Speaker 1: Last week we brought you mental Illness, grievous, bodily harm,
Speaker 1: broken families, and double mark Ruffalos. This is Popcorn Book
Speaker 1: Club from My Heart Radio, and we're continuing our conversations
Speaker 1: about I Know This Much is True by Wally Lamb,
Speaker 1: now a series on HBO with the story this Bleak,
Speaker 1: we found ourselves imagining better futures for our characters. She marries.
Speaker 1: She marries the actor who place Prince Charming. They're cute.
Speaker 1: They have a joint Instagram account. The nice thing about
Speaker 1: this book being so comprehensive is that there's so much.
Speaker 1: This is part two of our discussions, So if you
Speaker 1: haven't listened to part one yet, I promised things will
Speaker 1: make a lot more sense if you start there. Cool, okay,
Speaker 1: let's jump in. Hi there, I'm Danishwartz and welcome to
Speaker 1: Popcorn Book Club. I'm joined as always by my beautiful
Speaker 1: co hosts Jennifer Right, Tan Tran Cramadogua and Melissa Hunter. Everyone. Uh,
Speaker 1: this was This is a lot of content to get through.
Speaker 1: I just want to remind you that at the end
Speaker 1: of last time we were like, oh, he's talking to
Speaker 1: Dr Ptel Domina actually feels like he's on the upswing.
Speaker 1: This feels like progress. Noe. So I feel like I
Speaker 1: feel like there's like a few major events to go
Speaker 1: through that I want to talk to. Um. Does at
Speaker 1: even have very strong feelings about a thing to start with? Well,
Speaker 1: I mean so many atrocities, yes, and that doesn't even
Speaker 1: feel like the worst part of it was just like
Speaker 1: offhand oopsie. Yeah. I felt like when I was reading
Speaker 1: I forgot about horrible things, and then in the drip
Speaker 1: chat when we were like talk about them and like,
Speaker 1: oh right, that also happened. It feels like we've reached
Speaker 1: like human atrocity bingo of like this covered every atrocity
Speaker 1: that can happen to a person or groups of people
Speaker 1: in this book. We have rape, molestation, UM, pedophilia, pedophil
Speaker 1: under the bus, to the police, suicide. Yeah, yeah, I forget,
Speaker 1: infant sudden infant death. Sorry, but I know we covered
Speaker 1: that infest and we say incest, no, no, incest and
Speaker 1: incest to You're so right, Melissa, It does feel like
Speaker 1: human atrocity bingo. It felt like Wally was like, how
Speaker 1: do we make this even more fucked up? Let me
Speaker 1: keep adding more and more. I mean, we talked about
Speaker 1: it in the chat, but it feels like a soap
Speaker 1: opera at this point, this little fucking grin picture. I
Speaker 1: don't like seeing the picture the authors because every time
Speaker 1: something bad HAPs, I just see him going, what do
Speaker 1: we what do we think the prize is? What do
Speaker 1: we think the prizes for human atrocity? Bingo nap? I
Speaker 1: think a long daytime nap. Yeah. I kept thinking about
Speaker 1: how if this had been a female author, people would
Speaker 1: talk about how she hated men, How the men and
Speaker 1: this people are so consistently vileed, just vile beyond any imagination,
Speaker 1: and the women are all pretty good people like the
Speaker 1: wodn't have done anything too terrible. Yet Joy not actively
Speaker 1: bad Joy, but I feel is a victim. Joy is
Speaker 1: a Yeah, you know, she makes mistakes, but I don't
Speaker 1: feel like she's actively bad. Yeah. I feel like Joy
Speaker 1: was raped at thirteen and she's tried to deal. There's
Speaker 1: no woman that's like a cartoon villain twirling their mustache
Speaker 1: or anything. Yeah, she's been under the like the abuse
Speaker 1: of her uncle since age twelve, like over her thirteen years.
Speaker 1: So it's a danger of grooming, isn't it. You know? Yeah? Um, well,
Speaker 1: let's start, because we have been discussing who the good
Speaker 1: guys were, like, are there any good guys? And we
Speaker 1: were like, yeah, her her gay friend dad, and that
Speaker 1: that backfired in her face. Ever wrong about that? I
Speaker 1: only imagined, like after the last section of like Joy
Speaker 1: should just go live with that and his husband and
Speaker 1: lived like a very happy life. And little did we
Speaker 1: know that was exactly what was happening. And it was
Speaker 1: the worst thing that could ever happen to Joy. So
Speaker 1: she stuck with him forever. She has a baby, So
Speaker 1: let's talk about Joy. What we learned in these chapters
Speaker 1: is that Joy is pregnant. Joy the twenty three Remember
Speaker 1: she's twenty three. She worked to Jim uh Dominic does
Speaker 1: not seem to like her at all or I think
Speaker 1: she's pretty. She like acknowledges that other people think she's pretty,
Speaker 1: but he does not care about that. Everyone comments on
Speaker 1: how hot she is yeah, and he's like, I'm talking
Speaker 1: about and he gets jealous and he's like, oh, what
Speaker 1: do you mean you know? Joy? So it's like, yeah,
Speaker 1: you can't have it both ways, my dude. You cannot
Speaker 1: be that people think she's hot but also not think
Speaker 1: she's hot. And then also just and also he doesn't
Speaker 1: be obvious, but he's like twice her age. Shouldn't he
Speaker 1: feel at least somewhat lucky to have a very beautiful,
Speaker 1: much younger girlfriend. No, not like he has a lot
Speaker 1: going on for him. I feel like it's one of
Speaker 1: those things where he just wants to have her, to
Speaker 1: have her where he doesn't like her as a person
Speaker 1: or who she is. He just likes having a young, pretty,
Speaker 1: living girlfriend for the things that that kind of takes well.
Speaker 1: And it's like he went from his mother Todessa to joy.
Speaker 1: He's never been about a woman in his life, and
Speaker 1: I'm curious to see how long that lasts. As we
Speaker 1: move on to the next section, that that should be
Speaker 1: our advice to Dominic. Dominic, you gotta be single, you
Speaker 1: gotta find you gotta find yourself. You gotta sit with
Speaker 1: your singleness. Don't just jump from woman to woman. He
Speaker 1: needs to go to Greece like Desa and have an experience,
Speaker 1: or Italy. He can go to Sicily and he can
Speaker 1: go see where Domenico is from. Oh god, he could
Speaker 1: do in five days a week. It is my only
Speaker 1: plan for Dominic to whatever from Anna think going on
Speaker 1: in his life. So, in terms of plot, what we
Speaker 1: figure out with Joy just a brief recap, is that
Speaker 1: she tells Dominic she's pregnant. Dominic had gotten a vasectomy
Speaker 1: back when he was married to Tessa. Doesn't tell Joy
Speaker 1: this immediately. Surprise confront Surprise confronts her when she comes
Speaker 1: to visit him in the hospital after his second of
Speaker 1: two major accidents um and then she leaves him. She
Speaker 1: brings him a recording in which she confesses that that
Speaker 1: does my apologies. That thinks with the recording, isn't I
Speaker 1: think it's bad. I always thought it was bad. I
Speaker 1: thought I knew with that once. So I'm just assuming
Speaker 1: that this guy is like that guy. There's a there's
Speaker 1: an age in there. I don't know, an asshole. We
Speaker 1: don't have to get his name right now. But so
Speaker 1: he spoiler alert, was not gay. He was bisexual. And
Speaker 1: he was the uncle that had been molesting her since
Speaker 1: she was twelve, had sort of stayed in touch, kept
Speaker 1: grooming her in a really, really troubling way, ruined her
Speaker 1: first two marriages. I don't even think we got to
Speaker 1: this manipulated Joy into letting him watch them have sex.
