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- [00:00]
A
There were not a lot of stories that featured girls on a quest. Right. This is a quest. She's in search of something. She's the protagonist. She's on the move. She wasn't a bystander. She wasn't like waiting to be rescued.
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B
You're listening to books we've loved from.
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C
Npr, the book show where we reread our old favorites and tell you why they still matter today.
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B
I'm Andrew Limbong.
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C
And I'm BA Parker.
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B
What's up, Parker?
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C
Nothing much. Andrew, how you doing?
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B
I feel like since we talked, have you gotten your Charles Portis tattoo yet? You've been a super big fan of today's.
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C
I mean, look, we're getting there. We're getting there. I've already bought like another Charles Portis book after reading the book.
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B
That's wild. Okay. Yeah, we're here. We're gonna be talking about True Grit today, but we are joined by the one and only Michelle Martin, host of NPR's Morning Edition. Hey, Michelle.
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A
Well, hey.
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B
What's going on?
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A
Well, you obviously.
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B
I'm going. Yeah, we're going on.
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A
We're going, obviously. Well, thank you for having me. This is fun.
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B
Of course, of course. All right, just before we get into the nitty Grady, I'm going to do a quick synopsis of the book. And just as a disclaimer for listeners, we will be talking about sexual assault and gun violence. So with that out of the way, 14 year old Maddie Ross is on a revenge mission. The book takes place shortly after the Civil War and Maddie is chasing after Tom Cheney, the no good coward who killed her dad. Maddie enlists the help of the grizzled one eyed US Marshal Rooster Cogburn to go after him. Also chasing Tom Chaney for a separate crime is Texas Ranger LaBeouf La Beef. Yeah, LaBeouf. We don't know his first name. Right. He's just the beef. Right. As I understand it. And the book follows the three of them as they chase Tom and the band of outlaws he's joined up with. And then, you know, the book takes off from there. I think I'm the one that picked this book for Andrew.
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C
Why did you pick this book?
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B
I don't have a lot of relationship with westerns. I don't really. I haven't read that many of them. I know. I remember being in seventh grade and a bunch of kids in a different class was reading this book, Shane, and. And I was like, oh, wow, okay, that seems interesting. But I've never given them a shot. And so I'd heard about this book being, like, the pinnacle of the genre, and I just wanted to see what all the fuss was about. Michelle, you read this book, Right. You've read this book before? You read this book? Absolutely. When was the first time you read it?
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A
So having to give away my age here, Safe space was published. Right. That, like, millions of people listened to. Sure. This book came out in 68. Okay. And the movie came out, the first movie, because, remember, there was a remake a couple years ago. They tell me you're a man with true grit.
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C
What do you want, girl?
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B
Speak up at suppertime.
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A
But the first movie that had John Wayne, Kim Darby, Glen Campbell were the stars. Came out in 69.
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C
Why do you keep that one chamber empty?
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B
Someone shoot my foot off.
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A
And so I don't remember whether I heard about the movie first or picked up the book first. But you gotta set the stage right. It was free range back then. Like, people did not like running their kids everywhere, supervising everything they ate and read and did, like, you know, it would be like, go outside.
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B
Yeah. You know, just be away from here.
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A
Just go to the library. So I don't remember how I first picked it up, but I definitely remember reading it. Right. Somewhere in there, like, when it first came out or first came out in movie form and then picked up the book. Because I highly doubt that my parents would have let us go to the movie. I don't think. That was not part of the situation. That was not part of the budget.
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B
And what'd you think about that?
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A
Listen, I was riveted. I mean, think about it. Like, first again, set the stage. Black girl from Brooklyn, New York.
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C
Hello.
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A
No horses in sight. So we were not cowboys by any stretch of the imagination, but there were not a lot of stories that featured girls on a quest. Right. This is a quest. She's in search of something. She's the protagonist. She's on the move. She wasn't a bystander. She wasn't, like, waiting to be rescued. Although that does happen at some point. But think about. Think about how powerful that is.
