WEBVTT - The Local Intelligentsia 0:00:00.200 --> 0:00:12.280 Family Secrets as a production of I Heart Radio. I 0:00:12.360 --> 0:00:16.919 grew up in central Pennsylvania in a very small farming 0:00:16.960 --> 0:00:22.360 town with parents who had both grown up in working 0:00:22.440 --> 0:00:26.200 class families and had gone to college, and they were 0:00:26.200 --> 0:00:29.200 like sort of the local intelligentsia. They were very cultured. 0:00:30.000 --> 0:00:31.960 They spent a little bit of time away from this 0:00:32.080 --> 0:00:34.240 small town. My mother lived in New York for a while. 0:00:34.240 --> 0:00:38.360 My father went to Europe during his army service, but 0:00:38.400 --> 0:00:40.199 then they both came back to this little town and 0:00:40.280 --> 0:00:44.360 just stayed there and raised me and my two younger brothers, 0:00:44.760 --> 0:00:48.720 surrounded by my father's family. My father ran the local 0:00:48.840 --> 0:00:51.600 funeral home. I didn't live in the funeral home, but 0:00:51.640 --> 0:00:54.280 it was just up the street where my grandmother lived, 0:00:54.800 --> 0:00:58.480 and his sisters lived on the same street. His brother 0:00:58.600 --> 0:01:03.000 lived nearby. Just this whole clan of Bechtels, and the 0:01:03.080 --> 0:01:08.080 funeral home itself was a family business. Several generations of 0:01:08.160 --> 0:01:11.360 Bechtels had run it. And we lived in this little 0:01:11.560 --> 0:01:16.640 town between the Allegheny Plateau and the Bald Eagle Mountain. 0:01:17.240 --> 0:01:21.399 I feel like that that topography is somehow significant, like 0:01:21.440 --> 0:01:25.880 it was sort of a rift between this plateau, these 0:01:26.120 --> 0:01:30.479 big empty mountains where nobody lived and where they were 0:01:30.520 --> 0:01:33.400 strip mining for coal all the time. And then this 0:01:33.600 --> 0:01:36.319 Ridge and Valley region of Pennsylvania, which if you look 0:01:36.360 --> 0:01:41.200 at maps, are these really tidy ranges of mountains that 0:01:41.720 --> 0:01:43.800 move off to the east. And we were right on 0:01:43.840 --> 0:01:49.360 the edge of that, right between those two features. That's 0:01:49.360 --> 0:01:54.000 the extraordinary graphic memoirist Alison Bechtel. You may have heard 0:01:54.040 --> 0:01:57.920 of Allison's memoirs fun Home and Are You My Mother, 0:01:58.480 --> 0:02:02.400 as well as her recently. Really the Secret to superhuman Strength. 0:02:03.720 --> 0:02:07.320 Alison's story revolves around a secret that began well before 0:02:07.360 --> 0:02:10.400 she was born, one that was always kept from her, 0:02:11.000 --> 0:02:14.560 and yet in the light of retrospect, seems to always 0:02:14.600 --> 0:02:18.400 have been hiding in plain sight. But she didn't see it. 0:02:19.040 --> 0:02:22.680 Of course, she didn't see it. We never do. If 0:02:22.680 --> 0:02:26.200 a secret is embedded into our childhoods, it becomes our 0:02:26.240 --> 0:02:30.639 reality because that's how we survive. We inheritors of shame 0:02:30.720 --> 0:02:36.160 and silence, until survival means knowing the truth rather than 0:02:36.240 --> 0:02:51.520 living in a lie. I'm Danny Shapiro, and this is 0:02:51.600 --> 0:02:54.640 family secrets, the secrets that are kept from us, the 0:02:54.680 --> 0:02:57.560 secrets we keep from others, and the secrets we keep 0:02:57.680 --> 0:03:07.720 from ourselves. I'm so interested in the way you described 0:03:08.240 --> 0:03:11.120 your parents as you know, sort of the local intelligentsia. 0:03:11.760 --> 0:03:16.600 It has sort of little echoes of revolutionary Road the 0:03:16.680 --> 0:03:21.160 Richard Yates novel. Yeah, I've always been curious, like why 0:03:21.280 --> 0:03:23.960 did they stay there? I myself was desperate to get 0:03:23.960 --> 0:03:28.040 out of that place, and both my parents loved going 0:03:28.120 --> 0:03:30.839 to New York. They go make the four hour drive 0:03:30.880 --> 0:03:32.880 to New York to go to the theater and museums. 