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- [00:00]
Charlie Gibson
The McDonald's Snack Wrap is back.
- [00:02]
Denard Dale
You brought it back.
- [00:04]
Charlie Gibson
Ranch snack wrap. Spicy snack wrap. You broke the Internet for a snack Snack wrap is back.
- [00:22]
Kate
Hello. Happy mid July. It's Thursday, which means it is time for the bookcase. And I am the Kate of the Kate and Charlie part. And my co host is Charlie Gibson.
- [00:34]
Charlie Gibson
I'm the back half of the bookcase with Kate and Charlie. Kate, we've been talking the last couple of weeks about how this is the official podcast of the National Hockey League. Should we continue with this nonsense or should we move on?
- [00:46]
Kate
You know, again, I'm really. We're lucky we haven't been sued, but I'd just like to go back for a minute and say that I love picturing you as the back half of the bookcase. I picture us in, like, one of those Halloween costumes where I'm the front of the horse and you're the back of the horse. You're the back half of the horse.
- [01:03]
Charlie Gibson
You've seen those celebrations for the Chinese New Year when there's a dragon and somebody has to be the back half.
- [01:08]
Kate
Someone has to be the dragon's butt, and you are the dragon's butt.
- [01:11]
Charlie Gibson
And if you can, you know, if you're good at waggling that back half, I suppose you could be in that position. But I don't think we've had more conversation about a book in the three years that we've been doing this as we have. About how to Dodge a Cannonball by Denard Dale. We discussed, is this going to be a really good book for the podcast, and do we think it's going to be popular with the public? We really have gone back and forth about this. Give us a precis of our conversations, Kate.
- [01:42]
Kate
Well, actually, I'm going to throw you under the bus. Here's me throwing you under the bus.
- [01:47]
Charlie Gibson
Well, you'd love to do that. You'd love to do that.
- [01:49]
Kate
I was 20 pages into this book and I was completely hooked. And so I've been sort of championing it. And I'm gonna say this to our audience. This is not a book you can read in 36 hours. It is a hardcore satire, and it's got some real tragedy and trauma intermixed with very funny parts. The plot is important in the sense that you generally know what's going on, but the plot, in some ways, is a fever dream. This book focuses on a character named Anders who, when he's 15, enrolls in the Civil War, but he just keeps switching sides to save his own. Hi.
- [02:25]
Charlie Gibson
He starts in the Union Army. Then he goes for a while into the Confederate army. And then through a series of circumstances that are kind of weird, he gets back into the Union Army. But he assumes the Persona of a black soldier whose uniform he puts on in the battle. The black soldier has been killed. And it's a wonderful description of a battle scene, by the way. And. But he's white, so he's in a black regiment. And he describes himself as an octoroon, 1.1/8 black. And he's accepted by the black soldiers even though they know he's probably not black. But it is a satirization of the Civil War. And it seems to me for Denard Dale to do that, that's awfully tough. And we talked about this a lot.
- [03:10]
Kate
I think he pulls it off, which, you know, boy, talk about a risky first novel to satirize a war that America really believes in. I mean, the Civil War and World War II, there are no more mythologized wars than those. You know, in history class, we often learn there's a good side and there was a bad side, or, you know, there were. We were fighting for the right. And this book takes issue with that. And yet there are many times where I laughed out loud while examining the premise that maybe the Civil War was more complex than black versus white Secessionists. Secessioners.
- [03:45]
Charlie Gibson
Secessionists. Secession from the. From the.
- [03:47]
Kate
Secessionists.
- [03:48]
Charlie Gibson
From the Union.
- [03:48]
Kate
Yeah, yeah. Versus. Versus Union. Unionists. And it's like I say, it's hardcore satire. You're gonna wanna take some time to really think and reflect on this book, because against amongst the satire are some really tragic and beautiful writing.
- [04:01]
Charlie Gibson
The best parallel I could come up with, and I had this in mind the whole time I was reading it, is that Denard does for the Civil War what Joseph Heller did for World War II in Catch 22. This is a very similar style of writing, I thought. And I loved Catch 22. And it took me a while to love this book, but there are some sentences in it that just absolutely blow you away. I know Katie kept sending me examples of same I did.
- [04:27]
Kate
I wish I could have read you aloud. Chapter 26, which to me is the most beautiful and amazing and heartbreaking chapters of the book. But early in the book, this is just one sentence. You know, Anders is at this point working for the Confederacy as a flag twirler, which he takes really seriously. Flag twirling is his jam. It's like, you know, he. He gets in there and he decides that morale is what wins or loses wars. He's a somewhat misled character, I think, at the beginning of the book. But anyway, he's sitting amongst a council of generals in the Southern army. And Denard Dale writes this sentence about Robert E. Lee, General Lee. And I just love this sentence so much. Lee's steps were loose and confident, informed by the aristocratic surety that death was a peasant problem. That sentence says so much about Lee and so much about. About generals in general, as it were. I was so moved by that sentence. Even though it's just one sentence, I think that may have been the first sentence I read you aloud when we talked to him.