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B
Yeah, she's not a sidekick.
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A
Yeah, she's not a sidekick. It's only recently there were girl superheroes, things of that sort. So think about how hungry you'd be to read a story where the girl gets to do something other than stand there, like, in a dress, watching her brothers play ball.
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B
Yeah. And that thing is like going after a dude.
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A
Going after a dude. I loved it.
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B
Yeah. Parker, what about you? Was this the first time for you?
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C
This was the first time for me. Like, I had seen the Coen Brothers version of the translation of the book as a movie years ago, but I had never read the book. And so this was my first time experiencing it. I am, as a rule, I'm a bit leery of Westerns just because I think there is a very, what's a polite way to say, like, Westerns are very much like white male patriarchy and villainizing another to overcompensate for their masculinity somehow is how I interpret it.
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B
And that's the nice way you're putting it.
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C
And the fact that there's a version of Rooster Cogburn, like, played by John Wayne doesn't help this narrative.
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B
Yeah.
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C
So I have always been a little leery about Westerns just because I found them have, like, a lack of nuance to them, I'm sure, which is the whole point. I know. But I have found in the past few years, like, a stride with like, Horsemen Pass by by Larry McMurtry or leaving Wyoming, things like that. There's like a more nuanced discussion of the prairie that I wasn't experiencing. So now reading True Grit and knowing now that it was for a while, they're a big part of being taught in school and things like that. I would have loved to have read this in school instead of like, Tom Sawyer. No, no offense, Mark Twain, but like a plucky girl who is like, very steadfast and very earnest and her moral compass is set but, like, learns some like, really adult lessons I found really comforting. So much so that I ended up buying Charles Portis collection called Escape Velocity, which is like all of his, like, short works and his news articles and his essays. And he's just like this fun southern voice that I found. Like, I'm sad that it has, like, eluded me for so long.
- [06:38]
B
I want to take a quick break and then when we get back, we'll dig more into some of ports biography and the cultural case for true grit.
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D
This message comes from BetterHelp. Most FSA dollars expire at the end of the year, so it's time to use em or lose them. With BetterHelp, you can invest those funds in taking care of your mind with online therapy. Join today and you can be matched with a licensed therapist in as little as 24 hours. Visit betterhelp.com NPR to get 10% off your first month.
- [07:10]
E
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- [07:46]
B
I just want to run through the Portis biography. He was a newspaper reporter. He started working for the Arkansas Gazette and then he worked for the New York Held Tribune. I watched this documentary about him and it had Nora Ephron talking about meeting him when she was also in newspapers and how he didn't have a phone.
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A
You have to understand you can't be a newspaper reporter and not have a phone. They have to call you from time to time.
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F
They have to say to you something just happened.
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A
Go there.
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B
I'm not quite sure how my guy was doing his job, but he was just writing and the document doesn't really go into it other than osmosis. My guy, other than he just didn't have a phone. He was just busy writing and that was the thing that he wanted to do. This book, True Grit, was first serialized in the Saturday evening post in 1968 and was an immediate hit. His big thing was he was fascinated by the speech patterns of 19th century Americans, particularly among folks on the frontier, which I think you can really hear in this book. It's supposed to be a woman retelling a crazy week she had as a kid, right? And it feels like that. And I think he does such a great job of it feeling like it's a story you're being told. We'd mentioned that there are two big movie adaptations made out of this. And then Parker, I think you were telling me after that original John Wayne movie, didn't they try to make, make this like a thing, like a.
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C
They made a sequel that was like, you know, the Adventures of Rooster Cogburn.
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B
John Wayne and Katherine Heern. They were never meant for each other.
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A
But here they are.
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B
I will make sure what my father's murderers reap. You will make sure of nothing.
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A
He's true grits, boozing, woman baiting Rooster.
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C
Cogburn, which I feel like completely misses the point of the source material.
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B
This pairing of a grizzled old guy and younger woman I feel like shows up a lot in culture. Like I was thinking about of the movie Logan, right, which is from X Men. I was thinking even like watching the last of us recently had an old guy and a teenage girl forming this chosen family sort of relationship where I think in lesser hands, you could tease like a.
