what what theydid in brazil and and uh, try
to apply that to here.

Speaker 3 (01:40:46):
I'm not trying to open up, they're not done,
they're not done.
But I think they are holdingpeople accountable.
It's not, oh, it's not just onething, it's holding accountable
.
So, right now, every time,they're always like what did you
do?
What's going on?
Like, and they don't let itslide.
They're not letting thingsslide right now, and I think
that's encouraging.

(01:41:07):
I think we have the capacity todo even more in the United
States yeah, accountabilitywould go so far.

Speaker 2 (01:41:13):
Yeah, it's not about having the perfect end.
It's just like having thestruggle continuously and making
it a little bit better and,like you said, honestly holding
people accountable would be hugein the united states.
So let's get there.

Speaker 3 (01:41:25):
Um, I think I think we can do it, yeah, and we don't
have to be zombies.
I think we can read aboutzombies, but we don't have to be
zombies, we don't have to.
I think we have the capacity todo short.
We always do.
It's part of being in theUnited States like to innovate
and to do new things, to try newthings.
But you know, yes, for all theways that we can criticize, you

(01:41:48):
know things that make you knowthings.
Truly to me, magic, magic in thetrue sense that Americans
really can look at something andsay, well, I don't like that,
let's do something else, let'smake something new, let's create
something that never existedbefore.
That is quintessentiallyAmerican, quintessentially.
If there's a spirit in theUnited States, it's that spirit,
and I think that's the spiritof the book and that's the

(01:42:10):
spirit I would call right now isfor all of us to really look at
what can we create new or whatcan we, you know, you know,
invoke in terms of positivechange in a way that benefits us
all?
Cause I don't think where weare right now is it, and I've
seen America, americans, createthings for no reason all the
time.
I know that they can do itright now If it's a new.

(01:42:33):
If it's new this or new, that Ifeel like it could happen.
I mean we're going towardsadjustments, right.

Speaker 2 (01:42:42):
We could not end this podcast on any more beautiful
note than that.
Thank you for leaving it inthat place of hope.
I needed that.
I guarantee many peoplelistening to this needed that,
and again I just want to saythank you for the most enjoyable
couple of hours I've had on aSaturday in a while.
It's really just a pleasure toget to know you.
What a lovely excuse to have apodcast to get to know folks
like you, and we'll definitelybe seeing you at your play.

Speaker 3 (01:43:01):
Yes, I promise you.
The minute the tickets are out,you and Dan are getting tickets
to come on down in New York.
Wow.

Speaker 1 (01:43:08):
I can't wait.

Speaker 2 (01:43:09):
Me neither.
I really want to leave mylittle Vermont Hill for this.
Well, folks, please go checkout Jenna Crisfanti's book Talc,
A Haitian Zombie Story.
You can find it, like she said,on Amazon anywhere.
Just Google it.
You can also find Jenna onInstagram.
That's how I found you, I think, originally, and all of those
things will be in the show notes.
Thank you so much for joiningZombie Book Club today.

(01:43:31):
You can support us by leaving arating or a review.
You can send us a voicemail upto three minutes at 614-699-0006
.
You can find us on Instagram atzombiebookclubpodcast, or join
the Brain Munchers ZombieCollective on Discord.
That's where we're hanging outmost of the time.
All those links are in thedescription.
Thank you again, Jenna.
It's been a really awesomeconversation.

Speaker 3 (01:43:53):
Absolute pleasure.
What a great, great Saturday.
Great Saturday, absolutepleasure.
What a great, great saturday.
Great saturday.
Bye, everybody, bye byeeveryone bye.

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'Talc: A Haitian Zombie Story' with Special Guest Jenna Chrisphonte | Zombie Book Club Ep 88

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}'Talc: A Haitian Zombie Story' with Special Guest Jenna Chrisphonte | Zombie Book Club Ep 88