How Screenwriting Saved Novelist Richard Price AI transcript and summary - episode of podcast Fresh Air

Go to PodExtra AI's episode page (How Screenwriting Saved Novelist Richard Price) to play and view complete AI-processed content: summary, mindmap, topics, takeaways, transcript, keywords and highlights.

Go to PodExtra AI's podcast page (Fresh Air) to view the AI-processed content of all episodes of this podcast.

Fresh Air episodes list: view full AI transcripts and summaries of this podcast on the blog

Episode: How Screenwriting Saved Novelist Richard Price

Author: NPR
Duration: 00:45:13

Episode Shownotes

In Richard Price's new novel, Lazarus Man, a five-story building collapses, upending the lives of the building's residents. It's about second chances and finding the faith to carry on. Price has written for HBO's The Wire and The Deuce, and co-created HBO's The Night Of and The Outsider. Several of

his novels, including Clockers, were adapted into films. He spoke with Terry Gross. Also, Maureen Corrigan shares two books that offer humor and beauty: Billy Collins' collection of poetry Water, Water, and The Dog Who Followed The Moon by James Norbury.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Summary

In this episode of Fresh Air, Richard Price discusses his new novel, "Lazarus Man," set in Harlem and centered around the collapse of a building, echoing themes of resilience and second chances. He reflects on writing during COVID, the challenges of gathering stories, and the importance of gratitude in experiences of trauma. Price also explores complex racial portrayals in his characters and emphasizes the significance of community and personal connection in conflict resolution. Furthermore, he shares how screenwriting revitalized his creativity, influenced his writing style, and contributed to his personal transformation and sobriety.

Go to PodExtra AI's episode page (How Screenwriting Saved Novelist Richard Price) to play and view complete AI-processed content: summary, mindmap, topics, takeaways, transcript, keywords and highlights.

Full Transcript

00:00:00 Speaker_02
Support for the following message come from LinkedIn ads. With LinkedIn ads, you can reach professionals relevant to your business.

00:00:07 Speaker_02
Target them by job title, industry, company, and more by launching your next campaign with a free $100 ad credit at linkedin.com slash results. Terms and conditions apply.

00:00:18 Speaker_03
This is Fresh Air. I'm Terry Gross. I always look forward to a new Richard Price novel, and after nearly 10 years of waiting, he has a new one called Lazarus Man.

00:00:28 Speaker_03
During those 10 years, he co-created and wrote for the HBO series The Night Of and The Outsider, and wrote for the HBO series The Deuce. Before that, he wrote for The Wire, one of the best TV series ever.

00:00:40 Speaker_03
Several of his earlier novels were adapted into films, including Clockers, Freedomland, and The Wanderers. He also wrote the screenplay for the film Al Pacino considers his comeback film, Sea of Love.

00:00:52 Speaker_03
Price is considered one of the best writers of urban fiction and one of the best writers of dialogue, and I think that's true of his new novel, which is set in Harlem, where Price has lived since 2008, the same year that the novel is set.

00:01:05 Speaker_03
The story revolves around the collapse of a five-story building whose impact is like a very small-scale 9-11. It's devastating for the people in the neighborhood, including the survivors and the people grieving for loved ones who've died.

00:01:19 Speaker_03
The collapse changes the lives of each of the main characters, including a young street photographer, a police community affairs officer, a funeral director who can't keep up with the quota of bodies he needs to stay in business,

00:01:31 Speaker_03
and a 42-year-old man who has been feeling like he's lost everything and has little to live for and is found buried in the rubble. It's remarkable that he's still alive, which is why the novel's called Lazarus Man.

00:01:44 Speaker_03
Reviewing the novel in the Washington Post, Ron Charles wrote, for a nation riven and terrified, Lazarus Man is the strangest of urban thrillers, a thoughtful, even peaceful story about stumbling into new life.

00:01:58 Speaker_03
Richard Price, welcome back to Fresh Air. Because I love your writing, I want to start with a reading from the very beginning of the book.

00:02:06 Speaker_05
All righty.

00:02:08 Speaker_05
It was one of those nights for Anthony Carter, 42, two years unemployed, two years separated from his wife and stepdaughter, six months into cocaine sobriety, and recently moved into his late parents' apartment on Frederick Douglass Boulevard.

00:02:23 Speaker_05
Went to be alone with his thoughts, alone with his losses. was not survivable.

00:02:28 Speaker_05
So he did what he always did, hit the streets, meaning hit the bars on Lenox, one after the other, finding this one too ghetto, that one too Scandinavian tourist, this one too loud, that one too quiet, on and on, taking just a few sips of his drink in each one, dropping dollars and heading out for the next establishment, like an 80-proof Goldilocks.

00:02:49 Speaker_05
thinking maybe this next place, this next random conversation would be the trigger for some kind of epiphany that would show him a new way to be. But it was all part of a routine that never led him anywhere but back to the apartment. This he knew.

00:03:03 Speaker_05
This he had learned over and over. But maybe this time is a drug. You never know is a drug. So out the door he went.

00:03:14 Speaker_03
When we spoke in 1986 after your novel, The Breaks, you said something that reminds me of something that you wrote in the paragraph that you read, this whole kind of like maybe this time, that the whole idea of maybe this time can be a drug.

