David Joy joins our September Book Club to discuss Those We Thought We Knew, a powerful novel about the fractures and reckonings in contemporary Appalachia.
David Joy joins our September Book Club to discuss Those We Thought We Knew, a powerful novel about the fractures and reckonings in contemporary Appalachia.
Today, I’m honored to welcome renowned storyteller David Joy to Book Gang for a searching, unflinching conversation about Those We Thought We Knew, our September Book Club selection for the MomAdvice Book Club. David brings sharp honesty and lived experience as he examines the histories, power structures, and personal reckonings that shaped his fifth novel. Together, we explore how the legacy of the South, the responsibilities of storytelling, and the risks of crossing boundaries animate both his work and his life.
Those We Thought We Knew plunges us into a North Carolina mountain town wrestling with its past and present after the murder of a young Black artist. Through a chorus of voices—each rendered with nuance and empathy—Joy asks what it means to confront inherited stories, who gets to claim a place, and what’s lost or found when we finally face the truth.
In this week’s thought-provoking episode, we discuss:
📚 Writing Across Boundaries: David reflects on the long, winding road to Those We Thought We Knew, the decade the idea simmered, and the moment a real-life encounter cracked open the novel’s heart. We explore how he approached writing across lines of race, gender, and power—what it demands of the writer, what risks it carries, and why vulnerability and humility are at the center of authentic storytelling.
📚 The Power and Responsibility of Perspective: We dig into the process of shaping a novel with six distinct voices, and the growth required to hold so many lives on the page at once. David shares how working with an authenticity reader challenged and deepened his portrayal of characters whose experiences differ from his own, and how constructive critique—not ego—can transform a story.
📚 The Weight of History—Personal and Regional: Our conversation turns to the complexities of Southern identity, the pride and pain of inheritance, and how personal reckonings about race and history make their way from the dinner table to the page. David opens up about confronting family mythologies, the discomfort of unlearning, and the importance of sitting with hard truths.
BONUS BOOK LIST: This week’s bonus book list is a deep dive on David Joy—featuring all five of his novels, his memoir, and books for understanding the Appalachian South. Discover more about Joy’s storytelling roots, recommended reads on the region, and more ways to get to know the voices shaping contemporary Southern literature.
Meet David Joy
A twelfth-generation North Carolinian, David Joy grew up along the Catawba River and has spent the last 22 years in the mountains of Jackson County. Place-driven and deeply rooted to Appalachia, his work has been translated into six languages. In 2023, his debut novel was adapted to film starring Billy Bob Thornton and Robin Wright. Joy is the author of five novels, including Those We Thought We Knew (winner of the 2023 Willie Morris Award and the 2023 Thomas Wolfe Prize), When These Mountains Burn (winner of the 2020 Dashiell Hammett Award), The Line That Held Us (winner of the 2018 Southern Book Prize), The Weight of This World, and Where All Light Tends to Go (Edgar finalist for Best First Novel). His stories and creative nonfiction have appeared in publications including Garden & Gun, The New York Times Magazine, and TIME. He is also the author of the memoir Growing Gills: A Fly Fisherman’s Journey and a coeditor of Gather at the River: Twenty-Five Authors on Fishing.
Gratitude to Our Show Patrons: This week's episode is open to all listeners thanks to generous donations made through Buy Me a Coffee and your community memberships. If you'd like to keep the conversation going, you're invited to join our Patreon Book Club chat on September 24th at 8 PM ET, where we'll dive deeper into spoilers, themes, and reader reactions. Membership is $5 a month, or you can prepay for the year and save 10%.
SUPPORT OUR SHOW: Join the Book Gang- patreon.com/momadvice
SUPPORT OUR SHOW: Make a One-Time Donation in ANY AMOUNT- buymeacoffee.com/bookgangpodcast
2026 MomAdvice Book Club Books (All 12 Selections)
Those We Thought We Knew by David Joy
Where All Light Tends to Go by David Joy
Your House Will Pay by Steph Cha
When These Mountains Burn by David Joy
David Joy speaks to Jackson County Commissioners
Bookshop.org pays a 10% commission on every sale and matches it with 10% to support independent bookstores.
Connect with David Joy on Instagram or His Website
Connect with Amy on Instagram, TikTok, or MomAdvice
Get the Daily Kindle Deals Newsletter
Book Gang Podcast Transcript:
David Joy (00:00)
Hi, my name is David Joy, and I'm a novelist. That's pretty much all I've done for a good long while now. But we're here today to talk about my fifth novel, which is Those We Thought We Knew.