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A
Not.
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B
I don't want to say romance, but like, there's no sex in this book. It doesn't necessarily, like, sexualize her in a way. And I think that's a. That's an interesting aspect of it too. Right.
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A
So you talked about the dyad, the older guy, younger person. I experienced it more as the three. It's the three that to me was relevant. Some of it's because I'm a middle kid of three, and that's like a horror show in itself, which we can have a whole.
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B
Let's unpack that. How do.
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A
And the second girl in a family with the boy who's like the Black prince. Don't get me even started about that. But my point is, like, you've got the three. You got the big brother who's Rooster, then you've got LaBeouf, who's like the shaky teen kind boy, and then you've got this little sister who's fighting for space. So I feel like it's the three.
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B
The trio that Russer doesn't really activate as a father figure and older brother figure until Labif starts whipping her. Right. That's when he turns on.
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A
Right, Right.
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C
But he also actively is like, baby sister, little sister, what you doing? Little sister, what are we doing here? Rooster, you're 50.
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E
Yeah, yeah.
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A
He sets the tone. But can I just point out something you just pegged on Andrew. One of the things I also appreciated, I could not have articulated this when I first read this book. This is like knowledge that came much later. And also, honestly, knowledge when I had a daughter. Right. People think like, sexual assault is something that happens. 14 is the average age of sexual assault. That's a fact. And so the idea that this girl goes out, like, unattended, basically, to kind of navigate this world and has to kind of figure out how to protect herself. Not just she's on this quest, she has a job to do and a mission, but also to protect herself from harm. And the fact that there's no real hint of her being sexualized. I mean, Parker, you used the word comforting to read the book. I would not have picked that word because, I mean, they. Chopping off people's fingers and whatnot of things are happening. But that part was comforting. I would not have been able to pick that word at the time. But then rereading it, I realized it was comforting. The fact that she was able to exist in a space without being sexualized and to be able to follow that through. Obviously there's the threat. Like you are a young girl on the prairie with men who are dangerous and have guns. But she's out there. And there's no hint of her being a sexual being in this book. Except there's this one little creepy moment when Beef says something about, well, when he first meets Maddie and he makes it known that he's looking for the same person she's looking for. And he says, well, you know, I thought about maybe stealing a kiss, even though you are young and you aren't even cute, that kind of thing. And she's like, listen, you ain't even part of my equation. Dude, pump the brake. That part was so powerful. I mean, it's hard to describe. I'll just say it to men what it's like to walk in the world as a girl. And especially that moment where you realize that people think they have a right to comment on your body. Like, do you remember that line in Letter from Birmingham Jail where Martin Luther King writes how he watches the cloud of inferiority sort of drift over his children's feet when they realize there's certain places they can't go? You know what? That's what it's like being a girl in the world, right? There's a moment in which I have twins. Boy, girl, twins, they are two minutes apart in age. And realizing there's a moment at which he can walk freely in the world and she cannot, it becomes a goal. It's infuriating. It's infuriating. Okay. And so to have a girl who can walk in the world freely or chooses to, and claims to, and makes an effort to. Maybe some people understand what I'm saying, maybe some people won't. I understand, but you understand what I'm saying that I just thought was so insightful of Portis Parker.
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B
What do you think?
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C
No, I think that's really beautiful because she's so quick to defend herself. I mean, an adult would say she's a smart mouth, but no, she has like this capability to protect herself in these spaces. But there's also, I think why I found the book comforting is there's like a nostalgic aspect for me. Cause I could picture myself at 14. And that was also the time when I was, it was like on my grandparents couch reading as many books as I could. And the dichotomy of this is the time when you're considered like a high percentage time of being assaulted. But also the time when I also felt the most free as a rambunctious reader having Those two things coexist at the same time. Has been really interesting for me while reading this book.
- [14:32]
B
Yeah, like that's the Wild west for you.
