Kaveh Akbar and Tommy Orange: The Author Friendship

Summary

Podcast Summary: The Book Case Episode: Kaveh Akbar and Tommy Orange: The Author Friendship
Release Date: March 20, 2025
Host/Authors: Kate and Charlie Gibson

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Introduction to the Episode

In this captivating episode of The Book Case, hosts Kate and Charlie Gibson delve into the profound friendship between two acclaimed authors, Kaveh Akbar and Tommy Orange. Both authors have made significant marks in contemporary literature, with Akbar's Martyr being a National Book Award finalist and Orange's There There achieving Pulitzer finalist status. This episode explores how their collaborative relationship has influenced their respective works and offers listeners an intimate look into the dynamics of their literary partnership.

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The Genesis of a Literary Friendship

Kaveh Akbar opens the discussion by welcoming listeners and setting the stage for an insightful conversation about his friendship with Tommy Orange.

Kate expresses her enthusiasm for having both authors on the show, highlighting their mutual respect and the impact they've had on each other's writing journeys.

Kaveh Akbar draws parallels between his and Tommy's collaboration and famous literary friendships, such as Truman Capote and Harper Lee or Ernest Hemingway and F. Scott Fitzgerald. He remarks:

"It's fascinating, these pairings, and you understand that, you know, it's hard to, I guess, to get in the head of a writer and yet another writer, it seems to me, would be able to do that far more easily than we can as readers."
[04:03]

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Collaborative Creative Process

Kate discusses how The Book Case has become a masterclass in writing, focusing on the editing and critique processes among writers. She shares the news of Akbar and Orange touring together for their paperback releases, emphasizing the unique opportunity to observe a "writer's group of two."

Kaveh Akbar explains that his foray into novel writing was heavily influenced by Tommy Orange, who encouraged him to explore narrative fiction. Drawing comparisons to literary legends, he notes:

"And I was the person in charge of ferrying him around... Suddenly we were talking to each other like human beings and not, like, two guys at their jobs. And everything bloomed from there."
[08:08]

Tommy Orange reflects on his admiration for Akbar's poetry and how their mutual respect naturally led to exchanging creative work. He shares:

"I was a huge admirer of him going into meeting him."
[11:53]

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Evolution of Their Works Through Collaboration

Kaveh Akbar candidly discusses his transition from poetry to prose, attributing much of his novel Martyr to the influence and collaboration with Tommy Orange. He admits:

"I had no ambitions beyond the next poem... Somehow we both slid glacially into narrative fiction... I was just reading really ravenously, but also reading Tommy every week."
[10:07]

Tommy Orange acknowledges the profound impact of their partnership on his own work, Wandering Stars. He states:

"Wandering Stars was before it became Wandering Stars... It would have been a different book. Absolutely."
[20:58]

Both authors agree that their friendship and continuous exchange of ideas were pivotal in shaping their literary creations.

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Engaging with the Younger Audience

The hosts steer the conversation towards Akbar and Orange's involvement with high schools during their tours. Kaveh Akbar shares insights into their messages to students, emphasizing honesty and vulnerability:

"We may be accomplished writers, but we're as insecure as any of you... Maybe I'm only as good as my last book."
[05:27]

Tommy Orange further elaborates on his approach to speaking with high school students, prioritizing authenticity over polished messages:

"I just go in and be like, this is who I am. This is how I feel."
[17:22]

Kate highlights the importance of their sincerity, noting the challenges of addressing an audience that values truthfulness and can sense insincerity immediately.

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Rapid Fire: A Twist of the Newlywed Game

In a playful segment, Akbar and Orange engage in a rapid-fire session where they answer questions about each other, adding a light-hearted dimension to their deep literary discussion.

Sample Exchanges:

• Kaveh on Tommy's Preferences:

  • "Mark Twain or Herman Melville?"

    "Melville, Tommy."
    [24:26]

• Tommy on Kaveh's Tendencies:

  • "Opera or ballet?"

    "Opera."
    [24:37]

• Kaveh on Tommy's High School Grades:

  • "What was Tommy's last grade in an English class?"

    "I got a D in English."
    [25:20]

• Tommy on Kaveh's Personality:

  • "Is Kaveh an introvert or an extrovert?"

    "He's naturally an introvert and has gotten good at being an extrovert."
    [26:26]

This segment not only entertains but also deepens the listener's understanding of the authors' personalities and mutual perceptions.

