WEBVTT - I Thought I Was Telling the Truth 0:00:00.160 --> 0:00:02.719 Family Secrets is a production of iHeartRadio. 0:00:07.000 --> 0:00:10.440 I'm fairly certain that it was I who seduced him 0:00:10.520 --> 0:00:14.800 that afternoon, But would I have if he had not 0:00:14.960 --> 0:00:19.760 kissed me first? Am I as delusional as Humbered? Humbered? 0:00:19.800 --> 0:00:23.200 When he narrates Lolita was twelve at the time, it 0:00:23.280 --> 0:00:27.720 was she who seduced me. In both scenes from the memoir, 0:00:28.200 --> 0:00:32.639 Arnold is passive, either lost in thought or asleep when 0:00:32.680 --> 0:00:35.960 I appear like a nymph in the forest. There is 0:00:36.040 --> 0:00:41.440 empowerment in remembering oneself as his sexual aggressor, especially after 0:00:41.520 --> 0:00:45.120 modeling at Escapades. But I don't believe that was my 0:00:45.280 --> 0:00:49.879 motivation when I wrote this? Was I protecting Arnold? The 0:00:49.920 --> 0:00:54.480 statute of limitations had long ago past. Was I protecting 0:00:54.560 --> 0:01:00.880 my marriage? We had just celebrated our twenty seventh anniversary. 0:01:02.080 --> 0:01:06.800 That's Jill Cement, novelist, memoirist, professor of English at the 0:01:06.880 --> 0:01:10.600 University of Florida in Gainesville, an author of two memoirs, 0:01:10.959 --> 0:01:14.920 Half a Life and Consent, written more than twenty five 0:01:15.000 --> 0:01:19.640 years apart. These books are an extraordinary testament to the 0:01:19.640 --> 0:01:23.319 secrets we keep from ourselves and the way the passage 0:01:23.319 --> 0:01:27.520 of time informs our memories and our understanding of the past. 0:01:40.400 --> 0:01:44.200 I'm Danny Shapiro, and this is family secrets, the secrets 0:01:44.200 --> 0:01:46.640 that are kept from us, the secrets we keep from others, 0:01:47.120 --> 0:01:50.000 and yes, the secrets we keep from ourselves. 0:01:55.640 --> 0:01:59.680 I was born in Canada to a kind of middle 0:01:59.720 --> 0:02:05.680 clas last Jewish family. My father's parents were more educated 0:02:05.720 --> 0:02:08.200 than my mother's and were from a much higher class, 0:02:09.080 --> 0:02:13.919 and they got married under the circumstances that people get 0:02:13.960 --> 0:02:17.079 married under in those days. She wanted to get out 0:02:17.080 --> 0:02:20.240 of the house and not work for her father, and 0:02:20.520 --> 0:02:22.800 he was strange, and they got married. And so I 0:02:22.840 --> 0:02:26.560 grew up in this kind of milieu of you know, 0:02:26.680 --> 0:02:33.880 old Montreal, very very close knit Jewish community, almost deadly 0:02:34.120 --> 0:02:38.639 in its insularity. Then when I was about ten, we 0:02:38.919 --> 0:02:43.720 immigrated to the United States, to Los Angeles. We were 0:02:43.760 --> 0:02:48.120 able to immigrate because my grandfather had applied for the lottery. 0:02:48.680 --> 0:02:52.279 My father was ill prepared for it, he was autistic, 0:02:53.200 --> 0:02:56.480 and my mother was just dying to escape Montreal. So 0:02:56.520 --> 0:03:00.800 we came up there, and then, you know, my father 0:03:00.840 --> 0:03:04.960 couldn't adjust to immigration, my mother was thrilled to be 0:03:05.040 --> 0:03:10.520 in California. They eventually get divorced and we fall about 0:03:10.720 --> 0:03:13.600 three or four classes down to the lower class because 0:03:13.600 --> 0:03:16.760 I'm now the child of a single parent, and so 0:03:16.840 --> 0:03:20.120 I grew up, you know, from the age of fourteen on. 0:03:20.440 --> 0:03:23.080 I had a full time job and I helped support 0:03:23.120 --> 0:03:27.799 the family. And that's kind of my background. I mean, 0:03:27.919 --> 0:03:31.560 it was an unusual teenage shood because I had a 0:03:31.600 --> 0:03:35.560 full time job. I was rushed into adulthood very early. 