1 00:00:00,200 --> 00:00:08,639 Speaker 1: Family Secrets is a production of I Heart Radio. Two 2 00:00:08,680 --> 00:00:12,080 Speaker 1: months before my father died of prostate cancer, I learned 3 00:00:12,119 --> 00:00:14,760 Speaker 1: about a secret, But I've always said that there was 4 00:00:14,840 --> 00:00:18,159 Speaker 1: something about my family, or even many things that I 5 00:00:18,200 --> 00:00:21,520 Speaker 1: didn't know. As a child, when I was left to 6 00:00:21,600 --> 00:00:24,360 Speaker 1: love in the house, I would search through another's file, 7 00:00:24,480 --> 00:00:29,800 Speaker 1: cabinets and my father's study for elaboration, clarification, some proof 8 00:00:30,840 --> 00:00:39,479 Speaker 1: of what I couldn't exactly say. This is Bliss Broyard, 9 00:00:39,760 --> 00:00:44,280 Speaker 1: reading from her two eight memoir One Drop, My Father's 10 00:00:44,360 --> 00:00:49,400 Speaker 1: Hidden Life, a story of race and family secrets. When 11 00:00:49,440 --> 00:00:52,080 Speaker 1: you were a kid, did you snoop through your parents stuff? 12 00:00:52,720 --> 00:00:56,240 Speaker 1: I know I did. Most kids snoop go looking through 13 00:00:56,280 --> 00:00:59,160 Speaker 1: their parents things, trying to solve the mystery of these 14 00:00:59,200 --> 00:01:02,600 Speaker 1: adults who are so central to us and yet are 15 00:01:02,640 --> 00:01:07,360 Speaker 1: also so fundamentally unknowable. We kind of sense that our 16 00:01:07,400 --> 00:01:11,240 Speaker 1: parents have private lives outside of being just mom and dad, 17 00:01:11,880 --> 00:01:14,800 Speaker 1: and we want to find out about those lives. But 18 00:01:14,880 --> 00:01:18,520 Speaker 1: in families where there are secrets, I mean, big secrets, 19 00:01:19,120 --> 00:01:22,800 Speaker 1: this snooping is not so innocent. It kind of borders 20 00:01:22,840 --> 00:01:26,800 Speaker 1: on obsessive. I should know. When I was a kid, 21 00:01:27,240 --> 00:01:29,360 Speaker 1: whenever my parents would leave the house I would get 22 00:01:29,400 --> 00:01:33,280 Speaker 1: to work. I searched through my mother's drawers, my father's nightstand, 23 00:01:33,600 --> 00:01:38,000 Speaker 1: their cupboards and medicine cabinets. Like Bliss Broyard, if I 24 00:01:38,000 --> 00:01:40,600 Speaker 1: had been asked what I was looking for, I couldn't 25 00:01:40,600 --> 00:01:44,560 Speaker 1: have told you a clue. I guess a reason why 26 00:01:44,640 --> 00:01:55,880 Speaker 1: the pieces to my family just didn't add up. I'm 27 00:01:55,960 --> 00:02:00,200 Speaker 1: Danny Shapiro, and this is family secrets, secrets that are 28 00:02:00,280 --> 00:02:04,200 Speaker 1: kept from us, secrets we keep from others, and secrets 29 00:02:04,240 --> 00:02:12,480 Speaker 1: we keep from ourselves. Bliss was raised in Southport, Connecticut, 30 00:02:12,880 --> 00:02:15,359 Speaker 1: a small town on the coast of the Long Island Sound, 31 00:02:15,880 --> 00:02:19,520 Speaker 1: with her mom, dad, and older brother Todd. I've been 32 00:02:19,520 --> 00:02:22,640 Speaker 1: to Southport a few times. It's a place that reeks 33 00:02:22,639 --> 00:02:24,920 Speaker 1: of money, so old it doesn't need to show off 34 00:02:25,800 --> 00:02:29,600 Speaker 1: worn oriental rugs and great great Grandma's silver service kind 35 00:02:29,600 --> 00:02:33,399 Speaker 1: of money. Southport is a place that feels orderly and elegant, 36 00:02:33,840 --> 00:02:38,560 Speaker 1: every detail perfection, as if dreamt up by Martha Stewart, who, 37 00:02:38,600 --> 00:02:40,800 Speaker 1: come to think of it, lived in the next town over. 38 00:02:43,280 --> 00:02:47,520 Speaker 1: So I'd love to start with you describing the landscape 39 00:02:47,560 --> 00:02:52,520 Speaker 1: of your childhood. A bit sure, um well I grew up. 40 00:02:52,560 --> 00:02:56,119 Speaker 1: I often described it as as kind of wasp. In Connecticut, 41 00:02:56,639 --> 00:03:00,160 Speaker 1: um it was a wealthy so the wealthiest sect Lee 42 00:03:00,240 --> 00:03:02,160 Speaker 1: County in America at the time that I was growing 43 00:03:02,200 --> 00:03:04,360 Speaker 1: up in there in the nineteen seventies, Fairfeld County, and 44 00:03:04,400 --> 00:03:07,480 Speaker 1: it was virtually all white. I think I once looked 45 00:03:07,520 --> 00:03:09,640 Speaker 1: at the census and there was like four or five 46 00:03:10,440 --> 00:03:13,840 Speaker 1: people of color African Americans, but nobody in tam when 47 00:03:13,880 --> 00:03:16,840 Speaker 1: I asked the library, knew who those people were. So 48 00:03:16,880 --> 00:03:18,600 Speaker 1: they were if they were there at all, they were 49 00:03:18,639 --> 00:03:22,440 Speaker 1: not known kind of respective members of the community. There 50 00:03:22,440 --> 00:03:25,680 Speaker 1: were Jews and Catholics there, but there was an overriding 51 00:03:25,800 --> 00:03:29,320 Speaker 1: kind of wasp culture that everyone seemed to aspire to 52 00:03:29,360 --> 00:03:34,920 Speaker 1: belong to. My family, included the Broyard's, had a charmed life, 53 00:03:35,120 --> 00:03:38,240 Speaker 1: at least on the outside. When Bliss was growing up, 54 00:03:38,640 --> 00:03:42,480 Speaker 1: her father, Anatole, had become famous as a literary critic. 55 00:03:43,600 --> 00:03:48,560 Speaker 1: If that description sounds like an oxymoron, famous literary critic, well, 56 00:03:48,680 --> 00:03:51,080 Speaker 1: once upon a time, it was a real thing, and 57 00:03:51,160 --> 00:03:55,880 Speaker 1: Anatole Broyard was it. My father was an older dad. 58 00:03:55,960 --> 00:03:58,800 Speaker 1: He was forty when he married my mother. My mother 59 00:03:58,880 --> 00:04:00,760 Speaker 1: says that she know how old he was because he 60 00:04:00,880 --> 00:04:03,480 Speaker 1: looked very young. It's kind of secretive about his age. 61 00:04:04,680 --> 00:04:07,680 Speaker 1: So they met in Grand Village, and I think they 62 00:04:07,720 --> 00:04:11,720 Speaker 1: both really identified with the Grantch village of the nineteen 63 00:04:11,800 --> 00:04:14,520 Speaker 1: fifties or nine sixties, and the first got married and 64 00:04:14,520 --> 00:04:18,520 Speaker 1: we living there. They succumb self described bohemians. My father 65 00:04:18,680 --> 