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The Resilience of Independent Bookstores

Transitioning from personal narratives, Kate introduces a discussion on the state of independent bookstores, especially in the post-COVID era. Citing data from Allison Hill, CEO of the American Booksellers Association, it's revealed that:

• Pre-COVID: Approximately 1,916 independent bookstores existed in the U.S.
• Post-COVID: Over 900 new independent bookstores have opened, totaling around 942 new establishments since the pandemic began.

  "Unless you become a recluse. I think he's naturally an introvert and then he... he has gotten good at being an extrovert."
  [30:56]

Kate expresses optimism about this growth, attributing it to the pandemic-rekinded appreciation for bookstores and the innovative adaptations these businesses employed, such as curbside pickups and online sales.

Kaveh Akbar emphasizes the community-centric nature of independent bookstores, noting their pivotal role beyond just retail spaces:

"It's a nice feeling when you go into an independent bookstore... They're critical."
[32:04]

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Closing Remarks and Gratitude

As the episode draws to a close, Kate and Charlie express their gratitude towards Akbar and Orange for sharing their stories and insights. They acknowledge the collaborative efforts that make the podcast possible and encourage listeners to engage with the featured books.

Charlie Gibson shares a heartfelt sentiment:

"I just feel very grateful that you guys spent time with the book and that you spend your time doing this for authors. And I feel very grateful to get to be Tommy's friend."
[33:56]

Tommy Orange offers a poetic closing by reading the beginning of his work, Space Truck, leaving listeners with a glimpse into his creative mind.

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Notable Quotes

• Kaveh Akbar:

  "They largely shaped their last two novels. Kave working with Tommy on Wandering Stars and Tommy getting pages from Martyr."
  [01:33]

• Tommy Orange:

  "If we have to pick between Van Halen and Thelma and Louise, I don't know that I could. It might be more of, like a Bill and Ted adventure situation."
  [16:43]

• Kate:

  "I would love talking to them because they're both such terrific talkers and they clearly have such affection for each other."
  [05:27]

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Conclusion

This episode of The Book Case offers a deep dive into the symbiotic relationship between Kaveh Akbar and Tommy Orange, showcasing how mutual respect and collaboration can propel authors to new creative heights. Additionally, the discussion on the resurgence of independent bookstores serves as a testament to the enduring love for books and the communities that support them. Whether you're a fan of contemporary literature or passionate about the literary community, this episode provides valuable insights and inspiration.

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Transcript

[Kate]

I was never really a runner. The way I see running is a gift, especially when you have stage four cancer. I'm Ann. I'm running the Boston Marathon, presented by bank of America. I run for Dana Farber Cancer Institute to give people like me a chance to thrive in life, even with cancer.

[Charlie Gibson]

Join bank of America in helping Anne's cause. Give if you can@b of a.comSupportAnn what would you like the power to do? References to charitable organizations is not endorsement.

[Kate]

By bank of America Corporation.

[Charlie Gibson]

Copyright 2025.

[Kaveh Akbar]

Well, hello, boys and girls. Good to have you back. It's the bookcase with Kate and Charlie Gibson, and we're here all geared up for another good show.

[Kate]

I'm really excited because last week I think he switched us and it was the bookcase with Charlie and Kate. So I'm really excited that he has re promoted me back into my original position. And it is the bookcase with Kate and Charlie, and I am the Kate part. And I also welcome you to the show.

[Kaveh Akbar]

We have. We have a doubleheader for you today. And I. I think this is really interesting. Kate called me. We talked a number of weeks ago to Kaveh Akbar, who wrote a book that was a National Book Award finalist. I think Martyr was the name of the book. Wonderful book. Kaveh Akbar's first novel, though he's an accomplished poet. And we also talked to Tommy Orange who wrote Wandering Stars and before that wrote There there two books that were very well received. And I think he was a Pulitzer finalist, I think, wasn't he, Kate, for those.

[Kate]

Yes.

[Kaveh Akbar]

Y of those books. So National Book Award guy, Pulitzer guy and their friends. And Kate called me up and said they're really good friends and they exchange pages back and forth. They largely shaped their last two novels. Kaveh working with Tommy on Wandering Stars and Tommy getting pages from Martyr. As Kaveh wrote, it's a really interesting friendship. And it got us thinking about two writers, kindred spirits who are sort of in each other's heads as they write. And so we talk to them together.