Speaker 1: That's why, that's why I was like, Joy is not
Speaker 1: great because like, even though she is under duressed, I'm
Speaker 1: not saying that she's just like, oh yeah, hunky Dorry,
Speaker 1: sure watch us. But still I feel like there's a
Speaker 1: violation at that point of dominant consent that I'm like
Speaker 1: sual situation across that across the board she gaslet him,
Speaker 1: you know, like he he channeled his jealousy into angry homophobia,
Speaker 1: which was not correct, but he was he didn't like
Speaker 1: their relationship. There was something I feel like underlying that
Speaker 1: that he was just missing as him being hating gay people.
Speaker 1: But she was like, oh, you're so homophobic, when it's
Speaker 1: really like he was angry about it, and she was
Speaker 1: trying to make him be like it's because he's gay,
Speaker 1: that's why you're mad about him, Like because he's all
Speaker 1: of the duchess, Like I'm saying he's homophobic. However, I
Speaker 1: feel like what I looking back on the chapters, Joy
Speaker 1: used that as like, this is why you're upset with him.
Speaker 1: It's just because you're afraid of gay people, not because
Speaker 1: you see that there's something else going on between us.
Speaker 1: You know. We'd also love to flag that Wally's depiction
Speaker 1: of the only queer people in this book are are
Speaker 1: It's like intertwined with pedophilia. So good job the architects
Speaker 1: at least we think the architect is Okay, you're right, Yes,
Speaker 1: the architect is the one married to Thad. I don't know.
Speaker 1: I feel like he'd complicit. He kicks out when he
Speaker 1: finds out, he kicks him out. When was that? I
Speaker 1: might miss that. There was a lot happening. I'm surprised
Speaker 1: you got literally anything. But actually I wanted to talk
Speaker 1: about said and the negative depictions of queer people because
Speaker 1: there's also a moment that's like a blank if you
Speaker 1: miss it moment where in this section where Dominic talks
Speaker 1: about the fact that he was a molest sit by
Speaker 1: a guy while he was hitch hiking. Yes, and he
Speaker 1: was using his brother as like, well this happened to
Speaker 1: my brother. Yeah, and uh there was the Leo's teacher
Speaker 1: was like, so it's all these like and and yes,
Speaker 1: that's the worst part. All of every queer character in
Speaker 1: a book are predators. Yes, yeah, I believe that Dr
Speaker 1: Patel is a wise lesbian. I just oh, yeah, she
Speaker 1: showed up. She showed up in overalls. I mean, come on, yeah, Yeah,
Speaker 1: she's lesbian. Yeah, awesome social. She's definitely the Christie of
Speaker 1: that babysitters club. I mean, yeah, so many predators you
Speaker 1: could fill out a bingo. We're getting five in a
Speaker 1: row right there. I guess we could try to rank
Speaker 1: these people from worst to best, but that feels I
Speaker 1: don't even know how to begin doing that. The thing
Speaker 1: that I do want to talk about Ralph in a
Speaker 1: in a in a way that I feel like in
Speaker 1: this section we get a lot of Ralph in different ways,
Speaker 1: and I think it's important to sort of trace that
Speaker 1: we start uh talking about. It's interesting because we're getting
Speaker 1: the story from Dominic. Dominic thinks it's thinks he's telling
Speaker 1: Thomas's story. So he's telling about the summer that they
Speaker 1: worked at the public works, you know, campsites, and that
Speaker 1: was the summer that Thomas sort of had his break.
Speaker 1: But that's also the summer that you know, they spent
Speaker 1: a long time with Ralph. Jennifer, do you want to
Speaker 1: sort of recap how we knew Ralph up to this point? Oh? Yeah,
Speaker 1: they were all working together at the public Works. Um
Speaker 1: Raw was their co worker. They were friendly, um, they
Speaker 1: had a very racist boss. Whom treated Ralph terribly. That
Speaker 1: was del I'm gonna yeah, his name was del Um,
Speaker 1: and Ralph provided them with marijuana at one point. Um.
Speaker 1: But it was nicely, it was friendly that he was
Speaker 1: sharing with him. It wasn't It took him them a
Speaker 1: while to open up to him. He was very isolated
Speaker 1: from them, and then like you know, he played baseball
Speaker 1: with them and he was really good at it, and
Speaker 1: then he's just slowly he opened up and began to
Speaker 1: trust him. Yeah. Um, so it felt like a positive
Speaker 1: experience until Dell said that he could sell Dominic his
Speaker 1: old car that belonged to his life, and they went
Speaker 1: over to Dell's house. Um, they found um homosexual magazines
Speaker 1: and they also found out that Ralph was living there,
Speaker 1: which they didn't no. Um, so do we want to
Speaker 1: talk about that? Well? I think it was interesting that
Speaker 1: revealed that Ralph was living there because there had been
Speaker 1: sort of sprinkled hints at it because they I thought
Speaker 1: that they were hinting at Ralph maybe being homeless because
Speaker 1: he was always wearing the same clothes. He was like,
Speaker 1: you can't come pick me up where I live And
Speaker 1: I was like, oh, if that makes me sad, that
Speaker 1: one of the only characters of color is homeless. But
Speaker 1: then I got sadder. So yeah, and you know, I
Speaker 1: felt it coming because they were driving to go fishing.
Speaker 1: I remember it very distinctly. They were driving to go fishing.
Speaker 1: Leo and Dominic and Dell had said call before you
Speaker 1: come over about seeing the car, and obviously this takes
Speaker 1: place in nineteen nine and there are no cell phones,
Speaker 1: so he just hops in the car. He's like, oh, right,
Speaker 1: I was supposed to go see Dell. Let me just
Speaker 1: pop over without calling, like I promised, because it's too
Speaker 1: late to call now. And then Ralph opens the door,
Speaker 1: and I was like, I knew something was going to
Speaker 1: be bad because he said, called before you come over.
Speaker 1: We don't know where Ralph lives. And they had just
Speaker 1: talked about buying a bunch of marijuana from Ralph to
Speaker 1: go then sell in college. So Ralph has been generously
Speaker 1: sharing his marijuana with them all summer, and the situation, yeah,
Speaker 1: it was Leo's idea. Probably did not even know they
Speaker 1: are planning to become drug dealers. He's like, what if
Speaker 1: we buy a lot? And he's like, does does Ralph
Speaker 1: even have a lot? And he's like he'll figure it out.
Speaker 1: Like of course Ralph did not offer, he's not involved. Um.
