1 00:00:00,160 --> 00:00:06,439 Speaker 1: Family Secrets is a production of iHeartRadio. 2 00:00:06,720 --> 00:00:10,280 Speaker 2: My mother always had her secrets. I stood out of bed, 3 00:00:10,520 --> 00:00:14,320 Speaker 2: too anxious to sleep. The wooden floorboards creaked as I 4 00:00:14,360 --> 00:00:18,080 Speaker 2: crossed the darkness. I raised the window when the cool 5 00:00:18,200 --> 00:00:22,520 Speaker 2: night touched my tired eyes. Fireflies shone and died in 6 00:00:22,520 --> 00:00:26,640 Speaker 2: the dark. The silhouette of mountains glimmered on the horizon. 7 00:00:27,680 --> 00:00:30,920 Speaker 2: All families have subjects that are understood to be better 8 00:00:31,000 --> 00:00:33,159 Speaker 2: not discussed, and we were no different. 9 00:00:34,600 --> 00:00:36,320 Speaker 3: My eyes shifted to the shelf. 10 00:00:36,040 --> 00:00:39,559 Speaker 2: Of neatly ordered CDs, settling on the face of the 11 00:00:39,600 --> 00:00:42,239 Speaker 2: man my mother and I had not discussed for more 12 00:00:42,280 --> 00:00:46,720 Speaker 2: than ten years. His mess of brown curls and angled 13 00:00:46,800 --> 00:00:50,360 Speaker 2: chin resembled mine. For years, I had done all I 14 00:00:50,400 --> 00:00:53,840 Speaker 2: could not to think of that man. It was easier 15 00:00:53,880 --> 00:00:56,280 Speaker 2: to refuse my thoughts about him when I was abroad 16 00:00:56,840 --> 00:01:00,720 Speaker 2: in the life I had made for myself spoken his 17 00:01:00,920 --> 00:01:02,560 Speaker 2: name since leaving home. 18 00:01:04,200 --> 00:01:09,360 Speaker 4: That's Sam Sussman, novelist, essayist, author of the recently published 19 00:01:09,400 --> 00:01:13,319 Speaker 4: novel Boy from the North Country. Sam's is a story 20 00:01:13,400 --> 00:01:18,000 Speaker 4: of hints and haunts, secrets and longing. It's a story 21 00:01:18,040 --> 00:01:20,720 Speaker 4: about possibly being the son of one of the most 22 00:01:20,840 --> 00:01:25,800 Speaker 4: famous men of our time. Emphasis Possibly it's also a 23 00:01:25,840 --> 00:01:29,560 Speaker 4: story of a son's devotion and love for his remarkable mother. 24 00:01:41,240 --> 00:01:45,399 Speaker 4: I'm Danny Shapiro, and this is family secrets, secrets that 25 00:01:45,400 --> 00:01:47,960 Speaker 4: are kept from us, the secrets we keep from others, 26 00:01:48,320 --> 00:01:55,840 Speaker 4: and the secrets we keep from ourselves. Sam, tell me 27 00:01:55,880 --> 00:02:00,559 Speaker 4: about the landscape of your childhood in Goshen, Upstate, New York. 28 00:02:01,920 --> 00:02:02,240 Speaker 3: Well. 29 00:02:02,320 --> 00:02:05,040 Speaker 2: I grew up with my mother in the Hudson Valley 30 00:02:05,520 --> 00:02:10,519 Speaker 2: near Goshen, in the woods. It was an extraordinary landscape. 31 00:02:10,680 --> 00:02:18,240 Speaker 2: It was peaceful and quiet. We had horses, dogs, rabbits, 32 00:02:18,919 --> 00:02:25,560 Speaker 2: cheap cats, and it was fairly isolated, but in a 33 00:02:25,880 --> 00:02:29,720 Speaker 2: wonderful way. Some of my earliest memories are of my 34 00:02:29,840 --> 00:02:33,160 Speaker 2: mother reading to me. There was a hammock in the 35 00:02:33,200 --> 00:02:38,079 Speaker 2: backyard and between two pine trees, and she would read 36 00:02:38,080 --> 00:02:43,760 Speaker 2: out there to me. And my childhood was one full 37 00:02:43,960 --> 00:02:49,359 Speaker 2: of art and literature and creative expression and nature and 38 00:02:50,160 --> 00:02:53,480 Speaker 2: also a lot of other people. My mother worked as 39 00:02:53,480 --> 00:02:58,840 Speaker 2: a holistic health practitioner, really before wellness culture was as 40 00:02:58,919 --> 00:03:04,640 Speaker 2: mainstream as it is now, and people came to our home. 41 00:03:04,760 --> 00:03:07,400 Speaker 2: Her office was in the back of our house, and 42 00:03:08,320 --> 00:03:12,680 Speaker 2: she had training in psychology and nutrition and kinesiology and meditation, 43 00:03:12,840 --> 00:03:16,680 Speaker 2: and she would sit with people and her work was 44 00:03:16,720 --> 00:03:22,320 Speaker 2: about helping other people live full lives emotionally, physically, spiritually, 45 00:03:23,080 --> 00:03:27,400 Speaker 2: And so the idea of healing was very present in 46 00:03:27,440 --> 00:03:30,960 Speaker 2: my childhood. But of course when I was young, I 47 00:03:31,000 --> 00:03:34,920 Speaker 2: had very little idea of what my mother herself might 48 00:03:34,960 --> 00:03:36,280 Speaker 2: be healing from. 49 00:03:36,640 --> 00:03:40,880 Speaker 4: And she was a great lover of storytelling, right like 50 00:03:40,960 --> 00:03:44,120 Speaker 4: she both the stories the people in her practice told her, 51 00:03:44,200 --> 00:03:47,360 Speaker 4: and also that she would read aloud to you, and 52 00:03:47,480 --> 00:03:51,920 Speaker 4: reading stories together seems like it was woven into your childhood. 53 00:03:52,280 --> 00:03:54,880 Speaker 2: I think it was a love language between us. 54 00:03:55,080 --> 00:03:57,200 Speaker 3: She loved reading aloud. 55 00:03:57,680 --> 00:04:00,440 Speaker 2: She had been an actress in her twenty and of 56 00:04:00,440 --> 00:04:02,400 Speaker 2: course I didn't know that as a child when she 57 00:04:02,480 --> 00:04:05,400 Speaker 2: was reading to me. But there was this great majesty 58 00:04:05,480 --> 00:04:08,480 Speaker 2: to the way that she would read a book, and 59 00:04:08,560 --> 00:04:13,200 Speaker 2: she read me Harry Potter and King Arthur and Robin Hood. 60 00:04:13,280 --> 00:04:16,840 Speaker 2: And it's striking now when I think back on my childhood. 61 00:04:17,400 --> 00:04:20,560 Speaker 2: This was the mid late nineties. I mean, all the 62 00:04:20,680 --> 00:04:24,599 Speaker 2: digital technologies that have come into our lives were there, 63 00:04:24,680 --> 00:04:28,400 Speaker 2: and yet we didn't have cable television. We had an 64 00:04:28,440 --> 00:04:31,040 Speaker 2: old TV on which we would watch a film, maybe 65 00:04:31,360 --> 00:04:36,320 Speaker 2: once a month, and my mom somehow sort of kept 66 00:04:36,320 --> 00:04:39,800 Speaker 2: the Internet from me until I was about twelve. So 67 00:04:39,880 --> 00:04:46,200 Speaker 2: my childhood was extraordinarily pastoral. And what she encouraged in 68 00:04:46,279 --> 00:04:52,200 Speaker 2: me was a love of the arts, creativity, nature, animals. 69 00:04:52,760 --> 00:04:54,960 Speaker 2: That was really the world that I grew up in. 70 00:04:55,760 --> 00:04:58,240 Speaker 4: You became a vegetarian early on, didn't you. 71 00:04:58,839 --> 00:05:00,679 Speaker 3: It was the first choice I ever made. 72 00:05:01,279 --> 00:05:04,080 Speaker 2: My mother used to tell the story like this, We're 73 00:05:04,120 --> 00:05:07,479 Speaker 2: in a pizza Rhea and I was four and I 74 00:05:07,560 --> 00:05:11,200 Speaker 2: said to her, does pizza have dead animal in it? 75 00:05:11,920 --> 00:05:15,599 Speaker 2: And she said no, Why are you asking? And I said, 76 00:05:15,920 --> 00:05:18,680 Speaker 2: you know, I've heard that some foods have dead animal. 77 00:05:18,760 --> 00:05:22,160 Speaker 2: I really don't want to eat that. And something that 78 00:05:22,240 --> 00:05:26,799 Speaker 2: was extraordinary about my mother is she really cared about 79 00:05:27,440 --> 00:05:33,279 Speaker 2: cultivating and nourishing what she saw as being true within me. 80 00:05:33,640 --> 00:05:36,960 Speaker 2: And she respected that decision even though I was four. 81 00:05:37,080 --> 00:05:40,080 Speaker 2: And of course it added complexity to her life as 82 00:05:40,080 --> 00:05:43,119 Speaker 2: a single mother to be now have a vegetarian child 83 00:05:43,120 --> 00:05:44,200 Speaker 2: and a child. 84 00:05:43,920 --> 00:05:47,360 Speaker 3: That ate meat, and she ate me. I didn't know 85 00:05:47,400 --> 00:05:47,919 Speaker 3: the word. 86 00:05:47,839 --> 00:05:51,200 Speaker 2: Vegetarian until people started saying to me, oh, we hear 87 00:05:51,240 --> 00:05:55,480 Speaker 2: you're a vegetarian. But that for me came from the 88 00:05:55,600 --> 00:06:00,120 Speaker 2: love of the animals I grew up with, and a 89 00:06:00,240 --> 00:06:05,080 Speaker 2: sort of feeling of terror that I might have, unbeknownst 90 00:06:05,080 --> 00:06:08,159 Speaker 2: to myself, been eating those animals. 91 00:06:09,680 --> 00:06:12,359 Speaker 4: Sam goes off to school in a very rural part 92 00:06:12,440 --> 00:06:17,800 Speaker 4: of New York State. He's vegetarian, he's bookish, he's Jewish. 93 00:06:18,320 --> 00:06:21,560 Speaker 4: None of this helps him win any popularity contests in 94 00:06:21,640 --> 00:06:22,200 Speaker 4: this milieu. 95 00:06:23,880 --> 00:06:25,800 Speaker 3: I was bullied horribly. 