0:03:33.560 --> 0:03:37.560 So why why were they living in this place that 0:03:37.680 --> 0:03:40.800 was really cut off from all that. I still don't know. 0:03:40.840 --> 0:03:42.560 I don't know anything. The older I get, the less 0:03:42.600 --> 0:03:46.520 I know, especially about my parents. But one thing was 0:03:46.640 --> 0:03:50.840 my my father's father had a heart attack and needed 0:03:50.960 --> 0:03:54.520 my dad to run this family business. So my father 0:03:55.680 --> 0:03:58.560 did that. He came home from Germany where he was 0:03:58.920 --> 0:04:00.720 in the army, where my one where my mother had 0:04:00.760 --> 0:04:02.360 just gone to meet him and get married, and they 0:04:02.360 --> 0:04:06.160 were very excited to start this life in Europe together 0:04:06.200 --> 0:04:10.200 and travel around after he was done with his stint. 0:04:10.640 --> 0:04:13.560 But instead they came home and stayed there. But they 0:04:13.560 --> 0:04:18.920 were both just passionately interested in different kinds of art 0:04:19.040 --> 0:04:22.680 and literature. They both loved poetry. They met in a 0:04:22.880 --> 0:04:27.560 play my mother was a more serious actor than my father, 0:04:27.640 --> 0:04:30.640 but they both acted in college, and my mom went 0:04:30.680 --> 0:04:35.760 on to do an internship at the Cleveland Playhouse and 0:04:35.800 --> 0:04:38.039 she continued to act in summer stock all through my 0:04:38.160 --> 0:04:42.880 childhood and beyond. And my dad, although his day job 0:04:42.960 --> 0:04:45.680 was teaching in the high school and running this funeral home, 0:04:45.839 --> 0:04:49.840 his real passion was for antiques and for restoring our 0:04:49.880 --> 0:04:55.159 old Victorian house. This was a really unusual house. It 0:04:55.160 --> 0:04:58.240 seems like it became more unusual and more unusual as 0:04:58.279 --> 0:05:03.320 your father sort of had his way with it. Yeah, 0:05:03.640 --> 0:05:07.560 this was his real love and his life was restoring 0:05:07.560 --> 0:05:10.880 this house. Um. It was built probably in the eighteen sixties, 0:05:11.800 --> 0:05:16.080 a big American Gothic house that was all decrepit by 0:05:16.080 --> 0:05:19.000 the time my parents bought it in the nineteen sixties. 0:05:20.760 --> 0:05:24.880 Talking about the library, the library was amazing. I mean, 0:05:24.920 --> 0:05:27.920 who has a library in their house? But we did, 0:05:28.400 --> 0:05:36.200 like a real library with Florida ceiling, glassed in bookshelves, um, 0:05:36.400 --> 0:05:39.880 lot lots of you know, calf bound antique books as 0:05:39.920 --> 0:05:42.920 well as plenty of new books. Just a wall of 0:05:42.960 --> 0:05:46.520 books that people were just struck dumb by. They would 0:05:46.839 --> 0:05:50.080 always ask my father if you'd read all of those books. 0:05:50.080 --> 0:05:52.800 He would always say, has read most of them. There 0:05:52.800 --> 0:05:57.080 were velvet drapes, there was flocked wallpaper. There was another 0:05:57.240 --> 0:06:01.440 Florida ceiling feature, this giant peer mirror. It was like 0:06:01.480 --> 0:06:07.440 twelve ft tall. It was a very grand, beautiful Victorian library. 0:06:07.640 --> 0:06:10.479 And your father did all this himself. This is a 0:06:10.480 --> 0:06:15.480 passion of his. Yeah, he did. And um, it wasn't cheesy. 0:06:15.560 --> 0:06:18.360 You know a lot of people do that sort of 0:06:18.360 --> 0:06:20.320 thing on their own and it just looks like a 0:06:20.560 --> 0:06:22.640 i don't know, like a bad B and B or 0:06:22.680 --> 0:06:27.400 a Laura Ashley explosion. But now it was very tasteful. 0:06:27.440 --> 0:06:30.120 And you know, he studied a lot, got lots of 0:06:30.160 --> 0:06:33.280 magazines and journals, and he knew a lot about this 0:06:33.400 --> 0:06:37.440 specific period, and he was always collecting stuff, discovering stuff, 0:06:37.480 --> 0:06:42.960 talking to old people. And it was beautiful. How would 0:06:42.960 --> 0:06:47.200 you characterize, from like Alison, the child's point of view, 0:06:48.000 --> 0:06:53.719 your parents marriage during those childhood years and maybe sort 0:06:53.720 --> 0:06:58.159 of into your teenage years. My parents fought a lot, 0:06:58.480 --> 0:07:00.479 but I didn't, you know, I didn't really think about 0:07:00.480 --> 0:07:03.960 their marriage. I mean, who really thinks about their parents marriage? 