00:03:29 Speaker_03
You were talking about your feeling of discontent when you were younger and feeling like You're over here, but it's over there. And the minute you're over there, it's over here.

00:03:41 Speaker_03
This feeling of restlessness and discontent and maybe wanting to be someone else.

00:03:46 Speaker_05
Well, you know, it's just some people have like this constant state of low-key agitation that the thing, the very thing that's going to make you whole is like one micro dot outside your fingertips.

00:04:02 Speaker_05
And then you can't find it at all and repeat if necessary. It was a level of dissatisfaction, I felt. But I don't feel that anymore. I grew out of it. And now I'm kind of, I wouldn't say chill. I'll never be chill.

00:04:19 Speaker_05
But at least I'm more relaxed and settled than I've ever been.

00:04:26 Speaker_03
You wrote this novel during the COVID shutdown, at least part of it during the COVID shutdown. And I'm wondering if you were feeling more vulnerable at that time.

00:04:34 Speaker_03
I mean, you live in Manhattan, which was a city that had, like, trucks that had been turned into morgues. Were you thinking a lot about mortality and the unpredictability of life?

00:04:49 Speaker_05
Well, everybody was, you know, the first wave. But on a writing Level, what happened to me is I love to go out on the street, talk to people. It's a lot more fun than writing. And I couldn't do that. I couldn't get fed. And it's called fiction.

00:05:07 Speaker_05
You know, you make things up. But I'm so addicted to that type of interaction in the service of a novel. You know, just because it happened doesn't make it art. But the trick is to go home and make it art. And I couldn't go out for years.

00:05:22 Speaker_05
I mean, I could, but not to, like, beat people. Hi, how you doing? What's your name? Shake my hand. And that sort of messed me up.

00:05:30 Speaker_03
So you go out and talk to strangers?

00:05:33 Speaker_05
Just being on the street, just the random things that you overhear, or the conversations you get into, because so many people, Harlem is like a little different than the rest of New York in terms of people make eye contact, people nod, even if they don't know you.

00:05:51 Speaker_05
If you say something, they're gonna say something back. And next thing you know, you're standing there on a corner and you're talking. And I've never met a person who hasn't come up at least with one thunderbolt of offhand observation or commentary.

00:06:09 Speaker_03
You know, the book is called Lazarus Man. I'm wondering what the role of religion was in your life growing up.

00:06:18 Speaker_05
I knew not to curse on Yom Kippur, so God wouldn't put me in the book of death.

00:06:23 Speaker_03
Did you fast?

00:06:24 Speaker_05
I don't know, I went to Hebrew school until I was bar mitzvahed and then after that my relationship with being Jewish was pretty much, the only time I really felt Jewish is, besides Sandy Koufax not pitching, is when there was an anti-Semitic moment, an incident.

00:06:45 Speaker_05
Then I felt very, you know, tight with my religion. Other than that, I was pretty much a humanist. I didn't raise my children to be... I made a deal with my wife, I won't circumcise them if you don't christen them.

00:07:02 Speaker_05
I mean, it was sort of like a humanistic relationship.

00:07:06 Speaker_03
Did you both keep that deal?

00:07:07 Speaker_05
Yeah, I think. How would I know? Oh, I'm taking the kids out for a walk. I'll be back. Why are they all dressed up in white? Oh, it's a nice day. White looks good in April. Who knows? But I imagine that we kept to that. Yes.

00:07:25 Speaker_03
Your character of Anthony says this later, when things go good, we say, God is good. But when things go south, that's apparently on us. Do you find a lot of truth in that?

00:07:36 Speaker_05
It was just my feeling. And but it's a very complicated thing that he's setting up here, which is to say, you know, it'd be easiest for me if I could find in the book what he says.

00:07:50 Speaker_03
Sure. Yeah. No, absolutely.

00:07:53 Speaker_05
Yeah, he's a little bit of a celebrity because he is the Lazarus man. He has survived 36 hours in the rubble when no one detected any kind of sign of life and yet he was miraculously found.

00:08:11 Speaker_05
This is what he's saying to people to give them hope, you know, at this funeral for a young kid who was shot trying to get in between two gangs to calm people down.

00:08:27 Speaker_05
As I said before, I never been a deeply religious individual, and I still don't consider myself one, but I feel guided now.

00:08:36 Speaker_05
And my purpose in being here today is to deliver to you a message that just might make it possible to accept your aching hearts and continue to live the life that he has given you.

00:08:49 Speaker_05
For a brief moment he stood there speechless, amazed at what he was about to say.

00:08:55 Speaker_05
What I have learned since that day in the rubble is that whatever befalls you in life, whatever appears to you as an impossible burden, an unbearable weight, in the end, if you persevere, if you hold fast, will turn out to be a gift.

00:09:12 Speaker_05
Whatever befalls you, no matter how heartbreaking or onerous, will turn out to be the best thing, the perfect thing, because of what is to come out of it. In fact, it will be the best thing that could possibly happen to you.

00:09:30 Speaker_03
There is a fair amount of gratitude in the novel. And I think, you know, gratitude and a gratitude practice has sometimes come to seem like a cliche.

00:09:41 Speaker_03
On the other hand, gratitude is a really important thing to have in your life and to be able to find gratitude in life. And I'm wondering for you as a writer, how do you take something that could be a cliche and turn it into something that's not?

