Writer, Critic & Curator Hilton Als Looks For The Silences

Summary

Fresh Air: Writer, Critic & Curator Hilton Als Looks For The Silences

Host: Tonya Moseley | Guest: Hilton Als | Release Date: April 1, 2025

In this compelling episode of NPR’s award-winning program Fresh Air, host Tonya Moseley engages in an intimate and thought-provoking conversation with Pulitzer Prize-winning writer and critic Hilton Als. Known for his incisive essays and profiles at The New Yorker, Als delves into the intricate interplay between language, silence, and meaning in both his writing and curatorial work.

Introduction to Hilton Als and His Work

Tonya Moseley opens the discussion by highlighting Als’s multifaceted career as a writer, critic, and curator. Als’s recent exhibition, Writings on the Language and Silence in the Visual Arts at the Hill Art Foundation in New York, showcases the works of 32 artists exploring the concept of silence across various media.

Moseley [00:17]: “Hilton Als has spent decades examining how we create meaning through words, images and the spaces in between.”

Als acknowledges the honor of being a guest, setting the stage for a deep exploration of his artistic philosophy.

Als [01:39]: “Thank you so much for having me. It's an honor.”

The Role of Silence in Writing and Art

Moseley introduces a thought-provoking concept inspired by writer Samuel Delaney, questioning the limitations of language in an era where a shared reality seems elusive.

Moseley [01:50]: “He has this theory that imagination is the only shared reality and that creativity is how we manifest that shared reality.”

Als concurs, expressing concern over how language is often weaponized to divide rather than unite.

Als [02:14]: “Language is being used to not even wound, but to annihilate people.”

He delves into how silence serves as a powerful narrative device in his work, exemplified by his portrayal of a profound friendship where unspoken understanding prevails.

Als [03:38]: “We live in a world where we don't actually have that much silence left.”

Connoisseurship and the Authority of Taste

The conversation shifts to the concept of connoisseurship—who gets to decide what is beautiful or good in art. Als reflects on the balance between critique and curation, addressing the inherent authority writers and critics hold in shaping cultural discourse.

Moseley [06:19]: “Who gets to be an expert in evaluating what's actually beautiful, what is good...”

Als shares insights from his editor at The New Yorker, emphasizing the authenticity and emotional truth he strives to convey in his writing.

Als [07:22]: “You’re telling the emotional truth as much as you can. Always.”

Personal Influences: Mother and Father

Als opens up about his upbringing in Brownsville, Brooklyn, and the profound influence of his mother, a first-generation Barbadian immigrant who fostered his love for self-expression and art.

Als [31:13]: “One of the more extraordinary things that we can do in this world is to listen to another human being.”

Conversely, he discusses the complicated relationship with his father, whom he perceived more as a threat than a protector, shaping his skeptical view of authority and male figures.

Als [33:39]: “He was my father… I read him as a threat. And that made me question male authority.”

Deep Dive: Writing About Richard Pryor

A significant portion of the interview focuses on Als’s enduring fascination with Richard Pryor. Rather than conducting direct interviews, Als chooses to construct Pryor’s persona through the recollections and experiences of those who knew him.

Moseley [15:01]: “I'd like for you to read an excerpt from your collection of essays that was also included in your collection of essays, White Girls...”

Als explains his method of immersing himself in Pryor’s world without Pryor’s direct input, allowing for a nuanced and multi-dimensional portrayal.

Als [17:39]: “I wanted to say Richard has spoken quite a bit about his life. Let's hear others speak about Richard's life, including myself.”

He recounts his encounters with Pryor’s associates and the profound impact Pryor had on him, both personally and professionally.

Als [25:29]: “He would [not]... he was like a kid in terms of [his reactions].”

Evolution of Focus: From Women to Broader Human Subjects

Discussing his evolving interests, Als acknowledges a shift from primarily focusing on women's experiences to a more inclusive exploration of human complexity, including men.

Als [36:08]: “It's changing though. It's changing. I'm becoming much more open to men.”

He attributes this change to a deeper understanding of human vulnerability and the universal aspects of his subjects’ experiences.

The Importance of Listening and Silence

Towards the end of the interview, Als emphasizes the critical role of listening—both to spoken words and silence—in truly understanding and portraying human experiences.