00:04:21,600 Speaker 1: was a writer. Um. He published a few things at 66 00:04:21,640 --> 00:04:24,320 Speaker 1: that points, particularly a story about the death of his 67 00:04:24,360 --> 00:04:26,599 Speaker 1: own father that had gotten a lot of attention and 68 00:04:26,680 --> 00:04:29,880 Speaker 1: had earned him a book deal for a novel that 69 00:04:29,960 --> 00:04:33,400 Speaker 1: he was forever working on trying to complete. My mother 70 00:04:33,480 --> 00:04:36,839 Speaker 1: was a modern dancer. She was also an orphaned. She'd 71 00:04:36,839 --> 00:04:41,239 Speaker 1: been orphaned tragically her father and then her mother died 72 00:04:42,200 --> 00:04:44,279 Speaker 1: about nine months later in a car accident where my 73 00:04:44,320 --> 00:04:47,120 Speaker 1: mother had been driving, and so she was pretty alone 74 00:04:47,120 --> 00:04:51,680 Speaker 1: in the world and traumatized really from what happened. Um 75 00:04:51,839 --> 00:04:56,039 Speaker 1: found met my father on a subway after dance class 76 00:04:55,800 --> 00:04:58,919 Speaker 1: in Manhattan, and she asked him out and where he 77 00:04:58,960 --> 00:05:02,400 Speaker 1: asked her out about there. Um, So they when they 78 00:05:02,440 --> 00:05:05,240 Speaker 1: got married and they had my brother, they moved out 79 00:05:05,240 --> 00:05:08,480 Speaker 1: to Connecticut. You know. My mother says it's because she 80 00:05:08,520 --> 00:05:10,880 Speaker 1: didn't really know how to raise a family in New 81 00:05:10,920 --> 00:05:14,520 Speaker 1: York City. She herself had grown up in Westchester, and 82 00:05:15,200 --> 00:05:17,480 Speaker 1: I think for both of my parents there was the 83 00:05:17,600 --> 00:05:20,800 Speaker 1: sense that their marriage and kind of domestic life through 84 00:05:20,839 --> 00:05:24,880 Speaker 1: that they sort of saved one another. My mother saved 85 00:05:24,920 --> 00:05:28,520 Speaker 1: my father bachelorhood, he would always say. And my father 86 00:05:28,640 --> 00:05:32,400 Speaker 1: kind of saved my mother from this sort of orphaned 87 00:05:32,680 --> 00:05:35,839 Speaker 1: world that she had found herself in when she was 88 00:05:35,839 --> 00:05:40,400 Speaker 1: twenty and they had bought a series of old antique 89 00:05:40,400 --> 00:05:44,840 Speaker 1: farmhouses in Connecticut and decorated them beautifully. My mother make 90 00:05:44,839 --> 00:05:49,359 Speaker 1: homemade mayonnaise and fresh bread and planted beautiful gardens. And 91 00:05:49,360 --> 00:05:51,400 Speaker 1: there was a lot about that childhood that was really 92 00:05:51,440 --> 00:05:55,360 Speaker 1: idyllic um. But there was also a lot where they 93 00:05:55,400 --> 00:05:59,240 Speaker 1: were living kind of beyond their means and living on 94 00:05:59,279 --> 00:06:01,520 Speaker 1: the edge and hiring to a life and they couldn't 95 00:06:01,560 --> 00:06:05,800 Speaker 1: quite afford and it created a lot of stress, certainly 96 00:06:06,400 --> 00:06:10,800 Speaker 1: in our household um and confusion, why do we live 97 00:06:10,839 --> 00:06:15,200 Speaker 1: in this beautiful, kind of impressive house but they trouble 98 00:06:15,240 --> 00:06:18,680 Speaker 1: paying for lunching to me like basic necessities sometimes And 99 00:06:18,920 --> 00:06:20,840 Speaker 1: were you aware of that as a child. I mean, 100 00:06:20,880 --> 00:06:25,120 Speaker 1: some families are or some parents are pretty good at 101 00:06:25,480 --> 00:06:27,600 Speaker 1: call it what you will, but you know, shielding or 102 00:06:27,680 --> 00:06:34,520 Speaker 1: hiding from their kids, that sense of financial instability or 103 00:06:34,839 --> 00:06:38,479 Speaker 1: things not being as they appear. I think I was 104 00:06:38,520 --> 00:06:41,200 Speaker 1: aware of it because I mean there would be fights 105 00:06:41,200 --> 00:06:43,719 Speaker 1: about money, certainly that I overheard, but also my parents 106 00:06:43,800 --> 00:06:47,279 Speaker 1: kept moving and they kept buying new homes, and I 107 00:06:47,279 --> 00:06:49,880 Speaker 1: think that I had the impression that, you know, if 108 00:06:49,880 --> 00:06:52,120 Speaker 1: we could get into a new house that was more 109 00:06:52,200 --> 00:06:56,560 Speaker 1: beautiful and it was a fresh start and decorated, you know, 110 00:06:56,839 --> 00:07:00,480 Speaker 1: in some other slightly different style, than they could be happier. 111 00:07:00,520 --> 00:07:04,599 Speaker 1: It's kind of this chasing after the new settings with 112 00:07:04,680 --> 00:07:10,720 Speaker 1: the hope of of making things calmer and happier. So 113 00:07:11,160 --> 00:07:13,600 Speaker 1: there seems to be like a kind of discontent always 114 00:07:13,640 --> 00:07:16,120 Speaker 1: with with that life was. I mean, at the same time, 115 00:07:16,160 --> 00:07:18,040 Speaker 1: we did have, you know, we had a lot of coziness. 116 00:07:18,280 --> 00:07:19,920 Speaker 1: My father was a real fu family man, and he 117 00:07:20,000 --> 00:07:25,680 Speaker 1: worked at tom like most men of that generation. So 118 00:07:25,880 --> 00:07:28,360 Speaker 1: Nfol Briard is a bit of a legend. He's the 119 00:07:28,440 --> 00:07:31,440 Speaker 1: chief book critic for the New York Times. He dictates 120 00:07:31,440 --> 00:07:35,560 Speaker 1: his reviews over the phone from home. Around Southport, everyone 121 00:07:35,600 --> 00:07:38,440 Speaker 1: knows who he is. Blizz describes him this way in 122 00:07:38,480 --> 00:07:42,400 Speaker 1: her memoir, My father was famous, at least among the 123 00:07:42,400 --> 00:07:45,560 Speaker 1: people I knew, not only for being a public intellectual 124 00:07:45,600 --> 00:07:48,360 Speaker 1: with a regular byline and the paper of record, but 125 00:07:48,480 --> 00:07:52,239 Speaker 1: for being successful at life, at parties at our house. 