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Episode: Kerri Russell On 'The Diplomat'/ Remembering Dorothy Allison

Author: NPR
Duration: 00:47:02

Episode Shownotes

Kerri Russell stars in the Netflix political drama The Diplomat as a foreign service officer tapped to become the American ambassador to the UK. Russell also starred in the series Felicity and The Americans. She spoke with us last year about these characters and getting her start on The All

New Mickey Mouse Club as a kid. Also, we remember author Dorothy Allison, who died this week at age 75. Her critically acclaimed 1992 novel Bastard out of Carolina was based on her own childhood experience of being physically and sexually abused. We listen back to Terry's interview with Allison about the book and her life.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Summary

In this episode of Fresh Air, Kerri Russell discusses her role as Kate Weiler in Netflix's political drama 'The Diplomat,' where she navigates international crises as a Foreign Service officer. Russell reflects on her experiences in the limelight and the challenges of maintaining authenticity in her roles, particularly in 'The Americans.' The episode also honors author Dorothy Allison, whose poignant writing on childhood trauma in 'Bastard Out of Carolina' depicts her personal struggles, emphasizing themes of victimhood and resilience.

Go to PodExtra AI's episode page (Kerri Russell On 'The Diplomat'/ Remembering Dorothy Allison) to play and view complete AI-processed content: summary, mindmap, topics, takeaways, transcript, keywords and highlights.

Full Transcript

00:00:00 Speaker_01
This message comes from Showtime original series The Agency on Paramount+. Michael Fassbender plays a covert CIA agent in the new 10-episode spy thriller. Now streaming on the Paramount Plus with Showtime plan. Visit ParamountPlus.com to get started.

00:00:18 Speaker_02
This is Fresh Air. I'm Sam Brigger. If you like to distract yourself from real-world crises with the fictional kind, then you can now watch season two of the Netflix series The Diplomat.

00:00:29 Speaker_02
Keri Russell stars as Kate Weiler, a career Foreign Service officer with an excellent reputation for handling international crises, often behind the scenes. Her husband Hal, played by Rufus Sewell, is also a diplomat and former ambassador.

00:00:45 Speaker_02
Let's hear a clip from the current season. But first, a little exposition. Last season, Kate Wyler and her British counterparts had been investigating the terrorist attack of a British aircraft carrier.

00:00:58 Speaker_02
She had been told that a Russian mercenary named Lenkov was behind the attack, but that it was secretly planned by someone within the British government, and she suspects the Prime Minister. Last season ended with a cliffhanger.

00:01:11 Speaker_02
A car bomb went off, severely injuring Kate's husband, her deputy Stewart, and another staff member named Ronnie. In this scene, Kate meets the embassy's lead CIA agent, Idra Park, at the hospital and fills her in on the investigation.

00:01:25 Speaker_02
Park is played by Ali Ahn.

00:01:27 Speaker_06
Lenkov put together the attack on the carrier, but the Kremlin did not hire him. I think the prime minister did. of this country. Slow down. They are British police. This is a British hospital. Our people are not safe here.

00:01:43 Speaker_06
Kate, you think the British Prime Minister ordered a strike on his own warship, which may or may not be connected to the bomb that just went off in his own city? You think he ordered that, too? I think the call is coming from inside the house.

00:01:56 Speaker_06
And three Americans, including my husband, just got blown up inside the house.

00:02:02 Speaker_02
Kerry Russell has played two iconic roles on television, the lead on the show Felicity as a young college woman in New York, and Elizabeth Jennings, a Soviet spy in the 80s living undercover in the United States in the critically acclaimed show The Americans.

00:02:18 Speaker_02
she received three Emmy nominations for that role. She got her start on television as a teenager on the all-new Mickey Mouse Club with a cast that included Britney Spears, Ryan Gosling, Christina Aguilera, and Justin Timberlake.

00:02:31 Speaker_02
I spoke with Keri Russell in 2023 when The Diplomat premiered. Keri Russell, welcome to Fresh Air.

00:02:38 Speaker_05
Thank you so much. It's an honor to be here.

00:02:40 Speaker_02
Well, it's great to have you here. I just wanted to ask you first how you were pitched the show The Diplomat and the character Kate Weiler.

00:02:49 Speaker_05
Deborah Kahn, who wrote it, sent me the script. It came through the normal channels. It was actually, it was the holidays, it was Christmas time.

00:03:00 Speaker_05
And it just so happened that I had three sets of grandparents downstairs in my house and I was cooking for them all. It was chaotic and fun and amazing. And I was clearly not shopping around for a new, television show to join.

00:03:20 Speaker_05
I read this and I just, it has this combination of, or Deborah's writing does, I suppose, of this political fun intrigue and almost in the world of kind of war journalism and those kinds of stories that interest me.

00:03:40 Speaker_05
And this world of civil servants and the State Department and the people who do those jobs that, you know, we just don't know that much about. And Deborah, she writes about the minutiae of life, you know.

