Ep. 326 You Can’t Opt Out with Emily Raboteau

Written By Lauren Tyree

Photo: Victor LaValle 

Today author and essayist Emily Raboteau joins The Stacks to discuss her book Lessons for Survival: Mothering Against "The Apocalypse." Emily explains what has changed for her since writing this meditation on justice, race and the environment. And we learn why it’s so important to talk about climate change with the people in our lives.

The Stacks Book Club pick for July is Parable of the Sower by Octavia E. Butler. We will discuss the book on July 31st with Emily Raboteau.

 
 

Everything we talk about on today’s episode can be found below in the show notes and on Bookshop.org and Amazon.

To support The Stacks and find out more from this week’s sponsors, click here.

Connect with Emily: Instagram | Twitter | Website
Connect with The Stacks: Instagram | Twitter | Shop | Patreon | Goodreads | Substack | Subscribe

To contribute to The Stacks, join The Stacks Pack, and get exclusive perks, check out our Patreon page. If you prefer to support the show with a one time contribution go to paypal.me/thestackspod.

The Stacks participates in affiliate programs. We receive a small commission when products are purchased through links on this website.

TRANSCRIPT
*Due to the nature of podcast advertising, these timestamps are not 100% accurate and will vary.

Traci Thomas 0:08

Welcome to The Stacks, a podcast about books and the people who read them. I'm your host Traci Thomas, and today I am joined by author and critic Emily Raboteau, whose new book is Lessons for Survival: Mothering Against the Apocalypse. The book follows her far-reaching efforts to raise her own kids in the face of ongoing cultural crises from climate change to racism and so much more. She takes us through city parks indigenous communities abroad, to seek out nature, harmony, community and the spirit of resilience. Today, Emily and I talk about how she was thinking about Lessons, that spidey sense you get when something just clicks, and also some of Emily's most favorite books and the one book she is a little embarrassed that she still hasn't read. Remember our July book club selection is Parable of the Sower by Octavia E. Butler, which we will discuss with Emily Raboteau on Wednesday, July 31st. Everything we talked about on each episode can be found in the link in the show notes. All right, now it's time for my conversation with Emily Raboteau.

Alright, everybody, I'm really excited. Today is July 3rd. It is officially my birthday month and my present to myself is getting to talk to an author who I have been a fan of for a long time, whose newest book is called Lessons for Survival: Mothering Against the Apocalypse. Emily Raboteau, welcome to The Stacks.

Emily Raboteau 2:51

Thank you so much, Traci. I'm excited to be here. It's my birthday month too. Are you a Cancer?

Traci Thomas 2:56

Oh my gosh. Okay, so excited. We're starting here. No, I am technically a Leo. But I was born on July 22nd, which is the last day of Cancer but I was born so late at night on the West Coast that the sun had moved into Leo. Ah, this information I discovered only after moving to LA. My whole life, I thought I was a Cancer. And then I got my chart read like promptly after moving to LA and I was like, Oh, my life has been a lie. What's your birthday?

Emily Raboteau 3:23

I'm July 11. And I'm very much a Cancer. I really fit that that profile. Pretty extremely.

Traci Thomas 3:30

Yeah, I can see that. I feel like after reading the book that definitely makes sense to me. I'm like, yeah, that tracks. I mean, water is a huge theme in the book. And I feel like that's very Cancer too, to be water obsessed.

Emily Raboteau 3:43

Yes. Yeah. And I and I'm also very sensitive and home and matters a lot to me.

Traci Thomas 3:49

I feel like that all comes through in the book. I don't know, maybe I should have been able to diagnose you a cancer. Like, just from reading the book. There are people who listen to this podcast, who are very obsessed with knowing like the sign of an author or like figuring out the sign of a character and a novel, because they're like, did the author do the right research? Like, is that person really a Gemini or whatever? So I will be happy to know this. Because your book does have Cancer months for sure.

Emily Raboteau 4:15

Yeah, maybe there's room for like another book podcast that is is astrology oriented?

Traci Thomas 4:22

Oh my gosh, I could never do it. Because I only know like five. I only know the five signs that matter to me. Do you know what I mean? Like it's like, my kids. My husband, my my brother, my mom. And I'm like, that's all I need to know. Yeah. Okay, so aside from being a cancer, tell us a little bit about yourself.

Emily Raboteau 4:39

Yeah, I mean, I guess what's important to know, for this book is that I live in New York City. I'm raising two black sons. They're, they're pre teenagers now. But when I was working on this book, they were much smaller than that, although they did grow up a little bit over the course of the book, you know, and now they're in this phase. Where are they really want to be with their friends more than me and it's a little bit painful and a little bit beautiful is bittersweet. One of them just graduated from elementary school yesterday.

Traci Thomas 5:10

Congratulations. I have twin four year old so reading your book I was like hoping you're gonna give me like just like minor life advice like then we changed the diaper you know or whatever. Like stuff like that I was like looking for clues.

Emily Raboteau 5:23

No man, I don't know by for like my major life advice that I often give to women. When they asked for it. And they're like new mothers is sleep train them.

Traci Thomas 5:34

We did that. Oh, yeah. My kids were born December 2019. So it was basically me alone with them with no help because of COVID. And they were preemies. And my husband is a doctor. So we were very stressed out. And so we were I was sleep training. I was like, Oh, time for a nap. You better lay the fuck down because I and I'm still doing the show. I was doing this. So I'm like, you have to do it.

Emily Raboteau 6:01

Yeah. I mean, I'm not sure how many parenting things my husband and I have done right. But that's one thing I feel very, very proud of is that our children's sleep and they still they sleep well, they go to their pre teenagers, like I said, but they go to bed at eight. They get a good night's sleep, and we have time to be with each other at night. And you know, it was I was gifted two books when I was pregnant with my first child by my literary agent. One of them was I know you're going to ask me about books, but one of them one of them was a life's work by Rachel Cusk. Which I love which is a wonderful book about because like becoming a mother but like in an honest honest way about the complete shift to identity. Like you're kind of totally unprepared for our by it. And the other was a book on like sleep training.

Traci Thomas 6:53

I love that so much. No, we definitely sleep trained. My kids still go to bed seven to seven. Every day, we get a full 12 hours and on the weekends, they still map and my kids are so bad. But that is one thing that I am proud.