126 00:07:52,320 --> 00:07:55,080 Speaker 1: I'd watch the way he moved through people, laying his 127 00:07:55,120 --> 00:07:58,840 Speaker 1: hand on a shoulder, firmly gripping someone's arm, and how 128 00:07:58,880 --> 00:08:02,040 Speaker 1: they turned to him. Your face is lit and expectant, 129 00:08:02,440 --> 00:08:04,720 Speaker 1: as if he held a fistful of fairy dust over 130 00:08:04,760 --> 00:08:08,320 Speaker 1: their heads, And he'd offer a word or two, nothing much, 131 00:08:08,680 --> 00:08:12,200 Speaker 1: but with a subtext that declared, all right, we fantastic 132 00:08:12,240 --> 00:08:16,320 Speaker 1: you and me. Isn't this world great? So he was 133 00:08:16,360 --> 00:08:20,440 Speaker 1: also a really charismatic figure. He was very handsome and 134 00:08:20,680 --> 00:08:23,640 Speaker 1: very graceful, a great athlete, of great dancer, and kind 135 00:08:23,680 --> 00:08:26,360 Speaker 1: of a lot of fun um and a really quite 136 00:08:26,720 --> 00:08:29,280 Speaker 1: a dear, generous friend. He was a friend of his 137 00:08:29,600 --> 00:08:31,560 Speaker 1: describing I think this was really true. He was a 138 00:08:31,640 --> 00:08:35,480 Speaker 1: kind of master at impression management when he really worked 139 00:08:35,520 --> 00:08:38,280 Speaker 1: hard to make people like him. But it didn't kind 140 00:08:38,320 --> 00:08:41,520 Speaker 1: of come off as a manipulative or inauthentic, at least 141 00:08:41,520 --> 00:08:44,680 Speaker 1: to my eyes or to his friendsise Um. You know, 142 00:08:44,760 --> 00:08:46,920 Speaker 1: maybe from the far somebody would have seen it differently. 143 00:08:47,000 --> 00:08:49,920 Speaker 1: But he was very likable in many ways, and he 144 00:08:49,960 --> 00:08:51,480 Speaker 1: had a lot of friends, a lot of people who 145 00:08:51,480 --> 00:08:56,000 Speaker 1: were quite loyal to him. But beneath all this, something 146 00:08:56,040 --> 00:08:59,400 Speaker 1: else is going on. Even within all the literary fame 147 00:08:59,480 --> 00:09:02,880 Speaker 1: and country coziness, the Broyards are kind of on their own. 148 00:09:03,679 --> 00:09:09,000 Speaker 1: There's no extended family around. Sandy is an orphan and anatole. Well, 149 00:09:09,040 --> 00:09:12,840 Speaker 1: he has family, but they seem to have been excommunicated. 150 00:09:13,480 --> 00:09:15,480 Speaker 1: He has a mother and two sisters living in New 151 00:09:15,520 --> 00:09:18,880 Speaker 1: York City, just a short train ride away, but they 152 00:09:18,920 --> 00:09:22,079 Speaker 1: never come to visit. Bliss and Todd grow up not 153 00:09:22,200 --> 00:09:27,280 Speaker 1: knowing them. We're going to pause for a moment for 154 00:09:27,320 --> 00:09:35,400 Speaker 1: a word from our sponsor. One night, anatole's temper flares 155 00:09:35,520 --> 00:09:40,640 Speaker 1: over a bologna sandwich. You heard that right. I'll let 156 00:09:40,679 --> 00:09:45,240 Speaker 1: Bliss tell it. It was Mother's Day, and um, he 157 00:09:45,280 --> 00:09:48,839 Speaker 1: had gotten my mother these lovely Tiffany earrings. But the 158 00:09:48,960 --> 00:09:51,040 Speaker 1: moment that he was trying to present them, she was 159 00:09:51,120 --> 00:09:53,800 Speaker 1: cooking dinner and kind of didn't turn around quickly. And 160 00:09:53,920 --> 00:09:57,000 Speaker 1: after he lost his temper abruptly, and then the night 161 00:09:57,040 --> 00:09:59,520 Speaker 1: was a ruined and um, I went to bed, and 162 00:09:59,600 --> 00:10:01,120 Speaker 1: she woke me up in the middle of the night 163 00:10:01,360 --> 00:10:04,840 Speaker 1: alarmed because he couldn't find his blowny for his sandwich 164 00:10:04,880 --> 00:10:07,480 Speaker 1: that he ate nightly, and then when I went downstairs, 165 00:10:07,559 --> 00:10:12,320 Speaker 1: he had ripped all of the condiments and the shelves 166 00:10:12,400 --> 00:10:15,360 Speaker 1: off the door of the fridge, so our whole kitchen 167 00:10:15,400 --> 00:10:21,480 Speaker 1: floor was scattered with bottles and Nanna's um And he 168 00:10:21,640 --> 00:10:24,560 Speaker 1: was really shocking and seemed quite out of character. I've 169 00:10:24,600 --> 00:10:27,440 Speaker 1: never seen my father really lose control like that. And 170 00:10:27,480 --> 00:10:30,200 Speaker 1: that's when I learned my mother. I said, what happened? 171 00:10:30,480 --> 00:10:32,600 Speaker 1: You know, what's wrong with him? And she said, well, 172 00:10:32,760 --> 00:10:35,559 Speaker 1: you know, his mother died, and I think he feels guilty. 173 00:10:39,280 --> 00:10:41,320 Speaker 1: And this was the first I'd heard that my grandmother 174 00:10:41,360 --> 00:10:43,480 Speaker 1: had died, who had only met once in my life, 175 00:10:43,600 --> 00:10:46,360 Speaker 1: you know, when I was six when she died, and 176 00:10:46,400 --> 00:10:49,040 Speaker 1: she had died back in September. She's been dead for 177 00:10:49,600 --> 00:10:53,680 Speaker 1: nine months, but it was never even mentioned or discussed, 178 00:10:53,760 --> 00:10:55,880 Speaker 1: or if there was a service, I wasn't concluded. And 179 00:10:55,920 --> 00:10:59,000 Speaker 1: so that really hit me hard because I just felt 180 00:10:59,040 --> 00:11:00,640 Speaker 1: that not only was my I thought, you know, my 181 00:11:00,720 --> 00:11:06,760 Speaker 1: father had lost his mother and was presumably grieving over that, 182 00:11:06,840 --> 00:11:09,719 Speaker 1: but I was also so excluded from the whole experience, 183 00:11:09,720 --> 00:11:12,280 Speaker 1: and I didn't have a right to his family in 184 00:11:12,320 --> 00:11:15,240 Speaker 1: any way. They didn't belong to me. They only belonged 185 00:11:15,240 --> 00:11:20,200 Speaker 1: to him, which was felt very hurtful. Yeah. Yeah, And 186 00:11:20,240 --> 00:11:24,360 Speaker 1: it also speaks to that unknowability, like how is it 187 00:11:24,400 --> 00:11:28,240 Speaker 1: possible for you, know, you're a kid and your your 188 00:11:28,320 --> 00:11:31,640 Speaker 1: father has lost his mother and you don't know that, 189 00:11:32,480 --> 00:11:34,400 Speaker 1: you know, it makes you wonder if you just aren't 190 00:11:34,440 --> 00:11:37,400 Speaker 1: sensitive or paying attention or self absorbed. I mean I 191 00:11:37,520 --> 00:11:41,240 Speaker 1: was twelve or something, so I'm sure I was self absorbed, 192 00:11:41,320 --> 00:11:43,480 Speaker 1: But you know, I thought of myself as close with 193 00:11:43,520 --> 00:11:46,720 Speaker 1: my father. He was very affectionate, and he was he 194 00:11:46,840 --> 00:11:49,560 Speaker 1: waited a long time to have children. He really loved kids, 195 00:11:49,760 --> 00:11:53,480 