00:03:55 Speaker_05
So it's someone going to meet the president, but then realizing there's yogurt on my pants. And you're like, I gotta get this, like, how am I gonna get this off? You know, and it's just great writing. And I couldn't say no.

00:04:09 Speaker_02
So the show's creators called your character itchy. What does that mean to you?

00:04:16 Speaker_05
That's very funny. She's a very good organizer and she's very good at getting all the facts right and getting people where they need to be behind the scenes.

00:04:29 Speaker_05
And then I think if you ask her to wear something other than her one black suit that she really feels good in and smart in and tough in, and you ask her to wear a dress, it's...

00:04:41 Speaker_05
going to show her sweat and she's itchy and she doesn't like when people look at her. So that's really fun.

00:04:48 Speaker_02
Yeah, she's much more comfortable behind the scenes, right?

00:04:51 Speaker_05
That's what this show is sort of about, you know, plucking her from the background as like number two and bringing her to the front in a very visible post, which London would be for an ambassador.

00:05:07 Speaker_02
So, as you said earlier, the job of the American ambassador to the UK has a lot of ceremonial aspects to it and you said that the job is often a reward to like a big political donor or bundler and like

00:05:22 Speaker_02
Kate's supposed to attend all these parties and teas. She's supposed to wear dresses and do photo shoots. And she really bristles against that. She just wants to do the diplomacy.

00:05:32 Speaker_02
And I was just wondering if that's something that you relate to as an actor. Do you enjoy movie openings and galas, or would you just prefer to do the work?

00:05:40 Speaker_05
Going to an award show is such a fun idea. Going is zero fun. It's so fun to think about wearing a fancy dress. It is so fun. Everything is so pretty. Oh my gosh.

00:06:02 Speaker_05
And the colors and getting your hair and makeup done and imagining that you'll look so much better than you really do when you do school drop off. But the truth and the reality of getting your hair and makeup done, you still look sort of weird.

00:06:23 Speaker_05
You're instantly starting to sweat, putting on a dress, going, oh, this doesn't look the way I thought it would. Oh, wow, standing in front of hundreds of photographers.

00:06:33 Speaker_05
while they take your picture and you're like, oh my God, I'm doing the wrong face. I'm not standing right. Oh, they're going to see my sweat. Can they see through this dress? Can they see my nipples? Like what, you know, it's all, that is never fun.

00:06:47 Speaker_05
Like all you want to do is do like five minutes of one of those things and then go leave and get a burger and have a beer. That's not what you get to do. It's like an eight hour ordeal. So yes, I fully,

00:07:03 Speaker_05
When I read that, I was like, oh, yeah, I know what that is. I mean, you're just in a tailspin of uncomfort.

00:07:10 Speaker_02
Right. Well, let's just take a short break here. Let's talk about your last TV show, The Americans. The show ran for six seasons on FX. It ended in 2018. It was critically acclaimed.

00:07:24 Speaker_02
The show won two Peabody's, and you were highly praised for your performance, and you were nominated for three Emmys. So for people who don't know the show, I guess there are some people out there.

00:07:36 Speaker_02
The show takes place in the 80s during the Reagan administration, and you play Elizabeth Jennings, a Soviet spy posing as an American. You're in a KGB-arranged marriage to another spy played by Matthew Rhys.

00:07:49 Speaker_02
And when the show starts, you've been living in the United States for 15 years. You have two American-born kids, which was initially just like part of your disguise.

00:07:58 Speaker_02
And you've thought of your relationship to your husband as more of a work relationship rather than a romantic one. Although, at this point, you're starting to have real feelings for him. So, could you just tell us how this role came to you?

00:08:13 Speaker_05
You know, it's funny, John Landgraf, who runs FX, really advocated for me to do this part, and I read it, and I was like, why in the world would they want me to play this cold, calculating spy, Russian spy? Because literally, when I was reading it,

00:08:33 Speaker_05
I was thinking of like, in Rocky, like when he has to fight the Russian fighter and he has that amazing Russian wife, I think it's Bridget Nielsen or something, right? Am I making that up? That's who I was picturing.

00:08:49 Speaker_05
I am frazzled and nervous and like girl next door. So I was like, what, why does he want me? But that was sort of the genius of him.

00:09:00 Speaker_05
is realizing that you need somebody who does look sort of ordinary and that people have this sort of whatever feeling for so that I could be this crazy killer and, you know, sneaky spy.

00:09:16 Speaker_02
Well, I'd like to play a scene from the show. This is from season three. So your daughter, Paige, is a teenager at this point. Well, I think she was a teenager all along, but she's getting a little older.

00:09:29 Speaker_02
And your handlers, the KGB, want to recruit her for the cause. And Philip is strongly against this. He wants Paige to have a normal American life. Your character, Elizabeth, is more resigned to the idea.

00:09:42 Speaker_02
And this is a real rift in the marriage at this point. But Paige has been suspicious of your behavior for a while. And in this scene, she confronts you both. And you decide to tell her the truth. And Paige here is played by Holly Taylor.

00:09:59 Speaker_07
Paige, your father and I, we What? Where? The Soviet Union.

