← All Of It with Alison Stewart
All Of It with Alison Stewart
In 'Junie' a Woman Confronts Her Sister's Ghost (Debut Day)
00:19:34
In the new novel Junie, a young enslaved woman, consumed by grief at her sister's death, manages to wake her sister's ghost from the grave.
Loading summary
Transcript55 lines
- [00:00]
Ira Flatow
All of it is supported by Progressive Insurance. You chose to hit play on this podcast today. Smart Choice make another smart choice with Auto Quote Explorer to compare rates for multiple car insurance companies all at once. Try it@progressive.com Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates not available in all states or situations. Prices vary based on how you buy. Listener Supported WNYC Studios.
- [00:39]
Alison Stewart
This is all of it on wnyc. I'm Alison Stewart. Today we're learning about a novel that brings a family ancestor to life. Juni is written by Brooklyn based author Aaron Crosby Eckstein. It tells the story of Junie, an enslaved girl living on a plantation in rural Alabama after the sudden death of her sister Minnie. And when she learns of new plans from her white owners, Junie does something that reawakens her sister's spirit. And from there, Minnie's ghost shows Junie some secrets of the plantation that forces Junie to question everything. Eckstein wrote the book inspired by her personal history she first learned from her grandmother, who was the family keeper of stories. It turns out Eckstein's great great great grandmother escaped slavery before the Civil War she helped establish in Elmore County, Alabama, where members of Eckstein's family still live today. Junie is available now and Erin is in studio. Nice to talk to you.
- [01:39]
Erin Crosby Eckstein
Thank you so much for having me.
- [01:40]
Alison Stewart
Before we talk about the inspiration for the book, let's talk a little bit about Junie. This girl, she's an enslaved girl. She lives on a plantation in Alabama. What's her state of mind when we meet her?
- [01:50]
Erin Crosby Eckstein
When we first meet Junie, she is really in a state of grief, but the way that that's manifesting for her is in some rebellion. So when we first start off the book, she has done something that she probably doesn't have any business doing, and we are really jumping in right in the middle of that action.
- [02:09]
Alison Stewart
What would you say her core values are as a person?
- [02:13]
Erin Crosby Eckstein
Juni really lives in pursuit of this idea of the sublime, which is this kind of pursuit of beauty, of knowledge to some extent, which of course is going to be really, really complex under the circumstances that she lives in. She wants to find ways to seek out little bits of freedom, even though at the very beginning of the book she doesn't really know that that's what she's looking for. In a lot of ways, I wanted Junie to feel like a real teenager, so I wanted her to have that bit of rebellious spirit going on, even if she doesn't quite know what it is or how to navigate that under the circumstances she lives under.
- [02:52]
Unknown
Okay, I'm not giving any spoilers away, but she awakens her sister's ghost very much so. How does this ghost awakening, how does it affect her, Juni?
- [03:05]
Erin Crosby Eckstein
I believe it affects her very deeply because throughout the book, she is in a state of grief over the death of this sister. Her older sister dies in such a way that Junie actually blames herself without giving anything away. And they had a bit of a complicated relationship. So in thinking about, I think for anyone, if you had a complicated relationship with someone and you feel a sense of responsibility for them being gone, if that person suddenly reappeared, that's gonna raise so many complicated emotions, which is what we really see in the book, is Junie wrestling with the many challenges of having someone re emerge who you weren't ready to see again.
- [03:42]
Unknown
Was that always a big part of the story?
- [03:43]
Erin Crosby Eckstein
Yes. I always wanted the ghost to be a part of it. I just personally really enjoy ghost stories, and I really enjoy the way that ghosts are used in literature. So I knew I want. And I knew that if I was going to have a ghost re emerge, I wanted it to be complicated, and I wanted it to be a little different than anything I'd read personally before.
- [04:00]
Unknown
Oh, I was gonna ask you, what other ghost stories have you read that you really. You thought of as you were. As you were milling about this idea?
- [04:08]
Erin Crosby Eckstein
Many. But the biggest one, I would say, is Sing Unburied Sing by Jesmyn Ward. I actually used to teach that book. I used to be a high school teacher, and it was part of my ninth grade curriculum. And I absolutely love the way that Ward weaves in Ghost throughout that story and the ways in which they kind of bring forward reality really important ways. So I would say that was probably my biggest ghostly inspiration.
- [04:30]
Unknown
My guest is Erin Crosby Eckstein. She's a debut author. The novel is called Juni. We've dedicated today's show to authors who are having their debut novels and are really psyched about them. Juni has a love of poetry, which you do as well. Who were some of your favorite poets growing up?
