Terry Gross (2:43)

SIPC this is FRESH AIR weekend. I'm Terry Gross, Stress and anxiety can lead to itch. So I would imagine a lot of Americans have done a lot of scratching over the past few months. There's the kind of itch that you scratch and poof, no more itch. But sometimes the more you scratch, the more you itch. And then there's the kind of itch that is so alive, explosive, persistent and all encompassing that nothing seems to help and it hijacks your brain. That's the kind of itch that my guest Annie Lowry writes about in her Atlantic magazine article titled why People Itch and How to Stop It. It's about what researchers are learning about itch and how that's opening the door to new treatments. Lowery suffers from itch so intense she's dug holes in her skin and scalp and once asked a surgeon to amputate her limbs. Her issue is related to a rare and degenerative liver disease. Part of her article is about her own itch and the extremes it's led her to. Lowery is a staff writer at the Atlantic, focusing on the economy and politics. She's a former staff writer at the New York Times and New York Magazine. Annie Lowery, welcome to FRESH air. Is today an itchy day for you?

Annie Lowrey (4:00)

It is. I have been itchy for about four days now, so we're talking during the daytime, so I'm not terribly itchy, but my feet are itchy, my scalp is itchy and my hands are itchy. But it's like A It's a two out of 10. It's manageable.

Terry Gross (4:14)

So people are very dismissive of itch. And I want you to describe what your kind of itch feels like.

Annie Lowrey (4:23)

At its worst, it was like having poison ivy in the acute phase of poison iv. Although my skin didn't show anything, there was no rash or anything like that. And it was completely maddening. It was impossible to do anything other than focus on scratching or trying to find relief from the itching. And the type of itching that I have is not sensitive to the medications that we have that that normally turn the itching dial down. So the two big ones being steroids and antihistamines. And it just became all encompassing. I would spend hours in cold baths. I would walk to try to get rid of the itch. It was most intense. I've been pregnant twice. I have two kids. And at the end of one pregnancy, I asked my surgeons. I was like, if this doesn't stop, I don't want these limbs on my body anymore. It was really debilitating. And I'm not like that all the time. And in fact, the itching has never been quite as severe as it was in my pregnancies. Now, the itching is much calmer, although it is persistent, but it comes and goes. At its worst, it's really, you know, just like pain is debilitating, itch is debilitating.

Terry Gross (5:34)

Okay, so you mentioned that you were especially itchy on the bottom of your feet, your hands, and your scalp. Are those, if I use the word, popular sites for itch, and if so, why? I mean, a lot of people go around scratching their scalp.

Annie Lowrey (5:49)

The amount that you might itch, and the place that you might itch has to do with the network of nerves inside your body and the messages that those nerves are receiving from chemical irritants from outside your body or the chemical messengers within your body. And my understanding, and I'll just note that I am not a scientist, I am not a doctor, I am a layperson who knows a lot about this, unfortunately from experience, is that when you have a lot of basically itchy receptors, nerve fibers that accept itch, and you have a lot of chemicals that engender itch, like histamine and others in those sites, you'll feel itchy. And one thing that happens to me, and I know happens to other people with chronic illness who get itching, is that it actually, you'll feel itchy on the inside of your body. Like, you know, in your guts, right? Like, part of your body that has, you know, you're not itchy on your skin, and you can't get to it, so there's no way to scratch it. And I remember talking with a number of dermatologists who were like, well, you don't really have the nerves for itching on the inside of your. Your body. And, you know, I would talk to other doctors or patients, people who itched, and they'd be like, no, no, no. Like, and I felt this way, too. I was like, no, I swear that I feel it. And I finally found this one neuroscientist who was like, oh, no, no. Some of those fibers exist inside your body. So, yeah, anywhere where you have those, there's probably a little bit of itching possible. And I felt very, very good knowing that. But, yeah, so I think that your hands. Your hands are just enormously sensitive, right? Like, so many of these touch receptors and receptors for hot and cool are on your hands. I think your feet and your scal. Places that are just really, really sensitive in your body. Whereas, you know, like, you know, the small of your back or Something might be less. Less innervated in that way.

Terry Gross (7:30)

I'm going to quote you. You write, itch becomes a constant, obnoxious and shrill reminder that you are in a body. Describe what it means to you to be constantly reminded that you're in a body. Why don't you want that kind of reminder? And does it make your body feel like an opponent?

Maureen Corrigan (7:51)

Absolutely.

