The Books That Saved Glory Edim, Founder of the Well-Read Black Girl Book Club

Summary

All of It Podcast Summary: "The Books That Saved Gloria Edom"

Episode Release Date: December 2, 2024
Host: Alison Stewart
Guest: Gloria Edom, Founder of the Well-Read Black Girl Book Club and Author of "Gather Me, A Memoir in Praise of the Books that Save Me"

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Introduction

In this compelling episode of All of It, host Alison Stewart welcomes Gloria Edom, the visionary founder of the Well-Read Black Girl Book Club and author of her deeply personal memoir, "Gather Me, A Memoir in Praise of the Books that Save Me." Gloria shares how literature has been a cornerstone in her journey of self-discovery, healing, and empowerment.

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The Genesis of "Gather Me"

[00:18] Alison Stewart introduces Gloria Edom’s memoir, highlighting how Gloria's life milestones are intricately tied to the books she read during those periods. Gloria elaborates on the memoir’s purpose:

[01:37] Gloria Edom:
"My book helped me heal in a lot of ways... It was a journey of self-discovery... revisiting my younger self and giving her a sense of love and self-compassion."

Gloria emphasizes that her memoir is not just a personal narrative but also a celebration of the books that guided her through both joyous and challenging times.

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Early Literary Influences

Gloria reflects on the books that shaped her childhood and adolescence:

[02:21] Gloria Edom:
"Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry by Mildred Taylor, The Caged Bird and The Fire Next Time by James Baldwin... reading was not only a form of entertainment but a tool for self-discovery."

These seminal works provided Gloria with strength, confidence, and clarity about her identity and aspirations.

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The Role of the Arlington Public Library

Growing up in Arlington, Gloria credits the local library as a pivotal environment for her literary growth:

[03:07] Gloria Edom:
"The library was a safe space... it allowed me to discover diverse stories and build bridges with different experiences."

She fondly remembers countless hours spent exploring books alongside her brother, highlighting the library’s role in fostering her love for reading and community.

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Maya Angelou’s Enduring Impact

A significant portion of the conversation delves into Gloria’s admiration for Maya Angelou:

[04:59] Maya Angelou (Excerpt):
"Lift up your eyes upon this day breaking for you... Each new hour holds new chances for new beginnings."

Gloria recounts how Angelou’s powerful presence and literary voice resonated with her as a young girl, shaping her sense of self and her understanding of being part of a diverse American tapestry.

[05:29] Gloria Edom:
"Maya Angelou's voice holds your attention... her books have helped orient me in such magnificent ways."

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Confronting Literary Criticism

Gloria shares a formative experience from her AP English class where a teacher dismissed Maya Angelou’s work:

[06:55] Gloria Edom:
"We had a very fierce debate... I had to speak up for Maya Angelou and for myself."

This encounter was pivotal, teaching Gloria the importance of defending beloved literature and asserting her own voice, reinforcing the role of books in personal and communal empowerment.

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Interactive Segment: Listener Call-Ins

Throughout the episode, listeners share their own transformative literary experiences. Notably:

• John from Brooklyn praises Tom Robbins’ "Skinny Legs and All", highlighting its whimsical yet profound resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

• Diane from Roselle Park, New Jersey discusses Barbara Tuchman’s "A Distant Mirror", appreciating its expansive view of history and its impact on her perspective.

• Maggie from Greenwich recounts how Doris Lund’s "Eric" inspired her to pursue a career in opera, demonstrating the profound influence of literature on life choices.

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Exploring Themes of Love

Gloria contrasts her youthful misconceptions of love, influenced by "Romeo and Juliet" and Toni Morrison’s "Jazz", with her mature understanding:

[15:38] Gloria Edom:
"Love requires self-reflection, patience, and boundaries... you have to be your own self."

She underscores that true love balances personal identity with the love for others, drawing inspiration from authors like Bell Hooks to define love as a multifaceted ethic encompassing family, romantic, and community bonds.

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Navigating Cultural Identity

Gloria delves into her dual heritage, shaped by her Nigerian parents’ pride and her mother’s desire to assimilate into American culture:

[13:48] Gloria Edom:
"I’m very proud to be Nigerian American... I celebrate both sides of my identity."

This duality has been a central theme in her memoir, allowing her to explore and embrace her Nigerian roots while navigating her American upbringing.

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Challenging and Empowering Through Literature

Gloria discusses the challenges posed by James Baldwin’s works and their role in shaping her political and social consciousness:

[19:53] Gloria Edom:
"Baldwin required me to be very rigorous... his work was an act of defiance and self-love."