- [05:21]
Charlie Gibson
We read him a couple of sentences that I thought were absolutely beautiful from the book and asked him what he was thinking when he wrote those sentences. Anyway, the proof is in the pudding. You should listen to the conversation that we had with Denard Dale. A very, very interesting book. How to Dodge a Cannonball by Denard Dale. Denard Dale. It is a pleasure to have you in the bookcase. How to Dodge a Cannonball. A title that will catch your attention and a book that will intrigue you if you read it. And you should. First question, did you think it would be fun to write a novel about the Civil War, or was there a germ of some thought that you thought, oh, I can expand this and go with it and maybe have some fun with it?
- [06:07]
Denard Dale
I had kind of a specific fixation on Pickett's Charge, which is, you know, this massive incident in military history, and also kind of racing the whole Defenestration of Prague thing in terms of, like, the darkly funniest. Like, it has this special grim sensation of betting everything on one movement that you think is brilliant, of these people charging across this mile of open ground, no cover, the darkness of watching that fall apart in real time. And, you know, you just kind of learn that certain types of supremacy are not magic. And that. That is something that's interesting to me. And it was kind of. Essentially, I started out trying to do maybe, like, a very dense, shorter novella in that space. And I just kept on writing and writing and finding more and more of the book just rolled out on me, out of me. As I kind of spent more time with Anders, with this specific voice. There was definitely a lot of the kind of a sound of Anders that drove. That propelled me through this.
- [07:08]
Kate
I've heard your book, and I've even heard you compare your book a little bit to catch 22, which is about World War II. And in my mind, there are two wars that America thinks of historically as moral wars. There was a right side and there was a wrong side, and one is World War II and one is the Civil War. Are you attempting to sort of dethrone that myth with this book?
- [07:28]
Denard Dale
Am I attempting to dethrone that myth? I mean, that is an interesting thought. I think that my ambitions may have been humbler. I do play around with the self image of both sides, and I do play around with maybe elements that, you know, in terms of. In terms of things like how unsettled some perspective on. On black soldiers were, or even just the simple things that the somethingside pretends it was not about to this day, Often I do. I do push a lot of those things front and center.
- [08:04]
Charlie Gibson
The Civil War is so steeped in American mythology. And I wonder if you felt maybe you were running a bit of a risk in trying to satirize much of what occurred in the Civil War.
- [08:16]
Denard Dale
I did feel a sense of risk. The thing is that essentially what is funny and what is resonant both rely on there being some sense of stakes. Like, if there is no real risk, I will likely just be less drawn to a topic. That innate problem is essentially why I'm here. It is something that is active, is fraught, it means a lot to a lot of people, and it is a place where. I mean, it's not a good evolutionary sign, but I guess I am drawn to the potential to fall on my face.
- [08:50]
Kate
Fair enough.
- [08:52]
Denard Dale
So I guess there is something in me that. That likes to be like, wow, if I do this book terribly, the consequences will not be good for me.
- [09:00]
Kate
You talked about the addicting voice of Anders, and I think one of the things you do really well is give Anders a character arc through what is, I think, a fever dream of a plot. And I wanted to start with, do you want your characters to like Anders?
- [09:16]
Denard Dale
Oh, yeah. I do want my readers to warm up to Anders over time. I think I kind of want them to connect with this idea that they are seeing someone who is essentially, well, no one's really qualified to be in that situation, but he is kind of uniquely disarmed as a child, as someone who has intelligence. But it's kind of the specific, like, mechanical, quantitative kind of thing that is just not primed to sort out America's fit against itself and what it means to try to stay sane and alive in that circumstance. When your opinions are as strong as mine are, I think there's a risk of didactism. And I think that this is kind of one way you can. You can have fun with it. You can sort of Percolate the volume. It's part of what makes satire useful as a form is that you can just kind of have a different relationship with these errors, with these character flaws.
- [10:10]
Charlie Gibson
It's interesting that you make him 15 years old and he is losing his naivete about so many different things. About war, about race, about relationships. And you put him at times in the Confederate army, you put him at times in the Union Army. So there's a lot of ways that you can go. Go with him. But I thought he was sort of an everyman to take us through this novel and to come to realizations about war and about race that you wanted the readers to get to. Too fair.