0:07:03.960 --> 0:07:08.159 It's the air that you breathe. And I was surprised 0:07:08.240 --> 0:07:11.040 later when my mother would describe to me, Oh, that 0:07:11.160 --> 0:07:13.840 was when your father wasn't speaking to me for three months, 0:07:14.440 --> 0:07:19.120 Like I never noticed that, but apparently it would go 0:07:19.160 --> 0:07:23.000 for long stretches of sulking and not talking to her. 0:07:23.680 --> 0:07:25.960 Do you think that has anything to do with, you know, 0:07:26.000 --> 0:07:29.440 the fact that you had siblings, Like I asked that 0:07:29.480 --> 0:07:32.680 as an only child, because I think for me, I 0:07:32.760 --> 0:07:35.000 was a student in a way, not of my parents 0:07:35.040 --> 0:07:38.000 marriage because that would have been sort of beyond my comprehension, 0:07:38.040 --> 0:07:40.280 but of my parents. I really studied them because it's 0:07:40.360 --> 0:07:42.920 kind of all I all I had, is my subject. 0:07:42.960 --> 0:07:45.200 Whereas I wonder if you have siblings, whether you kind 0:07:45.200 --> 0:07:49.200 of are often in sibling world in a certain way. Yeah, 0:07:49.480 --> 0:07:53.160 I wonder if that's true. I was just sort of 0:07:53.200 --> 0:07:56.760 having a parallel life in the same house. I mean, 0:07:56.800 --> 0:08:00.560 I was certainly taking them in, but I never thought 0:08:00.560 --> 0:08:05.120 about their marriage. What was it like to live in 0:08:05.120 --> 0:08:08.440 in the constant presence of sort of death as a fact, 0:08:08.960 --> 0:08:12.240 you know that it just it just was that there 0:08:12.280 --> 0:08:15.400 were corpses, there were dead people. There was this funeral home, 0:08:15.440 --> 0:08:19.320 and there's this moment where a young man has died 0:08:19.360 --> 0:08:23.720 and your dad calls for you and asks you to come, 0:08:23.760 --> 0:08:28.880 and it's you know, there's this naked, hairy young man 0:08:28.920 --> 0:08:32.400 with a chest wound lying there, and your dad asks 0:08:32.440 --> 0:08:35.000 you to hand him a pair of scissors in a 0:08:35.120 --> 0:08:37.800 very very matter of fact way, and then you very 0:08:37.880 --> 0:08:43.200 very matter of fact LYE do so. Yeah, I mean 0:08:43.640 --> 0:08:47.120 mostly the funeral home was kind of cool. I liked 0:08:47.559 --> 0:08:51.439 seeing the dead bodies. It was interesting. I felt like 0:08:52.000 --> 0:08:55.480 I knew something other people didn't know. My school friends 0:08:55.480 --> 0:08:57.720 would be like, oh my god, you see dead bodies 0:08:57.800 --> 0:09:00.480 and what's it like. I liked being able to just 0:09:01.240 --> 0:09:03.680 play it cool, you know, and to have the sort 0:09:03.679 --> 0:09:07.640 of hidden knowledge that other people didn't have. But it's 0:09:07.679 --> 0:09:11.400 pretty alarming when Allison's dad shows her this young guy's body, 0:09:11.720 --> 0:09:15.440 which has been opened up for an autopsy. Up until then, 0:09:15.800 --> 0:09:18.000 she had only seen dead people once they were in 0:09:18.040 --> 0:09:21.280 their caskets, all dressed up and with their makeup done. 0:09:21.800 --> 0:09:26.160 So Allison, who's ten maybe eleven, plays it cool. It 0:09:26.200 --> 0:09:29.360 was traumatic, but there wasn't any allowance for it to 0:09:29.400 --> 0:09:32.760 be traumatic. So much of Allison's story has to do 0:09:32.840 --> 0:09:36.920 with what isn't said, what can't be said. There's what 0:09:37.000 --> 0:09:40.920 people say, like please pass the scissors, and then there's 0:09:40.960 --> 0:09:45.120 the subtext. Everything, it seems, can be experienced and discussed, 0:09:46.080 --> 0:09:52.160 everything except for feelings. There's a lot of exchange of 0:09:52.160 --> 