Emily Raboteau 7:12

Hey, you know what, Traci, they'd be a lot worse if they were not good.

Traci Thomas 7:21

Okay, in the introduction of this book, you sort of say that like the unifying feature, it's like your search for lessons for survival. Amidst gestures wildly, climate, race community, eventually COVID becomes a factor in your story. And in all of our stories, how did you know what lessons you were looking for? Like, did your did your spine tingle? When you were like I found a lesson or like, Did it feel like you were able to find what you were looking for? Or did it feel like you sort of were just paying attention. And then when you sat down to write the book, you had to create the lessons or like create, I guess lessons? Like what you've learned?

Emily Raboteau 8:04

I think the latter like, I mean, I just knew I needed a lot of help. I knew I needed a lot of help. And like my mother was a help in some ways, but not enough of a help. I mean, what like that, that wonderful thing about it takes a village to raise a child. I mean, it became a mother and the enormity of that responsibility and the fact that, you know, being a mother, it's not a morally pure position. I felt like alright, I'm really responsible for having brought life into this fallen world. And I can't really do it alone. I mean, like, so yeah, one lesson one lesson that was important. I didn't talk about in the book was yet from Brazel 10 on sleep training, but it was my, my literary agent knew I would need that as a working mother. You know, like, I have a teaching job. And I and I'm a writer, and I wanted to continue doing those things while also parenting. I was like, you know, that was a survival lesson. In retrospect, I realized that was a survival lesson she gave me but yeah, I just knew I needed help. And I think I was just paying attention, like a week to, to awake to my own need for lessons. It during, you know, parents and kids during an era of intersecting crises, and I knew especially probably that I needed them from other women. And so yeah, what do you were asking my spine tingle when I got them? I mean, sometimes I just felt a sense of like, extreme appreciation. And then sometimes they came from unexpected places like public art on the streets of New York City. And did I get like a spidey sense like a tingly spine? Yeah, I think I did. I sometimes felt like yeah, the universe's looking out for me a little bit in my need and my humility. I think being humble enough to understand I needed help like allowed me to see it and appreciate it when it showed up even from unexpected sources.

Traci Thomas 9:58

To the you know, you would always put a book together around this, or did this idea come to you of like writing, you know about? Because I mean, this book is about like being a parent, but it's also sort of just like, how do we live in this world? Like, you know, even if you're not a parent, the mothering idea could really be like, how do we mother ourselves or each other or, or our space, our home or community? And so I'm wondering if this was has been something that you've always sort of been interested in and wanting to write towards? Or if something happened that made you say, You know what, I should really put this in a book.

Emily Raboteau 10:35

I think I think I think like an essayist. And so a lot of the chapters of this book originated as essays that grew out of the need I was describing are the feelings of insecurity and fear and an extreme responsibility. And so for example, somewhere along the way, I think it must have been 2015 2016. The writer Jasmine Ward, two time National Book Award winner, asked a bunch of black writers essayist in particular, to contribute to an anthology she was editing called, is it on your shelf? That was like I haven't Oh, like Maroon? Yes. Kind of Maroon, it should be in your maroon section. So yes, for listeners, Casey Tracy's color, beautifully color coded. So she, she asked a bunch of writers that she kind of was close with on Twitter, to contribute to an anthology called The Fire Next Time, no, the fire this time, this time. Yeah, the Fire This Time, inspired by, of course, by James Baldwin's The Fire Next Time. And this was in the era of extreme, it felt like, although I don't know if it was any more extreme, but suddenly, it was more a part of the ether because people were using cell phone technology to document it, like just black death. And she wanted it and I and it was a wonderful invitation. And, and I felt a lot of pressure, like what am I going to say? I think my kids were three and five years old. At that point, my husband and I have been kind of talking to them about like, when is it appropriate? Maybe they were even younger, two and four, when is it appropriate to give them the talk about white supremacy and what it will mean for them walking through through this land and the bodies that they have. And of course, they were they were too young at the time for the talk. But we were we were very fearful for them. And I I liked the idea of writing them a letter like James Baldwin wrote to his nephew, who had his name James, but I didn't quite know what language to use for like a two and a four year old or how to calibrate it to the to the children they might become who they weren't yet, you know, like, and so, this is one of those examples where I needed help. I had this assignment, I wasn't sure how to execute it. I think I emailed Roxane Gay who was also supposed to turn in an essay the deadline was in four days or something like this. And I was like Roxanne, how are you handling this assignment? She was like, I didn't know what to do either. And then I came across a mural in our neighborhood we were living in Washington Heights at the time and this was a mural said Know Your Rights and it was dedicated to people in that neighborhood where police brutality is isn't isn't an issue. In it arrested me I got that like spine tingly spidey sense feeling like, Oh, I was looking for some kind of language or some kind of way in. And this mural is actually speaking to the people who live here, including me about what our rights are and how to protect ourselves from the police. And it was a beautiful mural we get the colors that it used were just really bright, they popped on the street and that mural is gone now but I photographed it with my phone. And then I did some internet sleuthing and learned it was part of a series of murals. And I understood like suddenly, the structure of what I needed to do announced itself to me, which was I thought, I'm gonna travel around the boroughs of New York City where these murals exist in in neighborhoods that are plagued by police brutality, and I'm gonna document them with my phone, and I'm gonna write about how they make me feel and the neighborhoods themselves and dwell on this as a mother and, and that became like a pattern. So this book is kind of built, in many ways out of my interactions with public art that in some way, comments on issues that feels so large, that they're hard to enter into, like, what do you want? How are you going to enter into this subject of climate change or racism? You know, and I found when I started paying attention, and these are kind of like doors or windows to pass through that or just in my surround like such gifts, you know.