- [10:41]
Denard Dale
I think that's a fair take on him. It's kind of, obviously, with a certain style of protagonist, you know, going through these essentially, like, I don't know, combat, buildings, romance scenarios you want people to be able to project on and to an extent. And getting and hitting. That kind of every man appeal is encouraging for me to hear. And I think that's a very fair way to take him. I think I. Somewhere in my ego, I may have thought I was tapping, like, this very specific, I dunno, kind of perspective. You can kind of imagine there's a type of intellect that is socially, maybe unarmed in a specific way, but every man is still encouraging us. And I think that, honestly, a lot of how you take these texts is what you bring in with you. I've had so many interesting conversations with this book that are just about how people's experiences color, how they see Anders, what they. What parts of him kind of jump out to people, I guess, in a way that is sort of, I don't know, the hope, the appeal of building, like, someone going through this kind of journey.
- [11:41]
Kate
One of the things that really struck me with this book, too, is that you have great humor against great tragedy, which I guess is the definition of satire. How do you, as a writer know, I can switch now from one to the other.
- [11:53]
Denard Dale
There's a lot that sort of just comes through a large base of, you know, reading and writing and just sort of banging your head against the wall over time and I think building a sense of timing for, okay, is this the moment where, you know, you flip it and you kind of show how sad this is for the person experiencing it, even though you have just been laughing for 25 minutes or, okay, this is the point where you break the tension and how crushing it is to watch a city on fire. To have this kid say, yeah, I am not dealing with that. That is you sort of find your own timing and style for those questions. A lot of it is just about, you know, the emotion, the emotional experience you want to create. It's good to have a mental idea of that. And I kind of did want to have that sine curve effect where, you know, you're diving in and out of, like, the real pain of some of these things versus the total cartoon that existence often devolves into.
- [12:48]
Kate
Do you read aloud to yourself? Is that one of the ways you learn your own meter and timing?
- [12:53]
Denard Dale
I am such a silent reader, editor, writer. I. You can often hear a pin drop. Aside from whatever playlist I am attached to at the moment, I think just me left in a cave like the Columbia Library, which is the cave that I wrote a lot of this in while I was teaching. You know, they have great library corral sections where my favorite one is situated near a lot of stuff about international policy, drug policy, random topics I know nothing about. But if your mind is wandering, you can pull one of those books off the shelf and kind of just beat unrelated knowledge into your head for a second before you dive back in.
- [13:32]
Kate
Really?
- [13:33]
Charlie Gibson
Yeah.
- [13:34]
Kate
Yeah.
- [13:34]
Denard Dale
It's a nice way to kind of mentally flip the table because when you've been staring at a chapter or a sentence forever, often a sentence, because I am. I kind of have that Jerry Seinfeld addiction of what is the funniest word here? That is. That is definitely a hamster wheel that I will run on for half hour, an hour for something completely minute. And sometimes it's good. Just flip the table by reading something like that. That's not even, you know, prose fiction or whatever you can. I often enjoy. I enjoy that international research. I enjoy. The. The comics library is good for that. Over at Columbia. It's just kind of a different entire different, like, you know, medium engagement kind of thing.
- [14:16]
Charlie Gibson
Denard. There are a lot of searing, searing lines in this book, and I want to go over some of them. And I want your thoughts as you wrote them right in the frontispiece. They died for nothing. Dead men aren't free. They're trapped in wood and dirt forever. The living have even less. A white burial in a clean cemetery is kinder than black life. What were you thinking when you wrote that?
- [14:42]
Denard Dale
Two of the big threads in this are, you know, this idea of martial honor. How worthwhile is that? Are you, you know, are you chasing waterfalls with that? And that is probably a question that my. My opinion kind of unfolds as I. As I ask it. Just in the asking kind of sets the tone there. Another just basic thing in the book is this idea of this whole narrative of earning your freedom, of fighting for your place in America, whatever. It has this, you know, vaunted place in a lot of our dialogues. And I, I totally understand the emotions behind it, why you'd believe it, why that would be a thought in the moment or in the aftermath. But it is such to me there is such a kind of a natural painful sting to that idea, like you are earning your freedom instead of that something that you're, you're born with. Like, it shows a very specific set of like assumptions going into it that are kind of depressing to me on a humanist level. And I thought it seemed like a nice place to front the kind of.
- [15:38]
Kate
Thing I've heard you talk about the fact that you wanted to interrogate the concept of fighting for freedom. Because that's a very American concept, isn't it? I don't know if it's distinctly American. I don't think I've ever thought of it internationally. But it seems to me like the reason people join the army because we fight for freedom. And yet freedom is supposed to be inherently promised to our citizens.
- [16:00]
Denard Dale
It kind of rings false to me in that a. I, I guess I tend to, on a. Philosophically think of, as you said, freedom as something that you are born with and it is only external actions or actors, like whichever country says you have to fight for your freedom, that do take that away. I think that it is such a eternal, basic historical keyword for okay, time to die en masse. You know, someone will say, okay, it's time to fight for your God, your freedom, et cetera. And it's just one of those every country sort of reorders 5 or so keywords and we just have freedom close to the top of the stack. And I, I suppose that the fixation on that relative to martial art is what makes it a particularly an American projection in this one more line in.