0:09:57.560 of information, of literature, of poetry, of you know, many 0:09:57.600 --> 0:10:00.760 different things, but not feelings, not how did you feel 0:10:00.760 --> 0:10:06.360 about that? Yeah? And I you know, only much later 0:10:06.760 --> 0:10:09.520 did I understand that that if anyone had talked about 0:10:09.640 --> 0:10:12.760 their feelings, the whole edifice would have just come crashing down. 0:10:13.880 --> 0:10:16.000 When you're in high school, you end up in your 0:10:16.000 --> 0:10:20.600 father's English class, and it seems like like sort of 0:10:20.640 --> 0:10:24.720 that's the period of time where you're most able to 0:10:24.760 --> 0:10:27.720 communicate with each other in a certain way, with with 0:10:27.800 --> 0:10:32.560 the texts between you as like the bridge. Yes, my 0:10:32.679 --> 0:10:35.800 father had always tried to guide my reading. He was 0:10:35.840 --> 0:10:38.200 always suggesting books and trying to get me to read 0:10:38.640 --> 0:10:41.080 things that he liked, and I would always resist that. 0:10:41.080 --> 0:10:43.520 It was like the only way I had to rebel 0:10:43.720 --> 0:10:46.160 as a child. But when I was in his class, 0:10:46.160 --> 0:10:48.160 of course I had to read the books. So it 0:10:48.240 --> 0:10:51.240 was an interesting situation, and what I found was I 0:10:51.320 --> 0:10:57.280 really liked them. We read Um Pride and Prejudice that 0:10:57.440 --> 0:11:01.240 semester catch her in the Rye. It was a class 0:11:01.400 --> 0:11:06.000 on coming of age. So it was really so meta, 0:11:06.200 --> 0:11:09.600 you know. But yeah, we started really bonding and connecting, 0:11:09.600 --> 0:11:11.760 and you know, I was one of his better students. 0:11:11.760 --> 0:11:16.400 He always liked his sharper students. Yeah. I mean there's 0:11:16.440 --> 0:11:18.720 a moment in fun home where you or he says 0:11:18.760 --> 0:11:22.280 to you, You're the only student class who is sort 0:11:22.320 --> 0:11:24.440 of like worth teaching to or something like that, and 0:11:24.480 --> 0:11:26.680 then and you say, your class is the only class, 0:11:27.080 --> 0:11:29.839 you know, sort of worth taking. Yeah. Yeah, we were 0:11:29.920 --> 0:11:33.000 a mutual admiration society. Yeah, it was. It was really 0:11:33.080 --> 0:11:36.120 kind of a tender moment, even though what's happening is 0:11:36.160 --> 0:11:38.360 that the literature and these coming of age stories and 0:11:39.080 --> 0:11:42.040 the inner lives of the characters on the page are 0:11:42.720 --> 0:11:47.360 standing in for anything that might resemble, um, you know, 0:11:47.400 --> 0:11:51.240 a feeling. Yeah. Well, my my dad, I think, was 0:11:51.360 --> 0:11:55.440 very eager for a friend, and the older I got, 0:11:55.480 --> 0:11:59.160 the closer I got to him. He died when I 0:11:59.280 --> 0:12:01.800 was nineteen, but we just were on this trajectory of 0:12:01.880 --> 0:12:04.360 just getting closer and closer and talking more and more, 0:12:04.960 --> 0:12:07.560 and it was great. I loved it. I loved having 0:12:07.600 --> 0:12:10.160 that connection with him. Although later a therapist told me 0:12:10.200 --> 0:12:12.920 that was probably inappropriate, that he was leaning on me 0:12:13.000 --> 0:12:20.000 so heavily for connection. We'll be back in a moment 0:12:20.080 --> 0:12:35.720 with more family secrets. Allison goes off to Oberlin College 0:12:36.200 --> 0:12:39.520 and really begins to come into her own. What this means, 0:12:39.640 --> 0:12:43.080 most deeply and powerfully for her is that she comes out. 0:12:43.840 --> 0:12:47.400 She knows she's gay, and in the great surge of 0:12:47.480 --> 0:12:51.199 energy of that realization, she wants to tell her parents immediately. 