Speaker 1: and so he seemed really very interested in my life 196 00:11:53,480 --> 00:11:56,240 Speaker 1: and my brother's life and our life when our friends 197 00:11:56,280 --> 00:11:59,240 Speaker 1: came around, and he was a very engaged father by 198 00:11:59,360 --> 00:12:01,880 Speaker 1: today's stand words are back then, and so the fact 199 00:12:01,880 --> 00:12:04,200 Speaker 1: that I hadn't noticed that he had lost his own 200 00:12:04,240 --> 00:12:07,680 Speaker 1: parents and that had perhaps been grieving over that made 201 00:12:07,679 --> 00:12:10,760 Speaker 1: you feel that I m didn't know my dad or 202 00:12:10,800 --> 00:12:15,120 Speaker 1: we weren't as close as I thought. If blisses, aunts, 203 00:12:15,160 --> 00:12:17,439 Speaker 1: or grandmother were a part of her imagination at all 204 00:12:17,480 --> 00:12:21,120 Speaker 1: when she was a kid, they were shadowy, mysterious figures 205 00:12:21,440 --> 00:12:24,840 Speaker 1: covering on the periphery. I mean, my one aunt would 206 00:12:24,840 --> 00:12:27,480 Speaker 1: call the house sometimes and she didn't feel as cut 207 00:12:27,480 --> 00:12:29,760 Speaker 1: off limits to me as my other aunt did. But 208 00:12:29,880 --> 00:12:32,160 Speaker 1: I after my father died, I found a note from 209 00:12:32,160 --> 00:12:35,559 Speaker 1: my grandmother to my father that was really heart wrenching 210 00:12:35,600 --> 00:12:38,880 Speaker 1: because something like, you know, I'm turning seventy two and 211 00:12:38,920 --> 00:12:41,439 Speaker 1: I'm not a young woman anymore, and I just want 212 00:12:41,480 --> 00:12:44,360 Speaker 1: to meet my grandchildren for once in my life. And 213 00:12:44,400 --> 00:12:46,760 Speaker 1: then when I looked at the dates. The following week, 214 00:12:47,280 --> 00:12:50,920 Speaker 1: my father brought my my grandmother, his mother, out to 215 00:12:50,920 --> 00:12:54,240 Speaker 1: Connecticut and brought her to lunch the country club, like 216 00:12:54,400 --> 00:12:57,720 Speaker 1: just as is to say, like I'm not keeping you apart, 217 00:12:57,800 --> 00:13:01,120 Speaker 1: and there's nothing wrong going on here, and you're welcome 218 00:13:01,160 --> 00:13:03,360 Speaker 1: to come. But she, of course, she once she came, 219 00:13:03,480 --> 00:13:06,480 Speaker 1: she calm. That was it. She never came back. It 220 00:13:06,640 --> 00:13:10,320 Speaker 1: was the only time they ever met her. Listen Todd 221 00:13:10,360 --> 00:13:14,480 Speaker 1: attend great private schools. The family spends summers on Martha's Vineyard. 222 00:13:14,840 --> 00:13:18,480 Speaker 1: They play tennis, hang out at the yacht club. They're close, 223 00:13:19,400 --> 00:13:23,360 Speaker 1: and yet Anatole's pensiont for control continues to exert itself 224 00:13:23,400 --> 00:13:27,520 Speaker 1: in all sorts of ways. Because here's the thing, you 225 00:13:27,679 --> 00:13:31,720 Speaker 1: can't control life. You can try. You can eat the 226 00:13:31,760 --> 00:13:35,480 Speaker 1: same bologna sandwich every night, you can perfect your back hand, 227 00:13:36,040 --> 00:13:39,839 Speaker 1: you can keep your family at bay. But ultimately, no 228 00:13:39,840 --> 00:13:43,080 Speaker 1: matter how masterful you are at it, life will have 229 00:13:43,160 --> 00:13:48,480 Speaker 1: its way. Life always does. And let's not forget that 230 00:13:48,520 --> 00:13:52,160 Speaker 1: Anatole Broyard is first and foremost a writer. He's been 231 00:13:52,160 --> 00:13:55,640 Speaker 1: trying to write a novel forever and he can't. He 232 00:13:55,840 --> 00:14:00,240 Speaker 1: just can't. A friend told me very poignant story. They 233 00:14:00,320 --> 00:14:03,280 Speaker 1: went and had like a little self created writing retreat 234 00:14:03,320 --> 00:14:06,760 Speaker 1: together and after the first morning they have shared their 235 00:14:06,800 --> 00:14:10,200 Speaker 1: work over lunch, and this friend said, that's great, Anatole, 236 00:14:10,280 --> 00:14:12,160 Speaker 1: keep going. And then my dad came down the next 237 00:14:12,240 --> 00:14:14,800 Speaker 1: day and it was basically the same couple of paragraphs 238 00:14:14,840 --> 00:14:17,360 Speaker 1: but with a comma changed here and there, and you know, 239 00:14:17,840 --> 00:14:19,720 Speaker 1: and he said, okay, yeah, I keep going. And it 240 00:14:19,800 --> 00:14:22,320 Speaker 1: just went on like that for the week. And finally, 241 00:14:22,360 --> 00:14:23,760 Speaker 1: at the end of his life, I think when you 242 00:14:23,960 --> 00:14:26,160 Speaker 1: you know, when he realized his life actually had a deadline. 243 00:14:26,240 --> 00:14:32,520 Speaker 1: He was surliberated to create both a memoir that I 244 00:14:32,840 --> 00:14:35,240 Speaker 1: became a book called When Kraftco Was the Rage, and 245 00:14:35,280 --> 00:14:38,000 Speaker 1: also he was writing about illness um and he found 246 00:14:38,040 --> 00:14:43,480 Speaker 1: a way to kind of write about himself honestly. When 247 00:14:43,520 --> 00:14:46,400 Speaker 1: Bliss is in her early twenties, Anatole is diagnosed with 248 00:14:46,440 --> 00:14:50,400 Speaker 1: prostate cancer, and just before her twenty four birthday, it's 249 00:14:50,440 --> 00:14:54,000 Speaker 1: clear that he has very little time left. One afternoon, 250 00:14:54,080 --> 00:14:57,600 Speaker 1: Sandy tells Bliss and Todd in front of Anatole that 251 00:14:57,680 --> 00:15:00,640 Speaker 1: their father has a secret, and she begs him to 252 00:15:00,680 --> 00:15:04,520 Speaker 1: tell it. So what happened is my father had gone 253 00:15:04,920 --> 00:15:08,920 Speaker 1: to couples therapy with my mother when he was it 254 00:15:09,040 --> 00:15:11,880 Speaker 1: was clear that like western medicine had done what it 255 00:15:11,920 --> 00:15:14,000 Speaker 1: could for his illness, and she was trying to get 256 00:15:14,040 --> 00:15:16,600 Speaker 1: them to do some alternative treatments and they were kind 257 00:15:16,600 --> 00:15:18,520 Speaker 1: of he was reposisting, and so they went to couple 258 00:15:18,560 --> 00:15:22,280 Speaker 1: of therapy and it turned into more conversation about how 259 00:15:22,280 --> 00:15:27,280 Speaker 1: he wanted to finish up his life, and this secret 260 