Speaker 1: Hey, this is Danish Schwartz and this is Popcorn book
Speaker 1: Club from my Heart Radio. This week we're jumping into
Speaker 1: a story of sadness and tragedy and mental illness, you know,
Speaker 1: just some light summer reading. It's I know this much
Speaker 1: is true from Wally Lamb, which was an Oprah's Book
Speaker 1: Club pick and is now an HBO series starring to
Speaker 1: Mark Ruffalo's or Ruffalo as a pair of identical twins
Speaker 1: double Ruffalo. Before we go into the rest of the book,
Speaker 1: can we just all say our favorite Ruffalo's. My Ruffalo
Speaker 1: of preference is from Eternal Sunshine of the Spot the
Speaker 1: Glasses Ruffalo. Yes, yeah, it's a solid Ruffalo. Welcome to
Speaker 1: Popcorn book Club. I am your host, Danish Swartz, and
Speaker 1: I am joined as always by co host Karama Nqua,
Speaker 1: Tian Trans, Jennifer Wright, and Melissa Hunter. How are you
Speaker 1: guys doing, Karama? How you doing? Medium? I thought the
Speaker 1: the book is very sad and the world is very sad.
Speaker 1: But I actually got a new bookmark that helps sunflowers
Speaker 1: on it, you guys, and your dress is also sunflowered,
Speaker 1: which I really yes, I was very sunflowering, very mad
Speaker 1: for me and mailed it to me, Tianne, Tianne, how's
Speaker 1: your life in quarantine at the moment? Pretty good? Um,
Speaker 1: it's nice to escape to a sad book from a
Speaker 1: sad world. So that's been really fun. Um. I also
Speaker 1: got a new bookmarks not as cool as yours, and
Speaker 1: by god, I mean rifled in my desk forward But
Speaker 1: it's star stickers. That's like a star that is a
Speaker 1: very like mini economizing and who things tiny, Jennifer. You're
Speaker 1: zooming in from South Carolina. But it looks like you're
Speaker 1: against like a tropical background. Is it as? Are you
Speaker 1: like basking in sunlight? What is the weather there? Because
Speaker 1: it looks like it's like eight and perfect. It's eighty
Speaker 1: six degrees here, so it's a little bit too hot. Um,
Speaker 1: but yeah, it's also it's a sad week. I feel
Speaker 1: a little bad that I recommended a really sad not
Speaker 1: not anticipating how sad the world was going to get.
Speaker 1: I know what, I actually sometimes think that sadness in
Speaker 1: a fictional universe can be weirdly cathartic. Sometimes it's like,
Speaker 1: if I'm feeling sad, I want to listen to sad songs,
Speaker 1: and I don't you know what I mean, Like I
Speaker 1: think it would be maybe I'm I'm just justifying. But
Speaker 1: like if I was reading like a very happy book
Speaker 1: about like people going about their happy lives, I would
Speaker 1: be like, what's your problem, Melissa? How about you? How
Speaker 1: are you doing? Yeah? You know, you know, a solid
Speaker 1: relatively fine. I feel like it is the way I
Speaker 1: describe how I am every day, Like relative to the
Speaker 1: rest of the world, I'm very fine. Um, but yeah,
Speaker 1: everything's on fire and everything in this book makes me
Speaker 1: I think that we don't need to get into the
Speaker 1: book yet. But the first chapter I like read right
Speaker 1: before bed and I was like, Nope, can't do that again.
Speaker 1: That was a hard path of a before so uh yeah,
Speaker 1: But otherwise it's okay. Getting outside. Got outside a lot
Speaker 1: this week, which was really nice, but stayed away from
Speaker 1: people who were being very irresponsible. It almost like I
Speaker 1: feel like some of the irresponsible people ruin the nature
Speaker 1: that I'm trying to absorb to make me happy. You know. Said, um,
Speaker 1: well that that is a very good segue into what
Speaker 1: we're reading this week. Uh, Wally Lambs, I know this
Speaker 1: much is true, which was sort of like a hit
Speaker 1: at the time, you know, New number one New York
Speaker 1: Times bestseller Oprah book Club and now is being adapted
Speaker 1: on HBO with double ruffalo a double ruff too rough,
Speaker 1: too low. That's actually that one. When we're reading, we
Speaker 1: read chapters one through fifteen, So if you're following along
Speaker 1: at home, that's where we cut off. And obviously there's
Speaker 1: gonna be no spoilers past that point because I haven't
Speaker 1: read past that. So if any of you have, please
Speaker 1: don't spoil anything I have not. My mom. My mom
Speaker 1: was like, you should because everyone else is going to
Speaker 1: And I think that explains a lot about my life.
Speaker 1: I almost did. I started reading chapter sixteen, and then
Speaker 1: I realized I would get I would have gotten too
Speaker 1: confused when I'm because it jumps so much in time
Speaker 1: that I'm like, oh, I don't know if this bad
Speaker 1: thing happened, or this bad thing happened. You know, Well,
Speaker 1: thank you, Melissa. Now I owe my mother money. That
Speaker 1: is exactly it, though, where it's like this book um
Speaker 1: isn't linear in its plot. Really there is one one
Speaker 1: quote unquote present day that carries us through, but we're
Speaker 1: jumping back in time, uh to to find out about
Speaker 1: the story and the childhood of our protagonist Dominic Birdseye,
Speaker 1: and his twin identical twin brother Thomas Birdseye, who is
Speaker 1: a diagnosed paranoid schizophrenic and um. At the start of
Speaker 1: the book, Uh uh, Melissa, you want to you want
Speaker 1: to dive dive into what the major inciting and y
Speaker 1: sorry not what gave me a very vivid night nightmares
Speaker 1: that night, that thing that happened. Yeah, that's why I'm
Speaker 1: putting it on the spot. Yeah. So, um, Thomas Birdseye, Uh,
Speaker 1: Dominic's brother is in a goes to a library and
Speaker 1: he um it takes out a sword that he got
Speaker 1: from his uh stepfather and or he stole from his stepfather,
Speaker 1: and um chops off his own hand and like suitures
Speaker 1: it immediately like finds a way to stoppably, but he
Speaker 1: does it in protest of the what the Gulf football
Speaker 1: for for um and he does it. He's he's sacrificing
Speaker 1: his own hand, which is based on scripture like a um,
Speaker 1: something that he's uh sort of decided is telling him
Speaker 1: through scripture and through God that he must do um
Speaker 1: and yeah, and terrifies a lot of people in the
Speaker 1: library understandably and terrifies a lot of readers. Yes, yeah,
Speaker 1: I think I would be very afraid if I were
Speaker 1: in a public put their own hand off and then
Speaker 1: immediately with the mae he like he like throws it
Speaker 1: out into the middle of the library, like yeah, and
Speaker 1: you saw a hand just dropped to the ground. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you'd run the funk out of there. But you know what,
Speaker 1: if this book had taken place a little bit before,
Speaker 1: when normal people took place, people would have thought they
Speaker 1: were being punked. People would have been like ash, but yeah, no,
Speaker 1: that is it's a it's a visceral, terrifying scene that
Speaker 1: is written about in such detail like that he like
Speaker 1: tied the the arteries to staunch the bleeding. And someone
Speaker 1: in the we have the we have a group chat.
Speaker 1: But someone said, and I don't remember, so I'm very sorry,
Speaker 1: um so that they for a moment like thought it
Speaker 1: was a memoir because it is written. Oh that's me,
Speaker 1: that's me. I'm an idiot who have not holly believed
Speaker 1: that this was a memoir. I was like, interesting, but
Speaker 1: it would be interesting for book club. Is I could
Speaker 1: look up some of the newspaper reports on the time
Speaker 1: covering this, because obviously they would cover the man who
Speaker 1: chopped off his hand to try to stop the Gulf four.
Speaker 1: And I was so confused by the fact that I
Speaker 1: couldn't find any reporting from that time. No, I mean
Speaker 1: the CIA was probably behind it, like I've learned from
Speaker 1: Thomas now that they were covering it up. Um and
Speaker 1: uh No, Wally Lamb is I was very relieved to
Speaker 1: find out um an author of fiction, of which apparently
Speaker 1: did not register in my brain. And um he has
Speaker 1: a bunch of sisters and uh teaches incarcerated women how
Speaker 1: to write their life stories in a very inspiring way
Speaker 1: and has a really happy three loving children. Well, Wally
Speaker 1: is life. And I also, yeah, I also do really
Speaker 1: like I do want to say, like, when you write
Speaker 1: about mental health, especially in fiction, it's so often like sensationalized.
Speaker 1: And yes, cutting off your own hand is like a
Speaker 1: it's a it is sort of like if it bleeds,
Speaker 1: it leads, like sort of that it fits into that
Speaker 1: mode of like, oh, exploitative storytelling where it's like, oh,
Speaker 1: it's dramatic and attention grabbing. But I did appreciate that.
Speaker 1: While Lamb the author did have like a disclaimer at
Speaker 1: the beginning talking about his process and his research, he
Speaker 1: has a list of like a bibliography at the end
Speaker 1: of the book of his sources that he consulted. And
Speaker 1: also I think statistically he represents the fact that most
Speaker 1: mentally ill people are a threat to themselves far more
Speaker 1: than they're a threat to other people. Yeah, I think
Speaker 1: it's a nuance that that isn't often portrayed in fiction. Well,
Speaker 1: you know what's interesting. Even though, even though I know
Speaker 1: that this has now been adapted into an HBO limited series,
Speaker 1: and I know that Mark Ruffalo plays the Birdsey twins
Speaker 1: in the HBO limited series, I have not been picturing
Speaker 1: Mark Ruffalo and the usually I have been picturing Mark Ruffalo.
