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- [00:02]
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- [01:01]
Holly Gattery
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New Books Network Announcer
Welcome to the New Books Network.
- [01:20]
Holly Gattery
Hello everyone and welcome to nbn. I am your host Holly Gattery and I am excited to be joined today by the resplendent Zilla Jones to talk about her debut novel the World so Wide. Welcome to the show, Zilla.
- [01:38]
Zilla Jones
Thank you. I'm so excited to be here.
- [01:40]
Holly Gattery
I am so excited to be talking to you. I have a ton of questions how have tried to organize them into the most for me, like kind of congealed but like that's very difficult for me because with books everything and especially with your book, everything bleeds into everything else. So it was quite difficult for me to keep my not only enthusiasm but line of questioning direct. So I'm going to have to ask you, Zilla and our listeners to bear with me as I fangirl pretty hard over this. So for our listeners who may not be familiar with Zillow's book, the World so Wide is just, I mean I've never read anything like it and it actually for me it reminds me a lot of another book I read recently that made me realize how little I know of the world. And this is a beautiful novel that really cracked it open for me. Felicity Alexander should be charming audiences at New York's Metropolitan Opera, not under house arrest in Granada in October 1983 as rumors swirl that United States troops are preparing to invade. Born and raised in Winnipeg, the daughter of Canadian woman and an absent white father, Felicity is blessed with an enviable beauty and an extraordinary singing voice. Arriving in London to study Opera in 1965. She finds early success and joy on stage, as well as a sense of belonging in the arms of the charming Claude Buckingham. Members of the West Indian Students Association. Claude and his friends are law students and activists. They plan to return to Granada to overthrow the corrupt dictator Uncle Percy Tibbs. Now the story is follows. What is it? It's four countries, 15 years. I actually have a really tough time believing this is your debut novel because it is such an undertaking and it is done so beautifully and everything's weaving back and forth. Zilla, I do want to let our listeners know a little bit more about you, but I'm going to jump in with my first question because I feel like pushing at the back of my chest and I need to ask, where did the novel start for you?
- [04:05]
Zilla Jones
You know, I don't actually have a definitive answer to that question. I've been asked that a few times. I know that it was sitting with me for a very long time. And I mean, like, over a decade long. What I remember for sure as kind of a date marker was that I had started it prior to New Year's Eve 2013, because I was at a wedding, my best friend's wedding in Ottawa. And at that wedding, I was talking to another friend, and we were talking about how being moms with young kids, it was so hard to find time for ourselves to really, like, take a shower, like, do anything right. And it was hard to even get away for this wedding. And we both talked about how. Well, she brought it up, actually, that in 2014, we need to commit to doing something regularly for ourselves and then report back at the end of the year how well we did. Like, that's our New Year's resolution. I go, like, we both agree we don't really do resolutions, but we would just commit to doing something for ourselves and then report back. And I think she meant stuff like working out and doing her nails and stuff like that. And I took it as I'm gonna really, like, commit to working on this novel that I'd kind of been chipping away at. And so I really worked on it in 2014 and then reported back, like, I did, like, 50,000 words, whatever it was that I had done. So I know I had started it prior to then, and that is 11 years before it came out. So a long time.
- [05:25]
Holly Gattery
I mean, I think a book like this, it feels weightless in the way that it is so smoothly put together. But because I'm a writer, too, I. I try to look under the hood of everything and I just thought, wow, like, this. This feels impossible to me. And it must have taken such a long time. And hearing that it took a long time also because you're very busy made me feel slightly better. Because if somebody said to me, spend some time, commit to doing one thing for yourself, I'd be like, I'll do my. I'll do my physio stretches instead of.
- [05:55]
Zilla Jones
Exactly. Exactly. That's exactly what she had in mind. I think she took up, like, running or jogging or something. And, I mean, that's great, too. But that wasn't even in my head that it would be something at that. I mean, I will never take that long again to write anything, because, you know, that's long. And I want to, you know, be more efficient than that. So I think from taking that long, that's what makes a debut special, right? Because it's the thing you write when you really aren't having any hope of it getting published. No one knew who I was. I wasn't a writer. I wasn't known to like anyone. Literally. I was just writing this because I had to write it for myself. And I wasn't thinking about, what next is my agent gonna like it? You know, all these things that you think about now. I was just writing, and it will never be special like that again. Because now it's always, you know, I've got a deadline. I want to get this done, I want to send it out. I wasn't thinking that. It was just something I had to do for myself.
- [06:48]
Holly Gattery
Yeah, I love that answer. I mean, I. I don't know if it's really a question I asked, but it's. It. I mean, I love what you said, you know.
- [06:56]
Zilla Jones
Oh. Oh, no.
- [06:57]
Holly Gattery
Well, don't. Please don't worry at all. I was just saying I love that answer. And I thought, well, Holly, you didn't really ask a question. I don't. I worded it wrong. Not you. I was just thinking about how when the book came out, I felt like that you had been writing for a long time because you have this really wonderful confidence and warmth, too, and listeners. Zilla, like what, is a finalist for the CBC Short Story Prize, and she's a winner of the Journey Prize, a finalist for the Writers Trust Bronwyn Wallace Emerging Writers Award. Your writing has appeared in many journals, including Event Magazine, the Fiddlehead, Prairie Fart, and the Malahat Review. So, I mean, I think. I think I had good reasons to feel like you'd been writing a lot before. Like, you just.
