Front Burner – The Books That Explained 2025 (Part 2)
CBC Podcast | Host: Jayme Poisson | Air Date: December 30, 2025

Episode Overview

This special Front Burner episode continues its year-end "Books to Understand 2025" series, featuring guests who select and discuss books that offer crucial context for the past year. Host Jayme Poisson welcomes legal scholar Bryan Stevenson, journalist Paul Wells, and literary critic Mattea Roach to dissect works centered on race, media transformation, and the role of fiction during crisis. The episode spans topics from the legacy of racism in America to the changing business of journalism and the power of the contemporary novel to mirror and process political upheaval.

1. Bryan Stevenson on Mother Emanuel by Kevin Sack

([00:49]–[18:12])

Main Points & Insights

• Why the Book?

  • Stevenson highlights Mother Emanuel for its deep exploration of race, history, and narrative in America, focusing on the 2015 mass shooting at a historic Black Charleston church.
  • The book, he says, is a "well written work of history and an examination of the role of race in America" ([02:07]).

• Narrative’s Destructive Power

  • The church’s story demonstrates how “narratives fueled by fear and anger” can have devastating real-world consequences and influence entire societies ([02:07]).
  • "We are in a narrative struggle in this country, I think, across the globe," Stevenson observes, identifying the persistence of racialized thinking ([02:56]).

• History Through a Single Site

  • The evolution of Mother Emanuel encapsulates centuries of revolt, surveillance, violence, civil rights organizing, and hate crimes—“the history of the church in some ways, is the history of America” ([04:24]).

• The Endurance of Racial Narratives

  • Stevenson emphasizes that America’s failure to deal honestly with its narrative of racial difference perpetuates violence and injustice:

    "The north won the Civil War, but the south won the narrative war." ([06:25])

• On Forgiveness and Hope

  • The book doesn't shy from the complexity surrounding forgiveness after great trauma, such as parishioners forgiving the shooter. Stevenson notes forgiveness is not the sole response to oppression:

    "While forgiveness is part of it, it's not the only part of it." ([08:12])

  • He contrasts the United States with countries like South Africa and Germany, where power shifts enabled reckoning. In the US, "perpetrators of lynching violence were never held accountable. They remained in power." ([10:45])

• Present-Day Resonance

  • Stevenson laments a political climate that now tolerates or ignores overt acts of hate it once decried:

    "...if we’re not honest about history, if we’re not focused on the harm of history, we will replicate the same problems that are detailed in Mother Emanuel." ([13:23])

  • He warns against complacency:

    "You can't claim to have been on the right side of slavery... If you are silent today, if you are not responding to horrific acts of violence and bigotry today..." ([17:13])

Notable Quotes

• "Combating [destructive narratives] requires a deep understanding of the harms of these narratives over a historical period of time." – Bryan Stevenson ([02:56])
• "Living in Montgomery, I stand on the shoulders of people who did so much more with so much less." – Bryan Stevenson ([16:30])

Key Segment Timestamps

• [01:43] Introduction to Mother Emanuel and its relevance
• [04:24] The power of telling history through institutions
• [08:12] On the complexities of forgiveness
• [13:23] Reflections on current societal trends and the importance of historical honesty
• [17:13] The challenge of being "on the right side of history"

2. Paul Wells on The Times by Adam Nagourney

([18:23]–[29:13])

Main Points & Insights

• Why the New York Times History?

  • Wells picked The Times, a history of the New York Times, "because it’s about the transformation the news industry has gone through basically, since the rise of the Internet" ([18:45]).
  • The book chronicles the Times’ evolution from a local to a national, then global, news power—before technology and economics forced seismic changes.

• From Authority to Accountability Crisis

  • In its heyday, the Times commanded such authority that it could demand personal records from all presidential candidates ("Appointment with Dr. Altman is next Tuesday" anecdote, [21:53]).
  • Now, due to the decline of advertising and the rise of reader-funded models, the relationship between newsrooms and their audience has flipped:

    "Readers don't believe that they should be kept at arm's length. They believe that their subscription money gives them a vote in how the newspaper should cover the world." ([23:47])

• Paradigm Shift and Book’s Limits

  • Wells faults the book for stopping at 2016, thus missing the full impact of disruptive pressures—readers influencing coverage, the shift to subscription-led funding, and the challenge of star journalists whose personal brands rival the institution.
  • He describes the book as “a choose-your-own-adventure in a way. I'm like, okay. And then what? And then what? And we'll have to wait for a sequel...” ([25:12])

• Consequences in 2025

  • He observes the New York Times tussling with readers over coverage, especially around the Biden administration, where “Times readers were furious at their paper for daring to question their champion” ([25:38]).
  • Joe Kahn, the current executive editor, embodies the tension between giving readers what they want vs. what they need ([26:44]).