00:09:57 Speaker_05
When I read my reviews and they say what has resonated with them, they'll use words like gratitude. But I wasn't thinking, oh, I'm going to really use gratitude as a theme. I mean, the guy just survived.

00:10:13 Speaker_05
a miraculous thing, and you got to be grateful for that. And in that gratefulness, you see how precious life is because you almost were not here anymore. And if you're inspired, you want to spread that message, the getting of grace.

00:10:32 Speaker_05
He just says at some point, every minute of every day, everything is precious. When I was pulled out of that rubble and I could take my first undirt-caked breath, all I wanted to do was to live and live and live.

00:10:53 Speaker_05
It just happened to me in a way, very low-key. I feel like I am the person I was when I talked to you the last time, but I'm not the person I was when I talked to you the last time. And I'm not religious, believe me. It's happiness.

00:11:12 Speaker_05
I just somehow discovered peace. in my life. Like, my earlier books, there was always this propelling anxiety in me that I have to make it, like, dazzling and spectacular and blow people away. And it was very high-pitched in me and not healthy.

00:11:32 Speaker_05
But I've settled down, you know. My heart has lowered the volume and deepened the bass, it feels like. And so I read a book like this, where

00:11:43 Speaker_05
You know, other than this calamitous event of a five-story tenement pancaking on itself, everything else is people's lives with that in the background of their experience on that day. That's all I need now.

00:11:58 Speaker_03
I want to talk with you a little bit about race, writing about race and race in this novel. Anthony, the character who was found under the rubble after the five-story building collapsed, he's biracial. His white father was kind of a race man.

00:12:16 Speaker_03
He taught African-American history. And you're right, what his father could never understand was how all of his righteous defiance in the end had cost him nothing. because he could come and go in his angry white skin as he pleased.

00:12:29 Speaker_03
Despite marrying a black woman and having mixed-race kids, there was no such thing as an honorary brother, no matter how many times you raised your fist in solidarity, or how many prison writing workshops you conducted, or how many times you got up in some cop's face.

00:12:45 Speaker_03
And I'm wondering, like, when you write about biracial or black characters or Latino characters, as you've done, like, throughout your career, have you faced any pushback by people saying you're appropriating other people's stories and you have no right to tell them?

00:13:03 Speaker_05
No, I haven't. But even with Clockers, which I wrote in 1990, 89, 91, I was really aware of the whole notion of cultural piracy and, like, how dare I write about someone who, quote, unquote, you have no idea what it's like to be me.

00:13:26 Speaker_05
And my responsibility is to create a character that is as fully three-dimensional as I can make that character.

00:13:38 Speaker_05
And in terms of racial sensitivity, well, listen, if you're writing to the stereotype of a person of that race, then you deserve to be pilloried.

00:13:51 Speaker_03
You've always, to my knowledge, lived in multi-ethnic, multi-racial communities, including when you were growing up in the projects in the Bronx.

00:13:58 Speaker_05
I did, yeah.

00:14:00 Speaker_03
So that must be helpful in writing.

00:14:02 Speaker_05
No, you know, I said that to somebody. Well, somebody, when I was writing Clockers, and somebody said, well, how can you write about African-Americans when you're not African-American yourself? And when I said,

00:14:19 Speaker_05
Well, I grew up in a housing project that was very mixed, schools that were very mixed. She said, you sound like a Southerner who's saying, I was very close to those people, trying to say, I know those people. And that struck me.

00:14:36 Speaker_05
I mean, the fact that you grow up with somebody, just because it happened, like I said, doesn't make it art. Just because someone exists, doesn't make them an artist. And it just all comes back to, just do the best you can. Do the best you can.

00:14:52 Speaker_05
You're not just hatched from an egg. Make everybody equally human, and then let it go.

00:15:02 Speaker_03
One of the characters founded a group called Put the Guns Down. This is like an anti-youth violence group. And also founded a youth mentorship program, Young Scholars for the Future.

00:15:13 Speaker_03
And these are all former gang members, many of them who'd been in prison, who now want to be of service to young people and kind of convince them they don't want that life.

00:15:25 Speaker_03
So, you know, one day in the park, they're there and giving, you know, inspirational speeches from former gang members. And I just want to quote a little bit of it. Sure.

00:15:36 Speaker_03
So the founder of the group says, in terms of, you know, mentoring young people will become their surrogate fathers because that's what they need.

00:15:45 Speaker_03
Because in my experience, and no disrespect to you ladies, but in my experience, it takes a man to raise a man. I'm not leaving out the young girls.

00:15:53 Speaker_03
We also have females in our organization who will work directly with the young girls to teach them mannerisms, etiquette, and how to be classy young ladies.

00:16:03 Speaker_03
You know, I have such respect for the people who, this is me talking, no longer quoting the book, I have such respect for people who do this kind of work, but there was this inherent sexism. Sure.

00:16:13 Speaker_05
I mean, that's the whole point. That's one of the points.

00:16:16 Speaker_03
Yeah. So talk about that a little bit.

00:16:18 Speaker_05
Well, you know, people can be for social justice. people could, you know, put their lives on the line. They could put in the hours to save, you know, youth from going down the wrong path. But that doesn't mean they're saints.