- [16:49]
Charlie Gibson
The book that I thought was terrific. When the last shot is fired, this will be the same country it was in 1861, just less crowded. What were you thinking when you wrote that?
- [17:02]
Denard Dale
There are a lot of problems, et cetera, in America that are just sort of continuous from the pre war period to the post war period. I mean, a lot of things change for a lot of people. I'm not denying that on any level. You kind of, you know, shackles, look and feel a certain way, but you see the continuity black problems of like, you know, you go right into sharecropping Jim Crow, everything that Nathan Bedford Forest fan club gets into right out the gate, sort of the failures of Reconstruction. And I guess to me that lines. Despite this cataclysm, despite everything people have struggled for, how heartfelt it is. It is hard to move sort of the flow of history with just your effort. And even when you have things that are these massive tectonic shifts, they might not feel so different to you on the ground and sort of a bit of historical tragedy. And I don't want this to sound fatalistic because it tends to be more about how I view living your own. Your own life. But I think it's very hard for anyone, even if they supposedly have the reins or levers or buttons of power to really steer the current of history. There are so many things unfolding and it's. That's not to say X, Y or Z, you know, fight or struggle is not worth your time. But I think one thing in terms of staying sane in this world is recognizing that, I don't know, it's noble in a sense that Sisyphus facing the boulder is noble instead of, you know, Hercules permanently hucking a boulder over a hill and never having to think about it again. It's a different kind of. It's a different kind of engagement with the world.
- [18:34]
Charlie Gibson
Kate keeps saying, if you tell an author what you as a reader have taken away from a book, it's rather presumptuous. But I'm going to run the risk because set in this very satirical background and framework, I take away two themes that I think were continuously in your mind. The utter futility of war, even one like the Civil War, and the naivete of black soldiers who fought for the Union, thinking that victory would dramatically change their lives. Is that fair? Were those themes were really what you wanted to get across?
- [19:08]
Denard Dale
I think the utter futility of war is 100% bang on. That's something that is persistently on my mind. And because I know I. I suppose it's not a complex or deep way for me to put this. I am a huge peacenik in general. I think that essentially war is something that could be left behind with the platypus, with the square wheel. We tried out in the caves at first, and maybe that's just my dream for people with the black soldiers. I do kind of think of what. There's something very interesting, very darkly comic and very almost despair inducing in seeing, like the kind of bargain that a true believer might go into this war in as a black soldier. Like, as I was saying earlier, I was Thinking a lot about the ideas of belief, faith, loyalty going into this book. And I think. I mean, obviously a lot of them have very grounded perspectives. In fact, I try to sort of show what different perspectives they might have going into this thing might look like with the squad, with various people in the harriers. But the basic contract of being a black soldier in this war does kind of take this. This noble knight errant thought that things will be different if you fight.
- [20:22]
Kate
Now, by the way, I'm going to manufacture T shirts now that say war is a platypus.
- [20:28]
Charlie Gibson
Okay.
- [20:30]
Kate
Yeah. So I just wanted to contribute that. That's all.
- [20:33]
Denard Dale
That gives me a lot of hope for the quotable Denard Dale, some of it someday.
- [20:38]
Charlie Gibson
Did you write this novel thinking of parallels to the present day?
- [20:43]
Denard Dale
I thought of a lot of parallels in terms of information overload. It's kind of a. It's kind of another one of my little personal fixations, I guess. And that is such a part of being alive today, having no idea what's going on, but understanding that it's important and that it's probably a problem that you don't get. What's going on is an experience that I try to tap in this a lot. And it obviously, you know, matters to me that so many things about the Civil War are a ongoing concern of debate, even simple things. Like, did the Cornerstone speech really say that? When he said this is about slavery, slavery, 100%, all day slavery, what he really meant was the right of individual states. And, you know, that's a. That is something else that, you know, draws me to this topic, to this space, is just. I'm a big fan of satire as just kind of a simple engine of looking directly at things that are basically complicated or difficult. And that is another sort of, you know, connection to them, to the modern day. And obviously with the war thing, there is that. There is that also subtle undercurrent of maybe don't. And so, yeah, those are some of the anchors of ongoing concern in the book.
- [22:02]
Kate
This is an.
- [22:03]
Denard Dale
Oh, and we've solved. We've solved racism.
- [22:06]
Kate
It's done. It's all done.
- [22:06]
Denard Dale
No worries there.
- [22:08]
Kate
We live in a post racial world. It's done.
- [22:10]
Denard Dale
Yeah, we finished it off in 2008.
- [22:13]
Kate
I wanted to ask you. It's an amazing novel, especially since it's your first novel. You publish short stories, but you've gotten a considerable amount of acclaim. But I wanted to know when this book was released, were you nervous as hell or were you like, I can't wait for Everybody to read this book.