- [07:41]
Zilla Jones
That all started after the novel, though. Like, that's the thing. So, I mean, I had been writing my whole life in the sense that I started very young. So I don't remember starting. I was three. And my mom has this apocryphal story about her giving me a crayon to draw. And she came back and here's a full story that I'd written out that she didn't even know I could write. No one taught me to write. It was this. I just really connected to words and letters. I was just always looking at them, and I guess somehow I just was able to do that. So I guess that was just my. My special gift from the ancestors, right, is how I look at it. So I just always, always wrote. But it was never for publication. It was for me or for my friends or for school or just because I felt like it. And so this novel was really the first serious thing that I was writing. And I think when I started getting close to the end of it, I did start thinking, okay, now what? You know, like, I. I spent all this time on this thing, and no one knows who I am and how am I going to get this out there? And when I was sort of asking around and looking on Google, I was seeing people saying, well, you know, if you get some notice for short stories, sometimes that can help open the door with publishers and agents for a novel. So that was why I started writing and submitting short stories. It was because I knew I wanted to pursue getting this novel out there. And so the first story I submitted was actually in end of 2019, and it was to the CBC contest. And my friend was pushing me because he knew that I was writing, and he really wanted to encourage me. So he was pushing me into this competition. I remember saying, but I can't write short stories. I can only write, like, novels. And he's like, oh, I'm sure you can if you try. So I sort of came up with an idea that I thought maybe was okay, and I sent it in, and then I completely forgot I'd sent it. In March 2020. We all remember what happens, right? Covid. And then in the midst of COVID I get this email from the CBC that your story was long listed. So that gave me so much confidence that, okay, maybe, maybe I can write short stories, because I really didn't think I could. And so I started sending out more of them. But really the intention initially was just to raise my profile for the novel. But then I actually fell in love with short stories themselves. And that's probably another conversation, but I Actually have a collection of those coming out, and I grew to love them for their own self, but I never would have written them if not for this novel.
- [09:51]
Holly Gattery
Yeah. Okay. Thank you so much for clarifying that, because I honestly, I. I don't have the best concept of how time passes. My therapist often says it's. It's neur. People who are neurodivergent don't experience time. So I only panicked and thought, oh, my goodness, did. Did all this stuff happen since your novel's been published? But I think what you actually said, and it's me not being a really wonderful listener right now, that you had already started your novel. It was after you started the novel that all of this other stuff.
- [10:20]
Zilla Jones
Yeah, like, the novel, I think, finished during COVID So that was another sort of unintended blessing of COVID was that, as you said, I'm very busy, so my kids are very busy. So Covid, really all we did was homeschool and work from home, which was, like, pretty taxing during the week, but then on the weekends, like, there's no soccer, there's no music, like, there's no going out socially. Like, your house gets clean. My husband was home, like, a lot, so he was kind of doing all that stuff. So then there was nothing really to do except cinema. Right. So I actually benefited from the lockdown and the lack of social interaction that I used it to write the novel. So by May 2020, like, the first draft was done and that. And then I had sent out that one story already, and then I started sending out more after that. So, yeah, they came after the novel was drafted. Of course, I was still redrafting and editing and all that, but the concept was in at that point.
- [11:12]
Holly Gattery
Yeah. And I mean, really good for writers who are listening. I mean, it's good to think about, you know, writing is one thing, publishing is another. But you're planning. If you're writing with the intent of publishing, you could just be writing for yourself and have no intention of showing it. And that's totally cool. That's one very pure, wonderful thing. But if you're writing with the intent to publish, it is a really good idea to think long term and, you know, follow wonderful advice. I mean, submit to places that you might want to feature you when you write a novel. A lot of wonderful literary magazines will interview and uplift past contributors. So even if you're writing a novel, again, write those short stories, rewriting a collection of poems, submit those poems like it's. And also, let's also just support the wonderful literary magazines.
- [11:53]
Zilla Jones
Yeah. I mean, Canada has amazing literary journals. We really do. We're blessed to have them. And most of them are operating on. On a shoestring. They're doing it for the love of what they do. They're not making a ton of money at it. And they are doing their very best to discover new talent and provide opportunities for the writing community, and they do that for us. I know it can be frustrating sometimes because they get a lot of submissions and they may take a while for them to get back to you, but it really is worth persisting with them because they do really, really support writers. And it's so gratifying. And it's a nice way when you're waiting to finish a novel, get a novel out there. You can get a short story in a journal and get it back and have something to hold in your hand and show people and say, this is my story. Way faster than you can do that with a novel. So it's also that little dopamine hit that we need sometimes. And as well, it does, as you said, really raise your profile and get people rooting for you and get you readers. And it's just such a great community to participate in. So I highly recommend literary journals.
- [12:53]
Holly Gattery
Absolutely. Me too. I recommend literary journals. I recommend subscribing to people's substacks.
- [12:59]
Zilla Jones
I mean, for free.
- [13:00]
Holly Gattery
You don't have to do anything that's going to cost you money. I understand not many of us have a ton of bunnies for around right now, but there's so many ways to support our really wonderful literary community without being mentioned anything. But I'm going to skip my lecture on being better literary citizens. Now, I have problems with the word citizenship, too, when it comes to literacy, so, you know, whatever, a lot about this stuff, I want to get into your novel. And one of the things that I really loved was how your book challenges myopic Western understandings of the world. Now, this is likely not something that you intended. It's you just writing an experience. But I was wondering if. If you could talk about, you know, as Felicity, as this character is who I love, by the way, has so many layers to her, and she wears so many masks, and she, you know, is such a fascinating, just layered character, as I said. And just by virtue of her, we're seeing the world through so many different lenses, and. And it really shattered a lot of. A lot of ways I thought I understood the world. And I was wondering if you could talk about using Felicity to take readers to places that will Challenge them?