Amy’s Warm Introduction:
Hey Book Gang! I’m incredibly honored to welcome you to this week’s conversation with David Joy. For our September Book Club, we’re exploring a story where lives collide in the wake of tragedy, forcing a reckoning with the stories we inherit and those we choose to tell. In Joy’s backlist novel, Those We Thought We Knew, we're pulled deep into the messy, urgent, and profoundly human questions that shape contemporary Appalachia—identity, history, and belonging.
One of the first things you’ll notice about Joy’s writing is his refusal to look away from discomfort. This novel brings together a chorus of voices—across race, age, and experience—challenging readers to sit with hard truths about history and the narratives we repeat. If you feel uneasy, you’re exactly where Joy wants you. He believes real growth happens at the edge of comfort, and that literature offers a place to wrestle with questions we might avoid elsewhere.
The story unfolds in a North Carolina mountain town, where Toya Gardner, a young Black artist, returns in search of her roots. At the same time, two deputies uncover evidence of a hidden Klan network still operating in the community’s shadows. As Toya’s journey intersects with this dark local history, she begins to question the traditions and power structures that have shielded injustice for so long. Through her eyes—and those of her grandmother Vess, law enforcement, and others—Joy crafts a narrative that works as both a mystery and a mirror. He pushes us to confront whose stories are told, who holds power, and the real cost of speaking out. The result is a novel as layered as the mountains themselves—challenging, at times unsettling, yet always reaching for the hope that change is possible.
Joy’s writing shines in moments of quiet revelation. Whether it’s a grandmother’s memory, the ache of a lost friendship, or the way a small town can both protect and suffocate, his lyricism brings tenderness to even the most difficult subjects. Personal and communal histories are always intertwined here, and Joy makes sure we see how reckoning—with the past, with privilege, and with the stories we inherit—becomes the novel's beating heart.
First published to critical acclaim in 2023, Those We Thought We Knew remains one of Joy’s most gripping and morally complex works. Its urgent themes have only grown more relevant, especially as debates over censorship and intellectual freedom continue to play out across the country.
If David Joy is new to you, this episode is the perfect introduction. He’s an award-winning novelist from western North Carolina whose dark, lyrical fiction explores the realities and contradictions of Appalachia. In 2025, his audience grew even wider after a video of him forcefully condemning book bans at a Jackson County, North Carolina commissioners’ meeting went viral on TikTok. That moment wasn’t just another author defending his profession—it brought national attention to the stakes of censorship at a local level. Joy’s speech reminded his community, and all of us, that the fight over books is really a fight over who gets to ask questions, imagine new possibilities, and outgrow inherited narratives.
His words that day reminded listeners—whether in that room or watching from afar like me on my tiny screen in the Midwest—that literature’s power isn’t in telling us what to think, but in teaching us to think for ourselves. In a moment when rural voices are often used to justify restrictions, Joy’s stand became a rallying point for anyone who believes a healthy society depends on curiosity, courage, and the freedom to read. For me, it solidified the admiration I first felt back in 2015, when I interviewed him for my blog after being transported by his debut, Where All Light Tends to Go.
Even years after its release, Those We Thought We Knew remains a provocative, page-turning novel—perfect for sparking meaningful reflection and conversation about Southern history. If you’re a fan of S.A. Cosby or love novels that blend suspense with social insight, you’re going to find so much here. This book truly deserves a proper revival tour, and I’m thrilled to help guide you through it today.
If you’re new here, hi! I’m Amy Allen Clark, the voice behind the Book Gang podcast and the founder of MomAdvice.com, where we’ve celebrated a book club pick every month since 2014. This space is dedicated to debuts, backlist favorites, and under-the-radar gems. I’m just so happy to have you here to celebrate one of my favorite storytellers.
This week’s Book Club episode is open to all listeners, thanks to the generous support of our Patreon community and Buy Me a Coffee donors, who helped cover this year’s expenses. If you’d like to keep the conversation going, join us for our exclusive Patreon Book Club chat on September 24th at 8 PM ET, where we’ll dive deeper into spoilers, themes, and reader reactions from Those We Thought We Knew.