Als [29:17]: “Another profound gift is to imagine this person's life... but also imagine their possibility.”

He reflects on his mother’s example of constructive listening, a skill that profoundly influences his writing and teaching philosophy.

Conclusion

Hilton Als concludes by sharing his aspirations to further explore the impacts of societal pressures on individuals, especially within the African American community, through his writing. His commitment to silence, listening, and authentic representation underscores his dedication to fostering deeper connections and understanding through art and literature.

Als [37:32]: “Thank you, Tanya.”

Moseley [37:32]: “Hilton Als is a Pulitzer Prize-winning staff writer and critic for The New Yorker. …”

Notable Quotes

• Als [03:26]: “Imagine what people who really believe in these people feel.”
• Als [07:22]: “You’re telling the emotional truth as much as you can. Always.”
• Als [31:13]: “One of the more extraordinary things that we can do in this world is to listen to another human being.”

Final Thoughts

This episode offers listeners a profound insight into Hilton Als's artistic journey and his relentless pursuit to capture the unspoken and the silences that define human relationships. Als’s reflections on language, silence, and the human condition provide a rich tapestry of thought, making this episode an essential listen for anyone interested in contemporary arts and cultural criticism.

Transcript

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[Tonya Moseley]

I'm Tonya Moseley and my guest today, Pulitzer Prize winning writer Hilton Als has spent decades examining how we create meaning through words, images and the spaces in between. As a longtime staff writer at the New Yorker, his essays and profiles on figures like Toni Morrison, Joan Didion and Richard Pryor have redefined cultural criticism, blending autobiography with literary and social commentary. In addition to being a writer, Als is also a curator. Recently, he explored language in a new gallery exhibition, the Writings on the Language and Silence in the Visual Arts at the Hill Art foundation in New York. The exhibit brings together the works of 32 artists across a range of media. To examine how artists embrace silence. The show asks a powerful what do words in their absence look like? Hilton Als has been a staff writer at the New Yorker for over 30 years. He won the Pulitzer Prize in 2017 for his work as a theater critic, and he's the author of several books, including the Women, White Girls and My Pinup, a genre bending memoir essay that examines the music, Persona and cultural impact of Prince. He's curated several art installations, including a show on the late Joan Didion. Hilton Als, welcome to FRESH air.

[Hilton Als]

Thank you so much for having me. It's an honor.

[Tonya Moseley]

Your exhibit made me think about something that writer Samuel Delaney has said, who has.

[Hilton Als]

Wonderful writer.

[Tonya Moseley]

Yes. And I've been thinking about this for the last few weeks, honestly. But he has this theory that imagination is the only shared reality and that creativity is how we manifest that shared reality. And I couldn't help but think about the limitations of language at this particular time when we can't even seem to agree on a shared reality. And I was just wondering, or don't.

[Hilton Als]

Want or don't want to agree on shared reality. Right. I think you're being kind, Tanya. It's just a very emotionally and spiritually upsetting time because language is being used to not even wound, but to annihilate people. I've been thinking about this a lot, too, Tanya. I'm with you on this. And I think that the thing that's happening is that the sort of collective reality has been mangled to such a degree that the destroyers of language don't understand the ramifications. They understand it in terms of winning. Right. But they don't understand the emotional and spiritual Ramifications of. Of lying. If you lie to me and I'm a trusting person, and if you're lying to me and I'm trusting the lies. Imagine what people who really believe in these people feel.

[Tonya Moseley]

How does silence, in particular, the things that are unsaid, unspoken, but are very important to the narrative. How does that show up in your writing?

[Hilton Als]

That's a great question. I've been thinking about this quite a bit in terms of what I've been writing recently. I've been writing about a very close friend of mine. And in describing certain aspects of the friendship, I talk about silence and how part of what was so gorgeous about this relationship was that we didn't have to speak to each other, that we saw in the other's eyes what was happening. That's a degree of intimacy that is very rare. And I'm very interested in how to articulate that rarity. I don't want to disturb it with words. I want to describe. I want to be able to articulate what this feeling is. And so working with silence for those months during the show and since then, I've understood that Marianne Moore, what she said about the deepest feeling showing itself in silence. Not in silence, but restraint. How do we say I love you with a glance? All of those questions, to me are significant questions to ask the self constantly. Because we live in a world where we don't actually have that much silence left.