Annie Lowrey (7:52)

I've tried to come up with a lot of metaphors for itching, and I feel like we have a lot of metaphors for pain, right? Unfortunately, all of us in human bodies experience pain, and often really severe pain. And itching is basically a universal phenomenon also. But itching feels kind of qualitatively different to pain, at least to me in some ways. It can be really hard to tune out. I always describe it as being like a car alarm, right? Like you can't stop thinking about it. It interrupts you somehow. It feels like being trapped inside your own body. And, you know, maybe pain has these qualities for other people. Sometimes I describe it as like a feeling of drowning. It. It creates in me a sense of fight or flight, but there's nothing to flee from and nothing to fight. I guess you can scratch yourself and you're fighting your own body. It has this kind of hallucinatorily strange quality for me. Sometimes you're feeling things that aren't there. And sometimes I even get that sense I will feel things on my skin. When I'm looking at the skin and there's nothing there. And it can be spooky in a way. And notably, there's lots of different ways to feel itchy. There's burning itch. There's kind of electric itch. There's sunburn itch. Our brain is amazing at sensing things in unbelievably refined ways. And so, yeah, you know, sometimes it's just a bug bite. And sometimes I'm like, I could write a book trying to describe this.

Terry Gross (9:18)

Well, let me ask you if you experience this sometimes when I get the kind of itch that if you scratch it, it just gets worse. So the first time you scratch it, it's like it explodes. It's almost like it bloomed, it blossomed, it's climactic, but at the same time, you know, the climax and then it ends. Right? But with itch, it's like it explodes, and then it kind of keeps up at that, like, high level. It doesn't stop.

Annie Lowrey (9:46)

Absolutely.

Terry Gross (9:47)

Yeah. So that's a strange thing about itch. I just realized I'm scratching my scalp as we talk.

Annie Lowrey (9:54)

I Think everybody who listens to this is going to do that. We can talk about why that is.

Terry Gross (9:58)

Why is that? Tell me why that is.

Annie Lowrey (10:00)

So just to go back to one thing that you said and then I'll answer that question. But yeah, scratching, it engenders pain in the skin, which interrupts the sensation of itch. And it gives you the sense of relief that actually feels really good. It's really pleasurable to scratch. And then when you stop scratching, the itch comes back. And the problem is that when you scratch or you damage your skin in order to stop the itch, to interrupt the itch, you actually damage the skin in a way that then makes the skin more itchy because you end up with histamine in the skin. And histamine is one of the hormones that generates itch within the body. But to go back to what you were saying, there's actual studies that show that itching is contagious. So watching somebody scratch will make a person scratch. There's this interesting question, are people scratching empathetically in the way that we will mirror the movements of people around us in the way that yawning is contagious or crying can be contagious. But it turns out that no, it's probably a self protective thing. If you see somebody scratching, there's some ancient part of your body that says that person might have scabies, that person might have some other infestation. I'm going to start scratching to get this off of myself. Because scratching is in part a self protective mechanism. We want to get irritants off of the body and that's in part why.

Terry Gross (11:24)

We scratch in the itch scratch cycle. If you scratch an itch, it releases histamine to that site and histamine makes you itch more. Is there any logic behind that?

Annie Lowrey (11:37)

Yes. So histamine is an amazing chemical that does many, many, many things in our body. And it's part of our immune response. It leads to swelling so the body can come in to heal. And the scratching is meant to get whatever irritant was there off. And the itch scratch cycle ends when the body heals. So I think that that's all part of a natural and proper cycle. That's part of our body being amazing at sensing what's around it and then healing it. But we have some itch that's caused by substances other than histamine. We've only started to understand that kind of itch recently. Similarly, we didn't really understand science, did not understand chronic itch very well. Until recently. And we're in a period, I would say, in the 20 years of just tremendous scientific advancement in our understanding of itch.

Terry Gross (12:34)

So you're not supposed to scratch an itch because it can release histamine and amplify the itch instead of quieting it. But the doctor who's called the godfather of itch, Gil Jastapovich, you say he doesn't even suggest to patients that they shouldn't scratch their itch because if you're seeing him, you have pretty severe chronic itch. So why did he explain to you why he doesn't even suggest it?

Annie Lowrey (12:57)

I think the patients that he often sees and he does a lot of things, he, you know, studies studies itch as a Dr. Sus Medical Research. And I believe that he also sees patients I've talked to other dermatologists who have told me not to itch, who've, you know, tried to hand me cold packs and try to get my hands off of my body and explained the itch scratch cycle and sort of said, okay, we might not be able to treat your underlying itch, but at least we can break the itch scratch cycle and stop that kind of secondary itch that's coming on top of it. And when I talk to him, he sees people that are so miserable and they know they know that scratching is not going to help them. But at some point it's reflexive. And I think that he felt like it was cruel to tell people to stop doing this thing that is deeply irresistible and often the only source of relief that you might be getting, even if it's leading to a problem down the road. So short of having like a nice ice cold bath for somebody to sit in, telling somebody with no other answers at that moment to stop scratching themselves might feel a little bit rude. But I would say that all of the dermatologists I've ever seen have been very, very sympathetic. And, you know, itches is something that they deal with on a daily basis, is enormously common and they mean well. I'm not certainly not trying to get on dermatologists case for that.