It’s a special week on Patreon! Alongside our spoiler-filled episode with David Joy, you’ll get access to a brand-new FULLY BOOKED podcast and a 31-page newsletter packed with our latest book reviews and reading recommendations for September, created in partnership with getbookedwithlarry. Plus, our Classics Club has officially launched! We’re reading Jane Eyre together—starting with Chapters 1–13 and meeting for discussion on September 17th at 8 PM ET. Membership is just $5 a month, or save 10% when you prepay for the year. If you have always wanted to be part of a book club, this is a warm multigenerational space to grow and share together as readers.
To celebrate this month’s special feature, you’ll also find this week’s bonus: a David Joy reading guide—featuring his complete bibliography and suggested reading order, along with notes on each book and what makes his storytelling unique.
Now, let’s meet today’s guest: David Joy is a twelfth-generation North Carolinian who grew up along the Catawba River and has spent the last 22 years in the mountains of Jackson County. His writing is deeply rooted in Appalachia, and his novels have been translated into six languages. In 2023, his debut novel was even adapted into a film starring Billy Bob Thornton and Robin Wright.
David is the author of five novels, including Those We Thought We Knew—which won both the 2023 Willie Morris Award and the Thomas Wolfe Prize—When These Mountains Burn, The Line That Held Us, The Weight of This World, and Where All Light Tends to Go, which was an Edgar Award finalist for Best First Novel. His stories and essays have appeared in places like Garden & Gun, The New York Times Magazine, and TIME. He’s also written a memoir called Growing Gills: A Fly Fisherman’s Journey, and he’s the coeditor of Gather at the River: Twenty-Five Authors on Fishing.
If you’re enjoying the show, leaving a quick review on iTunes is one of the best ways to help others discover Book Gang—it’s free and means so much to us. And to our wonderful patrons, thank you for being the kind of empathetic readers who love nothing more than exploring life’s hard truths. Thank you for supporting human creators in a world turned upside down by AI.
Now, let’s get chatting!.
(transition music)
Amy Clark (00:13)
Welcome to the show, David. I'm so happy to have you. I know I told you this, but listeners may not know that for a very long time, I ran a column called Sundays with Writers. And when David's first book came out, I thought it was his first book. We'll talk about that. When his first book came out, I got to interview him about his writing. I just found it to be so impactful and special and I have been following his career ever since. It is such a joy to finally get to meet you in person.
But I understand that there's a memoir circulating at one point in time prior to that book. And I do want you to know I thought about ordering it, but it is very expensive and I am on a budget because of this economy.
David Joy (01:46)
So the print version is very expensive. You know, I wrote that book. I guess I was maybe twenty-five. You know looking back I kind of wish that it hadn't been published. I can look back on it and see a lot of things that I was starting to do well as a writer, but you know writing a memoir at twenty five, you know a whole lot of perspective shift.
As time goes on I've actually thought about trying to republish it maybe like a twenty five year anniversary or something. Write a forward to it because a lot of people always ask about that book. It's been out of print for a really long time. Oddly enough it's still available in e-book and I have no idea where that money goes because I've never seen a penny of it. But I can look back and see some of the things that I was starting to do well, but I can also look back on it and see that it lacked the nuance of maturity.
I think there were a lot of things that I was very hard-nosed about at 25 that maybe I've softened on a little bit at 42.
Amy Clark (02:09)
Well, my kids are in their twenties and when my child was one years old, I launched a site called MomAdvice.com. And I had no business doing that. But my husband thought it's a great domain name. You should get that. And then people would ask me for advice and I'm like, I don't know. So I guess memoirs are kind of like that.
David Joy (02:30)
Yeah, that's right, that's right, we're all flying by the seat of our pants.
Amy Clark (02:34)
It's so true. Well, I am very excited that this book fell into my stack and to get to discuss it with our book club. I want to talk about the story because I know it took a long, long time for it to enter our world. And you said that you've lived with this story for nearly a decade before it became what we know now. So I of course want to know what did those early seeds look like for you and how did this story evolve as a writer?
David Joy (03:05)
I think that this feels like the novel that I was put on this earth to write in a lot of ways. I don't feel like it's a novel that very many people could have written. All of those other novels, I think, especially those first three were really kind of cemented in a literature that...
I love writers like Larry Brown and Daniel Woodrell and Ron Rash, you know, and Harry Crews. And this kind of literary tradition of kind of grit-lit or the rough south. And then these last two novels kind of moved away from that some in so much as they were social novels in ways that those first three weren't.