96 00:06:26,680 --> 00:06:30,200 Speaker 2: I went to a Waldorf school until I was ten, 97 00:06:30,800 --> 00:06:34,000 Speaker 2: and so up until that point I was somewhat insulated 98 00:06:34,600 --> 00:06:40,000 Speaker 2: because there were other people who more shared my mother's values. 99 00:06:40,960 --> 00:06:44,640 Speaker 2: But I switched to the public school when I was ten, 100 00:06:44,839 --> 00:06:48,640 Speaker 2: and I just had no sense of how out of 101 00:06:48,760 --> 00:06:51,240 Speaker 2: place I was. There would have been no way for 102 00:06:51,360 --> 00:06:52,440 Speaker 2: me to know. 103 00:06:52,800 --> 00:06:56,800 Speaker 3: And kids were, you know, I was a vegetarian. 104 00:06:57,200 --> 00:06:59,320 Speaker 2: That was the strangest thing they'd ever heard. And they 105 00:06:59,360 --> 00:07:02,640 Speaker 2: would try to shove meet at me or rub it 106 00:07:02,680 --> 00:07:06,040 Speaker 2: on my face, and sometimes in harmless ways. Other kids 107 00:07:06,080 --> 00:07:08,279 Speaker 2: would ask, you know, what TV shows do you like, 108 00:07:08,600 --> 00:07:11,960 Speaker 2: and I'd say, oh, we don't have TV, and the 109 00:07:12,040 --> 00:07:15,080 Speaker 2: kid would just kind of walk away because they wouldn't 110 00:07:15,080 --> 00:07:18,960 Speaker 2: know it to say to me. And then, of course, 111 00:07:19,560 --> 00:07:22,600 Speaker 2: being Jewish, this is not a part of the world 112 00:07:22,680 --> 00:07:26,760 Speaker 2: to which in which many Jews choose to live, and 113 00:07:27,640 --> 00:07:33,160 Speaker 2: it's a politically and culturally very conservative place. And the 114 00:07:33,240 --> 00:07:38,280 Speaker 2: only Jewish community nearby is the Hasidic community in Kirosol, 115 00:07:39,040 --> 00:07:41,760 Speaker 2: for which there is really great deal of anti Semitism. 116 00:07:42,320 --> 00:07:47,080 Speaker 2: And I remember in school that coming through in all 117 00:07:47,160 --> 00:07:49,679 Speaker 2: sorts of ways. I mean, I remember a teacher saying 118 00:07:49,720 --> 00:07:53,840 Speaker 2: to me, why are the Jews ruining this town? Because 119 00:07:53,840 --> 00:07:58,520 Speaker 2: people were upset at how quickly curious Yell was expanding. 120 00:07:59,240 --> 00:08:01,080 Speaker 3: So for all of these reasons. 121 00:08:01,160 --> 00:08:04,800 Speaker 2: I mean, now I'm in my mid thirties and I 122 00:08:04,920 --> 00:08:08,440 Speaker 2: have the language to articulate what was happening. I was 123 00:08:09,120 --> 00:08:16,320 Speaker 2: the child of a progressive minded, counter cultural sixties flower child, 124 00:08:16,720 --> 00:08:21,640 Speaker 2: growing up in a deeply red part of America without 125 00:08:22,040 --> 00:08:25,800 Speaker 2: many people who shared my cultural background. But of course, 126 00:08:25,840 --> 00:08:29,400 Speaker 2: as a child, I just felt this was all about me, 127 00:08:29,880 --> 00:08:35,000 Speaker 2: and it was very, very painful to deal with. 128 00:08:35,720 --> 00:08:38,520 Speaker 4: Well, it strikes me too that you know, as you 129 00:08:38,559 --> 00:08:45,280 Speaker 4: described your mother and flower child, and not particularly religious 130 00:08:45,280 --> 00:08:49,040 Speaker 4: in any way in terms of Judaism and this life 131 00:08:49,080 --> 00:08:53,640 Speaker 4: that you were living with her in Goshen, and the 132 00:08:53,679 --> 00:08:59,400 Speaker 4: only other sort of identifiable Jewish community there being people 133 00:08:59,440 --> 00:09:03,679 Speaker 4: who may share an ethnicity with you, but must have 134 00:09:03,800 --> 00:09:06,960 Speaker 4: also seemed kind of unrecognizable to you as. 135 00:09:06,840 --> 00:09:12,440 Speaker 2: Well, right, And you know that was the irony of 136 00:09:12,720 --> 00:09:16,559 Speaker 2: being culturally Jewish in that landscape, is that the hasidam 137 00:09:16,800 --> 00:09:21,839 Speaker 2: certainly wouldn't have recognized me as Jewish, and yet the 138 00:09:21,840 --> 00:09:24,040 Speaker 2: people I was going to school with or the adults 139 00:09:24,080 --> 00:09:28,040 Speaker 2: around me associated me with that world. 140 00:09:29,080 --> 00:09:32,240 Speaker 3: My mother was religious in her own way. 141 00:09:32,760 --> 00:09:36,600 Speaker 2: She drew on many of the spiritual dimensions of Judaism, 142 00:09:37,320 --> 00:09:41,960 Speaker 2: but I think, like many people of her generation, she 143 00:09:42,160 --> 00:09:47,640 Speaker 2: hadn't had the best experiences within organized Jewish community, and 144 00:09:47,720 --> 00:09:51,520 Speaker 2: so she had taken some of the ideas and the 145 00:09:51,760 --> 00:09:57,000 Speaker 2: identity and made her own Jewish identity out of that. 146 00:10:00,200 --> 00:10:03,160 Speaker 4: For all his mother's love of stories, listening to them, 147 00:10:03,440 --> 00:10:08,480 Speaker 4: telling them, there's one she never speaks, Sam grows up 148 00:10:08,480 --> 00:10:12,160 Speaker 4: in the shadow of that silence, sensing its presence long 149 00:10:12,200 --> 00:10:15,959 Speaker 4: before he can name it. At thirteen, around his bar Mitzvah, 150 00:10:16,240 --> 00:10:19,200 Speaker 4: a teacher pulls him aside and says, you look like 151 00:10:19,520 --> 00:10:23,000 Speaker 4: this musician. Some people say he's a poet. You might 152 00:10:23,040 --> 00:10:27,560 Speaker 4: be interested in him. Sam searches the name Bob Dylan. 153 00:10:29,000 --> 00:10:33,040 Speaker 4: It's not just the resemblance that strikes him. It's the feeling, too, 154 00:10:33,400 --> 00:10:38,800 Speaker 4: the feeling of a quiet vibration, not proof, but possibility. 155 00:10:39,160 --> 00:10:41,480 Speaker 4: His mom has had a series of partners through the years, 156 00:10:41,840 --> 00:10:45,679 Speaker 4: semi father figures coming in and out of Sam's life. 157 00:10:45,720 --> 00:10:49,640 Speaker 4: His paternity was never something he directly questioned. But now 158 00:10:50,559 --> 00:10:56,400 Speaker 4: now there's this him, this famous musician, this poet, this 159 00:10:56,600 --> 00:10:59,240 Speaker 4: towering cultural figure, the Bard. 160 00:11:01,280 --> 00:11:05,520 Speaker 2: Well, the first thing that happened is when people told 161 00:11:05,559 --> 00:11:12,800 Speaker 2: me that I started listening to his music, and. 162 00:11:11,280 --> 00:11:14,120 Speaker 3: For me, there was this isn't unique to me. 163 00:11:14,320 --> 00:11:17,360 Speaker 2: Tens of millions of people have felt this, but there 164 00:11:17,440 --> 00:11:22,400 Speaker 2: was a deep I felt a deep connection and thrill. 165 00:11:22,640 --> 00:11:27,760 Speaker 2: And I remember standing at the window of my childhood 166 00:11:27,800 --> 00:11:33,120 Speaker 2: bedroom with ear muff headphones on, listening to Blonde on 167 00:11:33,200 --> 00:11:39,040 Speaker 2: Blonde and looking out into the dark night and just 168 00:11:39,160 --> 00:11:45,080 Speaker 2: feeling this majestic sense that Dylan had been a kid 169 00:11:45,120 --> 00:11:48,360 Speaker 2: just like me, this Jewish kid in rural America who 170 00:11:48,360 --> 00:11:52,079 Speaker 2: had wanted to be a writer. And at this point, 171 00:11:52,120 --> 00:11:55,400 Speaker 2: I'm the kid in the back of the classroom scribbling 172 00:11:55,800 --> 00:12:00,240 Speaker 2: poetry in his marble composition notebook, and I'm a listening 173 00:12:00,320 --> 00:12:04,000 Speaker 2: to this music at night. I'm looking onto the hills 174 00:12:04,040 --> 00:12:07,280 Speaker 2: in the valley and our isolated part of the world. 175 00:12:07,360 --> 00:12:12,120 Speaker 2: And I'm thinking Dylan wasn't that much older than I was, when, 176 00:12:13,040 --> 00:12:17,320 Speaker 2: as the legend he told goes, he got on this 177 00:12:17,400 --> 00:12:20,320 Speaker 2: freight train and came to New York and wrote his 178 00:12:20,520 --> 00:12:24,080 Speaker 2: way into being the artist that he felt he could be. 179 00:12:24,880 --> 00:12:28,000 Speaker 2: And one day I was with my mother's partner at 180 00:12:28,040 --> 00:12:32,040 Speaker 2: the time. We were in the car and like a 181 00:12:32,120 --> 00:12:37,000 Speaker 2: rolling stone came on and he said to me, there's 182 00:12:37,040 --> 00:12:40,240 Speaker 2: a line in there about your mother, And I said, 183 00:12:40,520 --> 00:12:46,280 Speaker 2: what It was just inconceivable Dylan to me, First of all, 184 00:12:46,320 --> 00:12:48,360 Speaker 2: I knew I was listening to music that had been 185 00:12:48,400 --> 00:12:53,440 Speaker 2: made forty years ago. So it was like he was 186 00:12:53,480 --> 00:12:59,560 Speaker 2: telling me, your mother knew Shakespeare, your mother not quite, 187 00:12:59,600 --> 00:13:02,319 Speaker 2: but your other knew King Arthur. It just didn't make sense. 