The Alabama Fallout, and Louise Erdrich on the Future

Summary

The New Yorker Radio Hour – "The Alabama Fallout, and Louise Erdrich on the Future"
Date: December 15, 2017
Host: David Remnick
Guests: Amy Davidson Sorkin, Jim Gaffigan, Louise Erdrich, Kristen Roupenian

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Overview

This episode of The New Yorker Radio Hour explores two main threads:

1. The political reverberations from Democrat Doug Jones's victory in Alabama’s Senate race, discussed with political columnist Amy Davidson Sorkin, including ramifications for the Republican Party and President Trump.
2. A conversation with acclaimed novelist Louise Erdrich about her new dystopian novel, "Future Home of the Living God", the place of Native American literature, and contemporary threats to Native American women. Additional features include comedic interludes by Jim Gaffigan and a reading from the viral New Yorker story "Cat Person" by Kristen Roupenian.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. Fallout from the Alabama Senate Election

(Amy Davidson Sorkin with David Remnick, 00:33–11:56)

• Significance of Doug Jones’s Win

  • Analyzed as part of a broader pattern of Democratic wins (New Jersey, Virginia).
  • Unsettles assumptions about Republican dominance in deep-red states.
  • Questioned whether the election was a true turning point for Trump’s presidency and for Republican leaders.

• Trump’s Role and Party Dynamics

  • Trump responded to the loss by distancing himself and claiming prescience:
    • “He basically said, I predicted it. The message of this was that I was right all along." —Amy Davidson Sorkin (01:19)
  • The moment revealed how “docile he can make Republican leaders and how much the mechanisms of the party are indeed in his hands.” (01:54)

• Voters’ Moral Calculus & Fake News

  • Many voters justified support for Roy Moore despite serious allegations, prioritizing issues like abortion.
  • "They didn’t believe it, or they believed it, or they sort of believed it, or they thought maybe there was some version of it." —Amy Davidson Sorkin (03:29)
  • Jones’s refusal to back down on reproductive rights was notable in the Alabama context (04:02).

• Toleration of Egregious Behavior in Politics

  • The readiness of party structures to support “wildly eccentric” or compromised candidates was highlighted (04:35).
  • “If there’s a political party whose only standard is we didn’t do that, then you’re not very far along.” —Amy Davidson Sorkin (05:29)

• Democratic Party and Al Franken’s Resignation

  • Explored the complexity and motivations behind pushing Al Franken out of the Senate.
    • “What you ideally want is for the voters to have the chance to push people out as the employers. … But if you know that you don’t have your party’s support and you don’t have the support of your colleagues, then you do think, as a politician…” —Amy Davidson Sorkin (05:52)
  • Franken's ousting was, in part, “proxy” for dealing with the party’s “unfinished business with Bill Clinton” and the legacy of mishandled sexual misconduct allegations (07:56).

• Changing Understanding of Power and Sexual Misconduct

  • Referencing Dale Bumpers’ quote during the Clinton impeachment:
    • "When somebody tells you it’s not about sex, it’s about sex.”
  • Erdrich highlights now, "when people say, now it’s not about sex, what they often mean is that the sex itself is not about sex. It’s about violence, it’s about power, it’s about misuse of power." —Amy Davidson Sorkin (08:48)

• Path to Substantive Change

  • Real changes must come via the ballot box and by “levying a political cost.”
  • The need for more women in power and for transparency/disruption of the closed culture of Congress.
  • “If it keeps seeming so seedy, who are the congressmen in 20 years gonna be? Who is that? … Is that what you would aspire to as a career? And if not, who’s gonna be running the country?” —Amy Davidson Sorkin (11:37)

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2. Comedic Interlude: Jim Gaffigan at the Symphony

(Jim Gaffigan, 12:23–17:05)

• Gaffigan humorously narrates his internal monologue while trying to enjoy a classical concert, riffing on when to clap, orchestra politics, the viability of conductors, and relationships with musicians.

• Notable Quotes:

  • “I’m a grown man and I don’t know when to clap.” (12:25)
  • “You think for what these tickets cost, the seats would at least be comfortable.” (12:48)
  • Riffing on instruments and concert etiquette, Gaffigan brings a comic relief to the episode’s weightier themes.

