Speaker 1: Hi, everyone, I'm Katie Kuric, and this is next question.
Speaker 1: It's officially summer, woo hoo, my favorite time of year,
Speaker 1: and for the next few weeks, we're going to do
Speaker 1: something fun because it's beach season, because the world is
Speaker 1: opening up and hopefully some of you are getting out
Speaker 1: of town and maybe looking for some good reads. We're
Speaker 1: doing a summer book series and I'm talking exclusively to authors.
Speaker 1: As you may know, I just finished my memoir, which
Speaker 1: is coming out October. Please re order now, people, And
Speaker 1: I know for me, the process of writing my life,
Speaker 1: talking about my relationships, achievements and disappointments, was emotionally exhausting,
Speaker 1: to say the least, which is why for the book series,
Speaker 1: I'm talking to a bunch of memoirists and other writers
Speaker 1: who dare to put themselves on the page. And there
Speaker 1: is truly no better person to start with than the
Speaker 1: Boss of memoir herself. But I am not the Boss
Speaker 1: of Memoir, Mary Carr. They've called me the Queen of Memoris.
Speaker 1: I'll take Queen Empress, boss lady. But as long as
Speaker 1: we understand that nobody elected me this, that this is
Speaker 1: just what you and I have cooked up today. Back
Speaker 1: in Mary Carr published her debut memoir, The Liars Club.
Speaker 1: It is completely engrossing, a darkly funny telling of her
Speaker 1: childhood in a poor, industrial East Texas town. I grew
Speaker 1: up in what I call the ringworm belt of East Texas.
Speaker 1: And um, my mother was married seven times twice to
Speaker 1: my daddy, and she and my daddy drank a lot,
Speaker 1: and because it was Texas, were well armed. So um,
Speaker 1: the story I like to tell, which I've told before,
Speaker 1: but it sort of explains everything in a simple moment.
Speaker 1: We were retailing her kitchen right after The Liars Club
Speaker 1: came out. My sister and I were there and the
Speaker 1: child dude pride the tile off and held it up
Speaker 1: and said, uh, miss Carr. She was a little fluffy
Speaker 1: headed eighty year old lady. This car, this looks like
Speaker 1: a bullet hole. And my sister said, Uh, isn't that
Speaker 1: where you shot at daddy? And she says, no, no,
Speaker 1: that's where I shot at Larry Over. There is where
Speaker 1: I shot at your daddy. So um, first off, I
Speaker 1: also say, a dysfunctional family is any family with more
Speaker 1: than one person in it, And um, I think of
Speaker 1: my family as complicated in some ways. We became a
Speaker 1: family of only children because we didn't have a lot
Speaker 1: of We were close in a strange way, but not really.
Speaker 1: But I loved my parents. I mean, I'm not some
Speaker 1: Dickenzie and orphan, you know, dragging myself from book to book.
Speaker 1: The Liars Club took the publishing world by storm and
Speaker 1: inspired a new wave of confessional memoirs. Mary followed it
Speaker 1: up with Sherry in two thousand and Lit in two
Speaker 1: thousand nine. Then she wrote a how to book about
Speaker 1: the genre called The Art of Memoir, and it's now
Speaker 1: working on her fourth memoir. Oh and she's also the
Speaker 1: author of five celebrated volumes of poetry and a longtime
Speaker 1: professor of English at Syracuse University. S We had so
Speaker 1: much fun talking about her writing process, being New Yorkers,
Speaker 1: winning the Pooh Poems, and a million other things. So
Speaker 1: I hope you enjoy Mary and me as much as
Speaker 1: apparently we did. You became fascinated by memoirs at a
Speaker 1: very young age. I was, So That's what it is
Speaker 1: with me. It's not that I'm particularly good at it.
Speaker 1: I just love I always loved that single voice kind
Speaker 1: of crying out in the wilderness of life, experience I
Speaker 1: started reading them when I was a little girl. I
Speaker 1: I only have one notebook from my childhood, and in
Speaker 1: it when I was ten, so it's nine five, I wrote, Um,
Speaker 1: when I grow up, I will write one half poetry
Speaker 1: and one half memoir. And then after that, I wrote,
Speaker 1: I'm not very successful as a little girl. When I
Speaker 1: grow up, I will probably be a mess. Because that's what,
Speaker 1: like all the neighbor ladies said. You know, we had
Speaker 1: a dangerous house. I mean, people were not allowed in
Speaker 1: our yard. You know, people would run through all the
Speaker 1: yards coming home after school and they get to our
Speaker 1: yard and they would go out in the street and
Speaker 1: go around it because they weren't allowed in our yard.
Speaker 1: Because it was because you were the scary people. We
Speaker 1: were the scary people. Yeah, yeah, yes we were. But
Speaker 1: what but what was it about the one voice crying
Speaker 1: in the wilderness that that really kind of entranced you?
Speaker 1: And and what were some of the earliest memoirs you
Speaker 1: remember the two that I remember? Well, there I can
Speaker 1: think of three or four. Actually I remember, uh, my
Speaker 1: sister and I talked about this, and and um, I
Speaker 1: remember Helen Keller. Remember Helen Keller's book? Yes, yes, of course, um,
Speaker 1: uh and uh. And I remember an excerpt in a
Speaker 1: Bridge version of Lincoln's Apologies, there's a big noise in
Speaker 1: my apartment. Lit um. And then when I was in
Speaker 1: about the tenth grade, I think or eleventh grade, my
Speaker 1: ajolo came out with I know why the cage bird sings?
Speaker 1: And it was such a her voice. I think, you know,
Speaker 1: she had worked as a poet. And um, there's something
Speaker 1: about language being someone speaking. I really when I read
Speaker 1: My Angelo, who was a black girl, as she would
Speaker 1: have said in the Jim Crows Out, that was white
Speaker 1: girl in the Jim Crow South, and um, who was
Speaker 1: scorned and beleaguered. We were both sexually assaulted as children.
Speaker 1: I didn't think. I mean, for me, literature was kind
Speaker 1: of the stuff of white guys, of guys who were
Speaker 1: like tasseled loafers and used summer as a verb. And um,
Speaker 1: my mother, who had lived in New York and was
Speaker 1: a painter, had um it was a kind of Marxist,
Speaker 1: weirdo painter who married my daddy, who was an oil
Speaker 1: worker Texas oil worker. And um, you know she got
Speaker 1: the New Yorker used from the people at the grocery
Speaker 1: store who who subscribed to it, and so this was
Speaker 1: real literature to me. I mean, these were beautiful, singular voices.