- [22:28]
Denard Dale
I was very nervous putting this out into the world. Not only because it's insane or I don't know, X kind of like crisis of faith. I kind of just, I guess I'm an eternal believer that chaos is a factor. So I do think, like, however much of work I put into this and the, and you know, all the great people at Holt and they have this and I mean they have like a wonderful publicity and marketing team with these wheels in the wheel schemes where I was kind of blown away by how much I had thought about this. But I still kind of as a person just go with a baseline belief that there is always a chance you're just going to get hit with a bolt of lightning. And you know, because the book is so particular, so strange, I had no idea how resonate or not resonate with general audiences, with critics. I just kind of went into this with not trepidation because I really wanted to do it. Like I really wanted to put it out there. But I would be lying if I said like. And so with a full belief in my destiny, I stepped into the arena for what was mine.
- [23:33]
Charlie Gibson
Cade mentions. You had a fair measure of acclaim and it's all well deserved and you should take great satisfaction in the kind of reaction that it's getting. I think both of us feel that this book is going to have legs and will be read for many years and is a nice addition to the oeuvre of Civil War writing.
- [23:52]
Kate
Oeuvre.
- [23:52]
Charlie Gibson
Well done, oeuvre.
- [23:53]
Kate
Thank you very much.
- [23:54]
Charlie Gibson
Thank you. Denard Dale, thank you very much for taking the time and talk to us and thank you very much for this book. Yes, it's really wonderful.
- [24:01]
Kate
Yes, it is.
- [24:02]
Denard Dale
It's very fulfilling for me as a writer and egoist to see it reaching you guys this way and the kind words mean a great deal to me.
- [24:12]
Charlie Gibson
So Denard Dale, thank you ever so much. Let me have you stand by for some rapid fire questions. Ryan Reynolds here from Mint Mobile.
- [24:25]
Matt Hendrickson
With the price of just about everything.
- [24:27]
Denard Dale
Going up, we thought we'd bring our prices down.
- [24:29]
Matt Hendrickson
So to help us we brought in.
- [24:31]
Denard Dale
A reverse auctioneer which is apparently a thing Mint Mobile unlimited premium wireless. 30. 30. Get 30. Better get 20. 20. 20. Better get 20. 20. Better get 15. 15. 15, 15. Just 15 bucks a month. Sold.
- [24:42]
Charlie Gibson
Give it a try@mintmobile.com Switch.
- [24:46]
Kate
Upfront payment of $45 for three month plan equivalent to 15 per month. Required new customer offer for first three months only. Speed slow after 35 gigabytes of networks busy taxes and fees extra.
- [24:52]
Denard Dale
See mint mobile.com it's the Smuckers Uncrustables.
- [24:56]
Charlie Gibson
Podcast with your host Uncrustables.
- [25:00]
Denard Dale
Okay, today's guest is rough around the edges.
- [25:03]
Charlie Gibson
Please welcome crust. Thanks for having me. Today's topic.
- [25:06]
Denard Dale
He's round with soft, pillowy bread.
- [25:08]
Charlie Gibson
Hey. Filled with delicious PB and J. Are you talking about yourself?
- [25:12]
Denard Dale
And you can take them anywhere.
- [25:14]
Charlie Gibson
Why'd you invite. And we are out of time. Are you really cutting me off? Uncrustables are the best part of the sandwich. Sorry, crust.
- [25:24]
E
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- [26:00]
Charlie Gibson
Rapid fire questions for Denard, Dale, Twain, or Melville?
- [26:05]
Denard Dale
I have a huge bias. I have to go with Twain, really. I've gone into Connecticut Yankee and King Arthur's Court and all that stuff. And, you know, I also have a minor fixation on that Huck Finn book that one or two people have read and talked about. And I love Herman Melville, too, by the way. I mean, Moby Dick is kind of one of those pleasant surprises of youth because you go into that summer where they hand it to you and you think, oh, they have given me this tumor. And then you're three days into July and like, oh, and I'm done. Did I just read about whales for a week? And when you're a teenager, that is kind of a fever dream unto itself. Like, wow, you know, I learned a lot about craft, about stories and the human condition, but I think I also learned a bunch of psychology. And, you know, for the next two months, under the gun, I think I could make it on a whaling ship. This is crazy.
- [26:54]
Kate
And I could make my own coffee. If I had to make my own coffin, I could probably do that.
- [27:00]
Denard Dale
Yeah. Push comes to shove, you've got that skill. But yeah.
- [27:04]
Charlie Gibson
Do you have a favorite Civil War movie?