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3. Louise Erdrich on Storytelling, Identity, and Dystopia

(Louise Erdrich with David Remnick, 17:50–28:25)

• On Storytelling as Addiction

  • Erdrich compares writing to addiction:
    • “It really began when my other addictions failed. … I could have addictions that didn’t give me, really, a hangover or actually addictions that helped me in life.” —Louise Erdrich (18:34)

• Navigating Native American Identity

  • On “representing” as a Native writer:
    • “As a Native American person, you can’t do that. … You have to tell people who you are.” (20:13–20:44)
  • The obligation to openly establish tribal background due to non-Native writers appropriating identity.

• Early Literary Success

  • Amid her first novels’ critical acclaim, Erdrich juggled new motherhood:
    • “I just had my baby, Persia. She’d just been born, and I was pregnant again, and that book came out.” (21:29)
  • Reflects on the impossibility of managing career and young children: “I think I must have been really losing my mind most of the time, because you can’t do that.” (22:05)

• Themes of “Future Home of the Living God”

  • The novel features Ojibwe characters struggling in a near-future America facing ecological collapse and government detainment of pregnant women.
  • Erdrich notes the book’s origins 16 years prior, inspired partly by then-contemporary as well as classic dystopian novels (e.g., Atwood’s "The Handmaid’s Tale", P.D. James’s "Children of Men", Ursula K. Le Guin’s works).
    • “I hope it can be read in some ways as an homage…” (24:19)

• Resurfacing an Old Manuscript

  • Shares the story of the unfinished manuscript being rescued from a Jetson-era iMac and then an iCube, underscoring the messy relationship writers have with technology and old drafts (25:08–25:57).

• Violence Against Native Women

  • The reality of Native women’s vulnerability to violence and sexual assault shaped the novel, as it did her previous book "The Roundhouse":
    • “American Indians are two and a half times more likely to experience sexual assault crimes compared to other races…” —David Remnick (26:05)
    • “Most of those crimes are committed by non-natives. … The jurisdictional issues are so arcane…” —Louise Erdrich (26:26–27:11)

• Tribal Justice and Political Obstacles

  • Erdrich laments eroding tribal autonomy in handling crimes on reservation land, noting the steep odds for reform (27:11–27:32).

• Trump’s Antagonism Towards Native Americans

  • Discussed Trump’s historic adversarial stance on Native casino rights and his racially insensitive remarks.
    • “If I remember right, I think I might have more Indian blood in me than a lot of those so-called Indians that are trying to open up the reservations.” —Trump, paraphrased by Remnick (27:57)
    • Erdrich’s response: “Oh, my God. … We don’t want Donald’s attention. … It’s all bad attention.” (28:05–28:25)

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4. "Cat Person": A Viral Story on Modern Power and Consent

(Kristen Roupenian, 29:16–32:30)

• The episode closes with a reading from "Cat Person," the breakout New Yorker story exploring the fraught territory of casual dating, desire, discomfort, and the complex navigation of consent.

• Selected Passage (30:10+)

  • Illustrates the unsettling interior thoughts of the protagonist, Margot, as she faces a difficult sexual encounter.

• Cultural Impact

  • “It quickly became our most read piece of fiction online ever, and it spawned half a dozen think pieces in other publications.” —David Remnick (29:16)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments (with Timestamps)

• On Trump’s Influence:

  • “How docile he can make Republican leaders and how much the mechanisms of the party are indeed in his hands.”
    —Amy Davidson Sorkin (01:54)

• On Morality and Politics:

  • “If there’s a political party whose only standard is we didn’t do that, then you’re not very far along.”
    —Amy Davidson Sorkin (05:29)

• On Women in Politics:

  • “There needs to be more women who are elected. There needs to be a political cost to each party for all of that.”
    —Amy Davidson Sorkin (10:13)

• On the Burden of Native Identity:

  • “As a Native American person, you can’t do that. … You have to tell people who you are.”
    —Louise Erdrich (20:13–20:44)

• On Dystopian Fiction and Influence:

  • “I hope it can be read in some ways as an homage [to The Handmaid’s Tale] … and also Children of Men, the P.D. James novel. Sure, yeah. And to Ursula Le Guin…”
    —Louise Erdrich (24:19)

• On Violence Against Native Women:

  • “Most of those crimes are committed by non-natives. … The jurisdictional issues are so arcane…”
    —Louise Erdrich (26:26–27:11)

• On Trump’s Attitude Toward Native Rights:

  • “We don’t want Donald’s attention. … It’s all bad attention.”
    —Louise Erdrich (28:08)

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Structure & Flow

• The episode opens with a sharp, analytical conversation on the current political landscape post-Alabama upset, focusing on voter psychology and party ethics.
• Comic relief is offered through Jim Gaffigan’s stream-of-consciousness at the symphony.
• The focus then turns to literature, with Louise Erdrich’s engaging and candid discussion providing both personal and societal context for her new novel and ongoing injustices facing Native Americans.
• The episode closes with an evocative fiction reading that encapsulates contemporary anxieties around dating, communication, and autonomy.

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This summary captures the critical subjects, tone, and key remarks of the episode, providing a comprehensive overview for listeners or readers seeking insight into the show’s most substantial moments and arguments.

Transcript

[Louise Erdrich]

This is rural train to bound One World Observatory.

[Amy Davidson Sorkin]

Observatory straight up the block for West.

[Jim Gaffigan]

Boulevard and make that right.

[David Remnick]

They didn't break that, but they have pretty good access to those people who.

[Jim Gaffigan]

Subconsciously mocks that lineage.

[David Remnick]

So that's happening.

[Amy Davidson Sorkin]

It seems like an incredible story here on many fronts.

[Narrator/Producer]

From One World Trade center in Manhattan, this is the New Yorker Radio Hour, a co production of WNYC Studios and the New Yorker.

[David Remnick]

Welcome to the New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick. We've got a lot coming up on the show today, and we're going to start with Amy Davidson Sorkin, who's a political columnist for the New Yorker. I wanted to talk with Amy about Alabama's election of Doug Jones and what it means in Washington for the Democrats, the Republican Party and President Trump.

Do you think the election, no matter how close, was a turning point in some way for the president of the United States, taken into context with the results in New Jersey and Virginia and elsewhere?

[Amy Davidson Sorkin]

You mean that he can't win all of the time? Yeah, it depends on how he plays it. I don't know if you saw his morning after the election tweet where he basically said, I predicted it. The message of this was that I.

[Louise Erdrich]

Was right all along.

[Amy Davidson Sorkin]

And that if only he'd been allowed to play it the way he wanted to, there'd be a Republican in the Senate right now. Is it a turning point in what? In our assessment of Trump's moral capacities? I think there's a lot of things that we knew about him that were very much on display in this. But what we didn't know, for example. Well, this is a man who called during the presidential campaign as part of appealing to votes as for a complete and total ban on Muslims entering the country. Is it shocking that he would endorse a man who doesn't believe Muslims should enter Congress? There's a lot going on there. But what I think we didn't know about Trump before the Alabama race that we know now is how docile he can make Republican leaders and how much the mechanisms of the party are indeed in his hands.

[David Remnick]

The Washington Post originally came out with a story, a very convincing story with real deep reporting and evidence and interviewing, laying out the case that Roy Moore, a judge, a candidate for the U.S. senate, and at that time, the overwhelming favorite, was given to acts of really repugnant moral behavior. And nevertheless, right up until the Election Day, you would hear all kinds of interviews of supporters of Roy Moore who were able to, in their minds, justify continuing their support. One of the ways that was most common was, well, if I vote against Roy Moore, it's open season for abortion and countless thousands of children would be killed. That was the moral calculus for many people. What did you make of the moral calculus of the more voters and they're willing to tolerate or willingly suspend disbelief about his past.

[Amy Davidson Sorkin]

You know, it's a term, the overused term, fake news. They didn't believe it. They didn't believe it or they believed it or, or they sort of believed it or they thought maybe there was some version of it. And what they told themselves about the Democrat. It's part of a larger and troubling question that doesn't only have to do with Alabama, but I also want to go back to one thing you said about the rationalization having to do with reproductive rights. It matters that not only did a Democrat win in Alabama, but a Democrat who did not walk away from his position in favor of reproductive rights, who did not sort of back down on that to the extent that some people in Alabama were practically begging him to do. They were like, just stop about that and you'll have no trouble.