Speaker 1: And Angelo doesn't doesn't sound like anyone else. Richard Wright
Speaker 1: a lot of those mother was involved in the early
Speaker 1: civil rights movement. I know you and hear that ambulance.
Speaker 1: That's okay though, I mean, I think it's part of life.
Speaker 1: And we picked up these sounds, and I was wondering,
Speaker 1: is that New York or is that where you are?
Speaker 1: Are you in Syracuse? No? I live in the city.
Speaker 1: Are you live in the city. I live on the
Speaker 1: Upper east Side, Yeah, so do I. We're probably close
Speaker 1: to each other. We have to walk around the park, definitely.
Speaker 1: I know. You know Diane saw yours right over here too,
Speaker 1: I do. I two blocks from me. I know, I
Speaker 1: don't see her very often going for We're going for
Speaker 1: a walk tomorrow. Oh you are, Please tell her, I said, Hi.
Speaker 1: She is so look now, I can hear the siren. YEA,
Speaker 1: there at your house, there at your house? Now. Diane
Speaker 1: is so nice. I I you know, she was so
Speaker 1: in love with Mike Nichols and I yeah, but I
Speaker 1: wonder how how she's doing now and and how she's
Speaker 1: getting along I think she's still and great. I do.
Speaker 1: I mean, I don't see her a lot, but we
Speaker 1: live close to each other and we occasionally see each other.
Speaker 1: And I think she's great. I think she's She's so elegant,
Speaker 1: isn't she? Isn't she just the most elegant creature? I mean,
Speaker 1: to have grown up in Kentucky, Yeah, and come out
Speaker 1: there in those pretty lips. She kind of glows. I
Speaker 1: wrote about her in my memoir about how like just
Speaker 1: bedazzled I was by her because she was sort of
Speaker 1: She's everything I'm not. You're America's sweetheart, Katie. Everybody wants
Speaker 1: to be you. Are you kidding? No? No, no, okay, Mary,
Speaker 1: we don't need to get into this, but we do.
Speaker 1: You're America's sweetheart? No no, And what does that mean?
Speaker 1: I mean, we could really dissect that term, but let's
Speaker 1: not do that. Is there something in it unseemly that
Speaker 1: I'm missing? I don't think it's unseemly. I think there's
Speaker 1: something obviously incredibly undered and probably of course, so if
Speaker 1: it's gendered, it's gotta be bad. Well, not necessarily, but
Speaker 1: it's sort of like perky, right, you know, perky means
Speaker 1: I've been called perky too, and it means you're short.
Speaker 1: It means you're short. I think it means you're vapid.
Speaker 1: Oh shit, you can say ship on our podcast. Oh shit,
Speaker 1: I thought it. I thought the worst it could mean
Speaker 1: was that I was short. Now I understand they mean
Speaker 1: I was that tall? Are you? By the way, Mary,
Speaker 1: I'm five five, I'm not that short. You're not that
Speaker 1: short and not. I wouldn't call you perky. I know
Speaker 1: I'm a I am a glum bitch. Now I would
Speaker 1: call you scrappy thing. Scrappy also means I don't think
Speaker 1: scrappy is perky, though. Perky is like cute and like
Speaker 1: there's something childlike about it. Perky it's sort of it's
Speaker 1: almost toxic optimism. Right, that's right, And that's right is
Speaker 1: like you know, you don't give up. It's it's it's
Speaker 1: I wanted to name my book Moxie because my dad
Speaker 1: used to say that I had moxie. You certainly do.
Speaker 1: I think that. I really love that word, and I
Speaker 1: also love how symmetrical it is. But I got the
Speaker 1: kabbash from my publishers. What's your books title? Uh, it's
Speaker 1: kind of a sort of point, it's fine, and Adrian
Speaker 1: has helped me write it is probably listening and saying,
Speaker 1: don't say anything that it's called going there. I could
Speaker 1: not say. I guess. I mean it's sort of a
Speaker 1: double entendre because I've gone a lot of places and
Speaker 1: I really go there when I'm being honest about myself
Speaker 1: and people I know. But um, I think that's a
Speaker 1: great title. Do not win, Okay, I do not win,
Speaker 1: stand proud. That's a great title. Okay, I will. I'm
Speaker 1: going to have to kind of work on that, Mary,
Speaker 1: because it just doesn't speak to me in the way
Speaker 1: that Moxi did, because that really going there is better. Also,
Speaker 1: are you Jewish? No? Well, actually my mom was Jewish,
Speaker 1: and so you are in a wild I am a
Speaker 1: member of the tribe. I was raised a Presbyterian. But
Speaker 1: I talked about finding out discovering that, uh that I'm
Speaker 1: half Jewish, which really, according to Hebrew law means Jewish.
Speaker 1: When I saw Manora and my uncle's bookcase, and I
Speaker 1: was like, yeah, it's so funny. I I've made the
Speaker 1: mistake of waiting into the posting something and I got
Speaker 1: called an anti Semite on um social media last week. Well,
Speaker 1: that is a very very tricky, complex topic to waite into.
Speaker 1: It really really is. But I mean, I just you know,
Speaker 1: I'm a New York intellectual. I mean, everybody I know
Speaker 1: is Jewish. My daughter in law is Jewish, my granddaughter
Speaker 1: is Jewish. You know, I'm um, but you're Catholic. I'm
Speaker 1: can I converted from I was an agnostic, and which
Speaker 1: is so fascinating. I know who could who would choose that?
Speaker 1: Who wasn't born to it? That's that's really interesting to
Speaker 1: us about. And then we'll get back to memoirs. But
Speaker 1: how did that happen? Well, my third memoir, Lits sort
Speaker 1: of goes into it, and for everybody listening to this
Speaker 1: can know all about it. Um, well, I had a
Speaker 1: hard time. It's lit. I had a hard time quitting drinking,
Speaker 1: Kelly Sapriss, you know who. No one's going to be surprised,
Speaker 1: given how I grew up that I had a hard
Speaker 1: time quitting drinking batch and my surprise, it was the
Speaker 1: one thing I was not going to be, uh alcoholic,
Speaker 1: was a drunk. Yeah. I was a little girl like
Speaker 1: dumping the vodka bottle down the sink saying you know,
Speaker 1: I hate this and and you know, the terrible thing
Speaker 1: about alcohol. I was just in that Hemingway documentary that
Speaker 1: Kim Burns did, right, I've been watching that as well.