00:10:24 Speaker_03
We came here before you were born.

00:10:29 Speaker_07
I... I don't understand. We're here to help our people. Most of what you hear about the Soviet Union isn't true. Everything that we've told you about being activists, about wanting to make the world a better place.

00:10:51 Speaker_03
So, you're... We work for our country. Getting information. Information that they couldn't get in other ways.

00:11:09 Speaker_07
You're... spies? We serve our country, but we also serve the cause of peace around the world. We fight for people who can't fight for themselves. Stop. Paige, we've wanted to tell you this for such a long time. But you didn't. No.

00:11:32 Speaker_03
No, you're right. We didn't.

00:11:39 Speaker_02
So that's the scene from The Americans. That's a real turning point in the show.

00:11:44 Speaker_02
And it's ironic, you finally telling your daughter the truth about their lives just lays bare all the dishonesty that they've been living with and that their family is based on a foundation of lies.

00:11:59 Speaker_05
It's, you know, Joe and Joel, the writers of the show, they at one point had spoken to like a psychologist about children and how this might affect them. And one of the things I thought was so interesting was they were saying one of the things that

00:12:26 Speaker_05
traumatizes a child more than anything is a huge lie because they can't even trust their own memories. Because they go back and they're like, but none of that was real because you weren't doing that. So I have all these memories that

00:12:49 Speaker_05
you were working in a travel agency or whatever we were doing. And, you know, that's not even real anymore and how damaging that is.

00:12:59 Speaker_02
It's interesting because parents, whether they're Soviet spies or not, they conceal things from your kids all the time for all sorts of reasons, like to maintain their innocence, to simplify things, and just to keep the parents' lives private.

00:13:14 Speaker_02
That even continues as the kids age. One of the things I found really fascinating with your relationship with Paige is that even when Elizabeth reveals that she's a spy.

00:13:28 Speaker_02
She still can't tell Paige about all the stuff she does, like all the honey traps and the murders. She doesn't want Paige to think she's a monster.

00:13:38 Speaker_05
No, I know. It's such a great idea for a show because you have these people, these children looking up to you and they're judging you and it's such an interesting, it's not just one spy telling the story in a movie.

00:14:00 Speaker_05
you're living with them and you're living with their choices and feeling all these other little satellite parts of their lives. And that's what's so fun about this era of TV that who knows, maybe we're moving out of now.

00:14:15 Speaker_02
Watching the show last week, I was just thinking about how much fun it must have been for an actor, because there's so much acting in it.

00:14:22 Speaker_02
First, you're acting as a Russian spy who's pretending to be an all-American mom, and then you have all these side missions where you're disguised as other characters, you're seducing people, you're killing people.

00:14:34 Speaker_02
It just must have been really fun to go in and have all this stuff to work with.

00:14:39 Speaker_05
It was so fun. I mean, it's an actor's dream. First of all, there's this incredible cheat of, and I feel like since the Americans, now there's a lot of things I feel like these days where people get all wigged up and do things.

00:14:54 Speaker_02
Yeah, you wear a lot of wigs. You probably wear like a hundred wigs during the show.

00:15:00 Speaker_05
So many wigs. and stupid mustaches and things. But it's this incredible shorthand cheat to feeling like someone else, getting to wear that wig or crazy makeup.

00:15:15 Speaker_05
I did this job with Gary Oldman and Gary said, I've been watching it and I call David Bowie and we FaceTime afterwards and we talk about the show. I was like, oh my gosh.

00:15:29 Speaker_02
That'd be a good podcast.

00:15:31 Speaker_05
It's so cool. Totally. So anyway, he said, that one episode where you're wearing this one wig, I think it was early on, I'm wearing some super short crazy wig and they kind of gave me weird skin.

00:15:46 Speaker_05
And he said, you know, people don't understand that when you do that, it helps you so much. Like, you look like a completely different person. I said, I know, it's true. And it was really, it's such a fun cheat to seeing yourself as this other person.

00:16:05 Speaker_02
I just was reminded of, did you ever see that Bugs Bunny cartoon where it's, I think it's Bugs Bunny and Elmer Fudd and this wig van has a crash and all the wigs float in the air and then the wigs keep landing on their heads and they change characters.

00:16:19 Speaker_02
It was so stupid and so fun, you know, we'd be like,

00:16:28 Speaker_02
Midnight and Matthew would come in to the trailer with some crazy mustache and we would just laugh our heads off It was it was so fun So Carrie, I wanted to talk to you a little bit about your childhood and how you got your start in acting When you were cast on the all-new Mickey Mouse Club, and this was in the early 90s I think you were on the show for three years.

00:16:51 Speaker_02
Is that right? Oh

00:16:53 Speaker_05
Yes, that makes sense. Yeah, I think so.

00:16:55 Speaker_02
It was a long time ago, but yes. Starting when you were like 15. And the show's famous as the launching pad for a lot of talented young actors and musicians, including yourself, Ryan Gosling, Justin Timberlake, Christina Aguilera, and Britney Spears.