Terry Gross (14:15)

My guest is Annie Lowry. We're talking about her Atlantic magazine article, why People Itch and How to Stop It. We'll hear more of our conversation after a break. I'm Terry Gross, and this is FRESH AIR weekend.

Ben Mankiewicz (14:28)

This message comes from NPR sponsor Rosetta Stone, an expert in language learning for 30 years. Right now, NPR listeners can get Rosetta Stone's lifetime membership to 25 different languages for 50% off. Learn more at RosettaStone.com NPR this message comes from Energia. Looking to make an impact with your investments? With Energia, you can invest directly in solar projects that reduce carbon emissions. Since Energia, investors have averaged a 12% annual return, all while contributing to a more sustainable future. Make your money, do more and create an account today@energia.com NPR Past Performance is not indicative of future results. All investments carry risk, including the potential loss of principal.

Maureen Corrigan (15:16)

Support for this podcast and the following message come from Montblanc. The iconic Meisterstuck, or masterpiece writing instrument, celebrated for over 100 years, now inspires a sophisticated range of leather goods. True to its name, the leather collection combines excellent craftsmanship and a touch of luxury. Discover the collection@montblanc.com this is FRESH AIR WEEKEND.

Terry Gross (15:39)

I'm Terry Gross. Let's get back to my interview with Annie Lowery about her Atlantic magazine article, why People Itch and How to Stop It. It's about what researchers are learning about the causes of chronic itch. Lowry suffers from severe chronic itch resulting from a rare liver disease. I would like you to describe the chronic progressive illness that you have that's responsible for the severe itch that you experience.

Annie Lowrey (16:05)

Absolutely. So I have a poorly understood degenerative disease called primary biliary cholangitis. It's autoimmune in nature. It seems to be partially genetically. You know, you perhaps have a genetic predisposition, but then perhaps environmentally triggered. They don't really know why people get it. Right. Now I believe that it's roughly 80,000 people in the United States States total who have it. About 9 in 10 of those people are women. And the disease is most common in adult women, somewhat, you know, 40 and older. And it is a disease in which the body mistakenly attacks some of the cells in your bile ducts, in the lining of your bile ducts. It causes them to inflame. It hurts your liver's ability to secrete bile into your digestive system, into your body, and ultimately, if the disease is allowed to progress, will slowly progress towards cirrhosis. Disease used to be considered or was often considered fatal. They found a drug, actually really old drug that dissolves gallstones, works really well to slow its progression. And so, yeah, so that's the condition that I had. I was diagnosed with it during my second pregnancy, though I clearly had it in my first. And I was young, although not unheard of young to get it. And my OB GYNs had never had a patient with it. It took a while to get to a hepatologist who recognized it. But it, like a lot of liver and kidney conditions, for reasons that are not understood at all, causes really, really bad itching that does not respond to antihistamines and does not respond to steroids.

Terry Gross (17:49)

You write that scientists are thinking that itch is sometimes a disease in and of itself. What is meant by that?

Annie Lowrey (17:59)

When scientists said that itching is a disease in and of itself, what they meant was that chronic itching changes the body's own circuitry in a way that begets more chronic itching. That implies that itching is not just a side effect, it's a body process in and of itself. And so instead of just being a symptom, instead of being something where if you fix the underlying issue, you might fix the itch, itch itself can kind of rewire the body and can be treated as a condition unto itself. And a lot of dermatologists see itch that way. It's often a symptom, often a side effect, but sometimes it's really its own thing in the body.

Terry Gross (18:45)

You point out that if you're in pain, there's so many pain clinics and pain medications and pain experts and pain support groups. If chronic severe itch is one of your problems, you can see a dermatologist. But there aren't a lot of centers that specialize in itch. And you couldn't even find a lot of support groups that deal with itch. And I think a lot of people have issues with itch. Why do you think not as many as pain? But why do you think so little attention is being paid to itch? And why comparatively little research has been done about itch when compared to pain?

Annie Lowrey (19:25)