Speaker 1: And the terrible thing about it for a writer is
Speaker 1: that early on it works. It's a great drug. You know,
Speaker 1: it's I mean, it liberates you, it I think, I think, Um,
Speaker 1: you know, first off, I grew up the way I
Speaker 1: grew up, and I have a very I have a
Speaker 1: big startled reflexing. You know, I'm oh my god, I'm
Speaker 1: what they call capital and nervous in the South, not
Speaker 1: to the extent my mother was, um thanks to you know,
Speaker 1: codependent English teachers and you know, various therapists, but um, yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, it's a depressant drug in it and it
Speaker 1: sort of can sort of level you out until you
Speaker 1: develop a dependence on it at which and you know,
Speaker 1: it took me a long time to figure out that.
Speaker 1: Once you cross that line, you can't go back to
Speaker 1: when it worked, but you remember when it worked, and
Speaker 1: you keep trying. It's like it's like having a bad
Speaker 1: boyfriend who beats the crap out of you, but you
Speaker 1: remember how much fun he was. I get that, like
Speaker 1: that first year or so selective memory exactly. And so
Speaker 1: how how has Catholicism replaced alcohol? Well, I I, um,
Speaker 1: I couldn't get sober. I could not get so I
Speaker 1: couldn't quit drinking. And I'm a pretty disciplined person, you know,
Speaker 1: um uh in general, I mean I kind of had
Speaker 1: to be. I was a single mom. I was you
Speaker 1: know you. I didn't have come from a lot of means,
Speaker 1: you know. I always had a lot of jobs, you know,
Speaker 1: and I was extremely self sufficient. And I finally started praying.
Speaker 1: Somebody just said I had to pray morning and night
Speaker 1: on my knees. So I started praying literally the way
Speaker 1: you know. It was almost like a dance move. I
Speaker 1: would get on my knees and say, keep me sober,
Speaker 1: and I would get I didn't believe in God at all,
Speaker 1: but I stayed sober doing this, and something started to
Speaker 1: happen to me. I started having an experience like in
Speaker 1: my body. And all I could say is it was
Speaker 1: just like my anxiety level went way down. But they
Speaker 1: think now if you if you go into recover, you
Speaker 1: go into a twelve step program. This is kind of
Speaker 1: an interesting fact, is that when you tell your story
Speaker 1: and you know this from what you do for a living,
Speaker 1: and you listen to other people's stories. You um, you
Speaker 1: secrete oxytocin, which is that kind of feel good hormone
Speaker 1: that lowers cortisol and adrenaline and and it calms you down.
Speaker 1: But more than that, you feel connected two people. You
Speaker 1: feel attached to people in a kind of tribal way. Um,
Speaker 1: and that is comforting. And so I just told myself
Speaker 1: I was I didn't say there was a God. I
Speaker 1: just told myself I was a lifelong atheist from a
Speaker 1: family of atheist, that there was no that I was
Speaker 1: hypnotizing myself. I think that was it. I thought, well,
Speaker 1: I'm doing these prayers, and I was sort of praying
Speaker 1: more and more like throughout the day. I began to pray.
Speaker 1: But then when my son was about six, he came
Speaker 1: into the bedroom one Sunday morning and said I want
Speaker 1: to go to church. And I was like why, like why,
Speaker 1: and he said the only sentence that could have gotten
Speaker 1: me to get up and take him to church, which
Speaker 1: was I want to see if God's there. And I
Speaker 1: was just like, well, you know, I didn't like soccer either.
Speaker 1: So we started this thing we called God a rama,
Speaker 1: where um, anybody we knew had any kind of spiritual practice,
Speaker 1: anything any weirdo. I went to a Jewish mid rush,
Speaker 1: I went to Baptist Church, Presbyterian, Episcopalian, And you took
Speaker 1: your son to all of these things. Yeah, we went
Speaker 1: to his zendos and temples, and yeah we did every
Speaker 1: We did it all. We did. Got a roma, and
Speaker 1: I found myself to buy as Wolf the Great Memoirs.
Speaker 1: To buy as Wolf. Um invited me to this little
Speaker 1: Catholic church in Syracuse, New York, and there was an
Speaker 1: amazing priest. They're just kind of he wasn't a saint,
Speaker 1: but he was a very holy person, and he was
Speaker 1: kind of the only person who could have gotten me
Speaker 1: to convert. He was very not what you would expect.
Speaker 1: He was just a little Irish parish priest. He wasn't
Speaker 1: a an intellectual, he wasn't a firebrand, he wasn't a
Speaker 1: super lefty um. But he he did things like the
Speaker 1: local gay and lesbian community. When they asked, they got
Speaker 1: kicked out by the Methodist if you can believe it.
Speaker 1: And they came and knocked on the rectory door and asked,
Speaker 1: Father Joe Um, can we rent your church basement? And
Speaker 1: he said, Oh, it's just there, you know, you can
Speaker 1: just use it. And next thing you know, we're having
Speaker 1: gay and lesbian mass is and and uh. I remember
Speaker 1: when he was dying, I asked him, what what made
Speaker 1: you do that? Despite you know, some of the very
Speaker 1: uh anti l G B t Q plus everything a
Speaker 1: rhetoric of of our church and the hierarchy. Um, if
Speaker 1: not that I think of the churches the people so um.
Speaker 1: He said, well, they asked me, and I said, so,
Speaker 1: I'll say what my parent, you know, if they told
Speaker 1: you to jump off a bridge, would you jump off?
Speaker 1: But he said, I just assume whoever knocked on my
Speaker 1: door Jesus had sent there. And I thought so. He
Speaker 1: was just a very simple person, very humble, and he
Speaker 1: didn't have a lot of fancy ideas. At one point
Speaker 1: I did before I even got baptized. I think no,
Speaker 1: I think I had just gotten baptized. Anyway, I kept saying,
Speaker 1: I'm not going to get baptized. There's so many things
Speaker 1: I hate about the church. They don't let women be
Speaker 1: priest and blah blah blah, and um. We had a
Speaker 1: fight about I said, um, you know I called him
Speaker 1: before I was supposed to get it. I'm not getting baptized.