Speaker 1: So I wanted what everyone else I've been picturing a
Speaker 1: Ruffalo type. For sure, I feel like and this is not.
Speaker 1: I feel like Mark Ruffalo always plays like a little
Speaker 1: more likable, a little more like morally good, like picturing
Speaker 1: a spotlight character that I have trouble picturing a Ruffalo
Speaker 1: this sort of low down like that on the ruff
Speaker 1: and Tumble. I think I'm picturing from thirteen going on thirty,
Speaker 1: and not the Ruffalo that is in the trailer and
Speaker 1: the show. Like I'm picturing like a younger Ruffalo before
Speaker 1: we go into the rest of the book. Can we
Speaker 1: just all say our favorite Ruffalo's. My Ruffalo of preference
Speaker 1: is from Eternal Sunshine of the spot the Glasses. Yes, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's a solid I'm gonna say aesthetically, I like Eternal
Speaker 1: Sunson out of Spotless Mine because I'm a sucker for glasses.
Speaker 1: But in terms of personality, I'm all Spotlight Ruffalo. I
Speaker 1: love people. If it goes up to the Pope, I
Speaker 1: like him little. You know, for some reason, the kids
Speaker 1: are all right, Ruffalo really popped into my head, like
Speaker 1: it's a really like I mean, maybe it's just like
Speaker 1: a stasis Ruffalo. You know, it's like nothing too. He's
Speaker 1: not too sexy, but he's also not too He's just
Speaker 1: like a good guy that's around. I think I don't
Speaker 1: really remember the movie Hot Ruffalo. Yeah, what about um well,
Speaker 1: you know, I'm gonna say Spotlight Ruffalo. And I usually
Speaker 1: thought Mark Ruffalo was kind of perfect for this because
Speaker 1: I think maybe because of his political involvement, I think
Speaker 1: of Mark Ruffalo as being a very righteous person, and
Speaker 1: because of the Hulk, I think of human as also
Speaker 1: being a person who maybe secretly is angry all the time.
Speaker 1: So yeah, Dominic is clearly not secretly angry. Dominic is
Speaker 1: very angry and angry. Yeah, so angry. Mind. I mean,
Speaker 1: I go to thirteen going on thirty Mark Ruffalo just
Speaker 1: because the one that pops in my and I love
Speaker 1: a simple romcom Yeah, yeah, which is not absolutely not
Speaker 1: so taking no so to continue on um in the
Speaker 1: non very much not a rom com story. The major
Speaker 1: conflict that I think that Dominic is dealing with in
Speaker 1: the first fifteen chapters is obviously, his brother does this
Speaker 1: enormously public act of self mutilation. He's brought to the hospital,
Speaker 1: but then to a mental institution that's more. I don't know,
Speaker 1: how do you describe it as a maximum security maximum
Speaker 1: maximum security security, a more severe place than his usual
Speaker 1: like group outpatient sort of centric facility. And I think
Speaker 1: one of the big things also is that the hatch, Yeah,
Speaker 1: the hatch and the new facility versus settled the old
Speaker 1: facility has more surveillance, which for a paranoid schizophrenic is
Speaker 1: just like possibly the worst possible thing that you could do. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean you have I understand, I understand why, yeah, right,
Speaker 1: And he's very comfortable at subtle and like what he
Speaker 1: like works the coffee or he gets the coffee and
Speaker 1: works the news stand, and it's like his home, and
Speaker 1: so that's very stressful. He's very settled, oh yeah, and
Speaker 1: Dominic really tries to fight to get him back to Settle,
Speaker 1: where his brother seemed to be doing better until he
Speaker 1: cut his hand off. But for political reasons, because it's
Speaker 1: such a high profile case, the powers that be kind
Speaker 1: of need to throw the book at it a little bit,
Speaker 1: like we were saying before, like it was this really
Speaker 1: terrifying scene where a man threw his severed hand across
Speaker 1: a library, and just for public appearances, you need to
Speaker 1: be like, well, we're putting him in maximum security getting evaluated,
Speaker 1: and it makes the system feel very futile and scary.
Speaker 1: As it was, it was really interesting in that one
Speaker 1: chapter where he does meet with that social worker and
Speaker 1: she essentially tells him that that like this sort of
Speaker 1: move is like a pr move from from from the cops.
Speaker 1: That like, because there there was an incident where someone
Speaker 1: who had no history of violence snapped, as they said,
Speaker 1: and attacked someone and killed someone. So like they're doing
Speaker 1: this to Thomas as a show of you know, conservative action.
Speaker 1: Mm hmmm. What I was gonna say is I think
Speaker 1: that it's really interesting. The dominant keeps bringing up like
Speaker 1: people keep saying that he's violent, but he only hurt
Speaker 1: himself and he's not a danger to anyone else. He's
Speaker 1: just he's his own worst enemy and he's only dangerous
Speaker 1: to himself. But I think what's important and um, what
Speaker 1: made me feel for some of the workers there was
Speaker 1: the fact that she immediately replies, well, he counts if
Speaker 1: you're violent to yourself, that's violence to yourself or up matter. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I think that it's it's interesting. I didn't want to
Speaker 1: dive into this so soon, but but I feel like
Speaker 1: the natural progression is Dominic is a narrator, is not
Speaker 1: a fundamentally great person across the board's incredibly sexist and homophobic,
Speaker 1: and his attitude and yeah, rasis homophobic. I mean, there's
Speaker 1: some like nineties language in here where you're like, Okay,
Speaker 1: I guess people said that, But Jesus Christ, it is
Speaker 1: not just the nine because I remember a good chunk
Speaker 1: of the nineties and I'm like, oh, there is a
Speaker 1: balance between like nineties language and then things that we're
Speaker 1: just playing racist even in the nineties, like the homophobia
Speaker 1: to me, feels a little more nineties. It does, but
Speaker 1: it doesn't because his girlfriend Joy also calls him. Yeah,
Speaker 1: she says she's homophobic. Yeah, and she's. But I do
Speaker 1: think it was more mainstream for men to be called
Speaker 1: homophobic and it be okay that they were homophobic. It's like, oh, sure,
Speaker 1: that guy, he's he's he's just a homophobe. Like it
Speaker 1: was like you, oh you you you know, silly, silly dominant. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I feel like when you hear about Joy's gay friend Ted,
Speaker 1: who makes duchess potatoes and lives in like a beautiful
Speaker 1: condo and plans to become a caterer, I just wanted
Speaker 1: to disappear to the just maybe the book could like
Speaker 1: swerve over port of Yeah, and they take mixology classes together.
Speaker 1: I'm so into it. What fun thing to do. I
Speaker 1: would have been okay if we just swerved for like
Speaker 1: a romantic comedy for Ted helps Joy find love and
Speaker 1: you know, Tad is like you you leave him, honey,
Speaker 1: leave him? You know, just like it's like every day,
Speaker 1: like when are you leaving him? Is it next week?
Speaker 1: We gotta have a plan. She is a hot twenty
Speaker 1: three year old fitness instructor who carries Yeah. As I'm
Speaker 1: reading that the whole time, I'm like, joy, why are
Speaker 1: you with him? Well, I feel like because she has
Speaker 1: low self esteem and she has problems because of the
Speaker 1: fact that she was sexually abused when she was completely
Speaker 1: dismisses and he's like, well, it was consensual, but as
Speaker 1: you call it statutory statutory where it's like no, no, no,
Speaker 1: and uncle and year old girl is in universe consensual.
Speaker 1: But but she wrote him letters, so obviously his fingernails
Speaker 1: love oh god um, and it's more disturbed by her
Speaker 1: like her action and like her eating the fingernails and
Speaker 1: like the like never condemns the uncle's actions at all
Speaker 1: in telling us this entire So it's really well. But
Speaker 1: what I wanted to point out is that even though
Speaker 1: our narrator Dominic is sexist, racist, homophobic, I do really
Speaker 1: value kind of that Wally Lamb is building this world
Speaker 1: around him where it's like, oh, well, I don't think
Speaker 1: while Wally Lamb is not those things, like, we're even
Speaker 1: though we're through Dominic's perspective, I think we're getting like
Speaker 1: really interesting women and people of color and the stories
Speaker 1: that Dominic can't see. But we as the reader can see,
Speaker 1: like the story of the drink Waters and dr character
Speaker 1: in the whole book Waters who are That almost took
Speaker 1: me out though, Like, just given everything that's happening in
Speaker 1: the world, fact that the fact that Dominic went and
Speaker 1: accused a little black girl but you know she all
Speaker 1: intents and purposes reads is black. Um, he's a little
Speaker 1: black girl. A theft made her cry in front of
Speaker 1: the principle no one believed her. Everyone who was a
Speaker 1: hero in his in not in his defense, but just
Speaker 1: to say, the reason they believed him and not her
Speaker 1: was partly because she did have a record for stealing food.
Speaker 1: She was great to find out because she was hungry,
Speaker 1: which nobody addresses. So he makes her cry. And then
Speaker 1: the next day she gets kidnapped and murder and then
Speaker 1: and then and then he writes a speech and gets
Speaker 1: chosen to read it out loud at the memorial service
Speaker 1: at the school. It is just such a sick, sick,
Speaker 1: little twisted thing that he doesn't does in that chapter.
Speaker 1: I had to put the sorry, yeah, yeah. The thing
Speaker 1: afterwards where he sees Ralph get upset in class because
Speaker 1: the teacher has said that they just got rid of
Speaker 1: all the Indians. They're all gone. He disappeared, and Ralph
Speaker 1: is part Indian. Yeah, they disappeared. Um, And then he realizes, like, huh,
Speaker 1: maybe racism is kind of um, and it just feels
Speaker 1: like such a evil, inadequate response to everything he's done.