[Kate]

Yeah, I don't remember how I heard about their friendship initially, but I remember asking Tommy when we originally talked to him about Kaveh, and I remember asking Kaveh about Tommy when we spoke. So I obviously knew about the friendship. But also, I think it's worth saying that, you know, we've said often that this podcast has ended up being a masterclass on writing. We've become sort of fascinated by the editing process that writers do for themselves, but also do for Each other. We've talked to writers about writers groups and how they critique each other, and we've talked to writers about how they potentially workshop each other. And so I got an email from. I can't even remember if it was Kaveh's publicist or Tommy's publicist, saying that they were gonna go on tour together for the release of their paperback books for Martyr and Wandering Stars. And I thought, oh, how cool to talk to them both at the same time about the way that they support each other and what their friendship has done for their work. It was like an insider's ticket into a writer's group of two.

[Kaveh Akbar]

Well, as we talked to them, I got the sense that Kaveh really hadn't intended to write a novel. Tommy Orange was a great fan of his poetry, and Tommy sort of urged him to delve into the novel form. And Kave was intrigued enough to know that Tommy was going to work with him. And, you know, it's not unusual. There have been cases in the past where great writers have really sort of formed a. Have teamed up with one another. Truman Capote was a great friend of, and grew up next door, I think, in Monroe, Alabama, to Harper Lee. And they were very simpatico. And Ernest Hemingway and F. Scott Fitzgerald. We talked about that when we. When we did a program on the Great Gatsby recently, that Fitzgerald had been a great friend of Hemingway's and that they looked at each other's works before published.

[Kate]

Ralph Emerson and Louisa May Alcott and Thoreau as well. Ralph Waldo Emerson and Thoreau. A great literary friendship.

[Kaveh Akbar]

James. James Baldwin and Toni Morrison. J.R.R. tolkien and C.S. lewis. These. It's fascinating, these pairings, and you understand that, you know, it's hard to, I guess, to get in the head of a writer and yet another writer, it seems to me, would be able to do that far more easily than we can as readers. So, anyway, Kaveh Akbar and Tommy Orange, great friends, as Kate says, on tour together. And interestingly, you think, well, when they go on tour, where are they going to be? They're going to be appearing in auditoriums and in bookstore, big bookstores to sell their books as they. As they publish their new books in paperback form. But now much of the tour is talking to high schools, which I think is great.

[Kate]

Yeah, I think it's terrific. And I think this friendship has a lot to offer kids in terms of. Here's why you collaborate kids. Here's how collaboration makes you better at things about which you are passionate. So I love that these Two are friends. I love that they've encouraged each other's work. If I have Tommy to thank for Kaveh Akbar's Martyr, I'll thank him all day long. It's such a terrific book. And we just, again, we love talking to them because they're both such terrific talkers and they clearly have such affection for each other.

[Kaveh Akbar]

Well, it's interesting you asked them about what you have to say to high schoolers, and I thought they were going to say, follow your dreams or write. When you write, whatever you can know. They talk to them about the fact, as you'll hear in our conversation, they talk to them about the fact that we may be accomplished writers, but we're as insecure as any of you. And there's nobody more insecure than high school kids. We just feel as insecure as you. And it comes back to something so many authors have told us that they're not. They just think, maybe I'm only as good as my last book, and maybe there's not another book in me.

[Kate]

Well, and I think also. But I think also, too, facing students is terrifying in a way. I don't know why, because you're right. It's such an insecure period of life, and yet they are so ready to soak up what you say. So you want to make sure that what you say is sincere and heartfelt and important. And it's hard, too, because they also have a very low tolerance for untruths. So I would imagine a classroom full of high school students is also very intimidating, especially when your point is, hey, we're just like you.

[Kaveh Akbar]

Yeah. So anyway, our conversation with them, how they got to be fans of each other and how they became friends with each other. Our conversation with Kaveh Akbar, the author of Martyr, now coming out in paperback, and Tommy Orange, wonderful Native American author of There There and Wandering Stars, as Wandering Stars now comes out in paperback, here's our conversation.

[Kate]

Kavi and Tommy, it is so nice to have you guys back on the bookcase. Although having you together is like, it's an awesome treat. But I want to know whose turn is it to tell the origin story? And would you mind telling it for us? I don't know whose turn it is, but I'll let you pick.

[Charlie Gibson]

It's a seminal day in my life, honestly. I was teaching at Purdue University and Tommy had just put out there, there, and it was just starting to have the biggest life that it was having. And I read it and loved it. And he was visiting Purdue as a visiting writer. As part of the tour. And I was the person in charge of ferrying him around. And so I was anxious for two reasons. Because, like, I liked the work and was intimidated by the brain. I asked him what the coolest thing he'd gotten to do on tour was, and he said that he got to sit at a Simpsons table reading.