0:03:36.480 --> 0:03:38.920 And this would have been when you moved with your 0:03:39.000 --> 0:03:42.760 family to LA This would have been in the late 0:03:42.840 --> 0:03:44.360 nineteen sixties. 0:03:44.280 --> 0:03:46.280 You know. I mean my parents got divorced when I 0:03:46.320 --> 0:03:50.840 was about fourteen, and so it'd have been like sixty seven, 0:03:51.400 --> 0:03:53.840 and so it sort of, you know, kind of went 0:03:53.880 --> 0:03:56.400 along with the late sixties and seventies, which was a 0:03:56.440 --> 0:03:59.960 sort of wild time, especially in Los Angeles. 0:03:59.680 --> 0:04:01.960 And do you have several brothers. 0:04:02.760 --> 0:04:05.480 I have three brothers. One is older than me and 0:04:05.440 --> 0:04:07.800 we're almost like twins. His name is Gary. And then 0:04:07.800 --> 0:04:11.720 I have a brother named James, who is five years 0:04:11.800 --> 0:04:16.000 younger than me. And then there was the family mistake. Scott. 0:04:16.360 --> 0:04:18.880 He was born just as my mother had saved up 0:04:19.000 --> 0:04:21.640 enough money to divorce my father, and we had been 0:04:21.920 --> 0:04:25.200 holding our breath for this moment of escape. And she 0:04:25.240 --> 0:04:28.679 finds out she's pregnant and that you gave us another 0:04:28.760 --> 0:04:35.000 two years. Under his strange authoritarianism, my father was sort 0:04:35.080 --> 0:04:38.400 of like if you've ever seen rain Man, the Dustin 0:04:38.480 --> 0:04:42.160 Hoffman character. He was able to kind of hold everything 0:04:42.200 --> 0:04:45.160 together when we were in Montreal because he had an 0:04:45.160 --> 0:04:48.479 extended family and everything was a routine. But once he 0:04:48.520 --> 0:04:53.440 got to California, the pressure of not having his routine 0:04:53.520 --> 0:04:55.880 just put him over the edge. And it was like 0:04:56.000 --> 0:05:01.720 living with somebody who was in world in a constant terror. 0:05:01.760 --> 0:05:05.360 If something was out of place and if money was spent, 0:05:05.440 --> 0:05:09.520 it was like a black cloud of worries and craziness. 0:05:09.600 --> 0:05:12.320 And so yeah, we all were very aware of it, 0:05:12.360 --> 0:05:15.160 and we all wanted to escape it. And my mom 0:05:15.520 --> 0:05:18.680 she was one of these women who you know, had 0:05:18.680 --> 0:05:21.200 never even paid a bill. She didn't learn any of 0:05:21.240 --> 0:05:24.320 those skills of how to survive. So when she wanted 0:05:24.360 --> 0:05:26.600 to leave my father, we really had to think about 0:05:26.640 --> 0:05:29.760 how we would survive. And my older brother and I 0:05:29.839 --> 0:05:32.640 need a commitment that we would help her because there 0:05:32.680 --> 0:05:35.280 was no other way. She wasn't prepared, as we weren't either, 0:05:35.720 --> 0:05:37.640 and we all sort of figured it out together. 0:05:40.880 --> 0:05:43.480 When it's time for high school, Jill goes about three 0:05:43.560 --> 0:05:47.120 days a week. Then on Friday mornings, she bore a 0:05:47.120 --> 0:05:50.680 flight to different spots around the country because she has 0:05:50.760 --> 0:05:54.640 a job, not a typical teenage job like bagging groceries 0:05:54.720 --> 0:05:58.920 or scooping ice cream. No, this is a marketing research job. 0:05:59.720 --> 0:06:02.920 Become was an emancipated miner, so she can sign contracts. 0:06:03.520 --> 0:06:06.719 She's helping to support her family. At the same time, 0:06:06.839 --> 0:06:10.160 she takes art classes on Monday nights because she's known 0:06:10.240 --> 0:06:12.400 since the age of three that this is what she 0:06:12.440 --> 0:06:14.039 wants to be. An artist. 