'No Place to Bury the Dead', 'The Hunter' ask what lengths you'll go for others

Summary

NPR's Book of the Day: January 10, 2025
Episode: 'No Place to Bury the Dead', 'The Hunter' – Exploring the Depths of Human Relationships and Societal Boundaries

NPR's Book of the Day offers insightful discussions with authors about their latest works. In this episode, released on January 10, 2025, listeners are treated to deep dives into two compelling novels: No Place to Bury the Dead by Karina Sainz Borgo and The Hunter by Tana French. Below is a comprehensive summary of the episode, highlighting key discussions, insights, and notable quotes.

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1. No Place to Bury the Dead by Karina Sainz Borgo

Host Introduction and Overview
Andrew Limbong introduces No Place to Bury the Dead, emphasizing its exploration of violence, loss, and the impact on communities. The novel delves into themes of borders, contested lands, and the rituals surrounding death.

Interview with Author Karina Sainz Borgo
Host Alyssa Nadworny engages with Karina Sainz Borgo, the Venezuelan journalist and author, to uncover the inspirations and themes behind her novel.

• Real-Life Inspirations and Antigone Parallel (02:01 - 03:09)
  Borgo discusses how the novel is inspired by real events and her encounter with a woman operating a cemetery on contested land.

  "I really wanted to explain this idea of the duty and how can we help other people?" (02:38)

  She draws parallels to Sophocles' Antigone, highlighting the protagonist's defiance to honor familial duties despite legal constraints.

  "This is an exercise of citizenship, in a way." (03:10)

• Gender Dynamics and Female Strength (04:02 - 05:09)
  The conversation shifts to the portrayal of women in the novel, emphasizing their strength and resilience.

  "Women are the strongest voices, the strongest characters are the most brave ones." (04:27)

  Borgo reflects on societal roles, noting how women exhibit power within the household but often lack recognition outside.

  "They were not able to use it outside in the street, because they would not respect it as they deserve it." (04:45)

• Contemplation of Mortality and Rituals of Death (05:09 - 06:28)
  Borgo ties the novel's themes to the contemporary experience of the pandemic, where rituals around death were disrupted.

  "We have to deal with the idea of death... hard to deal with the fact of those deaths that are related to other issues as a moral issue, political issue." (05:22)

  She underscores the importance of memorials and burial rituals in preserving memory and understanding societal tragedies.

  "Having memory to create a monument, to create a place in which remember and try to understand what happened..." (05:54)

Conclusion of Borgo's Segment
Borgo wraps up her discussion, emphasizing the novel's exploration of duty, memory, and societal responsibilities.

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2. The Hunter by Tana French

Introduction to The Hunter
Andrew Limbong transitions to discussing The Hunter, a sequel to Tana French's bestselling The Searcher. The novel is set in the small Irish village of Ardnickelt and follows retired detective Cal Hooper.

Interview with Author Tana French
Host Chris Bentley converses with Tana French, exploring her creative process and thematic intentions behind The Hunter.

• Setting and Community Dynamics (07:46 - 09:49)
  French describes her move from urban Dublin to the serene west of Ireland, capturing the essence of small-town life.

  "If you're down the country, that's not really a possibility... have a deep ripple effect." (08:16)

  She elaborates on the intricate social relationships and the impossibility of isolation in a tight-knit community.

  "The rhythms of that pub conversation... I tried really hard to reproduce..." (09:49)

• Exploration of Outsider Perspective and Cultural Nuances (09:22 - 11:04)
  French delves into the challenges faced by outsiders in understanding the subtle communication and underlying tensions within the community.

  "Ireland in particular is very good at not giving things away... talking in codes and gradually coming closer." (10:08)

  She connects this to her personal experiences as a "third culture kid," navigating between different cultures and identities.

  "That sense of being on the borderline between insider and outsider is a very familiar place to me." (10:55)

• Character Relationships and Emotional Core (11:04 - 12:47)
  The heart of The Hunter lies in the relationship between Cal Hooper and the local teen, Trey Reddy. French discusses the complexities of their bond amidst external conflicts.

  "The tension between this very caring but kind of clumsy and half-built relationship that Cal and Trey have versus the complicated emotions she has towards her father." (11:32)

  She highlights the juxtaposition of blood family ties and the constructed family dynamics, exploring the emotional struggles that arise from conflicting loyalties.