00:15:27,560 --> 00:15:31,040 Speaker 1: came up, and the therapist had suggested that it would 261 00:15:31,040 --> 00:15:33,960 Speaker 1: be a kind of unburdening to tell his children finally, 262 00:15:34,320 --> 00:15:37,720 Speaker 1: something that my mother had been really after for him 263 00:15:37,760 --> 00:15:39,680 Speaker 1: to tell us for years. I think in the back 264 00:15:39,680 --> 00:15:42,960 Speaker 1: of my mother's mind too, she was going to include 265 00:15:43,440 --> 00:15:46,800 Speaker 1: his two sisters in his memorial service, and so we 266 00:15:46,800 --> 00:15:48,280 Speaker 1: were going to meet them, and I was going to 267 00:15:48,400 --> 00:15:50,280 Speaker 1: meet my cousins, and wouldn't it be better if my 268 00:15:50,320 --> 00:15:56,760 Speaker 1: father told us first. So she sort of sprung it 269 00:15:56,800 --> 00:16:00,040 Speaker 1: on him to tell us, and he wasn't ready, and 270 00:16:00,600 --> 00:16:03,440 Speaker 1: he was having a hard day. Um, he was in 271 00:16:03,480 --> 00:16:05,800 Speaker 1: a lot of pain from his prostate cancer, which had 272 00:16:05,800 --> 00:16:08,480 Speaker 1: advanced at that point to his bones. And he said 273 00:16:08,520 --> 00:16:10,880 Speaker 1: that he wanted to get his vulnerabilities and orders. They 274 00:16:10,880 --> 00:16:15,320 Speaker 1: didn't get magnified during the discussion. Very kind of controlled 275 00:16:16,680 --> 00:16:21,240 Speaker 1: thing for him to say, very kind of typical way. 276 00:16:22,960 --> 00:16:26,600 Speaker 1: Imagine how amazing it would be to get your vulnerabilities 277 00:16:26,640 --> 00:16:29,960 Speaker 1: in order to line them up like good little soldiers, 278 00:16:30,480 --> 00:16:34,360 Speaker 1: to wait until they're all perfectly aligned, and then and 279 00:16:34,480 --> 00:16:42,560 Speaker 1: only then. Oh wait, right, that's not how vulnerabilities work. Okay, 280 00:16:42,640 --> 00:16:45,640 Speaker 1: So Bliss and Todd can't imagine what the secret might be. 281 00:16:46,520 --> 00:16:51,160 Speaker 1: Their father isn't talking, he's ordering his vulnerabilities. He's frail 282 00:16:51,360 --> 00:16:55,720 Speaker 1: and in ever worsening shape. Finally, when it seems the 283 00:16:55,840 --> 00:16:59,480 Speaker 1: end might be near, Sandy decides to tell her children 284 00:16:59,760 --> 00:17:03,120 Speaker 1: her self. He planted it back in the hospital to 285 00:17:03,160 --> 00:17:05,320 Speaker 1: the medical emergency, and he had to have an emergency 286 00:17:05,400 --> 00:17:08,000 Speaker 1: surgery that looked like he was going to die and 287 00:17:08,119 --> 00:17:09,560 Speaker 1: he was going to make it through the surgery, and 288 00:17:09,600 --> 00:17:13,520 Speaker 1: so my mom brought us outside Dana Farber Cancer Institute 289 00:17:13,560 --> 00:17:15,159 Speaker 1: in Boston and said, look, I'm going to tell you 290 00:17:15,160 --> 00:17:21,239 Speaker 1: what the secret is. Your father's are black. And my 291 00:17:21,280 --> 00:17:24,720 Speaker 1: brother and I laughed, you know, we just know that's it, 292 00:17:24,960 --> 00:17:27,560 Speaker 1: that's the big secret, because we had been talking, you know, 293 00:17:27,760 --> 00:17:29,760 Speaker 1: the last couple of weeks. What do you think, what 294 00:17:29,840 --> 00:17:33,200 Speaker 1: do you think it is like somebody get murdered, just rape. 295 00:17:33,280 --> 00:17:35,840 Speaker 1: You know, we just thought incest. We knew there was 296 00:17:35,920 --> 00:17:38,040 Speaker 1: something had to do with this family, but we really 297 00:17:38,080 --> 00:17:41,320 Speaker 1: went down what we seemed like much darker channels. So 298 00:17:41,359 --> 00:17:43,720 Speaker 1: this seems like not a very big deal and kind 299 00:17:43,720 --> 00:17:46,000 Speaker 1: of a relief, and we remember we joked about it. 300 00:17:47,040 --> 00:17:50,879 Speaker 1: But over time, after Anatole's death, the magnitude of the 301 00:17:50,920 --> 00:17:54,399 Speaker 1: secret and what it really means for Bliss starts to 302 00:17:54,480 --> 00:18:00,360 Speaker 1: slowly reveal itself. But I think then a few months 303 00:18:00,440 --> 00:18:03,639 Speaker 1: later at the memorial service and I met my aunt Shirley, 304 00:18:03,680 --> 00:18:06,200 Speaker 1: who I had never met before, and her son Frank, 305 00:18:06,359 --> 00:18:09,280 Speaker 1: and UM saw my other aunt Loraine for the first time, 306 00:18:09,359 --> 00:18:14,280 Speaker 1: and you know, twenty years or something, the secret started 307 00:18:14,280 --> 00:18:18,080 Speaker 1: to take on more import and I started to really 308 00:18:18,080 --> 00:18:20,040 Speaker 1: have a lot of questions. Why was it a secret? 309 00:18:20,080 --> 00:18:21,440 Speaker 1: What did it mean to him? What does it mean 310 00:18:21,480 --> 00:18:24,600 Speaker 1: to me? And I told my best friend from growing 311 00:18:24,680 --> 00:18:27,199 Speaker 1: up from Martha's Vineyard, I pointed out my yes, and 312 00:18:27,200 --> 00:18:29,080 Speaker 1: I said, you know those are my aunts, the big 313 00:18:29,119 --> 00:18:31,239 Speaker 1: secrets that my father was black, and I didn't know. 314 00:18:31,840 --> 00:18:34,320 Speaker 1: She said, you didn't know. I knew? He said, why, 315 00:18:34,480 --> 00:18:36,560 Speaker 1: like you knew all of these years? She said, yeah. 316 00:18:36,600 --> 00:18:39,440 Speaker 1: I mean I thought like everybody knew of my parents knew, 317 00:18:39,440 --> 00:18:41,199 Speaker 1: and their friends. I just thought that you've heard not 318 00:18:41,280 --> 00:18:44,879 Speaker 1: to talk about it. That was very odd because I 319 00:18:44,920 --> 00:18:47,520 Speaker 1: had been sort of made complicit in the secret that 320 00:18:47,560 --> 00:18:53,159 Speaker 1: I wasn't even really aware of. This is something I 321 00:18:53,200 --> 00:18:56,840 Speaker 1: think a lot about in any number of the conversations 322 00:18:56,880 --> 00:19:00,080 Speaker 1: I've had for this podcast. The notion that not me 323 00:19:00,119 --> 00:19:02,439 Speaker 1: it was a secret kept, but then in fact that 324 00:19:02,520 --> 00:19:06,439 Speaker 1: secret was hiding in plain sight. Well, that keeps on 325 00:19:06,600 --> 00:19:09,960 Speaker 1: coming up again and again, especially when it relates to 326 00:19:10,000 --> 00:19:14,480 Speaker 1: paternity or ethnic or racial background. I mean, this was 327 00:19:14,560 --> 00:19:18,199 Speaker 1: definitely true for me when I first wrote something on 328 00:19:18,200 --> 00:19:21,600 Speaker 1: Facebook about my discovery about my dad, kind of announcing 329 00:19:21,600 --> 00:19:24,320 Speaker 1: the subject of my new book, The wife of my 330 00:19:24,440 --> 00:19:29,560 Speaker 1: ninth grade English teacher posted a comment hashtag always wondered. 