0:06:15.600 --> 0:06:17.560 That's what I wanted to be. That's why I wasn't 0:06:17.600 --> 0:06:21.279 too concerned about finishing high school. You know, I didn't 0:06:21.320 --> 0:06:23.240 see how that was going to really help me become 0:06:23.279 --> 0:06:26.920 an artist, which is insane because you know, the perspective 0:06:26.960 --> 0:06:29.640 of a fifteen year old is hardly to be agreed with. 0:06:29.960 --> 0:06:32.520 And that was a terrible student, and so it wasn't 0:06:32.560 --> 0:06:34.920 like such a loss. My brother, who also worked full 0:06:35.000 --> 0:06:38.080 time and did everything, managed to finish with straight a's 0:06:38.120 --> 0:06:41.039 and go on to college. So it had as much 0:06:41.080 --> 0:06:43.960 to do with my personality as it did with the circumstances. 0:06:44.520 --> 0:06:48.600 So tell me about at sixteen, you go to an 0:06:48.720 --> 0:06:52.320 art show, a gallery show, and are drawn to the 0:06:52.360 --> 0:06:55.440 work a particular work by an artist. Tell me about 0:06:55.440 --> 0:06:56.240 that moment. 0:06:57.000 --> 0:07:00.799 Well, actually he had the work in his wife's gallery 0:07:01.000 --> 0:07:04.839 right the Pajer. Arnold Meshi's had some artwork in a 0:07:04.880 --> 0:07:06.920 gallery and I had seen it in the window when 0:07:06.920 --> 0:07:10.520 I was driving by, was on Ventura Boulevard, and you know, 0:07:10.600 --> 0:07:15.520 I just had not seen that level of draftsmanship outside 0:07:15.560 --> 0:07:19.840 of museums. And I was just dumbstruck because I'd only 0:07:19.880 --> 0:07:23.040 seen that kind of like crappy art of seascapes, and 0:07:23.160 --> 0:07:25.520 you know, I just hadn't you know. I thought that 0:07:25.680 --> 0:07:27.920 was like living art, and then dead art was the 0:07:28.040 --> 0:07:30.400 art you saw in the museum. And suddenly I realized, no, 0:07:30.600 --> 0:07:33.720 there's an entire world of that outside, and I became 0:07:34.560 --> 0:07:38.080 riveted by it. And so I had my mom call 0:07:38.200 --> 0:07:42.360 the gallery and speak to Arnold's wife and see if 0:07:42.360 --> 0:07:44.560 he would teach a fourteen you know, at the time, 0:07:44.600 --> 0:07:47.200 I probably was sixteen, if I could go into a 0:07:47.200 --> 0:07:51.239 life drawing class. So I changed from a lesser teacher 0:07:51.320 --> 0:07:53.520 to him, and I started studying under Arnold. 0:07:54.200 --> 0:07:57.960 And these were existing classes, a group classes. 0:07:57.640 --> 0:08:00.640 Yeah, they were private classes. Mostly there were as older 0:08:00.640 --> 0:08:04.840 people in it. They were retirees, a few younger people, 0:08:04.920 --> 0:08:07.960 but he had a studio, a kind of classroom in 0:08:08.000 --> 0:08:11.280 Beverly Hills where he taught these classes near his studio. 0:08:11.880 --> 0:08:14.480 What comes to mind, like what language comes to mind 0:08:14.800 --> 0:08:19.160 when it comes to first being sort of under Arnold's 0:08:19.160 --> 0:08:22.760 tutelage and being part of these classes. What was he 0:08:22.800 --> 0:08:23.640 to you initially? 0:08:24.600 --> 0:08:27.120 I mean, you know, first, he was the first real 0:08:27.240 --> 0:08:30.840 artist that I had encountered, and it was what I 0:08:30.880 --> 0:08:34.600 wanted to do. It's so confusing at that age. I mean, 0:08:34.679 --> 0:08:40.480 you know, I wanted to win his approval. I was 0:08:41.200 --> 0:08:44.440 enamored with him as a girl would have a crush 0:08:44.480 --> 0:08:48.520 on someone. I really felt incredibly grown up to be 0:08:48.559 --> 0:08:51.840 a part of a life drawing class where there was 0:08:52.000 --> 0:08:57.719 nudity and people talked openly about genitalia in the context 0:08:57.880 --> 0:09:02.760 of draftsmanship. It's pretty different than high school. And I 0:09:02.880 --> 0:09:05.600 mean I wanted to be an artist since I was 0:09:05.640 --> 0:09:08.520 like three years old. So it was this thing that 0:09:08.559 --> 0:09:13.040 I wanted and I suddenly had access to it, and 0:09:13.120 --> 0:09:18.240 it was thrilling. I was flirting with him and was trying, 0:09:18.480 --> 0:09:23.160 in my own clumsy, sixteen year old way to be seducted. 