Speaker 1: I found it the most chill with that exact fam
Speaker 1: Like one of the most chilling moments of Dominic recounting
Speaker 1: the Penny is I think her name is Penny and
Speaker 1: the sister who gets murdered is that He's like, I
Speaker 1: told the teacher that she was bragging about sealing oreos,
Speaker 1: and I knew that they would believe me. Yeah, that
Speaker 1: is exactly the sort of like systemic racism that still exists,
Speaker 1: where like that I mean not to bring up current events,
Speaker 1: but that woman calling the police and knowing how she
Speaker 1: can twist a story to her benefit. It's like and
Speaker 1: Dominic knew that they would believe and beyond that, he
Speaker 1: was he was like getting angry that like he's like,
Speaker 1: they better believe me, Like he was like, I better
Speaker 1: win this, even though he he was like getting indignant
Speaker 1: that she was by writing for her truth, which was
Speaker 1: the truth. He Yeah, he forgot, he forgot that part Yeah,
Speaker 1: we forgot that the whole thing was something that he
Speaker 1: invented because and the whole reason he did it was
Speaker 1: because she lied about saying that her mom was going
Speaker 1: to get her a Shetland pony for her birthday. It's like,
Speaker 1: let her lie. We all lied when we were in
Speaker 1: third grade. My best friend in elementary school said that
Speaker 1: her house used to belong to giants and they had
Speaker 1: to renovate it to make it person sized. That's an awesome,
Speaker 1: very good, very good lie. My little niece is a
Speaker 1: huge liar, just constant lies flying out of her mouth.
Speaker 1: Kids love. It's just fun. Yeah. I told kids in
Speaker 1: kindergarten that I was the author of Pnicula. It could
Speaker 1: have been Jennifer, thank you. Yeah, I could talk fully
Speaker 1: reading that, so it would have been like an incredible achievement.
Speaker 1: But that's so funny. You're listening to Popcorn Book Club
Speaker 1: for My Heart Radio, and we'll be back right after
Speaker 1: the break. So we're back with Popcorn Book Club for
Speaker 1: My Heart Radio. So we sort of do get this
Speaker 1: main narrative about Dominic and Thomas and the challenges of
Speaker 1: you know, having an identical twin who's sort of having
Speaker 1: this descent into into further paranoid schizophrenia peppered in with
Speaker 1: these anecdotes, and I want to focus on a different
Speaker 1: anecdote that broke my heart. I would say like the
Speaker 1: second saddest I've been in this book, although it's hard
Speaker 1: to say to the New York City trap. Thought about that,
Speaker 1: the field trip, the field trip. So what happens in
Speaker 1: this one, just to refresh your memory, is the the
Speaker 1: boys school, UH is going on a field trip to
Speaker 1: New York City to like see a show at Radio
Speaker 1: City Music Hall and see the Statue of Liberty from
Speaker 1: Connecticut where they live, and we sort of see that
Speaker 1: this is where Dominic was trying to distance himself from
Speaker 1: which I think all kids, if you have like a
Speaker 1: lame brother or lame sibling, like you sort of do
Speaker 1: that at some point. And so he sort of is
Speaker 1: trying to align himself with the cool kid, and he's
Speaker 1: not sitting with Thomas on the bus, and then Thomas
Speaker 1: accidentally locks himself in the bathroom on the bus, and
Speaker 1: just the way it's described is so vivid and so humiliating,
Speaker 1: both for Thomas and also I really did feel for
Speaker 1: Dominic in this awful way where you know that like
Speaker 1: he's not being a good person, but also who among
Speaker 1: us has it been like humiliated like that? And I
Speaker 1: can just like like that feeling of just thinking about
Speaker 1: being in Thomas's shoes and like having everyone on the
Speaker 1: bus shout at you, like the kids, the students, the driver,
Speaker 1: the teacher, and it was like everyone telling you how
Speaker 1: to fix something that you just can't and in the
Speaker 1: moment of the anxiety, you can't figure it out. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and you're in this small little room that smells like
Speaker 1: literal shit and you and it's just like I feel
Speaker 1: like I've been that kid several times where just like
Speaker 1: you don't and it's just like a simple thing that
Speaker 1: if you just it's like the left right, it was
Speaker 1: like tell him to make it go right, and then
Speaker 1: it was just she just mixed those up and it
Speaker 1: was just so devastating. It's so awful and precisely the
Speaker 1: way that children actually I think, um, I think as adults. Um,
Speaker 1: I see like kids in third grade now and I think, oh,
Speaker 1: they're adorable. Look what are they reading. It's so cute.
Speaker 1: And then you remember that when you were that age,
Speaker 1: they were life size and they were yeah that um, yeah,
Speaker 1: they have no patience with anyhing. Um, they can say
Speaker 1: vividly cruel things without anyone calling them out or any
Speaker 1: personal feelings of guilt. And that's everything that's happened to
Speaker 1: tell us. And also they stuck out. What stuck out
Speaker 1: for me in that scene, there were two things up.
Speaker 1: First is actually there were three things. First is that
Speaker 1: Dominic was um ultimately concerned with whether or not this cool,
Speaker 1: rich kid would still be his friend afterwards. And I
Speaker 1: think that being accepted in that way was something that
Speaker 1: was very important to him, and he could see it
Speaker 1: literally just slipping away as his brother became this embarrassment.
Speaker 1: And I think that that's part of the tough thing
Speaker 1: about him looking exactly like his brother and either like
Speaker 1: we all want to distance ourselves from people at times,
Speaker 1: and it's like you can't because they're just a living
Speaker 1: mirror image of you. And then the second thing that
Speaker 1: really stuck out to me was that the teacher just
Speaker 1: was like, oh man, this kid is having a real
Speaker 1: rough time, Dominic, why don't you stay with him? And
Speaker 1: it's sort of the beginning of this lifelong thing where
Speaker 1: Thomas is Dominic's responsibility, even when there are other people
Speaker 1: who should be responsible, that should probably be more responsible,
Speaker 1: and like even as an adult adult or adults, that
Speaker 1: should be more responsible, Like Ray takes no responsibility as
Speaker 1: a parental figure as as he gets older. And then
Speaker 1: the other thing was that this that scene where they're
Speaker 1: at the Statue of Liberty and Thomas isn't feeling great
Speaker 1: and so Dominic has to stay with him and doesn't
Speaker 1: get to go inside the Statue of Liberty is the
Speaker 1: first time that he swears out loud, first time he
Speaker 1: says the F word out loud when he tells when
Speaker 1: he tells Thomas to shut the funk up, And I
Speaker 1: think that that sort of is the beginning of the anger. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's like he you really see why he's such an
Speaker 1: angry person because he decides to be a martyr, which
Speaker 1: is interesting because Thomas is literally trying to be a martyr.
Speaker 1: But I feel like with Dominic, he makes he like
Speaker 1: takes care of his brother, but he uses it as
Speaker 1: a reason to be angry with the world. And you're right,
Speaker 1: that started right there. I also found it so interesting
Speaker 1: how he like spent that money, the like thirty seven
Speaker 1: dollars or whatever that he saved just on nothing, just
Speaker 1: to make, which is like so relatable when you're upset,
Speaker 1: you're just like, I'm spend a bunch of money and
Speaker 1: all the money that I have, and maybe that will
Speaker 1: make me feel something, and it never does. You know.
Speaker 1: The religion is so interesting because obviously them being identical twins,
Speaker 1: they are sort of that mirror image where Thomas falls
Speaker 1: into being i think past incredibly religious thinking. He's literally
Speaker 1: like a prophet of God, and some of his delusions
Speaker 1: dominic after going through numerous tragedies and losses, you know,
Speaker 1: except that there is no God, and so he becomes
Speaker 1: incredibly nihilistic. But as he said, like still thinks of
Speaker 1: himself as a martyr, and it goes back to like
Speaker 1: I mean Kane enable the story of the Biblical Brothers.
Speaker 1: He goes, I'm not my brother's keeper, and so it's
Speaker 1: like I'm not like a biblical scholar. But right, it's
Speaker 1: this that is like such a fundamental tie of like
Speaker 1: what is your responsibility to your literal brother and to mankind?
Speaker 1: And they've taken different approaches towards you know, religion and God.
Speaker 1: And I think it also goes in the in chapter
Speaker 1: fifteen when he's talking with Dr Patel, like he kind
Speaker 1: of admits how much it has heard him, that Thomas
Speaker 1: no longer like seems to look out for him, that
Speaker 1: Thomas in his schizophren yet becomes really um narcissistic and looking.
Speaker 1: And so I think that's sort of an interesting thing
Speaker 1: where Dominic feels like he always has to watch out
Speaker 1: for his brother. I love dr I love that. Her
Speaker 1: count or to that is, well, aren't we all a
Speaker 1: little nurse assistic? Like she gets that particular anecdote about
Speaker 1: how she was running late to a meeting and the
Speaker 1: guy in front of her was going really slowly and
Speaker 1: she's like, why is he making me move for my
Speaker 1: meeting when it's like maybe he is not a confident driver,
Speaker 1: And he's like, why is this person trying to get
Speaker 1: me to speed behind him? And so we're all sort
Speaker 1: of wrapped up, and I definitely default to that in
Speaker 1: our own narrative, where we're the star of our own story,
Speaker 1: hopefully a romantic comedy for me first, not a c
Speaker 1: I a thriller for Thomas. The thing about Dominic two
Speaker 1: is that we're you know, he is such this martyr.