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C
Yeah.
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B
Not to be too pat about it.
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C
Fair.
- [14:39]
B
I want to take another quick break and then we get into some of the literary analysis stuff. We'll be right back.
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D
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- [15:05]
E
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- [15:27]
B
And I think the thing that surprised me most about reading this book, that I actually, I don't remember. I watched the Coen Brothers version too, and I don't remember how religious this story is. I mean, she makes a big deal about being Presbyterian. There's a lot of Bible verses being thrown around.
- [15:43]
A
Aren't you Presbyterian?
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B
I'm Lutheran.
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A
Lutheran. Oh, sorry. Excuse me, son.
- [15:48]
B
Ooh. Take it back.
- [15:50]
A
I take it back. I take it back.
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C
I mean, the score of the movie is literally a hymn for the whole movie. Leaning on the everlasting arms.
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B
That is true. Okay, fine. Maybe I wasn't paying that much attention when I first watched it. I don't know. Michelle, what'd you make of all the religion in it? Like, she's so.
- [16:06]
A
It seemed normal to me. I saw the original movie, the 69, True Grit with John Wayne and Glen Campbell, but I never saw the Coen Brothers remake because I like the book. And I'm one of those, like, I'm good. I don't need to see all the things. It just seemed normal to me and logical. And I thought it was kind of hilarious, too. Well, also, just like some of the famous lines in the book. She has so many famous lines. But then there was about. Cause Brewster likes a drink, right? He enjoys a drink. And, you know, she's like, I would not put a thief in my mouth to steal my brains. I can imagine my grandmother saying something like that, who was a stone cold Southern Baptist. And, you know, I just thought it was hilarious. So that seemed logical to me.
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B
Yeah, that's a testament to his voice thing that we were talking about before, which I think probably I have it highlighted it's like, Parker, I don't know if you agree, but among all the books we've read so far, in doing this, it's one of the strongest opening paragraphs, I think, for sure.
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C
Like, it starts with a bang and keeps it moving.
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B
Yeah. And it says something like, let me just pull it up. It's like, yes, pull it up. It goes. People do not give it credence that a 14 year old girl could leave home and go off in the wintertime to avenge her father's blood. But it did not seem so strange then. Although I will say it did not happen every day. I was just 14 years of age when a coward going by the name of Tom Chaney shot my father down in Fort Smith, Arkansas, and robbed him of his life and his horse and $150 in cash money. PL plus two California gold pieces that he carried in his trouser band. There's something about the rhythm to that, like that clip.
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C
How is that only two sentences?
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B
There's that too. I almost ran out of breath reading that one.
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C
That was a note I wrote in the book. Like, how is this paragraph only two sentences? You really spinning the yarn here.
- [17:48]
B
Yeah, but it doesn't feel. It doesn't. All right. You know, I like my Faulkner, I like my Cormac McCarthy. You know, I like my dudes writing long sentences. This doesn't feel like he's showing off, right?
- [18:02]
A
I tell you, when my dad passed away, and you know you're going through their effects as one does, right. I came across these beautiful letters that he and his brothers had written to each other when they were all in service during World War II. And they do have these long, baroque sentences. I'd forgotten that they actually talk that way.
- [18:21]
B
Yeah, that's true.
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A
At least in their written language. They, you know, they had that gorgeous loopy cursive handwriting on that thin, blue onion skin paper. And none of the letters that I went through had been censored, sent through military censorship. But they wrote these beautiful letters to each other, basically promising to take care of each other's families if they didn't make it, things of that sort. And they did speak in this kind of baroque, complicated sentences, and I just found it very familiar. Even though these were not like terribly well educated people, you know, these were not people who'd gone to college, but that's how they spoke some of them. Yeah.
- [19:01]
C
But it also for me, gave a hint of the journalist, where I'm gonna give you all the facts up top at the nut graph, and then we're gonna keep going with the rest of the story afterwards. Like, I'm gonna tell you everything that happened up top, and then the rest is gonna be a response to that.
