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Aisha I'm Aisha Rascoe, and you're listening to THE Sunday Story, where we go beyond the news to bring you one big story. Today. We're gonna slow it down. Sometimes life can feel nonstop. If it's not one thing, it's another. But whenever I get a bit of quiet, I'll try and, you know, maybe do some coloring by numbers or I'll pick up a book. Recently, I read a novel called Ruth, and it stuck with me because of the questions it pos about the way we live. The novel was written by Kate Riley, who drew from her own experiences living for a time in a Christian commune. It was a place where individualism was sacrificed for the needs of the community and the greater good. Now, that is far from what I personally desire. But I was so intrigued because Kate, as a young woman, went against that societal push towards personal achievement and instead went in, like the direct opposite direction and sought out this quiet life, one without a lot of thrills and distractions. And it offered her a sense of purpose, meaning and peace, something she hadn't found in anywhere else.
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And it was some of the happiest time of my life.
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Kate grew up in New York City, and while in college, she found herself asking big questions about her role in the world.
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I was preoccupied with being a good person, and I studied philosophy in college, and I did not find any answers.
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I recently sat down with Kate Reilly to talk about her story and what led her to write the novel. Now, of course, the title character of the book, Ruth, is not Kate. The character Ruth, was born in 1963 and grew up inside a Christian commune. But the fictional woman seemed like a vessel that allowed Kate to explore her own feelings about a slower and more intentional life. You're listening to THE Sunday Story.
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Stay with us.
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A
We're back with the Sunday story. I'm talking with Kate Riley. Welcome to the program.
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B
Thank you so much.
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A
So tell us about this community that Ruth is born into.
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B
What do they so there the community is in the peace church tradition, which would be the Amish, the Friends. It's a group that came from Europe. They were persecuted by the Catholics because they didn't believe in infant baptism. They thought that everybody who wanted to be a Christian should make that decision as an adult. And so that was a hot take.
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A
In the middle aged back in the day. Yeah, it's a big deal. Yeah.
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Yes. Yeah. So they don't have any private property. They share everything. And in common, they don't have any official hierarchy like you. You come to decision through consensus and prayer rather than voting or somebody is officially the boss. It's, it's sort of like summer camp your whole life. Like when you get to share all your appliances or get to have to share all your appliances with your closest neighbors, you don't have quite as much to worry about except you got a lot more like community negotiation to do to make sure people are getting what they want when they want it.
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A
Well, what is it like for Ruth in particular in this community when she's growing up? She is very curious. She is kind of questioning. She has a lot of thoughts. She's trying to figure things out.
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B
It is in a lot of ways based on my experience in a community like that. And I, I'm a very inquisitive person, like often to my detriment, but like just wanting to know how things work, wanting to know what's going on outside and inside and not knowing whether that curiosity is itself kind of a bad thing. Like, should I just be content with the information I'm given? Because a lot of people seem really good with that. Like, that seems to satisfy a lot of people. And what's wrong with me that I want to know everything about everything? That was something that I felt constantly. I didn't grow up in a community like that. I had the information of having access to all sorts of Internet, but I wanted to like explore what it would be like if you didn't come from a place of total access but had that same drive to, like, see the world and know what people were thinking and know what the rules were in other places or why the rules were the rules. Like, all that stuff is so interesting to me.
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A
I hate to do this to an author because, you know, it's not that Ruth is you, but do you feel like. Is Ruth kind of your exploration of some of your own thoughts?
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B
Yeah. I mean, it's real weird to know that basically a slice of my brain is now being sold as fiction. Yeah. A lot of her interior life is based on my own and my own worries about being bad or worries about why do I feel different or why is something that seems so easy for other people, like, really tough for me? Like, all those things were based on my experience, but I definitely was not the only person struggling with any of those questions there.
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A
And so Ruth is inspired by an experience you had after dropping out of college. You joined a community like this. So what. What happened there? Like, how did you end up joining the community and how long did you stay and all of that?
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B
It was the kind of thing where I knew about this community. I met a few young people who lived there, and it was so intriguing to me.
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A
Why was it intriguing to you? Like, as a young person, you in college, you're like, look at those people over there. What made you go, that looks very interesting. I want to see what that's about?