Speaker 1: He's like this like belabored martyr, but he's such an
Speaker 1: unlikable character in so many ways, and it's very angry,
Speaker 1: but there are so many moments that I feel very
Speaker 1: tender to him, even though he's so unlikable, Like just
Speaker 1: him talking about how he would go visit his brother
Speaker 1: every single Sunday, and that that scene where Joys like
Speaker 1: can you just not do it? Or one weekend and
Speaker 1: he's like no, like my brother is expecting me. It's
Speaker 1: almost like he needs it as well, and in in
Speaker 1: knowing that his brother is doing okay. Like in those moments,
Speaker 1: I'm like, oh, Dominic, you're You're so tender and loving
Speaker 1: and also a total asshole and and you know, using
Speaker 1: it in this like Martyrie way. I kind of feel
Speaker 1: like anyone in this book can be slightly redeemed just
Speaker 1: by being nice too Dominant. I felt the same way
Speaker 1: to a much lesser extent. Yea, it just seems like
Speaker 1: a nightmare of a person. Um just cheats on his
Speaker 1: wife relentlessly, like was addicted to cocaine. Yeah that was
Speaker 1: very casual. Yeah, just just just seems like kind of
Speaker 1: a mess. But then he says, you know, if you
Speaker 1: want me to want to put me on the visitors,
Speaker 1: they'll go down and I mean Thomas saying, I thought, oh,
Speaker 1: that's that's really kind of do Yeah, that's so, that's
Speaker 1: really nice. We also get kindness from Deesta. Dominics is
Speaker 1: a single thing wrong. She was like a story part
Speaker 1: of Dominic, you know. Or it felt like that was
Speaker 1: his goodness, was Indessa, and now that he's separated from that,
Speaker 1: it's like part of his goodness is gone. You know. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I kind of wondered if we feel entirely different about
Speaker 1: this character if we had met him at the point
Speaker 1: he and Desso were expecting a chime. It was a
Speaker 1: teacher in his classroom about what the weight was going
Speaker 1: to be, and everybody was so excited. I'm ready to
Speaker 1: talk about Angela and that whole story. But but the
Speaker 1: visectomy thing, oh my, was like one of the worst
Speaker 1: things I've ever heard someone too in a marriage. But
Speaker 1: how dare truly? I mean, I feel like I feel
Speaker 1: so responsible for us, so like she's a real person,
Speaker 1: Like thank god she left, like good he deserves that
Speaker 1: artist and that little farm was there, a little male
Speaker 1: potter And I'm sad she went to Greece by herself,
Speaker 1: Like thank goodness. She felt free for the first time. Um,
Speaker 1: and yeah, I really related to her. I feel like
Speaker 1: I've been in one very bad, toxic relationship and earlier
Speaker 1: on in my life, and it was like I spent
Speaker 1: a week away from him and it was like when
Speaker 1: she described how she felt, it was like, yeah, that
Speaker 1: was It's like it is this when you're in a
Speaker 1: kind of with a toxic person and you like separate
Speaker 1: and you feel like you have your whole self back.
Speaker 1: Like I was just like, yeah, Dessa, leave him now,
Speaker 1: we just gotta work on joy leaving him. Well, Joy
Speaker 1: needs but I feel like they don't need to beat it. No,
Speaker 1: he doesn't. He doesn't even seem to like her. He
Speaker 1: doesn't he still loves does He's not nice. Yeah it's um, yeah, um,
Speaker 1: I wish joy. And there's weird details where you're like
Speaker 1: you can sort of read between the lines and be like, oh,
Speaker 1: Joyce kind of triang Like at the very end of
Speaker 1: chapter four year, it's this throwaway detail that she's doing
Speaker 1: his laundry and like catches a note and he's like, oh,
Speaker 1: did you want this? So it's like when you think
Speaker 1: about it, like this woman who he's not nice to
Speaker 1: at all, and it's incredibly dismissive of and sexist to.
Speaker 1: In his own internal monologue, He's like doing his laundry
Speaker 1: and cleaning his chucking pocket. I literally didn't think about that.
Speaker 1: I think men like Dominic takes that so much for granted,
Speaker 1: that like the laundry ferry. Yeah, yeah, Dominic doesn't even
Speaker 1: acknowledge it. He doesn't see that Joyce serves any purpose
Speaker 1: in his life. Just I imagine his mother was also
Speaker 1: kind of forced into Yeah, I bet he had a
Speaker 1: mom who pretty much catered to everything. I mean, we
Speaker 1: know in the box out, I can pretty much infer
Speaker 1: that she wasn't like, Okay, you're old enough, now I'm
Speaker 1: going to teach you how to do your laundry. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I mean everything that we learned about his mom is
Speaker 1: also so devastating. It'saking, it's tragic. Like we learned that,
Speaker 1: you know that she is in this abusive relationship with
Speaker 1: Ray emotionally and sometimes physically, And we learned that she
Speaker 1: dies of breast cancer, and then I was like, this
Speaker 1: is just gonna keep getting sadder, isn't it. We also
Speaker 1: learned and she is. It's so hardbreak it's always I remember,
Speaker 1: this is not the same situation at all. But I
Speaker 1: used to have like a very gummy smile because my
Speaker 1: job was misaligned, so I was probably like I had
Speaker 1: more gum than two when And so for like a
Speaker 1: good few years when I smiled, I always covered my
Speaker 1: mouth when I smiled or laughed in person. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: my mom would always say, like how much that broke
Speaker 1: her heart? And when I had to go through this
Speaker 1: whole surgery and like getting jow surgery, it was like
Speaker 1: a whole thing, but it was like it was such
Speaker 1: a weird and visceral thing that I've never really talked about,
Speaker 1: Like how nice it is to like I want to
Speaker 1: smile and not cover your mouth. Yeah, it's like on
Speaker 1: that episode of Queer Eye did you with with the
Speaker 1: sisters that like, and she and she had messed up
Speaker 1: teeth and she would always cover her mouth and then
Speaker 1: at the end they picked her teeth and then she's
Speaker 1: smiling with it. That made me cry. Um, Yeah, it
Speaker 1: was very nice. Uh. Does Delminic's mother ever get to
Speaker 1: be happy? Is it just that one day where they
Speaker 1: get to meet who was one time? I think she
Speaker 1: was almost happy when they went out to the movies
Speaker 1: for the back to school day and then she got
Speaker 1: that panting and she was like, I'm going to get
Speaker 1: this painting of Jesus because it makes me happy. But
Speaker 1: then was like change immediately. I think that that that
Speaker 1: image of the quote unquote crazy man on the bus,
Speaker 1: it's sexually harasss mom. I think really haunts Dominic because
Speaker 1: obviously he has the same genetics as as Thomas, and
Speaker 1: I think this idea of crazy is very nebulous, you know,
Speaker 1: to his understanding, and I think he has this deep
Speaker 1: fear of becoming the crazy man. He marked that it
Speaker 1: was like this space that haunts my dreams because I
Speaker 1: thought it was going to be I mean, obviously was
Speaker 1: a terrifying scene, but I thought something worse was going
Speaker 1: to happen, like you know, they would be get to
Speaker 1: go to the hospital or something because of the way
Speaker 1: he marks it, you know, of how this space will
Speaker 1: forever haunt him. Um. And they also just thinking about
Speaker 1: like toxic relationships and abusive relationships. When she goes home
Speaker 1: and is crying and can't stop crying and then makes
Speaker 1: them promise not to tell ray it's like that, and
Speaker 1: not to tell ray that something that was not your
Speaker 1: fault a very very bad thing, scary thing, that happened.
Speaker 1: That was not your fault. It's such a clear sign
Speaker 1: of abuse of like they she would have yelled at
Speaker 1: her about that, that would have turned into a fight,
Speaker 1: And it was just very heartbreaking. Yeah. The other the
Speaker 1: other scene about Mom that was like so heartbreaking was
Speaker 1: when she gets them that gift the typewriter and like
Speaker 1: wants them to go to college, but raised like they
Speaker 1: don't have enough. We we as a family don't have enough,
Speaker 1: and so she wants to try and work. And just
Speaker 1: thinking about her on that first day of work with
Speaker 1: her hands shaking, and I like it took me back
Speaker 1: to my mom, because my mom stayed at home and
Speaker 1: then when all of us had grown up, she like
Speaker 1: started working again for the first time in like twenty years.
Speaker 1: And it never hit me, like how nerve wracking that
Speaker 1: must be to have been out of the workforce for
Speaker 1: so long and then going out into the It just
Speaker 1: like the thought of the hands shaking and her going
Speaker 1: out to work and and I'm not even getting to
Speaker 1: do it. It was just so it was heartbreaking. Well,
Speaker 1: I mean, I think it's also like a tiny little
Speaker 1: bit of a triumphant moment for me too, that Ray
Speaker 1: tells her that she will never be able to get
Speaker 1: a job, like what does she even know how to do?
Speaker 1: She goes down to a hotel and she applies and
Speaker 1: she gets hired a medium. Um like yeah, and um,
Speaker 1: in a way, UM, I understand that she did not
Speaker 1: want to work and that that should be a choice
Speaker 1: for people, But um, I desperately wish she had taken
Speaker 1: that job because I think it might have given her
Speaker 1: a support system outside of it, might have let her
Speaker 1: see that there were people who valued her labor. And yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I think Ma is a is a incredibly heartbreaking character.
Speaker 1: But Ray is also this major figure that looms over Dominic. Uh.