She advocates for critical engagement with literature, encouraging readers to perform close readings and engage deeply with texts to uncover their profound truths and societal implications.

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Closing Reflections

As the episode concludes, Gloria passionately reiterates the life-saving power of reading:

[21:34] Alison Stewart:
"Reading is a practice that saves my life every day... It's not just the level of reading, it's what you get from it."

Gloria expresses heartfelt gratitude for the platform to share her story and commends Alison Stewart’s role in fostering meaningful conversations around culture and literature.

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Conclusion

This episode of All of It masterfully intertwines Gloria Edom’s personal narrative with the transformative power of literature. Through engaging discussions, poignant anecdotes, and interactive listener segments, Gloria illustrates how books can serve as anchors in our lives, guiding us through adversity, shaping our identities, and fostering a deeper understanding of ourselves and the world around us.

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Tune in to All of It with Alison Stewart weekdays from 12:00 - 2:00 PM on WNYC to explore more stories that celebrate culture and its consumers.

Transcript

[Gloria Edom]

Listener supported WNYC Studios.

[Alison Stewart]

This is all.

Of it on wnyc. I'm Alison Stewart. It is no surprise that Gloria Edom remembers the important moments of her life through what she was reading at the time. Edam is the founder of the popular well read Black Girl Book club whose mission is to, quote, provoke conversations around publishing, politics and pop culture and to amplify new work by African American artists. Edam is also an author herself. She's written a new memoir all about her life as a first generation American daughter of Nigerian immigrants. We learn about her happy memoirs of her parents early years in marriage to having to grow up fast when her father suddenly disappeared and her mother stopped speaking or even getting out of bed. For years. It was books that got her through the highs and the lows. Authors like Maya Angelou, Nikki Giovanni, James Baldwin, Toni Morrison and more were her classic companions throughout her first experiences with love and heartbreak and even now as a mother of a young son. Her memoir is called Gather A Memoir in praise of the Books that Save Me. It's out now and author Gloria Edom is here. Welcome to all of it.

[Gloria Edom]

Hi, how are you? Thank you for having me.

[Alison Stewart]

This is your story told through books you were reading at key moments in your life glory. Why did you want to write your memoir within the lens of influential books and authors?

[Gloria Edom]

Well, my book helped me heal in a lot of ways and I felt like I was witnessing myself as I was making choices as a young person. It was a journey of self discovery. It was a huge process of reflection and there were certain stories and themes and even like quotes that emerged and had a new kind of resonance for me. I was like revisiting my younger, younger self and giving her a sense of love and self compassion. And I don't know, right now it feels like such a, such a blessing to be able to fully grasp all the books that I encountered throughout my life. So it's part coming of age story, but it's also how I just found my sense of self in stories.

[Alison Stewart]

What were your favorite books as a kid?

[Gloria Edom]

Oh my goodness, I have to say. Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry by Mildred Taylor. Of course I know why. The Caged Birds and the Fire Next Time by James Baldwin. Each of those books, it was a pivotal shift in my own transformation and I really discovered that reading was not only a form of entertainment but like a tool for self discovery. And I felt like my resistance growing, like I felt stronger each time I read something and my own personal empowerment started to build. So those books really helped me see myself, but also feel like more confident and more clear about my ideology and who I wanted to become in the world.

[Alison Stewart]

You grew up in Arlington for some of your childhood. How important was the Arlington Public Library in your development as a young reader?

[Gloria Edom]

Oh, my goodness, the library. Me and my brother spent so many hours there reading in the stacks. I mean, the poor librarians they were entertained all our questions. We would be there for hours. And they were just so kind. And it allowed me to just again discover myself and see so many diverse stories, be able to be in a safe space. You know, there's not so many places where you can kind of just like go and be yourself. And the library was that for me. And it really helped me connect my own personal history and build bridges with different experiences. I just felt very nurtured in the library. And I still go to library all the time. Like I have a four year old now. And we go to the MLK library in D.C. we go down the slide and go to Storytime. It just is a beauty, beautiful community building space.

[Alison Stewart]

Listeners, we want to invite you in on this conversation. What books or authors meant the most to you at certain points in your life? Give us a call. 212-433-969-2212, wnyc. Maybe it's a story from your childhood that you loved reading or an author you discovered as a teenager or maybe another book or author that you read in your 20s, 30s, 40s, later in life. 2124-3396-9221-2433-96-2212, wnyc. Is there a book that you read that gave you a deeper understanding of yourself? 212-433-WNYC. Gloria Edom is my is my guest. We're talking about her new memoir, Gather Me, a Memoir in Praise of the Books that Saved Me. One of the people, one of the authors who saved you was Maya Angelou. You loved reading her poem on the Pulse of Mourning, on the Pulse of Mourning at Bill Clinton's inauguration. You know what? Let's listen to a little bit of that now.