It's a great question, and I think that the answer is multilayered. So one is that doctors didn't understand itch, even just that basic histaminergic itch, very well. Until recently. There's not a lot of drugs to treat itch, and there didn't seem to be a lot of money in treating itch. There's a lot of money in treating pain, right? An upsetting amount of money that has led to a tremendous social crisis due to our treatment of pain. But it is also true that, you know, there's a lot of chronic pain and we have a lot of ways to treat it. And, you know, I think there's now a lot more emphasis on non opiate medications to treat pain, while also acknowledging that a lot of people require appropriately opiate medications to treat pain. So there just wasn't a lot of optionality for treating itch. It wasn't the sort of thing that medical centers were going to make a lot of money by treating people with chronic itch because they didn't have options to give them. I also think that there's a social aspect. Pain is so awful. And I would never say that there's something ennobling about pain, but I think that there's a certain amount of social respect to people who are going through it and itching. You kind of sound like a Muppet, right? I do think that, like, itching, it's just a little bit, like, disrespected. You look like a dog with fleas. It's, like, embarrassing to scratch yourself in public. It's inappropriate to scratch yourself in public. I think people just kind of don't take it very seriously. I had also thought a lot about how, like, you know, if you had a chronic itching support group, everybody would come into it and then just start scratching themselves and then make everybody else itchier by being in the simple presence of people who were itchy. So I don't know, but it's something that, you know, people suffer through alone. It's kind of embarrassing. And it's been so nice since the piece came out to get. I got a lot of emails from people suggesting lotion, and I was like, okay, thank you. Thank you for that. But then I got a lot of emails from people who are like, people don't believe me, but I've been itchy, and they don't know what it is, and I feel so alone. Or I have this cancer and it makes me itchy and it drives me completely nuts. And so it was really nice to get responses from people who didn't want to be alone and do have some trouble conveying to folks just how hard it can be. And this is not to, you know, there's no misery Olympics here. I'm not saying, like, pain is awful. Itching is awful. It's just that sometimes I think itch is not respected.

Terry Gross (21:55)

Your husband made a T shirt for you. Describe what was written on the T shirt.

Annie Lowrey (21:59)

It says, yes, I have tried lotions. So people, when you say that you're itchy, I think they kindly assume it's a dermatologic thing. And they're like, oh, yeah, I was itchy, too, and I tried this lotion, and you should try this lotion. And I try not to get short with those people because they are trying to be helpful. But I'm like, I'm not saying I've tried everything, but I've tried a lot of things. I am an expert in my own itch at this point, and if Eucerin fixed it, I can assure you that I wouldn't be experiencing it. But people are trying to be nice, and so I try to be. I try to be nice back. I don't know that I succeed at that all the time.

Terry Gross (22:35)

Do you ever, like, enter into a conversation with somebody and you're itching really badly and you're not going to say anything about it, and you think the person I'm talking to only knew what's going on inside? This conversation might be very different.

Annie Lowrey (22:50)

Yeah, I try not to talk to people when that happens. I guess in some ways it's nice that usually when I'm really itchy, it's at night, like, in the middle of the night, because, you know, during the daytime it would be pretty unusual for me to be severely itchy. Now, that was not true when I was pregnant so much. But now it's like the sun starts to go down. I'm leaving the office so I can go hide in my house if I'm itchy, you know? So for the past week that I've been itchy, it's mostly it's been at night. And, like, I just excuse myself because it's just like, sometimes I'll subtly try to, like, scratch my head or scratch my feet or something, but it's noticeable. People kind of pick up on it. It's like, not a cool thing to do socially. I think it leads to a sense of disquiet in the person that you're talking to, and then they end up scratching themselves. You've just. You've allowed your itch to become contagious.

Terry Gross (23:40)

Your article ends with this. I'm here. My body tells me I'm here. I'm alive. I'm dying. I'm here. It sounds like a meditation. Is this something that you repeat to yourself a lot?

Annie Lowrey (23:55)

I often sort of tell it to shut up. I'm often. I'm often like, I know, I know I'm itchy. You can stop it. I know. I don't need to itch. I don't need to be scratching. I don't know why it's happening, but it could stop and we'd be fine. There's no point to my itching. It's not helping me get something off of my skin. It's just interrupting. And I do think that even if I can't quite come to terms with the itch, I have come to much better Terms of just, you know, the gift of being in a body that is getting sick. The gift of being in a body at all. And I have really tried over, you know, the kind of six months that I was working on the piece to come to better terms with that. And again, I think so many people come to better terms with that. And I always want to be careful to note, like, it's, you know, I don't think that illness is any kind of gift, and I don't think that there needs to be upsides to bad things happening to people at all. But I do appreciate the insight that I've had into myself, even if I wish that I never had occasion to have it.

Terry Gross (25:00)

What kind of insight?

Annie Lowrey (25:02)

Oh, just like you can endure a lot, your body is going to fail you. You know, it can feel completely crazy making and obsessive and miserable. And you can survive it. You can just keep on breathing through it. You can do really amazing, wonderful things. And again, that's not to say I think that it's worth it or that I'm, you know, taking the right lesson away from it. I really often just try to be like, not everything needs to be a lesson. You don't need to respond to things that are unfair and difficult in this fashion. But writing the piece led me to a much greater place of acceptance, and I really appreciated that.

Terry Gross (25:40)

So before we go, should we apologize to our listeners for making them itch, in case we've done that?