But yeah, the earliest scenes of Those We Thought We Knew started somewhere around 2010, 2011. And so the truth is that all of those other novels were written while this one was maturing in the background and one of the earliest seeds was what became the second chapter. That second chapter is actually the very first thing I ever wrote with regards to this novel and there was this, it's actually very funny because I was driving you like I told you I just came home I have not seen this man I don't know it's probably been fifteen years or so and I saw him walking through town as I came to my house today very serendipitous.
But anyways, I used to drink coffee at a firehouse every morning with a with a bunch of old men and one of them had had been in the sheriff's office for a really long time and there was this man that used to walk down the road in Sylva and I would always see him and there was just something kind of sketchy about him. I wound up asking this guy about him one morning and he told me that when he had first shown up he was sleeping in his car and that they searched his vehicle and they found a notebook filled with Klan contacts, with local Klan contacts. And I'll never forget him saying, he said, “it was people I'd known my whole life”. And he said this with kind of this shock. And me as the writer, it's like, you have everything for a novel in that moment. And so that was kind of the initial thing, felt like an entry point to a story that I wanted to explore.
But I think there were lots of reasons it took so much time. And one of the biggest was that the second piece that came along was the character of Toya Gardner, this young 20s black female artist. And I knew what she was doing. I could see her at this statue, at this Confederate statue. And I knew she was going to engage with it in some way. What I didn't know was how she got there.
And so when a character arises for me, so much of it boils down to who are they, how did they get here, where are they going? And those are the initial questions. And then you live with them for a really long time and you get to know them intimately and I think that it just took me a really long time to get to know her and there were some things that played out you know that I think we'll talk about later as far as how that came to be, but I think it just it it took a lot of time to get to know her intimately.
I also think that it was about maturing as a writer. You know, this story is, I think there's six perspectives. You know, it's third limited, but I think there's six perspectives. And the truth is that early on in my career, I didn't have the grace to kind of keep that many characters on the stage at once. It got really boggled and confusing a lot of times. And so I think there was that type of development and maturity as well. I think sometimes you might have the crux of a story, but it might just take a little while for it to sit there and really turn into something. And it's the ones that don't leave you that wind up really becoming something, becoming a novel.
Amy Clark (07:09)
Yeah, I am so impressed by this book. I mean, for many reasons, you know, hearing that, that really impactful moment in your own town, really sets the scene for it. And you said that it's percolating in the background. So I wondered if, you know, you had talked about this with your team, that you had this idea how everyone supported you through the season of really trying to get it where it needed to be, even though you have other projects going, I don't know what that experience is like on the back end.
David Joy (07:45)
Yeah, I think that I'm a pretty private person. And so for the most part, I don't show anything to anyone until I think that it is done. I say that, it inevitably isn't done. And then there's a whole lot of work that goes into that afterwards. But I am an exceptionally private person with regards to my writing.
I have never been a part of a writing group. I've never had friends that I bounced things off of. If I'm sitting down at dinner with a friend or something who's a writer, a lot of times, yeah, we might talk about things, but it's never showing pages. It's never asking questions about plot or something like that. And I've always been that way, but with regards to like my agent, you know the truth is that my agent and I have have the only novel we ever worked on of mine was the first one and that was because you know we were trying to sell it
Amy Clark (08:39)
Mm-hmm.
David Joy (08:40)
And even with the editors I was very fortunate and I had the same editor for the first four novels, this brilliant woman named Sarah Minnick. She was one of the best readers and one of the most talented editors that I've ever encountered. She wound up having children and she wanted to be a mama and so that's what she did. But the truth is it broke my heart because to develop that level of trust with someone with something that is almost integral to who you are takes a tremendous leap of faith and an immense amount of vulnerability. And I can say that there were times that I disagreed with her but there was never anything that she brought to me that I did not sit with because I knew that she was smarter than me, having that level of you know critique that you can trust and really sit with was very helpful.
With this novel I've gotten a new editor and so it was the first time working with her. She was a good bit younger than Sarah. She was able to show me a whole lot of things once I handed her the book. But to me, the publishing industry is asking me for a cake, right? And I don't need their hands in the flour. I don't need their hands in the sugar. I don't feel like showing them what I'm using or the mixing bowls or the mess or anything else. I wanna hand you a cake.