00:17:10 Speaker_02
So there was a big casting call in Colorado. And so you decide to try out. And at this point, it doesn't sound like you've done a lot of acting. Did you know what you were getting into?

00:17:21 Speaker_02
Was one of your ambitions to be on television at that point in your life?

00:17:27 Speaker_05
I had no idea what I was getting into. I did not grow up wanting to be an actor at all. And I did show up with hundreds of kids and all my little dance pals. And yeah, you wait in line for, I'm not kidding, hours at some stupid Denver convention center.

00:17:47 Speaker_05
And you get in finally and he says, hey, what do you have prepared? Can you read this little script about a mermaid trying to recycle? or something like that. And sure, yeah, I'll read the words.

00:18:02 Speaker_05
And then do a little dance, because that's what I had prepared, like one of my solos. And then he was like, OK, well, what song do you want to sing? And I was like, oh, no, I don't sing.

00:18:13 Speaker_05
And he said, little girl, do you see the line of kids waiting out there? Do you want to sing a song? And I said, I don't. I don't sing. And so they called me back, amazingly anyway, and they had me sing some like little song.

00:18:29 Speaker_05
I think they had me sing Happy Birthday. They want to make sure you can carry a tune, which I could probably barely could, I'm sure.

00:18:35 Speaker_02
Well, if people haven't seen the show, it was a variety show, and you did some singing, you did some dancing, and then there's a lot of set pieces.

00:18:44 Speaker_02
So I wonder if you compare your upbringing to your kids' life, and if there was a casting for another Mickey Mouse Club, would you let your kids audition? You had a good time, but it was certainly a unique way to be a teenager.

00:19:01 Speaker_05
Listen, I had the best of all worlds. Normally when a kid is acting, there's one child surrounded by adults, and not to mention the crew, which is huge. A crew to make an hour show, I mean, it's hundreds of people.

00:19:17 Speaker_05
So it's this kid, you know, working really long hours and needing to be professional and are surrounded by these adults. The Mickey Mouse Club, I was one of 19 kids. The adults were invisible to me. I didn't even notice them.

00:19:33 Speaker_05
It was just being in a small high school, I was just worried about who I was gonna make out with probably, who I had a crush on. So it was a sweet kind of innocent version of acting.

00:19:46 Speaker_05
That being said, I just think putting any child in a professional setting like that is really tricky. And that's why so many people don't make it and have complicated lives after. And as much as we did have fun, and we totally did.

00:20:06 Speaker_05
Little kids like you're supposed to be able to mess up.

00:20:08 Speaker_05
You're supposed to like have a sick day or three or you know I don't regret anything and I'm so grateful for my life, but I would never let my kids do it because kids are supposed to be kids if they can you know and If you want to do it, you can do it later

00:20:27 Speaker_02
Keri Russell, recorded in 2023. Season two of her series, The Diplomat, is currently streaming on Netflix. We'll hear more of my interview after a break.

00:20:36 Speaker_02
And later, we remember writer Dorothy Allison, author of the critically acclaimed novel, Bastard Out of Carolina. I'm Sam Brigger, and this is Fresh Air.

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00:22:42 Speaker_02
This is Fresh Air. I'm Sam Brigger. We're listening to my 2023 interview with actor Keri Russell. She stars in the political drama The Diplomat, which is currently streaming season two on Netflix.

00:22:54 Speaker_02
Russell plays Kate Wyler, a career diplomat tapped by the White House to serve as the U.S. ambassador to the U.K. Russell got her start on television as a teen on the all-new Mickey Mouse Club.

00:23:05 Speaker_02
She became famous as the lead on the TV show Felicity and received three Emmy nominations for her role in the series The Americans as a Soviet spy in the 80s living in the U.S. pretending to be an American.

00:23:19 Speaker_02
So Carrie, after your time at the new Mickey Mouse Club, you decided to move to Hollywood and try to make it as an actor. You were on a few shows that didn't quite succeed, like there was an Aaron Spelling show, you were in a Bon Jovi video.

00:23:33 Speaker_02
I didn't quite follow the narrative of that video, but it seems like you had pretty bad news in it. And then you try it out for the show Felicity, which was your really big break.

00:23:48 Speaker_02
And Felicity is about a girl who graduates from high school in California. She's planning to go to Stanford and to pursue a medical degree. But she changes her plans because this boy, Ben Covington, who she's had a crush on but never really talked to,

00:24:04 Speaker_02
writes a compelling note in her yearbook. And so she decides to bail on all her plans and follow him to New York. And he's going to the University of New York, which I have to say, I always thought it was weird.

00:24:16 Speaker_02
They can name Stanford Stanford, but you can't have NYU. That's kind of weird, but that's besides the point. Well, let's hear a scene from Felicity. This is from the first episode where

00:24:28 Speaker_02
The very earnest and honest Felicity confronts her crush Ben Covington, played by Scott Speedman in a college stairway, and reveals to him why she's in New York.

00:24:43 Speaker_04
I just want to preface this by saying that I don't want you to feel weird about anything I'm about to say at all.

00:24:51 Speaker_10
Okay.