[Kaveh Akbar]

Simpsons, the cartoon show?

[Charlie Gibson]

Yeah. Yeah, Okay. I really love the Simpsons.

[Kate]

You mean as opposed to the dessert topping? Sorry, go ahead.

[Charlie Gibson]

Yeah. Homer, the TV character, Not the Greek poet. But, yeah, I really love the Simpsons. It was my favorite show growing up. It was my spouse's favorite show growing up. It's a very foundational text for us, weirdly. And suddenly we were talking to each other like human beings and not, like, two guys at their jobs. And everything bloomed from there.

[Kaveh Akbar]

So that established a friendship. But did you establish a friendship right away on a writing plane?

[Tommy Orange]

Yeah. So we. Somewhere between the car ride and at the end of the night, we exchanged emails. I was a fan of him as a writer, as a poet. And I was very much curious about what it would mean to start writing poetry. Cause I never really tried it formally or publicly or just. It wasn't part of my writing path at all. After the Simpsons thing in the car, we're talking about his wife's poetry collection, and it is called spacestruck. And if you say that closer together without spacing it, it could sound like space truck. And I was like, space truck. How cool. What's that about? And I legitimately was, like, asking, is it about a space truck somehow? Um. And he corrected me. And so that night, I sent him a poem that I. You know, it was supposed to be kind of a joke, but also, like, a way to sneak in a real poem to a real poet to get some kind of, like, real eyes on the thing. And he sent me a poem the next morning that he stayed up late writing, I found out later. And, you know, we just started exchanging work from there, like, very consistently. It picked up really fast at the.

[Kaveh Akbar]

Time you started exchanging emails. Kaveh, you're known as a poet, but were you at that point, had you started writing martyr? Or did you have in mind that you wanted to start a novel and that maybe Tommy could be a resource?

[Charlie Gibson]

Neither of those. I had no ambitions beyond the next poem. Truly, I have called myself a poet since I was a teenager. I've never deviated from that identification. I have always thought of myself as a poet. It truly just happened organically in trading pages with Tommy that we were trading poems at first and then little prose poems and then little essays. And then the essays became more narrative and there were characters suddenly and we were both kind of just matching the frequency that the other person was putting out. And so somehow we both slid glacially into narrative fiction, which was particularly surprising to me in, in my case, you know, Tommy wrote one of the great books of American literature of the 21st century in this form. And I had never taken a day of fiction workshop. I had never, you know, I knew nothing about it. Again, I've thought of myself as a poet my whole life. And so I very quickly was intimidated when I realized what was happening. And not because of anything Tommy was doing, but just because, you know, it's like showing your macaroni art to Picasso, right? I mean, it's, it's, it's like, you know, and so I had to, I had to start reading a lot. And I was just reading really ravenously, but also reading Tommy every week. And that became my education. And fiction was just these pages. And Tommy would say, oh, you should read this. And so I would go read that and just inhale it and you know, sort of foie gras goosing narrative into myself.

[Kaveh Akbar]

So Tommy, you had a groupie in Kaveh Akbar. This guy is.

[Tommy Orange]

No, I think it was a mutual fan club thing happening. You know, I had read both of his books before I met him and he had this thing that I. And I still have not even gotten close to being able to say what poetry is and what it does. I'm still chasing after it. And he, to me, he was the truth holder of it. And I was a huge admirer of him going into meeting him.

[Kate]

It seems to me it's a little like almost a relationship between a therapist and a patient. And you have to find the right therapist to get the right chemistry. So I wanna start with Kaveh. How did you know that you'd found the right therapist, the right critic in Tommy's reading of your work?

[Charlie Gibson]

I feel like I think one can make interesting art without being a good person. But I don't think that one can make interesting art the way that Tommy's art is interesting without being a good person. And I sensed that in the work first and then I confirmed it in the person. And we found that we had all of these load bearing sympaticos that had nothing to do with writing across the music and painting and art and people and culture. And that was the bedrock upon which we built a creative relationship. It wasn't that we were like, okay, we have to work together, so I guess we have to get along. I mean, I found myself very, very interested in and excited about Tommy, the human being. And then when the pages were coming, I was just genuinely really enthused about them. I really, really love reading Tommy's writing. Like, it's not a shtick, it's not an act. I'm not sort of, you know, gassing up my friend to make him feel better. Like, I, in the most selfish possible way, really like reading his stories and his work and his writing. And so annotating that was the easiest thing in the world, right?