Speaker 1: And then uh, and I want to just recap briefly
Speaker 1: from last time. Ralph's sister was murdered at the Falls
Speaker 1: when she was in elementary school. So his sister was
Speaker 1: was violently like raped and murdered, uh in their childhood,
Speaker 1: right after Dominic lied to the teacher about her stealing
Speaker 1: even though she sometimes sometimes always two sisters spoils for
Speaker 1: Dominic and Thomas because they're the only other twins in town. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and then the only time that we see Ralph later
Speaker 1: is him confronting a racist teacher and being like cool
Speaker 1: as hell, and the teacher is absolutely racist and Ralph
Speaker 1: is absolutely right, but you're like, this system is not
Speaker 1: working for him. M m. And then Leo exploits it
Speaker 1: again by like when they get pulled over by the
Speaker 1: cops for smoking weed, Leo and Dominic throw Ralph under
Speaker 1: the bus, knowing that they can do that, that they
Speaker 1: can like and you see the insidiousness of like cops,
Speaker 1: which is like what we're talking about what's going on
Speaker 1: right now that they actually just like push Dominic to
Speaker 1: make this lie, like they're like you can leave if
Speaker 1: you tell us that, yes, Ralph is going to sell
Speaker 1: you drugs to deal. Yeah, and if you say no,
Speaker 1: then we'll keep you here. And he kept trying, in
Speaker 1: his like cowardly way to just be like, well, maybe
Speaker 1: I'll say like, well maybe it happened without me, instead
Speaker 1: of just saying like no, Leo's a liar. And that
Speaker 1: wasn't even good enough for the cops. It was like, no,
Speaker 1: I need you to say you heard it too, because
Speaker 1: they wanted even though they know like that it's all
Speaker 1: a lie, it's just a lot easier for them. It's
Speaker 1: like that Central Park lady who knows that the system
Speaker 1: is biased in favor of white people, Yes, Amy Cooper,
Speaker 1: where it's like both Leo knew it more consciously, I
Speaker 1: feel like, and then you know Dominic Shark picks up
Speaker 1: on it, where it's like, no, the cops just want
Speaker 1: to find an excuse to arrest the one person of
Speaker 1: color in this town. Yeah, but Dominic weaponized that as
Speaker 1: a kid, and then seeing it being used again and
Speaker 1: we're seeing Dominic be just a shitty person. He just
Speaker 1: sucked over that entire family. Yeah, just destroyed the drink waters. Yeah,
Speaker 1: who do you guys think in this instance of the
Speaker 1: police station is worse Leo, who is actively bullshitting and
Speaker 1: coming up with stuff like he implicated his own cousin
Speaker 1: who lived in New Rochelle in the whole situation. He's like, oh,
Speaker 1: I just threw in that to set him on the
Speaker 1: wrong trail. Or do we think that Dominic, who then
Speaker 1: realizes what Leo has done and has the opportunity to
Speaker 1: reverse it, to take responsibility for the thing that he
Speaker 1: did do. It's not like he got innocently No, I
Speaker 1: don't want to say, it's not like he was asking
Speaker 1: for it or anything like that, but he was caught
Speaker 1: red handed with an a legal substance in his vehicle,
Speaker 1: and he had an opportunity to say, yeah, man, I
Speaker 1: did that, and not throw Ralph under the bus like
Speaker 1: he threw his sister penny An under the bus. And
Speaker 1: it's like he did he learn Like which one of
Speaker 1: them is worse in that instance? I honestly don't know.
Speaker 1: I think the cops are worse, but I do think
Speaker 1: I do think that's interesting, Like I think Dominic because
Speaker 1: he's smarter and knows exactly what's happened, Like I think
Speaker 1: Leo is a bad person. Like we know he's a
Speaker 1: bad person, but he's a bad person just erratically, you know,
Speaker 1: Like he's like, all right, i'm gonna do this, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna say this. I'm gonna say this. But Dominic, like
Speaker 1: he knows what happened before, he knows exactly what will
Speaker 1: happen if he corroborates the story and knows what would
Speaker 1: happen to him if he doesn't, and he chooses to
Speaker 1: save himself of a slap on the wrist versus Ralph,
Speaker 1: who could likely be killed. Yeah, Like he's still a
Speaker 1: white guy who got arrested for marijuana. Like he's gonna
Speaker 1: be signed, he can be president, Like it's five. He
Speaker 1: got arrested for smoking marijuan in nineteen nine. It's uh,
Speaker 1: it's not going to be that shocking to anyone down
Speaker 1: the road. What that affect the draft. I don't know
Speaker 1: a ton about the draft, but I am curious if
Speaker 1: that was also a factor. It didn't seem like it
Speaker 1: was in his head. It seemed like his main factor
Speaker 1: was Ray. He was scared of getting in trouble with Red.
Speaker 1: I think what's interesting about these chapters, and I know
Speaker 1: we're going to get to the rape scene. Um, but
Speaker 1: it's like you're in this man's shoes who is a
Speaker 1: bad person, and like, I've never like read a rape
Speaker 1: scene from the point of view of a rapist before
Speaker 1: this was that was at least in my memory. And
Speaker 1: it was so shocking because you're like you're with him
Speaker 1: on this ride, You're you're you're not for him, but
Speaker 1: you you see his reasoning and like that is so
Speaker 1: scary to like he read, like be reading and be
Speaker 1: with that person as much as you don't want to be.
Speaker 1: It's like, you know exactly why he sold out Ralph
Speaker 1: because he was afraid of his father. He wanted to
Speaker 1: go back to school. He like he wanted he decided
Speaker 1: he was for to protect his brother. He found his
Speaker 1: rationales just like you found his rationales to rape Dasa,
Speaker 1: and it's it's really it was just really jarring to
Speaker 1: be in that perspective of a person that is doing
Speaker 1: such egregious wrong over and over again. To build on that,
Speaker 1: Melissa too, it's like it's so interesting that he has
Speaker 1: issues with anger and then in moments where he feels
Speaker 1: like he can't control the fact that he has to
Speaker 1: like speak up and speak out and get angry. In
Speaker 1: every instance that he should speak up, he doesn't. So
Speaker 1: it's like this bizarre, not bizarre, but upsetting shitty person
Speaker 1: who like can't keep a lid on it when he
Speaker 1: feels like righteously wronged and like it is so angry
Speaker 1: and is so fucked up. But then when he should
Speaker 1: speak up, he just he got his huge He can't.
Speaker 1: He can't say anything. Mark Gruffalo, that's your secret. You're
Speaker 1: always angry. That is the reason that he was casting
Speaker 1: this role. He's always angry. He said that in that movie.
Speaker 1: You're listening to Popcorn book Club for My Heart Radio
Speaker 1: and we'll be back right after the break. Okay, we're
Speaker 1: back with Popcorn book Club. Melissa Awker point that it
Speaker 1: is from uh Tom Dominic's perspective is so fascinating that
Speaker 1: like we have to read between the lines to get
Speaker 1: the real story sometimes where it's like ms of Ralph,
Speaker 1: Ralph drink water. When we find out later Um that
Speaker 1: Wall the police were staking out the home that he
Speaker 1: was living in, that they found that he had been
Speaker 1: a victim of like child pornography since he was at
Speaker 1: ten by Dell and Del's wife, Um that he was
Speaker 1: living there and he was being exploited. They're just like
Speaker 1: Dominic Uh and Leo are just like, wow, we're sort
Speaker 1: of heroes. That's crazy. But there's not the adequate level
Speaker 1: of like empathy and understanding of this trauma, because like
Speaker 1: Dominic is fundamentally narcissistic in his own tragedy, Like he
Speaker 1: has such a tragic life that he has like horse
Speaker 1: blinders on. The same could be said for that moment
Speaker 1: when he finds out about joy and sad, like he
Speaker 1: kind of just glosses over that reveal as well that
Speaker 1: that's not an upsetting thing that like her uncle has
Speaker 1: groomed her, and he's just like, oh, well, that's one
Speaker 1: problem out of my life right now. Right She was like,
Speaker 1: he does don't want to have that baby, so it's
Speaker 1: super convenient. I know, it's unfortunately it kind of worked
Speaker 1: out for him. He doesn't have to have this baby
Speaker 1: with this woman who he has made it very clear
Speaker 1: he doesn't even really seem to like very much now um,
Speaker 1: and she just disappeared and he doesn't have to worry
Speaker 1: about it. He doesn't even have to, Like, basically, I
Speaker 1: don't think that Dominic has like any kind of handle
Speaker 1: on what it means for a woman to consent. Um.