Speaker 1: The detail that stuck with me is this idea that
Speaker 1: Ray kind of preferred Dominic and he Dominic goes into
Speaker 1: this with Dr Battel, but this weird feeling of like
Speaker 1: both guilt and pride. Ray was sort of like, you know,
Speaker 1: because Dominic was more like an athlete, more popular, that
Speaker 1: he really attacked Ma and Thomas and Dominic sort of
Speaker 1: got away. I don't know what did you guys make
Speaker 1: of that. I just want to say something about the
Speaker 1: work scene because that was when like the racism really
Speaker 1: jumped out at me because that scene I don't know
Speaker 1: if y'all remember, but has the N word in it,
Speaker 1: and that's what that's what really forces raised hand in
Speaker 1: this college situation. And he's like, fine, I will pay
Speaker 1: for college because I don't want my wife to have
Speaker 1: to do nigger work. And just for everybody listening and reminder,
Speaker 1: I am black, um, so you can't see me, but
Speaker 1: I am. But that I had to put the book
Speaker 1: down after that because I was like, oh God, it's
Speaker 1: not even about like I want you to stay home
Speaker 1: because of like being a homemaker is a full time
Speaker 1: job and you're not gonna be able to do that well.
Speaker 1: And we've arranged this house so that it works this way,
Speaker 1: or I want you to be home for of the kids.
Speaker 1: Know that being a good racism and this deep seated
Speaker 1: like honor thing like you are my property and I
Speaker 1: don't want anyone to see my property engaged in something
Speaker 1: that I believe to be beneath them, And that just
Speaker 1: like made my skin crawl and ray. From then on,
Speaker 1: I was just like, I don't care what he does.
Speaker 1: He is the least redeemable character in this book again
Speaker 1: because he both physically and psychologically abuses Thomas. Dominic mom,
Speaker 1: I mean he physically abuses Thomas in the book, Well,
Speaker 1: there's a moment that was I also feel like kind
Speaker 1: of blossed over where Dominic talks about when they were younger. Um,
Speaker 1: he has them kneeling on right. Oh my god, that
Speaker 1: was terrifying because you don't even like when they said it,
Speaker 1: I was like, what is what? And then when he
Speaker 1: explained he didn't even understand until it was happening, the
Speaker 1: pain of it, and like the taping his um that
Speaker 1: was at hand hands so he couldn't eat. It was
Speaker 1: like a dog. It was. It was such like this
Speaker 1: sounds like I'm glorifying it, but like creative abuse, like
Speaker 1: abuse of a kind of person that has such a
Speaker 1: sick mind that they are like I I don't just
Speaker 1: want to hit this person. I want to find ways
Speaker 1: to torture them. It's all tord it's all means of torture. Um.
Speaker 1: It was. It was awful. That was the note I
Speaker 1: made that scene that Ray like duct tapes Thomas's hands
Speaker 1: so he can't I guess chew on them whatever he
Speaker 1: was doing wrong, which children, especially anxious children do. So
Speaker 1: the scene that they described then is Thomas having to
Speaker 1: eat his dinner just with his like face, like a
Speaker 1: dog in a ball. And also then I wrote in
Speaker 1: the margin, like and then he cuts off his own hand,
Speaker 1: Like there has to be some sort of maybe metaphorical
Speaker 1: are alel to that idea of like, I don't know.
Speaker 1: I mean this is because this is fiction, you know,
Speaker 1: I could be reading too much of date, But also
Speaker 1: there's this idea like I think I'm not an expert
Speaker 1: on psychology or mental illness, but like, I can't imagine
Speaker 1: a childhood of traumatic abuse helps healthy development if you're
Speaker 1: already have those uh you know, programs inside your chemical
Speaker 1: It just broke my heart. Yeah. Um. One of the
Speaker 1: most terrible, the most terrifying moment in this for me
Speaker 1: is when Ray's solutionus like, maybe I should have been
Speaker 1: harder on him, like your mother hating him, So maybe
Speaker 1: if I just beat in him a little more it
Speaker 1: would have been better, which, um, I think we can
Speaker 1: all agree with not have helped. And even if their
Speaker 1: childhood already seems very traumatic and if that's how paranoid
Speaker 1: schizophrenia started was because of behaviors in childhood, no, Like,
Speaker 1: why would you think that because with the rice thing
Speaker 1: what stuck out to me about that Rice torture was
Speaker 1: that if you didn't cry, you got to get up,
Speaker 1: but if you reacted in any way to being tortured,
Speaker 1: you got tortured longer. And then with the tragedy is dominic.
Speaker 1: His inability to show grief and express himself is partly
Speaker 1: what leads to the end of his marriage. He to
Speaker 1: get into it a tiny bit. He and his wife, Dessa,
Speaker 1: lose a child at three weeks incredibly tragically, and Dessa
Speaker 1: wants him to open up, wants him to be able
Speaker 1: to express their shared grief, and he bottles it up
Speaker 1: until he literally just burst out into tears while teaching
Speaker 1: a class, and then he leaves and never comes back back.
Speaker 1: It gave me so much hope towards the end when
Speaker 1: dr tell told him that he can't keep being like
Speaker 1: a Tupper war love, that she could not the word
Speaker 1: you and sell those things to you. But it broke
Speaker 1: my heart. It broke my heart with Dessa where you
Speaker 1: could so tell that Dessa needed to share that grief
Speaker 1: with her partner and needed him to open up and
Speaker 1: be there with him and express that, and he and
Speaker 1: I could not, And I mean the most heartbreaking moment
Speaker 1: for me, and that maybe was when he hears her
Speaker 1: crying in in the baby's room and he's like, just
Speaker 1: lets her cry, like, doesn't go comfort her. And he's
Speaker 1: like and has the thought that, like only a psychotic
Speaker 1: person wouldn't go help her. I'm not going to help
Speaker 1: her though, Yeah, and then he thinks back to that moment,
Speaker 1: like if I had gone and comforted her, would we
Speaker 1: still be together? And like maybe maybe, like maybe, because
Speaker 1: it could have been, like you might have cried and
Speaker 1: then you could have talked to each other instead of
Speaker 1: getting a basective me. Well, she's in Greece a trip
Speaker 1: that she asked you to come on. Yeah, but I
Speaker 1: think she's making and maybe think she'll be happy about
Speaker 1: I mean without telling her. Yeah, that was like Dessa
Speaker 1: was going doing this really big thing, like let's go
Speaker 1: to Greece, let's like reconnect, let's be with each other.
Speaker 1: And then when she comes back, they have this really
Speaker 1: cathartic moment and she cries and you're like, maybe they're
Speaker 1: going to get through this. And then he's like, I
Speaker 1: got a vasectomy without telling you. I don't believe in
Speaker 1: God and I got a vasectomy. Yeah, and what I
Speaker 1: thought was so beautiful in that chapter with Tessa was
Speaker 1: like she had done the work of dealing with this
Speaker 1: loss and grieving that she it started to show that
Speaker 1: she was on the other side of it, like not
Speaker 1: that she was finished grieving, but that her saying that
Speaker 1: like now the memory of this baby is like not
Speaker 1: a tragedy, but it's like she's so grateful, And it
Speaker 1: really showed like that kind of progress that people go
Speaker 1: through with grief, and she got on the other side
Speaker 1: of it. But He's just still so stuck in the
Speaker 1: tupperware um of anger, at the tupperware field with rage
Speaker 1: that he did this horrible thing. Well, because you know, Melissa,
Speaker 1: if you cry, you get more time kneeling in the
Speaker 1: right kneeling right, there is something to him being like that,
Speaker 1: like the martyr, like taking that position of being the
Speaker 1: martyr in this situation where he does describe like at
Speaker 1: the very first several weeks months of after losing their daughter,
Speaker 1: that he's kind of holding things together, is like letting Dessa,
Speaker 1: you know, be with his with her mother and sister
Speaker 1: and crying and grieving and he's you know, doing things
Speaker 1: around the house, getting groceries together, spending time with his
Speaker 1: father in law, and in some ways is like is
Speaker 1: sharing with us that he was an emotional rock, even
Speaker 1: though it was not the healthiest of things that he
Speaker 1: was doing. But that's sort of like taking that position
Speaker 1: of being in the martyr he's doing. He's doing it
Speaker 1: all over again, like taking on the emotional burden of
Speaker 1: like taking care instead of opening up. It is interesting
Speaker 1: because yeah, it's like she he goes to the funeral home,
Speaker 1: and it's like he does all the things that are
Speaker 1: taught in sort of like fifties traditional masculine ways in
Speaker 1: which you handle tragedies. It's like, I'm going to be
Speaker 1: the tough one that the girl can collapse on, and
Speaker 1: I'm going to be like a tree trunk, you know.
Speaker 1: And but he can't do the other part um. And
Speaker 1: it is important to remember that he was raised in
Speaker 1: the nineteen fifties. Yes, because when the book starts, he's
Speaker 1: like forty. I think, yeah, this is Popcorn Book Club.
Speaker 1: We'll be right back after this quick break. Okay, we're
Speaker 1: back with Popcorn Book Club. I want to take a
Speaker 1: brief detour. There is one story we get early on
Speaker 1: that seems to be kind of a departure because it's
Speaker 1: not about tragedy really, and it's not about Thomas. But
Speaker 1: it's a story about Ma having a handwritten memoir written
Speaker 1: by her father. Say it again, it feels like a
Speaker 1: weird departure. Like, so the story is Ma has a
Speaker 1: handwritten memoir by her immigrant father who came from Italy
Speaker 1: and builed himself up. And he we get this subplot
Speaker 1: that he tried to hire a stenographer and it didn't work.
Speaker 1: So then he's like, I'm just doing it myself, and
Speaker 1: we kind of he's Dominic's namesake, dominica Um. But basically
Speaker 1: Mam leaves it to Dominic and it's like, here's you know,
Speaker 1: your grandfather's memoir and story, but it's all in uh
Speaker 1: peasant Italian and hasn't Sicilian Sicilian. My apologies. He brings
Speaker 1: it to a local university to get a grad student
Speaker 1: to translate it for him. I mean, get the story
Speaker 1: about a woman named Nidra. Doesn't want to pick it
Speaker 1: up nature. I mean with Nidra, I only want to
Speaker 1: say that he describes her the thing that stuck out
Speaker 1: to me, and only maybe because I'm like, my partner
Speaker 1: is a professor, so I'm like this sticks out to
Speaker 1: be so much. But he walks in and it's like
Speaker 1: she looked about forty or who knows. You can't tell
Speaker 1: with women who pull their hair back tight up into
Speaker 1: a bun and wear glasses around their neck. And I
Speaker 1: was like, that's so rude. I have both of these
Speaker 1: things going on. I could be funny. You just don't know.