0:09:23.840 --> 0:09:26.560 I could see I was arresting his attention, and I 0:09:26.679 --> 0:09:29.439 approach him and I kiss him. 0:09:32.080 --> 0:09:36.360 It's nineteen seventy. Jill is sixteen and Arnold is forty seven. 0:09:37.400 --> 0:09:41.560 This is the year she kisses him, at least that's 0:09:41.559 --> 0:09:44.319 how she chronicles it when she writes her first memoir, 0:09:44.440 --> 0:09:48.520 Half of Life, published in nineteen ninety six. That book 0:09:48.720 --> 0:09:52.640 exists as a sort of forensic evidence of what Jill 0:09:52.679 --> 0:09:57.000 believed and remembered at a certain time. But time moves forward, 0:09:57.240 --> 0:10:03.560 and with it, our perspectives, our memory are truths. Jill's 0:10:03.640 --> 0:10:07.959 new memoir, Consent, begins and ends with this very kiss. 0:10:08.720 --> 0:10:11.720 In Half a Life, the kiss is portrayed one way, 0:10:12.440 --> 0:10:17.120 and in Consent it's portrayed another way. Who really kissed 0:10:17.120 --> 0:10:21.120 who first? But long before she reflects on this, she 0:10:21.320 --> 0:10:25.360 lives this. Jill and Arnold have this meaningful kiss in 0:10:25.480 --> 0:10:30.360 nineteen seventy, but a relationship doesn't begin just yet. First, 0:10:30.640 --> 0:10:31.600 she goes to New York. 0:10:33.920 --> 0:10:36.560 I arrived there with one hundred and fifty dollars that 0:10:36.640 --> 0:10:41.240 I had saved up and the name of somebody where 0:10:41.720 --> 0:10:44.240 he had a crash pad where I and my brother 0:10:44.360 --> 0:10:46.920 could go and spend a couple of nights where we 0:10:47.000 --> 0:10:49.160 tried to figure out how to survive in New York. 0:10:49.760 --> 0:10:51.560 My brother was only going for a week to make 0:10:51.600 --> 0:10:53.440 sure I wasn't going to be killed. Well, you know, 0:10:53.480 --> 0:10:57.120 I started out there, and you know, it was an 0:10:57.120 --> 0:11:01.120 impossible thing to do. I mean, I ended up drifting 0:11:01.320 --> 0:11:04.640 off with a bunch of other runaways. And although I 0:11:04.720 --> 0:11:08.280 was not a runaway, it was the early seventies in 0:11:08.360 --> 0:11:11.080 New York City and it was you know, you can't 0:11:11.120 --> 0:11:14.000 become an artist that way, and that was the lesson 0:11:14.000 --> 0:11:14.720 I had to learn. 0:11:15.400 --> 0:11:20.440 And during those months, this memory of Arnold and Arnold's 0:11:20.520 --> 0:11:26.680 kind of presence for you lingered. We wrote back and forth. 0:11:26.720 --> 0:11:29.240 He wrote me letters not I mean they were letters 0:11:29.280 --> 0:11:32.560 that if somebody found them, it wouldn't look like we 0:11:32.640 --> 0:11:36.200 had kissed. They were the letters of a student to 0:11:36.280 --> 0:11:39.520 a professor and vice versa, and giving me advice on 0:11:39.559 --> 0:11:43.080 how to survive there. But he kept promising he was 0:11:43.120 --> 0:11:45.120 going to come to New York. I think that's why 0:11:45.160 --> 0:11:47.920 I hung on for four months, because he always went 0:11:47.920 --> 0:11:50.679 to New York as an artist. And then, you know, 0:11:51.040 --> 0:11:54.280 I went back to Los Angeles. I took a greyhound bus. 0:11:54.320 --> 0:11:56.920 My mother didn't even have enough money to send the airfare, 0:11:57.400 --> 0:12:01.080 so I went back on a greyhound bus, and you know, 0:12:01.160 --> 0:12:04.440 I was so depressed, and the only thing I would 0:12:04.480 --> 0:12:08.400 do is I would drive past this house. You know. 0:12:08.440 --> 0:12:11.680 I was love worn and I you know, and finally 0:12:11.720 --> 0:12:14.760 one day I just built up the nerve to just 0:12:14.800 --> 0:12:18.200 show up at his studio. And I had lost my virginity. 