0:12:51.720 --> 0:12:55.040 She wants to share it with them. So I wrote 0:12:55.080 --> 0:13:00.320 them a letter, and the grand tradition of my shutdown Emily, 0:13:00.640 --> 0:13:03.679 I shared this intimate news with them in a typewritten 0:13:03.760 --> 0:13:10.320 letter sent through the mail like with a stamp on it. Yes. Um, 0:13:10.440 --> 0:13:12.800 at that point I hadn't had sex as anyone yet. 0:13:12.840 --> 0:13:15.600 I wasn't really absolutely. I mean, I felt certain that 0:13:15.679 --> 0:13:18.839 this was true, but yeah, it was all still somewhat theoretical, 0:13:19.200 --> 0:13:22.320 and I was just starting to tell like friends and 0:13:22.400 --> 0:13:26.280 people close to me. So I told my parents and 0:13:26.760 --> 0:13:31.720 been waited in some trepidation for their response. It should 0:13:31.720 --> 0:13:34.959 be said too, because listeners under a certain age, it 0:13:34.960 --> 0:13:41.000 will be incomprehensible. The idea of waiting two days, three days. Now, 0:13:41.000 --> 0:13:42.960 we write an email and we hit send, and we 0:13:43.000 --> 0:13:45.200 hold our breath, and you know we hear back five 0:13:45.200 --> 0:13:48.400 minutes later. Um. Yeah, I was holding my breath for 0:13:48.559 --> 0:13:53.760 three or four days. My father called me on the phone, 0:13:54.360 --> 0:13:56.840 and I was a little taken aback that it was 0:13:56.920 --> 0:13:59.679 just him, even though I was used to talking to 0:13:59.760 --> 0:14:01.120 him all the time. I thought this was like an 0:14:01.160 --> 0:14:04.640 important family piece of news I had broken, and that 0:14:04.720 --> 0:14:06.320 maybe my mother would be in on it too. But 0:14:06.400 --> 0:14:08.800 she wasn't and wouldn't come to the phone actually, as 0:14:08.800 --> 0:14:13.960 I as I learned, because she was so upset, and 0:14:14.040 --> 0:14:17.520 my dad had this sort of giddy air about him, 0:14:17.559 --> 0:14:20.080 like he was sort of excited, like, well, it's it's 0:14:20.080 --> 0:14:23.880 good to know that you're human at least, and it 0:14:23.880 --> 0:14:27.520 felt almost like sort of leering or I don't know, 0:14:27.560 --> 0:14:30.680 like he was this I don't know, something paternalistic about it. 0:14:30.720 --> 0:14:34.960 That was annoying to me, and I didn't quite understand 0:14:34.960 --> 0:14:37.720 why is my dad being so giddy and why is 0:14:37.760 --> 0:14:40.840 my mother not coming to the phone. My mother and 0:14:40.840 --> 0:14:44.560 I had another exchange of hard copy letters before we 0:14:44.600 --> 0:14:47.320 spoke on the phone. She sent me a very confusing 0:14:48.280 --> 0:14:52.400 letter saying she wished that I would rethink this lesbian 0:14:52.440 --> 0:14:55.640 thing and just focus on my work. What was the 0:14:55.680 --> 0:14:57.800 tone of the letter, like, what was the emotional tone 0:14:57.800 --> 0:15:02.080 of it? Well, it was kind of cold and formal, 0:15:02.160 --> 0:15:07.000 like my mother was with me. It was very articulate, 0:15:07.280 --> 0:15:11.200 very carefully thought out, and I responded to her letter 0:15:11.280 --> 0:15:14.240 in kind with a letter. I think I even broke 0:15:14.280 --> 0:15:16.560 it down into like a B C, you know, into 0:15:16.840 --> 0:15:20.880 sub paragraphs and things, rebutting all the things she was saying. 0:15:21.520 --> 0:15:25.280 And then following that exchange, she called me, and here's 0:15:25.280 --> 0:15:29.520 where the real information finally reached me, and she told 0:15:29.520 --> 0:15:33.600 me in this phone conversation that my dad had had 0:15:33.760 --> 0:15:36.840 affairs with other men over the course of their marriage, 0:15:37.600 --> 0:15:41.120 and some boys, some of his high school students. And 0:15:41.600 --> 0:15:47.320 I was just completely floored, just blown away. Never had 0:15:47.400 --> 0:15:52.640 never occurred to me. Remember at the beginning, when I 0:15:52.640 --> 0:15:56.040 talked about the secret hiding in plain sight and the 0:15:56.080 --> 0:15:57.880 way we who have been living in the shadow of 0:15:57.880 --> 0:16:02.320 that secret can't see what is patently obvious. Alison and 0:16:02.360 --> 0:16:05.720 I share this two very different kinds of secrets about 0:16:05.760 --> 0:16:09.160 our fathers. But what is striking is the way that 0:16:09.240 --> 0:16:12.440 each of us talk to this knowledge away. I mean, 0:16:13.000 --> 0:16:16.640 it was obvious that Alison's father was gay. In my case, 0:16:17.160 --> 0:16:20.160 it was obvious that my father wasn't my biological father. 