Speaker 1: I I do not think that is something that really
Speaker 1: factors into his understanding of the female experience. UM. It
Speaker 1: does not married him after he raped her. I think, UM,
Speaker 1: at the very least, if if your boyfriend rates you,
Speaker 1: you should break up with him. At the very least least.
Speaker 1: I had texted Karama about this, but I found it
Speaker 1: very upsetting that rape of doesn't happened, and Dominic is
Speaker 1: only upset insofar as he's like, oh no, I've ruined
Speaker 1: that relation, and yeah, he does not feel guilty at all.
Speaker 1: And then the next chapter, in like two two sentences,
Speaker 1: they're like, yeah, doesn't I made up and we went
Speaker 1: for a drive. We talked about what already that just
Speaker 1: destroyed me about that was Jessa talks about how safety
Speaker 1: feels with them, how she felt really safe with and
Speaker 1: I clearly they gone over it in a mysterious car ride,
Speaker 1: but that must have just sattered that for her. Yeah,
Speaker 1: because up until that moment to the description of their
Speaker 1: relationship when they first started dating. First started dating is
Speaker 1: like my ideal high school college dream, which is like
Speaker 1: the person that you're dating is home alone in their
Speaker 1: beautiful house and you're just like going over to sleep
Speaker 1: with them and like swim in their pool. I was like,
Speaker 1: this is oh my god, Yes, Dominic, I can have
Speaker 1: related to this, like dream dating sequence. Yeah, it felt
Speaker 1: like the first third of a romantic comedy like wonderful.
Speaker 1: And then they had been me cute at the bar. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that was very that was really annoyingly sweet, like and
Speaker 1: and then he fell in love with her there on
Speaker 1: the um lifeguard station. It did feel like Wally did
Speaker 1: a good job. I think of dropping hints though quickly,
Speaker 1: of how possessive and dangerous he was going to be
Speaker 1: in that relationship, of like being mad that she wanted
Speaker 1: a job and refusing to understand that because all he
Speaker 1: wanted was time with her and not wanting other men
Speaker 1: to look at her like immediately wanted to own her,
Speaker 1: and that, you know, I got. Really that scene leading
Speaker 1: up to the rape made me really anxious because it
Speaker 1: was him driving down to her work to disrupt her work,
Speaker 1: and that's like a really abusive tactic of like trying
Speaker 1: to ruin her life and anything outside of her life
Speaker 1: that isn't him, And and just this build up of
Speaker 1: like feeling angry with her for not welcoming him into
Speaker 1: this into her work, that he was disrupting and sitting
Speaker 1: in the car and waiting it just like it was.
Speaker 1: It made me so tense and anxious, and then it
Speaker 1: was like, of course that's what happened, Like it was
Speaker 1: all it was all leading up to this really terrible
Speaker 1: experience for Deessa. But it all tracked as like this
Speaker 1: very very afraid that he's going to end up with Jessa.
Speaker 1: Doesn't that's going to be like the happy ending for
Speaker 1: Dominic And I really don't want that to happen to Jessa.
Speaker 1: Oh no, I never really do this in my life,
Speaker 1: but if that happens, I will burn this book. I
Speaker 1: will burn it, and just out of principle, just because
Speaker 1: I don't want those words to exist, just one fewer time,
Speaker 1: just the time I want to take it out of
Speaker 1: the life with her. Ceramicist has gone through so much,
Speaker 1: the fact that like she you know, was in love
Speaker 1: with this man and then eventually, through like work and
Speaker 1: the death of their child, was able to realize that
Speaker 1: she was happier without him and was able to leave him.
Speaker 1: That is a huge I thought it was so touching
Speaker 1: that Dessa wrote a letter for Thomas talking about how
Speaker 1: he was a good person, how he didn't need to
Speaker 1: be in hatch, like she's clearly worked so hard to
Speaker 1: be so kindly broken people. One thing, uh before a
Speaker 1: move like with the death is rape and everything. I
Speaker 1: highlighted something early I used my kindle and early on
Speaker 1: when she's talking to Dr Prittell and he gets really
Speaker 1: angry and rants at her, like screams at her for
Speaker 1: a long time. It said, that's the one thing I
Speaker 1: understood about Ray, that sometimes rage could feel as good
Speaker 1: as sex could be a welcome release. And I highlighted
Speaker 1: that in my note just says yikes, um, and it
Speaker 1: is like it is sort of foreshadowing of the rape,
Speaker 1: because rape is not about sex. It's about power and
Speaker 1: control and anger and rage. And he was angry at her,
Speaker 1: and that's like that duality for him is so tied
Speaker 1: together in the same thing with a vasectomy, Like he
Speaker 1: was angry with her and therefore cut off this ability
Speaker 1: to have sex with her in a way that to reproduce,
Speaker 1: which is what she wanted. Yeah, looks like something. Oh no,
Speaker 1: now I'm just sad and they can't remember. Oh wait, no,
Speaker 1: I do remember. To bring things down. No, no, it's fine.
Speaker 1: I think that it's really important. I wanted to say,
Speaker 1: back to Jen's point about writing the letter and writing
Speaker 1: the letter for Thomas, it is also incredibly magnanimous that
Speaker 1: she did that after If you'll recall, he tried to
Speaker 1: kiss her in the parking lot when she went to
Speaker 1: go visit Thomas after he cut his hand off, which
Speaker 1: was just a mere two weeks ago. So he used
Speaker 1: this tragedy as an opportunity to try to reconnect with
Speaker 1: her when he has a girlfriend, she has a boyfriend,
Speaker 1: and they're super divorced, like very very divorced. And I
Speaker 1: think that we need to give Tessa a lot of
Speaker 1: credit for being a really good person in spite of
Speaker 1: the Birdses really being well just also would be a
Speaker 1: person like that. That seems like a very valid reaction
Speaker 1: to that as well. She's just it's just very kind
Speaker 1: of her to be doing. She's like a saint. It also,
Speaker 1: I'm really I hope I would love to hear, and
Speaker 1: I think it will be hard because it will be
Speaker 1: through Dominic's perspective, but I bet in the history of it,
Speaker 1: Dessa and Thomas do have a special relationship that, like
Speaker 1: I he she is a person that kind of can
Speaker 1: get through to him, because I don't think you would
Speaker 1: do that unless it was someone that really meant something
Speaker 1: to you. And obviously, like Joy, she has her reasons
Speaker 1: why she can't connect with Thomas. She's got a lot
Speaker 1: going on. Um, But it does feel like they are
Speaker 1: hinting at that Thomas and Tessa like had a special connection. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think while he does a really good job of
Speaker 1: peppering that through the narrative, even though it is from
Speaker 1: Dominic's perspective, and he is constantly blinded by rage because
Speaker 1: she always goes on the Sunday excursions to go see him,
Speaker 1: and she went to go visit him in the hospital,
Speaker 1: and he thought to put her on the list to
Speaker 1: visit him at the hospital, whereas he I think he
Speaker 1: didn't think to put Leo on the list. Yeah, absolute
Speaker 1: Lyo on the list. And then she writes this letter.