- [04:48]
Erin Crosby Eckstein
Growing up. So I actually. I think a lot of the reason I chose the Romantic poets as Juni's focus here is because I personally really liked them when I was a teenager. I think I first got exposed to it probably in my, like, high school AP English class or something. But I really loved the natural imagery. I really loved that sort of, like, sweeping, kind of like some might mellow a dramatic vibe. I think it fit for me at the time. As I got older, I did start to kind of consider how the identities of those particular poets impacted the way that they were able to see the world at the time. Considering all of those poets are white men, like, they were these British, usually wealthy white men who could, like, go off into nature and, like, do whatever they wanted, while other people certainly didn't have that ability. As I've gotten older, I've grown to really also love Mary Oliver's work. And Mary Oliver kind of came up as a big inspiration for me in thinking about the way Juni thinks about the world as well. Really, a lot of those poets that kind of circle around those sort of, like, nature y imagery and the kind of importance of that. Those were all big influences for me with this book.
- [05:55]
Alison Stewart
I have to ask about your grandmother.
- [05:57]
Erin Crosby Eckstein
Yes.
- [05:58]
Alison Stewart
Your grandmother's influence on this story. She was the family storyteller. When did you realize she was telling you this story that you would be able to use in your novel?
- [06:12]
Erin Crosby Eckstein
It was back in spring of 2018. I was visiting my grandparents for Easter. And my grandmother would often repeat a lot of our family stories. She would, you know, tell them over and over, tell them in new ways, that kind of thing. And so I'd heard this story before of this my. Of Jane Cotton, who's my grandmother's grandmother's grandmother. But my grandmother told it to me at this particular moment. And for some reason, I don't really know why, it just clicked in my head in a new way. I think I'd read Isabel Allende's House of the Spirits not that long before this time, or maybe around the same time. I'd always loved these sort of intergenerational family novels. It was actually something my grandmother and I both loved together. That was one of the things we'd always connect over. And I think that just kind of the confluence of what I'd been reading with her story made me think, like, hey, could I take this story I've been hearing for so long and do something with it? And that something ended up evolving into this book.
- [07:09]
Alison Stewart
What did you hear about Jane Cotton that gave you the inspiration? One thing.
- [07:15]
Erin Crosby Eckstein
So my favorite fact about her, actually, is that she lived to be well into her hundreds and only died because she got hit by a horse and buggy. That was the favorite fact about her that usually stuck with me for most of my childhood. So I loved that. I thought that was wild. And then when I realized that, on top of it, she had also escaped from slavery when she was incredibly young. And it was this you know, I'm not gonna give away the details of that, because it's part of the spoilers of the book. When I kind of compared the fact that she had had this incredibly harrowing early life that we knew nothing about, and yet she was still able to go on to live so long and to be this, you know, entrenched member of her community. One of the stories that goes in my family is that so many people came to her wake that the porch started caving in. That, you know, that was so meaningful to me in thinking about this woman's life. And that's what made me wan. Really do something with her story.
- [08:13]
Unknown
Without giving away too much, how much research did you have to do into your family for this book?
- [08:19]
Erin Crosby Eckstein
I did do a bit of research. I was lucky that, in the early stages of drafting, my grandmother was still alive. So that did help with being able to kind of talk to her about what she remembered. My mother's also a historian, which also helps. She's very good for being helpful with history details. But where I needed to fill in the gaps of this time period, I did conduct some research. A lot of the time, I was focused specifically on antebellum Alabama and antebellum Montgomery, because I wanted it to feel pretty specific to just this area. I wanted to be able to, like, nail what was going on in Montgomery at that time. And I'm. Yeah, I'm lucky to have resources in my family, but I was also lucky to find some really good ones.
- [09:00]
Unknown
My guest is Erin Crosby Eckstein. Her novel is called Junie. She's here as part of our debut day, dedicated to today's authors who also happen to be debut novelists. You're gonna read a little bit for us. Can you set this up?
- [09:13]
Erin Crosby Eckstein
So I'm just going to start from the beginning of the book, because I think that that just gets us all in the same place. So I'm not going to explain much. I'm hoping that it will make sense, since it's the beginning. So we're starting from chapter one. Juni wakes up in the red mud, listening to the water that slithers between the rocks in the creek. The faint first light of sunrise slips through the gray moss tangled between black oak branches. The sunshine's needle points warm her bare legs as mud cools her from below. The earth smell is enchanting after the rain, sharp, metallic and sickening if you inhale too long. Like copper pots on a humid day. The mud takes what should be hard and makes it soft. What should be Finished and makes it raw. The distant crack of the foreman's whip tells her she's not supposed to be here.
- [09:59]
Unknown
So Juni is a complex, unique character.
- [10:05]
Alison Stewart
I know that you wanted to stay away from certain tropes about enslaved people. What did you want to stay away from?