Annie Lowrey (25:47)

I'm so sorry. Especially the people who are always itchy. I'm really sorry. I hope you turned this off the second you heard it. You're like, nope, not me. Not today.

Terry Gross (25:58)

I'm gonna make the counter argument that I think this is very helpful to anyone who has itch.

Annie Lowrey (26:03)

I hope so. I hope so. And it is all of us. All of us. Yeah. It's not as common as chronic pain, but chronic itch is really common, and everybody is itchy at some point.

Terry Gross (26:13)

Annie Lowery, thank you so much for talking with us. This interview has really been a pleasure. Even though we've been talking about chronic itch and rare disease, you've brought a sense of understanding and a sense of humor to it all, and I greatly appreciate that.

Annie Lowrey (26:28)

Thank you so much for having me.

Terry Gross (26:30)

Annie Lowery is a staff writer at the Atlantic. We've been talking about her article, why People Itch and How to Stop it. If you're in search of some inspiration, beauty and leavening humor in what you read in the coming weeks, our book critic, Maureen Corrigan thinks she may have just what you're looking for.

Richard Price (26:48)

Sometimes I do believe there is a book God who sends the book I need when I need it. This week, the book God sent a special delivery of not one, but two much needed books. For years, Billy Collins has been both blessed and burdened with the tagline that identifies him as one of America's favorite poets. I say burdened because if a poet is popular, the suspicion arises that they're a mere rhymester, a step or two up from a Hallmark assembly line troubadour. Even at this late stage In Collins career, he's in his early 80s now, has served as poet laureate and has published 12 earlier collections of poetry. His simplicity of language invites cynics to regard him as simplistic. Those of us who've long read his work know better. Water, Water, Colin's collection of 60 new poems, takes its title from the romantic poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge's ballad the Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner and its often misquoted lines. Water, water everywhere, nor any drop to drink. Coleridge is also the guy who talked about making the familiar strange and the strange familiar, which is an apt description of what Collins has always done in his own work. If anything has shifted in Collins poems over the years, it's that the theme of aging is more prevalent, specifically the way aging makes a person estranged from their former selves and others. Take the poem called When a Man Loves Something. Like most of Collins work, it appears to be autobiographical, narrated in what Collins himself drolly calls the first person's selfish point of view. Collins starts out remembering a night when he heard the blues singer Percy Sledge perform in a roadhouse on the edge of a California desert. A loopy interlude follows. Years later, Collins says, when I lived in Florida, we had a plumber whose name was Lynn Hammer. I like to introduce people to one another. But Lynn Hammer said he had never heard of Percy Sledge and put his head back under the sink. So many miscues like that these days. Near the poem's end, Collins imagines there's a planet called the past, and he's on it, orbiting the sun. Collins is his own most eloquent critic. In a poem bearing the stripped down title of your poem, he suggests that one of the go to emotions in his work is buoyant ease in the shadow of mortality. This whole collection is filled with poems that strike that rare attitude, and some of them, like Emily Dickinson in Space, which unfortunately is too long to read, here, are among the best poems that Collins has ever written. Now for something completely different. I usually hesitate to review graphic novels and illustrated books because it's hard to do justice to their visual power. But James Norbury's illustrated adult fable called the Dog who Followed the Moon fell into my hands a few weeks ago and I've been under its spell ever since. Norbury, who's the best selling author and illustrator of the philosophical Big Panda and Tiny Dragon books, is a practicing Buddhist. His books are not meant to comfort as much as they're meant to accompany readers on their own hard journeys. The Dog who Followed the Moon opens on a winter dawn in the mountains. Norberry's blue, white and brown watercolors on the opening pages are influenced by Zen art. They make readers feel the stillness of this imaginary world. A puppy named Amaya, who's become separated from her parents, wanders into the snowy landscape. Starving and lonely, she mistakes a wolf pack for friendly dogs. The wolves circle her and attack. Just as Amaya is about to be torn apart, she's rescued by an old wolf, the former leader of the pack. Together they set off through a fantastic landscape of ancient ruins and despair and loss, always looking for the moon to lead them and struggling to keep the faith when it disappears behind clouds. Norbury says in his afterword that his moon was his art and that he spent 25 years with very little money, depressed, anxious, defeated, addicted before coming out the other side. Inspirational is a word that's become cheapened, but it's a fitting word for the Dog who Followed the Moon, an inspirational and gorgeous book about not giving up.

Terry Gross (32:31)

Maureen Corrigan is a professor of literature at Georgetown University. She reviewed Water, the latest collection of poems by Billy Collins, and the illustrated adult fable the Dog who Followed the Moon by James Norberry. Coming up, we hear from screenwriter and novelist Richard Price. His new novel Lazarus man is one of the most anticipated books of the season. I'm Terry Gross, and this is FRESH.