331 00:19:30,080 --> 00:19:37,160 Speaker 1: She said, really always wondered? Had everybody always wondered? Except 332 00:19:37,200 --> 00:19:41,640 Speaker 1: for me? In your book you talk about dancing, right, 333 00:19:42,280 --> 00:19:45,760 Speaker 1: and you're a really good dancer, and you come home 334 00:19:45,800 --> 00:19:48,440 Speaker 1: one night and you say to your father, Um, it 335 00:19:48,600 --> 00:19:50,639 Speaker 1: was like the ultimate compliment somebody said to you know, 336 00:19:50,800 --> 00:19:52,960 Speaker 1: like you you dance like a black girl, you know, 337 00:19:53,359 --> 00:19:56,000 Speaker 1: like and I mean he doesn't really register it, and 338 00:19:56,040 --> 00:19:58,760 Speaker 1: you don't really register it. Um. I think he took 339 00:19:58,760 --> 00:20:02,320 Speaker 1: it as a compliment too, you know, right, like that 340 00:20:02,359 --> 00:20:06,080 Speaker 1: he wanted that bro right. Yeah. I think for me too, 341 00:20:06,160 --> 00:20:09,240 Speaker 1: I felt very exposed, um, with this idea of this 342 00:20:09,400 --> 00:20:11,920 Speaker 1: knowledge that a lot of people knew something about me 343 00:20:12,320 --> 00:20:14,159 Speaker 1: that I didn't know myself. You know, it makes you 344 00:20:14,160 --> 00:20:17,040 Speaker 1: feel like you have a sign on your back or something. Um. 345 00:20:17,080 --> 00:20:20,159 Speaker 1: And I made me feel sort of stupid and uh. 346 00:20:20,240 --> 00:20:23,000 Speaker 1: And I even had some you know, strangers when I 347 00:20:23,080 --> 00:20:25,800 Speaker 1: was giving readings like how could you not know? Um, 348 00:20:26,080 --> 00:20:28,760 Speaker 1: didn't you look at your father and wonder? And I 349 00:20:28,880 --> 00:20:31,720 Speaker 1: talked to people whose parents have come out or UM 350 00:20:31,800 --> 00:20:35,040 Speaker 1: later in life, And I think that a partly, I 351 00:20:35,080 --> 00:20:38,520 Speaker 1: think it's the self absorption of the child, Like, yes, 352 00:20:38,560 --> 00:20:40,640 Speaker 1: we're trying to figure out our parents, but we're more 353 00:20:40,640 --> 00:20:43,200 Speaker 1: focused probably in figuring out ourselves, and we don't quite 354 00:20:43,840 --> 00:20:47,600 Speaker 1: see the connection, you know. Um, But also I just didn't. 355 00:20:47,920 --> 00:20:50,680 Speaker 1: I wasn't suspicious that my parents, you know, we're keeping 356 00:20:50,680 --> 00:20:52,879 Speaker 1: a secret. You've sort of been involved with them in 357 00:20:52,920 --> 00:20:56,560 Speaker 1: a way so intimately, like it seemed um hard to 358 00:20:57,560 --> 00:20:59,600 Speaker 1: It just wasn't one of the things that I wondered about. 359 00:20:59,680 --> 00:21:03,119 Speaker 1: You know. Well, it's there's almost a kind of implicit 360 00:21:03,240 --> 00:21:06,399 Speaker 1: pact or you know, something unspoken between parents and children, 361 00:21:06,400 --> 00:21:08,679 Speaker 1: which is the parents are not going to lie to 362 00:21:08,720 --> 00:21:13,920 Speaker 1: their children or withhold significant aspects of their identity. But 363 00:21:14,000 --> 00:21:17,119 Speaker 1: I think it's just about impossible for a child to 364 00:21:17,280 --> 00:21:20,200 Speaker 1: bring forth any kind of conscious knowledge in that situation. 365 00:21:23,359 --> 00:21:34,439 Speaker 1: We're going to pause for a moment. Secrets have other impacts, 366 00:21:34,800 --> 00:21:38,760 Speaker 1: other effects. They form the inner lives of the people 367 00:21:38,800 --> 00:21:43,080 Speaker 1: who live and breathe the atmosphere of that secret. In Bliss, 368 00:21:43,200 --> 00:21:47,800 Speaker 1: his father's case, keeping his blackness a secret by keeping 369 00:21:47,840 --> 00:21:52,000 Speaker 1: his family of origin at bay, had the unintended consequence 370 00:21:52,040 --> 00:21:55,760 Speaker 1: of making his daughter feel like she could be rejected too, 371 00:21:56,560 --> 00:22:00,280 Speaker 1: for reasons she didn't understand there was always a kind 372 00:22:00,320 --> 00:22:04,359 Speaker 1: of fragility in a way to our family, and I 373 00:22:04,480 --> 00:22:08,800 Speaker 1: was like wary of things where somebody might be cast out. 374 00:22:09,119 --> 00:22:11,800 Speaker 1: I think probably because I knew that my father had 375 00:22:11,840 --> 00:22:17,120 Speaker 1: rejected his family of origin, so that unconditional bonds that 376 00:22:17,560 --> 00:22:20,439 Speaker 1: was supposed to exist in families did not seem certain 377 00:22:20,560 --> 00:22:23,080 Speaker 1: for me. And there was a kind of, you know, 378 00:22:23,160 --> 00:22:28,280 Speaker 1: an active role on my part to keep my father engaged, 379 00:22:28,480 --> 00:22:32,359 Speaker 1: because he could go off and forgot about us like 380 00:22:32,480 --> 00:22:38,000 Speaker 1: he had forgotten about his, his parents and his sisters. Um. 381 00:22:38,240 --> 00:22:42,400 Speaker 1: So for me, even though I felt quite loved and secure, 382 00:22:43,160 --> 00:22:47,080 Speaker 1: on one hand, I also understood that we were together 383 00:22:47,119 --> 00:22:49,240 Speaker 1: because we wanted to be together, not out of kind 384 00:22:49,240 --> 00:22:54,320 Speaker 1: of obligation or duty. That family was kind construction, um 385 00:22:54,400 --> 00:22:56,879 Speaker 1: and I felt that they need to sort of continually 386 00:22:56,960 --> 00:23:02,200 Speaker 1: keep us together no way. And another consequence, when a 387 00:23:02,280 --> 00:23:05,679 Speaker 1: secret does get pushed out into the open, it leaves 388 00:23:05,720 --> 00:23:09,200 Speaker 1: the inheritors of that secret with a lot of catching 389 00:23:09,240 --> 00:23:17,119 