0:12:18.200 --> 0:12:20.040 That was a big thing. And I went to a 0:12:20.040 --> 0:12:22.600 studio and I tried to seduce him, which wasn't that hard. 0:12:23.200 --> 0:12:31.000 And that's how we began off Here, as Jill drives 0:12:31.000 --> 0:12:34.640 in circles past Arnold's house, imagining him with his wife 0:12:34.640 --> 0:12:37.920 of twenty five years and his two kids inside, there 0:12:37.960 --> 0:12:40.840 may also have been the specter of her own father, 0:12:41.440 --> 0:12:44.840 who was profoundly absent because of his autism, and then 0:12:44.960 --> 0:12:49.680 literally absent, just gone. So her feelings about Arnold would 0:12:49.720 --> 0:12:54.000 have been complicated. They're romantic and sexual, to be sure, 0:12:54.640 --> 0:12:58.880 but that longing she feels has many layers. It's shortly 0:12:58.920 --> 0:13:01.960 after her return to Los Angelus that their affair begins 0:13:02.000 --> 0:13:02.600 in earnest. 0:13:04.960 --> 0:13:07.400 I mean, it was so many things on the way 0:13:07.400 --> 0:13:10.080 in which one conceives of one's life. I think the 0:13:10.200 --> 0:13:15.040 yearning was simply I think I was just so curious 0:13:15.080 --> 0:13:18.120 to know what it would be like to be loved 0:13:18.120 --> 0:13:21.040 by an older man. I think that was my big curiosity, 0:13:21.840 --> 0:13:25.360 and I think that's what I sought out. And you know, 0:13:25.600 --> 0:13:28.080 not only was art Old an older man, but he 0:13:28.200 --> 0:13:32.600 was an artist. And you know, in those days, the 0:13:32.600 --> 0:13:35.520 only person who could anoint you an artist was a 0:13:35.559 --> 0:13:38.280 male artist. And you weren't going to be anointed by 0:13:38.720 --> 0:13:41.000 a woman. At that point. There were no women artists 0:13:41.000 --> 0:13:44.280 that you even saw. And so, you know, part of 0:13:44.320 --> 0:13:48.839 that whole patriarchal thing was so bred into us that 0:13:48.880 --> 0:13:54.160 the yearning to become successful only could be gotten through 0:13:54.200 --> 0:13:56.400 the approval of a man, and there was no other 0:13:56.440 --> 0:13:59.840 way in those days. Well, I came back from New York. 0:14:00.120 --> 0:14:04.000 I just turned seventeen. I came back, and so I 0:14:04.080 --> 0:14:08.920 started seeing him again a little bit before my eighteenth birthday, 0:14:09.160 --> 0:14:13.199 and we started seeing each other in an illicit affair, 0:14:13.440 --> 0:14:15.080 or as I put it in the book, I was 0:14:15.120 --> 0:14:18.600 going steady and he was having an affair. And you know, 0:14:18.840 --> 0:14:21.120 I was very open with My mother knew about it. 0:14:21.280 --> 0:14:24.240 And again it was the seventies. She was also dating 0:14:24.240 --> 0:14:27.040 a man named Arnold who was like ten years younger 0:14:27.080 --> 0:14:30.400 than her, and even though she was very upset about it. 0:14:30.520 --> 0:14:33.200 You know, there was a kind of laughter to it 0:14:33.240 --> 0:14:36.800 as well, because that was kind of funny. And then 0:14:37.040 --> 0:14:41.400 it was New Year's Eve and I just fell apart 0:14:41.440 --> 0:14:44.160 in New Year's Eve because you know, I was eighteen 0:14:44.240 --> 0:14:45.880 years old and I wanted to be on a date 0:14:45.920 --> 0:14:48.480 for New Year's Eve and he was married, and you know, 0:14:48.520 --> 0:14:52.520 at an adult party, and I just broke down and he, 0:14:53.600 --> 0:14:56.000 I don't know, he left his wife. I mean, it's 0:14:56.000 --> 0:14:58.960 such an unusual thing that happens. He left his wife. 0:14:59.200 --> 0:15:02.800 He left with just toothbrush, she left the house, all 0:15:02.800 --> 0:15:05.480 the money in the bank. We just started off together, 0:15:05.800 --> 0:15:11.320 and I guess I had just turned eighteen, and I remember, 0:15:11.440 --> 0:15:13.440 you know, at this point, I you know again, I 0:15:13.840 --> 0:15:17.040 had just gotten into cal Arts as a student and 0:15:17.080 --> 0:15:21.520 I got a scholarship and so I started my art 0:15:21.600 --> 0:15:27.240 school education and he kind of returned to painting, and 0:15:27.280 --> 0:15:30.520 so we started living together from