Ben Mankiewicz (32:56)

AIR WEEKEND support for npr. And the following message come from Chevron. The anchor offshore platform is utilizing breakthrough technology to enable us to produce oil and natural gas in the US Gulf of Mexico at pressures up to 20,000 psi. A new industry benchmark, Anchor is part of Chevron's plan to produce 300,000 net barrels of oil equivalent per day by 2026 in the US Gulf of Mexico, home to some of Chevron's lowest carbon intensity producing operations. That's energy in progress. Visit chevron.com anchor this message comes from NPR sponsor ThinkFun. Looking for that purr fect gift for the holidays? Love a game that's more than just solving the challenge, ThinkFun's Crash Cats has the challenge of a logic game with the excitement of cats flying through the air. Set up the board and then slide the pieces to get the cats to launch. Designed for kids 8 who want excitement in their gameplay, Mark pure joy off your holiday list with the gift of Crash Cats, now available@Amazon.com this is FRESH AIR WEEKEND.

Terry Gross (34:06)

I'm Terry Gross. I always look forward to a new Richard Price novel. And after nearly 10 years of waiting, he has a new one called Lazarus man. During those 10 years, he co created and wrote for the HBO series the Night of and the Outsider and wrote for the HBO series the Deuce. Before that, he wrote for the Wire, one of the best TV series ever. Several of his earlier novels were adapted into films, including Clockers, Freedomland and the Wanderers. He also wrote the screenplay for the film Al Pacino considers his comeback film, Sea of Love. Price is considered one of the best writers of urban fiction and one of the best writers of dialogue. And I think that's true of his new novel, which is set in Harlem, where Price has lived since 2008, the same year that the novel is set. The story revolves around the collapse of a five story building whose impact is like a very small scale, 9, 11. It's devastating for the people in the neighborhood, including the survivors and the people grieving for loved ones who've died. The collapse changes the lives of each of the main characters, including a young street photographer, a police community affairs officer, a funeral director who can't keep up with the quota of bodies he needs to stay in business, and a 42 year old man who has been feeling like he's lost everything and has little to live for and is found buried in the rubble. It's remarkable that he's still alive, which is why the novel's called Lazarus Man. Reviewing the novel in the Washington Post, Ron Charles wrote, for a nation riven and terrified, lazarus man is the strangest of urban thrillers, a thoughtful, even peaceful story about stumbling into new life. Richard Price, welcome back to FRESH air. Because I love your writing, I want to start with a reading from the very beginning of the book.

Richard Price (35:53)

Alrighty. It was one of those nights For Anthony Carter, 42, two years unemployed, two years separated from his wife and stepdaughter, six months into cocaine sobriety and recently moved into his late parents apartment on Frederick Douglass Boulevard, when to be alone with his thoughts, alone with his losses, was not survivable. So he did what he always did, hit the streets, meeting, hit the Bars on Lenox, one after the other, finding this one too ghetto, that one too Scandinavian tourist, this one too loud, that one too quiet, on and on, taking just a few sips of his drink in each one, dropping dollars and heading out for the next establishment like an 80 proof Goldilocks. Thinking maybe this next place, this next random conversation would be the trigger for some kind of epiphany that would show him a new way to be. But it was all part of a routine that never led him anywhere but back to the apartment. This he knew, this he had learned over and over. But maybe this time is a drug, you never know is a drug. So out the door he went.

Terry Gross (37:01)

When we spoke in 1986, after your novel, the break, you said something that reminds me of something that you wrote in the paragraph that you read. This whole kind of like maybe this time, that the whole idea of maybe this time can be a drug. You were talking about your feeling of discontent when you were younger and feeling like you're over here, but it's over there. And the minute you're over there, it's over here. This feeling of restlessness and discontent and maybe wanting to be someone else.

Richard Price (37:33)

Well, you know, it's just some people have like this constant state of low key agitation that the thing, the very thing that's going to make you whole is like 1 micro dot outside your fingertips and then you can't find it at all. And repeat if necessary. It was a level of dissatisfaction I felt, but I don't feel that anymore. I grew out of it and now I'm kind of, I wouldn't say chill. I'll never be chill, but, you know, at least I'm, you know, more relaxed and settled than I've ever been.

Terry Gross (38:13)

You wrote this novel during the COVID shutdown, At least part of it during the COVID shutdown. And I'm wondering if you were feeling more vulnerable at that time. I mean, you live in Manhattan, which was a city that had like trucks that had been turned into morgues. Were you thinking a lot about mortality and the unpredictability of life?

Richard Price (38:36)

Well, everybody was, you know, the first wave. But on a writing level, what happened to me is I love to go out on the street, talk to people. It's a lot more fun than writing. And I couldn't do that. I couldn't get fed. And it's called fiction, you know, you make things up. But I'm so addicted to that type of interaction in the service of a novel, you know, just because it happened doesn't make it art. But the trick is to go home and make it art. And I couldn't go out for years. I mean, I could, but not to, like, meet people. Hi, how you doing? What's your name? Shake my hand. And that sort of messed me up.