Speaker 1: You just don't know. I assumed you were eight years old, Melissa.
Speaker 1: I just I cannot tell. I don't know. Um, I
Speaker 1: can take it from here a little bit. But he
Speaker 1: he tries. He asked this woman to translate this book
Speaker 1: for her, and she's very which I love. She's like
Speaker 1: unemotionally attached to the whole project. Doesn't see why this
Speaker 1: is like of utmost importance to this man. But it's
Speaker 1: just like, yeah, sure, I'll charge such and such page
Speaker 1: for such and such. I think like eight bucks a
Speaker 1: page or five books a page. It was very expensive.
Speaker 1: Is it really? Whatever? Great? He is? He agrees, especially
Speaker 1: in eight Oh my gosh, right, I'm thinking about it earlier.
Speaker 1: I guess because the big event happened in this could
Speaker 1: be like eight five maybe yeah, because it's like someone
Speaker 1: who Yeah, he's just messed around, although you know what
Speaker 1: what she's saying is she has a very specific skill
Speaker 1: set where knowing peasant Sicilian is not probably does not
Speaker 1: have a lot of income opportunities, and so she's like,
Speaker 1: here's an opportunity I am getting. Yeah, I just think
Speaker 1: it's important to note that the mom is actively dying
Speaker 1: during the whole process, and she's like, like it does
Speaker 1: not face her at all, Like, Okay, well it's going
Speaker 1: to take a long time, and I don't care that
Speaker 1: your mother has to live. He wanted he wanted to
Speaker 1: have it translated that he could give it to his
Speaker 1: mom dying mother as a gift. Yeah. Um, I just
Speaker 1: kept thinking, Um, social media is very bad on a
Speaker 1: lot of levels. But the one thing that I thought
Speaker 1: would be great is if you were doing this today,
Speaker 1: you would just put a post up on Facebook saying,
Speaker 1: like he does anybody speaks Sicilian? I need a book
Speaker 1: in like two weeks. Can you give me a rough
Speaker 1: translation what I've done it for like a hundred and
Speaker 1: fifty Yeah, isn't it. In that first meeting too, as
Speaker 1: she's flipping through the book and seeing that it's like
Speaker 1: put together haphazardly. Some of its type some of it's
Speaker 1: in peasants Sicilian, some of it is in Italian, and
Speaker 1: she's like, man, is your grandfather is schizo? She makes
Speaker 1: like a quick she makes a clear little reference like
Speaker 1: whoa was he a schizo? And he and dominic is
Speaker 1: like fills with rage, and I think turns to leave,
Speaker 1: and then she's like, fine, I'll do it. And I
Speaker 1: think that's maybe the first little glimpse that we get
Speaker 1: about Papa and like having this off handed comment from
Speaker 1: this woman. And then I mean, the big arc of
Speaker 1: it is that she ends up coming over to his
Speaker 1: house one night, getting super drunk during a snowstorm, tries
Speaker 1: to like hook up with him, he doesn't want it,
Speaker 1: and then she runs away, accusing him of sexual assault,
Speaker 1: takes the memoir and all the pages, and then disappears
Speaker 1: completely completely from her job. That is a really important
Speaker 1: detail you forgot. She stole the blanket off of his bed.
Speaker 1: She didn't take it home with her. She didn't take
Speaker 1: it home with her, But when he was getting the
Speaker 1: pizza or something like, he stepped out of the room
Speaker 1: for a moment and she had gone up into his
Speaker 1: bedroom and taking the comforter off of his bed and
Speaker 1: wrapped herself in it, and I was just like, she
Speaker 1: has no boundary. She so aggressive, just like eventually like
Speaker 1: getting her own beers and just being like, well, what
Speaker 1: are we doing for dinner? Just oh, yeah, he hasn't
Speaker 1: given her. She took it out. She took it out
Speaker 1: the check that he gave her, like my and she
Speaker 1: has the most aggressive person in this book. Yeah, she's
Speaker 1: so weird. She's played by Juliette Louis, to which I
Speaker 1: feel that makes sense to me that I haven't that
Speaker 1: actually want to watch the I haven't watched it, but
Speaker 1: that detail, I'm like, I want to see that. That's
Speaker 1: perfect casting. Yes, I agreed, I haven't watched any of
Speaker 1: it yet and I didn't look at any casting either.
Speaker 1: Can I also say there's one the one very funny
Speaker 1: detail about Nidra, And maybe it's like funny just because
Speaker 1: the rest of this book is so pitch black, but
Speaker 1: the fact that she's like she when he like checks
Speaker 1: in with hers, she's like, you shouldn't give this book
Speaker 1: to your mom. You haven't read this. This sucks, And
Speaker 1: she's like, this book straight up sucks, and your grandfather
Speaker 1: is a misogynist and like a nightmare Yeah, it's funny
Speaker 1: because that whole section it felt like comedy even though
Speaker 1: it's so dark. But it just everything else is so
Speaker 1: bleakly sad that somehow like a woman being aggressive while
Speaker 1: trying to fulfill his mom's dying wish and going crazy
Speaker 1: and losing the one thing that was gifted to him
Speaker 1: is like what a farce? Yeah, no, it is really firsical,
Speaker 1: but it also made me really sad a very at
Speaker 1: some point hess his grandfather's grave and honest, grandfather's grave
Speaker 1: is written the great His griefs are silent, and clearly
Speaker 1: this was a man who like tried to air those
Speaker 1: griefs and he tried to put them someplace, and he
Speaker 1: tried to write about them, and now they're just gone
Speaker 1: and nobody will ever know about She's got to come back. Yeah,
Speaker 1: come back for sure. I feel like there will be
Speaker 1: a return because it feel like and this may seem obvious,
Speaker 1: but that it's it is such a mirror of like
Speaker 1: he is writing this memoir even though it's fiction, like
Speaker 1: it is this memoir of his life, and it does
Speaker 1: go keep going back to his childhood and teenage years
Speaker 1: and building out the story of him and his brother
Speaker 1: and then he is like trying to craft this, like
Speaker 1: bring back this memoir of his grandfather. And it does
Speaker 1: feel like obvious parallels between the two of like this man,
Speaker 1: it's all from his own it's all from his perspective,
Speaker 1: you know, and it does feel and it kind of
Speaker 1: bounces around, and so it feels like it's paralleling to build.
Speaker 1: I just have a quick question, what because I don't
Speaker 1: know if it's just my I got an old copy,
Speaker 1: but my pages are like purposefully and like the like
Speaker 1: the book the Grandfather is like manuscript is described. When
Speaker 1: I first got it, my girlfriend was like, Okay, that
Speaker 1: book is fucked up. Don't bring it into the bedroom,
Speaker 1: like thinking like it's cursed, like it's like it's like
Speaker 1: I had like damaged or like filthy, like we didn't know.
Speaker 1: But then I looked at it, I was like, wait
Speaker 1: a minute, no, this is intentional. Yeah, that's so good.
Speaker 1: I think the idea that the best Greeks are silent
Speaker 1: like that is I feel like the struggle to be
Speaker 1: able to own your story is like this is toxic masculinity.
Speaker 1: The musical oh yeah, yeah no, And it's just clearly
Speaker 1: continuing the cycle with another Italian American man named Dominic
Speaker 1: who is trying to share his grief in some way
Speaker 1: that that he can at least put it in someplace.
Speaker 1: I hope get to read some of um. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I really want to know what He and Grandma aren't
Speaker 1: buried together, like something something bad happened. More about Mars past.
Speaker 1: I want to know who their father is. I wonder
Speaker 1: if it's their father is. And you know what, in
Speaker 1: normal people, we never found out who Connell's father was,
Speaker 1: and I want to know who Dominic and Thomas's father is.
Speaker 1: I want to know who people's fathers are. Now maybe
Speaker 1: that's my require. We should just have to know. We
Speaker 1: should be fathering every book we read. We never know
Speaker 1: who the father is. That's the theme of this podcast
Speaker 1: now no longer about things getting turned into TV. It's
Speaker 1: the father thing. One thing that stood out to me
Speaker 1: when he was talking about Ray there was the end
Speaker 1: of one chapter was like, our father could be anyone.
Speaker 1: It could be Alessandro, could be this person, it could
Speaker 1: be that person, could be anyone in the world, but
Speaker 1: it's definitely not Ray. And it's just so interesting, like
Speaker 1: how I mean, Ray is a terrible man, but just
Speaker 1: how he like we will never accept that Ray is
Speaker 1: his father, you know. Yeah. He constantly is reminding people
Speaker 1: that Ray stepfather, although although they have raised last name,
Speaker 1: which I think is notable and sort of an interesting
Speaker 1: thing that Thomas never or Dominic rather, never rebelled against,
Speaker 1: never changed. He sort of tacitly accepts that Ray is
Speaker 1: the father figure in his life while still vehemently believed,
Speaker 1: knowing in his heart that he is just his stepfather. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Ray loves in his childhood his grandfather built and they
Speaker 1: they once had their mom's last name, because early on
Speaker 1: they mentioned that when they were born, and it was
Speaker 1: like a news story because they were born on the
Speaker 1: New Year's that they had their mom's last name. But
Speaker 1: then when she married Ray, they all sort of took
Speaker 1: that heteronormative nineteen fifties little family ideal, which is such
Speaker 1: an interesting detail. Good job, Wally. The twins, the twins
Speaker 1: being on either side of the year, I was like, okay,
Speaker 1: and like the first half and second half of the
Speaker 1: century to he's going to say. I think it's also
Speaker 1: an indication of how separate they are as twins, even
Speaker 1: though they came from the same egg and everything. They're
Speaker 1: not even born the same day or the same year.