[Tonya Moseley]

Is there silence in your life? I mean, I'm thinking about what it takes for you to come to these ideas. What is your day to day like? Do you carve out time for silence?

[Hilton Als]

Well, I think the sheer fact of writing, you can't be with other people. Yes. And you can't really sort of be in a room where there's noise or, you know, people chatting or talking. I think that one of the things that I try to do very much is to wake up as early as I can to hear what they used to call morning song, you know, birds or weather. To hear something that is not based on human activity, but on. But the activity of the natural world. That really helps me to absorb silence, to live more present, I think, than chatter allows. Chatter, talk, all of that stuff is fairly distracting from this idea that I'm trying to tease out of my writing, which is the value of silence.

[Tonya Moseley]

One of the other topics that you write about in your essay that accompanies this particular exhibit is this idea of connoisseurship. Who gets to be an expert in evaluating what's actually beautiful, what is good and I was thinking about how you kind of have ultimate power within the spaces you occupy, having the powers of critique and curation. I mean, I think one of my producers said it's almost like the opposite of imposter syndrome. Did you always possess that sense of taste, of knowing what is good?

[Hilton Als]

Oh, that's a great question. I have a wonderful editor at the New Yorker, Deborah Treisman, and she wrote me an email. We were just chatting and she said something in an email that was so profound. She said that there's little distance between you and what's on the page. And I took that as the greatest compliment ever.

[Tonya Moseley]

It is. I mean, say more on what she meant by that.

[Hilton Als]

I think what she meant was that you're telling the emotional truth as much as you can. Always. And I think I was so knocked out by the comment because the effort of writing, the effort of curation, is not an effort, it's a joy, because it's about self expression. And I don't know who I would be if I wasn't given the opportunity to express intellectually, emotionally, spiritually, those aspects of myself that I feel should live outside of myself. And so as a kid, I was very fortunate in that I had a great mother who prized art making, who prized self expression. And when I started writing, I was very, very young. Eight years old. I was eight. Yes. I would give her what I was writing and she would write her comments on the story, whatever it was, and leave it for me on the table in the morning.

[Tonya Moseley]

She was your first editor?

[Hilton Als]

Yeah, she was my first great editor. And that gave me the license to express, to know that words mattered and that they had an effect on a reader. They had an effect on my mother. And. And by giving me that permission, my mother also gave me permission to really think, because you can't write without thinking. And in thinking, I began then to look at the world. So that's my value as a human is this gift that my mother gave me, which is self expression having great meaning for people, self expression having a way of creating a kind of adhesion in a fractured world.

[Tonya Moseley]

This is so fascinating to me because your writing is so expansive. You surprise me. You surprise the reader. Not really with the choices on who you spend time on and write about, but how you write about them. People like Joan Didion, Eminem, Prince. I think I heard you say that you primarily write, are interested in subjects that don't, quote, have their face yet. What do you mean by that?

[Hilton Als]

Actually, you know, it's funny, I was thinking about this recently. I was talking to my class about this because I was showing them some Diane Arbus photographs, and they're largely unknown people. And she would say that she didn't like photographing the famous because generally they were. They had a set face, they knew how to use the camera, work with.

[Tonya Moseley]

The camera, and they knew their angles.

[Hilton Als]

Yeah, yeah. She was looking for a greater degree of vulnerability. A lot of the people that you've mentioned, some of them were dead. Some of them were not what people call relevant. I was interested in most of those people because they had a history, but their history had been obscured in a funny way by their fame. And I wanted to go backwards and I wanted to excavate who they were from the fame, if that makes any sense. I wanted to save them from their public face and I wanted to see their private face. So when I wrote about Missy Elliott, she wasn't famous than many, many people I wrote about at the beginning of their career because I was interested in their evolution. I wasn't interested in their fame.

[Tonya Moseley]

One person that you've written quite extensively about is Richard Pryor, and I'm fascinated that you write about him. Not because, I mean, it's obvious that he was one one of the most talented comedians of our time, but you write about him in such an expansive way through time. I mean, you've gone back to him many, many times. I'd like for you to read an excerpt from your collection of essays that was also included in your collection of essays, White Girls, which came out in 2013. And in this excerpt, it's actually called A Prior Love.