Speaker 1: You know, they should open communion and they should let
Speaker 1: women be priests. And he's like, I'm sure the Holy
Speaker 1: Father prays about that a lot. And it's sort of
Speaker 1: like you would run at him and you would just
Speaker 1: land on the other side of him, you know, like
Speaker 1: he wouldn't argue with you. Um. And I said, no,
Speaker 1: I don't. I don't think the pope is the ultimate
Speaker 1: religious authority. He said, oh, maybe you will someday. Like
Speaker 1: he was just like, and now we have Pope Francis,
Speaker 1: and I kind of do think he might be. So
Speaker 1: when was this When was this? Marriage was in the
Speaker 1: This was in the nineties, so I was over forty.
Speaker 1: And what about your son? My son converted and he
Speaker 1: was also Confeque got confirmed in high school, which he
Speaker 1: later told me. Um, he only did for me because
Speaker 1: I was so devout, had become so devout. And he's
Speaker 1: married to his wife is Jewish, his wife whom I
Speaker 1: love like a daughter. Like if he hadn't married or
Speaker 1: I would have killed him. Um uh. But he lets
Speaker 1: me drag him to you know, Easter and Christmas and
Speaker 1: you know, lets me drag him to Mass and and
Speaker 1: and after you started praying, was that was that the
Speaker 1: end of of alcohol for you? I haven't had a
Speaker 1: drink since. I mean, I get a lot of help.
Speaker 1: It's a one day at a time thing, um. And
Speaker 1: as you know, and I could not have done it
Speaker 1: by myself. I can say that I could not have
Speaker 1: done it by myself. And I hated everything about it.
Speaker 1: I just hated. And when I started, you know, sitting
Speaker 1: in church basements and saying to people, I had this
Speaker 1: great I had a couple of great people I met
Speaker 1: in my life. A woman I called Joan the Bone
Speaker 1: and Lit who was just hilarious, and she was gonna
Speaker 1: fire me if I didn't start praying. She wouldn't talk
Speaker 1: to me before anymore if I didn't start praying, and
Speaker 1: she was sort of keeping me sober. I saw it,
Speaker 1: and so I started praying. It's funny, I could have
Speaker 1: just lied to her that I was praying. But I'm
Speaker 1: still very involved with trying to stay sober and trying
Speaker 1: to help other women, especially young women with children. I
Speaker 1: think it's really hard, whether you're married or not, to
Speaker 1: have small children and be fighting addiction. You know, I
Speaker 1: think people really uh struggle. Do you think we have
Speaker 1: a better understanding. I'm getting a little off course because
Speaker 1: I want to talk to you about your process and writing,
Speaker 1: because you have so much to say about it. But
Speaker 1: you know, I'm just curious if you think that people
Speaker 1: have been willing to talk about addiction more openly. Um,
Speaker 1: you know, you've heard a lot about women during the
Speaker 1: pandemic sort of self medicating with alcohol, and it's still
Speaker 1: in many ways in the shadows, I think, But I
Speaker 1: think it's such a huge problem. I remember on my
Speaker 1: talk show there was like this mom's group and they'd
Speaker 1: all get together for wine, and there was something about
Speaker 1: that that really upset me. And I'm sure I sounded
Speaker 1: kind of like a a bit of what's the kind
Speaker 1: of person who's always but also yeah, exactly, but you know,
Speaker 1: it just upset me the idea of like their kids
Speaker 1: running around and they're all drinking wine, you know, around
Speaker 1: the kitchen island. That's what our parents did and and
Speaker 1: and I just feel like, um, a lot of people
Speaker 1: are really struggling with this, but it's still full of shame.
Speaker 1: And you know, we're other forms of addiction I think
Speaker 1: are being acknowledged and talked about and dealt with. I
Speaker 1: still think alcohol is still in many ways hidden. Am
Speaker 1: I it's it's all it And I mean, I look,
Speaker 1: here's the thing I think. I think it's something like,
Speaker 1: you know, five percent of the population drinks like fifty
Speaker 1: or sixty percent of the alcohol that's consumed. If you
Speaker 1: have this ailment, as I do, I was somebody who
Speaker 1: was an occasional drinker, a binge drinker, and it's progressive.
Speaker 1: If you have this ailment, you're drunk or drug addict,
Speaker 1: even smoking Mirjana whatever. Everybody says it's natural. I always say, well,
Speaker 1: strychnine is natural. There's a lot of going to the
Speaker 1: bathroom in your pants is technically natural. Um, there's a
Speaker 1: lot of stuff that isn't healthy. It doesn't matter whether
Speaker 1: it's natural or not. So UM, if you have this thing,
Speaker 1: you literally cannot stop it can't stop. I could not.
Speaker 1: I'm somebody who you know, I exercise, I do plot ese,
Speaker 1: I lost my teeth, I eat a lot of vegetables.
Speaker 1: You know, I'm technically a really healthy but I couldn't stop,
Speaker 1: could not stopped drinking. And I had always been able
Speaker 1: to stop before. So I just think there's a line
Speaker 1: we cross, and I think I think writing about that.
Speaker 1: For me, I'm writing about faith to be an intellectual
Speaker 1: and write about faith. I mean, people just remember Richard
Speaker 1: Ford sending me a novelist, you know, sending me a
Speaker 1: postcard saying when I got baptized, saying car not you
Speaker 1: on the Pope's team say it ain't so. And I'm like,
Speaker 1: you know, this is somebody I knew when I was
Speaker 1: in graduate school. Who's like, people openly mocked me and
Speaker 1: and accused me of supporting pet of Field. I mean,
Speaker 1: people say terrible things to you. When you're Catholic, you
Speaker 1: just have no problem saying incredibly insulting things. How do
Speaker 1: you handle that? I just say, oh, well, you know,
Speaker 1: what are you gonna do? You know the wonderful thing
Speaker 1: about having my hard drinking outlaw mother, who by the way,
Speaker 1: got sober when she was about sixty and stayed sober
Speaker 1: until she Um, so that's a legacy from her as
Speaker 1: well as my love of books. But um look, they
Speaker 1: crucified Jesus. I mean he was the guy walking around
Speaker 1: saying let's be nice to each other and like take
Speaker 1: care of poor people and heal the sick, and everybody's like,
Speaker 1: I've got a great idea. Let's crucify it. I mean not,
Speaker 1: I'm not for everybody, That's the way I put it.