0:16:21.160 --> 0:16:23.920 So many of us have that sense when we discover 0:16:24.040 --> 0:16:27.080 the truth of wanting to smack ourselves upside the head. 0:16:27.520 --> 0:16:30.320 I mean, my god, how could we not have known? 0:16:31.200 --> 0:16:34.800 But that's the thing. It was too dangerous, far too 0:16:34.920 --> 0:16:42.080 dangerous to know, so we just didn't. So you find 0:16:42.120 --> 0:16:45.240 this out and it makes like no kind of sense 0:16:45.280 --> 0:16:49.120 and all kinds of sense in a way. Yeah, it 0:16:49.160 --> 0:16:53.680 immediately I just began sort of reassembling this puzzle of 0:16:53.720 --> 0:16:57.440 my life and and it he actually he used that 0:16:57.480 --> 0:16:59.520 metaphor too, I think, but I've always thought of it 0:16:59.560 --> 0:17:03.880 that way. I mean, it was just so very strange 0:17:04.880 --> 0:17:09.879 that I had stumbled onto their deep dark secret in 0:17:09.920 --> 0:17:12.920 my you know, in my youthful naivete, just thinking, oh 0:17:13.000 --> 0:17:15.680 this is I'm a lesbian. I'm gonna tell everyone. I'm 0:17:15.680 --> 0:17:18.119 going to be open and above board about this. I 0:17:18.200 --> 0:17:22.359 had no idea what what I was triggering. You saw 0:17:22.440 --> 0:17:27.199 your father only a few times from the time that 0:17:27.800 --> 0:17:31.760 those conversations and that letter writing campaign was happening until 0:17:31.800 --> 0:17:36.560 he died. Yes, once he came, he stopped at my 0:17:36.680 --> 0:17:39.320 school briefly, and I saw him, and then I came 0:17:39.359 --> 0:17:43.159 home for spring break, it's spent a week. There was 0:17:43.200 --> 0:17:45.399 another time I came home at the end of the 0:17:45.440 --> 0:17:49.680 school year, very briefly and brought my girlfriend that time, Yeah, 0:17:49.760 --> 0:17:51.920 and so he met my girlfriend and my mother met 0:17:51.960 --> 0:17:56.119 my girlfriend, and it was all very stressful. Did you 0:17:56.160 --> 0:17:58.880 have further conversations with him? What you know? Was there 0:17:59.320 --> 0:18:02.560 sort of bed on that initial you know, I'm so 0:18:02.600 --> 0:18:06.240 glad you're human kind of conversation. Some of it happened 0:18:07.000 --> 0:18:11.160 again in this epistolary format by letters. I have these 0:18:11.160 --> 0:18:13.800 treasured letters that my dad sent me during that time, 0:18:13.800 --> 0:18:18.560 although they were all quite cryptic and increasingly not making 0:18:18.680 --> 0:18:21.960 a lot of sense. We had one conversation about it, 0:18:21.960 --> 0:18:24.200 which was during the spring break that I was home 0:18:24.240 --> 0:18:26.360 and he and I went out to the movies one night, 0:18:27.080 --> 0:18:28.960 and I was determined to bring it up and to 0:18:29.000 --> 0:18:32.159 make him talk about it. It was very one of 0:18:32.200 --> 0:18:36.000 the most you know, frightening things I've had to do. 0:18:36.440 --> 0:18:37.880 I tried to think of a way that I could 0:18:37.920 --> 0:18:40.480 get in, and it was he had given me a 0:18:40.600 --> 0:18:45.760 copy of Collects Memoirs at Christmas time, and so I 0:18:45.880 --> 0:18:49.359 used that book and I said, did you know what 0:18:49.359 --> 0:18:51.240 you were doing when you gave me that book? Because 0:18:51.280 --> 0:18:53.800 of course, that there's a whole long scene in her 0:18:53.800 --> 0:18:57.520 memoirs about her the lesbian subculture of Paris, which I 0:18:57.560 --> 0:19:01.880 found quite riveting. And he said no, he hadn't really 0:19:01.920 --> 0:19:04.000 thought about it, but it was it was an opening 0:19:04.000 --> 0:19:05.919 and I had gotten in and we just had this 0:19:06.359 --> 0:19:09.919 short conversation until we got to the movie theater. But 0:19:10.000 --> 0:19:13.200 he opened up to me and he