00:16:34 Speaker_05
That doesn't mean they get the whole picture. They could still be sexist. They can still be man comes first. women and the priorities of the disguise. He imagines these women, but he's like a woman in the 1950s, let alone the 1250s.

00:16:54 Speaker_05
He's saying it in goodwill, but he's revealing where his enlightenment comes to a dead stop.

00:17:03 Speaker_03
Also, I know you love malaprops, like words used inappropriately. And this character says that we'll work directly with the young girls to teach them mannerisms, etiquette, and how to be classy young ladies.

00:17:16 Speaker_03
I think he means manners, but he's saying mannerisms.

00:17:18 Speaker_05
See, but this is the thing, you know. I mean, that's the importance of dialogue to me. People say stuff, and it's like a fingerprint for that character. And you got to hear it. I mean, to correct it would be to kill it.

00:17:34 Speaker_05
I mean, this is the way people speak. This is the way people think. And that's gold, because it tells you so much more than the information that's coming out of their mouth.

00:17:50 Speaker_03
This is just a small thing from the book that I just wanted to ask you. I'll read the sentence.

00:17:55 Speaker_03
The good thing about hooking up in a chain hotel as opposed to a one-off was that once you got over the sterile layout of the appointments, you weren't as preoccupied with catching something that would permanently alter your biology.

00:18:09 Speaker_03
I have often wondered in hotels, how many people have had affairs? How many people have had sex on this blanket that may or may not have been washed since? Or the bedspread that may or may not have been washed since?

00:18:21 Speaker_03
Do you wonder about that when you're in hotels?

00:18:25 Speaker_05
Not if I can help it. I mean, I don't go to like, you know, hot sheet motels. But what you don't know probably would stun you and horrify you. I mean, the character in the book, it's an affair Mary, the detective, is having with another detective.

00:18:46 Speaker_05
And they go to cheap motels before they went to change. This guy gets a ultralight, I forgot what it's called, luminol, it's something casts a blue light that brings out things that you can't see with the naked eye.

00:19:07 Speaker_05
And they usually use it at crime scenes, you know, to pick up blood patterns or, you know, body fluids or God knows what. And the first time he brought it to, their motel and put it on the bedroom. It was like a psychedelic circus.

00:19:29 Speaker_05
And that's when they, you know, it's just God knows who's been here doing what. And, you know, there's stuff here, you know, that could kill a horse that you can't see. And that's why they went to chain hotels. But who knows if they're any better.

00:19:44 Speaker_03
Let's take another break here and then we'll talk some more. If you're just joining us, my guest is Richard Price. His new novel is called Lazarus Man. We'll be right back after a short break. I'm Terry Gross and this is Fresh Air.

00:20:14 Speaker_02
This message comes from Apple Card. Apple Card is the perfect card for your holiday shopping. You can apply on your iPhone in minutes and start using it right away.

00:20:22 Speaker_02
You'll earn up to 3% daily cash back on every purchase, including products at Apple like a new iPhone 16 or Apple Watch Ultra. Start holiday shopping for your friends and family today with Apple Card.

00:20:34 Speaker_02
Subject to credit approval, Apple Card issued by Goldman Sachs Bank USA, Salt Lake City branch. Terms and more at applecard.com. This message comes from NPR sponsor Merrill. Whatever your financial goals are, you want a straightforward path there.

00:20:48 Speaker_02
But the real world doesn't usually work that way. Merrill understands that. That's why, with a dedicated Merrill advisor, you get a personalized plan and a clear path forward. Go to ml.com slash bullish to learn more. Merrill, a Bank of America company.

00:21:02 Speaker_02
What would you like the power to do? Investing involves risk. Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner and Smith Incorporated, registered broker dealer, registered investment advisor, member SIPC.

00:21:12 Speaker_02
This message comes from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, recognizing extraordinarily creative individuals with a track record of excellence. More information on this year's MacArthur Fellows is at Macfound.org.

00:21:26 Speaker_03
This is Fresh Air. I'm Terry Gross. Let's get back to my interview with Richard Price.

00:21:30 Speaker_03
His new novel, Lazarus Man, is set in Harlem, where he lives, and follows the lives of several people whose lives are changed after the collapse of a five-story building, including one man who was found in the rubble.

00:21:42 Speaker_03
Price is the author of several novels that have been adapted into movies, including Clockers, Freedomland, and The Wanderers.

00:21:49 Speaker_03
He co-created and wrote for the HBO series The Night Of and The Outsider, and wrote for the HBO series The Wire and The Deuce. There's a story in your book that I really love. It's the woman who's a postal worker and her son was shot in the calf.

00:22:07 Speaker_03
He wasn't the target, but he was collateral damage. And she's sure of who did it. And he's a really large guy.

00:22:15 Speaker_03
And she goes up to him with her son and says, I have no idea who did this to him, but if you know, can you tell him that my son's a really decent kid? And he runs with some troublemakers, but he's a really good kid.

00:22:29 Speaker_05
Yes, yeah. I mean, basically, when the kids are in the hospital, he just had a graze wound, and the detectives, he won't talk because he knows better. And the detectives turned to her, and she says, Mommy, can you do your mommy thing, get him to talk?