188 00:13:03,200 --> 00:13:05,480 Speaker 2: But I also knew that he was wrong because that 189 00:13:05,520 --> 00:13:07,800 Speaker 2: song came out when my mother was thirteen years old. 190 00:13:08,720 --> 00:13:15,640 Speaker 2: But there were further conversations, and my mother at some 191 00:13:15,720 --> 00:13:19,559 Speaker 2: point acknowledged to me that she had known him and 192 00:13:19,840 --> 00:13:24,040 Speaker 2: that she had had a romantic relationship with him. 193 00:13:24,200 --> 00:13:33,120 Speaker 4: We'll be back in a moment with more family secrets. 194 00:13:34,200 --> 00:13:37,760 Speaker 4: What I'm so interested in is where this lived inside 195 00:13:37,800 --> 00:13:42,120 Speaker 4: of you? You know, this boy growing up wanting to 196 00:13:42,160 --> 00:13:45,520 Speaker 4: be an artist, wanting to be a writer, already knowing 197 00:13:45,600 --> 00:13:49,960 Speaker 4: he is in some way. And then when did it 198 00:13:50,000 --> 00:13:55,160 Speaker 4: occur to you? Because your mother's relationship with Dylan that 199 00:13:55,200 --> 00:13:58,080 Speaker 4: she told you about it happened many years before you 200 00:13:58,080 --> 00:14:03,960 Speaker 4: were born, so again, like a rolling stone and her 201 00:14:04,000 --> 00:14:07,400 Speaker 4: being in a lyric, it didn't really make sense. And 202 00:14:07,520 --> 00:14:10,760 Speaker 4: yet everywhere you go, whether it's the gas station or 203 00:14:10,800 --> 00:14:16,320 Speaker 4: your coaches in school or other different teachers saying to you, 204 00:14:16,320 --> 00:14:18,719 Speaker 4: you look like this guy. And no matter what you did, 205 00:14:18,760 --> 00:14:21,080 Speaker 4: whether you cut your hair short or you grew your 206 00:14:21,080 --> 00:14:24,520 Speaker 4: hair long, or it didn't stop. This was something that 207 00:14:24,920 --> 00:14:27,840 Speaker 4: continued to happen. Where did that live in you? And 208 00:14:27,920 --> 00:14:32,440 Speaker 4: did you question whether, in some crazy magical way, maybe 209 00:14:32,920 --> 00:14:33,920 Speaker 4: how could it be possible? 210 00:14:34,640 --> 00:14:38,880 Speaker 2: Of course, it was one of those stories that made 211 00:14:39,040 --> 00:14:43,120 Speaker 2: and refused sense at the same time. And I knew 212 00:14:43,160 --> 00:14:49,720 Speaker 2: that something's missing, and I was also scared of knowing more. 213 00:14:51,560 --> 00:14:57,200 Speaker 2: I was scared of knowing something that would be a 214 00:14:57,240 --> 00:15:02,640 Speaker 2: completely different story of my life. And at a certain 215 00:15:02,800 --> 00:15:08,640 Speaker 2: point one night, my mother and I were driving to 216 00:15:08,800 --> 00:15:13,120 Speaker 2: a therapist I was seeing at that time, and it 217 00:15:13,240 --> 00:15:15,560 Speaker 2: was the first time that she brought Dylan up to 218 00:15:15,640 --> 00:15:20,920 Speaker 2: me without me asking, and I was a sulky teenager 219 00:15:20,960 --> 00:15:25,320 Speaker 2: in the car with my headphones on. And you know, 220 00:15:25,480 --> 00:15:28,000 Speaker 2: one feature of that landscape is that it's very dark 221 00:15:28,040 --> 00:15:31,480 Speaker 2: at night, so you drive the roads at night, and 222 00:15:32,760 --> 00:15:35,880 Speaker 2: you know, I think, like many parents, my mother used 223 00:15:35,880 --> 00:15:40,720 Speaker 2: the car ride and a captive audience to have difficult conversation. 224 00:15:41,880 --> 00:15:44,600 Speaker 3: And she brought him up. 225 00:15:45,280 --> 00:15:49,160 Speaker 2: And it was really the first time that, unprodded, she 226 00:15:49,240 --> 00:15:53,120 Speaker 2: spoke to me about their relationship and about meeting him. 227 00:15:54,480 --> 00:15:59,320 Speaker 2: And she talked to me about how she'd met him 228 00:15:59,320 --> 00:16:02,080 Speaker 2: in nineteen seven before. And at a certain point I said, 229 00:16:02,560 --> 00:16:06,720 Speaker 2: did you ever see him again? And she said yes, 230 00:16:07,480 --> 00:16:09,520 Speaker 2: and she told me that they had been in touch 231 00:16:10,880 --> 00:16:15,160 Speaker 2: again much later on, including the year before I was born. 232 00:16:16,480 --> 00:16:21,320 Speaker 2: So when my mother was twenty, she was living in 233 00:16:21,360 --> 00:16:24,600 Speaker 2: New York. She was an actress. She had dropped out 234 00:16:24,640 --> 00:16:31,120 Speaker 2: of college, and she was living this youthful artistic dream 235 00:16:31,160 --> 00:16:34,240 Speaker 2: in New York. And she was in a painting class 236 00:16:34,280 --> 00:16:38,280 Speaker 2: top by Norman Rabin, who's the youngest child of Sean Malacam, 237 00:16:38,440 --> 00:16:42,520 Speaker 2: the great Yiddish writer. And one day Dylan turned up 238 00:16:42,560 --> 00:16:48,640 Speaker 2: in the class and there was sort of collective reverence 239 00:16:48,920 --> 00:16:52,200 Speaker 2: for him. You know what you would imagine. Raven had 240 00:16:52,200 --> 00:16:56,040 Speaker 2: a practice where at the end of a day of painting, 241 00:16:56,640 --> 00:17:00,560 Speaker 2: everyone would go around and give feedback on the other 242 00:17:00,640 --> 00:17:04,919 Speaker 2: students work, And when it was Dylan's turn, people just 243 00:17:05,000 --> 00:17:10,679 Speaker 2: said things like, your painting speaks, like your lyrics, I mean, 244 00:17:10,880 --> 00:17:13,040 Speaker 2: just pure reverence. 245 00:17:13,920 --> 00:17:16,280 Speaker 3: And my mother told. 246 00:17:16,119 --> 00:17:20,919 Speaker 2: Him that his painting was harsh and uninviting and pointed 247 00:17:20,960 --> 00:17:23,640 Speaker 2: out a few ways he might think differently about it, 248 00:17:24,600 --> 00:17:27,159 Speaker 2: and he took to this. And I think the reason 249 00:17:27,240 --> 00:17:30,920 Speaker 2: he was interested in her is because at that moment 250 00:17:31,000 --> 00:17:36,480 Speaker 2: of his life, he was going through deep personal and 251 00:17:36,600 --> 00:17:39,560 Speaker 2: artistic crisis. And he had come to that painting class 252 00:17:40,040 --> 00:17:43,680 Speaker 2: because Rabin was revered as a painter who could help 253 00:17:43,760 --> 00:17:49,680 Speaker 2: other artists find their way through difficulty. And Dylan wasn't 254 00:17:49,720 --> 00:17:51,440 Speaker 2: there because he wanted to be told that he was 255 00:17:51,480 --> 00:17:55,600 Speaker 2: a great painter. He was there so he could reach 256 00:17:55,720 --> 00:18:00,160 Speaker 2: more deeply into his own artwork and create meaningful work. 257 00:18:00,920 --> 00:18:04,600 Speaker 2: And so when this twenty year old student was talking 258 00:18:04,600 --> 00:18:08,680 Speaker 2: to him about what wasn't working, he was interested in her. 259 00:18:08,760 --> 00:18:12,520 Speaker 2: And one day after class he comes up to her 260 00:18:13,200 --> 00:18:16,600 Speaker 2: and he says, you know, why don't you host the 261 00:18:16,600 --> 00:18:19,840 Speaker 2: party for the class at your place. This really doesn't 262 00:18:19,840 --> 00:18:23,000 Speaker 2: make any sense to her. He can have a party 263 00:18:23,040 --> 00:18:26,760 Speaker 2: anywhere he wants. Obviously, he's Dylan. He has money, he 264 00:18:26,760 --> 00:18:32,880 Speaker 2: has celebrity. She lives in a modest, one bedroom walk 265 00:18:32,960 --> 00:18:34,800 Speaker 2: up in New Yorkville on the Upper East Side. It's 266 00:18:34,800 --> 00:18:37,840 Speaker 2: actually the apartment where i'm speaking to you from now. 267 00:18:37,960 --> 00:18:42,879 Speaker 2: I've lived here the last five years. And she does it. 268 00:18:43,480 --> 00:18:47,080 Speaker 2: She hosts this party and he comes, and he's Dylan. 269 00:18:47,359 --> 00:18:53,679 Speaker 2: He's standoffish, he doesn't really talk to people. And then 270 00:18:53,720 --> 00:18:57,919 Speaker 2: when the last guest is leaving in the early hours 271 00:18:57,920 --> 00:19:01,760 Speaker 2: of the morning, he walks the guest to the door, 272 00:19:02,880 --> 00:19:07,199 Speaker 2: presses the door shut with his cowboy boots, and he 273 00:19:07,280 --> 00:19:10,560 Speaker 2: turns and looks at my mother and says, well, that 274 00:19:10,760 --> 00:19:13,600 Speaker 2: was boring. And then of course it's the two of 275 00:19:13,640 --> 00:19:18,160 Speaker 2: them alone in her apartment. And they began seeing one 276 00:19:18,160 --> 00:19:25,400 Speaker 2: another and they had a very creatively intense relationship. And 277 00:19:26,160 --> 00:19:30,480 Speaker 2: at this period, he's struggling through his crises to write 278 00:19:30,480 --> 00:19:33,360 Speaker 2: the songs that will be blood on the tracks, and 279 00:19:34,359 --> 00:19:38,600 Speaker 2: she's struggling through her own artistic path as an actress, 280 00:19:39,200 --> 00:19:41,879 Speaker 2: and he would come over and write lyrics and play 281 00:19:42,440 --> 00:19:45,480 Speaker 2: songs for her, and they would talk about what worked 282 00:19:45,560 --> 00:19:47,560 Speaker 2: or didn't work, and he would help her with lines 283 00:19:47,600 --> 00:19:50,720 Speaker 2: of her play, and they would just listen to music 284 00:19:51,359 --> 00:19:55,560 Speaker 2: and read poetry aloud to each other. There was a 285 00:19:55,720 --> 00:20:02,280 Speaker 2: night that she lit him a pipe on stove and 286 00:20:02,960 --> 00:20:07,200 Speaker 2: read in Petrarch, which mirrors a moment Entangled Up in Blue, 287 00:20:07,400 --> 00:20:09,440 Speaker 2: a song that he wrote. 