that point forward. So 0:15:30.600 --> 0:15:34.160 he went he was with me all throughout college, and 0:15:34.240 --> 0:15:36.720 you know, it gave me obviously a very different version 0:15:36.760 --> 0:15:39.800 of college. But you know, he kind of went to 0:15:39.880 --> 0:15:42.680 college with me, and I think it revitalized him as 0:15:42.720 --> 0:15:48.000 well in one sense. When I was enamored of him 0:15:48.320 --> 0:15:51.080 as a seventeen year old girl and starting my affair, 0:15:52.160 --> 0:15:57.560 I thought of him as a famous, successful artist, looking 0:15:57.640 --> 0:16:01.240 back at it as a seventy one year old and 0:16:01.400 --> 0:16:03.960 seeing that this was a man in his late forties 0:16:04.920 --> 0:16:07.800 who hadn't succeeded as an artist in the way he 0:16:07.840 --> 0:16:13.000 wanted to, and that, you know, he was not what 0:16:13.080 --> 0:16:16.840 I thought he was. But because he wasn't what I 0:16:16.920 --> 0:16:21.000 thought he was, this all powerful man, I went from 0:16:22.160 --> 0:16:25.520 being enamored with him to seeing him as a vulnerable 0:16:25.600 --> 0:16:29.440 human being. And I think that's what was able to 0:16:30.440 --> 0:16:34.560 allow me to actually love him as opposed to always 0:16:34.600 --> 0:16:38.080 be under his thumb of power. It was that he 0:16:38.320 --> 0:16:42.280 wasn't the person I imagined him to be that allowed me 0:16:42.400 --> 0:16:44.880 to fall in love with him. And I think that's 0:16:44.920 --> 0:16:47.120 something that you know, when a young girl looks at 0:16:47.160 --> 0:16:49.920 a powerful matter, what they assume is a powerful man, 0:16:50.840 --> 0:16:54.040 and they don't see that, you know, all human beings 0:16:54.040 --> 0:16:57.760 are fallible and filled with doubt and remorse in all 0:16:57.920 --> 0:17:01.560 other emotions. And it was only as I started to 0:17:01.680 --> 0:17:06.240 learn who Ornold actually was just a human being, that 0:17:06.520 --> 0:17:11.800 I think the relationship went from what would be now 0:17:12.000 --> 0:17:15.359 kind of risky and grooming into something much more like 0:17:15.560 --> 0:17:19.479 any other marriage. 0:17:18.680 --> 0:17:22.960 And also likely the reason why the marriage lasted when 0:17:23.119 --> 0:17:28.119 it was a relationship early on, where his colleagues were 0:17:28.680 --> 0:17:32.400 literally placing bets on how long this was going to last. 0:17:32.960 --> 0:17:33.960 Yeah. Absolutely. 0:17:34.840 --> 0:17:39.600 At what point did you make the switch from being 0:17:39.640 --> 0:17:43.399 an artist to becoming a writer and why? 0:17:44.640 --> 0:17:47.119 Why? Is the question that has plagued me my whole life. 0:17:47.400 --> 0:17:50.040 I have no idea, but I thought a great deal 0:17:50.080 --> 0:17:53.440 about it. I made the switch. I was in graduate 0:17:53.480 --> 0:17:56.480 school at Cal Arts. I had ten weeks left. I 0:17:56.480 --> 0:17:59.359 had finished my DCS, which was a film. I was 0:17:59.400 --> 0:18:03.360 going to become a kind of gudared like, you know, filmmaker, 0:18:03.720 --> 0:18:06.359 and that film really made me realize that I can't 0:18:06.359 --> 0:18:09.240 work with human beings, so that wasn't be a good 0:18:09.280 --> 0:18:14.040 profession for me, and so I decided, I don't know, 0:18:14.200 --> 0:18:17.600 I loved literature, and I just decided I would instead 0:18:17.600 --> 0:18:19.959 of making a film and having to spend all that 0:18:20.040 --> 0:18:22.560 money and work with people, I would just write my 0:18:22.640 --> 0:18:26.680 films down. And at the time, I honestly had probably 0:18:26.760 --> 0:18:30.000 never even written somebody a letter. I mean, I just 0:18:30.160 --> 0:18:34.439 was so dyslexic, and it was such a weird choice 0:18:34.480 --> 0:18:36.880 for me. Because I had. It wasn't like I had 0:18:36.960 --> 0:18:42.480 any talent at this, and you know, I