00:22:45 Speaker_05
And she does, and she says, I'll take care of this myself. And her strategy, which is great, I think, right up to the guy who shot him, and just introduce yourself, have your son there, and talk to him indirectly.

00:23:02 Speaker_05
If you see, if you happen to know who did this, can you communicate to that person? You know, just unmanned him. And then make sure you give him your name, your son's name, and you have his name. Just so it all becomes personalized.

00:23:24 Speaker_05
I mean, the cops say the best way of community policing is know the people that you're on the block. Know their names, let them know your name. And it's much harder to pop off when somebody has a name that you know.

00:23:39 Speaker_03
And so she introduces herself, she tells him what floor she lives on, and she says, look, now we know each other, if we pass each other, we should say hello and talk to each other.

00:23:48 Speaker_05
And she sort of makes him shake her hand. And I mean, that's brilliant.

00:23:54 Speaker_03
I think so too. I so admire people who have that ability to, instead of confronting somebody in anger, just kind of disarm them with humanity.

00:24:03 Speaker_05
You have to have that confidence. And you have to have grown out of, being a five-year-old in a 40-year-old body, emotionally. You have to not be a victim of arrested development. So you have your wits about you. You don't fly off the handle.

00:24:22 Speaker_05
You look at this and say, how am I going to peel this onion? And there are people who do that. There are other people who shoot you in the back because you wrote a drill rap lyric that's offensive to them. And it's worth getting killed over.

00:24:43 Speaker_05
It's a whole world out there, you know?

00:24:46 Speaker_03
So there's a con in your book. And I'm wondering, what are some of the most interesting street cons you've come across in your life?

00:24:54 Speaker_05
Well, that's, you know, you know,

00:25:02 Speaker_05
I'll tell you one, it's like you're walking in the street, and these couple of guys are walking the other way, and all of a sudden, it seems they went out of their way to bump into you, and all of a sudden, you see a paper bag, and it's dropped.

00:25:17 Speaker_05
It says, hey, man, you know, you made me drop this, and it turns out, what is, it's a bottle of vodka, and you broke it, and, you know, they try to get you to pay them, And you can't, when it's a novelty, you can't think straight, so you believe it.

00:25:37 Speaker_05
And I said to the guy, well, what brand of vodka was it? Of course, the guy has to come back and say Grey Goose, you know, so here's 40 bucks. And I just felt like, and the minute I paid him off, I just felt like smacking myself in the forehead.

00:25:52 Speaker_05
You know what I mean? That was, you know, you have this delayed reaction to the con. But the second time somebody tried to pull that off on me, he turned to me and I just said, listen, man, somebody just pulled this on me two weeks ago.

00:26:11 Speaker_05
And the guy just smiled and he said, all right, I get it. You know, like I tried, you know, but it was kind of like cool about it. And I said, well, hell, here's five bucks just for, you know, you're just trying to make ends meet.

00:26:26 Speaker_05
And next to me was three young women, and this is up in Harlem, and it was so furious that I gave him money. He said, he's trying to rob you. Why'd you give him that money for? And then it's like, it's another type of shock.

00:26:46 Speaker_05
People in that area, you don't toss around money to somebody who, you don't know and is actually trying to do something. And it was more of an education for me, their reaction.

00:27:00 Speaker_03
Let's take a short break here, and then we'll talk some more. If you're just joining us, my guest is Richard Price. His new novel is called Lazarus Man. We'll be right back. This is Fresh Air.

00:27:10 Speaker_00
This message comes from NPR sponsor, Viore. Jump into a new perspective on performance apparel. Viore makes products that stand the test of time and hope to inspire others to live vibrant, healthy lives.

00:27:23 Speaker_00
Empowering your best life in clothing that can be worn for just about any activity from running to yoga. Visit viore.com slash NPR to receive 20% off your first purchase and enjoy free shipping on any U.S. orders over $75.

00:27:38 Speaker_00
Discover the versatility of Viore clothing.

00:27:43 Speaker_02
Support for this podcast and the following message come from Crown, publisher of The Demon of Unrest, a saga of hubris, heartbreak, and heroism at the dawn of the Civil War by Eric Larson, author of The Splendid and the Vile.

00:27:56 Speaker_02
The Demon of Unrest brings to life the five months between the election of Abraham Lincoln and the start of the Civil War, a crisis that tore a deeply divided nation in two.

00:28:05 Speaker_02
The Demon of Unrest by Eric Larson is available wherever books and audiobooks are sold.

00:28:11 Speaker_03
This is Fresh Air. Let's get back to my interview with Richard Price. Price is the author of several novels that have been adapted into movies, including Clockers, Freedomland, and The Wanderers.

00:28:22 Speaker_03
He co-created and wrote for the HBO series The Night Of and The Outsider, and wrote for the HBO series The Wire and The Deuce. You got an award in 2020 and said that screenwriting saved your life.

00:28:37 Speaker_03
You said, I was so ripe with despair, you could smell it on me. Screenwriting saved my life, my mental life, my spiritual life, my financial life, and actually my physical life. So how did it change your life?

00:28:50 Speaker_03
Like what changed about your spiritual life from screenwriting?

00:28:53 Speaker_05
I don't know what I meant by spiritual, but I just felt lost because My first four novels were so self-referential that I had nothing else to say. I mean, I have four novels, 32 years old, and they're all variations of me and my life.