288 00:20:09,240 --> 00:20:10,040 Speaker 3: Around that time. 289 00:20:15,840 --> 00:20:18,639 Speaker 4: Here in the Car is the first and one of 290 00:20:18,640 --> 00:20:22,000 Speaker 4: the only times Sam's mother opens up even a little 291 00:20:22,400 --> 00:20:26,160 Speaker 4: about this piece of her history. But that deep, silent 292 00:20:26,400 --> 00:20:30,359 Speaker 4: tugging thing within him causes Sam to ask, did you 293 00:20:30,400 --> 00:20:31,320 Speaker 4: ever see him again? 294 00:20:32,400 --> 00:20:32,480 Speaker 3: But? 295 00:20:32,760 --> 00:20:35,560 Speaker 4: Why? How do we into it? What we cannot know? 296 00:20:36,600 --> 00:20:39,560 Speaker 4: As Sam says, it made and refused sense at the 297 00:20:39,600 --> 00:20:42,399 Speaker 4: same time. And as he writes in an essay in 298 00:20:42,480 --> 00:20:46,919 Speaker 4: Harper's Magazine, what more satisfying validation could there be for 299 00:20:47,000 --> 00:20:51,600 Speaker 4: a shy Jewish, vegetarian, bullied teenager than a secret lineage 300 00:20:51,840 --> 00:20:54,919 Speaker 4: from the greatest Bard of our age? And then a 301 00:20:54,920 --> 00:20:58,040 Speaker 4: little bit later he writes, there were worse people whose 302 00:20:58,080 --> 00:21:02,119 Speaker 4: secret child I might be. So now Sam has this 303 00:21:02,200 --> 00:21:06,720 Speaker 4: piece of information slash non information, he moves deeper into 304 00:21:06,840 --> 00:21:10,720 Speaker 4: existential questions for which he has no answers. He also 305 00:21:10,800 --> 00:21:13,600 Speaker 4: reads everything he can get his hands on about Dylan. 306 00:21:14,960 --> 00:21:18,679 Speaker 2: She didn't want to talk more about it. Those parts 307 00:21:18,680 --> 00:21:24,960 Speaker 2: of her past, her youth, those were not parts of 308 00:21:25,000 --> 00:21:32,240 Speaker 2: her life that she spoke easily about. And it wasn't 309 00:21:32,359 --> 00:21:37,920 Speaker 2: only her relationship with him that she was uneasy about. 310 00:21:39,040 --> 00:21:45,240 Speaker 2: And part of the journey of our adult relationship was 311 00:21:45,320 --> 00:21:50,720 Speaker 2: her gradually becoming more vulnerable and letting me see the 312 00:21:50,880 --> 00:21:56,520 Speaker 2: experiences that had made her who she was before I 313 00:21:56,680 --> 00:22:00,040 Speaker 2: was born. And I think in some way that I 314 00:22:00,600 --> 00:22:06,760 Speaker 2: had to wait until I left home and had slightly 315 00:22:06,880 --> 00:22:11,600 Speaker 2: more of an adult advantage point to understand what she 316 00:22:11,840 --> 00:22:14,639 Speaker 2: wanted and needed to tell me. 317 00:22:15,400 --> 00:22:16,240 Speaker 3: And so in. 318 00:22:16,160 --> 00:22:20,119 Speaker 2: That period between when she spoke to me for the 319 00:22:20,160 --> 00:22:26,200 Speaker 2: first time about her having seen him the year before 320 00:22:26,240 --> 00:22:29,520 Speaker 2: I was born and the time that I left home, 321 00:22:30,359 --> 00:22:35,520 Speaker 2: it was not something that we talked about. And what 322 00:22:35,640 --> 00:22:40,720 Speaker 2: it became for me was a way of thinking about 323 00:22:40,840 --> 00:22:44,200 Speaker 2: my displacement in that part of the world and about 324 00:22:44,200 --> 00:22:47,679 Speaker 2: how I would leave that behind, that I would go 325 00:22:47,800 --> 00:22:49,960 Speaker 2: out into the world and I would become the writer 326 00:22:50,080 --> 00:22:51,040 Speaker 2: that I was meant to be. 327 00:22:51,920 --> 00:22:53,640 Speaker 3: And I don't think that now. 328 00:22:53,480 --> 00:22:57,240 Speaker 2: In retrospect twenty years later, I think that was a 329 00:22:57,280 --> 00:23:01,600 Speaker 2: misreading of my own life, and much of what I've 330 00:23:01,800 --> 00:23:06,520 Speaker 2: written about is coming into the realization that actually that 331 00:23:06,760 --> 00:23:10,719 Speaker 2: love of literature and that desire to be an artist 332 00:23:10,920 --> 00:23:13,920 Speaker 2: so much came from my mother, but I couldn't see 333 00:23:13,920 --> 00:23:17,040 Speaker 2: that at that point of my life, and what she 334 00:23:17,119 --> 00:23:21,080 Speaker 2: had told me about Dylan became the way that I 335 00:23:21,240 --> 00:23:25,879 Speaker 2: understood what it would mean for me to leave home, 336 00:23:26,280 --> 00:23:29,760 Speaker 2: to leave my hometown as he had left his, and 337 00:23:29,880 --> 00:23:33,280 Speaker 2: go out into the world and accumulate my experiences as 338 00:23:33,280 --> 00:23:37,720 Speaker 2: he'd accumulated his, and become the artist that I was 339 00:23:37,760 --> 00:23:41,439 Speaker 2: meant to be. And I remember thinking on some of 340 00:23:41,440 --> 00:23:44,520 Speaker 2: those nights in the quiet of the house, looking onto 341 00:23:44,560 --> 00:23:48,840 Speaker 2: the hills and the mountains, listening to his music, looking 342 00:23:48,840 --> 00:23:54,600 Speaker 2: at my reflection, and thinking to myself, if his blood 343 00:23:54,640 --> 00:23:57,000 Speaker 2: is in my veins, there's nothing that can stop me. 344 00:23:58,440 --> 00:24:01,560 Speaker 2: I can leave everything that has been painful in my 345 00:24:01,680 --> 00:24:06,880 Speaker 2: life behind this trail of men. These people, my peers 346 00:24:06,880 --> 00:24:11,280 Speaker 2: who have bullied me, the teachers who failed me on 347 00:24:11,320 --> 00:24:13,879 Speaker 2: a paper because they said I was plagiarizing when I 348 00:24:14,080 --> 00:24:17,879 Speaker 2: used a word I'd learned the day before on dictionary 349 00:24:17,920 --> 00:24:20,199 Speaker 2: dot com Word of the Day. Thanks for signing me 350 00:24:20,280 --> 00:24:23,959 Speaker 2: up for that, Mom, The way I thought about him was, 351 00:24:25,119 --> 00:24:29,800 Speaker 2: this is larger than everything that I have been through 352 00:24:30,280 --> 00:24:33,760 Speaker 2: and that has been painful in my life, and I'm 353 00:24:33,760 --> 00:24:36,399 Speaker 2: going to go out into the world and nothing can 354 00:24:36,440 --> 00:24:39,800 Speaker 2: hold me back from becoming the artist that I'm going 355 00:24:39,840 --> 00:24:40,360 Speaker 2: to become. 356 00:24:42,400 --> 00:24:46,320 Speaker 4: Sam, Do you think that your mother had a sense 357 00:24:46,520 --> 00:24:51,080 Speaker 4: of that during those years? And you know that her 358 00:24:51,440 --> 00:24:56,640 Speaker 4: silence was in a way this very The only word 359 00:24:56,640 --> 00:25:00,280 Speaker 4: that's coming to mind is nobility in that silence that 360 00:25:00,320 --> 00:25:05,240 Speaker 4: she didn't you do some version of I am your mother, 361 00:25:05,280 --> 00:25:07,160 Speaker 4: and look what I've done, and I taught you all 362 00:25:07,160 --> 00:25:08,800 Speaker 4: these things, and I've raised you in this home, and 363 00:25:08,840 --> 00:25:11,480 Speaker 4: I read you all these stories. And did she know 364 00:25:11,680 --> 00:25:14,639 Speaker 4: that you were in your room listening to his music 365 00:25:14,720 --> 00:25:17,439 Speaker 4: and that this was kind of taking root in your 366 00:25:17,440 --> 00:25:20,040 Speaker 4: psychology at that time? Do you think she. 367 00:25:20,080 --> 00:25:23,120 Speaker 2: Knew I was listening to his music? And I think 368 00:25:23,160 --> 00:25:29,400 Speaker 2: that's very insightful what you said. My mother was someone who. 369 00:25:30,440 --> 00:25:34,520 Speaker 3: Faced indignity with great dignity. 