- [27:06]
Denard Dale
I enjoy the sort of broad drama of glory and the like as much as anyone else. Obviously, I think that there is kind of an appeal to those sort of sweeping historical epics. It's one of the few things that bloated Hollywood budgets are kind of made for. That said, I do okay so, one, it's sort of storytelling conceit that I enjoy and for some reason have not used much in my own work is I kind of enjoy things that are very clearly in the aftermath of sort of a familiar genre moment. Like, you see that in the Searchers. You see that in those Song of Ice and Fire kind of books. Like, a huge can see in those is just a full fantasy trilogy just happened in the background. And we're really. That aftermath or whatever. Right. So something I enjoy in a lot of Westerns, like in the Harder They Fall, is this idea of we have just had this huge shadow of the Civil War over us. So I kind of like, especially particularly in, you know, I just brought up the Harder They Fall. That was the, you know, the whole. The whole Black Cowboys thing on Netflix, et cetera. They come in with all that baggage of just having certain the world has not changed for them. And, oh, wow, that is in my brain. Okay. So I kind of want to galaxy brain that in. In a Game of Thrones kind of way, if that makes sense.
- [28:19]
Kate
Yes. Because I'm a nerd, too. Did you giggle in history class?
- [28:24]
Denard Dale
So I did giggle and comment and talk a lot in history class. Like, a very. A very fun example is. Okay, back in high school, I was put into AP Euro with a. One of my. One of my best friends. I, in fact, still, like, have recently roomed with them and everything. And it was basically a Stadler and Waldorf thing for half of. Through the Great wars, through the relations of 1848. Just two clowns providing a commentary track over all of that. And the teacher, Mr. Rome, he was like one of. He was a wonderful teacher, by the way. Like, me, having a strong wisdom of history has a lot to do with. Mr. Rome was the high school teacher for that class. There's Mr. Fagel for U.S. history, et cetera. But the point is, you know, he was endeared with it about half the time. And the other time he said, I am trying to teach a room full of other people at the same time. Do you mind?
- [29:16]
Charlie Gibson
Well, I love the fact, you know Waldorf and Statler and you're a good Muppet fan. That is absolutely critical.
- [29:22]
Denard Dale
Oh, yeah. You have to have a little bit of Jim Henson in your heart to be a functional person.
- [29:27]
Charlie Gibson
You and I went to the same college, so I know you had to write a thesis. Did you write a piece of fiction?
- [29:33]
Denard Dale
So this is a crazy thing given, you know, my goals, where things have gone. Things are working out now. But a bit of trivia about me is that I was actually turned down for the fiction program at Princeton. No.
- [29:45]
Charlie Gibson
Whoa.
- [29:46]
Denard Dale
It totally happened. I was crestfallen at the time. If you had talked to me from 2013 to 2017, I still would have just been complaining about that. I guess I let that get to me in a lot of ways. I mean, obviously I kept going, found my voice or what have you. But I did not do a piece of fiction for my thesis at Princeton.
- [30:06]
Charlie Gibson
The dedication to the book you dedicated to your mom and you say she gave such support for Insane Dreams. Did you have insane dreams about being a writer? And what were they?
- [30:19]
Denard Dale
Yeah, I've essentially since I was about 12 or 14. I guess I flirted the idea around 12 and just said I'm gonna try to gun at 14 of trying to be a writer, a game designer or Batman. And it's illegal to be Batman. And it turns out that I think game design is the only creative field where the ground beneath you is less settled than writing. So I decided to, you know, take a cool practical route and go into fiction. You can even see in the headlines now, like Microsoft just laid off hundreds of people on that front line in their whole Xbox division. It's kind of crazy, but I have wanted to be a writer since I was young. My mom was instrumental in me believing that was possible. Believing generally anything was possible. I pretty much owe her for whatever degree of long term mental health I have maintained is entirely a Eugenie Higgins production. So I had to dedicate this book to her. Probably any other books I managed to get out there will still be dedicated to her.
- [31:30]
Kate
We owe her a thank you.
- [31:32]
Charlie Gibson
Yeah.
- [31:32]
Kate
And we owe Princeton a hand slap. But either way, we are so thankful for how to Dodge a Cannonball. Dinner. Dale, thank you so much.
- [31:41]
Denard Dale
No problem. And honestly, it has been really gratifying to see how engaged with the book you are. But I mean, people everywhere. But it's also good to just talk to someone about it over time, like feel that resonance and yeah, thank you for having me on.
- [31:59]
Charlie Gibson
As I say, how to Dodge a Cannonball is I think the closest thing I've ever read to catch 22, which was a fascinating book and, and this is fascinating as well. In the, in the end I, Katie, really convinced me that this is first rate writing and I think this book, it's not going to sell immediately so well, but I think this book will have legs and people will talk about it and it'll be around for I think a lot of years.
- [32:23]
Kate
Yeah, I think it will join or at least I hope it will join the canon of great Civil War fiction. It is the first book I've ever read that satirized the Civil War. It does so, I think, beautifully and successfully. And I ask if you are going to pick up this book, readers. Give it some time. Give it some time and really buckle down and commit to the language and get ready for a ride. Because sometimes you don't know where you are until he's a couple of paragraphs into the chapter.