  "What happens when someone is pulled both ways by blood family versus self-constructed family?" (11:56)

Conclusion of French's Segment
French concludes by emphasizing the novel's exploration of community impact and personal relationships within a small town's intricate social fabric.

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Key Takeaways and Insights

• Societal Responsibilities and Memory: Both novels delve into how societies handle loss and memory, whether through individual duty or communal relationships.

• Gender and Power Dynamics: No Place to Bury the Dead highlights the strength and resilience of female characters, challenging traditional gender roles.

• Outsider vs. Insider Perspectives: The Hunter examines the complexities of integrating into a small community, emphasizing the nuanced communication and deep-seated relationships that define the social landscape.

• Emotional and Moral Conflicts: Both stories navigate the tension between personal desires and broader societal expectations, exploring how individuals cope with and influence their communities.

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Conclusion
This episode of NPR's Book of the Day offers listeners a profound exploration of two distinctive novels that tackle themes of memory, societal boundaries, and the intricate dynamics of human relationships. Through engaging conversations with Karina Sainz Borgo and Tana French, the podcast provides valuable insights into the authors' creative visions and the universal questions their stories address.

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Notable Quotes with Timestamps:

• Karina Sainz Borgo:

  • "This is an exercise of citizenship, in a way." (03:10)
  • "Women are the strongest voices, the strongest characters are the most brave ones." (04:27)
  • "We have to deal with the idea of death... hard to deal with the fact of those deaths that are related to other issues as a moral issue, political issue." (05:22)

• Tana French:

  • "If you're down the country, that's not really a possibility... have a deep ripple effect." (08:16)
  • "Ireland in particular is very good at not giving things away... talking in codes and gradually coming closer." (10:08)
  • "What happens when someone is pulled both ways by blood family versus self-constructed family?" (11:56)

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Whether you're seeking to engage with profound societal questions or immerse yourself in intricate human dramas, this episode of NPR's Book of the Day provides a rich and engaging overview of two compelling narratives shaping contemporary literature.

Transcript

[Andrew Limbong]

Hey, it's NPR's Book of the Day. I'm Andrew Limbong. Violence and loss have a way of rippling out through a town, city or even a country. In a bit, we'll hear from best selling author Tana French about her book the Hunter and how she translates the very American idea of the Western into small town Ireland. But first, the novel no Place to Bury the Dead is set, well, somewhere unnamed. That's because the crux of the novel is about borders and contested land and whether or not the rituals over death supersede the lines we draw. Author Karina Saenz Borgo spoke with Empire's Alyssa Nadworny about how this book was actually based on real life events. That's ahead.

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[Alyssa Nadworny]

In the new novel no Place to Bury the Dead, a plague that causes amnesia is rampant in an unnamed Latin American country where a young mother, a hairdresser named Angustias, lives. After the birth of twins, she uproots her family and travels to a border area seeking a safer life for them. When the twins die, she goes on a journey to bury them. She seeks the help of a larger than life woman, Visitacion, who runs a cemetery on contested land and finds a refuge of sorts. No Place to Bury the Dead is translated by Elizabeth Breyer and written by Venezuelan journalist Karina Sainz Borgo, who joins us now. Welcome to the program.

[Karina Sainz Borgo]

Thank you. Thank you so much for the invitation. The opportunity to talk about this novel.

[Alyssa Nadworny]

So tell us about this woman who runs the cemetery and why authorities consider her an outlaw.

[Karina Sainz Borgo]

Well, in a way I try to. This novel is based on true facts. I traveled to the border between Venezuela and Colombia in which there exists a woman that did this kind of things. She had a cemetery in which she buried people that had no money enough to get a decent burial. Suddenly I felt I was talking with Antigone. This tragedy written by Sophocles, based on the myth of Antigone, this woman that disobeyed the law to make possible to bury her brother. That I really wanted to explain this idea of the duty and how can we help other people?

[Alyssa Nadworny]

So this woman kind of inspired this whole story for you?