Terry Gross (39:17)

So you go out and talk to strangers.

Richard Price (39:20)

Just being on the street, it's just the random things that you overhear or the conversations you get into. Because so many people. Harlem is, like, a little different than the rest of New York in terms of people make eye contact. People nod, even if they don't know you. If you say something, they're gonna say something back. And next thing you know, you're standing there on the corner and you're talking. And I've never met a person who hasn't come up, at least with one thunderbolt of offhand observation or commentary.

Terry Gross (39:57)

You know? The book is called Lazarus Man. I'm wondering what the role of religion was in your life growing up.

Richard Price (40:05)

I knew not to curse on Yom Kippur so God wouldn't put me in the book of Death.

Terry Gross (40:10)

Did you fail?

Richard Price (40:11)

I don't know. I went to Hebrew school until I was bar mitzvahed. And then after that, my relationship with being Jewish was pretty much the only time I really felt Jewish is besides Sandy Koufax. Not pitching is when there was an anti Semitic moment, an incident. Then I felt very, you know, tight with my religion. Other than that, I was pretty much a humanist. I didn't raise my children to be. I made a deal with my wife. I won't circumcise them if you don't christen them. I mean, it was sort of like a humanistic relationship.

Terry Gross (40:53)

Did you both keep that deal?

Richard Price (40:54)

Yeah, I think. How would I know? Oh, I'm taking the kids out for a walk. I'll be back. Why are they all dressed up in white? Oh, it's a nice day. White looks good in April. Who knows? But I imagine that we kept to that. Yes.

Terry Gross (41:12)

Your character of Anthony says this later. When things go good, we say, God is good. But when things go south, that's apparently on us. Do you find a lot of truth in that?

Richard Price (41:23)

It was just my feeling, but it's a very complicated thing that he's setting up, which is to say, you know, it'd be easiest for me if I could find in the book what he says.

Terry Gross (41:37)

Sure, yeah. No, absolutely.

Richard Price (41:40)

Yeah. He's a little bit of a celebrity because he is the Lazarus Man. He has survived 36 hours in the rubble when no one detected any kind of sign of life. And yet he was miraculously found. This is what he's saying to people to give them hope, you know, at this funeral for a young kid who was shot trying to get in between two gangs to calm people down. As I said before, I never been a deeply religious individual and I still don't consider myself one. But I feel guided now. And my purpose in being here today is to deliver to you a message that just might make it possible to accept your aching hearts and continue to live the life that he has given you. For a brief moment he stood there speechless, amazed at what he was about to say. What I have learned since that day in the rubble is that whatever befalls you in life, whatever appears to you as an impossible burden and unbearable weight in the end, if you persevere, if you hold fast, will turn out to be a gift. Whatever befalls you, no matter how heartbreaking or onerous, will turn out to be the best thing, the perfect thing, because of what is to come out of it. In fact, it will be the best thing that could possibly happen to you.

Terry Gross (43:17)

There is a fair amount of gratitude in the novel. And I think, you know, gratitude and a gratitude practice has sometimes come to seem like a cliche. On the other hand, gratitude is a really important thing to have in your life and to be able to find gratitude in life. And I'm wondering for you as a writer, how do you take something that could be a cliche and turn it into something that's not?

Richard Price (43:44)

When I read my reviews and they say what has resonated with them, they'll use words like gratitude. But I wasn't thinking, oh, I'm going to really use gratitude as a theme. I mean, the guy just survived a miraculous thing and you got to be grateful for that. And all of a sudden in that gratefulness, you see how precious life is because you almost were not here anymore. And if you're inspired, you want to spread that message, the getting of grace. He just says at some point, every minute of every day, everything is precious. When I was pulled out of that rubble and I could take my first un dirt caked breath, all I want to do was to live and live and live. It just happened to me in a way that very low key. I feel like I am the person I was when I talked to you the last time. But I'm not the person I was when I talked to you the last time. And I'm not religious, believe me. It's happiness. I just somehow discovered peace in my life like my earlier Books. There was always this propelling anxiety in me that I have to make it like dazzling and spectacular and blow people away. And it was very high pitched in me and not healthy. But I've settled down, you know, my heart has lowered the volume and deepened the base, it feels like. And so I write a book like this where, you know, other than this calamitous event of a five story tenement pancaking on its own, everything else is people's lives with that in the background of their experience on that day. That's all I need.