[Tommy Orange]

I know that I secretly wanted him to write a novel. Probably not secretly. I mean, I probably told him because I want all my favorite poets to write novels instead of poetry collections. Cause I just love the form. At some point. What I remember is that he sent this prologue to a possible novel. And it was sort of head jumping, life jumping around all these passengers on a plane. If you've read Martyr, you can imagine what plane I'm talking about. And it was just this beautiful, vivid, funny, weird, sort of like mosaic of the actual lives of the people on the plane before it got obliterated. And I could just feel a whole novel in there. And I'm sure I, you know, if we looked back at the emails, it would show how exuberant, how excited I was about the possibility that this was gonna be a novel and that he was gonna write a novel. You know, I was probably just, you know, bursting at the seams.

[Kate]

Do you direct each other, like, I mean, do you ever send each other pages and say, I'm in a really bad place, man. I'm not looking for anything but praise? Or do you send it and go, I really want you to be tough on these pages. I know I'm stuck and I need you to be brutal. Do you direct each other at all in your criticism of each other's work? I guess I'll start with Kaveh.

[Charlie Gibson]

Yeah. I don't think I've ever gone to Tommy for that kind of brutality. I think that. I mean, I don't want to speak for Tommy, but I'm pretty good at being brutal on myself, generally speaking. I'm full of self doubt and I'm aware of all the warts and unevennesses and clunky lines and stuff like that. And I'm pretty good at that part myself.

[Tommy Orange]

It really was like the spirit of a bandmate or wanting to create the space that musicians have of jamming together. It really was like, I like the Way you. I like the riffs that you're doing in the song that you. In the album that you already put out. We had an interview before this, and I just said for the first time out loud to myself and to Kaveh, that I think our friendship and our exchanging of pages formed the type of novel Wandering Stars became. And it's true. I just never. You know, I never put it into words, but I didn't go seeking that.

[Kate]

So you guys are about to go on tour together, which I love this idea. Although I can't quite tell if I. If I'm picturing, like, Van Halen on a tour bus or if it's more like Thelma and Louise in a. In a convertible. I'm not sure which metaphor is more apt, but I'll let you pick your own metaphor. But I was excited to real to see that you guys were stopping at some classrooms. And so I wanted to ask you guys, and I'll start with Tommy. What do you want kids to take away from the friendship that you have with Kaveh? What message are you giving to kids about why your friendship is important?

[Tommy Orange]

If we have to pick between Van Halen and Thelma and Louise, I don't know that I could. It might be more of, like a Bill and Ted adventure situation.

[Charlie Gibson]

I was just thinking that.

[Kate]

I swear to God, Holy shit.

[Charlie Gibson]

If you asked me, I was gonna be like, it's way more Bill and Ted. Sorry, I don't mean to interrupt. I know this is Tommy's. I swear to God, I was just thinking, it's way more Bill and Ted than either of them.

[Kate]

The only really smart people can call themselves Bill and Ted. You can't, as the interview, be like. Or will it be like Bill and Ted? Because you can't do that. That doesn't work.

[Charlie Gibson]

No, no, no, no. Hand on my puppy's heart, I was gonna say Bill and Ted.

[Tommy Orange]

I was super terrified of kids when I first started doing high school events. And I'm still scared of them and of the events, but I love them. And what I try to do in the space of them is be as honest as I can with them. Even if that looks like me being awkward. That level of honesty, I feel awkward. And I'm just gonna. I'm just going to be that. Because they read into everything and they feel everything in this really intense way, and they don't like messaging. So if I come in with, like, a positive message or something, they're going to sniff that out right away. Just like they're going to Sniff out my fake confidence if I'm like, go into public speaking mode. So I just go in and be like, this is who I am. This is how I feel.

[Charlie Gibson]

They can be excited in earnest ways that I think a lot of adults become self conscious about. And one of the things that really bonded me to Tommy is that we're both very, very, very passionate about the thing, you know, the things that other people merely like. We really, really love in a kind of pulverizing way, in a way that can be suffocating. I used to substitute teach for Indianapolis public schools for a time, and I remember trying to figure out who I was in front of a classroom and I tried to come in, you know, very confident and professional. And, you know, I'm Mr. Akbar and this is what we're doing today. And they ate me a lot. They just walk out of the classroom. They would, you know, like, just totally ate that alive. And so then, you know, I found myself pivoting to like, hey, I'm just one of you. I'm just. We're all here, we're trying to get along. And, you know, and that didn't work at all. Right? They ate me a lot. They walked out of the classroom and it wasn't until I just came in and was like, hey, you know, this is who I am. We're all going to get through this together. And it was really a crash course and sort of speed dating across a million different classrooms. And so, yeah, I think that that earnestness is really, really the thing that we can bring.