00:24:54 Speaker_04
The thing is, I came to New York mostly because of you.

00:25:04 Speaker_04
Yeah, I had these sort of intense feelings for you back in high school and even though I know that we never really talked before graduation except that one time when I was passing out flyers for the blood drive.

00:25:21 Speaker_04
Anyway, maybe the fact that we never did talk was why I had those feelings Because now, of course, I realize now that it was a crazy thing to do to follow someone, I don't know, 3,000 miles. And I sort of panicked about it.

00:25:36 Speaker_04
But I just wanted you to know that I'm past that. And I'm totally OK with it now. I mean it, you know? Because it's not really about you so much anymore. I'm here now, you know, because I'm here. So, um, what are you thinking?

00:26:06 Speaker_10
I'm honestly, honestly, I'm just, I'm just, I'm flattered by the whole thing. I'm flattered. I am.

00:26:14 Speaker_04
Good. That's, that's really a perfect, perfect answer. Okay. So, uh, can we just be friends?

00:26:21 Speaker_10
Yeah, sure.

00:26:22 Speaker_04
Great.

00:26:23 Speaker_10
Of course. Yeah.

00:26:24 Speaker_04
Okay.

00:26:27 Speaker_02
That's a really hard scene to listen to.

00:26:28 Speaker_05
Oh my god. I haven't heard that in a million years. That is hilarious. Oh my gosh.

00:26:37 Speaker_02
But you know, you're really good in that though, like you're taking all these awkward pauses and it sounds really natural.

00:26:45 Speaker_02
But I have to say that she finds out, I think in that episode or the next episode, that he, on his college essay, he totally made up that his older brother died and that it was his dream all along to go to this school.

00:27:00 Speaker_02
And I have to say, Felicity should have totally left him at that point. That's a bad sign.

00:27:08 Speaker_05
Bad sign, but then I remember at the end of the pilot, they're standing on a rooftop and they're kind of like, oh, well, you know, this was our first few months and we know we're going to agree that to put the past behind us and she's maybe going to go back because it was crazy for her to come to New York.

00:27:26 Speaker_05
And he says, yeah, I just, I just, I can't wait to see what the city looks like when it snows. And it's just like, it's such like a romantic way of looking at the world and that time in your life when everything is new and in front of you.

00:27:43 Speaker_05
Oh my God, it's so sweet. It's such a sweet little something.

00:27:49 Speaker_02
So when Felicity ended, you decided to take a break from acting. Can you talk about that decision?

00:27:54 Speaker_05
So Felicity was four years, and it was this big chunk of my 20s, you know, so grateful for it. saved a lot of money because we were working really long hours. On network shows, you have about two months a year that you're not on that show.

00:28:17 Speaker_05
It takes, cause you're doing about 22 to 24 episodes. And so, what like 16 hour days, 17, 18 hour days sometimes. And I just felt like I had missed part of being a kid a little bit.

00:28:34 Speaker_05
So I took that money I'd saved and I rented an apartment in New York to be close to my girlfriends Alana and Lindsay and I Acted like a kid like I didn't want to act I wanted to show up to birthday parties that I wasn't able ever to because you know when you're shooting and

00:28:53 Speaker_05
a show you're working till 10.30 at night, and then you wake up at five and you're on set the next day. So I missed out on stupid things, birthday parties and going out dancing and getting drunk and walking home drunk in the snow.

00:29:07 Speaker_05
And I got to do all of those things those few years in New York. you know, just wander around listening to overly emotional teenage music or, you know, reading books all day. And it really, that step back is the only way I'm still in this business.

00:29:29 Speaker_05
Because I think I had to like know I wanted to do it again before it consumed me.

00:29:35 Speaker_02
Well, Keri Russell, it's been such a pleasure talking with you today. Thank you so much for coming to Fresh Air.

00:29:41 Speaker_05
Thank you so much.

00:29:43 Speaker_02
I spoke with Keri Russell last year. Season 2 of her show The Diplomat is currently streaming on Netflix.

00:29:50 Speaker_02
Coming up, we remember writer Dorothy Allison, who wrote with painful honesty about the experience of being physically and sexually abused as a child. This is Fresh Air.

00:29:59 Speaker_00
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00:31:01 Speaker_02
I'm Sam Brigger. We're going to remember writer Dorothy Allison, who wrote the critically acclaimed bestselling novel, Bastard Out of Carolina, about violence and sexual abuse in a poor Southern family. Allison died last week at the age of 75.

00:31:16 Speaker_02
The cause was cancer. Allison based the book on her own experience being physically and sexually abused by her stepfather.

00:31:23 Speaker_02
When the book was published, George Garrett wrote in the New York Times Book Review, quote, The literary territory that Allison has set out to explore is dangerous turf, a minefield.

00:31:34 Speaker_02
It is a great pleasure to see her succeed, blithe and graceful, as Baryshnikov in performance. The book was a finalist for the National Book Award for Fiction.