Terry Gross (45:44)

Now I want to talk with you a little bit about race, writing about race and race in this novel. Anthony, the character who was found under the rubble after the five story building collapsed, he's biracial. His, his white father was kind of a race man. He taught African American history. And you write, what his father could never understand was how all of his righteous defiance in the end had cost him nothing because he could come and go in his angry white skin as he pleased. Despite marrying a black woman and having mixed race kids, there was no such thing as an honorary brother. No matter how many times you raised your fist in solidarity or how many prison writing workshops you conducted, or how many times you got up in some cop's face. And I'm wondering, like, when you write about biracial or black characters or Latino characters, as you've done, like throughout your career, have you faced any pushback by people saying you're appropriating other people's stories and you have no right to tell them?

Richard Price (46:50)

No, I haven't. But even with Clackers, which I wrote in 1998991, I was really aware of the whole notion of cultural piracy. And like, how dare I write about someone who, quote, unquote, you have no idea what it's like to be me. And my responsibility is to create a character that is as fully three dimensional as I can make that character. And in terms of racial sensitivity, well, listen, if you're writing to the stereotype of a person of that race, then you deserve to be pilloried.

Terry Gross (47:38)

You've always, to my knowledge, lived in multiethnic, multiracial communities, including when you were growing up in the projects and the.

Richard Price (47:45)

I did, yeah.

Terry Gross (47:47)

So that must be helpful in writing.

Richard Price (47:49)

No, you know, I, I said that to somebody. Well, somebody when I was writing Clockers, and somebody said, well, how can you write about African Americans when you're not African American yourself? And when I said, well, I grew up in like, housing project, that was very Mixed schools that were very mixed. She said, you sound like a Southerner who's saying, I was very close to those people, you know, trying to say, like, I know those people. And that struck me. I mean, the fact that you grow up with somebody just because it happened, like I said, doesn't make it art. Just because someone exists doesn't make them an artist. And it just all comes back to be. Just do the best you can. Do the best you can. You're not just hatched from an egg. You know, make everybody equally human and then let it go.

Terry Gross (48:48)

In your acknowledgments, you thank your children who raised you. What do you mean by that?

Richard Price (48:54)

I just feel having children molded me, remolded me. It wasn't all about myself. To finally have people in your life that you're more scared for than you're scared of. Of anything for yourself, to finally have people in your life that you just surrender to and just. And educate you by just being who they are and evolving from year to year to year. They made me, you know, I was. Before my kids, you know, I was just a guy. And it just reawakened something in me that I didn't really know. This profound keenness and tenderness towards them where it wasn't all about me anymore. In fact, you know, I'm not saying I became, like, not, you know, I surrendered to them, but. But it was such a rich and profound thing that they pulled up in me that I was just so different. They raised me. They changed me.

Terry Gross (50:14)

Did it relieve the burden of being trapped in yourself, since you were responsible for others?

Richard Price (50:20)

Yeah, I love that. Not because it helped me escape from myself, because it was just natural. Well, I mean, it's like Anthony comes out and, you know, he just wants to be of service. You know, I've never made these connections to my life in the book before this interview, but, I mean, the joy of thinking about somebody and they come out, they drop into your arms, and God says, go. You know, and you go. And it's a lifetime thing. And so, I mean, before that, I think I was my own baby.

Terry Gross (50:59)

Richard Price, it's always great to talk with you. Thank you so much. And congratulations on the novel.

Richard Price (51:04)

You're welcome.

Terry Gross (51:06)

Richard Price's new novel is called Lazarus Man. FRESH Air Weekend produced by Teresa Madden. FRESH Air's executive producer is Danny Miller. Our technical director is Audrey Bentham. Our engineer is Adam Staniszewski. Our interviews and reviews are produced and edited by Phyllis Myers, Anne Marie Bodonato, Sam Brigger, Lauren Krenzel Monique Nazareth, Thea Challoner, Susan Yakundi and Anna Bauman. Our digital media producers are Molly CV Nesper and Sabrina Seawert. Our co host is Tanya Mosely. I'm Terry Gross.

Maureen Corrigan (51:51)

This message comes from NPR sponsor Merrill Whatever your financial goals are, you want a straightforward path there. But the real world doesn't usually work that way. Merrill understands that. That's why with a dedicated Merrill advisor, you get a personalized plan and a clear path forward. Go to ML.combullish to learn more. Merrill, a Bank of America company. What would you like the power to do? Investing Involves risk Merrill Lynch, Pierce Fenner and Smith Inc. Registered Broker Dealer Registered Investment Advisor Member SIPC this message comes from NPR sponsor Shopify, the global commerce platform that helps you sell and show up exactly the way you want to customize your online store to your style. Sign up for a $1 per month trial period at shopify.com NPR this message.

Ben Mankiewicz (52:38)

Comes from Jackson Seek clarity in retirement planning at Jackson.com Jackson is short for Jackson Financial, Inc. Jackson National Life Insurance Co. Lansing, Michigan and Jackson National Life Insurance Co. Of New York Purchase, New York.