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B
I was. So. I grew up in New York City and was exposed to everything in the whole world from basically day one. And I think it was that. I mean, I was preoccupied with being a good person. And I studied philosophy in college, and I did not find any answers or any that, like, seemed to track in real life. And so when I. When I left college, it was. Cause, like, I don't. I. This is not. I am not finding the answers that I'm looking for. And when I met. When I met the kids from this community, to see. To see people who seemed so sincerely kind and thoughtful and hardworking and in a way that wasn't. That I couldn't twist into. Well, they were just naive or they were just, like, deluded. Like, they were smart and engaged. And it was like the first time I'd seen a group of young people, specifically, who seemed to be able to both, like, talk and act on moral beliefs, but they just happened to exist in this weird, cloistered place that the only way to learn about it is to go there and do it. Like, I can't get this information remotely. I have to go and try it for myself. And it was terrifying. Like, I would go and visit for a weekend. I'd, like, go and stay in one of their communities. And just 48 hours of being there was, like, at once so impressive and overwhelming just to see that, like, a totally different way of life was available. Like, you could live in a world where, like, kids did not encounter cash or screens until they were 18 years old. If then that was not a part of your life. You know, life was built around the needs of the sort of oldest and youngest people. Like, just everything was done with so much thought, and I would be, like, overwhelmed with how great it was. But also, like, I am used to so much time alone. I'm such an introvert. Just the sort of. The change in being around people every single waking hour and being, like, available, like, having intense conversations for most of that time, or being, like, genuinely present rather than sort of, like, dissociatively, like, playing games on your phone was. It was just a huge mental load. And so I knew that, like, going there would be a lot more of that. I mean, like, a lot more of just, like, struggling to stay present and not burn out on the kind of attention and honesty that was demanded in every interaction. But I was like, if I don't at least try this, what a hypocrite will I be to, like, return to my life and, like, complain about capitalism and complain about, like, how nothing is designed with actual human needs? In my. Like, I knew that I would feel like just such a hypocrite if I. If I didn't try it. Seriously, knowing that it existed, knowing that I could go there and try it.
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A
So. So you tried it. How long were you there?
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B
I was there, all told, about a year of living in that community. And it was some of the happiest time of my life. Like, I. I met so many, like, just fully realized people. Like, I think a lot about how before I went, I was so nervous about how having to, like, give up things that seemed so essential to my sense of myself, because I did feel like who I am is really just, like, a list of the things that I've consumed and, like, the choices I make about how I look and to go there and realize that I couldn't make a reference to the office or some book that I thought was funny or, like, none of that had any currency. You don't. Everybody wears the same thing. You don't use computers most of the time. The music that you hear is like, the songs that you are singing together that all those things that had seemed so essential to my sense of self were just, like. Like accessories. But that I was the person. That I was the person that anybody is. Is way deeper than the shows and bands that they list on their. Whatever, like, Facebook profile. I feel like my teenage years, especially, were defined by this feeling of just being, like, optimistically obsessed with things with, like, people or. Or, like, you know, bands or, like, looking a certain way. And it is a real fun way to, like, drag yourself through time is, like, to keep looking to, like, this new person who might have all the answers or this new version of yourself that's going to be really cool and confident. But having. Having just done that over and over, like, you're always still stuck in you. I'm just, like, trying to learn that, like, as briefly exciting as new things can be, that it's. It's probably going to be more of the same. So, like, maybe learn to. Learn to be okay with where you are and who you're with and sort of your immediate surroundings, rather than hoping that the change is going to come from, like, some external novelty, that it will be internal.
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A
I mean, there is a truth. There is a. I mean, what, like, I know the eternal truth, but this is, you know, I do believe I should say is that, like, yes, there is a cost to going after what you want. There's a cost to saying, well, I got this right here, and I'm gonna stay right here and hold onto it. But a lot of people, if they just stay right there and hold onto that thing, that's. That's stable, they become resentful.
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B
Yeah. Yeah.
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A
That's the cost. Right? Cause you. Like, I could have went over there, and sometimes there's a gift to go. And I went over there and shot after that thing that was wild, and it blew up in my face. But I did what I wanted to do, you know, because you can have peace with that, too. You could be like, I did it. It was what I wanted. It didn't work out, but I did it. And so I appreciate that. I did what I wanted to do.