[Karina Sainz Borgo]

Yeah, Women used to do this in very different conflicts during the history, to bury during wars, during civil wars, during catastrophe disasters. Of course, this is a novel as well as fiction. But I really found this huge and important role of taking care of someone even when they are dead. So they are taking care of their memories. They're taking care of the place in which they will rest. It's an exercise of citizenship, in a way.

[Tana French]

Yeah.

[Alyssa Nadworny]

Wow. I love that phrase, an exercise of citizenship.

[Karina Sainz Borgo]

I really believe that the way a society treats its debt says a lot about it. I mean, when Sophocles already spoke about the tragedy of not being able to give a burial, we're talking about things that happened cycles ago, and we are having the same problem nowadays. If you think about, I don't know, maybe you can think about the borders between Mexico and United States, or maybe between Ukrainia and Poland. A lot of people die trying to get to Europe, looking for a better life. And if we think about this tragedy of dying in this struggle, of looking for something new, no one will never know where you are, where your body is. You die twice. And for me, it's a very powerful image. And I think it's a kind of universal thing that we all experiment, that we all can see nowadays.

[Alyssa Nadworny]

I want to talk to you about the contrast between genders in the book. The women are frustrated by the men, you know, the main character's kind of hapless husband, faithless boyfriends. And yet the women are also kind of the heroes, the ones who are standing up to the gangsters. How are you thinking about gender when you wrote the book and thinking about female characters?

[Karina Sainz Borgo]

Women are the strongest voices, the strongest characters are the most brave ones. Because I think I was raised in a society in which we had this idea of the man as a powerful figure outside the house. But inside the houses, women are very important to raise family, to overcome, to poverty, to create a real home. And I really was raised by these strong women. And I always felt that they could not have the same power they have inside their houses. They were not able to use it outside in the street, because they would not respect it as they deserve it. So that's why I try to explain that in the novels I write.

[Alyssa Nadworny]

I want to ask you about this contemplation of mortality and how the rituals of death are perhaps a way to understand life. What do we learn from this tale?

[Karina Sainz Borgo]

I was writing this novel at the same time of the pandemic, when we suffer the pandemia and we finally get to know that we could not bury the people we wanted and we really loved. Because of the medical recommendations, we finally get to know what this huge tragedy of not being able to give a burial. We have to deal with idea of death. Normally in our lives we all die and it's a natural fact. But when you think about being killed or maybe someone is dead because of the violence of a massive violence or trying to get to get rid of to escape from a place and these people die when when you're not able to find place in which there's the memory of what happened, it's completely difficult to deal with the fact of those deaths that are related to other issues as a moral issue, political issue. So this is the fact of having memory to create a monument, to create a place in which remember and try to understand what happened in the history of a country, of society or even a family.

[Alyssa Nadworny]

That was Carina Saenzborgo talking about her latest novel, no Place to Bury the Dead. Thank you so much for being with us.

[Karina Sainz Borgo]

Thank you. Thank you for your conversation and for.

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[Alyssa Nadworny]

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[Karina Sainz Borgo]

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[Andrew Limbong]

Guaranteed A murder mystery set in a big city versus a small town has completely different beats. In the former, there's some anonymity to it, right? But in in a small town where everyone is up in everyone else's business, well, you know, that's where the real drama is. It's Hannah French's novel the Hunter takes place in a small Irish village, and it stars the same main character as her bestseller the Searcher. She spoke with Here and Now's Chris Bentley about how for the second book, she wanted to capture the rhythm of a conversation she'd overhear at a pub. Here's Chris.

[Chris Bentley]

So without giving away too much of the plot, these books follow retired Chicago detective Cal Hooper, who has relocated to the fictional town of Ardnickelt to try to start over. He develops this paternal relationship with a local teen who has no one else to rely on, named Trey Reddy. And while there are mysterious disappearances and murders in both books, they're not really conventional crime novels. What was it like for you, stepping out of that police procedural environment? What did you like about inhabiting Ardnykelty in particular?

[Tana French]

Well, I love the switch from Dublin City, which is where the rest of my books have been set to, down the west, because I love the west of Ireland is utterly beautiful. But I also loved writing about a small community because it's a very different thing. If you live in the city, if you want to detach yourself from your community, you can do that basically. You know, don't play your music too loud, don't let your dog bark, and don't talk to your neighbors. And you can operate as an isolated unit. But if you're down the country, that's not really a possibility. The things you do that feel like very individual decisions actually have a deep ripple effect.