- [19:17]
B
Yeah, you kind of know the deal. Like, there's nothing that's good. Yeah.
- [19:21]
A
Who, what, when, where and why?
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B
Y. This is a kind of violent book. People do get killed, maimed. She, you know, spoiler alert. She loses an arm. And I wonder if that is. It is a way of portis saying that, like, this isn't a happy world and that your actions do have results that you might not be fond of.
- [19:44]
C
Right, exactly. It's a world of consequences, which I think is, like, important for kids to read.
- [19:54]
B
Yeah, you watch out.
- [19:55]
A
Yeah, watch out.
- [19:56]
C
You put your finger in an electrical socket, you might die. I'm really passionate about this. I think that there should be more books where, like, kids have consequences. Like, this is.
- [20:11]
A
I co. Sign this.
- [20:12]
D
Yeah.
- [20:12]
C
Like, I mean, she is witnessing, because of her actions, multiple people are killed. Like, she's seeking vengeance. And she's like, in this adult world. And yes, she has seen hangings and all these kind of stuff, but, like, her actions actually contributed to, like, multiple deaths. It also contributed to, like, the loss of a limb. Like, I feel like there's a roughness to it that I really, really crave in young adult works. I think that was the one thing about the movie, the 69 movie. Like, everything's hunky dory at the end.
- [20:47]
B
Oh, is that how it ends?
- [20:48]
C
It ends with, like, you, like, he rides his horse off into the sunset, she's got her arm in a sling, and everything's.
- [20:54]
B
Oh, she doesn't lose it in the movie.
- [20:56]
C
She doesn't lose it because it's this neat and tidy Western. But that's also, like, the same year.
- [21:00]
A
There's also self censorship back then, you know, everything was kind of Disney fied. Right.
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C
I mean, but it's also, like, the same year as, like, Butch and Sundance and, like, Midnight Cowboy, like, that was, like, totally different thing, but, like, the iconoclast of, like, the cowboy and, like, that imagery has already been matured in a way. And the fact that there was this decision, like, this is too rough. This is too hardcore for the kiddies. And I just think that this idea that your actions have consequences and they're brutal and they're rough and not in, like, the Huckleberry Finn kind of way, but in, like, real, like, carnage to it, I find necessary and edifying.
- [21:38]
B
It's not like there's not a overly Wordy passage at the end where she's like, I wonder if this was the right thing for me to do. She's like, hell, yeah, I did it.
- [21:49]
A
Oh, she's Presbyterian. Come on. Yeah, man. Stuff happens. You did it.
- [21:53]
B
She's like, I lost an arm, but it was worth it.
- [21:55]
A
And having to take care of her elderly mom while, you know, her brother gets to go on and do things, and she's taking care of the homestead, taking care of mom, so the little brother gets to go and have his life. Right? So, yeah, I like what you said, Parker. I like what you said. Cause I feel like the level of violence in this eluded me at first. And I'm not sure when I first read it, and it wasn't until I read it again, I was like, whoa. Like, dude gets his fingers cut off. I'm like, dang. Like, people get shot. People get hurt. One of the horse thieves as part of the gang is barely a teenager. She sees that this kid is barely older than she is, and he gets shot by the gang boss and gets shot, and the guy doesn't even look back at him. And she's like, where's the justice in this? I thought that was really real. I mean, think about how much violence a lot of our kids are subjected to. A lot of violence that kids are subjected to in this world right now with these school shootings and, let me say, just street violence. So the stuff that they encounter on their way to and from school, okay, we get, you know, school shootings, get all this attention, as well they should. But think about all the drama that some kids have to navigate just to get to school and home again, getting beaten up, getting their sneakers taken, things of that sort. So I just think that. I'm not sure why it didn't register at the time that I first read it, but. But I also appreciated the fact that, you know, we act like kids are in this bubble, and they're not. They're not now, and they were not then. And so I kind of appreciated the fact that she took it all in. Not without consequence to her. I mean, she feels, like, physically ill when she sees some of these things happening, which, to me, is an appropriate response. She's not numb to it. Like, the injustice is like, her mom sent a black servant with her to go and collect her father's remains. And the train conductor is racist, rude to him. And she's like. And she accepts that as being normal. But she also stands up, she says, well, you don't have to be rude. You know, Things like that. She notices these things even though she doesn't see that she has any role in changing it. Right. All of that makes sense to me. But I just appreciate the fact that kids lives are real. Like Parker, what you're saying is that there are consequences. They are going to live those consequences. And I appreciate the fact that things happen now.