Speaker 1: And even the very first time that Deessa communicates with Thomas,
Speaker 1: she thinks that he is Dominic. That she calls him
Speaker 1: on the phone after the rape incident and she has
Speaker 1: a leveling conversation with him, and she says that she's
Speaker 1: excited to meet him. Yeah, yeah, so sweet. Yeah, Um,
Speaker 1: and that's also I don't know how much experience people
Speaker 1: have with people who are suffering from um severe mental issues,
Speaker 1: but it's hard to connect with those people, Like it
Speaker 1: can be a very hard and frustrating experience to be
Speaker 1: with someone and just not be able to maintain a
Speaker 1: lucid conversation with a lot and patient. The fact that
Speaker 1: she did that every single week and she was patient
Speaker 1: enough to make that a part of her life is
Speaker 1: she's a saint, like Dominic is right about is a saint.
Speaker 1: She was a wonderful woman. One thing that that struck me,
Speaker 1: one like tiny phrase that Dominic wrote in comparison in
Speaker 1: comparing Joy and Tessa, was like, during Dominic's like no good,
Speaker 1: very bad forty eight hours, he's talking about coming home
Speaker 1: and his lawn is a mess, and he was like,
Speaker 1: why couldn't you know Joy just handled this long wire?
Speaker 1: And I do listen, He's like, if I had been
Speaker 1: married to Dessa, I would have taken care of this lawn.
Speaker 1: But like, now, who cares in that way? That's like
Speaker 1: you're actively sabotaging your life because it's not in the
Speaker 1: place you wanted to. And I feel like we haven't
Speaker 1: seen the ways that he resents Joy actively for not
Speaker 1: being Dessa. But doubt to me was a hint at
Speaker 1: it where it's like the same way sometimes I'm like,
Speaker 1: you know, if I'm in a bad mood in my
Speaker 1: house is a mess, or my I haven't like shorted
Speaker 1: my clothes, and like I'll just wait until I move
Speaker 1: and then i'll and then I'll clean my closet. You know.
Speaker 1: It's like that's like an active act of self sabotage.
Speaker 1: And they were like, oh, he is he sabotages his
Speaker 1: life with Joy because she's not Dessa. You know who
Speaker 1: does notice that that Dominic hates the fact that Joy
Speaker 1: is not Desta. That really broke my heart in the
Speaker 1: tape because she says that in the tape, she's like,
Speaker 1: I know that you don't think I'm very smart, or
Speaker 1: like I think I can't remember the exact wording of it,
Speaker 1: but basically she was like, I know that you hate.
Speaker 1: She also talks about seeing Dessa in the grocery store
Speaker 1: and seeing Dessa's shopping with her sister and just thinking
Speaker 1: about how nice it would be to have female friends
Speaker 1: and just be laughing and talking with them. Oh my god,
Speaker 1: I just want Joy to become Cinderella and be okay.
Speaker 1: She talks about how she just wants to be Cinderella
Speaker 1: at Disneyland, and I just really hope somehow that happens.
Speaker 1: For it's not going to, but that would be nice.
Speaker 1: She is in my heart, she is Cinderella at Disneyland,
Speaker 1: and she raised that child on her own with some
Speaker 1: help from her parents, and she lives a very lovely
Speaker 1: life and like her Vine. Now she marries. She marries
Speaker 1: the actor who plays Prince Charming. They're cute. They have
Speaker 1: a joint Instagram accap. The nice thing about this book
Speaker 1: being so comprehensive is that there's so much possible. But
Speaker 1: to that point about the book being comprehensive, I know,
Speaker 1: I want to just make it very clear. I'm really
Speaker 1: enjoying this book. I think it's a really well written book,
Speaker 1: and nothing is written by accident, Like there are things
Speaker 1: where I was just like, four hundred pages later, I
Speaker 1: was like, oh snap, because we've read like literally six
Speaker 1: hundred pages so far. It's a really good book. Well, because,
Speaker 1: like the draft, we haven't talked about the fact that
Speaker 1: the reason they end up starting to seek treatment for
Speaker 1: Thomas is because he actually ends up getting drafted and
Speaker 1: he fails the psyche val. But the reason he gets
Speaker 1: drafted is because they were born on different dates, which
Speaker 1: was such like, oh, this is a quirky detail at
Speaker 1: the beginning, and I actually looked it up because I'm
Speaker 1: not a Vietnam War scholar, But the numbers that he
Speaker 1: used for the draft and everything, it was all very
Speaker 1: well planned out. And like, I think that the only
Speaker 1: good man in this as an architect, because Wally is
Speaker 1: an architect of sort. Let's talk about Thomas and sort
Speaker 1: of the tracking of his mental illness through these chapters.
Speaker 1: We start with that summer I'm trying to think of chronologically, No,
Speaker 1: it's before the first time we sort of get a
Speaker 1: hint that Dominic does kind of want to ignore because
Speaker 1: he kept repeating that it started that summer was the
Speaker 1: freshman year of college when when Dominic started acting erratically,
Speaker 1: he started like running through the halls. He can't concentrate
Speaker 1: in his classes, and they shared the typewriter and one day, uh,
Speaker 1: Thomas couldn't find his key, so he just, uh like
Speaker 1: tried to beat the case of the typewriter open. Uh.
Speaker 1: That's the first time we sort of get that sense
Speaker 1: of Thomas, right, Yeah. And then I think this second
Speaker 1: sort of other sign where we start to learn that
Speaker 1: he's starting to hear voices is when he leaves that
Speaker 1: note for Dominic in the back room, right, yeah, like
Speaker 1: very cryptic note about how he can't sleep because like
Speaker 1: God is speaking to him or like I should have
Speaker 1: marked that. But I think that was this like the
Speaker 1: first other sign that like he's starting to hear voices
Speaker 1: the summer, right, yeah, it was when they when he
Speaker 1: felt betrayed by by Dominic. What happened? Was it after
Speaker 1: the pants incident? It was after the pants It was
Speaker 1: also after he found out that Leo would be Dominic's
Speaker 1: roommate next year. I think it was something about like
Speaker 1: do you know what it's like to not be able
Speaker 1: to sleep because you can hear wings or something like that. Yes,
Speaker 1: it was. It was like something wing focused, which made
Speaker 1: me think of like doves, which are there's a lot
Speaker 1: of birds in the Bible and in Christian mythology, which
Speaker 1: we don't need to get into now, but paralleled the
Speaker 1: Great Grandmother with schizophrenia, it can be genetic. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: does someone want to walk through what happens with Dell
Speaker 1: and the pants I'll do it. I'm not going to
Speaker 1: do it, but I'll do it. So, as has been
Speaker 1: previously mentioned, Uh, Dominic, Thomas, Leo, Ralph, We're all on
Speaker 1: a work crew together for the Department of Public Works
Speaker 1: in the summer of nineteen nine, which is the summer
Speaker 1: after their freshman year at yukon Um. So Dominic and
Speaker 1: Leo and Ralph end up forming this sort of like
Speaker 1: click together, and Ralph actually does a lovely thing and says,
Speaker 1: which must be extremely difficult given his relationship with del
Speaker 1: and his difficulty and the fact that he too was
Speaker 1: groomed much like Joy. He says to Dominic, hey, can
Speaker 1: you just like tell your brother to look out for Del,
Speaker 1: like just tell him to kind of back away from him.