00:31:45 Speaker_02
Allison also wrote a collection of short stories called Trash, a second novel called Cave Dweller, and a memoir titled Two or Three Things I Know for Sure. Terry Gross spoke with Dorothy Allison in 1992 when Bastard Out of Carolina was published.

00:31:59 Speaker_02
Allison said she tried to avoid the pitfalls of the literature of victimology by being as honest as possible. That honesty meant describing the disturbing, confusing thoughts of the victim. Here's a reading from a third of the way into the book.

00:32:14 Speaker_02
And please note, this interview includes a difficult discussion about child sexual abuse, and you may consider not listening further.

00:32:21 Speaker_09
I didn't daydream about fire anymore. Now I imagine people watching while Daddy Glenn beat me, though only when it was not happening. When he beat me, I screamed and kicked and cried like the baby I was.

00:32:33 Speaker_09
But sometimes, when I was safe and alone, I would imagine the ones who watched. Someone had to watch. Some girl I admired who barely knew I existed. Some girl from church or down the street, or one of my cousins, or even somebody I'd seen on TV.

00:32:49 Speaker_09
Sometimes a whole gang of them would have to be trapped into watching. They couldn't help me. They couldn't get away. They had to watch. In my imagination, I was proud and defiant.

00:33:00 Speaker_09
I'd stare back at him with my teeth set, making no sound at all, no shameful scream, no begging. And those people who watched admired me and hated him. I pictured it that way. and I put my hands between my legs. It was scary, but it was thrilling, too.

00:33:20 Speaker_09
Those who watched me loved me. It was as if I was being beaten for them, and I was wonderful in their eyes.

00:33:29 Speaker_08
You understand this fantasy of having people watch you and admire you as you're beaten but remain defiant? Yes.

00:33:38 Speaker_09
It's curious because it's what I did as a child, and I've talked to other survivors, and it's one of the ways in which you can fight the feeling of being this contemptible being.

00:33:51 Speaker_09
Because basically, when you're subjected to that kind of abuse as a child, you almost always begin to feel that it's justified. that there is really something wrong with you, that you're this terrible person that this is happening to.

00:34:06 Speaker_09
And the only way I ever found, really, to deal with the emotional onslaught of those feelings was to begin to feel like a martyr, this almost Joan of Arc figure in my own mind.

00:34:20 Speaker_08
Something that really upsets the girl in this story, she hates the beatings, she hates the incest, she hates her stepfather. But she's turned on by the stories she tells herself about the beatings. And she feels terribly guilty about this.

00:34:33 Speaker_08
And she thinks that maybe she's as guilty as her stepfather is. That's something you understand too? Oh yes.

00:34:42 Speaker_09
And it's hard to explain to people on the outside of the experience. Mostly because it's really hard to admit. that you could take that experience and convert it into your own erotic charge. I don't know how to explain it. I don't know how to...

00:35:01 Speaker_09
analyze it. I simply know that it happens and it becomes a way to make it your own experience.

00:35:08 Speaker_08
I think one of the reasons why someone might be reluctant to admit to a feeling like that is not only their own kind of fear at what they were feeling, but also the fear that somebody would say, well, see, that must have meant she enjoyed it.

00:35:22 Speaker_09
Absolutely. It's like the myth of rape, you know. Obviously, if you orgasm during rape, then it must not have been rape. So if a child begins to feel erotic excitement while being manipulated by an adult, does that give the adult permission to do it?

00:35:37 Speaker_09
It's a horrible thing to even imagine. And you don't, part of the reason to keep it a secret and to be quiet about that feeling is that you might give someone any small measure of encouragement to feel they have a right to do this.

00:35:51 Speaker_09
They have no right ever to sexually How to sexually touch a child is just not possible to do. There's no justification for it. And the fact that the child might, in fact, manufacture some erotic excitement is not a justification for it.

00:36:11 Speaker_09
But if we pretend that it doesn't happen, then that guilt, that self-horror stays, never goes away.

00:36:17 Speaker_08
When you hear about somebody having experienced sexual pleasure while they were being victimized?

00:36:23 Speaker_09
Well, what upsets me is that they're then ashamed of themselves for it. That I find upsetting. We don't have, especially if you're a child, I mean, my incest started when I was five years old.

00:36:35 Speaker_09
I wasn't capable of making any decision about what I wanted to do. I didn't have the capacity to do that. If, um, when I began to feel all these funny feelings that I could not explain to myself, all I experienced was horror.

00:36:52 Speaker_09
I began to think that I was the terrible person I was being told I was, and it's taken me most of my life to make the decision that that's not the case. Would you tell us a story your relatives told you about how you were born?

00:37:07 Speaker_09
I was born in a car accident. My mother was on the way to the airport with a bunch of my uncles and aunts, and they hit another car.

00:37:15 Speaker_09
And she was in the back seat asleep, so she was thrown over the front seat, through the windshield, over the other car. She wasn't hurt too bad, except that she had a concussion and was unconscious for three days.

00:37:27 Speaker_09
And of course, I was born while she was unconscious.