[Maya Angelou]

Lift up your eyes upon this day breaking for you. Give birth again to the dream. Women, children, men, take it into the palms of your hands. Mold it into the shape of your most private need. Sculpt it into the image of your most public self. Lift up your hearts. Each new hour holds new chances for new beginnings.

[Alison Stewart]

What about her? Reading that day struck you as a little girl?

[Gloria Edom]

The power of her voice and the beauty. I can still see her beautiful red lipstick. The blue jacket she was wearing. I really watched it, feeling that I was an American. I was part of this beautiful fabric that represented so many beautiful, diverse voices. And she just felt so powerful in. And whenever you hear Maya Angelou's voice, something is captivating about it. It holds your attention. And I think the same thing happens with her books. If you encounter a book by Maya Angelou, it's like you're holding onto a literary compass of sorts. You don't know what direction you're gonna head in. But her voice and her books have helped orient me in such magnificent ways. And I think anyone that seeks out authors and ideas that can guide you on a path, it becomes a deeper, more deliberate relationship. Like you want to conn the author and their story. And that in that day, I just felt so connected to her as a powerful black woman who was representing the entire country. You know, there is no greater space to stand in. And I just absolutely love her for that power and that resilience.

[Alison Stewart]

It's interesting, though. You do tell a story in the book about being in an AP English class and a teacher who you loved had choice words for Maya Angelou and her grammar, shall we say?

[Gloria Edom]

Yes.

[Alison Stewart]

Tell us a little bit about that exchange you had with that teacher.

[Gloria Edom]

You know, that teacher was an incredible teacher, and he introduced me to a lot of sharp ideas, and he modeled the behavior and debate that all English teachers should have with their students. But he did say things about Maya Angelou's writing that I sharply disagreed with. And he challenged me to. If I was going to make an argument and say that Maya Angelou had. Was a prolific writer, I had to, like, stand on what I believed in. And so we had a very fierce debate in my AP English class, and it was one of the first times that I felt like I had to really speak up for this incredible writer, but also speak up for myself, because I saw myself in her. And if he could dismiss her work, there was no way that I could, like, sit there idly and not say anything. So it was this really pivotal moment in my high school career where I just felt, like, inspired, but also this idea of taking action, you know, like, I wanted to, like, be. Stand close to her and have a shared purpose and say that, like, this is what makes her works beautiful. Maybe you don't understand it, but I can see it. Something intuitive. And so he. He was incredible in the way that we, like, sparred. We went back and forth. But it's something that I wish all teachers would do, just, like, challenge their students to have really bold ideas, and even if you don't agree with them, to go forth and say them and be loud and. And. And develop your argument. You know, there's so much right now that's happening where students aren't able to share exactly how they feel. And there's also banned books. There's all these things happening where. But you need that. Young people need assistance, space where they can talk about. Just talk about their ideas, but also have access to stories. You know, it's like reading can really be an act of defiance, but it also can be an act of self love. And whenever we're able to curate our own libraries and celebrate diverse voices, there's so much empowerment in that. So I was very grateful for my teacher for challenging me in that way and allowing me to have this moment where I could stand up for myself and for Maya Angelou.

[Alison Stewart]

Gloria, let's take some calls. This is John, who is calling us from Brooklyn. Hi, John. Thank you so much for calling all of it.

[John]

Hi, Allison. Hi, Gloria. Full disclosure, Allison. I've been head over heels in love with you since the 90s and the MTV days when you were interviewing my boys and Blind Melon and Weezer, and you've just been such. Your voice has been such a beacon of dark times. So it's great to hear you doing healthy and well.

[Alison Stewart]

Aw, I'm crying. Thank you.