[Chris Bentley]

Yes. I mean, Cal has to navigate some really complex social relationships in a place where everyone is kind of aware of everyone else's business. The descriptions of the town, Ardna Kelti are so vivid that it's almost hard to believe that they're made up. But I wonder if there's a particular place that you modeled the town on, specifically the pub that they spend a lot of time in. It felt so real. Did he spend time listening to conversations in pubs in small towns to get that rhythm down?

[Tana French]

Yeah, no, it's more a collection of different pubs and different memories and different. Just the rhythms of conversations once they get into your ear, the rhythm of that pub conversation between people who have known each other really for more than their entire lifetimes. Like their relationships have been shaped by their parents, their grandparents, the entire community. And there's a rhythm that people get when they're that kind of interwoven that I tried really hard to reproduce from all those conversations I've kind of half overheard in pubs down the country.

[Chris Bentley]

Right? Yeah. Those are some of my favorite passages because they're so fun. I mean, it's hilarious. People are joking with each other, they're insulting each other. But then there's this layer of subtext and we're trying to decipher it through the eyes of Cal Hooper, the outsider. It's almost this like, dark underbelly of the small town. I mean, what were you exploring with that?

[Tana French]

Oh, well, I was exploring the perspective of the outsider. When you move somewhere new, right, you always see the top layer. You always think it's going to be simple. And Ireland in particular is very good at not giving things away. I don't know if it's a post colonial thing where we're talking about centuries of British rule where people had to be very careful what they said, because absolutely any stray word that let too much slip could lead to terrible consequences. But the Irish in particular down the country are very, very good at not saying things, at talking around things, talking in codes and gradually coming closer and closer to what they're saying till you pick it up. I wanted to explore that. I suppose it's prob to do with personal history as well, because I was what they call a third culture kid, where my parents are from completely different places and I grew up moving continent every few years. So that sense of being on the borderline between insider and outsider is a very familiar place to me.

[Chris Bentley]

Yeah. And as he's peeling back those layers, Cal Hooper kind of the emotional core of these novels is his relationship with Trey, who's this street smart, funny, but also kind of tragic kid. One line I thought summed it up was all Trey's life. Any gentleness has had to wait till other business is dealt with. What did you want us to understand about their relationship in this sequel? In the Hunter in particular, I liked.

[Tana French]

The idea of exploring not just the balance but the tension between blood family and the kind of makeshift family that you construct for yourself. Because Cal's relationships with his own ex wife and his daughter have been tangled, they've been complicated, he's made messes. And Trey, you know, her mother is completely worn out to the point where she has very little to offer. Her father is actually less useful when he's there than when he isn't. And they find each other when they're really not looking for each other. And then there they are in each other's lives. And then Trey's father shows up in the beginning of the Hunter and he needs her for his own purposes. He's got a big plan. He's brought along an English millionaire, he's got a plan to find gold in the townland and he needs Trey. And so the tension between this very caring but kind of clumsy and half built relationship that Cal and Trey have versus the complicated emotions she has towards her father. I thought it'd be very interesting to balance those together and see what happens when they come into conflict. What happens when someone is pulled both ways by blood family versus self constructed family? It's a very fraught thing where this will all go for the townland and what Johnny, the bomb Jonny has dropped is going to have a wide blast radius.

[Chris Bentley]

Well, if people want to find out what happens, they'll have to read the Hunter. It's out now in paperback. We've been speaking with its author, Tana French. Thanks so much for your time. It was really nice to talk to you.

[Tana French]

Thank you so much for having me on. It's been great.

[Andrew Limbong]

And that's it for this week on NPR's Book of the Day. Let us know what you think. You can write to [e-mail] I'm Andrew Limbong. The podcast is produced by Danica Panetta and Chloe Weiner and edited by Sierra Crawford and Megan Sullivan. Our founding editor is Petra Mayer. The show elements for this week were produced and edited by Melissa Gray, Gamebo Connor, Chris Bentley, Katherine Welch, Samantha Balaban, Emiko Tamagawa, Todd Mundt, Jordan Marie Smith and Tinby Ermias. Beth Donovan is our managing editor. Thanks for listening.

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