Traci Thomas 14:53

So interesting. You say, How are you going to enter into this because one of the things that I feel like your book made extremely clear to me is like Like, I don't have to enter, we're actually already in this. Like, there is no opting in to a lot of what your book is about. Like, even if you don't feel like it's about you, or like, you don't feel like you have a section on water and Israel and Palestine. And like, I think a lot of people could say, maybe not now because of recent news, but I think a lot of people could say like, This doesn't have anything to do with me. But like we are, you do not give us an opportunity to opt out like we are opted in the unit, the planet has not given us an opportunity to opt out. And I think that's was what was so like, connective about your book is like, I was like, I'm this she's talking to me, like, this is about me. And I really appreciated that. But on the flip side of that, I also was like, she's not giving me any answers. She's not telling me what to do about climate change. Like you don't tell me when I'm supposed to give my kids the talk. And I'm wondering from, from your point of view, of like, do you feel like you got clear answers and all of this work? Or do you feel like you're sort of where you always were with just maybe more thoughts to balance as you make your decisions and you live your life?

Emily Raboteau 16:13

I think you're right, that we're at a point where you cannot opt out of the crises. You're we're living in them and we're experiencing them. But one thing some people are able to do, because of privilege, right is opt out of action, and opt out and opt out of conversation. And so like regarding the climate change piece, I recognize that after learning a lesson, right, but like one lesson I learned was from from a climate scientist named Katharine Hayhoe. And I saw a TED Talk that she gave, where she said, The most important thing we can do to help fight the climate crisis, really, from her perspective is to talk about it. And that's because there's, there's this thing called Climate silos, there's there remains this rather large and troubling gap between the number of us who are appropriately alarmed about climate change and the number of us who are speaking about it with any degree of regularity if at all. And that that gap has shrunk a little bit in the years since Dr. Hayhoe gave her TED Talk. But but not to the degree that you would think or hope, given the extremity of the climate crisis. So I made like, like, like, I learned, that was a lesson I was like, Alright, thank you, I'm gonna, you're scientists, I'm going to take you up on this, I'm going to talk about this in my social circles in my community, like whenever I can, and I did that, for an entire year, I made it a New Year's resolution and did it every day. And that became an essay that wound up in this book to where I just recorded people's answers. When I asked them the question, how are you experiencing the climate crisis in your body, and in your local habitat? It was really cool, in a sense to see how many echoes there were between what women for example, mothers were saying, a mother was saying, in Lebanon, and another mother in Sydney, Australia, and another mother in like Marin County, California, we're all expressing almost with the same language, you know, fear about wildfire and smoke inhalation, and they're, you know, and, and, and feeling like they weren't able to keep their children safe. And to a degree that made the world feel a little bit smaller. But you're right, like, that's not an answer. It's more just a paying attention to paying attention to. Yeah, but it's not prescriptive. So and it does have kind of a prescriptive title. Yes. So anyone who's looking for for answers in the way that you get answers from like Dr. Brazel, tson, about when you're supposed to put your four month old, like to bed, how many hours they need between feedings, it's not prescriptive like that. And then if I have any takeaway, if there's any takeaway, it's like, we need to we need to act in community, and we need to pay attention to local action that is taking place already and try to hook into it.

Traci Thomas 19:01

Right. Yeah. In the TED talk, or just like in general, when it comes to climate science, silence? Does it work for other topics? Or is that only something that works for climate like talking about it is like a thing that is helpful to making change?

Emily Raboteau 19:19

Well, her argument was that the reason it's effective to talk about it and the reason it's even incumbent upon us to talk about it is that if we don't talk about it, our policymakers don't understand what matters to us, and we won't move the needle on policies. It's like, it's not just like talking for sort of therapeutic sake, although that's good. It's really so that, you know, we get a critical mass of people saying like this, these are problems that needs to be acted upon. We need right we need to move on this. Yeah, I think that must be true. That must be true of other problems.

Traci Thomas 19:55

Yeah. Yeah. I guess this is sort of like What did you learn from reading your book question, but not really that that's not what I really want to know. What I want to know is what has changed for you. Since writing this book, especially since a lot of these essays are older, at the end of each essay in the book, you give us a date. So some of them date back to like, 2000. I think 16 or 17 is maybe the oldest one, and they go up through 2021 or two. I'm wondering like, what and then obviously, you worked on this book since then, like these essays you've worked on the book just came out this year. So like, what do you feel like chess changed within you, or how you approach the world or how you're thinking about these things now, you know, some almost 10 years later, in some cases.

Emily Raboteau 20:42

I guess, the difference between how I approach the world now and the way I approached it, then, I think I've come to understand a lot a lot more than when I started writing essays or really, when I started being a parent, I mean, these these essays like chronicle pretty much like the first decade of my children's lot lives. Yeah, I just I understand more and more like I'm not the only one raising them, thank God, like I can't do it alone. And so I need to put them in the pathway of other other people who love them and care about them and our, you know, want them as much as I do to survive, right? Yeah, it's funny thing, it's, it's more of an appreciation for community. And, you know, as a writer, like, you know, married to another writer, we're introverts we're not really the most social people so I've had to learn to be more to be more so like to be right you know, before getting on this call with you today. I I went to crossing bridges ceremony for my my son who's just graduated fifth grade, even though yesterday was also his fifth grade graduation. And I think my prior self, like my 20 I don't know my 2013 self like when he was born, would have been so irritated there. Were back to back. school that I had to attend in. Yeah, so it's not to say I'm like that irritation is gone. It's still like time I didn't spend writing, right. But by now I've come actually to like love the other parents in this school community.

Traci Thomas 22:24

My kids are getting ready to start real school and I'm, I'm like, so glad to talk to you today. Because I'm like, this is helpful. I'm like looking at a future version of myself who will be so proud and so like happy because right now I'm so anxious about the whole thing. I want to add, so for folks who don't know, it's been announced, but in case you missed it for book club, you and I are going to read Octavia Butler's Parable of the Sower, which starts in July 2024. which coincidentally folks is right the fuck now. I originally you and I were just going to do one episode, we were gonna talk about your book and I started reading your book. I said, Gosh, I really want to do Parable of the Sower. And I feel like Emily would be such a good person to do this book with and of course, part of the reason is because your epigraph one of your epigraphs comes from Octavia Butler, and I'm just gonna read it really quick for folks says, Live, hold out survive. I don't know whether good times are coming back again. But I know that won't matter if we don't survive these times. And I'm wondering, a Why did you choose that for one of your epigraphs and B, what is your relationship to Octavia Butler and the parable of so Parable of the Sower, if anything?