- [32:50]
Charlie Gibson
That's right.
- [32:51]
Kate
But you will be rewarded if you commit to this book. I felt that I learned from this book. I felt that I was certainly moved by this book. I really. Please, if you're going to pick it up, commit to it and give it some time, because it's worth it.
- [33:04]
Charlie Gibson
How to Dodge a Cannonball by Denard D E N N A R D Dale D A Y L E We've got a bookstore for you this week, Kate, and it's a bookstore. I think it may be as unusual a setting for a bookstore as possible. It's in Ojai, California. Ojai, California. Tourist site in California, but. But a lot of permanent residents there as well. And it's an outdoor bookstore. Amazing to me.
- [33:33]
Kate
Yeah. You wouldn't think. I think of a bookstore as something that would succeed outdoors because, you know, there aren't a lot of products you can sell outdoors. There aren't a lot of waterproof products that you can just have outdoors all the time. And books, I think, are right up there with things you would not think should be outdoors all the time and would be threatened by the elements. But Bart's Books has been around for.
- [33:54]
Charlie Gibson
Some time, since 1964. Matt Hendrickson is the general manager of Bart's Books in Ojai. Bart's Books is the name of it. And we had a fun talk. Fun talk. I hate fun as an adjective. We had a. We had. We had a nice.
- [34:10]
Kate
You just broke your rule.
- [34:11]
Charlie Gibson
You just broke your rule.
- [34:13]
Kate
That makes me so happy. We had a fun conversation.
- [34:15]
Charlie Gibson
We had a good conversation with. Matt Hendrickson is the general manager of Bart's Books in Ojai, California. Matt, good to have you with us. We've talked to a number of bookstore managers who have unusual business models, but you may have the most unusual physical setting. Tell me about it.
- [34:38]
Matt Hendrickson
We're a large outdoor bookstore, but it's indoor and outdoor. It's really a 1930s cottage that somebody paved the surrounding area, the yard, and then put up bookshelves on them. And so the area with the books includes both the yard that has bookstore bookshelves outside that have coverings built over them. And then the interior of the house and the interiors of its outbuildings, because the garage has all the art books in it now.
- [35:03]
Kate
So you guys are over 50 years old now. Is it the story of a person whose book collection got out of control, spilled out of the lawn, and they said, let's make a store. Like, what were the. What were the initial. How was this founded? How was Bartz founded?
- [35:17]
Matt Hendrickson
That's the story everybody likes to imagine, but it was found with the idea of it being a bookstore. The owner, Richard Bartondale, had served in the military during the Second World War. And when he was discharged, he was hanging out along the Seine in Paris and along the Sin. There's these guys called the Bocconistes who have their carts that they open. So they're these little wooden carts that they close up at night and they open during the day. And Richard Bartondale's idea was to create something that felt very similar to that.
- [35:42]
Charlie Gibson
So how, if it rains, are the coverings sufficient to keep your books dry? Can somebody come in and if you'll pardon the expression, pilfer a book during the night? How do you protect your inventory?
- [35:59]
Matt Hendrickson
You know, it's funny, even when people see it with their own eyes, they don't believe it. Like, the customers try to argue with me. Like I say, no, no, you see the coverings we have over them, that's sufficient. They said, well, what about this and what about that? It's like, well, no, I mean, we don't, we don't get really hard driving rains because we're in a valley that's pretty small. So the, the rain tends to blow in and then drop and blow out. It's not like it's. There's not a big plane for the water to sweep across while it's blowing. So that doesn't happen. And, and really the most damage to the books comes from sun, which is only occasional and only in certain areas. And those, those books, some of the books that we have outside on the exterior of our wall for a dollar, our books whose jackets were damaged by the sun. And so we put them out there as far as pilfering the books, the books on the exterior of the store, because we do lock the store up at night. There is an exterior wall and on the outside of that wall there are books that we sell for a dollar. And there's a little slot in the door where you can pay for those books after hours. That box is full of Money every month. Now, I'm sure somebody occasionally grabs a book, and that's not that big a deal, but that box is always full of money.
- [37:01]
Charlie Gibson
I heard that you have an enormous number of titles. Do you sell more new books or used books?
- [37:07]
Matt Hendrickson
More used books. We were exclusively a secondhand bookstore until maybe 10 years ago. And so over the last 10 years, I've built the new book component of our inventory from about 1% of our inventory to about 10% of our inventory, and that's probably where it'll stay. We have over 100,000 books total in stock. Like, those are items. Books, like actual physical volumes. Probably something like 50 or 60,000 titles because we have different, you know, multiple copies of some titles, and then 10% of that is new books. So, like, we're currently at like 8 to 10,000 of those being new books, so the rest of them all being used.
- [37:46]
Kate
Do you take donations from your community for the secondhand? And what is your threshold for rejecting a book?