[John]

Yeah, well, thank you. But a book that really changed my life. I received my 21st birthday. It was called Skinny Legs and All by the author, Tom Robbins. And he's this whimsical, magical author, a social commentator who never lets the darkness overshadow the joy and potential in life. And the story is one of his brilliant female protagonists who is a Midwestern daughter of an evangelical preacher, and she is an artist and wants to move to the big cities, so move to New York. And the book really sort of dives into how to survive the misery that comes with being a nobody in the big city. And what's really cool, I think, speaks to the time and why I think the kids these days could use more Tom Robbins in their lives is that, as so many struggling artists in New York do, she gets a job as a waitress at a restaurant across from the United nations owned by a Jewish man and an Arab man. And their entire purpose in serving their food is to demonstrate how the cultures can be reconciled and there doesn't need to be conflict between Arab and Jewish cultures. And the book actually concludes in the last 10 or 20 pages, succinctly, academically, but playfully resolves the entire Israeli Palestinian conflict in a way that is clearly fantastical but defiantly joyful and ultimately plausible. So I would just recommend that to anybody who's looking for something fun but also very informative to read these days.

[Alison Stewart]

John, thank you so much for calling in.

My guest is Gloria Edom. The name of the book, her book is Gather A Memoir In Praise of the Books that Save Me. We're taking your calls as well. What books or authors meant the most to you during certain points in your life? Our number is 212-4339. 9692.

212433 WNYC.

You can call in or you can.

Text to us at that number.

Gloria, you write a lot about some hard times with your parents, but you also make it clear early on the.

Book that you were real. There were happy times as well. When you think of the happy times with your parent, where does your mind go? Where do the memories go?

[Gloria Edom]

The memories definitely go to those times where we were taking vacations and reading in the library and cooking together and attending beautiful family events where we were just together. And I think that that feeling of feeling loved and nurtured isn't something that, you know, disappears even when hard times happen and there are challenging times ahead. You can remember and viscerally feel what love is. And I had the blessing of just so much immense love from both of my parents. And that really, you know, it, it helped me, it guided me through when things were hard because I knew how much my parents loved me and I knew that they were doing their best. And now that I'm a parent, I have so much compassion for both of my parents and the decisions they had to make, you know, the choices they made. They were always authentic and passionate people. And they also instilled a great deal of curiosity in me. And so I've been able to embrace my life and my own love of books and even the challenges I've had in my life and look at them as just important lessons. You know, they also shared so much about vulnerability and honesty and like what it means to connect to home, wherever home is. So all of that I tried to pour into the book and just show that, you know, despite the challenging things you may encounter, there's so much more on the other side. And it's all, that's all part of your, your becoming.

[Alison Stewart]

Your parents are Nigerian and your father was proud of his Nigerian heritage. You wanted to make sure you were as well.

Your mom, on the other hand, wanted to assimilate more into American culture. How did their two attitudes influence your.

Thoughts on being an American girl?

[Gloria Edom]

Yeah, you know, initially, when I started writing Gather Me, I thought it would be a more straightforward writing process. But this turned into more of an introspective journey and thinking about what it means to be first generation and to hold the duality of both narratives. And it was. It allowed me to ask a lot of questions of what it means to be Nigerian, what it means to be American, what traditions that I wanted to carry on into my own, my own, you know, parenting and motherhood. It really allowed me to be. Say that, like, I get to choose. You know, there's certain aspects of your traditions that you want to hold on to, but there are also ways you can grow and change them and add new things to it. The idea of coming to the United States, I can't even imagine what that was like for my parents. They were both the products of the Biafra war. They came here with really high expectations, and quite honestly, not everything happened as planned. But I'm so grateful that they had the courage and they took the risk of leaving the only country they. They knew. And they came here with just this really abundant mindset. And I'm grateful for that because it changed the lives of me and my siblings, how I feel about my heritage. I'm very proud to be Nigerian American. I'm very proud to hold both of those sides of my identity and celebrate them.

[Alison Stewart]

You write about how two stories, Romeo and Juliet and Jazz by Toni Morrison, influenced your thought on love for good. And maybe not so good. What did a young glory not understand about love in the way that Romeo and Juliet or Jazz, that maybe older glory can appreciate it now?

[Gloria Edom]

Oh, my goodness. Okay, so I made the mistake of gifting the book Jazz to a lot of the young men that I loved in my life. And if anyone has read Jazz, you will clearly know it is a story about murder, and it's not necessarily her. Kelly. A love story. So I think when I was younger, I had so many misshapen ideas of thinking that love equals sacrifice, and it required you throwing yourself all in. You know, of course we know what Romeo and Juliet. We know how that ends. Like, I just thought that it required us to just lay. Lay down and be still and not make too much of a fuss. But the reality is love requires so much self reflection and patience and boundaries, and you have to be so deliberate about how you care for the other person. You don't just, you know, meld into the other person. You have to be your own self. And that is what adult glory knows now, that I have to balance who I am with the love that I desire. And it isn't one or the other that I have to consistently show up for myself and consistently show up for those that I love. And love takes all forms. You know, I read so much Bella Hooks to understand that that love is a mix of family love and romantic love and your best friends and your community. It's a love ethic that you practice every day. It isn't something that just stands in the corner with your romantic relationship. So it took me a while to figure that out. And quite honestly, I think I'm still figuring it out. But I'm so much more open. And I love the definition that I now have of love. I didn't have that early on. It was, it was a very mixed up. And I like to tell young people now to do the close reading, to look and read in between the lines. You know, it's not just you have to reread things over and over again. You're not going to get it once.