Speaker 1: That's how wildly different they even though they look the same.
Speaker 1: Half of the century. Wally really he's he's going in,
Speaker 1: can we take can we take bets on if we
Speaker 1: find out? Or not? Who thinks we will find out?
Speaker 1: Who we're gonna I think we're gonna find think. I
Speaker 1: don't think we're gonna I don't think we're gonna find out.
Speaker 1: All right, Well, so me, Tne and Jennifer find out
Speaker 1: and that and Melissa or I'll never find out. No
Speaker 1: Ma gets a love story. I want mom to have
Speaker 1: a lost love. But I'm going to it's going to
Speaker 1: be a bad It's going to be a charge today,
Speaker 1: and I think it's gonna be bad. Yeah, either way.
Speaker 1: It's going to be deeply religious and has these babies
Speaker 1: out of wedlock, and then also never tells anyone, and
Speaker 1: they say there are two things they never talked about,
Speaker 1: who their father is and their most left lip. And
Speaker 1: she brings up the lip once, but then never bring
Speaker 1: up the father. So I feel like there's something bad
Speaker 1: there or something sad there that I don't want to
Speaker 1: get into. Although the religious element is interesting that it
Speaker 1: could sort of be an immaculate conception reference m hmm.
Speaker 1: Or she could have had sex with a priest. That's where.
Speaker 1: Oh that story where she brought up the cleft lip
Speaker 1: to the so sad, so sad with the glasses and
Speaker 1: he really shut the hell up after that. And then
Speaker 1: and it was still an asshole about it. He was
Speaker 1: still an asshole. And then he puts on the glasses
Speaker 1: and see and it's amazed by however, which I remember
Speaker 1: that because I, you know, wear glasses or in contacts.
Speaker 1: And I remember in high school, I kept on asking
Speaker 1: this girl in front of me. I was in the
Speaker 1: back of my math class, and I was like, what
Speaker 1: does that say? And I was like this math teacher
Speaker 1: is like just not uh like focusing the projector it's
Speaker 1: so annoying. And then she's like, Melissa, do you want
Speaker 1: to try on my glasses? And I was like okay.
Speaker 1: And I was like, that's how the world looks to people,
Speaker 1: like you can see leaves on trees all the time. Um.
Speaker 1: So I feel like that moment amazing. But then he
Speaker 1: doesn't tell his mom, you know, he doesn't tell his
Speaker 1: mom that actually this is wonderful. You know, poor mom,
Speaker 1: long suffering, she's the real martyr. Yeah, she doesn't even
Speaker 1: get the luck that for clock, for the for the typewriter. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So what else do people want to see in the
Speaker 1: in the next chapters of the book. I want to
Speaker 1: see uh. I want to see Grandfather Dominico's memoir. I'm
Speaker 1: really curious about what she was up there writing all
Speaker 1: that time I loved and I hope that means the
Speaker 1: return of Nedre. I just want to see a little
Speaker 1: bit more of Mesthyndra doing something crazy. Um, being a
Speaker 1: real weird, real weird fun girl. Truly a messy legend.
Speaker 1: We stand a messy legend. Karama, what about you? Did
Speaker 1: you get a did you get a request for for where? Obviously? Well?
Speaker 1: I want to see the paternity obviously, but also I
Speaker 1: want to see Thomas. Okay, Like I want to see
Speaker 1: a positive, sustainable future for Thomas, because I, like, I
Speaker 1: don't think I've talked about this, but one of my
Speaker 1: worst fears is being institutionalized. Like um, all of my
Speaker 1: worst fears were actually realized in season two of American
Speaker 1: Horror Story. It was like it was handcrafted to torture
Speaker 1: me because I'm afraid of being murdered for my skin
Speaker 1: and I'm afraid of Nazis and I'm afraid of being institutionalized,
Speaker 1: and all of that's in there also, so yeah, so um.
Speaker 1: But I feel like he's in this position where he
Speaker 1: was in a pretty good spot and now he's obviously
Speaker 1: gotten into a worst spot. And I really don't want
Speaker 1: him to be in Hatch for like years and years
Speaker 1: and years. And I think that there's nobody at this
Speaker 1: point in the book that can take on the responsibility
Speaker 1: of being his full time caregiver outside of a facility.
Speaker 1: And I think that he does benefit from being in
Speaker 1: a facility where he can get round the round the
Speaker 1: clock care people who are trained in how to properly
Speaker 1: handle his his schizophrenic delusions and everything. But I would
Speaker 1: like to see him back at Settle, and I would
Speaker 1: like to see some of the stuff that Dr Patel
Speaker 1: talks about in the last chapter, where it's about like
Speaker 1: getting him into a group home or something where he
Speaker 1: is able to be his own advocate and do adult
Speaker 1: things that some of us sort of take for granted,
Speaker 1: like paying bills and stuff like that. So that's that's
Speaker 1: something that I'd like to see. We still have a
Speaker 1: lot of book to go. I have no idea what's
Speaker 1: going to happen, but I hope something good happens for Thomas.
Speaker 1: Dr Potel gives me hope, Like that chapter really gave
Speaker 1: me a lot of hope for him and for Dominic,
Speaker 1: Like it felt like she was really breaking through Dominic,
Speaker 1: getting through his rage issues and all of that, and
Speaker 1: it seems hopeful, like it's the sort of co therapy
Speaker 1: thing that she's doing by like the setup of that
Speaker 1: seems interesting. Can I say something very silly? Um? I
Speaker 1: love like genre, like genre, mystery, sci fi, like all
Speaker 1: of that sort of stuff, And that's a lot of
Speaker 1: what I read, and I like, at some point my brain,
Speaker 1: especially the Dr Bretel chapter one, to like what if
Speaker 1: they're the same person and if this is just all delusions?
Speaker 1: But it's like he'th on the outside and Dr Bartell
Speaker 1: is like, yeah, let's talk about your twin, and I'm like, oh, okay, yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't. Like, No, that's not what this book is.
Speaker 1: It's not what this book is. It's not it it's
Speaker 1: it's just a sad story. I just wanted it to
Speaker 1: be more like a like a fight club story that's
Speaker 1: supposed to just like obliquely sad story. I know when
Speaker 1: I was first reading it, my brain was like, Okay,
Speaker 1: can this get better if they accidentally take Dominic instead
Speaker 1: of Thomas and Dominic is in hatching and I was like, well,
Speaker 1: he cut his hand off, so there's no I'm gonna say,
Speaker 1: there's no, He's not mistaken them anyway, there's no mistaken them.
Speaker 1: I did want to just say a quick thing about
Speaker 1: Dr Ptell is she was so smart and so slick,
Speaker 1: and that she knows that Dominic is such a martyr
Speaker 1: that he will do things to help Thomas, that the
Speaker 1: only way that he would agree to like this therapy
Speaker 1: that he so desperately needs, is that Dr ptel frames
Speaker 1: its like, will you do this for me to help Tom? Ye?
Speaker 1: And You're like, well, she I think, I mean, of
Speaker 1: course she knows that. It's also definitely helped her Dominic,
Speaker 1: And I'm like, ah, you're so good at this. Oh
Speaker 1: there's something that we have not talked about. What we
Speaker 1: didn't talk about the fact that they asked Dominic if
Speaker 1: he wanted to Reattach Thomas's hand. Oh. Yes, but he
Speaker 1: had to make that choice. He had to say no,
Speaker 1: don't Reattach his hand. And I think part of it.
Speaker 1: He said it was because he's just going to cut
Speaker 1: it off again, because that's what Thomas said. He was like,
Speaker 1: I'm just gonna cut it off again, dude. But I
Speaker 1: think also it's a way to distinguish himself finally, visually,
Speaker 1: I hadn't even thought about that. Yeah, a real tangible difference.
Speaker 1: So it's like he can't take You're right, like obviously,
Speaker 1: I mean hopefully in a world they wouldn't like put
Speaker 1: Dominic in the hatch by accident, but you're right now
Speaker 1: they know they definitely can't. I mean, he could just
Speaker 1: grow a beard, Dominic, you know, like I feel a
Speaker 1: little easier, or start wearing his glasses again because Thomas
Speaker 1: doesn't wear glasses. Yeah, Thomas Thomas is Superman and Dominicus
Speaker 1: Clark Kent. He seemed to really resent that comparison. He
Speaker 1: was like, man, I'm superman. Um, Yeah, that's so it's
Speaker 1: interesting he he ascribes that decision also to this link
Speaker 1: of like Thomas all the agency has been taken out
Speaker 1: of his life, where it's like he's making this decision,
Speaker 1: and so he's gonna let Thomas have that decision, which
Speaker 1: I sort of I get. That's like such amazing, although
Speaker 1: with someone who would unilaterally the sectimize yourself in a marriage. Uh,
Speaker 1: he attends to seems to be someone who is good
Speaker 1: at making unilateral decisions. Yeah, And you know it is interesting,
Speaker 1: it wasse ectomy is not mutilation, but it is a
Speaker 1: form of like cutting something off, so they in order
Speaker 1: to in a martyr sort of way. So it does
Speaker 1: feel like they both have voluntarily done this thing that
Speaker 1: is very detrimental to their lives, like to their body.