00:29:15 Speaker_05
You know, I mean, my throat was parched. I couldn't go on. The books were being written with more and more desperation, trying to find a spark.

00:29:29 Speaker_05
But when The Wanderers was published, a lot of people in Hollywood, because of the good dialogue, thought it'd be great writing screenplays, which is ridiculous, because dialogue, the actors don't give you good dialogue.

00:29:42 Speaker_05
What a screenwriter needs to give you is shape. The shape of the story has to go like a pyramid from the base at minute one to the tip of it in 120 minutes. I mean, it's more about architecture than a Goodyear book.

00:30:04 Speaker_05
What it gave me, it forced me out of myself. To write The Color of Money, I had to learn this stuff. I had to hang out with pool hustlers. And for Sea of Love, I had to do ride-alongs with cops.

00:30:24 Speaker_05
that I realized, you know, they always say, write about what you know, but if what you know is not enough, learn something more, then that becomes what you know, and keep learning, and what you know keeps expanding and expanding.

00:30:37 Speaker_05
And it's also the success of what I wrote showed me that I could work with not all that much information that's, you know, journalistically accurate. I can make stuff up.

00:30:55 Speaker_05
All I need is a little bit of a hamburger helper, a little bit of face-to-face, a little bit of observation, and I could bring it home, and I can shape it up in a plausible way. The other thing that happened, so I felt so lost as a novelist.

00:31:13 Speaker_05
Then I started having success as a screenwriter. I started making money for the first time. I got married. I had two children, have two children. And all of this happened because of screenwriting.

00:31:28 Speaker_05
I'm not, you know, screenwriting is like typing, you know, it's speed chess. It's not, a screenplay is nothing, it's a bunch of post-it notes to the director. There's no narrator, there's no voice, there's no sentences.

00:31:44 Speaker_05
But it was proof to me that I could be so much more, I could know so much more in the world. I'm not trapped in a corner with myself in a one-room apartment. And that gave me a—it felt great. It felt great.

00:32:03 Speaker_05
And it was not—for eight years, that's what I did. And then something—you know, the circumstances of clockers came about.

00:32:13 Speaker_05
And that resonated with me in such a way as I have to write this as a novel, knowing I can go out there and learn and feel reinforced and not insecure. Of course, you're insecure because you're writing. But that's how screenplay writing saved me.

00:32:32 Speaker_03
When you say the circumstances around Clockers changed or something along those lines, what do you mean?

00:32:38 Speaker_05
Well, what happened was I was doing research for Sea of Love, and I was in Jersey City.

00:32:45 Speaker_03
That was about cops?

00:32:47 Speaker_05
Yeah. And I was with these cops, and they had to go into this housing project to find either a witness to a homicide. And I was shocked by the housing projects, but it was madness. It was so chaotic and bedlam-like and felt dangerous.

00:33:13 Speaker_05
And cocaine was destroying, not cocaine, sniffing cocaine, but rock, crack. And I had a cocaine problem for two years with sniffing coke. And I had three books under my belt. And I was doing, like, crappy coke. It was probably half dandruff.

00:33:36 Speaker_05
And it still ruined my life for that time. And it wasn't until my wife... We went to a trip to Italy for a month, and I felt like, I am gonna stop now because I don't know how to get it. And I stopped, and it was great. You know, it was like an AA.

00:33:55 Speaker_05
They call it the pink cloud, you know, the euphoria of sobriety. before the work gets hard. And I was terrified that when we got back to the city, I know how to get cocaine again.

00:34:10 Speaker_05
All I got to do is punch these numbers on the telephone, and I'm back as a cokehead. And my wife came back with me, obviously, and said two words that changed everything. And those two words were, well, it's three words, but, you know, constricted.

00:34:30 Speaker_05
I'm pregnant. And right there, it was like, that's it. That's it for Coke. And that was the case. So when I went into this project, not only did I grow up in a housing project like this, when it was more functional working class,

00:34:51 Speaker_05
But I was so haunted, I'm still haunted by my cocaine abuse in the early 80s that it all came together for me.

00:35:02 Speaker_05
And I just wanted to understand what happened, what is it like to be in the projects this time, written by a guy who still had cocaine nightmares and still does.

00:35:17 Speaker_05
I had so much personal stuff going into the desire to write that book that I didn't want to make a screenplay and let Hollywood say, oh, well, this is too bummery. Can this character be a little more heroic?

00:35:34 Speaker_05
Finally, I found something after eight years that made me feel like, OK, this is a novel. I'm back. I'm not writing about it. I kept myself out of the book. I didn't need to be there. I just wanted to be. the eye that wrote the book.

00:35:50 Speaker_03
You're 75 now. Is anything surprising you about getting older?

00:35:56 Speaker_05
It hurts. You know, all of a sudden it's like, ouch this, ouch that. But not really. I feel like I'm still me. I look in the mirror and there I am, probably not in as good a shape as I want to be. You know, I mean, my heart works.

00:36:18 Speaker_05
You know, I don't mean heart, like cardiac heart. I mean, you know, everything that's important is there.

00:36:29 Speaker_03
It's the kind of age where you start having friends who are getting sick or dying or, you know, having signs of dementia.