- [24:16]
B
I wish I read this book when I was like 12.
- [24:18]
A
I already read it. Now you read it now you can have your baby read it.
- [24:24]
B
Yeah. We're gonna take one last break. But when we're back, we'll answer the final question as to why True Grit should be read now. And we'll hear from another fan of the book. Stay with us.
- [24:40]
E
This message comes from Mint Mobile. At Mint Mobile their favorite word is no. No contracts, no monthly, no hidden fees. Plans start at $15 a month. Make the switch@mintmobile.com switch that's mintmobile.com switch. Upfront payment of $45 for 3 month 5 gigabyte plan required equivalent to $15 a month new customer offer for first 3 months only. Then full price plan options available, taxes and fees extra. See Mint Mobile for details.
- [25:10]
B
We are back and with our final question. Why should we read this book today? Michelle, you want to take it first?
- [25:17]
A
Gosh, I think. Cause it's real. Cause I really get frustrated by this notion that the only content we're allowed to consume is something we already know. Like you're a black girl in Brooklyn. You're only supposed to read books about black girls in Brooklyn. Sorry. No. Why?
- [25:32]
B
It's a big world out there.
- [25:33]
A
It's a big world out there. Takes you someplace. And I think all the things that we've talked about, the fact that girls do things, you know, girls can do things in the world and they see a lot and they have to deal with it. I just think all of those things, I think it's really. I think it's very profound.
- [25:50]
B
Parker, you're a yay. Right? You're a yay.
- [25:52]
C
Oh, 100% yay. It's such an engrossing story. The fact that they have me like empathizing with a violent alcoholic ex confederate.
- [26:03]
B
Is.
- [26:06]
C
Who is supporting this young girl. At least he's supporting this young girl on this mission. And it's also just something that I know if I had read this as a young girl I would have been over the moon. And I'm so sad that I didn't get to experience that. And I had to read friggin Tom Sawyer. But that is okay.
- [26:26]
B
Yeah. I think the only note I'd add to that is it's also really funny.
- [26:32]
A
Yes.
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B
I'm just flipping through it. There's a couple markings where I'm underlining it and just writing LOL in it. It's like, like there's something. I don't know how to describe the humor in it, but there's a couple like laugh out loud moments in it that move the story. I think my favorite parts are kind of just when Rooster and the beef are wasting time and just like, kind.
- [26:51]
C
Of like cracking on each other.
- [26:54]
B
Yeah, exactly. And they're like trying to shoot targets or whatever. And I imagine it's very frustrating for Maddie. She's like, I want to find this killer. And these two goobers are just.
- [27:04]
A
I love it where she rolls his cigarette for him. When she first rolls up on Rooster Cogburn and she says, what do you want? She says, I'd like to talk with you a minute. What is it? They tell me you are a man with true Grit. What do you want, girl? Speak up. Is it suppertime? And he's fumbling over this cigarette. She goes, let me show you how to do that. He takes the half made cigarette and shaped it up and licked it and sealed it and twisted the ends and gave it back to him. She says, you know, your makings are too dry. I just thought that was hilarious.
- [27:30]
C
I was like, in some ways, Maddy is the adult in a lot of these situations. When Rooster and La be.
- [27:36]
B
Yeah, exactly.
- [27:36]
A
And if you've ever seen men with little girls, sometimes that is the case.
- [27:40]
B
Yeah.
- [27:41]
A
Okay, okay.
- [27:42]
C
Oh, word, Michelle.