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Zilla Jones
Yeah, I mean, I definitely. I wouldn't say I wasn't thinking of challenging Western views. Cause actually, the interesting thing is my very first draft of this novel began on September 10, 2001, the night before 9 11. And I actually saw 911 as being the framing for the whole novel. Because to me, that summed up the whole century that had gone before of US Hegemony and US dominance and all the issues with the US Recolonizing and the imperial. All of these things that I was questioning culminated on 9 11. And there's sort of a second story to 911 that we don't hear because we just get the official propagandized version of it. So I was tying that in very much with Grenada when I wrote it. And then that that sort of changed in editing for various reasons. So now the novel ends in 1983 and doesn't go into 9 11. It kind of foreshadows it, though, I think. And so I definitely did have. As one of my goals was to let people know. I mean, okay, initially I was writing it for myself. I guess I wasn't thinking that. But by the time I realized that I do want to put this out there, then I really started thinking about letting people know what happened in Grenada. Letting people know about just generally the developing world and the way that revolution and social change is treated there, and just the enormous influence and impact that colonialism has had. So I certainly was trying to write that. And Felicity, I feel, as a character, embodies those things because she's a person that lives contradictions. And in that way, she's a lot. She's a lot like me because she's a mixed race person. So she's in kind of two worlds. And she is also of Caribbean descent, but living in the diaspora. So she is experiencing all these events and all this history through the lens of being in the diaspora, being the Western society, and learning about home, or maybe not home, as she deals with in the book, but learning about her countries of origin. And she's also a woman in a very male world of opera. And she's also in a very classist institution as someone who comes from more modest and humble background. And, you know, she has these continuous struggles with the dominant society coming as an outsider to it. So I think through her being the outsider and the underdog, it represents Grenada and other countries like it. Being the underdog.
- [16:40]
Holly Gattery
Yeah. Thank you for that answer. And I'm glad that I was somewhat on the ball with it, challenging that, because I. One thing I've learned through doing, you know, being a host on MBN and a host on Howell, which is a great radio station in Toronto. This has a literary art program. Is that, you know, I already knew this, but books are mirrors and I'll be picking out something and then author's like, well, I never intended that. That's just something that, you know, you're seeing and something that happened because of who you are and how you're reading this book. So I never say anymore, you know, I never say to an author, well, you did this because an author is saying, no, I didn't. Like, that wasn't even my intention. So I'm like, okay, well, we're not going to go in with that.
- [17:21]
Zilla Jones
Got it. You got it. The amazing thing is that a lot of readers have understood that. And I think that's something that just really, it just, it just warms my heart so much. I think that's one of the amazing things about writing is the connections you can make. Like, you talk about the CBC story, and that story that I wrote was about two girls, two black girls, one mixed race girl and a black girl in a private school and how they connected despite a lot of racial prejudice and bullying and things that were happening in the school. And so I wrote it very much from a perspective of black people and our particular experiences in school. But I got so many messages and emails from people, some who I knew somehow I didn't even know at all, who read the story and reached out to me and said that they too could connect it because they too had felt like outsiders in school. And a lot of these people, it wasn't necessary because they were, they were black. Like, some were gay or transgender. Some of them were poor, some of them were immigrants, but not necessarily of color. Some of them were saying it's because they look different or they were overweight or they dressed funny or their religion. There was so many different ways. So I think so many people in this world are, are outsiders, right? There's probably more outsiders than insiders. So it's kind of funny when we look at, well, who's an insider? Like, is anybody really? Or are we just perceiving that other people are right? Because so many people can relate to that feeling of being the underdog and being the outsider. And same with this novel that so many people have read it and just instantly understood what I was getting. Even if they're not Afro Caribbean and they're not from Grenada and they don't know this history, they were saying, wow, I really understand what you're saying about all these issues. And I really get that and I really appreciate someone putting that into words. And so that's so gratifying. That's my favorite part of having this book out, right. That means more to me than any other kind of accolades or anything else that can happen with a book is that readers connect to it and understand. So absolutely like what you're seeing is absolutely what I what I wanted you to see. And that makes me happy.
- [19:18]
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- [20:17]
Holly Gattery
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- [20:22]
Zilla Jones
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- [20:26]
Holly Gattery
Introducing Liquid Ivy's new energy multiplier. Sugar free. Unlike other energy drinks, you know the ones that make you feel like you're glitching, it's made with natural caffeine and electrolytes so you get the boost without the burnout. Liquid Ivy's new energy multiplier. Sugar free hydrating energy. Tap the banner to learn more. Well, thank you. It makes me happy because I love books that and grapple with the mixed experience. You know, I'm, I'm biracial and it is something that's really common but you.
- [21:00]
Zilla Jones
Don'T write about that too. And like really well, like really, really deeply and intimately, which, which I love well.
- [21:07]
Holly Gattery
And I mean every mixed race experience is different. Somebody's swirl, as I call it, can have a lot to do with how they're perceived, how their phenotype plays out so much to how they're perceived. And one thing that I remember being said in the book that you, you wrote and I believe it was Claude who said it, but Felicity was the recipient of this, which thinking about how in North America, she's black, but she's not black. And I'd love for you to talk about that.
- [21:38]
Zilla Jones
Like how, how race shifts by location. Exactly.
- [21:42]
Holly Gattery
About. About race shifting by location. About the way that Felicity, I should be specific, your code switches. But not only. I mean, she has, she seems to have a pretty solid sense of who she is racially. I mean, when I say pretty solid, there's definitely some stuff I'd love to get into. Like I don't want to give too much away, but like when it comes to her father, her denying and like really pushing out that whiteness, which trust me, I had a fabulous conversation with another mixed race person who is swirled with white like me and we were talking about experiencing white guilt as people who are not fully white. And what do we do with this and how do we internalize it and how do we externalize it? Like how do we go into our world with this amount of guilt and you know, and all this great stuff. So your book, I mean, I thought, I remember putting it down and thinking about like walking around grocery shopping, you know, picking weeds out of the pond with the kids and thinking about it all day after raises so many important questions about mixed race identity and about mixed culture identity. So, yeah, I'm wondering if you. About your approach to capturing this and you seem to like, I'm not going to say you, you hold it in a palm because it's too big for that, but you do seem to like grab it in a big bear hug and it seems fairly substantial without you trying to draw any pat tidy conclusions about it.