[Hilton Als]

Thank you, Tonya. The subject of blackness has taken a strange and unsatisfying journey through American thought. First, because blackness has always had to explain itself to a largely white audience in order to be heard. And second, because it has generally been assumed to have only one story to tell, a story of oppression that plays on liberal guilt. The writers behind the collective modern urtexts of blackness, James Baldwin, Richard Wright and Ralph Ellison, all performed some variation on the theme. Angry but distanced, their rage blanketed by charm, they lived and wrote to be liked. Ultimately, whether they wanted to or not, they in some way embodied the readers who appreciated them most. White liberals. Richard Pye was the first black American spoken word artist to avoid this. Although he reprised the history of black American comedy, picking what he wanted from the work of great storytellers like Burt Williams, Redd Fox, Moms Mabley, Nipsey Rutzel, lawanda Page, and Flip Wilson, he also pushed everything one step further. Instead of Adapting to the white perspective, he forced white audiences to follow him into his own experience. Pryor didn't manipulate his audience's white guilt or their black moral outrage. If he played the race card, it was only to show how funny he looked when he tried to shuffle the deck. And as he made blackness an acknowledged part of the American atmosphere, he also brought the issue of interracial love into the country's discourse. In a culture whose successful male Negro authors wrote about interracial sex with a combination of reverence and disgust, Breyer's gleeful attitude had an effect on the general population, which Wright's native sons or Baldwin's Another country had not had. His best work showed us that black men like him and the white women they loved were united in their disenfranchisement. In his life. And on stage, he performed the great, largely unspoken story of America.

[Tonya Moseley]

I think for many people, Pryor definitely felt like a unicorn. I mean, he joked on stage, for instance, about some of his queer sexual experiences in ways that I kind of feel like are unfathomable for someone else.

[Hilton Als]

Yes.

[Tonya Moseley]

Have you been able to point out or understand that singularity that was prior that person, before the fame, and why he could convey what others couldn't?

[Hilton Als]

Well, I'm gonna go back a little bit, Tanya, and tell you how the project came about. This is 1998 or so, and I went to David Remnick, who is the editor of the New Yorker, and said, I wanted to write about Richard Pryor, but I didn't want to interview him. He was alive still. He had multiple sclerosis, and he was living with his wife, Jennifer. And I said, I want to write a profile about someone who is not in the profile speaking to me. I want to create this person out of people who had experience with him or so on. And David agreed. So I began, really, with what you see in the piece, which is about Duke and Opal, which is a brilliant television piece written by Jane Wagner starring her wife, Lily Tomlin, and Richard Pryor. And that's the first time that I ever saw miscegenation on screen, as it were, not as a taboo, but as a human experience. And so that's how it began. I began by interviewing Lily and Jane, who are wonderful women. And I took it from there. I would just, you know, they recommended I speak to X person. A producer who had worked with Lily, who had worked with Priority, suggested I speak to the director of one of the films. It was a great experience for me because I just. It's the kind of thing that I love to do in reporting, which is to not know anything and everything at the same time. So of course I'd read everything on Pryor, but I didn't know anything about the world of show business, you know, in California at that particular time in the years before. So I got to meet wonderful, great producers like Marvin Worth. And I learned a lot about the emotional ramifications and political ramifications of being a black star in the 70s and 80s, and how alone he was and how at certain times he had exploited his own talent to, you know, maintain star status or whatever. But ultimately, he always came back home to the truth and he always came back home to the beauty, really, and the undeniable kind of purity of being a truth teller.

[Tonya Moseley]

Can you clarify why you didn't want to talk with Pryor? Was it because he was so sick at that time?

[Hilton Als]

He was ill, but again, it was sort of like he was famous. Right. I was always trying to find ways, Tonya, to take fame apart, let's put it that way. And one way that I could take the fame apart was to say Richard has spoken quite a bit about his life. Let's hear others speak about Richard's life, including myself. If I needed to speak to Pryor, there was his work, you know, there were his stand up routines, there were scripts he had written, there were any number of artifacts he had left behind when he was functioning and speaking. So I didn't want Richard Pryor interfering with my writing. I wanted Richard Pryor to exist through me, through my writing. I mean, I call myself a Stanislavski writer because I, in order to write about a person, I feel that I have to become them, to understand their voice and their rhythms and their interiority. Once that experience is over, I have to not be friends with the subject.