Emily Raboteau 23:40

I think it's a really, really important book and one that I think high school students should read. Yeah, Parable of the Sower. We'll we'll talk more about it another episode. But yeah, it takes place right now. But she published it, I believe in the 90s. Like she wrote in the 90s. Right. And she just said it was really prescient, like she was a real she really foresaw a lot of a lot by just paying a cute keen attention to the like the politics, and then the economics and the ecology of what was happening. And her time, she really foresaw where we be now. So she she foresaw, you know, like, a political leader who would want to make America great again. And she foresaw these wildfires and she foresaw dread the kind of drug addiction where like she first saw a lot a lot of a lot of the crises that are explored in that book. Which takes place now she she understood were coming before I think anybody else really understood they were coming to the degree that yeah, it gives you this fine tingly feeling like for sure. Yeah, but she's she's a really special writer. I teach that book at the City College of New York and Harlem. More. I'm a Professor of Creative Writing and I now teach a climate writing class. And that's the that's like the novel that I teach. I teach mostly nonfiction. Well, some some other genres. But that's the fiction that we teach. And in some ways, it feels like nonfiction.

Traci Thomas 25:14

Yeah, speaking of climate writing, I was reading in your acknowledgments some of the people that you acknowledged, and you mentioned, some, like writing groups that are writers writing around climate. And I thought that was really interesting. Can you talk a little bit about maybe how you got connected with those folks, and why that's important or what what that group provides for you?

Emily Raboteau 25:36

Yeah, well, first, actually, right before the pandemic, in the months leading up to the pandemic, I was in extinction rebellion group. And we were like a neighborhood group. For listeners who don't know extinction. Rebellion is like a kind of, it's it's meant to be a kind of worldwide rebellion against the climate crisis. And it's it encourages people to form in neighborhood, what they're called neighborhood groups, with people in your community with whom you share whatever allegiances. And so this was a group of writers, it was started by Jenny, Jenny awful. There were a bunch of us in that group. And anyway, it was like a New York City writers rebel group. But there was another one in London, like another writers group, and we had all these actions, we were beginning to plan and then COVID hit. But even after COVID, hit one of the few actions we were able to maintain, we did do like a climate reads. Through the Brooklyn Public Library, we did a climate reads group, a reading group, and we met online and the first book that we talked about, was Parable of the Sower, by Octavia Butler. So it kind of in some way sort of sort of fizzled out in terms of actions beyond that. But I now in a in a group of other writers who write along environmental themes, and are wrestling with the climate crisis on the page, and also in Latin life, and we just meet and we read, but we really read books. And once in a while, we'll read each other's work and offer feedback to but it's more of a reading group.

Traci Thomas 27:12

I love that. Yeah. Okay. So I didn't prep you for this. But we do this segment on the show called Ask the Stax, where someone's written in. They're asking for a book recommendation. So I'll read to you what they're asking for. And then I will, then we will give them a recommendation, I'll give like three you can give anywhere between one and three. This comes from Deanna and Deanna says I am moving states at the end of the month for my husband to complete a one year medical fellowship. And while I'm excited for an adventure, I am also sad to leave and a little apprehensive about what comes next. What would you recommend for this transition period? I am open to any genre, any format, any age level, anything is on the table. Books and the theme of transition are something completely unrelated are also welcome. I have a plan to get out of the house and meet people in my new city slash state but I know I'll have a lot more time at home and I want to have a queue of books ready for that moment. And then some of the books that Deanna loved from last year that she read last year in no particular order are family lore by Elizabeth Acevedo heavy by KSA layman. The January children by Safiyah el hilo, the fragile threads of power by VE Schwab and braiding sweetgrass by Robin vol wall camera. You guys can't see this, but Emily is giving Soft Air claps to braiding sweetgrass. So do you have anything that is coming to mind for you to recommend? Or would you like me to go first?

Emily Raboteau 28:47

Why don't you go first, I gotta give it some thought. Some important life phase for her.

Traci Thomas 28:52

This one was really hard for me because I really want to give you good advice. And so what I was thinking about is like, what might you need in this time of transition, and obviously like books about transition felt really obvious to me as like, sort of what we could what we could do. But I also was thinking about that stuff about like being home and and having more time to yourself and so the two things that came to mind as far as that are like either project books, like a book that you've been meaning to read, like, I've been meaning to read Lonesome Dove for my entire life, right? Like so something like that. That's just like a huge clunker. And Deanna i i know more of your reading test because I because I know who you are. And I know that you you know like propulsive stories. I'm not sure if you've read this, but I think you're a fan. But this would be my moment to read 1122 63 by Stephen King, that massive book about the Kennedy assassination sort of speculative fiction, that is something that I would do. The other way I was thinking about this question is like maybe reading books that are set in or about the place that you're moving to To like site specific reading, and since you didn't tell us where I'm just going to generally say books about that place. And then the kind of third thing I was thinking about was this connecting with new people. And I think many of you know one of my all time favorite books, and one of the most important books to how I live my life is the art of gathering by Priya Parker, which is all about how we come together, how we gather in spaces, and has so many practical tips about how to create new spaces. And because you're going to be entering new spaces, and hopefully, making new friends and making new connections, this might be a really nice book to kind of help you think about how you want to cultivate that since you do get this chance to start over and you can kind of create spaces that feel really, really good for you. Emily, what do you have for her?

Emily Raboteau 30:49

Well, first I just want to say I really empathize with this life moment. That's why this feels like a really important I don't want to I also want to get it right. I had a year where because of my my husband's a writer, and we spent a year in Amsterdam, was a little it was less than a year it was more like a semester while he was on fellowship and was right after we got married, which was its own transition. And I discovered while we were there that I was pregnant with our first child. It was like a wonderful time and a hard time because I you know, I hadn't made friends yet, like read. Yeah, I think you're right to be looking for good book to be your companion. I like Tracy's idea of something immersive. You like a project, like the book you never read, but I'm also a little fearful. I don't I don't want you to bite off more than you can chew and be like, Oh, this is my time to do Ulysses and it's too hard. And I'm not you know, like, right, right. Right. Right. Right. All right. The book I'm going to recommend this is kind of nepotistic. But it's a really good book is by my partner, my husband, who's a novelist named Victor Laval. And it's my favorite book of his and it's also about like a transition moment. And I helped him with this book because it has a female protagonist, and he needed a lot of help. It's a historical novel, it's called lone women. It takes place in Montana in like the 1910s and it's about a woman who moves from California with something very mysterious in a chest to prove up which is the term for like women you know, women were allowed to move on to the land in the West women of all races as a black woman and so long as they could live for I think three years on a parcel of land like it would become their is really hard going like really hard territory. But he he created this kind of amazing community of women proving up and it is literary horror. That's a caveat if you're not into it, well, maybe Stephen King.