- [23:06]
Zilla Jones
Yeah, and I mean, I think I don't. I dislike the way that some books approach the issue of mixed race. And I was trying to avoid the sort of simplistic approach where a lot of people like, well, like you don't fit in anywhere when you're mixed. Like that's not really true. Like Felicity does know that she fits in, in the black community and this is what she's raised in. This is what she knows. These are the people that she loves and cares about. But she also like does have a privilege that others don't have by being lighter and she does sometimes get grief for that. And in terms of the shifting race dynamic, I mean, my point being there, that race is so much a social construct. So me being also of a similar background in Philistine, being of mixed race and being of Caribbean descent, is that in the Caribbean, people who are mixed that are aren't necessarily considered black per se because there's a lot more Racial categories. So there are probably 20 different things you can be. Right. And there's all these different gradations and every minor, I mean there's a lot of colorism as a result of it, but every minor variation puts you in a different category. And within the family you'll have a whole bunch of different people of different things. So the whole family doesn't have to be one thing. So it's just a very different way of looking at race. Like there's terms that probably people here would never have heard that are used, right? Like, like does anyone here, let's not Caribbean know what, what a haba is, right? It's a particular complexion. Like when somebody says, I'm like, I know what that looks like. Sheena is another one which includes people mix of Chinese like myself. And so there's all these different ways to look at it. But in North America, in UK and Canada, we kind of simplify that. So if you look like you're, you have some African ancestry and you have brown skin, then you're black. So somebody like me often is called black. And I do consider myself part of the black community because that's the community that, that I've been accepted in and being raised in and being told is the one that will accept me. So here, yes, you would be a black person, but when you go to the Caribbean, they would look at you strange if you said you were black. Right? So there are people like that who kind of live in these different experiences. So when Flossy goes back to the Caribbean, she is seen as different and other in a way that she isn't in the West. And then even within the Western communities where she may be generally seen as black, within black communities, she will have moments of strife where the fact that she's lighter will be brought to her attention. So it wasn't so much about just the simplistic, like you don't fit in anywhere, but it was about how that mixed race experience looks different depending on who you're interacting with, depending on the context. So the Felicity, she's having issues often when she's dealing with dating. Because in the black community there is this kind of taboo around lighter skinned woman having more privilege or having more desirability, which, you know, I don't agree with that. I don't think that we are more desirable. I'm not saying that. But there is a stereotype or a perception going back historically that obviously people are trying to get away from discrimination, prejudice. And one of the ways you can do that is try to have lighter skinned children try to pass as white. There's a whole history of passing. And so the people who are closer to passing are often seen as more desirable by some. And so that can create dynamics in dating and relationships that can be very uncomfortable and feel very hurtful to both sides. And so that was something that I wanted to explore a little bit through her. And then of course, there's other times where she's dealing with white people and they see no difference in her and a black person and treat her just exactly the same and they don't know what to do with their hair and they don't know what to do with her lighting of her skin because to them she's just dark. So she's having this privilege in one place and lack of privilege in another place and having to reconcile that.
- [26:52]
Holly Gattery
What you said about being mixed race and depending on who you are and who you're talking to and where you are, people's perception change. When I was reading the book and when you said that, it reminded me of one point in the book where I. Something that was said, I can't remember what it was now. Something that you wrote made me think about an experience I had where I was on a panel about being mixed race. And at the end somebody came up to me and said, oh, I didn't know you were black. And I said, what? And I was. And they're like, you don't, you don't look like you're black. It's up because I'm not black. And this person, when we talked a little bit further. So I was trying to understand what I had said to make someone think this because, because like where I had stupid audience wrong and it turned out had nothing to do with me. This person, when they think biracial or I was talking about being specifically being biracial or even mixed race, they ought to assume it is mixed with black somehow. And I thought that is such a. Like there's people who are white and Chinese, there's, there's Sri Lankan Koreans, like there's so many different ways to be mixed race. And this person in their head just had this idea that no matter what it has to be, was black. And I really hope that whatever I said to this person, they went home and questioned why that white.
- [28:08]
Zilla Jones
Because there's been so much angst in North America, particularly us, specifically about white and black mixing. I think that was illegal. We know about the Loving case with Mildred Loving and because of the history of enslavement and what miscegenation as they called it, what that meant. And because of the issue of people getting light enough that they could pass a lot of anxiety about that. A lot of the attention was focused on that particular type of mixing and probably less on the other options. Right. Like Indian and white or indigenous and white or Chinese and Indian or Chinese and Vietnamese or whatever. Right. I mean, some might not be different race. So, you know, I mean, like, there's so many different combinations of, of what people can be. And that's more of a modern conception of it, I guess, in a traditional way is that, you know, the real issue was black people infiltrating white society. So there was so much anxiety about that. So I think people sometimes, if you get into mixed race discussions, often that will dominate, but it's not the only way to be mixed. Absolutely.