[David Remnick]

Now, did this particular election shift our understanding of what kind of behavior voters will and will not tolerate in their candidates and in their elected officials?

[Amy Davidson Sorkin]

I mean, you know, in American history there have been some real. Some real. Anybody compare to Roy Moore, who we know about. I mean, you know, we've had times in our history when people were physically assaulting each other on the floor of the Senate. But what I think was striking again is how much somebody who's a wildly eccentric candidate can nonetheless count on the support of his party for quite a while.

[David Remnick]

Do you think that in politics that Democrats have seized the moral high ground in any way?

[Amy Davidson Sorkin]

Cumulatively, I don't think that it belongs to a party at this point. I think that there are individual politicians who've been out there and taking stands, But I think that it's really too much in flux for there to be real self congratulation at a certain point. Obviously you can always say they were worse. But if there's a political party whose only standard is we didn't do that, then you're not very far along.

[David Remnick]

Did you think the Democratic Party did.

The right thing of essentially pushing out Al Franken?

[Amy Davidson Sorkin]

There's some. It's an interesting question in that what you ideally want is for the voters to have the chance to push people out as the employers. As the employers. But if you know that you don't have your party's support and you don't have the support of your colleagues, then you do think, as a politician, of if these are actually causes that I believe in and it's not about me, then you think about who could be appointed to your job. But I'm sorry that in his speech he was so deflecting. Again, it was this, why me and not Trump? And I don't think that that's the right approach at this moment.

[David Remnick]

Why?

[Amy Davidson Sorkin]

Well, because it gets you into a couple of not great places, one of which is there's always somebody worse. There's always going to be something worse, and it ups what you're going to tolerate. And the other is that I think one of the big problems we have now, and we've talked about this before, is how disreputable politics seems as a profession. And if it's like, this is how politics, this is how it works, this is how Congress is, this is what you put up with. If you want this guy who's going to vote for that, that's a terrible place for us to be in as a democracy. And I would also say about Franken, though, and the Democratic Party, that I think one reasonone role he played, fairly or unfairly, was being the the party has a lot of unfinished business with Bill Clinton. You know, and in some ways, Al Franken was a proxy for that, that.

[David Remnick]

Al Franken was somehow sacrificed to the overlooking of the sins of Bill Clinton in the past.

[Amy Davidson Sorkin]

There was a feeling that really too much had been overlooked in that and that it hurt the party, it hurt its standing, it had hurt Hillary Clinton's chances in 2016. And I think that there was an unpaid debt there, and there wasn't a lot to draw on. Thinking back also to the Clinton period, when Clinton, who was impeached and went through a Senate trial and was acquitted when he waswhen he washis trial was taking place, one of his defenders was Dale Bumpers, who was the senator from Arkansas, one of them from Bill Clinton's home state. And he gave a speech that was very memorable at the time, in which he basically said at one point, you know, when somebody tells you it's not about sex, it's about sex. And his point then was everybody who was saying, oh, it's not about Bill Clinton's affair, it's about lying, it's about perjury, it's about obstruction of justice, that they weren't telling the truth, that was just about sex. I think that what we have now is a really different understanding of that phrase and a different understanding of these dynamics now, when, for example, the Harvey Weinstein story, when people say, now it's not about sex, what they often mean is that the sex itself is not about sex. It's about violence, it's about power, it's about misuse of power. And I think that the complexities of that have really changed over the years, Even the phrases that we use and what we tolerate.

[David Remnick]

What do you think is really going to lead to real substantive change, whether it's in the realm of politics or.

[Amy Davidson Sorkin]

Any other realm, looking at politics specifically, and I always think this is true. It's gonna be the voting booth. It's gotta be. That's where the costs have to be.

[David Remnick]

Levied, meaning more women in power.