Speaker 1: I'm just not everybody's cup of tea. And so some
Speaker 1: people are gonna like that I'm Catholic, and I'm like,
Speaker 1: that's that's fine with me. Here's the thing about me
Speaker 1: and Catholicism or and I believe any spiritual practice it
Speaker 1: worked for me. I'm somebody who was I tried to
Speaker 1: kill myself as a little girl. I was so depressed
Speaker 1: out of my gourd as a child, I tried to
Speaker 1: kill myself. I was so miserable my whole life and
Speaker 1: became an alcoholic and a drug addict and had just
Speaker 1: lots of adventures, you know, in my young life. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I ran away from home with a bunch of surfers,
Speaker 1: which I write about in Cherry and you know had
Speaker 1: you know, surfboards scooped out and filled with drugs and
Speaker 1: and uh. I take great comfort in in my prayer life.
Speaker 1: But I also take comfort in all the you know,
Speaker 1: horse hockey around the church. I got a mass. I
Speaker 1: go to confession. I I um A long time ago.
Speaker 1: I volunteered at a suit kitchen downtown. Was one of
Speaker 1: the great experiences of my life. I take great comfort
Speaker 1: uh in the church, and um, there are million things
Speaker 1: about the church I would I don't like. There are
Speaker 1: million things about being an American. I don't like. The
Speaker 1: million things about being a New Yorker I don't like.
Speaker 1: But you know, I think I'm very I noticed something
Speaker 1: when I went into the church. Here's what happened was
Speaker 1: I noticed when I went into the church. I wound
Speaker 1: up going to this little church in Syracuse after father
Speaker 1: Joe retired for the Berrigan's Jerry Brigan, Jerry and Carroll
Speaker 1: Berrigan used to go and he was eight ninety years old,
Speaker 1: still chaining himself to nuclear reactors and going to prison.
Speaker 1: And the people I met who were taking in orphans
Speaker 1: from El Salvador and volunteering and taking care of people's
Speaker 1: you know, aids, babies and adopting kids and doing all
Speaker 1: this loving stuff, all talked about Jesus all the time.
Speaker 1: They're like, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus. And I was like, what
Speaker 1: a drip. Even after I converted, I just thought, my
Speaker 1: friend Nick Flynn has a wonderful poem where he talks
Speaker 1: about a guy opening his chest. You know, saying look
Speaker 1: what I did for you, opening his shirt and saying
Speaker 1: look what I did for you. It's kind of my
Speaker 1: idea of hell um. But from going to church and
Speaker 1: talking to some of these people in prayer and having
Speaker 1: some spiritual guidance, I've I've become one of those crazy
Speaker 1: people who's uh, I'm working. I'm writing partly. This book
Speaker 1: is mostly that I'm working on now is mostly about
Speaker 1: getting older. Part of it is about Jesus um I
Speaker 1: as I like to say, Christ is a job title.
Speaker 1: But when somebody's if you, you know you're you see
Speaker 1: those guys standing on your porch with the pamphlets, you know,
Speaker 1: and with the Jesus is all Swedish looking kind of
Speaker 1: looking on you know, you think, oh God, not those guys.
Speaker 1: You know where the guy with Jesus tattooed on his
Speaker 1: bicep in the subway, you think, not him. But I
Speaker 1: became one of those crazy Jesus people. When we come back.
Speaker 1: Why is writing a memoir so damn painful? That's right
Speaker 1: after this was writing a different kind of religion for you, Mary,
Speaker 1: it was I mean that I always say, you know,
Speaker 1: poetry saved my life. That poetry was like my first altar,
Speaker 1: and poets were my first saints. You know, even when
Speaker 1: I was a little girl, I memorize poetry, those those
Speaker 1: little Winnie the Pooh poems, you know, Christopher Robins, James Morrison, Morrison,
Speaker 1: be George Duprie, that's great. Care of his mother though,
Speaker 1: he was, Oh, I love the James James Horrison Morrison mother,
Speaker 1: he said, said he No, like, you must never go
Speaker 1: down down to the end of the town without consulting me,
Speaker 1: unless you go down with me, Unless you go down
Speaker 1: with me. I think there's also a consulting in one
Speaker 1: of those. But no, maybe you're right, Maybe you're right.
Speaker 1: Such a schoolmarm, forgive me. I can't stop myself. That's okay.
Speaker 1: That of course, I'm going to google that poem when
Speaker 1: we're done, but good, and I'll write you and say, Mary,
Speaker 1: you were right or I was right, but so you were.
Speaker 1: You love poetry. My mom loved poetry too. Um. And
Speaker 1: and how did that then move into just writing, because
Speaker 1: as you said when you were little, I'm going to
Speaker 1: be a poet and I'm going to write memoir biography. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think because poetry was so much about feeling and
Speaker 1: economy and form in shape, and also my drunk mother
Speaker 1: when she was hungover. I would memorize poems and I
Speaker 1: would memorize. I started very young memorizing Shakespeare, like really young.
Speaker 1: And um, not the poems, not the sonnets, but the
Speaker 1: big speeches. I like the speeches better than the sonnets.
Speaker 1: Do you remember any of them? Oh? Sure, yeah, gosh
Speaker 1: um yeah, of comfort, No man speak. Let's talk of
Speaker 1: graves of worms and epitaphs, make dust oar paper in
Speaker 1: with rainy eyes, right sorrow on the bosom of the earth.
Speaker 1: Let's choose executor and talk of wills. And yet not so,
Speaker 1: for what can I bequeath save my deposed body to
Speaker 1: the ground, my life, my lands and all are bowling brokes,
Speaker 1: And nothing can we call our own but death, and
Speaker 1: that poor model of the barren earth to serve as
Speaker 1: paste and cut and cover for our bones. Isn't that good? No?
Speaker 1: I can do Julius Caesar, Hamlet, Macbeth, Richard the second, Richard,
Speaker 1: that the Richard the second speech, that was Richard the third,
Speaker 1: and Juliet, as you like it? Uh and uh. When
Speaker 1: I recited the poems, I got crap. I mean I
Speaker 1: got she liked that she liked that, I liked poetry.
Speaker 1: That was she was in her mom was a quite
Speaker 1: quite erudite, wasn't she. She was a very smart lady.
Speaker 1: And the horrible thing about all right when I tell
Speaker 1: people this all the time, she was insanely competent. I
Speaker 1: mean she was a journalist for a while. She was
Speaker 1: worked the police beat in the local paper, which then
Speaker 1: even going out at night in a car they called
Speaker 1: her a whore, you know, for much less having a
Speaker 1: job at going out at night in a car without
Speaker 1: a man to accompany you. Oh my lord, what could happen? Uh?