Speaker 1: Do you think do you think the dominant thinks it's
Speaker 1: his fault that Angela died, like that there's something wrong
Speaker 1: with his ability to create a healthy baby, And like
Speaker 1: for me, I feel like he's scared that he's going
Speaker 1: to have a kid that has paranoid schizophrenia. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: think absolutely. I think he thinks his genes are are
Speaker 1: messed up because of because of Thomas. I mean, that's
Speaker 1: the scary thing about having an identical twin is knowing
Speaker 1: that your genetics are the same, that you have the
Speaker 1: same like predispositions. Yeah, it's a it's a scary scary thing.
Speaker 1: And maybe he just thinks that like if another baby
Speaker 1: were to die, he just physically couldn't be stoic through that,
Speaker 1: Like he would just explode. The tupperware would burst, they
Speaker 1: would because he has His only coping mechanism is to
Speaker 1: tamp it down, and he has no more tamp space.
Speaker 1: It's a it's a tragedy. It's interesting how we can
Speaker 1: all feel so sad for this man. And I don't
Speaker 1: think any of us would like him if we met
Speaker 1: on his side for a maximum of three pages. That's
Speaker 1: what I've realized. I'm like, oh yeah, and then he
Speaker 1: like says a slur and I'm like, no, I just
Speaker 1: remember who you are. I remembered at your core who
Speaker 1: you are. And also all of them, all of the
Speaker 1: scenes where he like loses his temper, especially in the institution.
Speaker 1: It's like or with with the cop and with it,
Speaker 1: with all of like he almost has it, and then
Speaker 1: he just goes too far and you're reminded of who
Speaker 1: he really is and you're just so mad. It's like, no,
Speaker 1: you could have convinced him if you just kept your
Speaker 1: cool and weren't so hateful, but you are, so it's
Speaker 1: a problem. He's someone who thinks that the world is
Speaker 1: against him. Some of the tenderest moments in the book
Speaker 1: or when people are able to break people though. That's
Speaker 1: why I loved the scenes with Dr Ptel so much. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that she's she's She's able to get him to talk
Speaker 1: about his childhood, and it feels like, um, there's almost
Speaker 1: superhuman power coming from her with a man who is
Speaker 1: with people who are very often trying what was her name?
Speaker 1: She Dr Sheffers a great scene too, and I love them. Yeah,
Speaker 1: she's like, I'm not I'm not a gal, I am
Speaker 1: a woman woman. I didn't like how she kept calling
Speaker 1: him paisano, which I had to look up because I'm
Speaker 1: not Italian. And apparently it literally translates to peasant but is,
Speaker 1: which is interesting because of the peasant Sicilian. But it
Speaker 1: literally translates to peasant but the like the slang is
Speaker 1: like a friend pal homie. I thought. She's also kind
Speaker 1: of a weirdo. Yeah, super weird. There are a lot
Speaker 1: of interesting women in this, Like I feel like he's
Speaker 1: surrounded by all of these women who he clearly hates
Speaker 1: on a visceral level. Um, and what he really does
Speaker 1: I want to see joy leave? I know. Oh that's
Speaker 1: one thing. Yeah, it is interesting because he is surrounded
Speaker 1: by all these women in Wall Wally, you describe their
Speaker 1: boobs way too much. But um, but outside of that,
Speaker 1: I feel like they are so well formed and unique
Speaker 1: perspectives and the way they interact with him are so
Speaker 1: different and memorable. And I feel like we're a man
Speaker 1: that kind of hates women. Like the central character. It
Speaker 1: is so interesting to be in these scenes with all
Speaker 1: these very strong personalities that challenge him in different ways.
Speaker 1: I love what Dr Brotel like. There's that one moment
Speaker 1: in the beginning where she's like, he's like, what kind
Speaker 1: of tea do you want? And he's like whatever, and
Speaker 1: he's like whatever. That's the male way of just you know,
Speaker 1: throwing things away, and it's very decide and it's like
Speaker 1: and he and he acquiesces. It's like, oh wow, Dr Brotell,
Speaker 1: you are good at this. Yeah, He's like, I'll take
Speaker 1: the spiced one. I think we're all writers, you know,
Speaker 1: to some degree, and so I wonder to how to
Speaker 1: what level? I think very often when when I'm reading
Speaker 1: a good book, I don't see the strings. But then
Speaker 1: sometimes when I, like I was writing notes for this,
Speaker 1: you sort of see the strings a little bit or
Speaker 1: what's effective, and like he says he's surprised dominic Is
Speaker 1: when he agrees to accept the tea, and I was like,
Speaker 1: that's a very poignant detail that he's willing to sit
Speaker 1: down and like literally drink tea with someone, because the
Speaker 1: act of like drinking or consuming food with someone is
Speaker 1: like a very intimate, vulnerable thing. And I was like, oh, really,
Speaker 1: look at this guy. When I was when I was
Speaker 1: in college, there was a guy who told me. He
Speaker 1: said that he thought that sex was the most intimate
Speaker 1: thing you could do for someone, and the second most
Speaker 1: intimate thing you could do for someone was make them
Speaker 1: a meal, which I thought was really interesting because he
Speaker 1: was like, was that was that the first thing he
Speaker 1: said to you? No, no, no no. And this was
Speaker 1: not a guy that was like trying to hit on
Speaker 1: me or anything. But he went to he went to
Speaker 1: an other college nearby that focused on culinary school, and
Speaker 1: so he worked in one of our eateries as in
Speaker 1: the kitchen, and I was like friends with the people
Speaker 1: in the kitchen because I love food. So I was like, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna make real good friends with all the people
Speaker 1: who are responsible for the food so then I can
Speaker 1: get more food, which works. And but so he we
Speaker 1: would hang out when he was on his brakes and
Speaker 1: on shifts and stuff, and it wasn't like a sexy thing,
Speaker 1: but it was just an interesting perspective. And just in
Speaker 1: terms of having this tea, I do think it is
Speaker 1: a very intimate thing that she's doing, making him this tea,
Speaker 1: and the ritual of it all and how she gets
Speaker 1: into her own history with tea, and it leads into
Speaker 1: us learning a lot about her because she's Indians, so
Speaker 1: I think we all kind of had that assumption. It's like, oh, yeah, no,
Speaker 1: she's been drinking tea and she's like, no, I never
Speaker 1: drank tea in India. I didn't get into tea until
Speaker 1: I was in you know, school in London. Yeah. It's
Speaker 1: also the one time that we to see maybe the
Speaker 1: only moment of like pure joy from Dominic where he's
Speaker 1: like it warmed me up and it smelled very good,
Speaker 1: and I was like, uh, what an uncomplicated emotion of
Speaker 1: joy that you just had the first one in two
Speaker 1: hundred and fifty pages. Well, and along with that, Dan,
Speaker 1: it's like that's the first time when he starts like
Speaker 1: asking questions about her, like he starts star starts relaxing
Speaker 1: about his brother for the first time, and just like
Speaker 1: enjoys a conversation with somebody and engages with her, and
Speaker 1: he's like, I don't know why, but I liked her.
Speaker 1: Maybe it's just because she's a nice person. I don't know. Well,
Speaker 1: there's also something very much about making food for people
Speaker 1: or making tea for someone. It's something that you can
Speaker 1: very easily imagine his mother doing and something that maybe
Speaker 1: is certainly his mother if she was. I'm pretty sure
Speaker 1: Ray made sure that his mother had all the meals
Speaker 1: from the time, like yeah, I'm yeah, um, I'm sure
Speaker 1: if all the meals might have been horrifying at his
Speaker 1: house because his brother was being made to eat like
Speaker 1: a dog, it was something that his mother consistently prepared.
Speaker 1: Maybe that was a memory he could go back to.
Speaker 1: When dominic is describing Dessa some a woman that he
Speaker 1: really loved, it's obvious that he really put her on
Speaker 1: a pedestal in a way that doesn't really signify the
Speaker 1: type of love that I think makes a sustainable relationship,
Speaker 1: because thinking someone's like a perfect angel isn't seeing them,
Speaker 1: and I think everyone wants to be fundamentally seen, and
Speaker 1: that you know, he really idolizes Dessa in a way
Speaker 1: that makes especially when he tells the story of their
Speaker 1: marriage dissolving. I think even though he's the one telling
Speaker 1: it from his side, it's incredibly It was obvious to
Speaker 1: me Whydessa had to leave and should have left. So
Speaker 1: it was, like you said, really gratifying to see him
Speaker 1: like open up a little to Dr Patel and asked
Speaker 1: her about her life and this, you know, doctor with
Speaker 1: grandchildren seems to be a really interesting, wonderful person. M
Speaker 1: h um. That seems like a hopeful place to end,
Speaker 1: you know, with with Domin maybe trying to open up.
Speaker 1: This was lovely. I think next time the next fifteen chapters. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: that sounds great. That's our show for the week. Thank
Speaker 1: you so much for listening. I'm Danish Schwartz and you
Speaker 1: can find me on Twitter at Danish Schwartz with three z's.
Speaker 1: You can follow Jennifer Wright at jen Ashley Right. Garamadanqua
Speaker 1: is at Karama Drama, Melissa Hunter is at Melissa ft
Speaker 1: W and Tian Tran is smart enough to have gotten
Speaker 1: off Twitter, but she is on Insta at Hank Tina.
Speaker 1: Our executive producer is Christopher Hessiotes. At We're produced and
Speaker 1: edited by Mike John's. Next week we'll go further into
Speaker 1: the heart of darkness of I know this much is true.
Speaker 1: It does feel like human atrocity bingo. It felt like
Speaker 1: Wally was like, how do we make this even more
Speaker 1: fucked up? Oh, what do we think the prize is
Speaker 1: for human atrocity bingo? I think a nap. I think
Speaker 1: a long daytime nap. Popcorn book Club is a production
Speaker 1: of I Heart Radio