said, well, here's 0:19:13.200 --> 0:19:15.960 another interesting thing. When when my mother called me on 0:19:16.000 --> 0:19:20.960 the phone to tell me this shattering information, she explained 0:19:21.000 --> 0:19:24.760 it that my father had been molested when he was young, 0:19:24.840 --> 0:19:28.960 when he was fourteen, and on this night that my 0:19:29.040 --> 0:19:32.240 dad and I were talking, he described to me this 0:19:32.280 --> 0:19:34.959 incident with this older man on the farm where he 0:19:35.000 --> 0:19:37.280 grew up. I don't think he used the word molested, 0:19:37.280 --> 0:19:38.679 but I'm not sure how he would have said it 0:19:38.840 --> 0:19:41.840 if he described it as a as a pleasurable encounter 0:19:42.359 --> 0:19:45.800 and described this man as quite attractive. With me, it 0:19:45.920 --> 0:19:47.960 was a positive experience. With my mother, it was an 0:19:47.960 --> 0:19:50.720 excuse for why he had turned out this way. But 0:19:50.880 --> 0:19:54.280 clearly I could see how deeply ashamed my dad was 0:19:54.320 --> 0:19:56.199 of all this. It was really painful for him to 0:19:56.240 --> 0:20:02.040 talk about it with me, but he did at one point. 0:20:02.040 --> 0:20:04.760 When she's home, Alison and her dad have a really 0:20:04.880 --> 0:20:09.159 uncomfortable conversation. She pushes hard for it. She needs to 0:20:09.200 --> 0:20:13.600 talk with him about his sexuality and hers. She broaches 0:20:13.600 --> 0:20:16.200 the subject in a car on their way to the movies. 0:20:16.960 --> 0:20:20.480 Moving cars are such great places for these scary conversations. 0:20:20.920 --> 0:20:26.800 I find no one can escape. The conversation isn't exactly satisfying, 0:20:26.880 --> 0:20:32.320 but still it's something. Then she's back at school and 0:20:32.400 --> 0:20:36.919 she receives the worst kind of news, terrible news. Her 0:20:37.000 --> 0:20:40.240 dad has been hit by a truck. Her dad is dead. 0:20:42.640 --> 0:20:45.320 One of your responses, and it's it's such an incredibly 0:20:45.400 --> 0:20:49.600 human grief responses. You know, you and your brother have 0:20:49.680 --> 0:20:54.880 it too, Like you're laughing. Yeah, it's such an uncomfortable thing. 0:20:55.000 --> 0:20:57.080 It's like, what do you do. You're not laughing because 0:20:57.119 --> 0:21:02.240 it's funny. You're laughing because you're expelling something. Yeah, we didn't. 0:21:02.240 --> 0:21:06.240 Oh my god, you know, I don't. No, I can't 0:21:06.280 --> 0:21:08.439 remember what I even thought I was. It was a 0:21:08.440 --> 0:21:12.479 five hour drive away, so I got this news. I 0:21:12.560 --> 0:21:16.600 was completely traumatized, but not you know, in my in 0:21:16.600 --> 0:21:19.080 the in the tradition of my family. I cried for 0:21:19.119 --> 0:21:21.760 about half a minute. Maybe maybe thirty seconds, and then 0:21:21.800 --> 0:21:25.560 I was like fine, I I insisted on driving. My 0:21:25.600 --> 0:21:29.160 girlfriend had a car, but I drove, and we both 0:21:29.400 --> 0:21:32.800 drove five hours home. And I can't tell you what 0:21:32.880 --> 0:21:35.919 I was imagining had happened at that point. I know 0:21:36.040 --> 0:21:39.359 that that night my mother confided in me that she 0:21:39.480 --> 0:21:42.680 was pretty sure my father had done this on purpose. 0:21:43.000 --> 0:21:45.040 And and I don't think it that had occurred to 0:21:45.040 --> 0:21:49.600 me until she said that. It just all seemed so crazy, 0:21:49.880 --> 0:21:53.000 but everything had been crazy for months. Why do you 0:21:53.000 --> 0:21:57.280 think she told you that so quickly? Um? I think 0:21:57.320 --> 0:22:00.760 I was her only confidante. I know that her best friend, 0:22:01.080 --> 0:22:04.479 to whom she told absolutely everything. Else I didn't know 0:22:04.920 --> 0:22:08.119 and wouldn't know for a long time. I think she 0:22:08.240 --> 0:22:11.480 just needed to tell someone. And when she did tell 0:22:11.520 --> 0:22:15.520 you that, did that make sense to you? Yes? Completely? 