Speaker 1: And she did not give one rat's ass what anybody thought. Um,
Speaker 1: yeah she could so she could lay brick, she could crochet,
Speaker 1: she could tat lace, she could um she took the
Speaker 1: washing machine apart and ficks. I mean she was just
Speaker 1: smart and uh had wonderful literary taste. Yeah, it sounds
Speaker 1: like it. Do you think society's limitations on her placed
Speaker 1: on her completely fucked her up? Or would she have
Speaker 1: been fucked up all by herself? I think there's a
Speaker 1: bunch of other stuff. There's a bunch of others, But
Speaker 1: do you think it played a role, Because I think
Speaker 1: about my mom of course, you know, um, and I
Speaker 1: think about all the moms out there who grew up
Speaker 1: in a certain time where you know, the expectation of
Speaker 1: what they could do and be was so limited. I mean,
Speaker 1: just like now, I mean with I have you know,
Speaker 1: so many young men of color, students of color, you know,
Speaker 1: and they used to tell me fifteen years ago about
Speaker 1: being stopped by the police and detained and you know, searched.
Speaker 1: And one of my favorite students, wonderful kids, still lives
Speaker 1: up in Harlem, used to carry in his backpack what
Speaker 1: he called his nerd uh signal. I said, what do
Speaker 1: you what do you mean? He said, I carry a
Speaker 1: rubrics cube and a journal. Um. And he's a great,
Speaker 1: big kid and and very athletic, and uh, you know,
Speaker 1: not to be allowed to be angry. That's like a
Speaker 1: lot of black men wear glasses exactly when they don't
Speaker 1: need when they don't need them sacling, uh and not
Speaker 1: to be And my mother was my mother was piste
Speaker 1: off for a lot of other reasons. And uh, yeah, no,
Speaker 1: I think the way. Look, I think young women are
Speaker 1: just so damn cool. I mean, I think, you know,
Speaker 1: long maybe twenty years ago, somebody was interviewed from Miss
Speaker 1: magazine was interviewing me and saying, don't you think these women,
Speaker 1: young women, you know, walking around in their booty shorts,
Speaker 1: you know, with your um you know that they don't
Speaker 1: understand the struggle the way I said, Look, this is
Speaker 1: about first off, they don't don't make the sacrifices that
Speaker 1: we made. I said, first off, I was looking out
Speaker 1: for me. I didn't care about any other woman. To
Speaker 1: be quite honest, I'd like to say I I went
Speaker 1: to marches and stuff, but um, you know, I'm not
Speaker 1: some I didn't sacrifice my life for the movement. I
Speaker 1: needed a damn job to make a living and I
Speaker 1: couldn't get one because I was a girl, you know.
Speaker 1: So you know these women, you know, this is supposed
Speaker 1: to be about freedom for us, for for all of us, right,
Speaker 1: Isn't that what it's supposed to be? But I think
Speaker 1: these young women are so cool and they teach my students,
Speaker 1: They teach me so much. Um. So, yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 1: I don't know how we got off on that. Well.
Speaker 1: I was asking you about your mom and sort of
Speaker 1: if that might have contributed. But it sounds like there
Speaker 1: are a lot of things that but certainly that uh,
Speaker 1: you know, it makes you crazy. I think it. I
Speaker 1: think it does. It makes you crazy. I mean I
Speaker 1: was sexually assaulted by the guy who ran my m
Speaker 1: F A program. I mean, like he wouldn't let me
Speaker 1: out of his office, and um, he was at Princeton
Speaker 1: at the time. And when I went sort of finally
Speaker 1: got out of there, which was it was it was
Speaker 1: a great even though he never touched me, but it
Speaker 1: was one of the most degrading experience, says The things
Speaker 1: he said to me were so degrading, just it was horrible.
Speaker 1: And um, when I went back and told the women
Speaker 1: I admired these great writers, Louise Glick and you know,
Speaker 1: Heather McHugh, these wonderful poets I looked up to, they said, oh,
Speaker 1: you know, he's just in love with you. And I'm like, no,
Speaker 1: you guys, you don't understand. This was really scary what happened. Like,
Speaker 1: I'm not a candy ass, you know, I'm like on
Speaker 1: the you know, I am a candy ass, but I'm not.
Speaker 1: It's not like we haven't had to get by a
Speaker 1: fella or two and our you know, but this was
Speaker 1: really menacing and degrading and scary. And these young women
Speaker 1: just you know, they have such courage and they speak
Speaker 1: up and out and um, they show me how to
Speaker 1: do it. I okay. You said writing your first memoir
Speaker 1: was like knocking yourself out with your fist. I think
Speaker 1: also writing any memoir is knocking yourself out with your
Speaker 1: own fist. Yes. And you also said writing a memoir
Speaker 1: is or writing memoir? Which is it writing memoir or
Speaker 1: writing a memoir? Writing a memoir, okay, is like waiting
Speaker 1: deep into memories waters and drowning a little bit. Everybody drowns.
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm in this book now. I've been working
Speaker 1: on this book for two years, and it's about getting older.
Speaker 1: It's about getting older. It's called Jesus, and in Jesus,
Speaker 1: it's called just you wait, Um, just to you wait,
Speaker 1: because here's the difference in me and Nora Ephron. I
Speaker 1: don't feel bad about my neck, you know, like and fairness.
Speaker 1: I mean, I just I decided when I was about forty,
Speaker 1: instead of worrying about how I look now and thinking
Speaker 1: of how I looked before I was gonna I always
Speaker 1: think about how gonna look when I'm eighty or ninety,
Speaker 1: and I'm going to look back at me now and
Speaker 1: think you were hot girl. That's what my husband says
Speaker 1: whenever I complain. He says, you're never going to be
Speaker 1: any younger. But think for if you think forward, you'll
Speaker 1: look because don't you look at yourself when you were
Speaker 1: like forty or fifty and think, dang, what was I
Speaker 1: worried about? I look great? I know, but I the
Speaker 1: worst I ever thought I looked. I think I was fourteen,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean? There is something good about
Speaker 1: getting older, and I think, but I think writing memoir.
Speaker 1: I've done three of these. This is my fourth. I've
Speaker 1: written a book about this. I've been teaching this since
Speaker 1: I've been teaching memoir at a university level. And you
Speaker 1: would think I would know how to do this, wouldn't you, Katie?
Speaker 1: I would I don't know how to do this. It's
Speaker 1: because here's why. Because it's sort of like if somebody
Speaker 1: says to me, I want to write a memoir, it's
Speaker 1: like saying I want to have sex, or I want
Speaker 1: to have I want to make over. How should I look? Well,
Speaker 1: I don't know. How do you want to look? Like?