- [29:13]
Holly Gattery
I really thought hard about how, if nothing else, and this person was a perfectly nice individual, it was pleasant person. Listen to what I was saying. You know, real light, was shocked when they realized that, you know, they had been narrow minded about things. It was, it wasn't that. But I remember thinking, I hope, you know, people are capable of like opening their brains to new ideas. And this person never. I mean, I wasn't offended by. I really thought that I had said something up there. Like, it's like, did I black out during half of that conversation? Like, did I. Am I having a memory lapse? What, Did I say something that I didn't? But I was like, no, that, that's not it. I was present the entire time. It's. It's something else. And it reminds me of just reading a book to get to your book about how we carry so much of ourselves into books. Because, for instance, Felicity, I loved how she is this delightfully unexpected combination of so dramatic and just so, so shrewd at the same time. And that is a really hard combination to pull off, being dramatic and shrewd. Like, how do you do that? She does it. And I'd love for. To talk about creating Felicity. Was she the first character who walked into your brain or did she come along later on in the novel?
- [30:27]
Zilla Jones
No, she was like, she was always somebody that I wanted to write. So I mean, that goes back to like family history. So family oral history about the Grenada Revolution. Talks about how my mom would talk about how her cousin, like, it's my cousin too, but our cousin was in a relationship with the former prime minister of Grenada who was executed just as the characters are in the book. So he was part of the government that was overthrown. In 1983, and then executed by his comrades shortly before the US invaded. In fact, they used that murder as the excuse to come in and restore order. So his former partner was my cousin, and then they broke up and he married his wife Angela, and he moved back to Grenada and went into history. So I always was interested in what it would be like to have dated somebody that, you know, gets deposed in a coup and murdered in front of the world, and you're just a regular person sitting there watching this. And did she ever recover from that? What did she think? What did that mean to her, to her life and to her children's lives? So I always wanted to write about the partner of a revolution who is killed. And that was kind of the starting point. And then making her a mixed race opera singer is kind of the next step. Because I was also really interested in writing about the black or person of color experience in opera, because that was something I was pursuing at the time. So when I started writing this, I was a singer and that's what I was doing. And I was feeling like the outsider or the other in the operatic world because of who I was. And I was seeing how learning a little bit about the history of black singers and what the path had been like and how rocky it had been, and just noticing how classist and Eurocentric and patriarchal the industry still was. And so I wanted to write about that. And I think the two ideas just kind of came together. I'm like, oh, like I could write about Renaida and have the character also be experiencing these things in her own life. And then we will talk about the rise of her career at the same time the revolution arises. And so that's where that came from. So, yeah, she was very early in the process. I knew who she would be and what she would be like, and I knew she would be this dramatic, larger than life, sort of outrageous person, because that's just how many people were that I was dealing with at that time. So I thought that would just be an interesting. An interesting way to write about the revolution.
- [32:50]
Holly Gattery
I do want to ask you about researching this part. You know, you have your family's oral history. I'm sure that you knew a bunch about this point in history more than. Certainly I did and probably a lot of people. But I'm assuming you must have had to do some research as well. But before it slips my mind, something that you said reminded me of something I didn't write down, a question I didn't write down. And it's. I loved that Felicity is not an ideal mother to her children, which is a strange thing to say. I have four kids who I take everywhere with me, like orbiting satellites, like. And that. That is not something Felicity does. But even though she admits that she's, you know, she says bad mom, I would say she just has a really. She's. She's taking care of them. She has someone wonderful who takes care of them. They're not neglected. I. I wouldn't. I wouldn't say that. She was put in some circumstances where she didn' choice about these things. And I. I'd say she's recognizing where her strengths and weaknesses are and where her weaknesses are maybe, you know, mothering children, at least, especially young children. She's. She's got it covered. She's got someone else doing that. That's fine. It's better than not asking for help, in my opinion. And not only that, I think it's a really wonderful way to show that, you know, not. Not all women want kids, and a lot of women have to have kids who didn't want kids. And I love that she just had this strength to own that, you know, this isn't for me, and I'm doing it because she had to or felt that she had to, but it really wasn't something that she naturally felt drawn to do. And, you know, she says several times, putting her career as a singer in front of everything else, and she does so without remorse. And, you know, I love that for her. And I was wondering if you could talk about contextualizing that choice. And what I mean is not, I mean, your choice to have her be that way, but, I mean, as a character. Felicity, maybe there's some people that won't find her sympathetic for that. I didn't think it was my place to judge whether I'm sympathetic or not about it. I just like that she was owning it and taking care of business. I was wondering if you could talk about setting that up. Setting that up. So Felicity was this way and that the reader would at least accept it.
- [35:13]
Zilla Jones
Yeah, I mean, I think that's probably one of the most controversial things I. I did, which I wasn't necessarily expecting or trying to do with this novel, but in terms of, you know, reader comments and feedback, I was expecting people to be more, you know, like, you know, people. You probably know this when you discuss race, how people get all, like, weird about it. And I was expecting people to come and, like, complain that I was being too woke or, like, you know, like, I'm not being fair to the Us. So, you know, they'd be more interested in kind of the geopolitical and socio political aspects of the book. But everybody seems fine with that and like really gets that. And what some people seem to have an issue with, not all, but some, is Felicity's character. And I've had people tell me that, you know, sometimes I want to just give her a good shake and slap her in the face because I don't understand why she's being like that and why she is being neglectful of her children because some people do perceive that she's a neglectful mother. Some people don't like that she is promiscuous. Some people don't like the way she conducts herself in romantic relationships. And I've had some people sort of comment on how they find that disappointing or like stereotypes of women. Like, so some people have definitely, or you know, she's not likable, not a likable character. I've definitely had people say that. And I'm not necessarily saying that they're, you know, ripping the book apart and saying they didn't enjoy it, like they still, they still maybe liked it. But they're just commenting that this part of it, this aspect of it bothered them. Although there was other aspects they liked. This particular one they were stuck on. And I hadn't really anticipated that, to be honest, because to me, she just felt like a full grown character that was just that way because it was the way she had to be. As you said, like she made choices or had choices forced on her and this was just the natural reaction. And in terms of motherhood specifically, yeah, I kind of wanted to address. What I was really looking at, to address in this novel in terms of motherhood was the traumatic intergenerational legacy of things like colonialism. So Felicity's mother is very traumatized and she and her mother have a very rocky relationship. In the book, as I'm sure you picked up on that her mom really has a specific morality and a specific way of living that she wants Felicity, her daughter, to adopt. So mom wants Felicity to go to church. Mom wants Felicity to meet a nice boy who's a church boy for the black community, likely to marry him, to have babies, to teach Sunday school, to sing in the church.