- [37:54]
Matt Hendrickson
We sell through 10,000 books a month, so we need to replenish that every month.
- [37:59]
Denard Dale
Wow.
- [37:59]
Kate
Okay. And so that's a lot.
- [38:02]
Matt Hendrickson
Yeah, that's like 10% of our inventory every month turns over. And so we. When I. When you say our community, it's not just the local residents of Ojai. I've bought books basically anywhere. I can drive there and back in a day and sometimes further. I've gone as far, far south as La Jolla, which is part of San Diego, and as far north as San Luis Obispo, El Los Olivos, which is in central California. And those are places that I can drive there, there, and back in a day or there, stay overnight, and come back if the volume of books is high enough. But people also bring us. I just made an appointment for somebody bringing me 15 boxes of books.
- [38:38]
Kate
So you're the used bookstore guy. Are you also the first edition buyer?
- [38:43]
Matt Hendrickson
Yeah, yeah. I do a little bit of everything. And it really is like separate businesses. Each of those things really is its own separate business.
- [38:53]
Kate
So you wear these three different hats. You're in the new book business. That's 10% of your inventory. You're in the first edition and rare book business, and you're in the used book business. Do you have a first love, A great love out of those three hats?
- [39:04]
Matt Hendrickson
Yeah, you know, I, again, I come from used book, being a used book shopper. And what I love a beautiful reading copy. That's my favorite thing. And, you know, it can be any number. It can be a vintage paperback. It can Be an old hardcover. It could be an old hardcover that's lost its jacket but has beautiful, like patterns or embossment printed on its cloth. Like, I want a book that's serviceable. Serviceable. Like it's still intact and it's binding works and is effective, but also beautiful because of its age and patina. It develops an aura a little bit.
- [39:36]
Charlie Gibson
Well, it's a pleasure to talk to you. Bart's Books in Ojai, California. Ojai, a wonderful tourist destination. And Bart's Books, a tourist attraction and.
- [39:45]
Kate
A really cool looking shop in and.
- [39:47]
Charlie Gibson
Of itself the largest outdoor bookstore in America. Matt, thank you very much.
- [39:53]
Matt Hendrickson
Yeah, it was a pleasure to talk to you.
- [39:57]
Charlie Gibson
So, Kate, congratulations. You threw me under the bus twice in this podcast.
- [40:02]
Kate
It feels so good that I can still lift you and get you into the street. And Matt was a really fun guy.
- [40:12]
Charlie Gibson
All right, all right, I give up. Have you no mercy?
- [40:16]
Kate
No.
- [40:17]
Charlie Gibson
Anyway, we have friends in Ojai, California who love this bookstore. And the fact that they turn over as many books as they do in a month, it's just amazing that they have more than a hundred thousand titles. It's just. Well, I want to see it the next time I'm out in Ojai, which I look forward to being.
- [40:33]
Kate
We will remind you about the great folks who keep us employed and keep this podcast in business. Thank you. People that do that. And then we end with a sort of unusual coda from Denard Dale. Of course, he's going to give us some satire as his coda, true to form. So he reads us from the lyrics of Rick Derringer's Real American, which, by the way, if you get a chance to check out the Real American video on YouTube, you'll get a chance to see Hulk Hogan play electric guitar. So you don't want to miss that. Anyway, he reads us the great lyrics from Real American as a great satirist should. So stay tuned for that.
- [41:11]
Charlie Gibson
The Bookcase with Kate and Charlie is a joint production of Good Morning America and ABC Audio. It is edited by Tom Butler of TKO Productions and our executive producer is Simone Swink. We want to make special mention of Amanda McMaster, Sabrina Kohlberg and Ariel Chester of ABC Good Morning America and Josh Cohan of ABC Audio. You can follow us and rate and review this podcast wherever you get your podcasts. And if you like to find any of the books mentioned on this podcast, you can find them listed in the episode description.
- [41:44]
Denard Dale
I am a real American Fight for the rights of every man I am a real American and fight for what's right Fight for your life when it comes crashing down and it hurts inside you gotta take a stand it don't help to hide if you hurt my friends then you hurt my pride I gotta lend a hand it don't help to hide I am a real American I fight for the rights of every man I am a real American and fight for what's right Fight for your life that was also special to me because I'm not a poet, so getting to read in that cadence is really, really amusing.
- [42:39]
Kate
Good.
- [42:40]
Denard Dale
Liberty, our WNBA champion.
- [42:44]
Kate
We can't get enough of the wnba. A fresh draft class has arrived. Dallas wing select Paige Beckham. Teams stacked with new talent.
- [42:55]
Denard Dale
Julia's a complete dog.
- [42:56]
Kate
The Valkyries take flight in the bay. We've got more stars and more heat than ever. WNBA on espn, presented by Google. We can't get enough.