Speaker 1: What's your You know? It's you have to find a
Speaker 1: voice even though I have a voice as a writer
Speaker 1: that sort of translates from book to book. I don't
Speaker 1: have a voice for being the age for being sixty.
Speaker 1: You know, I wrote in the voice of, you know,
Speaker 1: an eight year old girl. I wrote in the voice
Speaker 1: of a fifteen year old girl. I wrote in the
Speaker 1: voice of, you know, a thirty five year old drunk.
Speaker 1: I don't have a voice for being fifty or sixty.
Speaker 1: I don't have that voice. And uh, I think we
Speaker 1: all remember in soundbites, in these convenient little clips, as
Speaker 1: you know, from having just been through this, and you
Speaker 1: tell yourself things and then when and I always kind
Speaker 1: of interview myself, I'm like, really you think so and so? Like,
Speaker 1: like I remembered when I was writing Cherry, I thought
Speaker 1: I was smart. When I was in high school, I did,
Speaker 1: I thought, if you had asked me, I said I
Speaker 1: was one of the smart kids. I was not particularly smart,
Speaker 1: ketty like, I really wasn't. I mean, the bar in
Speaker 1: my hometown was pretty low, you know. I knew the
Speaker 1: alphabet pass a letter J, you know, like like, but
Speaker 1: I was not a smart kid. I was a fan
Speaker 1: of smart kids. My best friend was the smartest girl
Speaker 1: in school, and the guy I dated was like the
Speaker 1: smartest guy in school, but me not so smart, not
Speaker 1: that smart, no real evidence I was smart. So I think, Um,
Speaker 1: we have ideas about ourselves in these sound bites that
Speaker 1: are convenient, but those aren't true, those aren't really how
Speaker 1: you live experience. In those ideas, you live in liminal
Speaker 1: time in your body, and you have to kind of
Speaker 1: reoccupy a former self, kind of zip yourself into your
Speaker 1: old body and lower yourself into that other place and
Speaker 1: time if you're really going to tell the truth about
Speaker 1: what's going on instead of just kind of reciting your
Speaker 1: resume or something. You know, coming up truth and memory
Speaker 1: in memoir after this short break you write a lot
Speaker 1: about that in the art of memoir about memory and truth.
Speaker 1: Then you know how much how much liberty do you have?
Speaker 1: And and memory is is a tricky thing, isn't it, Mary.
Speaker 1: I mean, I don't remember, I don't know what city
Speaker 1: I mean about it when I wake up in the morning.
Speaker 1: But how do you how do you deal with that?
Speaker 1: Because you do you do see things through a very
Speaker 1: distinctive point of view, And and and can you fill in
Speaker 1: the blanks or how much how much truth has to
Speaker 1: be told? And how do you find the truth? Uh,
Speaker 1: And in all the blurry moments, there's only one way.
Speaker 1: There's only one way. If you start to make stuff up,
Speaker 1: and as you say, fill in the blanks, a wall
Speaker 1: comes down between the truth in you. It's sort of
Speaker 1: like at the best example I can give of it.
Speaker 1: When I was writing Liars Club, I knew that I
Speaker 1: was going to change other than my immediate family, who
Speaker 1: I notified in advance, I was going to change people's names,
Speaker 1: you know, like the mayor and the get Fire chief
Speaker 1: and the you know, different people. And I let I
Speaker 1: ask people, I said, pick your name, what name do
Speaker 1: you want to have? I'll give you that name. So
Speaker 1: when I was writing it, initially I tried to use
Speaker 1: people's fake names, and I couldn't do it. Like I
Speaker 1: would be writing John and I'd be like, but your
Speaker 1: name is not John, it's Bob, you know, like it's
Speaker 1: just not the right. It's not right. What's going on?
Speaker 1: And um, you cut yourself off from what's true. If
Speaker 1: something's blurry and you think the reader wants to know
Speaker 1: about it, tell him it's blurry, you know, say maybe
Speaker 1: it went this way, maybe it went that way. I
Speaker 1: don't know. I think if you show your process and
Speaker 1: show yourself, show your good faith. You know, when I
Speaker 1: tried to write fiction, I think a real fiction writer
Speaker 1: tells the truth and fiction better than they would a memoir.
Speaker 1: But a real memoirist somebody like me. When I try
Speaker 1: to write fiction, I do such great things. The character
Speaker 1: who's me is so noble and wise and kind all
Speaker 1: the time. Um, And that's just not how I roll.
Speaker 1: It turns out I need a lot of Jesus. I
Speaker 1: need a lot of help out, a prayer, meditation, a
Speaker 1: lot of fie greens. And at the end of the
Speaker 1: art of memoir, you have a five page must read
Speaker 1: memoir reference list. Tell me how you came up with
Speaker 1: that list? And and and can you tell me how
Speaker 1: certain books changed your life and really impacted you're writing
Speaker 1: and your career? Well, I think any book, um, Maxine
Speaker 1: Han Kingston, Woman Warrior. You know, it's just such a
Speaker 1: singular voice. And I'm so I'm so naive in a way.
Speaker 1: I always believed. I always believe every memoir. So I
Speaker 1: always say, I'm like the guy who thinks the girls
Speaker 1: in the strip club really like him, you know, like
Speaker 1: you could probably lie to me and I would when
Speaker 1: I'm reading a memoir, and I would believe it. But no,
Speaker 1: Like at one point, Um in that memoir, which uses
Speaker 1: you know, Chinese mythology and you know, is sort of
Speaker 1: ancient storytelling technique she got from her mother and um family,
Speaker 1: and uh, this image of a woman warrior, of somebody
Speaker 1: who's fighting for freedom are really to keep from being murdered.
Speaker 1: She's like leaping on clouds and she's like Ninja ng
Speaker 1: through the air, and You're like, wait a minute, you know, Like,
Speaker 1: but a book like that, the voice of it was
Speaker 1: so singular and it and it has such a dramatic
Speaker 1: story to tell, and yet I felt like I was
Speaker 1: in the experience is somebody who grew up very differently
Speaker 1: than how I did, or Richard Wright's I always say,
Speaker 1: Richard Wright's Black Boy Um renamed American Hunger is is
Speaker 1: like in some ways it was the first best seller
Speaker 1: by an African American other than Frederick Douglas, you know,
Speaker 1: who was just like a regular peron. He wasn't you
Speaker 1: know a thing. He wasn't Frederick Douglas. You know, he
Speaker 1: wasn't Booker T. Washington. You know, he was this kind
Speaker 1: of regular guy and his occupying that child's body and
Speaker 1: occupying that child's place in America. At that point, I
Speaker 1: think it came out. I think I think all those
Speaker 1: early memoir mid century memoirs from the last century really
Speaker 1: influenced me. Um that one Richard Wright, that may Agelo memoir,
Speaker 1: um uh Nabakoff Speak Memory. It's just one of the
Speaker 1: great stop time by Frank Comraight, you know. Um, Toby
Speaker 1: Wolf's This Boy's Life, Mary McCarthy Memories of Catholic Girlhood.