- [37:30]
Holly Gattery
And.
- [37:31]
Zilla Jones
And her mom thinks that will keep her happy, that will keep her safe, and that will give, keep her from having the difficult life her mother had as a single mother. Felicity does not want any part of that. Right. Like from a very young age, you can tell she is destined to be on A stage. She has big emotions, she's a big personality, she has big dreams. She attracts people to her. She's charismatic. She is not going to be teaching Sunday school. Nothing wrong with that. It's a great thing to do, but it's just not for her. And she is going out into the world and we have the title, you know, the world. So why that's where she's going. And her and mom just fundamentally don't get that about each other. They have this need to do what they do and live a certain way. And so that sort of impacts their relationship. And because Felicity doesn't get that motherly love and motherly concern, she's not really able to pass that on. And part of the reason mom has that is because of some of the. The trauma she experienced, which isn't in this version of the book. It was in an earlier version, Mom's backstory. But I don't think it needs to be because it's clear from what we have that that's mom's story. And when they go back to Grenada for seeing her mom, you kind of see the relationship she has with her family and it's very strained. And so that is what colonialism did. It often drew wedges in families and brought a lot of trauma into the picture that people are now trying to live with. And so I was really interested in how that that impacts mothering. I mean, me and my mother, we have a great relationship, but it's definitely very much affected by trauma. And as the daughter of a person who lived through colonialism and went to school and was told that she was too dark and all these horrible things that I get told about is if they're normal by my mom, you know, I have to wrestle with that legacy and kind of deal with that and not pass those things on as a parent. And so I was kind of writing about that through Felicity. Like how do we, how do we kind of come at this issue of motherhood that's so sacred and it's supposed to be just this perfect thing and it's so marred by trauma at the same time.
- [39:27]
Holly Gattery
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- [40:33]
Holly Gattery
At REI Co Op, we believe there are places within ourselves.
- [40:38]
New Books Network Announcer
Almost there. You got this.
- [40:41]
Holly Gattery
That we find only outside.
- [40:44]
New Books Network Announcer
Wow. This is worth it.
- [40:48]
Holly Gattery
We have the gear. Inspiration and advice to help you get there. REI co op visit Rei.com I realize that I may not have the typical reader response to your book and if there is a typical reader response, and I not try not to give anything away, but there's a. Something that happened with a relationship that Felicity's in. Something tragic happens to the person she's in a relationship with. I'm like, good, he's out of the way.
- [41:16]
Zilla Jones
I know the one. I think I know the one you mean. Yeah.
- [41:18]
Holly Gattery
I was so happy. And I'm like, what is wrong with me?
- [41:22]
Zilla Jones
No, and I mean, I think, and I think that's the thing, right? Is that like we're not allowed, especially as women, right? As mothers, we're not allowed to feel certain things, right? Like we're not allowed to feel like our children are burdened. We're not allowed to feel like we wish our husband was dead. I mean, you have your widow fantasies. I think you very well know that, right? That there's all these things that we're not supposed to feel, but we do. And Felicity feels them all.
- [41:44]
Holly Gattery
Exactly. No, I love that. I mean, she's a character that if I thought about it, I think I could take in real life in small doses. But I'm so happy she's out there, you know, I mean, it's just I'm the high maintenance person in a friendship. I can't have somebody else who's as high maintenance as me. It's too much. Where I respect other. It's not even a high maintenance. She's incredible, incredibly independent. It's not even that. She's just. She, she's a. She's a bold character. She takes up a lot of air in the Room, literally. And that's not a bad thing. It's not a bad thing. It's just that some people don't know how to, you know, be around people like that without trying to dominate them. And, and it was really wonderful for me and I'd say even therapeutic for me to, to watch her refuse to be cowed, which, which I loved for her. And you know, it was, it was such a wonderful. I said it's a very good read. Now I do want to ask you though about the research. And now this is a huge, this is a huge thing. But I'm going to ask because I understand that, you know, research is. People take binders and binders and binders and notebooks and notebooks full of research and use about a fraction of it, but they need all of that in their head often. So there's a lot of information in this book. But it didn't feel like I was sitting there at any point. It did not feel like I was sitting there reading a textbook. It is put in like woven through like a fine gold thread. Like it's there. I'm being, I'm learning stuff. I'm, you know, being wonderfully educated, well entertained at the same time. It was everything I want in a book. But I was wondering about the experience of researching for you and was there anything that you learned that you did not know about?