370 00:25:35,119 --> 00:25:42,240 Speaker 2: And she was someone who knew how to rise above 371 00:25:43,520 --> 00:25:48,800 Speaker 2: the way that she was treated. And I think I'm 372 00:25:48,880 --> 00:25:51,119 Speaker 2: not a parent, but I think there is a certain 373 00:25:51,160 --> 00:25:55,399 Speaker 2: indignity in being a parent that you give so much 374 00:25:56,560 --> 00:26:01,320 Speaker 2: and then your child here, they are more concerned with 375 00:26:01,400 --> 00:26:06,400 Speaker 2: someone they don't know. And I think she also understood 376 00:26:07,600 --> 00:26:11,760 Speaker 2: that there's a time for every conversation. And what she 377 00:26:12,000 --> 00:26:16,080 Speaker 2: cared about deeply was that I would become the fullest 378 00:26:16,160 --> 00:26:20,960 Speaker 2: version of myself. And that didn't mean being a replica 379 00:26:21,080 --> 00:26:25,919 Speaker 2: of her. For her, I don't think it meant feeling 380 00:26:25,920 --> 00:26:29,600 Speaker 2: that I defined myself through her. She gave selflessly and 381 00:26:29,680 --> 00:26:35,000 Speaker 2: she didn't expect reverence in return, and the gift that she. 382 00:26:35,000 --> 00:26:37,000 Speaker 3: Was giving me in those years. 383 00:26:38,240 --> 00:26:43,399 Speaker 2: Was space to understand myself on my own terms. And 384 00:26:43,440 --> 00:26:47,040 Speaker 2: she was giving me the encouragement that I wasn't finding 385 00:26:47,800 --> 00:26:52,080 Speaker 2: at school or with peers. And I desperately tried to 386 00:26:52,119 --> 00:26:55,320 Speaker 2: keep my writing from her, but there were a few 387 00:26:55,359 --> 00:26:58,840 Speaker 2: times that I would not realize that something had been 388 00:26:58,840 --> 00:27:01,960 Speaker 2: printed out, and she would accidentally come across it in 389 00:27:02,000 --> 00:27:04,480 Speaker 2: the printer and let herself read it, and she would 390 00:27:04,480 --> 00:27:10,719 Speaker 2: say to me, keep writing, keep exploring yourself as an artist. 391 00:27:10,760 --> 00:27:12,920 Speaker 3: You have a gift. There's something here. 392 00:27:13,720 --> 00:27:20,200 Speaker 2: She was relentlessly encouraging and nurturing. And when I got 393 00:27:20,240 --> 00:27:23,000 Speaker 2: to be a little older and less embarrassed of myself 394 00:27:23,000 --> 00:27:26,720 Speaker 2: and ready to show her my work, she was my 395 00:27:26,800 --> 00:27:28,680 Speaker 2: favorite reader, or she was my reader. 396 00:27:28,359 --> 00:27:29,200 Speaker 3: Of first drafts. 397 00:27:29,280 --> 00:27:32,840 Speaker 2: We would talk endlessly about what I was writing about 398 00:27:33,359 --> 00:27:36,919 Speaker 2: the writers who mattered to her. She introduced me to 399 00:27:37,960 --> 00:27:40,639 Speaker 2: and that was a really important part of our relationship. 400 00:27:44,040 --> 00:27:55,800 Speaker 4: We'll be back in a moment with more family secrets. 401 00:27:57,359 --> 00:28:00,199 Speaker 4: It's the summer after Sam's sophomore year at swarz Our 402 00:28:00,280 --> 00:28:03,239 Speaker 4: College when he sees that Bob Dylan is playing a 403 00:28:03,280 --> 00:28:07,480 Speaker 4: show in Bethel Woods, just a short drive from Goshen nearby. 404 00:28:08,800 --> 00:28:12,600 Speaker 4: Sam has spent the past few years internalizing his curiosity, 405 00:28:13,080 --> 00:28:16,040 Speaker 4: maybe even pushing it aside, but now he has an 406 00:28:16,040 --> 00:28:20,520 Speaker 4: opportunity to bring something unspoken a little closer to the surface. 407 00:28:22,800 --> 00:28:27,200 Speaker 2: It was such a strange feeling that he was going 408 00:28:27,240 --> 00:28:32,600 Speaker 2: to be fifteen minutes away from us, and I remember thinking, 409 00:28:32,600 --> 00:28:36,200 Speaker 2: he's coming from New York. To drive from New York 410 00:28:36,240 --> 00:28:40,040 Speaker 2: to Bethel, you basically have to drive five minutes past 411 00:28:40,080 --> 00:28:46,280 Speaker 2: our house. And I remember just thinking, oh my gosh, 412 00:28:47,320 --> 00:28:49,760 Speaker 2: there were ways in which I had tried to push 413 00:28:50,480 --> 00:28:57,440 Speaker 2: the entire idea away from my life. Those were thrilling 414 00:28:57,560 --> 00:29:02,000 Speaker 2: years of my life. I had spent my first year 415 00:29:02,080 --> 00:29:04,800 Speaker 2: of college at Binghamton. I spent my second year as 416 00:29:04,840 --> 00:29:07,200 Speaker 2: a study abroad student at Oxford. 417 00:29:07,240 --> 00:29:09,360 Speaker 3: It was the first time I ever left America. 418 00:29:09,400 --> 00:29:11,920 Speaker 2: It was really the first time I was spending any 419 00:29:12,000 --> 00:29:15,200 Speaker 2: time outside of Upstate New York. The world that was 420 00:29:15,280 --> 00:29:18,640 Speaker 2: opening to me. I was reading everything I could. I 421 00:29:18,680 --> 00:29:24,040 Speaker 2: was meeting people who shared my values and interests and curiosities, 422 00:29:24,640 --> 00:29:27,960 Speaker 2: and who are from countries I'd never heard of. The 423 00:29:27,960 --> 00:29:33,240 Speaker 2: whole world was opening to me, and I was trying 424 00:29:33,360 --> 00:29:35,600 Speaker 2: not to think or dwell. 425 00:29:36,920 --> 00:29:38,840 Speaker 3: On him. 426 00:29:39,040 --> 00:29:44,680 Speaker 2: And yet here he was, in essentially our backyard. And 427 00:29:45,120 --> 00:29:49,320 Speaker 2: I asked my mother, can we go, really not thinking 428 00:29:49,440 --> 00:29:53,080 Speaker 2: that she would say yes, but thinking that it might 429 00:29:53,120 --> 00:29:59,040 Speaker 2: be a way of revisiting the subject. And she said 430 00:29:59,080 --> 00:30:05,000 Speaker 2: to me, we can go, but don't try to draw 431 00:30:05,040 --> 00:30:05,560 Speaker 2: his attention. 432 00:30:08,760 --> 00:30:12,640 Speaker 4: So there they are, mother and son, standing together at 433 00:30:12,640 --> 00:30:16,800 Speaker 4: the concert, not far from the stage. And then it happens. 434 00:30:17,320 --> 00:30:21,080 Speaker 4: Dylan begins to sing Tangled Up in Blue, a song 435 00:30:21,160 --> 00:30:24,080 Speaker 4: he wrote during a brief hidden chapter in his life, 436 00:30:24,520 --> 00:30:28,520 Speaker 4: one that intersected with hers. As the lyrics fill the air, 437 00:30:29,360 --> 00:30:31,880 Speaker 4: that one about Sam's mom lighting a burner on the 438 00:30:31,920 --> 00:30:35,480 Speaker 4: stove and offering him a pipe. Sam and his mom 439 00:30:35,680 --> 00:30:40,600 Speaker 4: both begin to weep. There it is there she is 440 00:30:41,280 --> 00:30:45,080 Speaker 4: right in the middle of the song, and Sam right 441 00:30:45,160 --> 00:30:49,840 Speaker 4: in the middle of the story. 442 00:30:49,080 --> 00:30:56,760 Speaker 2: And he starts singing this song, and my mom started laughing, 443 00:30:58,040 --> 00:31:01,520 Speaker 2: and then she started laughing more and more, and she 444 00:31:01,600 --> 00:31:04,560 Speaker 2: started crying. That he came to a line toward the 445 00:31:04,640 --> 00:31:08,400 Speaker 2: end of the song and it goes like this, all 446 00:31:08,440 --> 00:31:11,320 Speaker 2: the people we used to know, they're an allusion to me. 447 00:31:11,400 --> 00:31:16,840 Speaker 2: Now some are mathematicians, some are Carpenter's wives. Don't know 448 00:31:16,880 --> 00:31:19,480 Speaker 2: how it all got started. I don't know what they're 449 00:31:19,480 --> 00:31:23,120 Speaker 2: doing with their lives. And I think that was a 450 00:31:23,200 --> 00:31:29,800 Speaker 2: moment for me of thinking, perhaps for the first time, 451 00:31:31,040 --> 00:31:34,680 Speaker 2: not through my vantage point, but through hers, that this 452 00:31:34,920 --> 00:31:39,479 Speaker 2: was someone who had not been in her life for 453 00:31:39,520 --> 00:31:43,400 Speaker 2: a long time, and that when you don't know someone, 454 00:31:43,480 --> 00:31:45,760 Speaker 2: it's easy to have a fixed. 455 00:31:45,520 --> 00:31:46,560 Speaker 3: Idea of who they are. 456 00:31:47,360 --> 00:31:51,640 Speaker 2: But she had lived that last stanza, that they were 457 00:31:51,640 --> 00:31:54,800 Speaker 2: not in one another's lives anymore, and the reason she 458 00:31:54,920 --> 00:31:58,200 Speaker 2: was crying had nothing to do with him. 459 00:31:58,320 --> 00:31:59,440 Speaker 3: She was crying for me. 460 00:31:59,600 --> 00:32:03,560 Speaker 2: She was crying in affirmation and joy of the life 461 00:32:03,640 --> 00:32:08,120 Speaker 2: that we had had together and everything she had been 462 00:32:08,160 --> 00:32:12,160 Speaker 2: able to give me in this magical and idyllic childhood. 463 00:32:12,160 --> 00:32:15,800 Speaker 2: And for her, there wasn't any absence. And I saw 464 00:32:15,840 --> 00:32:19,400 Speaker 2: a glimmer of that truth that night, and it took 465 00:32:19,480 --> 00:32:23,240 Speaker 2: more time for me to come into that understanding of 466 00:32:23,280 --> 00:32:26,280 Speaker 2: the story for myself, but that was the first night 467 00:32:26,400 --> 00:32:29,960 Speaker 2: that I saw that truth out there on the horizon. 468 00:32:30,840 --> 00:32:35,240 Speaker 4: And on the way home, you do ask her if 469 00:32:35,240 --> 00:32:40,960 Speaker 4: it was possible that Dylan is your father, and her 470 00:32:41,000 --> 00:32:46,080 Speaker 4: hands tightened on the steering wheel and she stops talking, 471 00:32:46,600 --> 00:32:51,120 Speaker 4: and you instantly regret that you had just asked that 472 00:32:51,240 --> 00:32:54,360 Speaker 4: question and broken the spell. 