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B
Absolutely.
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A
But it does seem like with Ruth in that community, it seems like she really struggles with her life, right. Because she is an individual in this communal place. She's still having trouble with her identity.
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B
I think, because in the world that she lives in, in that community, nothing that you can do in that world is valuable beyond its ability to communicate love for the people around you. Like, there's just no point in doing something that isn't going to. It's some way, like, take Care of your family and your community. And so I think she would, like, somebody in that position would have very little in the way of, like, role models of people who did something that was truly like what would qualify as like a passion project or like a selfish. Like, this is my symphony that I needed to, you know, hole up for a year to write, or this is my novel that I like was, you know, I couldn't do a normal job because I had to work on my novel. Like, that. Those kind of pursuits there aren't really. Maybe that's like the real downfall of a community like that is you can't do something truly selfish, even if it's gonna yield long term. Something like art.
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A
Ruth doesn't seem all that happy for much of her life. Does that matter? The personal happiness of Ruth?
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B
I mean, aside from the time when I lived in that community, I have basically been told from. From all sides, like, do what makes you happy. Like that. That. That is the, like, resounding message that I've grown up with is like, your happiness is of prime importance, and whatever you need to do to find it is, like, the right thing to do. So I don't. I don't think that, like, living in community is an absolute answer to happiness at all. I think there's gotta be some, like, healthy middle ground. But I know that coming from the other version of the world where all that matters is your personal fulfillment and your sense of yourself and your self realization as it appears on social media like that is also a way to get lost in a hall of mirrors and be really unhappy in that way. I mean, I think something that I heard when I was living there, something that I heard from, like, lifetime members, something that I saw and something I absolutely believe is like, no particular lifestyle is ever gonna spare you the basic difficulty of being a human being. Like, nothing like that, of existing, because.
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A
It is hard to exist.
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B
There's nowhere you're gonna find that where you don't. Like, as long as you love things in the world, you are gonna be hurt in the world. And that doesn't. Yeah, I don't think there's a place you could find where that's not the case. You know, like, no marriage is easy. No relationship with your children is 100% good, no matter where you are. And there are definitely systems that I think make it more humane or more fair. But I think a lot of the things that that character and I struggle with are things that would be struggles as long as you are conscious. I mean, yeah, that's about having a brain rather than where that brain happens to.
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A
I don't think it's about the community. That in and of itself is not the struggle. Your life can be your life. And this book is not arguing that being in the community, your life is somehow diminished because you don't have the absolute freedom.
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B
Yeah. I absolutely believe that, like whatever problems people see in a community like the one I described or like when they imagine a place where everybody dresses the same and has. Doesn't get to like date the way that modern dating works or choose the job that they necessarily want. Like, I think that if, if those things distress you in fiction, like, just look at the ways that those exist. Like, I think that the idea that we've got it figured out in regular life and that like our versions of like freedom and romance and family and like work and work fulfillment. Yeah. That we, that we, we're really kill. We're knocking it out.
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A
Yeah. Now that you say it, now that you bring it up, there may be something to this where you say that community was. I mean, no, but that's a very different way of looking at things. I gotta ask you, on the book jacket under your author photo, it says this is your last book.
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B
Why I gotta set the bar real low. Aisha. I gotta. It is so nerve wracking to me that anyone would expect more. So if I do, if I manage to achieve anything after this, it will be a nice surprise.
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A
Okay. Okay. That's a way to look at it. Kate Riley, author of Ruth her first and maybe Not Her Last book. Thank you so much for joining us.
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B
Thank you so much, Aisha.
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This episode of the Sunday Story was produced by Justine Yan and edited by Jenny Schmidt. It was engineered by Kwesi Lee. The original interview was produced by Samantha Balaban and edited by Melissa Gray. The Sunday Story team also includes Andrew Mambo and Liana Simstrom. Our executive producer is Irene Noguchi. I'm Ayesha Rascoe. Up first. We will be back tomorrow with all the news you need to start your week. Until then, have a great rest of your weekend.
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