- [43:25]
Zilla Jones
Yeah, I mean, as you said, there was definitely a lot that I, that I did know because this is something that, this revolution, Grenada and Grenada politics and Caribbean politics as a whole was something that I very much had lived with my whole life and had read about before. But so I, I did know a lot. But then kind of as I went along I was like, you know, I wish I knew a little bit more about this thing or that thing. So I would definitely go and do some research. So one thing I did was I got accounts of the revolution from all the people that survived it. So many of the government members who were involved in the coup were imprisoned and then they were released many years later. And many of them wrote often self published memoirs about what had happened. And so I was able to kind of search those up online and get those and read them and those were super instructive. And then there's also a really good website called thegreenerevolution.com it was down for a while, but I think it's been back and then maybe it was gone again. But when it was up, I sort of grabbed a whole bunch of documents on there because it had a Lot of really good original sources. Minutes of meetings that were held by the cabinet of the revolution and newspaper articles from the time and things like that. Like somebody did a really good job of curating that in Grenada and I think sometimes they just don't have the resources and it goes down for a while. But I was able to kind of glean some stuff from there. There's a really good podcast that Amanda Paris did about Comrade Bishop, so I was able to listen to that. So there was a number of things I did. So I think what I learned, I think was just the. I hadn't realized that this revolution was controversial, to be honest, because my family is very revolutionary. And so they were forefronting the anti apartheid movement, which makes a big. Has a big role in the book In London. There's a lot of captures of people protesting the anti apart or the apartheid in South Africa. So that was something that my mom and my aunt did. As I said, they knew the Prime Minister of Grenada. They knew pretty much all the black activists of that time. They knew Nelson Mandela personally, they knew Martin Luther King personally. They knew like all the people worked with him. They went to meetings. They were involved in all of this, like very heavily. My grandfather was an anti colonial activist, so I just assumed that that was, you know, the right way to be. And there was no sort of contra opinion. And then when I was reading about the Grenadier Revolution, I realized that there's a lot of people that. Well, not. I don't. I don't say a lot, I don't know how many, but there are people who don't support the revolution. There were people who were glad the US invaded. They felt that they had rescued them from potential harm. There was a lot of people that, that vilified the people who had allegedly done the coup. And then the other thing that I learned was that the US had dropped a lot of propaganda on the island. So when they came in after the invasion, they arrested everybody that they said was involved in the coup. Some of them say they weren't. They say they were wrongfully arrested, but the US rounded them up and they actually had like, treated them horrifically. Like they held them in shipping containers in the heat for like three days, naked, before they even put them in a jail. They put military rule on the island. And one of the things they did was they went around and they said, you know, communism is bad, Marxism is bad, socialism is bad. And like really just brainwashed people. And I didn't realize they had done that. That explains why the revolution now is. Is not maybe looked at with the respect that you would think it. It should be by some people. So I think I just. I. I hadn't realized how. How insidious the foreign interference was. Like, I knew they invaded, but I didn't know that they also. I knew they physically invaded, but I didn't know that they had also invaded people's minds. And so I think that was really. I mean, I guess I probably did know that, but I think I didn't know it as. As openly as it. As it turned out to be in my research. Yeah.
- [46:59]
Holly Gattery
The feeling of rebellion and revolution is so present in this book. And I found myself increasingly looking forward to, very surprising to me, the sections with Jack in it, who's a friend of Felicity's. And then I was wondering, why. Why are you so obsessed with this white boy, Holly? Like, what's. What's going on? Why Jack? And then it occurred to me, it's because, you know, I felt like he was this calm center in a hurricane. And then I thought, well, why does he feel that way? And I thought, well, I think he's. By being a white man, he's afforded a relatively uncomplicated relationship with the world. And it's not that he doesn't have things that are going on with him, and not that there's not complications in his life, but he just seemed like such a wonderful character. And I was drawn to him every single time he stepped into the book. And, you know, I envied him his calm. And it's not that he's always calm. It's maybe compared to Felicity, he seems to. To be, like I said, like a. A very different approach to inhabiting the world. And of course, he's inhabiting the world in a very different body from a very different perspective. So, you know, I have to ask you after this to tell us a little bit about your short story collection. But first, I'd love for your thoughts and your feelings on creating Jack.
- [48:18]
Zilla Jones
Yeah, I love Jack. Jack's one of my favorites. And I love this friendship. And I think the reason I wrote Jack, I'm a friendship that way, was, like you said, he is kind of a calming and steady influence in Felicity's life. And what I like about Jack is that he's completely nonjudgmental. He knows, like, all the, quote, horrible things Felicity did. He knows how she feels about her kids. He knows how she feels about her mom. He knows her secrets, and he's still there as a brand. And I think what I wanted to show with him was that allyship is possible. Like Jack is really, he's a good ally, right. Like he doesn't try to make it about him. Um, he's open to learning, he's open to apologizing. When he makes a mistake, he doesn't always get it right. But he really wants to support this friend he has in whatever she's going through. And he's willing to think beyond kind of the prejudices of his time. Like he's very forward thinking. Like he's much more progressive than many people are in the 60s, 70s, 80s. And so he's just an example, I think, of what kind of connections people can make with people that are truly open minded and truly willing to learn. And so that was kind of his. I think his purpose is just that he's somebody that sets a example to follow for people that want to be allies.
- [49:31]
Holly Gattery
I love that. And I think, you know, despite of having written a book called Widow Fantasies that was inspired by my relationship with my husband, who is a white man, my husband is like, reminds me of Jack. And I think. Why is that? There's that, that openness, that understanding, as you said, a willing to. A willingness to listen and a willingness to learn and a willingness to apologize when you get it wrong and.
- [49:56]
Zilla Jones
Yeah, exactly. And I don't say that I'm writing characters as like, like stock characters. Like, I'm like this might sound like I'm writing these. Like, you know, like every character is like a social lesson. Like they're not. The characters are just people. But it's implied, right? Like, like nobody's ever going to say like Jack is non judgmental. Right? But, but you just see in the way that he conducts himself that, that he is right. Like just by being who he is, he is showing what it looks like to be nonjudgmental or to be accepting.