473 00:32:54,640 --> 00:32:58,960 Speaker 2: Because that question, in some ways took away from what 474 00:32:59,040 --> 00:33:03,040 Speaker 2: that moment could have been. And I think what it 475 00:33:03,160 --> 00:33:08,320 Speaker 2: was for her, and I think she wanted me to 476 00:33:08,400 --> 00:33:15,080 Speaker 2: feel that being her son was enough, and she never 477 00:33:15,080 --> 00:33:17,760 Speaker 2: would have said that to me. She never would have 478 00:33:17,840 --> 00:33:22,640 Speaker 2: expressed any anger about that, but I think, of course, 479 00:33:22,880 --> 00:33:25,600 Speaker 2: like any parent, it must have been what she felt, 480 00:33:26,560 --> 00:33:30,520 Speaker 2: and she knew why I was asking, and I wasn't 481 00:33:30,560 --> 00:33:33,240 Speaker 2: ready yet to let go of the question. 482 00:33:35,040 --> 00:33:38,960 Speaker 4: Yeah, And a glimmer that you saw at the concert 483 00:33:39,480 --> 00:33:45,400 Speaker 4: that you came to understand better in time, was this enoughness, 484 00:33:45,720 --> 00:33:50,160 Speaker 4: like more than enoughness, this fullness of you being hers? 485 00:33:50,680 --> 00:33:53,400 Speaker 2: Yeah, that has been my journey, but I wasn't there 486 00:33:54,000 --> 00:33:54,640 Speaker 2: at that point. 487 00:33:55,680 --> 00:34:04,400 Speaker 4: So you embark on the highly impractical career becoming a novelist, 488 00:34:05,840 --> 00:34:08,120 Speaker 4: and I'm allowed to laugh. 489 00:34:08,800 --> 00:34:09,359 Speaker 3: Do you move to. 490 00:34:09,320 --> 00:34:11,719 Speaker 4: Paris during this next period of time? Take me a 491 00:34:11,719 --> 00:34:14,080 Speaker 4: little bit through that you go far away? 492 00:34:14,960 --> 00:34:19,160 Speaker 2: Well, being a novelist is so impractical. But one of 493 00:34:19,200 --> 00:34:23,480 Speaker 2: the great gifts that I've had along the way is 494 00:34:24,120 --> 00:34:32,000 Speaker 2: my provincial naivete. I didn't grow up around the world 495 00:34:32,080 --> 00:34:36,720 Speaker 2: of professional artists. I didn't know many people who tried 496 00:34:36,760 --> 00:34:40,800 Speaker 2: to make that path work. And what my mother always 497 00:34:40,920 --> 00:34:45,600 Speaker 2: encouraged in me was a feeling that I should pursue 498 00:34:45,600 --> 00:34:48,719 Speaker 2: what mattered most in my life. And you know, we 499 00:34:48,800 --> 00:34:53,319 Speaker 2: really didn't grow up around many people who had more 500 00:34:53,360 --> 00:34:56,440 Speaker 2: than enough money, and so the way that she taught 501 00:34:56,480 --> 00:34:58,520 Speaker 2: me to think about what I should do with my 502 00:34:58,680 --> 00:35:02,800 Speaker 2: life was very focused on the meaning that I would 503 00:35:03,200 --> 00:35:08,840 Speaker 2: draw from what mattered to me most, and. 504 00:35:10,719 --> 00:35:12,720 Speaker 3: That was a great gift. 505 00:35:13,440 --> 00:35:15,400 Speaker 4: It strikes me that it's the adult version of not 506 00:35:15,480 --> 00:35:17,400 Speaker 4: having the Internet as a child. 507 00:35:18,320 --> 00:35:21,680 Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that's right. Yeah, I think that I 508 00:35:21,800 --> 00:35:29,879 Speaker 2: was insulated from many of the parts of our culture materialism, status, 509 00:35:30,040 --> 00:35:36,360 Speaker 2: consumerism that ultimately make it hard for people to follow 510 00:35:37,400 --> 00:35:44,040 Speaker 2: their ideals. And my mother was also someone who you know, 511 00:35:44,120 --> 00:35:47,360 Speaker 2: she'd had this period as an artist, an actress in 512 00:35:47,400 --> 00:35:49,960 Speaker 2: the city, and she'd really not had any money in 513 00:35:50,000 --> 00:35:55,680 Speaker 2: that period. And then she started working in market research, 514 00:35:56,400 --> 00:35:59,360 Speaker 2: and after a few years she just felt, this is 515 00:35:59,440 --> 00:36:01,920 Speaker 2: not meaningful, this is not what I want to do 516 00:36:02,000 --> 00:36:06,080 Speaker 2: with my life, and so she reinvented herself professionally as 517 00:36:06,760 --> 00:36:11,480 Speaker 2: a holistic health practitioner. And I think she always understood 518 00:36:11,480 --> 00:36:15,640 Speaker 2: that she could have had a more materially robust life, 519 00:36:15,680 --> 00:36:18,439 Speaker 2: but it wasn't what she valued. And she never even 520 00:36:18,520 --> 00:36:22,279 Speaker 2: talked about the paths not taken, that that wasn't part 521 00:36:22,320 --> 00:36:24,520 Speaker 2: of who she was. It wasn't a hard choice for her. 522 00:36:25,239 --> 00:36:29,040 Speaker 2: And so I had that deeply rooted in my sense 523 00:36:29,080 --> 00:36:34,319 Speaker 2: of what it meant to become an adult. And I 524 00:36:34,360 --> 00:36:38,280 Speaker 2: graduated from Swarthmore. I was writing a novel at that point. 525 00:36:38,880 --> 00:36:40,080 Speaker 3: I knew that I needed. 526 00:36:39,840 --> 00:36:44,480 Speaker 2: Time to write, and I was very lucky to get 527 00:36:44,680 --> 00:36:49,719 Speaker 2: an academic scholarship for graduate work at Oxford, so I 528 00:36:49,840 --> 00:36:53,520 Speaker 2: moved there. And so in that period of my life 529 00:36:53,760 --> 00:36:57,799 Speaker 2: I was mainly living abroad. I was in Oxford, I 530 00:36:57,840 --> 00:37:00,880 Speaker 2: was in London. I spent time in Berlin and in Jerusalem, 531 00:37:01,800 --> 00:37:04,520 Speaker 2: and I think in some ways that was a reaction 532 00:37:04,719 --> 00:37:09,600 Speaker 2: to having grown up in such isolated circumstances and having 533 00:37:09,600 --> 00:37:13,399 Speaker 2: a great curiosity for the world and wanting to live 534 00:37:13,440 --> 00:37:18,880 Speaker 2: in different places and experience different things. And it's interesting 535 00:37:18,960 --> 00:37:23,640 Speaker 2: because in those years of my life, I thought, this 536 00:37:23,719 --> 00:37:26,879 Speaker 2: is what makes me unique as a person. I didn't 537 00:37:26,880 --> 00:37:30,440 Speaker 2: grow up around people who spend time like that abroad. 538 00:37:30,640 --> 00:37:33,920 Speaker 2: I had never left the US until I was nineteen. 539 00:37:34,800 --> 00:37:36,759 Speaker 2: But of course now at this point in my life, 540 00:37:36,800 --> 00:37:41,560 Speaker 2: I'm thirty four. You know, almost everyone I know has 541 00:37:41,640 --> 00:37:46,279 Speaker 2: had similar parallel experiences in some ways. And what I 542 00:37:46,360 --> 00:37:49,320 Speaker 2: realize is what actually makes me unique is my childhood 543 00:37:49,320 --> 00:37:56,600 Speaker 2: in Ghoshen. This wonderful solitude and quiet, insulated from so 544 00:37:56,719 --> 00:38:00,440 Speaker 2: many of the difficult things in our world. Well, that 545 00:38:00,640 --> 00:38:02,520 Speaker 2: is the world that really made me who I am. 546 00:38:03,600 --> 00:38:05,879 Speaker 2: And the things that I love most in my life 547 00:38:05,920 --> 00:38:08,040 Speaker 2: are still the things I loved most as a child 548 00:38:08,160 --> 00:38:12,960 Speaker 2: in that landscape, reading and writing on the hill at 549 00:38:13,000 --> 00:38:16,320 Speaker 2: a wooden desk with my phone and computer very far away. 550 00:38:18,640 --> 00:38:21,600 Speaker 4: During his post college years in Europe, Sam is writing. 551 00:38:22,200 --> 00:38:26,120 Speaker 4: He writes two novels that don't quite work. Something is missing. 552 00:38:27,520 --> 00:38:30,400 Speaker 4: He hasn't yet found the story lurking beneath all the 553 00:38:30,440 --> 00:38:34,000 Speaker 4: other stories, the one he has to tell before he 554 00:38:34,000 --> 00:38:38,359 Speaker 4: can tell any other. But then he's pulled back home. 555 00:38:39,280 --> 00:38:42,800 Speaker 4: His mother is very ill. 556 00:38:43,080 --> 00:38:49,719 Speaker 2: So when I was twenty five, my mother was diagnosed 557 00:38:49,719 --> 00:38:54,840 Speaker 2: with ovarian cancer. I was just finishing up graduate school 558 00:38:55,040 --> 00:39:01,000 Speaker 2: at Oxford and it was very sudden. She if this diagnosis, 559 00:39:01,000 --> 00:39:04,360 Speaker 2: she needed to have a surgery, and I came back 560 00:39:05,440 --> 00:39:09,319 Speaker 2: home for that. So she went through the surgery. I 561 00:39:09,400 --> 00:39:12,520 Speaker 2: ended up spending three months of that year with her, 562 00:39:12,800 --> 00:39:15,400 Speaker 2: and then I went back to the UK because we 563 00:39:15,520 --> 00:39:21,560 Speaker 2: thought that the cancer was resolved. And then the next 564 00:39:21,640 --> 00:39:27,040 Speaker 2: year her cancer returned and I came home for what 565 00:39:27,200 --> 00:39:32,560 Speaker 2: ended up being the last month of her life. And 566 00:39:32,640 --> 00:39:37,840 Speaker 2: it's interesting because my mom and I in some ways 567 00:39:37,880 --> 00:39:43,120 Speaker 2: had different feelings about me coming home. She felt guilty. 