Traci Thomas 32:48

That's yeah, that's like what I think that I hope I'm getting that wrong.

Emily Raboteau 32:51

So Stephen King himself liked this book that I'm working with.

Traci Thomas 32:54

Well here we go. I also right behind me in the black section, and it's really got a very propulsive plot.

Emily Raboteau 33:01

And if you like listening to books, which I do, it has an amazing voice actor. It's not Victor. It's like a voice actor who's a woman and she does an incredible job. So but even if you read it, like, hard copy, I think I think you'd like it for this transition moment.

Traci Thomas 33:19

That's so good. I love this. There's something else we have to talk about after we do this about what you just said, but we'll get there. Deana I hope that you love our recommendations, I hope that you find something that feels really good and comfortable for you. My other piece of advice would be just if you're not liking what you're reading, just move on to the next book. It's too much going on in your life to be stressed out about reading right now. And for folks at home who want a book recommendation read on the air, you can email ask the stacks at the stacks. podcast.com. I'm always in need of these. So please send them in. Don't be shy. Okay, Emily, we get to talk about your taste in books. But first, you mentioned that your husband is famed author, Victor LaBelle. And in your book, you talk about some of your very cool author friends that I was salivating over who I because I love finding out who's friends with who and who knows who. And I just, I did not know that was your husband and I are so excited. And I don't know if other people feel that way. Like when they just like I remember when I discovered danzi Sena and personal effort. We're married and I was like, This is the greatest news of my life. And this is exactly how I felt when I found out about you and Victor it's not a question. I'm just letting you know. It's such a joy. I like texted a friend. I was like, did you know about this? They were like No, I found out because I read the book. I was like, Oh my god. Okay, here we are. We'll start here two books you love and one book you hate.

Emily Raboteau 34:43

That's so hard for me. It's probably easier for me to name books that I love.

Traci Thomas 34:48

Why is it hard for you to name what you hate? What is the thing that is holding you back?

Emily Raboteau 34:52

I think I'm just I think I'm just very nice and also, I know how hard it is to write a book. And there's another thing that you just have the advice, which is that if you're reading a book you hate, you should let it go and stop reading it. Or even if it's just a book you moderately dislike or that, that you don't, it isn't arresting you and I, that's my advice to myself. My first my first job out of college was teaching through an organization called literacy partners, it was for people above 17, who read below a fifth grade reading levels like night school for basically to teach literacy. And that was our advice to that, like people who are struggling with learning to read. If you don't like it, like put it down, find something, right. So it's hard. It's hard for me to name a book I hate because I, I've never read very far into a book I even moderately disliked, right?

Traci Thomas 35:44

Like, you've never even started a book and been like, this is so bad. I hate this so much, I have to see what happened. Because like, if a book is moderate, for me, if I'm like, I'm not really into this, I will put it down. But if a book is making me feel like I, I want to murder this person, I have to finish because I have to be able to talk about every single thing I fucking hated about the character, or the writing style or the art like I cannot let it go if it because to me the feeling of hating a book is actually really similar to the feeling of loving a book where it's like, I just want to talk about it. And I just want to like dissect it and be like, Why did they do that? What are they doing?

Emily Raboteau 36:24

Yeah. All right. So it's actually one of the books I recently read that I kind of hated. Okay. We were reading in that reading group I was just talking about earlier, my climate reading group. And it's a book called Ice by Anna. Kevin, Have you have you heard of it, it now it's like kind of described as a climate book, even though it wasn't written about the climate crisis. But the reason I disliked this book, and a couple of the other women in the group had a really hard time with this book too. Especially like those, those of us who've been in in like domestic violence situations, but it's about this sort of like, cataclysmic apocalyptic world moment where there's just like sheets of ice are overtaking the planet. And the protagonist, even though the writer is female, the protagonist is male. And he's obsessed with this girl who doesn't have a name, she's just described as the girl and she's almost like an albino, she's good, like her hair is white, is very well, and she and he's sexually, like obsessed with her, but in a violent way. And he kind of just follows her all over trying to capture her to, quote unquote, save her. But then he also has these kind of violent impulses. He's a little bit rapey. And I just got these vibes right away that I that I felt the protagonist was sick, I forgot to mention that the author struggled with heroin addiction. So some, some readers have claimed that this obsessive quality of the narrator in regards to the girl is akin to the feeling of an addict like trying to get their their fix, and that the girl, even even though like the description of ice, which is kind of like a code word for that drug, like, right. So it's complex, but it just gave me these vibe, these creepy vibes that were sort of triggering, and yet I did get all the way through the book, because we were reading it for Book Group, and I didn't want to show up not having read it. But yeah, Lacey Johnson, who's another writer in that group? lawsuit. Yeah. And has also written about, you know, like a bad bad relationship like, was triggered to and I think she didn't get all the way through which I understood that. Yeah. Yeah. So that's the book I kind of hated did it.

Traci Thomas 38:44

Okay, now let's talk about books you love. You're off the hook. That's the hardest one for you. I think so I think you'll be fine from here on out.

Emily Raboteau 38:50

All right. And I'll talk about a book I recently read because it was recommended to me by a writer I really love named Mary and I use Hagar who has her own book out right now. But this is a book she recommend, which I can talk about too. But she recommended a book to me. We were in a bookstore together. And I love this moment, because it was a bookstore that I love called Word Up Community bookshop, which is in Washington Heights. And the book was just on display. And she was like, that book is amazing. It's a book of interconnected short stories sort of marketed as a novel. It's called behind you is the sea by Susan melotti garage. And it's about a community of Palestinian immigrants in Baltimore. Oh, yes. And what I love about this book is that she's so good at writing about class like these immigrants belong, like some of them are striving, but some of them have already kind of made it and some of them have not made it at all yet. And they're really that they all kind of know each other and they're in each other's lives, like some of them clean the house of the other one, and some of them are like, I don't know, having affairs with each other. And it's just it's sort of she's really good at writing about class aspiration. And, and it's, it's, it's very sad. And it's very funny. And she's just really good with describing people and foibles and settings. And I love that Mary recommended it to me. I knew nothing about the book or the writer. But I also felt in our political moment that I wanted to support like, just reading about Palestinians, and is a great book was a really good book.