And a lot of times that can get difficult, especially if the novel has already sold. So for instance, right now I'm working on a novel that has sold. And when you've got an editor who is asking for pages, it's very difficult. You know, sometimes she's like, I paid you for a cake. I want to see the flour, you know? I kind of shove my fingers in my ear and go la, la, la, la, la until it's over.
Amy Clark (10:25)
I love it. You know, I don't really often talk to people who are that private with their work. Is it just, you know, is it mystical? Like you don't want anyone else to see it? Is it you're worried that the feedback may transform it in some way you didn't intend for it to go?
David Joy (10:41)
I think that there's a whole lot of I'm someone who has had my work adapted to film, right? And I can tell you that nine times out of ten, when a story is destroyed by Hollywood, what happens is that you have all of these people wanting to put their hands into the bowl. And they're not bread makers, right?
Amy Clark (11:04)
Mm-hmm.
David Joy (11:05)
And what winds up happening is that they ruin it.
And so for me, it's not that there's, when those pages are turned in, I am absent of ego, right? Like it's not a prideful thing. And I will sit with anything that someone tells me about it, even after the book's published. But going into it, I need to be trusted to do what I'm good at, right?
You know it's like when people have asked me before what did you have any say in the cover? Well yeah, I could have had a say in the covers but the thing is, you know, you're talking about graphic designers who are working for one of the biggest publishers in the world. I think that it would be very foolish for me, who's not a graphic designer who knows nothing about that, to go and tell them how to do their jobs. I'm someone who very much believes that people should stay in their lanes and, you know, stick with stick with the thing that you're very good at. And for me, I trust myself with that. And then once I can get it done, I can hand it over and you can say, you need to do this. I think it needs a little bit of this.
Amy Clark (12:14)
That makes sense to me. You know, the Hollywood thing has been interesting just because, you know, from a reader perspective, there are so many deals now where people are signing away their book, you know, with the movie rights to particular people. If they're selected for book clubs or all of these other wheels that are going, you know, playing behind the scenes that I don't think a lot of people understand. And so the freedom to be able to tell the story the way that you want to and not have that involvement really shows I think in the quality of your work.
David Joy (12:46)
Yeah, yeah, well, thank you.
Amy Clark (12:48)
Well, I want to talk about obviously getting Toya's viewpoint down because, this takes a lot of bravery, I would imagine to do. It was interesting to me. We actually read another book called Your House Will Pay and it was about the Rodney King protests and everything that had transpired with that case. And she did the perspective from the Asian family, but also from a black family that were also involved. And it was, I feel like taking some risks and also the risks paid off which is what I see in this story as well but how did you approach getting that voice?
David Joy (13:29)
That's a really big question. You know, I think that art has to be created from a place of fearlessness and a place of vulnerability. And that is first and foremost. If it's going to be meaningful, you have to work from that space.
The thing that you're talking about here is writing across gaps. And when we're talking about that, that can be all different types of things. That can be region, right? Like that can be somebody who has never left New York city writing a story about Appalachia. It can be class, you know, it can be gender, it can be nationality, it can be sexuality, it can be race, it can be some combination of those things. And so often nowadays we hear people talk as if they're being silenced and censored and I can't do this and I can't do that, and it's always white men who refuse to be held accountable for when they get it wrong
Amy Clark (14:21)
It's true.
David Joy (14:22)
Though that's the people who are saying this. And the truth is that you can do anything, but you have to recognize that mistakes are not inconsequential. And so the biggest question with regards to when you're writing across gaps is, does the crossing of this gap involve power?
And as a white American cis man there is no gap that I can cross that does not involve power. You could make the argument about class because, you know, I definitely understand class in a way that a lot of people don't. But there's no other gap that I can cross that does not involve power.
And so you think about, you know, I'll use an example of someone who I really like is S.A. Cosby, Sean Cosby. He's a good friend of mine, you know. Sean writes about a whole lot of characters who are very similar to mine and Sean is a black man who was born and raised in Virginia. And he'll write white characters. Well, the question gets asked, well why can he do that and he doesn't have to answer these questions but when you do you do? It goes back to power. The crossing of that gap for Sean does not involve power. The crossing of the gap for me does and so that's the thing that you have to recognize first.