[Tonya Moseley]

You have to fall in love with them, but then you have to like, you have to interrogate that love.

[Hilton Als]

That's a very good way of putting it, yes. You have to fall in love. You have to be interested because you're spending a lot of time and many months with someone generally. And then you have to walk away as if you don't know them. Flaubert, I think it was, who said that before you begin to write, you have to dry your tears and silence your laughter. And you do. You have to kind of walk away from the experience with that feeling of support for the project, but not individual responsibility for the subject.

[Tonya Moseley]

Our guest today is Pulitzer Prize winning writer Hilton Als. We'll be right back after a short break. I'M Tanya Mosley and this is FRESH air.

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[Tonya Moseley]

Guaranteed in reading your writing about Richard Pryor, I mean, it's definitely like you are really trying to get at the core of why he was able to do what he did, be a truth teller. But are there elements of Pryor that you're still working out through your writing? I saw you just wrote a piece about his movie JoJo Dancer from the 80s just a few months ago.

[Hilton Als]

Yes, of course.

[Tonya Moseley]

I love reading about it. But I also think like, what is it about this moment that you feel it's important to work these things, elements of Richard Pryor out in your writing?

[Hilton Als]

I think in this moment we have very few artists who are willing to go to the mat and to express interiority. You know, we have a lot of wonderful actors out there, but very few of them are willing to show us themselves the truth of that life that goes into creativity. There are very few people who are willing to risk self exposure. They can play a character, but the self exposure that goes into making acting art is not on as much as it should be. And I think that one of the reasons I wanted to write about Richard's only directorial effort, Jojo Dancer, for the Criterion Collection, was to remind people of what it takes to make work. And I'm not talking about simply entertainment. I'm talking about what it takes to bear your soul in order to have the resonance of a Richard Pryor or the resonance of a Montgomery Clift or the resonance of a Candy Alexander. You know, these are great performers who have given everything to not the performance, but to inhabiting and being.

[Tonya Moseley]

Well, I was just wondering what this means for you as a writer, if it's disorienting in any way, because you're. As a critic, as someone who is looking for that humanity. I think I heard you a few months ago on an interview, talk about how you don't have a clear knowing of who we are as a collective anymore. And so how that impacts actually what you do. And being able to tap into that clarity to write about it, to know.

[Hilton Als]

Yourself, is the first step, really, in entering some. I'm talking about nonfiction journalistic writing, that you're walking into a place knowing enough about yourself to go back to your original question, to be silent and to absorb what this human being is saying about what they've gone through, the life that they've experienced, how much and how little love they've had in the world. So the experience of Prince. Writing about Prince, for instance, I entered his dressing room, and we started chatting. And I didn't know that he had other journalists lined up to talk to. And then he asked me to come back. And then it was kind of. He was trying to connect with me. Now, this would not have happened if I had come in there, barreled in there with 20 questions. Well, can you say blah, blah, blah when you did this? I just sat down and I listened and I watched. And the big thing trick, and it wasn't a trick at all, was to be silent until he wanted to engage. So I was silent. When other musicians came into. You know, there was a wonderful moment with Maceo, wanted to play something for him, and it was a lot of activity. He's the director, right? He's the star, so he has to take care of a lot of things before his show. And I was able to sit in silence, and he heard the silence, and in hearing the silence, he was able to speak to me.

[Tonya Moseley]

In the case of Prince, being able to sit in that silence, were there any observations that you noticed that you were able to draw out that you would not have ever. Because you're a big fan.

[Hilton Als]

He would not.

[Tonya Moseley]

So you know everything about the guy as you're stepping in there.

[Hilton Als]

But I did not know how much black male approval meant to him, that when Maceo walked into the room or Larry Graham walked into the room, he was like a kid in terms of.

[Tonya Moseley]

Did you feel that for you as you walked into the room with him, that he wanted your.

