On Being with Krista Tippett

Milton's Paradise Lost was among the four books Charles Darwin took along on HMS Beagle, Eurasum Versus.

Let us make now man in our image, man in our similitude, and let them rule over the fish and foul of sea and air, beast of the field at over all the earth, and every creeping thing that creeps the ground.

This said he formed the Adam, the Oman dust of the ground and in thy nostrils breathed the breath of life. In his own image he created thee, in the image of God expressed, and thou becamest a living soul.

Milton's Paradise Lost was among the four books Charles Darwin took along on HMS Beagle, Eurasum Versus.

the book in many ways is about rape and sexual coercion and which was while I was writing it, what I knew I was supposed to be doing.

And now that the book is coming out, there's not going to be any way for me to run from it when it's time to read those poems in front of people.

the book in progress we talked about in this show, The Tradition.

But the, the, the book in many ways is about rape and, and sexual coercion.

So now I'm in that stage as the book is, we're sort of in galleys and, you know, doing the work we need to do to get the book bound.

love is the motive, but justice is the instrument

we are all implicated when we allow other people to be mistreated. An absence of compassion can corrupt the decency of a community, a state, a nation. Fear and anger can make us vindictive and abusive, unjust and unfair until we all suffer from the absence of mercy. And we condemn ourselves as much as we victimize others.

we all need justice. ...we all need mercy. We all need justice. And perhaps we all need some measure of unmerited grace.

I was very intrigued when I went back to the room. When I went back to Just Mercy, getting ready to speak with you that I had forgotten that you have, you quote Reinhold Niebuhr at the beginning of the book, the public theologian of the last century saying, love is the motive, but justice is the instrument.

And I'm pretty sure this is from Just Mercy, which gets at this, the life-giving possibility in us picking this up.

You said, we are all implicated when we allow other people to be mistreated. An absence of compassion can corrupt the decency of a community, a state, a nation. Fear and anger can make us vindictive and abusive, unjust and unfair until we all suffer from the absence of mercy. And we condemn ourselves as much as we victimize others.

I don't do book interviews, so we're not doing a book interview, but to me, you know, so much of what you've always written about, you know, it comes together in here in amazing ways. Thank you.

the vagina monalox is out there and I just want to touch on that.

So that's really it's not about the book, but it is about this whole experience and wisdom that floating to this book.

I just think, and one of my favorite books, um, ever is The Fire Next Time by James Baldwin, which is a painful, painful analysis of what's going on in America in the 1960s. But then he ends this book with these two pages that are, that he actually got criticized. They called him Pollyannish. That because he ended this book with these profound callings to the, I always say America, we have common pain, but we often lose a sense of common purpose.

This is Halloween, everybody make a scene, trick or treat. Tell your neighbors, come and die, I'm Mr. Troll. Everybody scream, Mr. Old Hollow. I am the one hiding under your bed.

What's this? What's this? What's this? Spillers everywhere. What's this? There's bright things in the air.

Christmas time is buzzing in my skull. Will it let me be? I cannot tell.

There's so many things I cannot grasp. First I think I've got it and then it lasts. Through my bony fingers it does slip. Like a snowflake in a fiery grip.

This is Halloween, everybody make a scene, trick or treat. Tell your neighbors, come and die, I'm Mr. Troll. Everybody scream, Mr. Old Hollow. I am the one hiding under your bed.

What's this? What's this? What's this? Spillers everywhere. What's this? There's bright things in the air.

Christmas time is buzzing in my skull. Will it let me be? I cannot tell.

In a few breathtaking months, we've culturally moved from seeing Wall Street as an icon of thriving civil society to inaladizing its workings with book titles like House of cards and Animal Spirits.

In a few breathtaking months, we've culturally moved from seeing Wall Street as an icon of thriving civil society to inaladizing its workings with book titles like House of cards and Animal Spirits.

I came across a book and I don't even know how, I don't know where it came from. It was Jonathan Livingston Seagull actually.

I came across a book and I don't even know how, I don't know where it came from. It was Jonathan Livingston Seagull actually.

And you know, as short little book and kind of a metaphor and it almost, when you start reading the story of this sequel it almost, there are similarities to the Christian faith.

but then it turns into something quite different and turns into this description of this passion for knowledge and discovery and evolution, you know, trying to evolve into something and trying to find meaning and celebrating the joy of that and then also at the same time observing that we're all equal, that we're all the same and sharing this common human experience and yet there are mysteries and wonders and things to be discovered and it really opened my mind a lot and got me thinking and increased the feelings of dissatisfaction I think I was experiencing with a traditional church.

Yes, and I've also done a very free version of Psalms called A Book of Psalms.

Yes, and I've also done a very free version of Psalms called A Book of Psalms.