• The Star Journalist Era

  • The rise of staffers like Ezra Klein or Bari Weiss, whose identities eclipse the paper’s, demonstrates new organizational dilemmas. “Journalists have a bigger brand in some communities than the Times itself does” ([27:36]).

Notable Quotes

• "There's a direct tug-of-war with the people it needs to survive." – Paul Wells ([24:40])
• "The readers will never agree that they should get what they need instead of what they want. And the readers are paying Joe Kahn’s salary. So that's a fascinating dynamic." – Paul Wells ([26:44])

Key Segment Timestamps

• [18:45] Why The Times is relevant to media transformation
• [20:00] The Times' expansion and internal revolutions
• [21:53] Authority and former clout of the Times
• [23:47] The reader-subscriber revolution
• [25:38] Specific recent newsroom battles over political coverage
• [27:36] On the challenges posed by star journalists

3. Mattea Roach on Endling by Maria Reva

([30:05]–[38:40])

Main Points & Insights

• Why a Novel?

  • Roach explains that fiction, especially Endling, offers frameworks to think about political chaos and upheaval when "sometimes...I feel a bit at a loss of how to react to certain events that feel just so kind of extreme and like sometimes goofy, sometimes horrifying" ([32:21]).
  • The novel’s narrative rupture—shifting abruptly from quirky romance and snail conservation to the shock of war—mirrors the experience of living through relentless, unpredictable crises.

• Absurdity & Humor as Coping Mechanisms

  • Endling employs satire, humor, and “absurd” plot elements (arranged marriages, a van quest to save endangered snails during the outbreak of war) to reflect the ways people process and sometimes anesthetize themselves to overwhelming reality:

    "It's a sort of satirical take on this expectation maybe that we have of journalists writing about a specific thing to tell one particular narrative." ([35:19])

• Metafiction & The Media World

  • Roach appreciates the novel’s metafictional elements, such as fake author-editor emails woven into the story:

    "Metafiction is a story that acknowledges that it’s a story…there’s an interaction a little bit between the text and the real world" ([36:51]).

  • This approach resonates with how people today consume news—experiencing events virtually and in real-time, creating both a sense of immediacy and dislocation:

    "I often find myself feeling that I’m experiencing news events in a much more direct way...but also a sense of detachment." ([37:23])

• Novels as Validation & Reflection

  • Rather than delivering a moral, Roach values fiction that "gives me maybe new frameworks. I think I found it very validating in a way to read a book written by an author who so clearly was like contending with these questions..." ([33:41])
  • The novel reflects on the personal amid the political, validating the confusing mix of personal and global grief.

Notable Quotes

• "I read to have maybe new frameworks...I found it very validating to read a book written by an author who so clearly was contending with these questions of, like, how do I write, how do I think in these very chaotic times." – Mattea Roach ([33:41])
• "There’s something that’s very internety about metafiction to me...both real presence...but also detachment." – Mattea Roach ([36:51], [37:23])

Key Segment Timestamps

• [30:16] Why select a novel to capture 2025
• [32:21] How Endling mirrors emotional and social whiplash
• [35:19] Use of absurdity and humor
• [36:51] Metafiction’s resonance in the era of real-time news
• [37:23] The emotional experience of “internet news”

Memorable Moments & Standout Quotes

• "The north won the Civil War, but the south won the narrative war."
  – Bryan Stevenson ([06:25])
• "You can't claim to have been on the right side of slavery…if you are silent today, if you are not responding to horrific acts of violence and bigotry today."
  – Bryan Stevenson ([17:13])
• "Readers don't believe that they should be kept at arm's length. They believe that their subscription money gives them a vote in how the newspaper should cover the world."
  – Paul Wells ([23:47])
• "I read to have maybe new frameworks… it was nice to read a novel that was engaged in…I’m a writer, I’m creating art, and I’m having to balance the fact that there are these stories that are going on that are personal to me but also much bigger than me."
  – Mattea Roach ([33:41])

Episode Structure by Timestamp

• [00:49] Introduction – the Books to Understand 2025 series
• [01:43] Bryan Stevenson on Mother Emanuel
• [18:23] Paul Wells on The Times
• [30:05] Mattea Roach on Endling
• [38:40] Close

Concluding Note

This episode challenges listeners to widen their understanding of the intersecting crises of 2025 by engaging with history, wrestling with media transformation, and embracing the unsettling power of storytelling. The guests—through their chosen books—offer not just explanations for the past year’s headlines but insight into how to process, resist, and potentially shape the narratives of the present and future.