00:37:29 Speaker_09
which meant that my grandmother and my aunts were at the hospital and they got into an argument while talking to the clerk and didn't manage to manufacture the tale of the manufactured marriage my mother had been going to get through.

00:37:43 Speaker_09
So I became a certified bastard. How old was she when she gave birth to you? One month past her 15th birthday. She was a child. She did eventually marry, right? My mother married three times. Well, the first marriage was annulled.

00:38:03 Speaker_09
But she married my stepfather when I was five and lived with him until she died.

00:38:09 Speaker_08
And he was the man who abused you when you were growing up?

00:38:11 Speaker_09
Yes. Did she know about it? Yes and no. One of the things that's hard to explain to people is that my mother knew because there were... I told her. Actually, I didn't tell her. I told one of my cousins who told her.

00:38:28 Speaker_09
What's hard to explain is that she did not let herself know all of everything that was happening. She couldn't have. And when I grew up and I would go home and talk to her, we would have these very long, slow, painful conversations.

00:38:45 Speaker_09
And she was enormously guilty that she had not been able to stop it. And she tried. That's one of the hard things that I try to show in the book is, like my mother, Annie in the book, tries desperately

00:38:59 Speaker_09
to prevent what she sees happening, even though she doesn't see a lot of what's going on. And she tries to protect her children.

00:39:06 Speaker_09
She believes absolutely that the man she loves is going to change, that what's happening is just because he can't find a job, because his father is mean to him, because he's hurt and wounded, that he's just... She thinks of him as this little boy that she's going to mother into being a good man.

00:39:24 Speaker_09
And she cannot believe that that's not happening.

00:39:28 Speaker_08
So you must have been very angry with your mother for staying with your stepfather after she knew for certain what was happening to you.

00:39:35 Speaker_09
Not until I was in my 30s did I really start to get angry at her in that way. My mother My mother loved me. My mother spent her whole life desperately trying to make my life and the lives of my sisters better.

00:39:53 Speaker_09
She literally worked herself to death taking care of us, trying to make some small difference. And if you had ever had a way to meet her, you would have met someone that was just extraordinarily loving. and a very large soul human being.

00:40:12 Speaker_09
And that's, I was madly in love with my mother. And I knew how impossible her life was. She worked as a waitress her whole life. The best job she ever had was as a cook. She was constantly sick. There was enormous bills.

00:40:30 Speaker_09
She never, never got her life under control. And she always thought if she just worked a little harder, did this little thing more, it would be possible.

00:40:40 Speaker_09
that having her there, having her like this barrier between me and what was essentially a really cruel world, I loved her enormously. I could not possibly have been angry at her while I was at home. And for a long time after, she was my heroine.

00:40:54 Speaker_09
It was only when I I began to really deal with the problems in my own life that had resulted as being... that getting out of being the victim and into being a survivor was when I started to get angry.

00:41:14 Speaker_09
And it was nightmarish to be angry at her that way.

00:41:19 Speaker_02
We're listening to Terry's 1992 interview with Dorothy Allison, the author of the best-selling novel Bastard Out of Carolina. More after a break. This is Fresh Air.

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00:43:08 Speaker_02
This is Fresh Air. Let's get back to Terry's 1992 interview with Dorothy Allison, who wrote the best-selling novel Bastard Out of Carolina. She died last week at the age of 75.

00:43:20 Speaker_02
Please note, this interview is about the impact on her of being physically and sexually abused as a child, which includes a period of self-harm and suicidal ideation.

00:43:30 Speaker_02
Remember, if you or someone you know may be considering suicide or is in crisis, you can reach out to the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline by calling or texting 988.

00:43:41 Speaker_08
Dorothy, I'm going to ask you to read something from the preface to a collection of short stories that came out a few years ago. And the collection of short stories is called Trash. Would you read the opening of the preface for us?

00:43:53 Speaker_08
It's titled Deciding to Live.

00:43:58 Speaker_09
I became the one who got away, who got glasses from the Lions Club, a job from Lyndon Johnson's War on Poverty, and finally went to college on a scholarship.

00:44:07 Speaker_09
There I met the people I had always read about, girls whose fathers loved them innocently, boys who drove cars they had not stolen, whole armies of the middle and upper classes I had not truly believed to be real.

00:44:21 Speaker_09
the children to whom I could not help but compare myself. I matched their innocence, their confidence, their capacity to trust, to love, to be generous against the bitterness, the rage, the pure and terrible hatred that had consumed me.

00:44:35 Speaker_09
And like so many others who had gone before me, I began to dream longingly of my own death. I began to court it, cowardly, traditionally.

00:44:46 Speaker_09
That is, in the tradition of all those who had gone before me, through drugs and drinking and stubbornly putting myself in the way of other people's violence.

00:44:54 Speaker_09
Even now, I cannot believe how it was that everything I survived became one more reason to want to die.

00:45:03 Speaker_08
Why do you think you went through a self-destructive period after having decided to live and getting away from home?

00:45:11 Speaker_09
Oh, dear, it's like math. It's like one and one. You take a child and rob that child of all self-esteem, you will get an adult that has no sense of their own worth.