- [10:12]
Erin Crosby Eckstein
I wanted to write a version of this time that was just different than what I'd personally read. And I feel like the big buckets that I was thinking about where you either have this very, like, Gone with the Wind and, like, which we know we don't want to do that, where we have, like, super happy enslaved people who just are so happy to be there, or the other bucket, I think, is that while this is far more accurate, I think a lot more stories really will focus on just non stop physical abuse. And what I wanted to do is really delve into the character. I wanted to delve into the person, the psychology. And I really also wanted to delve into the systemic and emotional abuse of slavery. Because it felt like something that I just hadn't read before. And I wanted Junie to feel, as much as possible, like a very layered. I wanted her to feel flawed. I wanted there to be some morally gray elements to her, as well as the cast of characters. Overall, I wanted the characters to really feel like people. Because I think we often have a tendency to think about history and people from the past as no longer having these sort of human flaws and these human traits. But I think it's really important that when we're thinking about people who are suffering under horrific circumstances, to remember that these are people with flaws, dreams, love, grief, all of these complicated, complex feelings that we all experience. And I therefore wanted Junie to really reflect that. I wanted my readers to feel deeply connected with her, not as just a sort of, like, far off historical figure, but as someone who felt relatable, at least emotionally.
- [11:53]
Alison Stewart
So you started to outline for this book, and I heard that you actually kind of walked away from it.
- [11:59]
Erin Crosby Eckstein
I did, yeah. I walked away from it probably for, like, not major reasons other than just, like, getting busy and, like, losing confidence in myself a little bit. I was, like I said before, I was a high school teacher. And so I was kind of fitting in, writing around that. I was fitting it in, around, you know, working full time, doing all that. And it was often really hard, honestly, to, like, teach all day and then come home and try to work on something that was also like an emotionally complicated and often draining project in and of itself was, you know, difficult time. So I did kind of put it aside For a while, where I was just like, okay, we'll see what happens. What motivated you to go back to it, Covid? Honestly, I. When schools shut down back in March of 2020, which is crazy, because it was, like, almost exactly five years ago now, I got this just random sort of like, premonition idea where I was like, hey, you should go print out all the pages that you've written so far on the school computer. And I just, like, ran down to the school copier and very much against the rules of my job.
- [13:02]
Unknown
Nobody heard this.
- [13:03]
Erin Crosby Eckstein
Nobody heard this.
- [13:04]
Unknown
You allegedly. You allegedly went down.
- [13:06]
Erin Crosby Eckstein
I allegedly used the school copier and printed off all these pages, and I brought them home with me. And I was like, okay, you know what? I'm going to just, like, edit what I have so far. I'll just do this. Because if I am going to be, you know, stuck in my apartment for two weeks, I might as well. And that really was the start of me getting back into. It was just the fact that I suddenly was stuck in my apartment and felt like this was gonna be the time that I gotta focus on this thing. I do also think that the murder of George Floyd and the protests that came up around that at the time also kind of inspired me to get back into it. I felt more motivation to start writing and start writing about what I was thinking and what I saw. And that also kind of drove me back into working on the book.
- [13:50]
Unknown
Where did you find your confidence during that time? Because that was a difficult time.
- [13:56]
Erin Crosby Eckstein
It was. I think I found my confidence from a lot of different places. My partner was a big one, Honestly, like, I think he was really supportive and motivating during that time. We were locked together in my apartment, so I think that helped at the time that he. When he was still there, that that was. He was definitely someone who, I think helped imbue me with some confidence. I also think I just kind of reached a point in my life around that time where I was like, come on. Like, the world is going. Like, it's going off in directions that we've never seen before. If there's anything. If there's any time to just go do something, just to do it, I might as well do it now. And so in some ways, I think the confidence came from a place of just being like, what do I have to lose right now? This is. You know, there's so much going on. There are people, you know, honestly, like, losing their lives, losing their family, if they're. You only have so much time to pursue the things you want to do. And so that was part of it, too.
- [14:54]
Unknown
We're talking about the novel Juni. Its author is Aaron Crosby Eckstein. What was a difficult part in writing this book, Whether it was either writer's block or some part of the book that you just couldn't get right, and how'd you get around it?
- [15:13]
Erin Crosby Eckstein
The hardest part for me to write is a scene towards the end, and therefore, I'm not gonna tell you what the scene is, but there is.
- [15:20]
Alison Stewart
What got in the way was it.