568 00:39:43,880 --> 00:39:47,400 Speaker 2: She felt you were out in the world, becoming yourself, 569 00:39:48,239 --> 00:39:48,880 Speaker 2: go back. 570 00:39:48,719 --> 00:39:49,600 Speaker 3: As soon as you can. 571 00:39:51,000 --> 00:39:55,759 Speaker 2: And for me, there was something wonderful about having what 572 00:39:55,880 --> 00:39:59,000 Speaker 2: turned out to be these four months with her in 573 00:39:59,040 --> 00:40:01,040 Speaker 2: the last year and a half of her life. And 574 00:40:02,680 --> 00:40:03,280 Speaker 2: I mean we. 575 00:40:03,120 --> 00:40:05,240 Speaker 3: Were spending time together. In those years. 576 00:40:05,320 --> 00:40:08,640 Speaker 2: I would come home and spend two weeks with her. 577 00:40:10,040 --> 00:40:14,480 Speaker 2: We would visit my grandmother together, we talked all the time, 578 00:40:14,640 --> 00:40:17,759 Speaker 2: we texted, We were very present in our lives, but 579 00:40:17,920 --> 00:40:21,279 Speaker 2: there was a depth of conversation that we could have 580 00:40:22,840 --> 00:40:24,880 Speaker 2: in those four months toward the end of her. 581 00:40:24,760 --> 00:40:29,080 Speaker 3: Life that for me. 582 00:40:30,680 --> 00:40:34,840 Speaker 2: Truly helped me see her more completely as a woman, 583 00:40:35,120 --> 00:40:38,600 Speaker 2: a person, as my mother. And it was in that 584 00:40:38,680 --> 00:40:43,440 Speaker 2: period that she began to talk to me really in 585 00:40:43,480 --> 00:40:50,200 Speaker 2: a detail that she had never permitted before, about her 586 00:40:50,200 --> 00:40:57,120 Speaker 2: youth in New York, about her relationship with Dylan, and 587 00:40:57,280 --> 00:41:01,799 Speaker 2: also about the other experience was in that time of 588 00:41:01,840 --> 00:41:06,560 Speaker 2: her life that had really shaped who she became. 589 00:41:07,480 --> 00:41:11,279 Speaker 4: Yeah, I'm thinking, I guess in part about the intimacy 590 00:41:12,280 --> 00:41:19,160 Speaker 4: of being with someone who's ill, the vulnerability of being ill, 591 00:41:19,920 --> 00:41:28,160 Speaker 4: and the awareness of time and it not stretching out infinitely. 592 00:41:29,440 --> 00:41:36,960 Speaker 4: And I wonder was the open question of Dylan's paternity 593 00:41:37,719 --> 00:41:40,680 Speaker 4: something that was still central for you at that point, 594 00:41:40,800 --> 00:41:45,560 Speaker 4: or had it really had your mother's wish in a 595 00:41:45,560 --> 00:41:51,839 Speaker 4: way come true, which was that you were hers and 596 00:41:51,920 --> 00:41:56,480 Speaker 4: you were you and this was no longer something that 597 00:41:56,680 --> 00:42:01,400 Speaker 4: knowing was going to define you. Knowing for sure. 598 00:42:02,200 --> 00:42:10,360 Speaker 2: The paradox is that I couldn't fully let go until 599 00:42:10,440 --> 00:42:12,040 Speaker 2: she talked to me more about. 600 00:42:11,840 --> 00:42:18,120 Speaker 5: Him and It was in that period that I was 601 00:42:18,160 --> 00:42:21,160 Speaker 5: home with her, just the two of us in this 602 00:42:21,239 --> 00:42:22,560 Speaker 5: house that I grew up in. 603 00:42:23,480 --> 00:42:26,600 Speaker 2: There are the crickets at night. There was a lot 604 00:42:26,680 --> 00:42:31,760 Speaker 2: of time with each other. We watched movies, we made dinner, 605 00:42:31,840 --> 00:42:37,080 Speaker 2: We talked about our lives, and though were the days 606 00:42:37,120 --> 00:42:40,080 Speaker 2: that we went to her chemotherapy sessions, we would drive 607 00:42:40,120 --> 00:42:44,960 Speaker 2: into the city. Anyone who's gone through that experience knows 608 00:42:45,000 --> 00:42:52,080 Speaker 2: sometimes you were sitting there for eight hours, and in 609 00:42:52,160 --> 00:42:56,640 Speaker 2: that time she started talking to me about that period 610 00:42:56,640 --> 00:43:01,880 Speaker 2: of her life, taking me back in time. And of 611 00:43:01,960 --> 00:43:06,320 Speaker 2: course what I felt was she's taking me to doing 612 00:43:07,760 --> 00:43:13,680 Speaker 2: She's going to talk to me in detail about their relationship. 613 00:43:15,440 --> 00:43:19,200 Speaker 2: She's leading me to this place I've always wanted us. 614 00:43:20,560 --> 00:43:21,000 Speaker 3: To go. 615 00:43:22,440 --> 00:43:28,239 Speaker 2: And the more my mother shared about her life, the 616 00:43:28,280 --> 00:43:32,080 Speaker 2: more I understood that he was far from the only 617 00:43:32,239 --> 00:43:35,960 Speaker 2: thing that she hadn't wanted to talk about. And she 618 00:43:36,160 --> 00:43:39,960 Speaker 2: talked to me about the experiences at that point of 619 00:43:40,080 --> 00:43:42,440 Speaker 2: her life that it made or who she was. She 620 00:43:42,560 --> 00:43:47,240 Speaker 2: talked to me about being an abusive marriage, her experience 621 00:43:47,280 --> 00:43:51,719 Speaker 2: of being raped as a young woman, her realization that 622 00:43:52,640 --> 00:43:54,840 Speaker 2: she was not going to find the love that she 623 00:43:55,040 --> 00:44:00,240 Speaker 2: needed on stage as an actress or in this relationship 624 00:44:00,280 --> 00:44:03,520 Speaker 2: with Dylan, and that the love that she wanted in 625 00:44:03,560 --> 00:44:07,040 Speaker 2: her life was something that she would have to create 626 00:44:07,080 --> 00:44:11,320 Speaker 2: for herself in a different way, in a different place, 627 00:44:11,560 --> 00:44:15,120 Speaker 2: and that what had been most meaningful to her in 628 00:44:15,160 --> 00:44:21,319 Speaker 2: her life was being a mother our relationship, taking these 629 00:44:21,719 --> 00:44:26,279 Speaker 2: wounded experiences that she had had in her twenties, and 630 00:44:26,400 --> 00:44:30,000 Speaker 2: finding ways of transforming that into love for other people, 631 00:44:30,080 --> 00:44:34,240 Speaker 2: helping other women who had been through these experiences heal. 632 00:44:35,000 --> 00:44:35,920 Speaker 3: Their own pain. 633 00:44:36,680 --> 00:44:38,680 Speaker 2: And the more that she had talked to me about this, 634 00:44:38,920 --> 00:44:43,319 Speaker 2: the more all the pieces of who she was and 635 00:44:43,360 --> 00:44:46,479 Speaker 2: what she had given me, and the world in which 636 00:44:46,480 --> 00:44:50,839 Speaker 2: she had raised me and created the love between us, 637 00:44:50,880 --> 00:44:54,879 Speaker 2: all of those pieces seemed to fall into place. And 638 00:44:55,360 --> 00:44:58,600 Speaker 2: when we came to that point, I think for the 639 00:44:58,640 --> 00:45:02,920 Speaker 2: first time in my life, I was able to understand 640 00:45:02,960 --> 00:45:07,600 Speaker 2: that everything I valued in who I am had come 641 00:45:07,640 --> 00:45:10,680 Speaker 2: from her, and that she was the person who had 642 00:45:10,760 --> 00:45:14,240 Speaker 2: made me, who had raised me, and even my desire 643 00:45:14,320 --> 00:45:17,560 Speaker 2: to be an artist, I mean, that was her right. 644 00:45:17,680 --> 00:45:21,000 Speaker 2: That was her reading to me when I was a child, 645 00:45:21,080 --> 00:45:24,279 Speaker 2: That was her finding my poetry in the printer even 646 00:45:24,320 --> 00:45:27,040 Speaker 2: when I didn't want her to see it and say Hey, 647 00:45:27,080 --> 00:45:29,799 Speaker 2: I know you're embarrassed since you're fifteen and your mom 648 00:45:29,880 --> 00:45:32,360 Speaker 2: saw your poetry, but keep writing. You have a talent. 649 00:45:32,760 --> 00:45:35,600 Speaker 2: You will become the writer that I believe you can be. 650 00:45:37,200 --> 00:45:40,520 Speaker 2: And I came to a moment of my life of realizing, 651 00:45:41,120 --> 00:45:43,440 Speaker 2: of course I revered Dylan as an artist, but I 652 00:45:43,480 --> 00:45:45,160 Speaker 2: don't know him. 653 00:45:45,719 --> 00:45:47,360 Speaker 3: He didn't make me. 654 00:45:48,920 --> 00:45:53,360 Speaker 2: What I cherish and who I am has come from her. 655 00:45:54,320 --> 00:45:57,960 Speaker 2: And that realization also coincided with the understanding that her 656 00:45:58,000 --> 00:46:02,080 Speaker 2: life was ending, and that the time that we had 657 00:46:02,160 --> 00:46:03,400 Speaker 2: with one another. 658 00:46:04,600 --> 00:46:05,240 Speaker 3: Was ending. 