And then again, it has to be once you do the work, you do the work to the best of your ability and you do so from a place recognizing that you will inevitably get something wrong. And when you get that thing wrong it's not a moment to get defensive and it's not a moment to get prideful, it's a moment to shut your mouth and listen. And what I mean by, you know, these mistakes not being inconsequential is that if I did, let's say I write a woman and I write this woman who is very submissive to men. She always keeps your mouth shut, she, you know, she falls in line and does everything that she's told. What I'm doing is perpetuating a stereotype. That hindered agency in the female identity for centuries, right? At the very least, you have to acknowledge that you were entering this much bigger conversation. There's no way around it. You can't say, well, I just wanted to do it. You can't do that.
And so for me, it was sitting with all of that and I had this character and she was essential you know. I couldn't tell the story without that perspective, I couldn't tell the story. I think that this is Vess Jones's novel, you know, Toya's grandmother. I think this novel belongs to Vess in the same way that When These Mountains Burn belongs to Raymond Mathis. This is her story more than it is anyone else's story. But those perspectives were essential to telling it.
When those questions became answered, I was shooting a television show for PBS and they had asked me to tell the story of the place that I write about. And I said, that's not my story to tell, but I will introduce you to the people whose it is. And so I took them to meet a Cherokee writer named Annette Saunooke Clapsaddle, who took us to Gidua Mound, which is the birthplace of the Cherokee. That butts up to the county that I live in.
I took them to meet Marie Cochran who was going to introduce us to members of the Mount Zion AME Church, which is one of the oldest churches in Jackson County, a black church that has existed since 1892. And when we met Marie, she wanted to meet on Western Carolina's campus and she led us up a hill to a dormitory that I have stood outside and been in, you know, for years and years and years. And she showed me a plaque that I had never seen. And that plaque said you know that eighteen that in 1892 this church was founded by eleven formerly enslaved people and then in such and a such date the church and the cemetery was moved to make way for this dormitory. And of course no one wishes to dig up their dead and move them off a mountain. They were removed. The truth is that there were two other churches on that campus that could have just as easily been moved as well but they were white churches.
And when I looked when I walked off of that hill that day I suddenly knew why Toya was there. I knew that she was a graduate student who would come to her ancestral home and was trying to figure out who and where she'd come from. And all of a sudden the story just broke open. That was probably, I don't know twenty eighteen or twenty nineteen, is when the is when that moment happened and yeah that was that was the moment that I found her voice I think
Amy Clark (19:14)
You know, I think this going back to the fact that you were asked to tell your story and then you gave the microphone to other people to tell their story is ultimately what led to many more seeds in your own story to help you understand the voices in your own novel, which I think this really goes to show how powerful it is when we give up our voice to allow other people to tell their stories, because that would have never happened had that moment not transpired for you.
David Joy (19:48)
Yeah, yeah, I think that's absolutely right. And I've always been somebody who it's like, think the powers that be are very likely to hand me a microphone because of privilege. And I've always been the saboteur. Which is to say, you know, which is to say that I'm going to bring a whole lot of people on stage that maybe you wouldn't have given the microphone to. And that's just, that's just my nature.
Amy Clark (20:12)
Yeah, I'm with you on that one. Well, I know that you did work with an authenticity reader and that really did help shape this voice that you discovered through this process. How do you feel she helped you and created a different kind of story maybe than you were able to tell on your own?
David Joy (20:35)
Yes, I think that again, that's a very big question. I was adamant that I wanted to work with an authenticity reader from the very beginning and I was very fortunate to have a publisher that not only felt the same way but was willing to do the work and find the right person and pay for that work. You know, I think a lot of people might not be granted that opportunity.
One thing I love is this kind of shift away from, you know, in the past we would have used the term sensitivity reader. And the problem with that term is, you know, if I write a female perspective and then you read it and you say, David, you got this wrong. Well, that critique is not a matter of your sensitivities, right? Like it's a matter of me, you know, not having the perspective that I need in order to get that story right. So I like that. I like that shift.
In the way that we're talking about this I will say that I have no idea who this person is. I've never spoken with them. I don't know her name. I know that it's I know that it's a black woman and an academic who, you know, who has dedicated her life to to studying the things that this novel is is looking at.
When I got the phone call from my editor, I'd been waiting on this thing to come back. She says, I don't really wanna email you, I wanna talk to you on the phone, which, you know, it was like, okay. And so she calls me and she says, David, every time that we've ever had an authenticity read before, she said, you know, it's usually a page and a half, two pages. And she said, yours is 20 pages, you know, with another 15 pages of footnotes, you know.