- [15:22]
Erin Crosby Eckstein
Mostly it was just figuring out how to get the combination of characters right and to get everything to happen in a way that was gonna make sense. Cause I kind of knew where I needed it to go. I knew what I needed the ending to be, and I knew I needed to have this, like, big, you know, center, you know, kind of big ending scenes. So I had all these different kind of, like, components. I knew I wanted to be there, but I couldn't figure out to fit them together. So I definitely wrote a bunch of different drafts of being like, okay, maybe these characters do it this way. Okay, maybe I take that character out, and then we swap in this character. And there was a lot of kind of, like, rearranging these puzzle pieces to get it right. So it was less that I really got, like, a writer's block about it. It's just, like, it took a long time to figure out what was gonna be the right combination that was gonna make sense. I also found as a writer that, you know, the best way to write things is to use, really, as few of your, like, few characters as possible. So whenever you cannot add in a new character that is better.
- [16:19]
Alison Stewart
Oh, smart.
- [16:20]
Erin Crosby Eckstein
Yeah. And so in my original versions, I had things where, like, we were adding in a new character, we adding in new things. And so it took me time to think about, okay, what if instead of adding in things, how could I use something I already have and make this character that's already there work in this role? So that was a lot of the thinking and the rearranging towards the end was. Was getting. Trying to get that part right.
- [16:43]
Alison Stewart
What was so easy was really simple. And why was it easy?
- [16:47]
Erin Crosby Eckstein
The character in this book of Violet, who is the master's daughter, she was the by far easiest character for me to write. And I think it's for a lot of reasons. In some ways, I think she just has a really strong voice as a character. And therefore, it just would kind of leap out of me to know, okay, yeah, this is what she's gonna say. But at the same time, I also think that I just read so many things and watched so many things, you know, read so many classic novels when I was in college. And I just am like a classic novel, like a 19th century novel fiend. So I kind of knew what that character sounded like. And as a result, I think she was the easiest one for me to write throughout. I always kind of knew what to do with Violet.
- [17:31]
Alison Stewart
Because you were a full time teacher and you taught literature, what part of your teaching helped you write this book?
- [17:38]
Erin Crosby Eckstein
Definitely the time around teenagers. That was the biggest one. Since junie herself is 16, there are two other major characters who are also teenagers. I spent so much time with teenagers all the time that I understood how their brains worked, both on a sort of more professional, kind of like, academic level as well as just on a, like an inner, you know, daily basis, y kind of interpersonal level. And I really was committed in this book to making sure that my teenage characters felt like teenagers. I wanted them to still have teenage brains even if their society didn't think about teenagers the same way that our society does. You know, the brain chemistry of being 16 has not changed since 1860. And as a result, I really wove in a lot of the behaviors of my students into these characters, the rebelliousness. But as well as this sort of what I like to call, like the sponginess of teenagers that I really where they are in this perfect place for absorbing new ideas. They're just beginning to wrap their heads around the complexities of the world and are sort of still open to new concepts. They haven't sort of closed off in the way I think that we often do as we get older. And therefore I wanted to really have that reflected in the characters that I was writing.
- [18:55]
Unknown
Part of your legacy will be that you were signed by your literary agent after you dmed her 5 chapters via Twitter.
- [19:05]
Erin Crosby Eckstein
Yes, that is accurate.
- [19:07]
Alison Stewart
So what's your biggest takeaway about?
- [19:09]
Unknown
How about the process, now that you know about it?
- [19:12]
Erin Crosby Eckstein
So one. Yeah, that was. That was a wild experience. That. That actually is how things panned out. I think that my biggest takeaway was just the. I think I steal the Nike. The Nike just do it is really what it came down to. So much of me becoming a writer, publishing a book was me just kind of ignoring being scared and committing to just doing the thing. Even if, you know, I could face rejection or feel embarrassed later. I just really committed to the idea of just getting the thing done and doing it and moving forward. Because if I hadn't put myself out there, I wouldn't be here.
- [19:51]
Unknown
The name of the novel is Juni. It is by Erin Crosby Eckstein. It is one of our debuts. Thank you so much for coming to the studio. We really just appreciate it.
- [20:02]
Erin Crosby Eckstein
Thank you so much for having me.
- [20:04]
Ira Flatow
WNYC Studios is supported by Carnegie hall, which presents the American Composers Orchestra, featuring works by Alice Coltrane and Tanya Leon and premieres by Edmar Castaneda, Clarice Assad and more. March 10 tickets@carnegiehall.org this is Ira Flato.
- [20:22]
Unknown
Host of Science Friday. For over 30 years, the science Friday team has been reporting high quality science and technology news, making science fun for curious people by covering everything from the outer reaches of space to the rapidly changing world of AI to the tiniest microbes in our bodies. Audiences trust our show because they know we're driven by a mission to inform and serve listeners first and foremost with important news they won't get anywhere else. And our sponsors benefit from that halo effect. For more information on becoming a sponsor, visit sponsorship.wnyc.org.