00:36:42 Speaker_03
And what's it like, assuming that's happening in your life, that you have friends to whom that's happening, how are you handling that?

00:36:56 Speaker_05
It's not easy. But most of the people I know or I knew who have passed in my life, I was not that close to.

00:37:09 Speaker_05
I just, you know, I feel like within a week of reading the obits in the New York Times, there's five people that I knew or I interacted with or I had history with. And that's kind of scary. It's like whack-a-mole.

00:37:26 Speaker_05
You know, when's that mallet going to come down on your head? They're dropping like flies. But it's not that much so far. I didn't even want to jinx it, so I'm not even going to continue talking about this stuff.

00:37:40 Speaker_05
But yeah, I mean, the older you get, some people go manically the other direction. I'm a spry. I know I'm getting older. It doesn't stop me for anything. But it doesn't leave my consciousness as much as I would like it to.

00:38:00 Speaker_03
In your acknowledgments, you thank your children who raised you. What do you mean by that?

00:38:06 Speaker_05
I just feel having children molded me, remolded me. It wasn't all about myself. To finally have people in your life that you're more scared for than you're scared of anything for yourself.

00:38:26 Speaker_05
To finally have people in your life that you just surrender to and educate you by just being who they are and evolving from year to year to year, they made me. Before my kids.

00:38:49 Speaker_05
You know, I was just a guy, and it just reawakened something in me that I didn't really know, this profound keenness and tenderness towards them, where it wasn't all about me anymore.

00:39:05 Speaker_05
In fact, you know, I'm not saying I became like not, you know, I surrendered to them, but it was such a rich and profound thing that they pulled up in me. That was just so different. They raised me. They changed me.

00:39:26 Speaker_03
Did it relieve the burden of being trapped in yourself, since you were responsible for others?

00:39:32 Speaker_05
Yeah, I love that. Not because it helped me escape from myself, because it was just natural. I mean, it's like Anthony comes out and, you know, he just wants to be of service.

00:39:45 Speaker_05
You know, I've never made these connections to my life in the book before this interview. But, I mean, the joy of thinking about somebody, and they come out, they drop into your arms, and God says, go, you know, and you go. And it's a lifetime thing.

00:40:08 Speaker_05
I mean, before that, I think I was my own baby.

00:40:13 Speaker_03
Richard Price, it's always great to talk with you. Thank you so much, and congratulations on the novel.

00:40:18 Speaker_05
You're welcome.

00:40:19 Speaker_03
Richard Price's new novel is called Lazarus Man. Coming up, Maureen Corrigan reviews what she describes as two much-needed books. This is Fresh Air.

00:40:30 Speaker_00
Support for NPR and the following message come from Chevron. The Anchor Offshore Platform is utilizing breakthrough technology to enable us to produce oil and natural gas in the U.S.

00:40:41 Speaker_00
Gulf of Mexico at pressures up to 20,000 psi, a new industry benchmark. Anchor is part of Chevron's plan to produce 300,000 net barrels of oil equivalent per day by 2026 in the U.S.

00:40:55 Speaker_00
Gulf of Mexico, home to some of Chevron's lowest carbon intensity producing operations. That's energy in progress. Visit chevron.com slash anchor.

00:41:05 Speaker_02
This message comes from NPR sponsor Oxfam, a global organization that fights inequality to end poverty and injustice. Communities around the globe are facing crisis after crisis that have put millions at risk.

00:41:18 Speaker_02
Oxfam is there when disasters strike, delivering life-saving aid. But they don't stop there. Oxfam partners with local leaders to help communities grow stronger and advocates for lasting solutions to poverty and injustice. Join them this giving season.

00:41:32 Speaker_02
Donate at OxfamAmerica.org slash NPR.

00:41:37 Speaker_03
This is fresh air. If you're in search of some inspiration, beauty, and leavening humor in what you read in the coming weeks, our book critic, Maureen Corrigan, thinks she may have just what you're looking for.

00:41:49 Speaker_01
Sometimes I do believe there is a book god who sends the book I need when I need it. This week, the book god sent a special delivery of not one, but two much-needed books.

00:42:03 Speaker_01
For years, Billy Collins has been both blessed and burdened with the tagline that identifies him as one of America's favorite poets.

00:42:14 Speaker_01
I say burdened because if a poet is popular, the suspicion arises that they're a mere rhymester, a step or two up from a hallmark assembly line troubadour.

00:42:26 Speaker_01
Even at this late stage in Collins' career, he's in his early 80s now, has served as poet laureate, and has published 12 earlier collections of poetry. His simplicity of language invites cynics to regard him as simplistic.

00:42:43 Speaker_01
Those of us who've long read his work know better.

00:42:47 Speaker_01
Water, Water, Colin's collection of 60 new poems, takes its title from the Romantic poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge's ballad, The Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner, and its often misquoted lines, Water, water everywhere, nor any drop to drink.

00:43:07 Speaker_01
Coleridge is also the guy who talked about making the familiar strange and the strange familiar, which is an apt description of what Collins has always done in his own work.

00:43:21 Speaker_01
If anything has shifted in Collins' poems over the years, it's that the theme of aging is more prevalent, specifically the way aging makes a person estranged from their former selves and others. Take the poem called When a Man Loves Something.