659 00:46:05,400 --> 00:46:07,759 Speaker 2: And I had to choose who I was going to 660 00:46:07,840 --> 00:46:09,960 Speaker 2: be in this world and how I was going to 661 00:46:10,000 --> 00:46:14,600 Speaker 2: define myself, and I wanted that to be about her 662 00:46:14,880 --> 00:46:19,839 Speaker 2: and understanding myself as her son. That's who I am. 663 00:46:25,040 --> 00:46:29,840 Speaker 4: Sam's mother dies in twenty seventeen. Not long after her death, 664 00:46:30,360 --> 00:46:34,400 Speaker 4: during the quiet uncertainty of the pandemic, Sam receives a 665 00:46:34,440 --> 00:46:37,480 Speaker 4: call from his uncle. He's decided to leave the city, 666 00:46:37,680 --> 00:46:41,680 Speaker 4: which means the apartment her apartment will be empty and 667 00:46:41,719 --> 00:46:46,040 Speaker 4: available to Sam, the same apartment his mom lived in 668 00:46:46,080 --> 00:46:48,920 Speaker 4: as a young woman finding art and love in New 669 00:46:49,000 --> 00:46:53,680 Speaker 4: York City, Sam moves in, literally moves into the profound 670 00:46:53,760 --> 00:46:56,840 Speaker 4: space of her story where so much of her life 671 00:46:57,400 --> 00:47:01,920 Speaker 4: and in a way his own began, And in that 672 00:47:02,040 --> 00:47:07,279 Speaker 4: space something else begins to take shape. Grief, yes, but 673 00:47:07,400 --> 00:47:12,600 Speaker 4: also connection, as if her presence lingers, encouraging him to 674 00:47:12,640 --> 00:47:16,319 Speaker 4: find his true voice, as if the past is still 675 00:47:16,360 --> 00:47:20,560 Speaker 4: breathing there, waiting for him to arrive and tell more stories. 676 00:47:22,080 --> 00:47:24,759 Speaker 2: And so when I moved into this apartment, it was 677 00:47:25,160 --> 00:47:28,759 Speaker 2: just at the time, it was three years after her death, 678 00:47:28,840 --> 00:47:32,440 Speaker 2: I was just starting to feel ready to write about 679 00:47:32,440 --> 00:47:38,880 Speaker 2: her life and her death. And I had the enormous 680 00:47:40,040 --> 00:47:45,160 Speaker 2: privilege of doing that in the two places that had 681 00:47:45,160 --> 00:47:50,520 Speaker 2: shaped me and her and in which I felt her spirit, 682 00:47:50,760 --> 00:47:52,640 Speaker 2: in the house where I grew up, in the apartment 683 00:47:52,640 --> 00:47:55,560 Speaker 2: where she lived. And it was just one of those 684 00:47:55,600 --> 00:47:58,759 Speaker 2: experiences of life that almost felt mystical, all of these 685 00:47:59,640 --> 00:48:01,320 Speaker 2: elements of life coming together. 686 00:48:02,040 --> 00:48:07,279 Speaker 4: Did you write the novel in the apartment surrounded by 687 00:48:08,160 --> 00:48:11,400 Speaker 4: and supported by your mother's spirit and your mother's memory, 688 00:48:11,600 --> 00:48:18,280 Speaker 4: And how did writing the novel and shaping the story 689 00:48:19,280 --> 00:48:22,960 Speaker 4: impact your grief, because it seems like it very much 690 00:48:23,000 --> 00:48:26,080 Speaker 4: went hand in hand. You know, people talk about writing 691 00:48:26,120 --> 00:48:28,239 Speaker 4: as cathartic. I don't know if you found it that way. 692 00:48:28,560 --> 00:48:32,839 Speaker 4: I don't tend to myself, but it is certainly a 693 00:48:32,880 --> 00:48:35,719 Speaker 4: way of working through and coming to understand. So I'm 694 00:48:35,760 --> 00:48:37,399 Speaker 4: wondering if you could talk a little bit about that. 695 00:48:38,320 --> 00:48:41,120 Speaker 2: You know, after my mother died, I really didn't know 696 00:48:41,160 --> 00:48:45,000 Speaker 2: what to do with my grief. I think that our 697 00:48:45,040 --> 00:48:49,840 Speaker 2: culture sometimes struggles to have honest conversations about grief, and 698 00:48:49,960 --> 00:48:54,160 Speaker 2: especially as a younger man, there aren't always places to 699 00:48:54,239 --> 00:48:58,879 Speaker 2: express or put those feelings. And I thought a lot 700 00:48:58,920 --> 00:49:03,719 Speaker 2: about what my mother did with her own pain and 701 00:49:03,760 --> 00:49:08,879 Speaker 2: difficult experiences, and she had a line that she talked about, 702 00:49:08,880 --> 00:49:09,879 Speaker 2: a quote that she use. 703 00:49:10,840 --> 00:49:12,399 Speaker 3: She would say, we are here to take the. 704 00:49:12,320 --> 00:49:15,560 Speaker 2: Pieces of the universe we have been given, burnish them 705 00:49:15,560 --> 00:49:17,719 Speaker 2: with love, and return them in better condition than we 706 00:49:17,840 --> 00:49:21,719 Speaker 2: received them. And for her that really meant drawing on 707 00:49:21,880 --> 00:49:27,960 Speaker 2: her experiences of sexual and domestic violence to help other 708 00:49:28,000 --> 00:49:31,319 Speaker 2: women who had been through something similar. And for me, 709 00:49:31,520 --> 00:49:35,359 Speaker 2: I think I came to the realization that I had 710 00:49:35,360 --> 00:49:39,560 Speaker 2: to take this experience, all of my formative life experiences 711 00:49:39,600 --> 00:49:43,560 Speaker 2: that we've talked about, but especially my mother's death, and 712 00:49:44,320 --> 00:49:46,480 Speaker 2: these were the most difficult pieces of the universe that 713 00:49:46,520 --> 00:49:48,359 Speaker 2: I've been given, and I had to burnish them. With 714 00:49:48,440 --> 00:49:51,120 Speaker 2: love and return them in better shape than I received them. 715 00:49:51,160 --> 00:49:55,080 Speaker 2: And for me that nant writing a novel that would 716 00:49:55,120 --> 00:50:01,359 Speaker 2: tell this story and in which my mother's love would 717 00:50:01,400 --> 00:50:06,120 Speaker 2: be larger than her loss and the end of her life. 718 00:50:07,560 --> 00:50:10,920 Speaker 4: That longing that we talked about earlier, that feeling of 719 00:50:11,920 --> 00:50:17,960 Speaker 4: needing to know, even though you came to the understanding 720 00:50:18,600 --> 00:50:25,680 Speaker 4: that your wholeness and your essential uness has come from 721 00:50:26,080 --> 00:50:29,400 Speaker 4: your mother and from the way that she raised you 722 00:50:29,440 --> 00:50:32,880 Speaker 4: and the way that you were shaped by being her son, 723 00:50:33,080 --> 00:50:37,759 Speaker 4: has that completely put to rest for you? Or I 724 00:50:37,800 --> 00:50:39,839 Speaker 4: could put it this way, is it a question for you? 725 00:50:40,520 --> 00:50:43,759 Speaker 4: Where does this end up residing in you now that 726 00:50:43,800 --> 00:50:45,480 Speaker 4: your mother's gone? 727 00:50:45,800 --> 00:50:49,319 Speaker 2: For me, I'm my mother's son, and that's where the 728 00:50:49,360 --> 00:50:54,240 Speaker 2: story ends. 729 00:50:56,880 --> 00:51:03,480 Speaker 4: Here's Sam reading one last passage Boy from the North Country. 730 00:51:05,920 --> 00:51:09,640 Speaker 2: In the evenings, when the heat pipes just cough, I 731 00:51:09,719 --> 00:51:13,160 Speaker 2: sometimes think of the smoke and poetry that once lingered 732 00:51:13,160 --> 00:51:17,200 Speaker 2: between Dylan's lips and my mother's. But on nights when 733 00:51:17,200 --> 00:51:20,320 Speaker 2: I reach for creative guidance, I think not of Dylan, 734 00:51:20,680 --> 00:51:23,759 Speaker 2: but of my mother. Her belief in the integrity of 735 00:51:23,800 --> 00:51:27,279 Speaker 2: any story told on its own terms, whether it's the 736 00:51:27,320 --> 00:51:29,600 Speaker 2: tales of King Arthur she read to me as a child, 737 00:51:30,320 --> 00:51:33,680 Speaker 2: or the stories I'm trying to write today when I 738 00:51:33,680 --> 00:51:36,680 Speaker 2: look at words disordered on the page. I am never 739 00:51:36,719 --> 00:51:39,719 Speaker 2: sure how being Bob Dylan's child would help me come 740 00:51:39,800 --> 00:51:43,640 Speaker 2: closer to beauty or truth. But I know the infinite 741 00:51:43,640 --> 00:51:45,640 Speaker 2: gifts of being my mother's son. 742 00:51:57,480 --> 00:52:01,279 Speaker 4: Family Secret is a production of iHeartRadio. Molly Zacour is 743 00:52:01,280 --> 00:52:04,280 Speaker 4: the story editor and Dylan Fagan is the executive producer. 744 00:52:04,920 --> 00:52:06,880 Speaker 4: If you have a family secret you'd like to share, 745 00:52:07,239 --> 00:52:09,640 Speaker 4: please leave us a voicemail and your story could appear 746 00:52:09,640 --> 00:52:12,960 Speaker 4: on an upcoming episode. Our number is one eight eight 747 00:52:13,000 --> 00:52:17,120 Speaker 4: eight Secret zero. That's the number zero. You can also 748 00:52:17,239 --> 00:52:21,919 Speaker 4: find me on Instagram at Danny Ryder. And if you'd 749 00:52:21,920 --> 00:52:24,360 Speaker 4: like to know more about the story that inspired this podcast, 750 00:52:24,719 --> 00:52:26,600 Speaker 4: check out my memoir Inheritance. 751 00:52:32,600 --> 00:52:36,840 Speaker 1: For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, 752 00:52:36,920 --> 00:52:39,200 Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.