Traci Thomas 40:21

Okay, and what's the second book you love?

Emily Raboteau 40:23

Oh, my son just asked me. My younger son, did you ever read a book that like, you cried when somebody and it died that you cared about? And I said, Yes, I guess this is just this has just happened to him. And I said, Yes. That book was Don Quixote, which I read in college. That's one of those projects. If it hadn't been assigned that book in college, it would have been one of those project books like, right, it's hard to get through, perhaps on your own but and then my son asked, Well, why did you cry? And I said, Because Don Quixote, like, he's, he's got the best imagination ever. You're inside his dream world, and you've gone on all these adventures with him. And then he goes old and dies. And it's almost like losing an uncle that you love, who's sort of crazy, but but you just want to spend time with him because he believes in the best of possibilities and, and he's like, he's still like a child, even though he's a man. And so when he dies, it's like the a little bit of loss of innocence, or beauty or belief in magic in the world.

Traci Thomas 41:30

What was the book that made your son cry?

Emily Raboteau 41:33

He just read a book called Sunshine that was gifted to me by a student who was this last spring semester, who has a child who's slightly older, it's a graphic novel. And it's about a summer camp where all of the kids who go to the camp I think are terminally ill, or Ill kids. And so one of the main characters you think has gotten better, as my son explained, or is get is like, has had cancer but and then the cancer comes back. And by the end of the book, that character dies. And so my son hadn't seen it coming, and was very invested in that character and, and cried.

Traci Thomas 42:10

Yeah, we've all been there. Tell your son he's not alone. We've all had the sad dying character thing. What kind of reader Are you? How often do you read? What is your reading life? Like? Where do you like to do it? Do you like to have snacks and beverages? Talk about just Emily reads.

Emily Raboteau 42:31

I like creating in public libraries, they have always been my third space, like my happy space since childhood. And I write in library and public libraries as well. Even though in New York, that can sometimes be dramatic spaces, because a lot of a lot of people use them for social services, and maybe are unsheltered presently. But that's a place where they can go and take a nap. Usually, if the librarians aren't, or the guards are being assholes. But you know, so it's not always I mean, to say, it's not always a quiet space, but so I bring your earplugs to make it a quiet space. And I like it because it's not my house. Where I tend to, for me, reading feels like a luxury and something I have to almost schedule because if I'm in my house, which is usually in some state, I'm sure yours is to a foil twins sub state of like, just chaos. Yeah, I get to I get to distracted by the things that need cleaning or straightening or ordering or thing I thinking about, you know, it's hard for me to concentrate. In other words, like to lose myself in the beauty of a book I, I kind of need to be in a space that's devoted to that. And for me, that's a library. So we live in the Bronx now and in a neighborhood called kings bridge. And so I go to the Kingsbridge Public Library, and I sit at like, a long table with other people. And I either bring a book from home or I get a book there. I put books on reserve there. I know the librarians. It's like a very happy space for me. And I try to read for at least at least a half hour a day. I also listen to books I love that began for me when I was nursing my babies, and it was hard to hold a book and an infant against my body at the same time. And I have continued to practice because I could do it while I'm commuting on the subway or doing the dishes, but it has to be I don't know, for you, Tracy or for your listeners. But for me, it has to be a book whose diction isn't very high, like Yeah, you know, conversational reader.

Traci Thomas 44:26

Yeah, yeah, not too performative.

Emily Raboteau 44:28

Yeah, it has to be not too performative. Otherwise, that might get lost or think I've missed something.

Traci Thomas 44:35

And so can you do fiction and nonfiction on audio, or is there one time that you prefer?

Emily Raboteau 44:41

I can do both. I just listened to a really good book also recommended to me by like a soccer mom, a mom on the side that feels almost like a derogative term. I don't mean another mod on the side of the stock field, who's also a writer and she was like hydrate, she listens to books and she had just listened to a book called I am I am I am by Maggie which Maggie? Oh, she's one of those British Maggie's.

Traci Thomas 45:06

Maggie's... I know it's like green and has like a feather on the cover. I know exactly what you're talking about.

Emily Raboteau 45:12

It's not Maggie Chipstead it's Maggie O'Farrell.

Traci Thomas 45:16

Oh, it is.

Emily Raboteau 45:17

It is Maggie O'Farrell. I feel like she won the Women's Prize or another big prize for for a novel of hers. But this is a book of essays. And it's about it's called 17 brushes with death or something like that. It's like 17 essays about almost dying. And it's amazing. She's amazing. She's British. I mean, yes. Really smart. But the diction was just right. And I and I also like listening to novels.

Traci Thomas 45:45

Do you listen at 1.0 speed? Are you a speed or upper?

Emily Raboteau 45:49

No, I'm not a speed rapper. I think that I'd have a hard time processing it. Do you use? Do you speed it?

Traci Thomas 45:54

Oh, I go so fast, I guess. One point five is my base. If it's slower, it's so rare that I go slower than 1.5. I also talk fast.

Emily Raboteau 46:07

Yeah, and you're a professional reader like you're consuming for this is your career. So I imagine you have you just got to get through them.

Traci Thomas 46:14

Well, for what what actually ended up happening for me why I started speeding it up is I didn't know you could first of all for like the first year and a half. I was listening to audiobooks. And I was complaining to my friend and I was like, I'm listening to becoming by Michelle Obama. But it's so long, and it's so slow. And he was like, oh, speed it up. And I was like, I did not know this was possible. And then I sped it up and I was like, Oh, I actually can retain the information better, because I'm not zoning out between every word. So for me, it feels more conversational, but it's a little faster. Because people like some audiobooks. They talk so slow. I mean, Michelle Obama ended up listening to at 2.0, which I rarely do, but she was going so slow. I was like, Michelle, oh, my God, come on, lady. We need you to speed up and Barack is slow to they're slow talkers. I don't know what it's about. speeches are something but I both of them are 2.0 people for me. And yes, some of it is to get through it faster. I think I listened. I read your book and listen to parts of your book because you read it, which is what I prefer when the author reads. Because I like to do nonfiction. Mostly on audio. I cannot follow novels on audio. But I think I listened to you at 1.5 Because you were not particularly slow. You were sort of like the correct slow speed that they tell you to do. But some people are extra slow. And like if someone has an accent, I might have to go slightly slower. Like I was listening to say nothing by Patrick Radden Keefe and that author or that reader is Irish because the book takes place in Northern Ireland. So I was having to slow that down and I you know, so it's really more just like where does it feel right in my brain?