[Kaveh Akbar]

You both had very successful books with the Martyr and with Wandering Stars, and you're exchanging pages back and forth. Would your book have been considerably different if you had not been Kaveh working with Tommy? And Tommy, would your book have been considerably different if you hadn't been working with Kaveh? Let me start with you, Kaveh.

[Charlie Gibson]

Yeah, I mean. I mean it absolutely, literally, without a strat of hyperbole or rhetoric that I don't know that my book would exist in any form had it not been for this relationship. I'm not gassing Tommy up. I'm not trying to be dramatic. I just genuinely had no. There was never a moment in my life prior to my relationship with Tommy where I thought, I want to write a novel about, you know, the Iran Air Flight 655 disaster and this performance artist. Right? I never. That was not something that I had been carrying around. I really love poetry. I think it's. I think writing a lot of poems over the course of A life and teaching and walking your dog is a really lucky way to live a life. So, Yeah, I mean, Tommy is there in every page, you know, idiomatically of my book, you know, as I was reading all the other authors I was reading, you know, Melville or Morrison or Baldwin or Nabokov or whatever. I was also reading Tommy every single week. Right. So the idiom, the, the, the frequency of Tommy's language, the, the, the charge propulsivity and the centripetal motion around an idea instead of like passing in a kind of linear way through it, is all there in Martyr. And it all tracks back to Tommy.

[Tommy Orange]

You know, there was a lot of different books. Wandering Stars was before it became Wandering Stars, you know, printed and bound and out in the world. And the book that it ended up being definitively, you know, came to be as it was because of our work together. It would have been a different book. Absolutely. I wanted to write a different book than There There. And Wandering Stars is a lot different in the way that on a sentence level. And a lot of that happened through this friendship and this, this working relationship that we had.

[Kaveh Akbar]

So, gentlemen, we're going to take a break. Our thanks to Tommy Orange and to Kaveh Akbar. We're going to take a break. Some commercials.

[Charlie Gibson]

Who knew?

[Kaveh Akbar]

Commercials. And then we'll come back and do some rapid fire with Tommy and Kaveh. And also we have, Kate, another book fact.

[Kate]

Oh, I can't wait.

[Kaveh Akbar]

Yes, that's a tease. We'll be back in just a moment. My dad works in B2B marketing. He came by my school for career day and said he was a big roas man. Then he told everyone how much he loved calculating his return on ad spend. My friends still laugh at me to this day.

[Ann]

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[Tommy Orange]

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[Ann]

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[Tommy Orange]

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[Ann]

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[Kate]

The Rapid Fire for Tommy and Kaveh, we did this one a little bit differently. We were so excited about their friendship that we actually had them answer the rapid fire in the guise of the other. A sort of Newlywed Game twist on our rapid fire section. So we'll see how they do. Here they are. Kaveh.

[Kaveh Akbar]

We hadn't thought about it as Newlywed Game, but Kaveh said. Oh, you want us to answer for the other? It's like the Newlywed Game. Authors like popular television, apparently. Anyway, here it is.

[Charlie Gibson]

Oh, it's like the Newlywed Game.

[Kate]

Yes, but like a literary one. There will be no sexual questions.

[Kaveh Akbar]

No, that's right. That's right.

[Kate]

Yeah.

[Charlie Gibson]

Perfect.

[Kaveh Akbar]

So the two of you cooperate on writing, but do you think alike? So, Kaveh, what would Tommy say? Mark Twain or Herman Melville? Melville, Tommy.

[Tommy Orange]

Yeah, easily. Mark Twain's horrible.

[Kaveh Akbar]

Tommy. Opera or ballet? What will Kaveh say?

[Tommy Orange]

Oh, that one's tough. I gotta say. Opera.

[Charlie Gibson]

Yeah, opera. It's the super saturation. You get it all at once. You get the music, you get the costuming, you get the. You get this.

[Tommy Orange]

Yeah.

[Kate]

Oh, this is a good one. Oh, I like this one. All right, Kaveh, you'll answer for Tommy. What was Tommy's last great. What was Tommy's last grade? In an English class.

[Charlie Gibson]

Oh, my God. I don't think IAIA gives great letter grades.