[Hilton Als]

Well, Tanya, you're so sweet. It would be immodest to say, but, yes, I felt that in retrospect, I didn't know what the feeling was at first because he offered me some water. He didn't look at me. He did some things in the room and in allowing him to just walk around the space and do what he needed to do that he started to look at me. And then when Maceo came in, I saw him light up. And then when Larry Graham later was there, I saw him light up. And then I understood that I had stayed and been allowed to stay. And it was very interesting. I had left the backstage area and I was leaving the show and this woman was running after me saying, mister, mister she couldn't remember my name. And I turned and she worked for Prince. And she said, oh, I'm so glad I found you. Prince would have killed me if I didn't find you. And then I remembered how he had been with Maceo and describe when you.

[Tonya Moseley]

Guys were and what it was in.

[Hilton Als]

St. Louis, I believe. And he was backstage and he was getting his makeup redone. And when I put my head in the room, he said, hey, would you like to join us for? And it was Larry Graham and his wife and Prince. And they were. It was a Jehovah's Witness meeting that they were having. And then we got in the bus and we went to the bar where there was an after party. And I was amazed. And then he wanted me to work with him on a book, his memoir. And that I couldn't do because I was really commissioned to write an article about Prince. I wasn't assigned to write a book and I wouldn't have been able to keep my job and write a book. Do you see what I mean by that? Meaning that he was asking me to work with him, which meant that I couldn't write the essay because it would be then to a conflict of interest. And so I chose to do my job. And it was also a personal choice. I knew how powerful he was and I was afraid to some degree that I wouldn't get out of Minneapolis. I wanted to be a writer. I didn't want to work for Prince. I wanted to spend time with him and watch all of that stuff, but I didn't want to work for him.

[Tonya Moseley]

Let's take a short break. If you're just joining us, my guest is Pulitzer Prize winning writer Hilton Ells. We'll continue our conversation after a short break. This is FRESH air.

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[Tonya Moseley]

Your mother, she feels so present in so much of what you do and so much of your writing. And you said in your writing that she had such an imagination for other people, but not for herself. What did you mean by that?

[Hilton Als]

I wanted her to have. Well, I wanted her to have more of everything for herself. I think she was a brilliant mother. And that job means that you take a back seat to your children. Right. But I think also I wanted her to have the experience of, you know, making art and travel and all those things. I don't think you can love anybody, really, without wanting them to have more of what they should have. And I just wanted her to have more of what she should have had.

[Tonya Moseley]

You grew up in the Brownsville section of Brooklyn. Your mom was originally from Barbados.

[Hilton Als]

Her family was from Barbados. So she's first generation.

[Tonya Moseley]

Yeah, first generation. She died at 62.

[Hilton Als]

Yes, she did. Isn't it so wild to think about how brutal and brutalizing this country is toward poor people, women, women of color? All of those factors contribute to such early deaths. It's really profound. It's her and James Baldwin at 64 and 0. Neale Hurston at 60, whatever. And we lose Richard Wright at 51. We lose so many people. We lose their voices because of the ways in which the pressure and the schism of being a black American has such a huge effect on the body. And it's something that I want to write more about, actually.

[Tonya Moseley]

I want to go back to your mom just a little bit, because, like, in just trying to think about the human that she raised, that is you. I mean, you describe her as the most constructive listener in the world. And what did that look like? What did you learn about listening from her?

[Hilton Als]

Well, I used to do this thing, Tanya, when I was little. Like, I would read about someone and I would want to dressed like them. So Horace Greeley I loved, and Paul Laurence Dunbar and my mother. On Sundays, I would read aloud at the table to her, and she never criticized or batted an eye. She just listened. And that face is something that I carry in my heart as a teacher, that one of the more extraordinary things that we can do in this world is to listen to another human being. I don't think that there's any greater respect. And that includes listening to the silence when they need it. The thing that we can offer is the respect of hearing what another person has to say. And so my work as a professor is listening to the ways in which we live together. What is this experience like for you? And that's really what you're teaching, quote, unquote, is how do I sit in a room with other people and hear them? So that's one of her profound gifts. Another profound gift is to imagine this person's life, you know, what's happening to them, et cetera, but also imagine their possibility. Imagine the ways in which they will grow and flourish if you listen. So she made me a constructive listener. And in constructive listening, that means, you know, if Tanya expressed an interest in art in this particular show, oh, I'm going to send Tanya a book about ex artists. That's Constructive Listening is that you order the book or you go to the bookstore. You offer to be a companion in a museum or whatever. To have these experiences where a person feels, oh, wow, actually resonates what I'm saying, that my dreams can be made manifest within the company of this person who heard what I said.