Emily Raboteau 47:50

Yeah. Do you know what my favorite audio book of recent years has been maybe all the time. My My older son is listening to it now it's True Grit by Charles Portis but read by the novelist Donna Tartt. And whoa, it's like randomly recommended to somebody online one of my socials was like, I have a long road trip coming up. I need a really good recommendation for an audio book and somebody was like, you know, Donna Tartt does a kick ass job of reading this western by Charles Portis sort of Western I it's it is a West Western. And so she's from Arkansas. And this like, narrator of the book is like a 13 year old girl or something.

Traci Thomas 48:34

And she says a movie, but I've never read the book.

Emily Raboteau 48:38

She does this amazing job with I mean, she's like an act like but she gets the accent. And I think she just she just gets it. Anyway, she has said that she read that book at the age of 10 and loved it. And so she asked if she could she like, wow, she asked if she could be the voice actor for that book. Oh my god, it's so weird. And I listened to it in the COVID COVID. The COVID Hotel I wrote about in the book, I did a COVID hotel with my younger son. In New York. They were like offering this to New Yorkers because we live so tightly packed. And so people people were just dying and extreme numbers. And so it made sense to offer people just to like decrease the density. If you got COVID And you didn't want to get your family sick or your roommate sick. They would put you up in a hotel near the airport. We did that. And while I was there, I listened to it's on a chart reading. I didn't speed it up. I just listened to her reading it RC but it was great. It was it was such it was the opposite of being in a COVID hotel in New York City was like Donna Tartt reading a Western. I felt so transported by it.

Traci Thomas 49:43

Okay, now you're a friend of mine has been telling me I should read it even though I'm like, I'm not gonna like that. But now I'm like, Well, maybe I'll try listening to it on audio. That's right. We'll see what's the worst that happens. I put it down. Um, what are you reading right now?

Emily Raboteau 49:56

I'm reading the garden against time. Bye Livia Lang I was given so I've become a gardener in my middle age, and I really like gardening books and this gardening book, but it's also about history and colonialism. Olivia Lange is a British writer who I really love. She has a book of essays about loneliness, lonely being lonely in New York City. Then this one is about gardening. It's about her garden, but she's also kind of exploring and excavating the British garden and like landscape and all of the blood money that's gone into the gardens of extremely wealthy estates in in Great Britain. And so it's really smart and also transporting in its own way, because it's about flowers and beauty, but also about hard things too.

Traci Thomas 50:48

Do you have any genres of books that you like, don't particularly care for. You don't like to read?

Emily Raboteau 50:55

Yeah, ironically, given that I'm married to a literary horror writer, I don't really like horror as a genre.

Traci Thomas 51:02

I'm just scared to read it.

Emily Raboteau 51:06

For me, it's yeah, maybe it I also a bit of this has to do with horror movies, too. Like he likes to watch them. And oh, no, I just find them. I find them typically too formulaic to be scary. And they have an appeal for him. But, but for me, it's a genre that doesn't move me and it's interesting to see like our older son is now getting into Stephen King and his sixth grade teacher last year, wrote to us was like, Is it okay that he's reading IT in like a literature class?

Traci Thomas 51:36

You're like do you know who my dad is?

Emily Raboteau 51:38

I think he was just proud to have a book. You know, that book is something like 1000 pages long. I think it was just really proud to have a book that thick, right. But yeah, we were like, it's fine. He can read that book.

Traci Thomas 51:50

Do your kids have any interest in reading your books? Either of your books?

Emily Raboteau 51:54

Not yet. I think I didn't. I hope maybe they will. I they know that we have them. I've seen like I showed them. This book is dedicated to my two kids and they liked they were touched by that. But I don't think they're, I think it's yeah, the diction is too high for them at this point. Yeah. With our with our books, but I expect that someday they'll probably help our readers.

Traci Thomas 52:15

So I feel like that is always helpful. I feel like sometimes authors have kids, I guess maybe who don't read, but it sounds like your kids are into reading both.

Emily Raboteau 52:24

Yeah, yeah. They're into reading. Yeah.

Traci Thomas 52:27

Did you do that on purpose? Or did it just happen? Because you all read in our writing,

Emily Raboteau 52:31

I think it's just a house with a lot of books. And we like I said, libraries are my happy space. So every Saturday since they were Yeah, littler than yours. I have been taking them to the public library. That's the ritual we have a rule you can't leave the house without a book. So we've we're on the subway or even just waiting for meals to arrive at a restaurant like they're, they're reading books.

Traci Thomas 52:52

My kids are book people as well, I think just because they see me reading all the time. And so like they always have and because I work from home and because the first whole year of their life was basically complete lockdown. I was reading constantly just in front of them and around them. But they do they love their books. And they now they're into my books, they'll like open my books and be like, Mommy, there's a doggie do it like they'll like make up a story of the book The dog you went to the store and I'm like, that's a book about climate change. Like we're all the pictures I'm like, I know it's not great around here though. Your book has pictures. My kids are probably like your book. Do you have a favorite bookstore? I know you mentioned word up just before.

Emily Raboteau 53:39

Yeah, that one I do really love because it was our local bookstore we are pandemic move was from Washington Heights, which is the very tippy top like North northern part of Manhattan to the Bronx to have more space. And we don't this borough has like a dearth of bookstores. There's only like one right? There's one. Yeah. And it's and and the Bronx is also notoriously difficult to navigate. Like as like I lived in the Bronx for a year. Yeah, so like, we're not even close to that one. You can't really even get there.