Speaker 1: And Dell spends the entire summer calling Thomas names. He's like, oh, hey,
Speaker 1: dick less, and it's a lot of like baiting about sexuality,
Speaker 1: which we later learned Thomas kind of has questions about it,
Speaker 1: and he is like, I want to know what it
Speaker 1: feels like to be with a woman, but that's not
Speaker 1: on the table right now. He has a lot of
Speaker 1: confidence issues and honestly spends most of his time with
Speaker 1: his mom, So that's probably not on the agenda at
Speaker 1: any point. Um So on this one day, Dell has
Speaker 1: starts to call him dick less, and Thomas finally stands
Speaker 1: up for himself, which Dominic told him to do, but
Speaker 1: it's Dominic is like, no, you're doing it wrong. And
Speaker 1: Dominic's whole thing throughout this book is that Thomas never
Speaker 1: knows when and how to speak up properly. And their nineteen.
Speaker 1: He knows this about Tom miss now, he said it
Speaker 1: multiple times before, and he I guess he kind of
Speaker 1: I mean, I know he resents Thomas and the fact
Speaker 1: that Thomas doesn't understand how to be a person in
Speaker 1: the same way the Dominic does, and he doesn't know
Speaker 1: why at this point, so he kind of just stands
Speaker 1: primarily silently by when Thomas says, stop calling me dick
Speaker 1: Las and then threatens to report him to the supervisor,
Speaker 1: and Dell is like, well, I'm gonna tattle on all
Speaker 1: you guys because you've been getting high all the time.
Speaker 1: Like I like, there's no you have no leverage here,
Speaker 1: and you know what, I will stop calling you dicklas
Speaker 1: if you can prove to me you have a dick
Speaker 1: So why don't you pull down your pants and show
Speaker 1: me you have a dick, and then we have a deal.
Speaker 1: I'll stop calling you dick Las. And Thomas does not
Speaker 1: want to do that, and he starts crying and eventually
Speaker 1: does do it, which ahead I was just gonna saying,
Speaker 1: embarrasses That's what that was literally my next point he was.
Speaker 1: I think he's simply said his shame was my shame
Speaker 1: or something. And it again gets to the fact that
Speaker 1: they are identical twins, so he feels unable to distance
Speaker 1: himself from Thomas in any way. So also, what's what's
Speaker 1: crazy is that Dell is sort of respected the same
Speaker 1: way that Ray quote unquote respects Dominic more because Dominic
Speaker 1: is more athletic and more you know, socially adept, where
Speaker 1: it's like a Dominic never once thought to be like, hey, assholes,
Speaker 1: stop calling my brother dick Las. Yeah. I think that's
Speaker 1: the most like, not not the most upsetting thing, but
Speaker 1: the most frustrating thing about Dominic saying that like Thomas
Speaker 1: can't defend himself, or that like he has that whole
Speaker 1: thing of like play defense, play defense, play defense, he doesn't.
Speaker 1: It doesn't compute to him the privilege that he has
Speaker 1: as a like he as like a like you know,
Speaker 1: someone who is more mentally stable than his brother, who
Speaker 1: is seen as this like athletic, white, straight dude that
Speaker 1: he can like defend other people. Instead he just lets
Speaker 1: foe that are you know, society looks down on just
Speaker 1: gets to be the ones that get thrown under the
Speaker 1: bus all the time. And instead of like stepping up
Speaker 1: and helping, he chooses to be like you deserve it,
Speaker 1: because that's what that's how the dominoes fall. Because he's
Speaker 1: always trying to separate himself from from Thomas, and it's
Speaker 1: like his shame was my shame. I feel like it's
Speaker 1: all wrapped up in shame right, like he is a
Speaker 1: projection of everything he's afraid that he is Thomas is,
Speaker 1: and he can see it right in front of him.
Speaker 1: And I feel like that shame is so correlated with cowardice,
Speaker 1: because you push inward when you feel ashamed, and then
Speaker 1: you just don't. You freeze up. And I feel like
Speaker 1: cowardice is one of Dominic's biggest and worst traits that
Speaker 1: you see over and over and over again. Um. I
Speaker 1: think one of the reasons that some of these other
Speaker 1: men who are bad men like del or Ray, respect
Speaker 1: him is because Thomas seems to sorry Dominic seems to
Speaker 1: have the capacity for violence. I mean, we know he's
Speaker 1: capable of rape, Like we we know he has the
Speaker 1: capacity for violence. It's just he never uses it against
Speaker 1: anyone who it would be appropriate to use um and
Speaker 1: grew or even a violent response against. And he's the
Speaker 1: type of guy that doesn't call them on their bullshit.
Speaker 1: You know, like if someone makes a very racist joke, hey,
Speaker 1: they like him and accept him because like laugh along
Speaker 1: and think, oh that's terrible, but without saying anything. It's like, well,
Speaker 1: I'm a good person because I thought that it was bad,
Speaker 1: and I acknowledge that he's bad. But it's like he
Speaker 1: he thinks he's he's Thomas's protector, when really he only
Speaker 1: ever is looking out for his own status, like in
Speaker 1: terms of Ray, in terms of Ralph, in terms of Thomas,
Speaker 1: Like all these people who um attack people more vulnerable
Speaker 1: than the metaphor is getting mixed up. But all these
Speaker 1: people who whenever someone more vulnerable than him is in
Speaker 1: a position of violence, he's always like I'm just going
Speaker 1: to be quiet and maybe it will come from me. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And Thomas is um I mean, he does have a
Speaker 1: capacity for violence, but only when it's turned against himself. Um.
Speaker 1: I think in that way, he's so obviously helpless. They're
Speaker 1: so shocked that he accidentally I think HiT's poor Dr
Speaker 1: Jeffer in the face because he's confused or flailing when
Speaker 1: he hears that Dominic has been hurt. But he's he's
Speaker 1: not somebody feels been hurt too, and nobody. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, he's somebody who clearly doesn't have the kind
Speaker 1: of anger that can be outward directed in the way
Speaker 1: that Dominic has anger that can be directed outwards. All
Speaker 1: of his anger seems like it's directed towards himself and
Speaker 1: a desire to hurt himself. You're listening to Popcorn Book
Speaker 1: Cliff for my Heart Radio. We'll be right back after
Speaker 1: this quick break, all right, So let's get back into it.
Speaker 1: We were talking about the letter that he leaves for
Speaker 1: for Dominant, that Thomas leaves for Dominant, and I was
Speaker 1: going to read it. Um, So this is after uh,
Speaker 1: the rape of Deessa, when Dominic is feeling when Dominic
Speaker 1: is feeling really like confused and weird, and after he
Speaker 1: uh decides that he's going to run with Leo instead
Speaker 1: of Thomas. Thomas writes to Dominic Birdsie Trader Berdsie wings Birds,
Speaker 1: do you think it's easy having your sleep soul in
Speaker 1: every night? Do you think it's fun to feel the
Speaker 1: wings of the Holy ghost fluttery against your throat? Sincerely
Speaker 1: one who knows? Which is like a really ominous, uh
Speaker 1: schizophrenic seeming. Yeah, I feel like that's right in line
Speaker 1: with like the DSM would be like, oh, yeah, that
Speaker 1: dude is schizophrenic if they yeah, well that yeah. That
Speaker 1: was another example of the cowardice. Like he'd waited until
Speaker 1: Thomas got the letter in the mail he was he
Speaker 1: kept on pushing off telling him this bad news, and
Speaker 1: and it like it's always worse to let someone else
Speaker 1: find out something shitty that you did than to face
Speaker 1: up to it. But he never faces up to anything,
Speaker 1: he really does. He got the desectimy secretly. Yeah, Like
Speaker 1: everything he does is cowardly and self protective. It's really
Speaker 1: interesting because for you to bring up the vasectomy, because
Speaker 1: there are a lot of active steps that had to
Speaker 1: go into the vasectomy, and there were a lot of
Speaker 1: active steps that had to go into switching his room.