[Tommy Orange]

No, it doesn't. It's pass. Fail. IAI is passed fail.

[Charlie Gibson]

So pass. Can I just say. Can I just say no. Go.

[Tommy Orange]

No. Go to senior in high school.

[Charlie Gibson]

Go to senior in high school. You know, I bet you were, like, kind of closet good at school. I'm going to say like a B.

[Tommy Orange]

It's a D. I barely passed.

[Kaveh Akbar]

Oh, no. I thought you were going to be orange. You got a D in English.

[Kate]

Were you reading a Scarlet Letter?

[Tommy Orange]

No, I got kicked out of one high school and then I barely went to school for my senior year and was not. I was into Beowulf, which is something that we read my senior year in high school, but, like, only in my own weird internal way. It had nothing to do with wanting to pass the class.

[Charlie Gibson]

Yeah, that was me. I was good at high school and then college is when I failed on my classes.

[Kaveh Akbar]

Boy, I'll bet that teacher gave you a D as some answering to do. Kaveh. What. What will Tommy say if you listen to a book? Have you read it?

[Charlie Gibson]

Yeah, absolutely.

[Kaveh Akbar]

Tommy.

[Tommy Orange]

Yeah, That's a hard agree. There's a lot of snobs out there who would try to say that listening to a book is not. It doesn't have the purity or whatever language they use around it. It always has. It stinks of snobbery.

[Kaveh Akbar]

Tommy, would Kaveh say he's an introvert or an extrovert?

[Tommy Orange]

That is hard because, you know, that one's hard to even answer because you're sort of forced by being in the world. You're forced to do both unless you become a recluse. I think he's naturally an introvert and then he. He has gotten good at being an extrovert.

[Charlie Gibson]

That's exactly right. That's exactly right. I'm an introvert who can put on pretty convincing.

[Kate]

So you're an extroverted introvert.

[Charlie Gibson]

No, I'm not. I'm. There's no part of me that is inherently extroverted. You know, I am great at, you know, I don't need to photosynthesize at all. Like, I'm great just doing in my juices with, you know, a pile of books and some water and, like, you can leave me alone for a week. But. But because he didn't.

[Tommy Orange]

He didn't come into the world juggling, but he knows how to juggle now.

[Kate]

That's a good one. All right, so I'm going to ask. Last one for. For. For Kave. How would Tommy answer this? If I weren't a writer, I would be.

[Charlie Gibson]

Oh, that's. Well, a musician. A musician. Actually, I was gonna say that's a hard one, but it's not. He would be a musician.

[Tommy Orange]

Yeah, that's right.

[Charlie Gibson]

I mean, he.

[Tommy Orange]

This is.

[Charlie Gibson]

This is true. And Tommy's like a brilliantly talented musician. He sends me, you know, piano riffs that he does sometimes. And he made For Wandering Stars. He made a couple tracks that you can find that are ostensibly the tracks that Orville is playing in the book.

[Tommy Orange]

Oh, yeah, it's on Spotify. It's on Spotify or Apple Music as Orville Redfeather.

[Kaveh Akbar]

Again, our thanks to Kaveh and to Tommy. Their books now out in paperback. Wandering Stars by Tommy Orange and Martyr by Kaveh Akbar Books that were both very successful last year, now in paperback. I mentioned, Katie, we have Another book fact. We are going to do these occasionally. And I. I don't think I've shared this one with you. Allison Hill, who's the CEO of the American Booksellers association, we talked to her. And one of the things I was interested in is knowing whether the number of independent bookstores is growing or diminishing. I think there's a conventional wisdom that the number of bookstores is decreasing. And then when Covid hit and you couldn't go into an independent bookstore, was the number increasing or was it decreasing? What would you think?

[Kate]

Well, I think pop culture for the last, I don't know, five decades has been. Has assumed that independent bookstores are decreasing. But I'm going to be optimistic. I'm going to say that I think they did some recovery after the pandemic. And I'm going to say that because the pandemic, I think we forget, or at least, I mean, the pandemic was boring. There wasn't a lot going on. There wasn't a lot in production. There weren't a lot of new, exciting movies coming out, new new TV shows coming out. And, you know, we weren't allowed to go into work unless you were a necessary worker. I think independent bookstores, people were reminded of how vital they were. I personally wouldn't have gotten through the pandemic without reading. So I would think that in some ways we got sort of reintroduced to the romanticism of bookstores through the pandemic. And I'm also going to say that one of the things that really impressed me about the pandemic and libraries and bookstores was how hard and how quickly all of those businesses had to pivot to serve their patrons. Well, they had pickup and online and all of that kind of stuff. It's amazing the way they service their customers. And I think their customers really appreciated it.