00:45:25 Speaker_09
I spent a good portion of my late teens and early twenties trying to find a way to die without having to actually take the responsibility to kill myself. It's a direct result. I've seen it in so many other people.

00:45:41 Speaker_09
I've seen it in some of my younger relatives. It's a devastating impact. The hard thing is to change it, to crawl out of that black depression and begin to think of yourself as a human being like other human beings instead of a monster.

00:45:57 Speaker_09
What helped you do that? I'll tell you the truth. I think it was feminism. I began to believe that there was an explanation for what had happened to me. And I came to it largely through a political understanding.

00:46:17 Speaker_09
I went away to college and somebody talked to me about Marx and showed me, you should be a communist. They said you're working class. Well, I'm not much good at that because communists need to do what they're told.

00:46:29 Speaker_09
But I started reading and trying to study why is it that these things happen and why is it that everybody especially believe that incest and violence happens to poor and working class kids.

00:46:40 Speaker_09
And I lucked into a study group, a feminist study group, and all of a sudden it was bigger. It wasn't just that we were poor.

00:46:47 Speaker_09
It was because I was a girl child and because girl children in my family are taught to endure and survive and not to fight back. And that began to let me be angry.

00:46:59 Speaker_09
It began to let me believe that I wasn't this monster that deserved what had happened to her, but somebody who had fallen under somebody else's madness.

00:47:08 Speaker_08
You did something that it sounds like nobody else in your family had done before. You left home. You went someplace else. You tried to have a life different from the lives you had seen around you. How did you make that move?

00:47:23 Speaker_09
Oh, I did something. I did a number of things nobody else in my family had done before. I was the first person in my family to graduate from high school. The first person to go to college. There have been two since. And I have come of an enormous family.

00:47:37 Speaker_09
It's just that both of my sisters dropped out of high school in the 9th and 10th grade. It's just not something that we were given the idea that we could do. But a lot of it had to do with my mother.

00:47:49 Speaker_09
My mother believed that I was this incredibly special person, that I was Brilliant. She thought that I was just amazing. So when I was five or six years old, she started getting me books and she started saving money to send me to school.

00:48:05 Speaker_09
She would put quarters in a tip jar. She did it my entire childhood. The point I went to college, she had almost $200 and she'd been saving for more than 10 years.

00:48:15 Speaker_08
Wow.

00:48:18 Speaker_09
It wasn't exactly a life in which you could keep money. But if you make that decision with my mother's encouragement, believing that I was different, a lot of other things come along.

00:48:33 Speaker_09
The fact that I was so bright and won so many prizes and awards and things. drove me away from my family. I didn't have any choice about leaving. I didn't know how to talk to them after a while. The hard part was going back. Right.

00:48:45 Speaker_08
Something else that set you apart from your family and probably from a lot of people who you knew growing up is that you're a lesbian. Ah, yes. How old were you when you figured that out?

00:48:58 Speaker_09
I think I was about 11. And I wasn't entirely sure all of what it meant. I just knew that I didn't have any of the same desires that everybody else around me.

00:49:11 Speaker_09
I wasn't much interested in boys or the whole cycle that you get into of getting boyfriends and doing that whole thing. But I was madly, passionately in love with a little girl down the street.

00:49:22 Speaker_09
And I was always in love with a little girl down the street, no matter what little girl it was or where we were. I don't think there was a day in my adolescence that I was not madly in love with somebody, and she was always female.

00:49:35 Speaker_08
Now, when you were young, things were much less in the open about homosexuality than now. And I think people who are gay and lesbian were really encouraged to think of themselves as sick and perverted.

00:49:51 Speaker_08
Coming from a kind of background where you were already really worried and really guilty about who you were and why your stepfather was abusing you,

00:50:01 Speaker_09
um thinking that you liked girls probably or might have brought on yeah right you began i began to think or worry that people would think that i loved girls because my stepfather had raped me um it was one of the

00:50:16 Speaker_08
I'm sure a lot of our listeners are thinking that right now, frankly. Yeah.

00:50:20 Speaker_09
Almost everyone that I've ever talked to says, well, that's it. That's why. But I don't believe it. I believe that my lesbianism has been a source of energy and power in my life.

00:50:32 Speaker_09
It's almost as if, oh, you must hate men because he did these terrible things to you. That's why you love women. But I don't think of it that way. I don't love women because I hate men. I don't even particularly hate men. I happen to love women.

00:50:46 Speaker_09
And lust is a little bit more basic than running away, you know?

00:50:51 Speaker_08
Dorothy Allison, I want to thank you very much for talking with us.

00:50:54 Speaker_02
Thank you. Dorothy Allison recorded in 1992. She died last week at the age of 75. On Monday's show, actor and stand-up comic Jimmy O. Yang, he co-starred in the HBO show Silicon Valley and the film Crazy Rich Asians.

00:51:11 Speaker_02
Now he's the star of the new television show Interior Chinatown, based on the National Book Award-winning novel of the same name. I hope you can join us. For Terry Gross and Tanya Mosley, I'm Sam Brigger.

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