just made 0:18:42.560 --> 0:18:47.240 this crazy decision. I dropped out of school. I sat down, 0:18:47.280 --> 0:18:49.880 and I spent the next literally four years, I mean, 0:18:50.200 --> 0:18:54.040 when I wasn't working, you know, practicing how to make 0:18:54.080 --> 0:18:58.760 a sentence, studying literature. Arnold as this great gift bought 0:18:58.800 --> 0:19:03.199 me the entire election of Norton Critical Edition, and I 0:19:03.280 --> 0:19:05.480 was able to read my you know, I read from 0:19:05.520 --> 0:19:10.080 gilganish for it and gave myself this huge education and 0:19:10.480 --> 0:19:13.159 you know, practice becoming a writer. And that's how I 0:19:13.200 --> 0:19:16.000 did it. And you know what, I had been able 0:19:16.000 --> 0:19:19.040 to do it without the supporter of somebody like Arnold? 0:19:19.119 --> 0:19:22.360 Probably not, but I you know, he was there and 0:19:22.400 --> 0:19:26.040 he encouraged me to take this crazy journey. 0:19:26.200 --> 0:19:28.800 Is there any part of you that feels like you 0:19:28.920 --> 0:19:32.639 made the switch because you didn't want to directly compete 0:19:32.680 --> 0:19:33.560 with him. 0:19:33.760 --> 0:19:37.280 Oh, I'm sure. I mean I had already left painting 0:19:37.320 --> 0:19:40.480 and drawing early, probably because I didn't want to compete 0:19:40.480 --> 0:19:43.119 with him, and I had gone into conceptual art, so 0:19:43.160 --> 0:19:46.680 I wasn't It wasn't like we were really overlapping in 0:19:47.520 --> 0:19:51.320 esthetics and craft. But I'm sure I went over to 0:19:51.440 --> 0:19:55.280 conceptual art, probably mostly because I was just enamored by 0:19:55.280 --> 0:19:58.000 the idea of the auvant garde. I mean, it was 0:19:58.080 --> 0:20:00.919 just like so big and I I think what happened 0:20:01.000 --> 0:20:03.119 is it became nauseous with the app on guard and 0:20:03.160 --> 0:20:05.840 it just seemed like such a it was so removed 0:20:05.880 --> 0:20:08.600 from everyday people. I just didn't want to make art 0:20:08.680 --> 0:20:11.760 for only wealthy people. So I didn't want to do 0:20:11.840 --> 0:20:15.560 that anymore. I probably would have returned to painting, because 0:20:15.560 --> 0:20:20.440 that is a history of something beyond that. But Arnold 0:20:20.480 --> 0:20:23.119 was there, and he was already painting, and I think 0:20:23.240 --> 0:20:28.119 that blocked that possible door. But I don't know if 0:20:28.160 --> 0:20:32.040 I would have taken it anyhow. We were an incredibly 0:20:32.119 --> 0:20:36.320 collaborative couple. He read every word that I wrote, and 0:20:36.320 --> 0:20:39.320 I remember when I wrote my first book, he told 0:20:39.359 --> 0:20:42.520 me to throw up the first fifty pages. I remember 0:20:42.560 --> 0:20:46.800 having like a complete like conniption fit and crying and 0:20:47.040 --> 0:20:49.560 tearing up paper and just you know, like as a 0:20:49.600 --> 0:20:53.200 lunatic would do in their twenties, filled with hormones and ambition, 0:20:54.160 --> 0:20:56.520 and you know, I would do the same thing to 0:20:56.560 --> 0:20:58.479 his work. So it's you know, I would go in 0:20:58.520 --> 0:21:01.560 and tell him this was horrible. That was we just 0:21:01.680 --> 0:21:05.119 did it. We just were like completely, we collaborate. I 0:21:05.160 --> 0:21:08.320 think one of the reasons that I never felt such 0:21:08.320 --> 0:21:11.919 a great desire to return into painting was that I 0:21:12.119 --> 0:21:15.439 kind of got to paint through him. And you know, 0:21:15.480 --> 0:21:18.320 he had written some novels himself, and I think he 0:21:18.400 --> 0:21:20.439 got to become a writer through me. And you know, 0:21:20.440 --> 0:21:23.440 it was one of these marriages that were very much 0:21:23.760 --> 0:21:26.000 involved in each other's work in a good way. 0:21:26.080 --> 0:21:34.440 I think we'll be back in a moment with more 0:21:34.480 --> 0:21:53.320 family secrets. When Jill is twenty nine and Arnold is sixty, 0:21:53.840 --> 0:21:56.320 he's made a painting that a gallery owner in New 0:21:56.400 --> 0:21:59.560 York expresses interest in. But the gallery owner is on 0:21:59.600 --> 0:22:02.920 the fence because she hasn't actually seen it, only slides. 