Speaker 1: And then after all of the active steps that benefit
Speaker 1: dominic are finished. There's a very passive like I'll wait
Speaker 1: until it blows up in my face. So with Deessa,
Speaker 1: it was when she was like, oh, I'm so happy
Speaker 1: we're here together, and then she broke down. She was like,
Speaker 1: I'm so scared, and he's like, oh, she's scared of
Speaker 1: having a kid. Now I can tell her and um.
Speaker 1: And then with Thomas, it was he got this letter
Speaker 1: in the mail. He's like, well, I was gonna tell you.
Speaker 1: I just like, it's not a big deal. I did
Speaker 1: this for you. Like that I did this for you
Speaker 1: was just truly the nail and the coffin For me.
Speaker 1: I was like, I mean he definitely no integrity. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he does it with joy too, even like she's so
Speaker 1: even though she knows the truth, but she's like so
Speaker 1: excited about the baby in the hospital, and he chooses
Speaker 1: in that moment to be like, I've had a vessect
Speaker 1: to me, this is not my baby, Like this conversation
Speaker 1: could be could have been had at the beginning of
Speaker 1: the relationship, but instead he's just like, when I'm backed
Speaker 1: into a corner, I will finally say the thing that
Speaker 1: I should have said, like months years ago and with
Speaker 1: Ralph like he like six the police on him and
Speaker 1: then shakes his hand right the next day. Yeah yeah,
Speaker 1: and then and then that interaction with Ralph made me
Speaker 1: so angry. It just when you know, when he comes
Speaker 1: in to fix the light and he's like so he
Speaker 1: just gets so indignant, like how this has been a
Speaker 1: long time since has happened. It's like you ruined his life,
Speaker 1: like my man multiple times, and even he still ruins
Speaker 1: his multiple times. He like Ralph still takes the phone
Speaker 1: number from Dominic, Yeah, Ralph people, and then shows him
Speaker 1: where Tom people and and shows him where you can
Speaker 1: see Thomas, like said, tells him to look out the window. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So in this, in this just Tareka. Obviously, Ralph is
Speaker 1: now a custodian or janitor at the Hatch. He comes
Speaker 1: into Dr Shepherd's office to change a light bulb, but
Speaker 1: Dr Shepherd stepped out, so it's just Ralph and Dominic
Speaker 1: having this weird moment. Like you said, he's sort of
Speaker 1: like resentful that Ralph still seems mad at him for
Speaker 1: turning him into the for a line to the police.
Speaker 1: And also you know, like Ralph who has gone through
Speaker 1: a lifetime of misery of like his sister being raped
Speaker 1: and it's twin sister being raped and murdered, of being
Speaker 1: homeless and violated by adults, just very understandably breaking down
Speaker 1: after her daughter. Like Ralph, who has had a lifetype
Speaker 1: of Missouri dominic not for one second is empathetic. And
Speaker 1: then he's like, hey, hey, if anything, if anything happens
Speaker 1: to my brother had here, give me a call. And
Speaker 1: Ralph was like, no, I'm saying that, but like basically
Speaker 1: he's like, what you're asking me for a favor? And
Speaker 1: then in the end he still takes the phone number,
Speaker 1: like we said, because Ralph is a good person and
Speaker 1: he does it for Thomas. I know that he doesn't
Speaker 1: Thomas and I thought it was really interesting, um, just
Speaker 1: to go back to Ralph and the police, the way
Speaker 1: that they weaponized the fact that he was reading this
Speaker 1: book sold on Ice, like that kept coming up and
Speaker 1: and the man who wrote sol on Ice later went
Speaker 1: on to be a black panther, so he was definitely
Speaker 1: somebody more revolutionary. So it was like it was very
Speaker 1: clear the police were not even trying to hide the
Speaker 1: fact that they were like, oh, well, you know, the
Speaker 1: colored man did this, So let's just pin it all
Speaker 1: on him. You seem like a nice boy. Do you
Speaker 1: have any meth in your system? I feel like you
Speaker 1: probably don't have any meth in your system if you
Speaker 1: don't work cool. I mean, Leo of also weaponizes homophobia
Speaker 1: as well, and just like after that, it's like a
Speaker 1: combination of racism and homophobia intersecting. You're like, fuck you, Leo,
Speaker 1: fuck you. Yeah, I mean, you were talking before a
Speaker 1: crama about who is worse. I think I take a
Speaker 1: fact that Leo is like a rat, like he knows.
Speaker 1: Leo knows exactly what he's doing, He just does it
Speaker 1: in a more manic, sort of aggressive way, whereas I
Speaker 1: feel like Dominic makes this intentional choice to go along
Speaker 1: with it. Um as like as the cowardly man that
Speaker 1: he is. Um. But God, Leo, he know, yeah, he
Speaker 1: knew exactly what he was doing. Dominic is much worse
Speaker 1: than this situation, though, because he already inadvertently led to
Speaker 1: the death of Ralph's sister. He didn't he didn't lead
Speaker 1: to the death. Actually wondering that when I was reading,
Speaker 1: was a part of that um Certainly if he hadn't
Speaker 1: gotten her kicked out of school, I feel like he
Speaker 1: just hadn't been murdered, and then he decided to make
Speaker 1: it about himself by giving a elaborate speech to the
Speaker 1: entire school. I mean, even if let's say she didn't
Speaker 1: get suspended, she had been frame for a crime she
Speaker 1: didn't commit. She's like ten, and she's already repeated a
Speaker 1: grade also and is in a separate grade from her
Speaker 1: twin brother. There's just a lot of stuff that led
Speaker 1: to her being in this very vulnerable position. And if
Speaker 1: some grown up man was like, hey, I can take
Speaker 1: you to get ice cream, and like I had just
Speaker 1: been committed, I've just been framed for a crime I
Speaker 1: hadn't committed, I'd be like, you know what, ice cream
Speaker 1: sounds good. And let's not forget the reason that she
Speaker 1: was believed to have committed the crime of taking the
Speaker 1: oreos was because she did steal food because she was hungry.
Speaker 1: So we have clue. And Okay, so Dominic has already
Speaker 1: done something very similar to this family. Maybe in this
Speaker 1: instance he could prove that he's grown it, become a
Speaker 1: better person, and not freedom for a crime they did
Speaker 1: not commit. Again, Yeah, absolutely, I think Leo is just
Speaker 1: a regular garbage person and Dominic is like one that
Speaker 1: no is better and still makes the wrong choice, which
Speaker 1: is arguably much worse. There's also this weird thing where
Speaker 1: if you're smart, if you have a certain level of intelligence,
Speaker 1: you can justify bad decisions in a certain way. That's
Speaker 1: really troubling, and pody can justify bad decisions. Everybody is
Speaker 1: a hero of their own story. You don't have to be.
Speaker 1: But I hate to be able to do that. But
Speaker 1: I think the difference is I don't think Leo bothers.
Speaker 1: I think Leo is just like whatever I'm gonna they're gay.