In theory she was terrified by this. I got this is like early December. The thing that was most difficult was that my turnaround time was a month to go through everything that this woman was saying and then make the changes that I saw fit to make.
When I got it immediately could recognize, you know, just how brilliant she was and I think the thing that is hard for some people to understand is that when an editor when an editor brings something to you or in this case an authenticity reader brings something to me, that does not mean that I have to change it. Like I don't have to change anything, you know. I think that it typically serves the writer and serves the story to sit with it and you know to really sit with it absent of pride, absent of ego. Does this you know make the story better and with the things that she brought there were so many things that I had spent years thinking about.
And I saw one of your questions for behind the paywall and it's like we're gonna get back to what I'm talking about here because there's something that one of the biggest questions raised, you know, we can't really talk about without altering the story, you know, and ruining some surprises within the story.
But I'll give you an example of something that she said that I had not fully considered. Well, there's lots of things. So for instance, Toya's father does not exist in this novel. The truth is that Toya's father did exist in this novel. And it wound up being this perspective that became really bothersome and it didn't really work and so I removed him from the story. But by removing him from the story, I'm perpetuating this idea of the absent black father. Well, that's a very real criticism. And if a black reader engages with this text and wishes to have that conversation, that's an entirely valid point to make, right?.
Amy Clark (24:37)
Mm-hmm.
David Joy (24:38)
Absolutely. But so another example of something would be like, there's a protest that happens around this Confederate monument. And you've got all of these people who are willing to die for this monument to not be removed or destroyed.
And then you've got all of these people who were wanting the town and the county to do something about this confederate monument. And amidst all of this the only black person standing there is Toya. What this woman said is that Toya would not have been there. I don't know that Toya wouldn't have been there, but what I do know is that I underestimated the hyper awareness that she would have had in that moment, right?
And so then you go back to that scene and you amp that up. Right? And so then there's this moment that she looks around and she recognizes the very real danger that she is in. In the same way that if you and I both walked out of a Walmart at midnight, I'm six foot five and 225 pounds. Right? Like nothing is going to happen to me.
But if you walk out and you're walking between and the light only stretches this far and then you're in a dark spot and then the light's here, then there's a dark spot. The awareness that you have for that situation is something that is not my lived experience. And so that's an example of something that she brought to my attention that then enriches that moment and it makes the entire thing more believable. And I would be a fool to not to not sit with that and to try to do that work to get it right.
Amy Clark (26:16)
That makes so much sense. And also it's not necessarily like the bigger themes. It's these little things, these little nuances that are playing out in your story that completely changed the trajectory of that scene and her perception and your perception of what is happening. And all of it is enhanced by having this, you know, authenticity reader and you're right, sensitivity reader that just, it signifies something entirely different and to actually have an authentic lived experience it needed that eye in that story. It helps so much to hear you talk through that because you know I very rarely talk to people who have had the opportunity to work with one or you know they may do some beta testers but that that is a particularly special skill that definitely enhanced her story.
Well, I want to unbox some aspects of your story that I know we're talking about big and heavy things. And I'm so glad that you are willing to do this with me. And I'm, I feel so lucky. Like I'm trying not to cry, but you are such a special writer to me. And I think what you did in this story is so special, but I want to talk about growing up with a version of Southern history that carried a lot of pride for you, but also mythology. When you began questioning those narratives in your own life, what shifted for you and how do you think that personal reckoning found its way into your story?
David Joy (27:44)
I think, you know, I'm a 12th generation North Carolinian. And so my father's earliest ancestor came out of Virginia into what would become Bertie County in the late 1690s. And by kind of the mid 1700s, the majority of his family settled in and around the Catawba River where I was born. I say that with an immense amount of pride.
To grow up in a place where I would ride with my grandmother and she would point to a field where she'd work tobacco or where she'd pick cotton or she would point to houses that her father built and her brothers built. Or just to grow up on that river and have her point to a place that she fished as a child that I fished as a child, it's very essential to identity for me and I say that with an immense amount of pride.
But the truth is that you can't admit to being a 12th generation white anything in this country without that also very likely meaning that you are the descendant of enslavers. And for me, that is most assuredly the truth. I am the descendant of enslavers. And so you have this just conflicted identity of at once being very proud of the people in the place that you come from but at the same time being disgusted by what part of that history entails.