[Amy Davidson Sorkin]

There needs to be more women who are elected. There needs to be a political cost to each party for all of that. It's, you know, if there's a. If you think of Congress as a job market or any kind of a market, things have to have a real price. Otherwise it gets all out of whack. And, you know, some of the things we're hearing about in Congress seem to have to do with these unspoken economies of power and access. And, for example, there's been a lot of reporting about, you have a place where there are a lot of young people who aren't paid very much, who are far from home, making connections. You also have lobbyists, you have money, you have a lot of what goes on in Congress is off the books, and it gets tricky. And that might be true in any closed system like that. And to make it less closed, to make it more transparent, to help people know what they're voting for, and also to have parents look at all of this and want their children to go into politics. Because if it keeps seeming so seedy, who are the congressmen in 20 years gonna be? Who is that? Who's drawn to that profession? Is that what you would aspire to or aspire to as a career? And if not, who's gonna be running the country?

[David Remnick]

Amy Davidson Sorkin, thanks so much.

[Amy Davidson Sorkin]

Thanks, David.

[David Remnick]

Amy Davidson Sorkin is a staff writer for the New Yorker. Coming up this hour, I'll talk with the novelist Louise Erdrich. But right now we've got a few words from Jim Gaffigan, whom we find enjoying a night at the symphony.

[Jim Gaffigan]

Don't clap too soon, Wait till they're done. Don't clap too soon, Wait till they're done. I'm a grown man and I don't know when to clap. Great night. Glad we're doing this and we get to do it four more times this year. Two tickets to five concerts, plus parking. Don't think about it. Don't think about what? You could have spent that money on like one of those three wheeled motorcycles. Why'd that pop in my head? I don't want one of those. You zoned out. She noticed, now she's pissed. I'll hold her hand, smile. You think for what these tickets cost, the seats would at least be comfortable. Those box seats are probably pretty plush. I guess if you're about to be assassinated, you deserve to be comfortable. That guy looks like he could be an assassin. He's got the assassin's hair. Why do I think an assassin has a certain hair type? That's probably politically incorrect on some level. Just listen to the music. Listen to the music.

[David Remnick]

Hmm.

[Jim Gaffigan]

It's kind of relaxing. Is it relaxing or boring? It is relaxing. Except for the conductor flapping around like that. I know that technically orchestras need a conductor, but do they really? Like, if all the musicians are really good at playing their instruments and they all have music in front of them, couldn't they just play it? I bet it annoys them when he's all, play soft, play soft. Look at my stick getting very low now. Play loud. Look at my stick way up here. You know, if I were in the orchestra, I'd probably roll my eyes, you know, subtly, you know, where the audience, they'd be like, oh my gosh, that guy, he gets it. The good looking guy. Are they done? Do we clap now? They're not done. I mean, I knew they weren't done. That violin section seems to be where you find the more attractive women. But are they just orchestra attractive? If I were involved with one of the violinists, would I have to learn a lot of stuff about violin? Like if she asked how did I play tonight, would I have to be specific? Or could I just go, great? Or maybe you should totally be first chair, babe. I know, it's so political. Or maybe Jesus, Deborah, your first chair. Why are you still so insecure? All you can think about is some other orchestra. The one you're not in. No, I'm not saying you're not good enough to play with them. Look, I think you're an amazing violinist. Oh, right. Okay, I know nothing about violin because when we first started dating, I just used to say you played great. Well, you know what? That was eight goddamn years ago, Deborah. I clap now, right? No one's. Alright, I'm not gonna clap. I'm gonna wait for other people to clap. You know, I swear, with One month of practice. I could play the big drum as well. As that guy says in the program, that is called the timpani. Huh? That's. That's the wrong name. Timpani. That sounds like something like someone on the Upper east side would name their daughter. Have you met our timpani? Anyway, I could do the timpani solo. Are there timpani solos? I guess 2001 A Space Odyssey sort of had one. Wait, that's horns. I feel like at lunch, everyone ignores the harpist. If she lived in a walk up, that would be brutal. Like, the cello person must be like, well, at least I don't have a harp. I'm talking about the big cello. You know, like, there's different sizes. You know what? My wife is right. Classical music is really opening up my mind. Oh, they're done. Okay, everyone act like they enjoyed it. Thank God it's over. Oh, God. There's more.