0:22:15.560 --> 0:22:19.359 It felt absolutely right, and I think it consoled us 0:22:19.400 --> 0:22:23.080 both in some some strange way, because at least it 0:22:23.200 --> 0:22:26.680 was intentional. And I try to explain this to people 0:22:26.680 --> 0:22:29.320 and they look at me like I'm insane, but it 0:22:29.400 --> 0:22:33.160 somehow seems different. For a death to be an accident, 0:22:33.800 --> 0:22:36.400 that's really terrible, But if someone intended for it to happen, 0:22:36.440 --> 0:22:39.800 then at least something went right. You know, No, that 0:22:39.880 --> 0:22:41.880 makes sense to me. It's like, even if it's something 0:22:41.920 --> 0:22:44.159 that might have passed, it was something that was a choice. 0:22:45.080 --> 0:22:47.200 I mean, when we started talking, you were you were saying, 0:22:47.359 --> 0:22:48.919 I don't remember how you put it. But you know, 0:22:49.000 --> 0:22:52.000 the older you get, the more it's a mystery to you. 0:22:52.000 --> 0:22:54.119 You know, the more you the more your parents are 0:22:54.119 --> 0:22:56.600 a mystery to you. And I I do think for 0:22:56.640 --> 0:22:58.919 those of us that keep on thinking about this stuff, 0:22:58.920 --> 0:23:02.440 either because it's our nature or because it's our circumstances 0:23:02.440 --> 0:23:07.760 and we have to um, there's nothing resembling closure or 0:23:08.640 --> 0:23:12.200 being at a place where it all feels like tucked away, 0:23:12.480 --> 0:23:16.840 even and maybe especially when we've written about it, you know, 0:23:16.920 --> 0:23:20.880 when it's bound between the pages, I know, it keeps 0:23:20.960 --> 0:23:23.280 evolving and you can't do anything about it. I keep 0:23:23.280 --> 0:23:26.879 finding out bits of information that completely changed my story, 0:23:26.960 --> 0:23:32.879 and I'm like, wait, right, it's a very strange plight, 0:23:33.280 --> 0:23:37.119 because it really is like you're holding the world still 0:23:37.240 --> 0:23:40.120 between the covers of a book. You know, the relationship 0:23:40.160 --> 0:23:44.920 between the you that wrote fun Home and fun Home 0:23:45.400 --> 0:23:48.000 that's the story. It's the relationship between the self and 0:23:48.040 --> 0:23:56.640 the story. At the moment the story is told, We'll 0:23:56.680 --> 0:24:12.679 be right back. Allison's book ends up being adapted for 0:24:12.720 --> 0:24:17.359 the stage, and Fun Home becomes a musical, Yes, a 0:24:17.520 --> 0:24:21.119 musical that wins the Tony Award in two thousand fifteen 0:24:21.200 --> 0:24:25.199 for Best Musical, among many other accolades. I saw the 0:24:25.240 --> 0:24:28.320 show when it first ran off Broadway, and in the 0:24:28.400 --> 0:24:32.800 stage adaptation, there are three Allison's. An actress plays her 0:24:32.840 --> 0:24:35.840 as a kid, another actress plays her around the age 0:24:35.840 --> 0:24:38.800 she was when her father died, and an actress plays 0:24:38.800 --> 0:24:42.199 the adult Allison, who stands off to the side and 0:24:42.280 --> 0:24:47.280 watches it all unfold. To hear the three Allison's sing together, 0:24:47.800 --> 0:24:51.840 their voices creating a tapestry of harmony, is to witness 0:24:51.960 --> 0:24:57.360 a dramatic depiction of wholeness. I've got to admit there's 0:24:57.359 --> 0:25:00.920 been part of me that feels almost you know, guilty 0:25:01.000 --> 0:25:06.639 or bad, pulling you back into that time. And you know, 0:25:06.680 --> 0:25:10.240 and that material because it lives on in the pages 0:25:10.320 --> 0:25:14.360 of your fantastic book, and so it's always finding new readers, 0:25:14.359 --> 0:25:18.280 and it's always sort of newly alive for people. You know, 0:25:18.600 --> 0:25:21.240 new people are finding it newly alive, and for you, 0:25:21.359 --> 0:25:24.520 it's something that is, you know, sort of very much 0:25:25.280 --> 0:25:28.680 by both in the past and not. I guess yeah. 0:25:28.760 --> 0:25:32.719 It has been a bit weird having this part of 0:25:32.720 --> 0:25:35.760