Speaker 1: I mean, just great. Michael hair Uh Dispatches is I
Speaker 1: think there this book about war, even though it's about
Speaker 1: genocide in some ways, Um, but it's about how you
Speaker 1: can go to war as a reporter and decide that
Speaker 1: you're morally responsible not just for what you do, but
Speaker 1: for what you see that other people do. So yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, the great thing about each one of those
Speaker 1: books is so singular, you know, I you're talking about
Speaker 1: the level of truth. I don't. I'm not representing the
Speaker 1: truth of history. I try to rep I try to
Speaker 1: show the reader how my mind works and how my
Speaker 1: memory works, and how I'm trying to piece it together
Speaker 1: so they know that this is a piece together thing.
Speaker 1: This isn't a research piece of journalism or history. It's
Speaker 1: it's the truth of memory, which blurs all over the place.
Speaker 1: But the minute you start to lie, it's like that
Speaker 1: there's a door that slams down. Writing cherry in some ways,
Speaker 1: I I chose that time because I've been sexually assaulted
Speaker 1: when I was a little girl. I chose that title
Speaker 1: in a way ironically because I thought I never was innocent.
Speaker 1: I never got a chance. I grew up in this
Speaker 1: alcoholic household, in this violent a place that turned out
Speaker 1: to be a really violent place where I grew up.
Speaker 1: Um not you know Rwanda during the genocide. But um,
Speaker 1: I was a hyper sensitive kid in this place and
Speaker 1: with these hard drinking people in the house. And then
Speaker 1: when I started actually occupying that little girl self. And
Speaker 1: where are your writing a boy's name on your notebook
Speaker 1: like over and over like an idiot? Um? And there
Speaker 1: was a boy had such a crush on Bob Perry,
Speaker 1: all honored to his name. Um watching him, you know
Speaker 1: the way of damn animalogist, watch as a spider. He's
Speaker 1: out there dribbling a basketball. I'm just staring at him,
Speaker 1: slack jaw. I was innocent, No, one could take that
Speaker 1: away from me. I wasn't thinking, Oh, come off me
Speaker 1: into guacamole, you know, I was thinking. And I remember
Speaker 1: when I was writing the book, saying to my editor,
Speaker 1: I just feel like I can't write this. She said,
Speaker 1: what do you mean? I said, what I wanted was
Speaker 1: for him to like skate up to me at the
Speaker 1: skating rink with like one red rose and like asked
Speaker 1: me on the couple skate like that's what I wanted.
Speaker 1: That was my big, you know, fantasy. And she said, well,
Speaker 1: you've got to write that so that it's as alive.
Speaker 1: You're as alive in that moment, and that's as thrilling,
Speaker 1: you know. At one point we played a kissing game.
Speaker 1: It was July four and in my garage with a
Speaker 1: bunch of kids, and he kissed me and it was
Speaker 1: so shocking. Did he kissed me on my mouth? I
Speaker 1: just couldn't believe it. And I remember at one point
Speaker 1: I put my hand, I put my hands up on
Speaker 1: his shirt and he had this like you know how
Speaker 1: they are polo shirts. Where we grew up, they didn't
Speaker 1: even have polo shirts. He had a sea horse on
Speaker 1: his shirt, and I remembered the outline of that Sea Horse,
Speaker 1: and so I sent him the pages before I published
Speaker 1: the book. I said, am I remembering this writer? You know?
Speaker 1: And he called me on the phone. He said, you
Speaker 1: are such a witch. I said, what do you mean?
Speaker 1: He said, how did you remember that shirt? He said,
Speaker 1: as soon as you remember that shirt? I was like,
Speaker 1: oh my god, how does she remember this? I was like,
Speaker 1: you know, I was thirteen years old when you were
Speaker 1: the cutest boy in school, Like how it was the
Speaker 1: highlight of my life up until that moment, you know,
Speaker 1: But no one stole my innocence. My innocence was there,
Speaker 1: you know. They can't take it from you, you know,
Speaker 1: even when bad things happened to you. And so I
Speaker 1: think I thought it was going to be this like dark,
Speaker 1: kind of raunchy, sexy later, not at the thirteen, but
Speaker 1: later sexy. And it wasn't. It was a much more
Speaker 1: innocent book, and yet very for me writing it. Those
Speaker 1: memories were very vivid and powerful and erotic. Um but
Speaker 1: not in the way but in a child's way, not
Speaker 1: in some porno fashion or something. So because you transformed
Speaker 1: and you occupy what's yourself at a certain age. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's right, that's right, just like you're now writing as
Speaker 1: someone who's sixty six but looks writing as somebody who's fifty. Actually,
Speaker 1: I've got it fifty. Yeah, I gotta live faster. Well, Mary,
Speaker 1: thank you for doing this, Thanks for having me. Mary
Speaker 1: Carr's one of a kind memoirs include The Liars Club, Cherry,
Speaker 1: and Lit. Check them out Everybody next week on Next Question.
Speaker 1: This was something I don't ever want to forget love,
Speaker 1: loss and grief in the time of COVID. The fought
Speaker 1: so hard and I know he did. I saw it.
Speaker 1: Amanda cludes on her pandemic memoir Live Your Life, My
Speaker 1: Story of Loving and Losing Nick Cordero. That's next Thursday
Speaker 1: on Next Question. Next Question with Katie Kurik is a
Speaker 1: production of My Heart Media and Katie Kurk Media. The
Speaker 1: executive producer's army Katie Curic and Courtney Litz. The supervising
Speaker 1: producer is Lauren Hansen. Associate producers Derek Clements, Adriana Fasio,
Speaker 1: and Emily Pinto. The show is edited and mixed by
Speaker 1: Derrick Clements. For more information about today's episode, or to
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Speaker 1: to Katie Currect dot com. You can also find me
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