[David Remnick]

Thoughts. While attending the first symphony in the series, my wife wanted to buy. If you're thinking about buying tickets to the orchestra for Christmas this year, think carefully. That's a piece by Kirk J. Rudel, performed for us by the comedian Jim Gaffigan. This is the New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick.

More to come.

Welcome back to the New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick. Contemporary fiction in recent years has taken something of an apocalyptic turn. Books that would have been categorized once as science fiction are being recognized as part of the mainstream of literature right now. And that trend has affected even a writer like Louise Erdrich, whose books, although they're certainly diverse, have predominantly been historical or contemporary. Erdrich's new book, just out this fall, is called the Future Home of the Living God. It follows the lives of a group of Ojibwe Indians who are living in rural Minnesota.

Louise, you've said that storytelling, for you is a kind of addiction almost. When did that addiction begin?

[Louise Erdrich]

It really began when my other addictions failed. And I started understanding that I could have addictions that didn't give me, really, a hangover or actually addictions that helped me in life. The only problem was I was still smoking when I started writing. And. And so I believed for a long time that I couldn't write without a cigarette, and it was hard to break that one.

[David Remnick]

So you're not kidding around in a.

Way that there's some relationship between writing, storytelling, and less valuable kinds of addiction?

[Louise Erdrich]

Oh, I'm not kidding at all. You know, it took hold in my 20s. I was searching for it. You know, I wanted something that Would be powerful enough to keep me interested. Must have a short attention span, because I had to. I was writing poetry and had to tie myself into my chair to finish my first piece of narrative. I had scarves. I had beautiful, romantic scarves. And I didn't just use a rope.

[David Remnick]

Well, when you started to write, I wonder.

Some writers rebel against the idea of being part of an identity literature, say Jewish American literature or African American literature. They want to be just part of American literature or just themselves. Did you have any sense that you wanted to be part of Native American literature as distinct from anything else?

[Louise Erdrich]

No, I didn't. I just. I didn't think about it. I didn't think about that at all, what it might mean. The only thing that. The only thing that crushed me about this was that I wanted to be invisible. I was extremely shy, and I still go through that sometimes. I wanted to just have the books. But as a Native American person, you can't do that. You know, you have to tell people who you are.

[David Remnick]

You feel you have to represent beyond the book.

[Louise Erdrich]

Well, you have to establish your tribal identity. Because there's so many people who write books that are ostensibly Native, but they're not Native American writers. And so you really have to tell where you're enrolled or where your family is or, you know, you don't have to be enrolled. You could be a descendant, but you have to come from a community and a family and a background that's Native American, that's tribal.

[David Remnick]

So how did that play out?

I remember very distinctly just a couple of years out of college, reading your first novel, Love Medicine, a wonderful book which won the National Book Critics circle Award in 1984. I think you were probably just around 30 at that time.

[Louise Erdrich]

Yeah, I just had my. Okay, I had my baby, Persia. She'd just been born, and I was pregnant again, and that book came out. And then the next year, when I had my second baby, the Bee Queen came out. It was insane. I don't know how that happened.

[David Remnick]

That's a lot of fertility all at once.

[Louise Erdrich]

I don't know how that happened. Yeah, and I think, you know, seeing as women are just coming out with everything, I just want to say that what happened was really impossible.

[David Remnick]

How do you mean?

[Louise Erdrich]

I mean that I look back and I think I must have been really losing my mind most of the time, because you can't do that. And then it took five more years for me to write a book, and that was more doable. That would make a little more sense.

[David Remnick]

This book is really a departure in some sense, there are native characters grappling with their culture and their families and their ups and downs of life, as many of your characters, they always have. But the story takes place in some indeterminate time in the future, in the midst of a ecological crisis and a political crisis. And there are food shortages and power outages and the government is rounding up and detaining of all things, pregnant women. And so, given the apocalyptic mood of our current politics, or at least some of us feel that way, the book feels timely in a terrible way. You started working on this, though, long before, like 16 years ago. How did this book come to be?