Speaker 1: up to do. List goes to the library, actually goes 390 00:23:17,200 --> 00:23:19,360 Speaker 1: to the library, if you can imagine such a thing, 391 00:23:19,960 --> 00:23:24,720 Speaker 1: and skulks around shamefully trying to look up information about passing, 392 00:23:25,440 --> 00:23:28,080 Speaker 1: as if she were trying to, I don't know, check 393 00:23:28,119 --> 00:23:31,560 Speaker 1: out some porn. I didn't know anything about the phenomenon 394 00:23:31,680 --> 00:23:34,960 Speaker 1: of racial passing when I discovered it happening in my 395 00:23:35,000 --> 00:23:39,720 Speaker 1: own life and family. UM, So I did go to 396 00:23:39,800 --> 00:23:42,000 Speaker 1: the library. Back then there was no internet, so I 397 00:23:42,000 --> 00:23:45,320 Speaker 1: couldn't look it up online. UM. And I did feel 398 00:23:46,200 --> 00:23:50,320 Speaker 1: I did feel very kind of secretive myself and like 399 00:23:50,359 --> 00:23:53,360 Speaker 1: a little ashamed to be, partly because it seems strange 400 00:23:53,400 --> 00:23:55,520 Speaker 1: to go to a library to look up something that 401 00:23:55,600 --> 00:23:59,040 Speaker 1: was so intimately involved with your family and your own identity. 402 00:23:59,359 --> 00:24:02,680 Speaker 1: You know. I was going into these outside sources. They 403 00:24:02,680 --> 00:24:06,960 Speaker 1: had a card catalog system, and I started looking up passing, 404 00:24:07,160 --> 00:24:09,920 Speaker 1: which was what my mother had described my father was doing, 405 00:24:10,920 --> 00:24:14,840 Speaker 1: which is a term I wasn't familiar with. And uh, 406 00:24:14,960 --> 00:24:19,159 Speaker 1: then it led me down a path to sort of 407 00:24:19,240 --> 00:24:24,000 Speaker 1: trying to figure out how people's racial identity was even determined. Um, 408 00:24:24,280 --> 00:24:26,720 Speaker 1: was there like a law about it? Where did that 409 00:24:26,800 --> 00:24:31,480 Speaker 1: law reside? And I came upon the term misgenation, which 410 00:24:31,520 --> 00:24:34,920 Speaker 1: is the marriage or the union between a black person 411 00:24:34,960 --> 00:24:38,320 Speaker 1: and a white person, which was contained in the statutes 412 00:24:38,400 --> 00:24:42,560 Speaker 1: of many states, um, and their marriage laws. You know, 413 00:24:42,760 --> 00:24:46,639 Speaker 1: no black person or white person could be married together. Um, 414 00:24:46,720 --> 00:24:52,880 Speaker 1: that was misggenation. And you know, these terms seemed I'm 415 00:24:52,920 --> 00:24:56,520 Speaker 1: shameful for to me, although that's what had happened in 416 00:24:56,560 --> 00:24:58,840 Speaker 1: my own family. I mean, my father is very light skinned. 417 00:24:58,920 --> 00:25:02,080 Speaker 1: Clearly it wasn't all black count of percent. There's a 418 00:25:02,080 --> 00:25:05,960 Speaker 1: lot of racial mixines passed from sagenation, So I think 419 00:25:06,040 --> 00:25:08,760 Speaker 1: it was. I mean, that was part of why I 420 00:25:08,800 --> 00:25:13,320 Speaker 1: felt like I was conducting the search kind of in secret, 421 00:25:13,400 --> 00:25:15,840 Speaker 1: because there was a whole shameful quality to it that 422 00:25:16,000 --> 00:25:19,680 Speaker 1: he had passed. You know, there had bunessgenation, and then 423 00:25:19,840 --> 00:25:22,399 Speaker 1: there was also all these terms, these racial terms like 424 00:25:22,480 --> 00:25:27,199 Speaker 1: oct roon that somebody who's one eighth black mulatto's half 425 00:25:27,880 --> 00:25:30,600 Speaker 1: um Steets was one sixteenth. And I wondered, you know, 426 00:25:30,680 --> 00:25:33,880 Speaker 1: which is these definitions applied to my father and applied 427 00:25:33,880 --> 00:25:36,680 Speaker 1: to be And it was just odd to encounter this 428 00:25:36,720 --> 00:25:40,240 Speaker 1: whole vocabulary that had little to do with how he 429 00:25:40,240 --> 00:25:43,439 Speaker 1: had been raised in fear phil Connecticut. Um, you know 430 00:25:43,520 --> 00:25:46,080 Speaker 1: that now I was applying so directly to my own life. 431 00:25:48,119 --> 00:25:51,359 Speaker 1: There were many reasons that Anatole Broyard chose to spend 432 00:25:51,359 --> 00:25:54,320 Speaker 1: his adult life passing as a white man. Once he 433 00:25:54,400 --> 00:25:56,880 Speaker 1: moved his family to one of the whitest towns in America. 434 00:25:58,119 --> 00:26:02,439 Speaker 1: One of those reasons was literally very ambition. At the time, 435 00:26:02,960 --> 00:26:05,480 Speaker 1: even if he had written a masterpiece, he would have 436 00:26:05,560 --> 00:26:08,560 Speaker 1: been known as a black writer, and the novel a 437 00:26:08,640 --> 00:26:13,639 Speaker 1: great black novel. Ralph Ellison, who Broyard knew and admired, 438 00:26:14,119 --> 00:26:17,200 Speaker 1: had published Invisible Man, which was hailed in the pages 439 00:26:17,240 --> 00:26:21,160 Speaker 1: of The New York Times, anatole's newspaper, as the greatest 440 00:26:21,359 --> 00:26:28,240 Speaker 1: Negro novel of its time. Another reason, however, misguided, seems 441 00:26:28,359 --> 00:26:31,400 Speaker 1: to have been his love for his children. He had 442 00:26:31,440 --> 00:26:35,359 Speaker 1: suffered as a light skinned black child by not quite 443 00:26:35,480 --> 00:26:39,640 Speaker 1: belonging anywhere, so he made sure that his children belonged 444 00:26:40,160 --> 00:26:43,280 Speaker 1: at the yacht club, in their private schools on the 445 00:26:43,320 --> 00:26:47,640 Speaker 1: tennis courts of Southport. He did his damnedest to inoculate 446 00:26:47,720 --> 00:26:52,159 Speaker 1: them with the potent combination of his charisma, his literary fame, 447 00:26:52,720 --> 00:26:58,639 Speaker 1: and the myth of their whiteness. I think my read 448 00:26:58,760 --> 00:27:01,159 Speaker 1: anyway of your father was that it was coming very 449 00:27:01,240 --> 00:27:04,640 Speaker 1: much out of a desire to protect you and your 450 00:27:04,640 --> 00:27:10,400 Speaker 1: brother from what he had felt himself. Absolutely, I mean, 451 00:27:10,400 --> 00:27:12,520 Speaker 1: I think he thought, what's the best life I can 452 00:27:12,520 --> 00:27:17,040 Speaker 1: give my children? You know? It's to be white and Fairfield, 453 00:27:17,040 --> 00:27:21,840 Speaker 1: Connecticut and this kind of waspy um rural idyllic community, 454 00:27:22,040 --> 00:27:25,760 Speaker 1: you know, um. And I think he believed that in 455 00:27:25,800 --> 00:27:29,240 Speaker 1: the sense. Do you think that if your mother had 456 00:27:29,320 --> 00:27:33,919 Speaker 1: not intervened, and if he had not become you know, 457 00:27:33,960 --> 00:27:38,440 Speaker 1: sort of prematurely, very ill, mortally ill, do you think 458 00:27:38,440 --> 00:27:41,000 Speaker 1: he ever would have told you? You know, I think 459 00:27:41,000 --> 00:27:44,400 Speaker 1: he would have her It would have probably come out, certainly. 