00:43:40 Speaker_01
Like most of Collins' work, it appears to be autobiographical, narrated in what Collins himself drolly calls the first-person selfish point of view.

00:43:52 Speaker_01
Collins starts out remembering a night when he heard the blues singer Percy Sledge perform in a roadhouse on the edge of a California desert. A loopy interlude follows.

00:44:06 Speaker_01
Years later, Collins says, when I lived in Florida, we had a plumber whose name was Lynn Hammer. I like to introduce people to one another, but Lynn Hammer said he had never heard of Percy Sledge and put his head back under the sink.

00:44:23 Speaker_01
So many miscues like that these days. Near the poem's end, Collins imagines there's a planet called the past, and he's on it, orbiting the sun. Collins is his own most eloquent critic.

00:44:42 Speaker_01
In a poem bearing the stripped-down title of Your Poem, he suggests that one of the go-to emotions in his work is buoyant ease in the shadow of mortality. This whole collection is filled with poems that strike that rare attitude.

00:45:02 Speaker_01
And some of them, like Emily Dickinson in Space, which unfortunately is too long to read here, are among the best poems that Collins has ever written. Now for something completely different.

00:45:18 Speaker_01
I usually hesitate to review graphic novels and illustrated books because it's hard to do justice to their visual power.

00:45:28 Speaker_01
But James Norbury's illustrated adult fable called The Dog Who Followed the Moon fell into my hands a few weeks ago, and I've been under its spell ever since.

00:45:42 Speaker_01
Norbury, who's the best-selling author and illustrator of the philosophical Big Panda and Tiny Dragon books, is a practicing Buddhist. His books are not meant to comfort as much as they're meant to accompany readers on their own hard journeys.

00:46:01 Speaker_01
The Dog Who Followed the Moon opens on a winter dawn in the mountains. Norbury's blue, white, and brown watercolors on the opening pages are influenced by Zen art. They make readers feel the stillness of this imaginary world.

00:46:19 Speaker_01
A puppy named Amaya, who's become separated from her parents, wanders into the snowy landscape. Starving and lonely, she mistakes a wolf pack for friendly dogs. The wolves circle her and attack.

00:46:37 Speaker_01
Just as Amaya is about to be torn apart, she's rescued by an old wolf, the former leader of the pack.

00:46:45 Speaker_01
Together they set off through a fantastic landscape of ancient ruins and despair and loss, always looking for the moon to lead them and struggling to keep the faith when it disappears behind clouds.

00:47:01 Speaker_01
Norbury says in his afterword that his moon was his art and that he spent 25 years with very little money, depressed, anxious, defeated, addicted, before coming out the other side.

00:47:18 Speaker_01
Inspirational is a word that's become cheapened, but it's a fitting word for the dog who followed the moon. An inspirational and gorgeous book about not giving up.

00:47:33 Speaker_03
Maureen Corrigan is a professor of literature at Georgetown University. She reviewed Water, Water, the latest collection of poems by Billy Collins, and the illustrated adult fable The Dog Who Followed the Moon by James Norbury.

00:48:01 Speaker_03
If you'd like to catch up on fresh air interviews you missed, like this week's interview with journalist Annie Lowry about what scientists are learning about the causes of chronic maddening itch and how to treat it, or with Zanny Minton-Bettos, editor-in-chief of The Economist, about international reaction to Trump's agenda, check out our podcast.

00:48:20 Speaker_03
You'll find lots of fresh air interviews. And to find out what's happening behind the scenes of our show and get our producers' recommendations for what to watch, read, and listen to, Subscribe to our free newsletter at whyy.org slash fresh air.

00:48:37 Speaker_03
Fresh Hour's executive producer is Danny Miller. Our technical director is Audrey Bentham. Our engineer is Adam Staniszewski.

00:48:45 Speaker_03
Our interviews and reviews are produced and edited by Phyllis Myers, Roberto Schorrock, Andrea Baldonado, Sam Brigger, Lauren Krenzel, Teresa Madden, Monique Nazareth, Thea Chaloner, and Anna Baumann.

00:48:56 Speaker_03
Our digital media producers are Maui CV Nespr and Sabrina Seaworth. Susan Yakunde directed today's show. Our co-host is Tanya Mosley. I'm Terry Gross.

00:49:08 Speaker_02
This message comes from NPR sponsor Merrill. Whatever your financial goals are, you want a straightforward path there. But the real world doesn't usually work that way. Merrill understands that.

00:49:18 Speaker_02
That's why, with a dedicated Merrill advisor, you get a personalized plan and a clear path forward. Go to ml.com slash bullish to learn more. Merrill, a Bank of America company. What would you like the power to do? Investing involves risk.

00:49:31 Speaker_02
Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner and Smith Incorporated, registered broker dealer, registered investment advisor, member SIPC. This message comes from NPR sponsor Merrill. Whatever your financial goals are, you want a straightforward path there.

00:49:45 Speaker_02
But the real world doesn't usually work that way. Merrill understands that. That's why, with a dedicated Merrill advisor, you get a personalized plan and a clear path forward. Go to ml.com slash bullish to learn more. Merrill, a Bank of America company.

00:49:59 Speaker_02
What would you like the power to do? Investing involves risk. Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner and Smith Incorporated, registered broker dealer, registered investment advisor, member SIPC.