[Louise Erdrich]

So I started writing it long before. And the only nod to current events, and it is Mother. Now, Mother is basically, she's a kind of scary, pseudo motherly entrapment figure who seems immune to shut down computers and can just come on at any time, any screen, at any time. Right, Mother. She's Karen Pence. And my daughter and I have been following Karen Pants and Pence too, because, you know, that's the next lineup. I mean, we're like one chocolate cake clogged artery away from Pence. Or maybe it'll be the double scoop of ice cream and then conch, you know, so there we are.

[David Remnick]

I have to ask this, and maybe you'll reject the premise totally out of hand, but is it possible, in terms of the way influence does or does not work, that there are echoes of the Handmaid's Tale, Margaret Atwood's great dystopian novel, in this book?

[Louise Erdrich]

Oh, absolutely, absolutely. I hope it can be read in some ways as an homage because, you know, I loved that book when I started the book and I wrote the book, it wasn't the cultural touchstone that it is now. And also Children of Men, this owes a lot to Children of Men, the P.D. james novel. Sure, yeah. And to Ursula Le Guin and Left Hand of Darkness. All kinds of books. You know, those were really the books I read as a teenager that got me very excited about literature.

[David Remnick]

And I think in the acknowledgments or the author's note, you refer to it as having to be excavated from some old computer. What happened?

[Amy Davidson Sorkin]

Well.

[Louise Erdrich]

I abandoned it because I just didn't think it was going to go anywhere. It was in one of those. I love those Jetson looking computers. Do you remember the imacs with the sort of round colored plastic bags?

[David Remnick]

Those were beautiful.

[Louise Erdrich]

I loved them. And so I didn't want to leave it behind.

[David Remnick]

So you left a novel in it.

[Louise Erdrich]

For a long Time. And then the ICUBE came out. You remember the iCube?

[David Remnick]

I do.

[Louise Erdrich]

The Thunderbird of computers. It's a really nice computer. So then transferred it into the cube and then, you know, I thought, damn, it'll be safe in the cube. But it wasn't. And so.

[Amy Davidson Sorkin]

Whoa, whoa, whoa.

[David Remnick]

You don't even think to print it out or put it on a disk or something. It's just sitting in a cube.

[Louise Erdrich]

A floppy. Floppy disk. Yeah, I was on floppy disks. I had floppy disks.

[David Remnick]

Okay, so you were all backed up. I'm just making.

[Louise Erdrich]

It was all backed up.

[David Remnick]

Now, Louise, the threats to the bodies of Native American women are just not a matter of dystopian fiction. As I understand it, American Indians are two and a half times more likely to experience sexual assault crimes compared to other races, according to the doj. The Department of Justice.

[Louise Erdrich]

Exactly.

[David Remnick]

Was that very much on your mind as you wrote this book?

[Louise Erdrich]

It was more on my mind as I wrote the Roundhouse. But there is inevitably echoes in this book. Most of those crimes are committed by non natives. Knowing that on reservation land, it's very hard to get the attention of the authorities because you have to go to federal authorities for this crime. You have to go to the FBI and everyone's backed up. The jurisdictional issues are so arcane, so.

[David Remnick]

It'S so tribal courts don't have access to cases like that.

[Louise Erdrich]

Tribal courts handle a lot, and that's what we're working toward. We want to be able to handle crimes that occur on reservation land, crimes of all sorts. But little by little, tribal court justice and autonomy has been eroded.

[David Remnick]

What are the odds of that reform ever coming?

[Louise Erdrich]

Well, at this point in history, we don't.

[David Remnick]

Even before he was president, Donald Trump clashed repeatedly with Native Americans. One of the running fights was about casinos. And he saw those casinos on reservations as a threat to his own businesses. And he sued the government over them. He argued that he was being discriminated against. At one point he said, if I remember right, I think I might have more Indian blood in me than a lot of those so called Indians that are trying to open up the reservations. He said that President of the United.

[Louise Erdrich]

States just like, oh, my God.

[David Remnick]

Well, there it is.

[Louise Erdrich]

Yes, I know it is there. And we're actually trying to, I mean, I am anyway trying to keep somewhat of a low profile. I don't want Donald's attention. We don't want Donald's attention. You know, it's all bad attention.