[Alison Stewart]

Let's take some more calls, Glori. Let's talk to Diane from Roosevelt Park, New Jersey. Hi, Diane, thanks for calling.

[Diane]

Hi. Roselle Park.

[Alison Stewart]

Roselle Park.

[Diane]

My book is A Distant Mirror by Barbara Tuchman. It's a history book and it's about the Middle Ages or early, like 1200s and 1300s. And it was just a widening of everything, of time, of history, of what people have done, of what they've experienced, how much more has happened to other people than to me in my little life. And also that there's a comparison. You know, things are happening. You can kind of look around and say, oh, that happened over there.

[Maggie]

What did they do?

[Alison Stewart]

Thank you so much, Diane, for calling. Let's go to Maggie from Greenwich. Hi, Maggie.

[Maggie]

Hi, good afternoon. I just want to share that I was the youngest sibling of six growing up in Ohio, so I would often read books that were probably not at my reading level. So I could say my sister brought back from Ohio State Our Bodies, Ourselves, which I devoured in elementary school. But then in around sixth grade, one of my older sisters had the book Eric, and it was written by her mother, Doris Lund, and was about her son who contracted leukemia. And this book had such a profound effect on me and that I would reread it certain times in my life. I was a chubby teenager. I was studying music and having a very difficult time with ADHD and just failing continually. And I was in graduate school and happened to read it one weekend, got myself out there, got an application to Santa Fe Opera, was accepted. And honestly, I can tell you that reading this book got me to get off that couch and submit an application and start my career in opera. And I got teary eyed just now walking my dog, going, because I went through a tough time during COVID And I go, I read it again and my husband's a literature teacher, he's a professor in the city. And I'm like, you know, this is just a junior high book, but sometimes it's not. It's not the level of reading, it's what you get from it.

[Alison Stewart]

Thank you so much for your call.

Yeah.

Glory. What was a book that challenged you?

[Gloria Edom]

Oh, goodness. I would say Baldwin for sure. You know, there were times where I would think about his work and I would just be so perplexed thinking about in the time period he was writing, the challenges he had as a queer person. And there's the quote, you know, you think your pain and your heartbreak are unprecedented in the history of the world. And then you read, you know, and I think that like, that is such a true quote. The heartbreak that you can experience when you read the history of the world, when you see that the disadvantage. There's so much that can break your heart. But you have to continue to read, you have to continue to have rigor. And I would say that, you know, the fire of this time, I was really trying to find my place and understand my political perspective. And as a student at Howard University, I read a lot of Baldwin to gain my footing. And I did that paired with a lot of history. I took African American lit and all kinds of history classes just to understand what was happening in the world. And Baldwin required me to be very rigorous and talk to so many professors. Thank goodness for the professors who are patient and answer all your questions because I needed that kind of hand holding with his work.

[Alison Stewart]

What's one piece of Baldwin you would like people to read?

[Gloria Edom]

Oh, I've said it a million times, but I really do think the fire this time is like required reading. Like, it's something that it just holds your attention and it's like there's a brevity to it, there's a sharpness and it can be and it can apply to now it's such a contemporary read.

[Alison Stewart]

Got a great test. I just finished reading and was so moved by Etam's memoir. She wrote in the afterword, reading is a practice that saves my life every day. When I read this, I had to catch my breath. It's so true and resonates so deeply with me. The name of the book is Gather Me A Memoir in praise of the Books that Save Me. Gloria, Adam is was our guest. Thank you so much for being with us.

[Gloria Edom]

Thank you so much. This was absolutely wonderful. I appreciate, I love your show too. I'm gonna also fan girl because I'm a huge fan of your work. It's been awesome to see your, your healing journey as well. Thank you. You know, you're absolutely wonderful. So thank you so much.

[Alison Stewart]

Thank you. Coming up, the New York Times Style magazine has compiled a list of the 25 most influential cookbooks of the last century. We'll get into it after the break.

[WNYC Studios]

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