Traci Thomas 54:11

I had to I lived off one of like you had to do the train and the bus thing where we-

Emily Raboteau 54:15

Yeah. And that's why I really do love that bookstore in Washington Heights. Because it's, you know, it's there are a lot of bookstores in Brooklyn, like doing my book tour for this book. The events were all in Brooklyn, which is an hour and a half or two hours away, even depending on which is sad, you know, and so therefore, I was just really proud, proud to have that bookstore in the neighborhood. It's also a community space, and it's a bilingual bookstore. And so it's just very thoughtful about, you know who it's for. And lots of us used books. You can get books for free. And it says gathering space for people to have community meetings too.

Traci Thomas 54:54

What's the last book that made you laugh?

Emily Raboteau 54:57

I just taught a memoir workshop at City to college and we read, you know, the students are writing, writing memoirs, but I was signing the material I love Vivian Gornick she's she's a New York writers really acerbic. She went to City College long ago, she must be in her 80s. Now, she, she's funny, she's got this like salty, kind of like, he's just, she's salty and a little bit crabby and just makes really keen observations. And so she's got a book I love called the odd woman in a city, which I assigned in that class. And that book may, you know, I've read it a few times, and it makes me laugh every time.

Traci Thomas 55:35

Last book that made you angry?

Emily Raboteau 55:37

I reviewed Camille's book Soil for the New York Review of Books and that book, it's a it's a wonderful list another book about about gardening and and also about history. And the part of it that made you know, that makes me angry are the parts the parts where she's expressing anger? So for example, yeah, that book soil, the subtitle is a black mother's garden. And, you know, she describes herself as a, as an environmental writer, and there's like a scene worse, where there's a new there's a white woman in the audience of a reading she's doing or a talk, she's giving who's, who questions her authority and calling herself an environmental writer, because so much of what she writes about, in her environmental writing is like the racial landscape of the United States. And that made me really angry, though, and then she goes into it and why that made her angry and why it made her father angry, and just about the attachment of black people to the land and how the idea of gardening like for pleasure. You know, when for so much of history, it was about, you know, toiling toiling the lands to grow things to make their masters rich, it just, you know, she she gets into it in ways that make you angry.

Traci Thomas 57:01

What is a book that you are embarrassed that you've never read?

Emily Raboteau 57:07

I am embarrassed that I never read Ulysses, which I almost was gonna recommend as the project.

Traci Thomas 57:11

I've never read it either. But I don't want to read it. You're not curious about it at all.

Emily Raboteau 57:17

I had a student this last semester who read it, like who said that it mattered to him when he read it as a student abroad. In Ireland, like with an Irish professor, like where you're like, in, I could get a feel like if I had the right person teaching it. Yeah. But I no longer a student. And I guess I have why I'm embarrassed never to have read it. I'm not extremely embarrassed, I might die without having read and it wouldn't be the end of the world. But it's just like, there's certain books that seem to matter to the to the culture that I feel like I just won't get through without help. And I was lucky enough in college like to take that class on Don Quixote and I took another one on Faulkner, there's some of those Faulkner books would have been really challenging for me without like, you know, like a scholar walking me through it. And I don't I feel a little bit sad that there's some books I didn't get through in that way when I had the opportunity.

Traci Thomas 58:15

Yeah, I feel that. I feel like because I mean, that's part of this show is like reading books that are really hard with people like I'm excited to do Parable of the Sower with you, because I have read it. But I feel like I sort of felt lukewarm about it. And I'm so I'm, like, excited to reread it and get to talk to someone who knows it really well. And kind of like do a mini course on it, because I know that I didn't do it right. The first time. Okay, last question, because we're totally out of time. I'm so sorry. We went over. If you could require the current president of the United States to read one book, what would it be?

Emily Raboteau 58:52

I think I think given the socio political like historical moment that we're in, I would have him read a book by Mahmoud Darwish, a Palestinian poet called memory of forgetfulness. That book is translated by Ebro Ibrahim, who Hawi it's always important to name the translator. It's a prose poem memoir about the Israeli siege of Beirut in 1982. But it also you know, it asks, what is the role of the poet and more time and it's also about memory. It's a beautiful and very sad book that is perennial.

Traci Thomas 59:33

I love this recommendation. Okay, folks, we're done for now. Emily will be back on July 31. The last day of the month to discuss Octavia Butler's Parable of the Sower. Read the book now, there will be spoilers. So you've been warned you have like 28 days or something from this moment on to get to it. And also while you do that, you should also read Lessons for Survival, Emily's book, which is out in the world As I mentioned, I've read it off the page. I also listened to it on audio, I recommend if you're gonna listen to it on audio, getting a copy, at least from your library because there are photos in the book that are very helpful or is there like an audiobook?

Emily Raboteau 1:00:12

And the link is cool because the photos are in color.

Traci Thomas 1:00:15

I'm gonna go look. Because I have the audiobook. I have it all, I have it. Okay, I gotta go look up a couple pictures in color. Just get the audiobook or the physical book. I don't know. Emily, thank you so much for being here.

Emily Raboteau 1:00:31

Thank you, Traci. It's been a pleasure.

Traci Thomas 1:00:33

And everyone else we will see you in the stacks.

Alright, y'all, that does it for us today. Thank you so much for listening and thank you to Emily for being on the show. I'd also like to thank Sarah Jean Grimm and Caitlin Mulrooney Lisicki for helping to make this conversation possible. Remember, Emily will be back on July 31 for the Stacks book club discussion of Parable of the Sower by Octavia E. Butler. If you love the show and you want inside access to it, head to patreon.com/thestacks to join The Stacks Pack and subscribe to my newsletter at TraciThomas.substack.com. Make sure you're subscribed to The Stacks wherever you listen to your podcasts and if you're listening through Apple podcasts or Spotify, be sure to leave a rating and a review. For more from The Stacks follow us on social media at thestackspod on Instagram, Threads and TikTok and at thestackspod_ on Twitter and you can check out my website at thestackspodcast.com. This episode of The Stacks was edited by Christian Dueñas, with production assistance from Lauren Tyree. Our graphic designer is Robin McCreight and our theme music is from Tagirijus. The Stacks is created and produced by me, Traci Thomas.

Lauren Tyree
Next

Ep. 325 It Ends with Us by Colleen Hoover — The Stacks Book Club (Melissa Mogollon)