0:22:03.880 --> 0:22:06.960 So Jill encourages Arnold to roll up the painting and 0:22:07.000 --> 0:22:08.080 they traveled to New York. 0:22:09.560 --> 0:22:14.280 Unfortunately, the gallery didn't realize how old Arnold was. They 0:22:14.320 --> 0:22:17.240 thought he was a kid, and so when they saw 0:22:17.280 --> 0:22:20.679 his age, you know, they lost interest in wanting to 0:22:20.760 --> 0:22:24.480 invest in somebody who's sixty, who really doesn't have the 0:22:25.280 --> 0:22:29.679 long term investment range that you are looking for. And 0:22:29.760 --> 0:22:32.040 so I convinced him to go over to the East Village, 0:22:32.080 --> 0:22:33.920 which I had heard was kind of like a new 0:22:34.040 --> 0:22:37.960 art scene, and you know, he stumbled into this gallery 0:22:38.000 --> 0:22:43.920 with these young, amazing curators and he began a career 0:22:43.960 --> 0:22:46.520 as an East Village artist. And you know, at the 0:22:46.520 --> 0:22:48.880 same time, I was just beginning, you know, to become 0:22:48.920 --> 0:22:52.960 a writer. So it was really I'd gotten an agent 0:22:53.160 --> 0:22:56.040 and I was starting. So it was a moment when 0:22:56.040 --> 0:22:59.800 we both moved to New York. Was the mid eighties, 0:23:00.119 --> 0:23:02.879 It was you know, New York was really on fire 0:23:03.000 --> 0:23:06.520 in terms of both literature and or something you don't 0:23:06.560 --> 0:23:07.960 feel today when you're in New York. 0:23:10.240 --> 0:23:13.080 Jill and Arnold spend the next twenty years living in 0:23:13.080 --> 0:23:16.520 New York. They continue to write and make art, and 0:23:16.560 --> 0:23:21.680 their relationship remains deeply collaborative, but Jill is becoming increasingly 0:23:21.720 --> 0:23:25.560 aware of their age gap, which during this time almost 0:23:25.560 --> 0:23:30.080 seems to widen. A once vital, vibrant middle aged man, 0:23:30.720 --> 0:23:34.520 Arnold is slowing down and becoming more physically vulnerable as 0:23:34.520 --> 0:23:35.000 he ages. 0:23:36.359 --> 0:23:39.800 New York is a difficult place for old people. One 0:23:39.880 --> 0:23:42.840 we lived in a five flight walk home, which became 0:23:42.880 --> 0:23:45.960 the subject of one of my books because it was 0:23:46.400 --> 0:23:49.199 insurmountable you know, it's an old person. If you end 0:23:49.280 --> 0:23:52.320 up in a walk up, you are as trapped there 0:23:52.359 --> 0:23:54.440 as you would be on the Kansas farm in the 0:23:54.480 --> 0:23:57.800 middle of nowhere, you know, unable to drive. I mean, 0:23:57.920 --> 0:24:02.760 so I knew as he was hitting eighty, I had 0:24:02.760 --> 0:24:05.720 to come up with another plan. And so you know, 0:24:05.760 --> 0:24:08.160 I ended up applying for teaching jobs and came down 0:24:08.200 --> 0:24:12.080 here to Florida. But again, you know now that I'm 0:24:12.240 --> 0:24:17.480 entering the age that Arnold had entered when I started 0:24:17.520 --> 0:24:20.399 to notice an age, And now I'm in that place. 0:24:21.119 --> 0:24:25.040 There are moments when I think about what I asked 0:24:25.080 --> 0:24:28.639 him to do when he was in his seventies, like 0:24:29.080 --> 0:24:33.840 travel with backpacks around Malaysia. We went around the world 0:24:33.880 --> 0:24:37.280 to these remote islands. He just you know, tried to 0:24:37.359 --> 0:24:40.280 keep up with me. And at seventy I realized, oh 0:24:40.320 --> 0:24:43.480 my god. Like I remember when we would get to 0:24:43.520 --> 0:24:45.000 New York. We had a place in New York, and 0:24:45.040 --> 0:24:47.240