- [27:44]
B
Word. Totally. All right, so now for our segment, if you like this, you should read that where we give people recommendations. You know, I've been thinking a lot about Cor McCarthy. You know, in reading this book, I was thinking a lot specifically about Blood Meridian, which is another take on a young child entering the west. It's funny in a dark way. It is violent, it is bloody. And I think I liked reading True Grit now because I think in a lot of ways Blood Meridian is working on top of the ground that True Grit laid. So that's my recommendation.
- [28:16]
A
You're such a bro.
- [28:18]
B
I know, I know, I'm a stereotype. It is what it is.
- [28:23]
A
That's fine.
- [28:23]
B
I'm fine. Parker, what are you recommending?
- [28:26]
C
I went the opposite direction. I went, I was like, again, I was picturing myself 14 on like my grandparents couch and I went, Anna Green Gable.
- [28:38]
B
Oh yeah, that works. Yeah.
- [28:42]
C
No, don't give me that patronize and like. No, that Works.
- [28:45]
B
It's fine.
- [28:48]
A
Call it Parker. Tell it.
- [28:50]
C
Oh, it's no woman, McCarthy. Don't let the patriarchy bring me down. If I want to think about a little Canadian girl enjoying her best, like leave.
- [29:01]
B
Is she Canadian in that?
- [29:03]
C
I think she's Canadian, if I recall.
- [29:05]
B
Wow. Yeah.
- [29:07]
C
But just one, like, I don't know, young girl whimsy, like, young girl pluck is something that, like, it's a genre within itself. But her brand of pluck less grating than some.
- [29:22]
A
Michelle, I love it. All right, well, I'll do you one better. Harriet the Spy. I know, that's true. It's a younger. You know, it was published in 64. It features an 11 year old, so it's actually aimed at even a younger audience than. Well, True Grit wasn't really a ya, right? True Grit was not a YA novel, okay? But Harriet the Spy, it's my fave. I can't wait for people to have kids so I can give it to them. I love it. It's a kid's book. So what? I just. It's like a girl who's doing things well.
- [29:57]
B
Michelle, thank you so much for taking that time. I really appreciate that.
- [29:59]
A
Well, thank you. It was fun. This is great.
- [30:01]
C
Thank you. Great. Thank you.
- [30:05]
B
And on this week's FONA fan, I thought it'd be a great idea to speak with another author, Thea Abrecht. Thea, how you doing?
- [30:12]
F
I'm great. How are you?
- [30:14]
B
Good, good, good. Thank you so much for joining us. Are you a Charles Portis fan?
- [30:18]
F
I am. It took me a while to get around to that fandom because one of the ways that I was introduced to his work was that, you know, I slip that I was working on a book set in the American West. And so when you tell people that you're working on something, they immediately want to tell you all the great things that you should be reading from the genre. So I sort of.
- [30:39]
B
People come in hot with their suggestions. Yeah, they really do.
- [30:42]
F
I will write this down for later. But when I finally did get around to reading it, sort of when I was in a phase of my own work where I wasn't as afraid of influence stealing away what I was trying to do, because I'm very susceptible to that, I couldn't believe how good the book was. And it was even better than people had told me, you know, and rereading it now, I hadn't read it in a couple of years, even though people around me were rereading it recently. And I was like, yeah, I remember that Book being amazing. You're gonna love it.
- [31:08]
B
It's funny that you say people around you were rereading it. It's sort of why I wanted to talk about it, because I feel like it's in the ether. I haven't done a hard poll. I haven't, you know, done all the signs, but I feel like it is in the ether. Do you sense that there is something of a Portis? I don't want to say Renaissance, but people are picking him back up again.
- [31:27]
F
They certainly are, yeah. And it really feels that way. I don't know where it's coming from, but I do feel it.
- [31:31]
B
Yeah. So your second novel, Inland, is a western set in 1893, Arizona, right. And it follows Nora, a frontierswoman waiting for her missing husband, right?
- [31:42]
F
That's right.