The House on Mango Street by the Mexican-American writer Sandra Cisneros has been taught in high schools across the U.S. for decades.

I love how she strikingly fiercely has given voice to the choice to be single, and single or not, to know solitude as sacred.

This one is a favorite of many of the first generation Latinx young people who are in our audience for this conversation at our studio in Minneapolis.

In my case, I couldn't tell anyone about it because of the six brothers and I wanted to protect this dream, not have it savaged.

House on Mongo Street taught me that and I share it with everyone. It's true.

Well what happened when I was in sixth grade? We moved and I like to tell the story of how lucky we were that we had a tremendous winter in 1966, must have been about then. And the pipes in our house froze just like the characters in The House on Mango Street.

But unlike the characters in The House on Mango Street, we were delighted by our new house. We were so thrilled that we got to go to another house where you could turn on the faucets and water came out. You could flush away the waste. It was just great improvement over our last place.

Well, I think young girls especially want to look sexy, but they don't realize what that brings. And the discomfort and the danger and the lack of being seen for who you are. It's a lot of trouble.

But when I was writing it, I was the young woman in her 20s searching for her politics and her direction in life. So I was looking for my feminism and using Esperanza to assist me. But now I'm reworking it in a deeper level.

House on Mongo Street taught me that. And I share it with everyone. It's true. Some people do it with their students, some people with their children. But I wrote House when I was in a moment of powerlessness.

When I started writing for The New Yorker and then wrote my first book, Complications, during my surgical residency, he wrote the review in the New York Review of Books and then reached out to me.

His books include Into the Beautiful North, The Devil's Highway, The Hummingbird's Daughter, and a 2023 novel, Goodnight Irene, inspired by his mother's service in the Red Cross.

In the early 2000s, Luis Alberto Urrea ventured into nonfiction reportage, training a journalist's eye on the Mexican-American border for his book The Devil's Highway.

His many books include Into the Beautiful North, The Devil's Highway, The Hummingbird's Daughter, and Goodnight Irene.

I started working on it in 2001. They died in May, and I started working in August. But it came out in 2004.

But one of the things you've said is that when you set out to write it, you were just, where was it?

You said you were tired of, can't think, you were tired of people just demonizing, not seeing these people as humans.

But one of the things that you also ended up seeing is the humanity of the Border Patrol.

I didn't mean to. You didn't mean to. But that's a huge, huge piece of the story, and it's in Agent Arnie Davis and Into the Beautiful North, right? Yes.

His books include Into the Beautiful North, The Devil's Highway, The Hummingbird's Daughter, and a 2023 novel, Goodnight Irene, inspired by his mother's service in the Red Cross.

His historical novel, The Hummingbird's Daughter, is based on the story of his father's Aunt Teresa.

My great-grandmother. Known as the Mexican Joan of Arc, a Mexican mystic folk healer and revolutionary insurgent.

You brought up Hummingbird's Daughter. Just imagine 20 years studying with shamans and medicine people to write that book. So I've become, you know, I used to work with Baptist missionaries. They're not sure what kind of beast I am now.

His many books include Into the Beautiful North, The Devil's Highway, The Hummingbird's Daughter, and Goodnight Irene.

His historical novel, The Hummingbird's Daughter, is based on the story of his father's Aunt Teresa. Is that correct? That's the book?

Just imagine 20 years studying with shamans and medicine people to write that book.

But I find the sacred in almost everything.

So when I started researching the region my family's from, originally it's a village named Urea.

And when the immigration issue caught up with me after a couple of books and I was talking about it, you know, and people would be really offended and upset with me.

There's a great Mexican-American novelist named Rudolfo Anaya. A lot of people don't know him.

He wrote kind of a classic novel called Bless Me Ultima, which was when I was growing up the book about Mexican healer women.

And I owe a lot to that book for figuring out how to do Hummingbird's Daughter.

But when I was a kid, he told me this amazing thing. He said if you, in your writing, can make your Tijuana grandmother the grandmother of a reader in Iowa or Nebraska, he said you have committed the strongest religious and political act in the world.

There's a great Mexican American novelist named Rudolfo Anaya. A lot of people don't know him, but he wrote a kind of a classic novel called Bless Me Ultima, which was when I was growing up the book about Mexican healer women.

And I owe a lot to that book for figuring out how to do Hummingbird's Daughter.

But when I was a kid, he told me this amazing thing. He said, if you in your writing can make your Tijuana grandmother, the grandmother of a reader in Iowa or Nebraska, he said you have committed the strongest religious and political act in the world.

His books include Into the Beautiful North, The Devil's Highway, The Hummingbird's Daughter, and a 2023 novel, Goodnight Irene, inspired by his mother's service in the Red Cross.

His many books include Into the Beautiful North, The Devil's Highway, The Hummingbird's Daughter, and Goodnight Irene.