Speaker 1: The police love that. The justification for somebody like Leo
Speaker 1: is about like, oh, like it's fine that I did this,
Speaker 1: but not about absolving guilt. It's more about explaining to
Speaker 1: other people this is why I'm right. But with somebody
Speaker 1: like Dominic, he feels guilt and he feels bad, and
Speaker 1: you can tell that he is struggling and that he
Speaker 1: goes the wrong way in this struggle, in this battle
Speaker 1: against himself. He's like, well, what if I just throw
Speaker 1: it for this guy? I mean literally, at one point,
Speaker 1: I don't remember the quote, but at one point he's like,
Speaker 1: he tells himself, like all the reasons I'm not a rapist.
Speaker 1: Uh huh, Like he knows intellectually that he raped does it,
Speaker 1: But he's like, I'm gonna convince myself that I'm not
Speaker 1: a rapist actively. Well, and he gets angry that she
Speaker 1: calls him a rapist or that or that she or
Speaker 1: that he raped her. He was like, how dare you like?
Speaker 1: That was the argument they get into after. That's why
Speaker 1: he gets mad. After he's like, how dare you say
Speaker 1: the thing that just happened? Well, I mean, I think
Speaker 1: it's actually it's a kind of rape that you don't
Speaker 1: see written about very much, because this this is a
Speaker 1: rape by somebody that she's in love with, somebody she
Speaker 1: already has a relationship with. Um, she certainly probably doesn't
Speaker 1: want to every time UM, there is an instance of
Speaker 1: sexual assault or sexual harassment. I see people on line
Speaker 1: around Twitter saying like, why didn't you go to the
Speaker 1: police immediately? Well, you know, maybe you have a relationship
Speaker 1: with that person, Maybe you don't want to turn that
Speaker 1: person into the police. Maybe there are more complicated feelings
Speaker 1: at play, And I think that's the case here. Maybe
Speaker 1: you know the police won't do anything. Yeah, they are
Speaker 1: not They are not Olivia Benson. I mean, Olivia Benson
Speaker 1: is not great either. A whole other thing, but she
Speaker 1: fells evidence all the time. Yeah, there's a lot of
Speaker 1: interesting cop propaganda on the TV. But when what I
Speaker 1: was going to say, Um, is that about what you
Speaker 1: were saying? Jen, This is a type of rape that's
Speaker 1: not really talked about. The term or the phrase date
Speaker 1: rape wasn't even coined until the nineties when Katie Custner
Speaker 1: was on the cover of Time magazine and oh, Katie
Speaker 1: cast spoke at my high school. It was a horrific experience. Um,
Speaker 1: because she, I mean, she goes on tours and talks
Speaker 1: about her experience with date rape, and um, she And
Speaker 1: the thing is I remember her story not just because
Speaker 1: she came to my high school, but because she also
Speaker 1: spoke to me when I was a freshman in college,
Speaker 1: so I had to listen to it twice and it
Speaker 1: really stuck with me. Um, and she went on a
Speaker 1: date with somebody, And the thing is, people were like, well,
Speaker 1: how could he have raped you? You were on a
Speaker 1: date with him, and the idea that and that happened
Speaker 1: in the like mid nineties. I want to say, I
Speaker 1: think it was like ninety four. So even when Wally
Speaker 1: Lamb is writing this book, because he wrote this book
Speaker 1: in the nineties, if I remember correctly, or at least
Speaker 1: when Donald probably took a while. Yeah, and at least
Speaker 1: when Dominic is in this story in there's no there's
Speaker 1: still no concept societally for what he did. So he's like,
Speaker 1: rape is something that happens to you in an ali
Speaker 1: what are you talking? I'm how to rape this? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I was. I was impressed by Jessa naming it as rape.
Speaker 1: In that moment, it felt like obviously a choice by
Speaker 1: Wally to you know, I feel like women, most women
Speaker 1: at that time would not have said you just raped me.
Speaker 1: They would have probably clammed up and been quiet and
Speaker 1: you know who you know what I mean. It just
Speaker 1: it feels like, oh, that's an interesting part of her character,
Speaker 1: that there is strength in her, and that is what
Speaker 1: gave her the power to go to Greece and to
Speaker 1: leave him. Eventually, like she does have this, Dominic will
Speaker 1: not break her. Ultimately, she will be able to move forward.
Speaker 1: It takes a tragically long amount of time. But another
Speaker 1: thing that I think Wally calls out explicitly that I like, um,
Speaker 1: we're talking back about the police and how they were
Speaker 1: just trying to get Dominic to to used to frame
Speaker 1: Ralph because he's not light um the way I mean,
Speaker 1: humble brag I've seen. I watched the documentary thirteen, but
Speaker 1: like the way that police use drug laws just to
Speaker 1: to target communities of color with such impunity and violence.
Speaker 1: It's like, that is literally what they're doing here. Explicitly,
Speaker 1: they're like, yeah, you guys were smoking weed whatever, We
Speaker 1: don't care about you, but we're going to use those
Speaker 1: laws just to get Ralph drinkwater. Yeah. Yeah, it's like, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's like a social issue that the reader can see
Speaker 1: that Dominic is too narcissistic to notice. And also while
Speaker 1: he's writing this in the wake of the crack epidemic,
Speaker 1: and it's that disproportionately affected communities of color, particularly black communities,
Speaker 1: and the crime statistics on that, and just the length
Speaker 1: of time for minimum sentences for crack versus minimum sentences
Speaker 1: for cocaine, which I respectively used more by black people
Speaker 1: and more by white people for cocaine are like exponentially
Speaker 1: different amounts of time, like months versus years. So I mean,
Speaker 1: this is it's interesting to see how he's sort of
Speaker 1: retroactively applying some of the stuff that became even worse,
Speaker 1: and yeah, it's I The only thing that enabled me
Speaker 1: to get through reading that chapter was knowing that Ralph
Speaker 1: Drinkwater was okay and had a job, and knowing that
Speaker 1: despite everything that had happened to his family and that
Speaker 1: Dominic Birdsey had inflicted upon his family and that Dell
Speaker 1: had inflicted upon him, he was okay and maybe not
Speaker 1: happy and maybe not as okay as he could have been,
Speaker 1: but he was not dead, he was no longer imprisoned,
Speaker 1: and he was okay. So I was like, I can
Speaker 1: keep reading this because I know that he's going to
Speaker 1: be okay. That's our show for the week. Thank you
Speaker 1: so much for listening. I'm Danish Schwartz and you can
Speaker 1: find me on Twitter at Danish Schwartz with three z's.
Speaker 1: You can follow Jennifer Wright at Jen Ashley Right Garama,
Speaker 1: Donqua is at Garama Drama, Melissa Hunter is at Melissa
Speaker 1: f t W and Tan Tran is smart enough to
Speaker 1: have gotten off Twitter, but she is on Insta at
Speaker 1: Hank Tina. Our executive producer is Christopher Hasiotas, and we're
Speaker 1: produced and edited by Mike Johns Special thanks to David Wasserman. So,
Speaker 1: Ralph Drinkwater is going to be okay? But is literally
Speaker 1: anyone else? Are we going to be okay? Is anyone?
Speaker 1: Next week we'll continue our discussion of the totally healthy
Speaker 1: and normal family dynamics to play. And I know this
Speaker 1: much is true. Oh my stupid wife, who I love,
Speaker 1: Oh my God, my soulmate never gave me any sons.
Speaker 1: So my line ends with me and my stupid daughter,
Speaker 1: who is annoying and is a burden upon me. Popcorn
Speaker 1: Book Club is a production of I Heart Radio