- [31:43]
B
What do you think draws modern writers to revisit this myth of the American frontier?
- [31:48]
F
I myself was drawn to it because I. I became obsessed with the true history on which Inland ended up being based. It is a history surrounding the U.S. camel Corps, which was a very brief episode in the history of the American west when the U.S. army brought camels over from the Ottoman Empire to serve as pack animals in military operations in the Southwest. And I'd never heard of this episode before. I encountered it on a podcast called Stuff youf Missed in History Class. And it was this sort of fascinating blip that had a lot of mystery around, and it drew me in because there was so little information to be gleaned about it, you know? And when I found out that there was a Balkan connection there between the old world and the new, because a lot of the camel drovers who came over with the animals were from the Ottoman Empire, I became obsessed with it. And one of the things that I wanted to do as I realized that Inland was becoming a novel and not a short story, was to venture into the voices of characters who don't typically headline Westerns or books from the American West. So the priority for me, and it was seeded in this kind of work, I think, that Portis does in True Grit brilliantly, was to ground the narrative into very specific consciousnesses with very specific priorities and obsessions that are more granular than the big story. Right. The big journey. But I think when we think about the Western more broadly as a genre, and as a genre that's, you know, very American, Right. It's problematic for so many reasons, not the least of which is that it's propagandistic.
- [33:30]
B
Right.
- [33:30]
F
Like its origins are in propaganda. And at its heart is individualism and Hardiness and masculinity and whiteness. All of these traits that America wanted to exalt as it was asserting its national character and justifying its expansion and its decimation of native people. And so. So this project at the Western, I think, is wrapped up in tales of grand adventure and straightforward rights and wrongs. Like, what's more straightforward than, like, the law is good and outlaws are bad, and that conflict stands for so many things. But what Portis does in True Grit is poke holes in the project. He highlights the ridiculousness of it and the ridiculousness of the pomp and circumstance of it.
- [34:14]
B
Yeah, I. It's funny. I think I find True Grit very grounded. Very, like, gritty almost. Your take on the Western was a bit more magic. Realistic. Is that fair to say? Is that a fair. Is that a fair take on it? Yeah. Is that a fair. Is that a fair.
- [34:29]
F
I tried not to let it be, but it was me, so it got away from me.
- [34:34]
B
Yeah, no, I think that's great. It seems to me that you guys are on parallel missions, but have taken, like, opposite routes. And I'm wondering how you think the two roots sort of like, get at this subversion of this American Western myth.
- [34:47]
F
I mean, I think if you work with this genre, I think one of the most incredible things about it now is that you can really only exist and should only exist as part of a chorus of voices, right? And there's something about the specificity of the person that Portis has created that works toward that. Like, she is not an everyman, you know, she's not an every person. She's herself. And this is a very specific story featuring Mattie Ross, you know, this Rooster Cogburn, who is this, like, incorrigible drunkard, an extra judicial killer, you know, like, she doesn't. She's not very kind to the rest of her characters either. She doesn't protect them from the worst impulses in their own natures. And I think that's something that is an interesting sort of communal cauldron in which everybody who writes Westerns now wades, right? Like, it's not even about anti heroism. It's about how the worst impulses in humanity are present in everybody. And whether magical realism features in it or not, that's the kind of. Those are the kinds of impulses that the characters are. Are battling or succumbing to in a Western.
- [36:07]
B
Well, thank you so much, Taya. This is a lot of fun. And listeners out there, be sure to pick up Taya's latest novel, the Morningside, which is out now. Thank you guys for listening. This episode was produced by Cher Vincent and edited by Megan Sullivan, engineering support.
- [36:21]
C
By Robert Rodriguez and our Executive producer is Yolanda Sanguini.
- [36:26]
B
And if you like what you heard, please give us a five star review of on Apple Podcasts or Spotify to help more folks find the show. Thank you for listening to books we've loved from npr. We'll talk to you next time.
- [36:37]
C
Bye.
- [36:46]
D
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- [37:01]
E
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