[Kaveh Akbar]

Well, they knew they were in for hard times. And we've talked to a lot of independent bookstores about how did you survive during COVID And they have said exactly what you said, curbside pickup or, you know, we did over the phone sales and mailed books to people online, book selling. But were new stores opening during COVID new stores opening? We asked.

[Kate]

What I'm saying is yes, but I'm saying yes, I'm going to be optimistic about that because I think people were inspired to open bookstores because they remembered how important bookstores were.

[Kaveh Akbar]

Oh, okay. That's your philosophy. We'll ask Alison Hill, CEO of the American Booksellers association, how many independent bookstores are there now? Compared to pre Covid, it's exciting, Charlie. Before COVID we had about 1,916 independent.

[Kate]

Bookstores around the country.

[Kaveh Akbar]

In the last few years, since the.

[Charlie Gibson]

Pandemic started, we've had over 900 stores open. About 942 independent bookstores have opened during.

[Kaveh Akbar]

A time when you would not have expected that to be the story. 942 new independent bookstores since COVID began. That's quite a number.

[Kate]

And I have to say I credit readers for that. Way to go, readers. Like, I think if you guys weren't working to get books so hard during the pandemic, not as many people would have been inspired to open. I love that. I hope it continues. I hope we all remember how. How bookstores were there for us during the years where we could go nowhere.

[Kaveh Akbar]

Well, the thing that impresses me is when people go into an independent bookstore, they know they're probably going to pay more for a book than they will on Amazon and probably more than they even would if they go into a huge bookstore like Barnes and Noble. There will be books on sale, I guess, at Barnes and Noble. I don't know quite how they operate, but independent bookstores, you're going to pay retail, and that's a. Books aren't cheap. But people. It's interesting. People look at independent bookstores, I think, as pivotal to their communities. It is kind of a, you know, other than your workplace and other than your home. There's just a nice feeling when you go into an independent bookstore, Katie. And I believe they're so critical.

[Kate]

I also think it's tempting to. I mean, I've even thought about opening a bookstore, and I think one of the things that's tempting about it is that it's not. I mean, it is the opposite of a cutthroat community. I mean, one thing we found as we've talked to bookstores is how supportive bookstores are of new bookstores. And that is very encouraging, I think, for somebody who's opening a business, is that their mentors built right in to the business because everybody wants to share their trade secrets. They really seem to want the new kids to succeed. And so what a wonderful community to be a part of. I think that also inspired people after the Pandemic.

[Kaveh Akbar]

Yeah, we've talked to a couple of people who have gone on independent bookstore tours. One of your friends, I think, went on a tour of New England bookstores, and the bookstores were always delighted to cooperate and put out little maps of how do you go from one bookstore to the other. We've talked to people who have done independent bookstore tours on bicycle going around and I guess putting their putting their purchases into paneer bags. I don't know quite how they did it. Anyway, 942 new independent bookstores opened since the pandemic began.

[Kate]

Let's keep it going America. Yeah, let's keep it going America. Let's go.

[Kaveh Akbar]

So we will remind you of the people who make this podcast possible. And then we asked both Tommy and Kaveh for a coda and we'll hear those after we tell you about who makes this podcast possible.

[Kate]

The Bookcase with Kate and Charlie Gibson is a production of ABC Audio and Good Morning America. It is edited by Tom Butler of TKO Productions. Our executive producers are Laura Mayer and Simone Swink. We want to make mention of Taylor Rhodes, Amanda McMaster and Sabrina Kohlberg at Good Morning America, as well as Josh Cohan from ABC Audio. Please follow the Bookcase wherever you get your podcasts and be sure to listen, rate and review. If you'd like to find any of the books mentioned in this episode, we have them linked in the episode Description.

[Charlie Gibson]

I just feel very grateful. I feel very grateful that you guys spent time with the book and that you spend your time doing this for authors. And I feel very grateful to get to be Tommy's friend.

[Tommy Orange]

I am going to read you the very beginning of Space Truck.

[Kate]

Love it.

[Tommy Orange]

We'd all piled into the space truck and were off. I'm sunblind from the rear view and wonder how the sun can be brighter on glass. Or is it because we're closer to it up here in space, where objects and mirrors may also be closer than they appear?

[Ann]

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