[David Remnick]

Well, but it's inescapable, isn't it?

[Louise Erdrich]

I hope he doesn't turn his attention on Native Americans.

[David Remnick]

Louise Erdrich, the author of Love Medicine and many other books, novels, poetry, and essays, and her new novel is called Future Home of the Living God in the New Yorker. We just published a short story that did something very unusual for a work of fiction. It's called Cat Person, and not long after it was posted it went, forgive the cliche, absolutely viral. It quickly became our most read piece of fiction online every ever, and it spawned half a dozen think pieces in other publications.

[Kristen Rupenian]

Before he got out of the car, he said darkly, like a warning, just so you know, I have cats. I know, she said. We texted about them, remember?

[David Remnick]

Cat Person is a story about a date, and it looks at desire, power, and consent in a way that hit a nerve for a lot of readers. Here's the author, Kristen Rupenian, reading from Cat Person.

[Kristen Rupenian]

Well, this is my house, he said flatly, pushing the door open. The room they were in was dimly lit and full of objects, all of which, as her eyes adjusted, resolved into familiarity. He had two large full bookcases, a shelf of vinyl records, a collection of board games, and a lot of art, or at least posters that had been hung in frames instead of being tacked or taped to the wall. I like it, she said truthfully, and as she did, she identified the emotion she was feeling as relief. It occurred to her that she'd never gone to someone's house to have sex before. Because she'd dated only guys her age, there had always been some element of sneaking around to avoid roommates. It was new and a little frightening to be so completely on someone else's turf. And the fact that Robert's house gave evidence of his having interests that she shared, if only in their broadest categories art, games, books, music struck her as a reassuring endorsement of her choice. As she thought this, she saw that Robert was watching her closely, observing the impression the room had made and as though fear weren't quite ready to release its hold on her. She had the brief, wild idea that maybe this was not a room at all, but a trap meant to lure her into the false belief that Robert was a normal person, a person like her, when in fact all the other rooms in the house were empty or full of horrors, corpses or kidnap victims or chains. But then he was kissing her, throwing her bag and their coats on the couch and ushering her into the bedroom, groping her ass and pawing at her chest with the avid clumsiness of that first kiss. The bedroom wasn't empty, though. It was emptier than the living room. He didn't have a bed frame, just a mattress and a box spring on the floor. There was a bottle of whiskey on his dresser, and he took a swig from it, then handed it to her and kneeled down and opened his laptop, an action that confused her until she understood that he was putting on music. Margot sat on the bed while Robert took off his shirt and unbuckled his pants, pulling them down to his ankles before realizing that he was still wearing his shoes and bending over to untie them. Looking at him like that, so awkwardly bent, his belly thick and soft and covered with hair, Margot recoiled. But the thought of what it would take to stop what she had set in motion was overwhelming. It would require an amount of tact and gentleness that she felt was impossible to summon. It wasn't that she was scared he would try to force her to do something against her will, but that insisting that they stop now, after everything she'd done to push this forward, would make her seem spoiled and capricious, as if she'd ordered something at a restaurant and then, once the food arrived, had changed her mind and sent it back.

[David Remnick]

That's Kristen Rupenian reading from her story Cat Person. You can hear her read the whole story in the Writer's voice [e-mail] podcasts and that's it for today. Thanks for listening to the New Yorker Radio Hour. Please join us next week for some holiday surprises. See you then.

[Narrator/Producer]

The New Yorker Radio Hour is a co production of WNYC Studios and the New Yorker. Our theme music was composed and performed by Meryl Garbus of Toon Yards, with additional music by Alexis Cuadrado. This episode was produced by Alex Barron, Emily Bottin, Avi Carrillo, Rhiannon Corby, Jill Duboff, Karen Frillman, David Krasnow, Sarah Nix, Michael Rayfiel, Mythali Rao, and Stephen Valentino. We with help from Susan Morrison, Emma Allen, Derek John Johnny, Vince Evans, Terrence Bernardo, Ted Canez, Stefania Taladrid, Camila Osorio, Emily Mann, and Jessica Henderson. The New Yorker Radio Hour is supported in part by the Turina Endowment.