[Tonya Moseley]

Your father you describe as being uncomfortable around other men, including his sons, and.

[Hilton Als]

Yes.

[Tonya Moseley]

What did that look like for you? I mean, how did that impact your sense of self in the world?

[Hilton Als]

Oh, wow, that's a really great question. I didn't read my father as a protector. I read him as a threat. And when you read your father as a threat and not a protector, you're very suspicious of power. You're suspicious of the ways in which power is being used, wielded, etc. I didn't feel that because he was my father that he had a de facto authority in the way that hold up the father as the authoritarian in the family. It made me question because of his handling of the men and me and my brother, it made me question what gave him the right to treat us in the particular way. If he was exercising or felt he had the right to do something, I would question it. And I resented having to accept it because he was my father. I would accept it 20,000 times more readily from my mother because she was involved with me. She didn't perceive me as a threat. In fact, she was very protective of us. But my father, in perceiving us as a threat, didn't allow himself to love us and to cherish us as well as he should have. He couldn't do it. So in that kind of emotional chaos, What I took away from it was, oh, because he's my father doesn't mean he's an authority. And I'm also questioning male authority because someone is the father doesn't necessarily mean to me that they're the authority on the family or whatever. When I see a father who is caretaking and protective of a child, then I believe them and I don't really question them. But when I see that they're just using the role of the authoritarian figure, then I don't like being around that.

[Tonya Moseley]

I wondered about that. I also wondered about it in the context of your writing because so much of your gaze or your interest is it's women like it's focused on powerful.

[Hilton Als]

It's changing though. It's changing. I'm becoming much more open to men.

[Tonya Moseley]

What has changed in you? What is.

[Hilton Als]

Yeah, exactly. I think an acceptance of the father I had and that that's what he did and that's what happened and I can't change it, but I can work with it better now than I used to be able to. So because of my mother's being so central to me and my sisters, etc. You know, I was always drawn to women not as an antidote but as a kind of higher consciousness to maleness. And it's changing because I'm seeing that in general that women can be as, you know, beautiful and venal as men. That used to not cross my mind before that they're as human as a male person. And that big shift is really a big shift. You know, you're right to point out that a lot of my work was about women and I think that that's changing. I'm interested in humans much more sort of in a rounded way than I was before.

[Tonya Moseley]

Hilton Ells, thank you so much for this conversation.

[Hilton Als]

Thank you, Tanya.

[Tonya Moseley]

Hilton Ells is a Pulitzer Prize winning staff writer and critic for the New Yorker. Coming up, rock critic Ken Tucker reviews new albums from Lucy Dacus and Jeffrey Lewis. This is FRESH air. Lucy Daikus is a young singer songwriter perhaps best known as one third of the trio. Boy Genius. Along with Julian Baker and Phoebe Bridgers, Jeffrey Lewis is a middle aged singer songwriter who isn't very well known but is the author of at least 30 albums and EPs. Each has a new album. Dacus is called Forever Is a Feeling and Lewis's is titled the Even More Free Willin. Jeffrey Lewis, Our rock critic Ken Tucker says that between the two of them they demonstrate the wide musical and emotional range of confessional songwriting.

[Lucy Dacus]

Loving father, friend and son printed Backwards on my shoulder blade from leaning back on a plaque on a bench I carry David's name until it fits. Why does it feel significant? Why do I have to tell you about it?

[Betterment Ad]

Why does it feel significant? Why do I have to tell you about it? In two short sentences, Lucy Dacus summarizes decades of motivation behind singer songwriter pop music. It's that mixture of confession and melody that creates an illusion of intimacy, the feeling that we really know the artist. Indeed, feeling is what Dacus new album is all about. It could not be more feely. It's called Forever is a Feeling, and I'm happy to say that her general mood is romantic and optimistic. On the song Best Guess, she sings her affection to a close friend who's become a lover.

[Lucy Dacus]

After all, it's a small world. You may not be an angel but you are my girl you are my pack of date you are my favorite place you were my best friend for you were my best guess at the future you are my best guess.