460 00:27:44,680 --> 00:27:46,679 Speaker 1: I think it's harder now to keep a family secret 461 00:27:46,680 --> 00:27:49,840 Speaker 1: than it used to be because of the interconnectness of 462 00:27:50,080 --> 00:27:55,399 Speaker 1: people through social media and ancestry dot com, and so 463 00:27:55,480 --> 00:28:01,080 Speaker 1: I think it would have come out probably. I think 464 00:28:01,080 --> 00:28:04,040 Speaker 1: that with secrets, what often happens is that originally somebody 465 00:28:04,119 --> 00:28:07,320 Speaker 1: keeps a secret to protect people in their lives, as 466 00:28:07,320 --> 00:28:12,240 Speaker 1: you said, and maybe the the original impulses love protection. 467 00:28:13,200 --> 00:28:16,639 Speaker 1: But then there's the embarrassment of having kept a secret 468 00:28:16,720 --> 00:28:20,200 Speaker 1: for so long, and it kind of infuses that secret 469 00:28:20,359 --> 00:28:22,800 Speaker 1: and you know, elevates it was so much meaning and 470 00:28:22,880 --> 00:28:27,200 Speaker 1: significance that maybe more significance you know, the person originally 471 00:28:28,000 --> 00:28:30,399 Speaker 1: gave it. UM. So I think that there would it 472 00:28:30,400 --> 00:28:32,320 Speaker 1: would have been hard for him to kind of overcome 473 00:28:33,080 --> 00:28:36,119 Speaker 1: how large it had grown just through the fact of 474 00:28:36,160 --> 00:28:38,560 Speaker 1: it being kept a secret for so long to talk 475 00:28:38,600 --> 00:28:41,640 Speaker 1: about it. But I suspect you would have found way. 476 00:28:42,520 --> 00:28:46,400 Speaker 1: Um And certainly I don't know with Obama being elected 477 00:28:46,520 --> 00:28:50,640 Speaker 1: and race relations changing in my own interest. I mean, 478 00:28:50,640 --> 00:28:53,360 Speaker 1: although you know, I sort of thank god in a 479 00:28:53,360 --> 00:28:56,040 Speaker 1: way that I didn't find out, because I would think 480 00:28:56,080 --> 00:28:58,560 Speaker 1: that I'd be on the same path anyway. But certainly 481 00:28:58,560 --> 00:29:01,040 Speaker 1: it's changed my own traject story of who how I 482 00:29:01,080 --> 00:29:04,440 Speaker 1: think of myself. And I had not learned really about 483 00:29:05,160 --> 00:29:07,960 Speaker 1: American history and African American history and any kind of 484 00:29:08,280 --> 00:29:11,080 Speaker 1: objective or balanced way in my prep school in Connecticut 485 00:29:11,120 --> 00:29:13,800 Speaker 1: growing up, and so I had to actively really search 486 00:29:13,920 --> 00:29:18,360 Speaker 1: out another narrative of history that feels more accurate to 487 00:29:18,400 --> 00:29:20,160 Speaker 1: me and fair. And I know, I think I would 488 00:29:20,200 --> 00:29:22,560 Speaker 1: have gotten there on my own, but probably not as quickly. 489 00:29:23,520 --> 00:29:26,120 Speaker 1: So that in a way that answers my last question 490 00:29:26,120 --> 00:29:31,440 Speaker 1: to you, which is are you glad you know? Yeah? Definitely, um, 491 00:29:31,440 --> 00:29:34,320 Speaker 1: it answered it answered a lot of questions I think 492 00:29:34,360 --> 00:29:36,360 Speaker 1: a lot of times. And there's a secret in the family. 493 00:29:36,840 --> 00:29:41,200 Speaker 1: There's just a great relief in knowing that you're not crazy, 494 00:29:41,320 --> 00:29:45,520 Speaker 1: that you're not imagining things when you feel that this 495 00:29:45,680 --> 00:29:47,840 Speaker 1: sort of sense that something is being withheld from you. 496 00:29:48,000 --> 00:29:51,479 Speaker 1: I think just that knowledge was a relief for me, 497 00:29:52,240 --> 00:29:55,280 Speaker 1: and I think that the path that I was on 498 00:29:55,600 --> 00:29:59,840 Speaker 1: didn't feel authentic for me, and this knowledge has put 499 00:29:59,840 --> 00:30:02,360 Speaker 1: me on a different path that feels like, really that 500 00:30:02,560 --> 00:30:06,959 Speaker 1: the right groove for my life. I'm interested in social 501 00:30:07,000 --> 00:30:09,560 Speaker 1: justice to do a lot of work on integration and 502 00:30:09,760 --> 00:30:12,239 Speaker 1: racial and economic justice, and that that feels like the 503 00:30:12,240 --> 00:30:13,760 Speaker 1: path that I was I was supposed to be on, 504 00:30:14,000 --> 00:30:16,320 Speaker 1: the one that's more true to my kind of my 505 00:30:16,640 --> 00:30:29,480 Speaker 1: father's story away. I'd like to thank my guest, Bliss 506 00:30:29,520 --> 00:30:33,000 Speaker 1: Broyard for sharing her story with us. Her book is 507 00:30:33,280 --> 00:30:37,200 Speaker 1: One Drop, a true story of family, race and secrets. 508 00:30:37,880 --> 00:30:41,280 Speaker 1: Family Secrets is an I Heart Media production. Dylan Fagan 509 00:30:41,360 --> 00:30:44,719 Speaker 1: is a supervising producer, Andrew Howard and Tristan McNeil are 510 00:30:44,720 --> 00:30:48,360 Speaker 1: the audio engineers, and Julie Douglas is the executive producer. 511 00:30:49,360 --> 00:30:51,240 Speaker 1: If you have a family secret you'd like to share, 512 00:30:51,520 --> 00:30:53,800 Speaker 1: you can get in touch with us at listener mail 513 00:30:53,840 --> 00:30:57,200 Speaker 1: at Family Secrets podcast dot com, and you can also 514 00:30:57,240 --> 00:31:01,000 Speaker 1: find us on Instagram at Danny Writer, and Facebook at 515 00:31:01,040 --> 00:31:05,280 Speaker 1: Family Secrets Pod and Twitter at fam Secrets Pod. That's 516 00:31:05,320 --> 00:31:09,360 Speaker 1: FAM Secrets Pot. For more about my book, Inheritance, visit 517 00:31:09,440 --> 00:31:20,640 Speaker 1: Danny Shapiro dot com