- [50:25]
Holly Gattery
I mean, none of the characters are perfect. All of them are far from it. There is no stockness. I've never encountered a character like Jack ever in anything that I've ever read, especially in a book in this context. It was really, it was really nice to see. It's just something that felt organic.
- [50:43]
Zilla Jones
And I have like Jeff. So I mean, he's very much based on unreal people that I know that have been in my life. And I, I feel very blessed. Like, I think one thing that I've been really lucky with in, in my life is, is my friends. And I just know like a lot of people that, that are just really supportive, they come from very different lives than me. But they, they. They get it or they try to get it right. And we give each other grace. And I just think that's a beautiful thing to have in your life. And I just wanted her to have with all the horrible things that happened to her, like she needed something beautiful that was just pure and just not contaminated and not corrupted. And that was Jack.
- [51:20]
Holly Gattery
Yeah. I think this is, I think, like the fifth time recently that we've come. We've come. I've come on this program to Grace, talking about grace as an author. And I'm so drawn to books that explore grace these days. And I think it's so, so important. I, I always say that I'm not a huge fan of. I'm a fan at all of cancel culture, but I'm a huge fan of correction culture, where as a community, you correct people. And to do that, people have to be open to correction, which is not. I've had to be correct in many times in my. Many times in my life. The good thing is most of it was in my 20s when I was loud and wrong and I wasn't really on social media that much in my 20s, so my community would correct me quietly.
- [52:03]
Zilla Jones
It wasn't quiet.
- [52:04]
Holly Gattery
I mean, it was often loud, but I mean, it wasn't for everyone to see. And I'm a. I believe that grace and correction and are. Are so. And correction can seem like such a harsh word, but it's not it. Correction is something that communities should do.
- [52:19]
Zilla Jones
Accountability. I mean, I know people also don't like that word, but I think we really are accountable to each other as, as humans and our actions and our words impact other people every day. And sometimes that's going to be a positive way. Sometimes it's not going to be a positive way. That's just being human. I don't think any of us can say that. We 100% always being positive, everybody around us. That's not possible. Right. So I think when we recognize that and then, you know, try to do better and expect better of other people and show them how to be better, but also give them that chance to be better, as you said, don't necessarily cancel them. Like, I don't know if I even believe that there's really such things. Cancel culture, I guess a whole other topic. But. But yeah, I think people deserve second chances. I, I always believe that. And sometimes I think the world we're now doesn't often give that.
- [53:06]
Holly Gattery
No, it doesn't. And I'm with you on cancel culture too. I think it's a term that gets thrown around and to, you know, to just kind of steamroll more nuanced arguments.
- [53:16]
Zilla Jones
Yeah, Especially, I don't know when your interview airs. But, like, we're having this conversation the week that Charlie Kirk died. So I think we're probably both seeing the division, kind of the rhetoric and just some of the horrible things coming out of that. All I'm thinking now is just that, you know, how do we. How did we get here? And, like, how do we get out of this? And I feel books might be part of that answer. And I hope that my book can maybe provide that for people as like a way through. Right.
- [53:44]
Holly Gattery
I believe it absolutely can. Which leads seamlessly to my final question for you. And that's your next book, if you're allowed to talk about it. I believe you said it was stories. And I'm a huge fan of short stories, obviously. I'm a huge fan of everything I say. I'm a huge. I am a huge fan of everything. I love everything. If it's done well, I want it in my brain immediately. Tell me about the collection, if you can.
- [54:07]
Zilla Jones
Yeah, I mean, it's still. It's still very much in flux because it's in very early stages. It's not coming out till February 2027. So I'm still in conversation with my editor about how it's going to look. But at the moment, what. What it is, is it's a set of linked stories about a woman named Mary Joseph Angelique. So Mary Joseph Angelique died in Montreal in 1734. She was an enslaved woman. She was a mixed race, Portuguese and African. And she was brought to Montreal as. As an enslaved person and was accused of burning down the whole city. But the circumstances of how that happened are very murky. There's question that she may have had this white lover that may have been involved. Like, maybe it was him that did it. Maybe they did it together and he got away and she didn't. And she was tortured to death and hanged. So I imagined this story through different. So. So they're kind of like alternate histories. So what if it was this way? What if it was this way? What if she did it by herself? What if he did it? What if she didn't know who did it? What if she was really rebellious? What if she was really passive? So we have these different iterations of Angelique. And then interspersed with that, if anybody's read my CDC short fiction finalist story, the one I was talking about earlier, about the two girls in the school. So There's a set of link stories about those girls that go through some more of their education, some more of their experience that kind of in a way parallels the development of Angelique. So we've got these girls 150 years or 250 years after her, thereabouts, or more than that, actually. And what is their life like compared to what is her life like? So it's kind of like a back and forth between the past and the present, but same kind of themes of belonging, of migration and diaspora, of mixed identity, of family, of trauma, motherhood. All those things will be very much in the book.
- [56:03]
Holly Gattery
I cannot wait to read it and I cannot wait to have you back to talk about it. So thank you. So joining me today on MVN to talk about your marvelous debut novel. That does not feel like a debut novel, and I don't know what that means when I say it because debuts are some of the best. But I just, you just feel so accomplished to me. And again, I have a debut novel coming out, so I have to stop saying that, like debut novels can't be accomplished. This is such a weird.
- [56:28]
Zilla Jones
Yours is going to be pretty amazing, I'm sure. I also can't wait.
- [56:31]
Holly Gattery
Oh, thank you. Thank you. Yeah. You're also your incredibly wonderful novel. We don't have to clarify what order it came in. All the World so Wide, which was published 2025 with Marek Books. Zilla, thank you again for joining me today.
- [56:45]
Zilla Jones
Thank you so much.