[Hilton Als]

If.

[Lucy Dacus]

I were a gambling man I am. You'd be my best.

[Betterment Ad]

You are my best Dakus small, intimate voice is tailor made to be heard whispering in the ears of fans glued to the small screens of their phones. Even her proclamations of passion are subtle and modest. A song called Ankles reaches back to a time when a woman showing a bit of her ankle was considered daringly erotic. Dacus takes pleasure in transporting this feeling to a contemporary context.

[Lucy Dacus]

Angel of death, one of three ancient fates Playing with your scissors again how lucky are we to have so much to lose? Now don't move when I tell you what to do Pull me by the ankles to the edge of them and take me like you do in your dreams I'm not gonna stop you I'm not gonna stop you this time baby I want you to show me what you need and help me with the crossword in the morning you are gonna make me tea gonna ask me.

[Betterment Ad]

Lucy Dacus and Jeffrey Lewis both compose acoustic bass singer songwriter music in which the first person singular is deployed to announce emotions and opinions. But they could not be more different. For 20 years now, Lewis has been eloquent, crass, romantic and realistic, frequently all in the same song. When he writes a confessional lyric, he exposes more than a well turned ankle, not bothering with artful metaphors.

[Jeffrey Lewis]

Try to see your parents more because they're so weak and old now. But they just can't let you live without always being told how. Then spend time with your child. Be responsible and silent but you lose it. Then you know that you're a monster and a tyrant it's family so you call because you're too grown up to fume but somehow you've hung up and thrown the phone across the room Cause you're a weak and a loser you just never get it right. Down from the way that you were raised to how your own home is tonight, these are the ones you love the best. So why is it always such a mess and what the hell's it for since you're rotten to the core well it's fun, it's just fun.

[Betterment Ad]

Lewis new album is called the Even more freewheeling Jeffrey Lewis. The title and cover photo a nod to Bob Dylan's early New York City folky days. A dedicated New Yorker himself, Lewis gets louder and more low down on this album centerpiece. A great song about just how painful daily existence can be called Sometimes Life Hits.

[Jeffrey Lewis]

You might have a nice life with coffee and friends you can call. Could have a Shakespeare collection, might have read them all. Could have a family that made you nicer than some folks had. Could have a family that you made that isn't so bad. Well you can visit, build up your armor against what life brings. You can dodge when life kicks and you can duck when life swings. You can outsmart all sadness and down fight with the best. But sometimes life hits you like a chisel to the chest and you say ow rapper. Ow. Rapper means Ow that hurt. There'll be something.

[Betterment Ad]

This is the musical equivalent of hitting your thumb with a hammer. And on the less radio friendly version of that song, Lewis inserts a pungent four letter curse between the words Ow and that hurts. Lucy Dacus makes clear that she too has experienced moments when, in Jeffrey Lewis phrase, life hits you like a chisel to the chest. Both of these artists have their flaws. Lewis is sometimes too yammeringly self absorbed. Dacus is sometimes too much of a monotone mumbler. Each can flatten music that ought to sound more airy and buoyant. But their best songs answer Dacus question that began this review. Why do I have to tell you about it? For both Dacus and Lewis, the answer because it feels good to unburden yourself and maybe lift a burden or confirm a feeling for your listeners as well.

[Tonya Moseley]

Ken Tucker reviewed new music from Lucy Dacus and Jeffrey Lewis. Tomorrow on FRESH air. Immigration and Customs Enforcement is in force and students are in the crosshairs at college campuses nationwide. From Columbia to the University of Alabama. Legal scholar Daniel Kanstrom joins us to unpack the law, the history and the human cost. I hope you can join us to keep up with what's on the show and get highlights of our interviews. Follow us on Instagram @NPRFreshAir. Fresh Air's executive producer is Danny Miller. Our technical director and engineer is Audrey Bentham. Our managing producer is Sam Brigger. Our interviews and reviews are produced and edited by Phyllis Myers, Anne Marie Baldonado, Lauren Krenzel, Teresa Madden, Monique Nazareth, Thea Chaloner, Susan Yakundi and Anna Bauman. Our digital media producer is Molly CV Nesper. Roberta Shorrock directs the show with Terry Gross. I'm Tonya Moseley.

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