I grew up in a really special environment in so much as I was pretty much always a minority at every school I went to. I was very fortunate to have black men and women but particularly women in positions of power as a child. And so in school like you know I think this question circulates a lot of times on Facebook or something and the question will be “when was the first time that you had a black teacher” and for a lot of people they never did. And for a lot of people it wasn't until college. For me it was kindergarten. And if I look back on the majority of the most influential teachers in my childhood that's what it looked like. I think that was special.
I can also, you know, you brought up Rodney King earlier and I can remember that moment. It was as I would have been somewhere around fifth grade, fourth, fifth grade and that was also right around the time that Spike Lee's Malcolm X came out. Either not long after that maybe a little bit before those timelines are right there together.
But I can remember when so many of the black kids at my school would wear this giant X on their shirt for Malcolm X. And I can remember when white kids had shirts that said you wear your X, I'll wear mine. And it was stars and bars, right? And so the truth is that that duality and that kind of conflict was always in the background.
You know, it feels like I was raised in a pressure cooker. It was all it was always present, you know. Some of the earliest kinda news that I remember was with regards to the confederate flag flying over the state house in South Carolina. That was a fight that went on for years and years and years. But I can remember that as a child and when I look back there was this conflation of that flag becoming representative of Southern identity.
And so like when I think about a moment like me being nine years old and my dad taking me to a Lynyrd Skynyrd show and Lynyrd Skynyrd playing Sweet Home Alabama and in that moment, 100 foot by 40 foot Confederate flag falls at the back of the stage and everyone in the audience goes wild.
From the outside, it would be very easy to look at that and see these people cheering on that moment in history, cheering on a time when people were enslaved, when that's what this country looked like. And the truth is that I'm not saying that that wasn't the case for some, but I know that that was not the case for the majority. For the majority of those people, that flag had become representative of an identity and a culture that was being erased by the same thing that is happening now which is movement into these places: the mixing of you know people from all over. Of the loss of accent, the loss of food, the loss of a place and so that is to say that it's a very nuanced conversation to have.
Most often times (1), we're unwilling to have it because it makes us uncomfortable. But (2), it's presented as you know this or that, black or white, when, you know, the truth is much more subtle than that. A lot more nuanced than that.
With my father, you know, that so many of us were raised with these mythologies like well your answer our ancestors were too poor to have ever you know been enslavers and everyone grows up hearing that, right? Well, it wasn't about that for our family. Our family never did that. They say these things, but they don't really know them to be true. It was just handed down.
And so I can remember when I found that out, for the first time. And you know, I didn't bring this up, but I can remember being in the car with my parents at some point after that. And my father saying that again and me stopping him and saying well that's not true and watching his face fall.
Because this story that he had grown up believing that made him feel alright about who and where he came from suddenly just shattered and I think that's a really hard thing for a lot of people you know we hear these terms thrown around especially now about white shame and white guilt.
And the truth is that I don't feel guilty or shameful for that history at all. But seeing that I still sit as a direct beneficiary of that system, like I can recognize that, I can see it. If I kept my mouth shut, that's shameful, right? Like that's the thing that would make me feel guilty.
The only way to sort anything out is to take it out of our pockets and sit it on the table, you know, and be willing to sit there with that uncomfortability and not just for a night, but for a very extended period of time because we're talking about a country that was founded upon and perpetuated by white supremacy. know, and that's just a fact.
Think about all the mythologies. The mythology of George Washington's wooden teeth and finding out that no, he didn't have wooden teeth you know. He had dentures that were made from teeth that have been pulled from enslaved peoples. Or we think about Thomas Jefferson. We don't think about the fact that Thomas Jefferson had relationships with women that he had enslaved and that he had his own children enslaved. Like those are the things that we talk about in a classroom.
But the truth is that that is our founding fathers, you know, and I think one of the greatest hindrances and roadblocks to this conversation is this miseducation and this miss history. And it's that it was handed down for generations and generations. And so like, if you think about the kind of lost cause sentimentalities and history that were taught in Southern schools, you know, I'm not that old. I may look it, but I'm not that old. You know, I graduated in 2002, but I grew up going to schools where I was taught that the American Civil War wasn't about slavery, right? Like it was about all of these other things and that was taught as a background, but that was not the primary cause of that war. That was the history that my grandparents had been taught, that was the history that my father had been taught, that was the history that I was taught.
And so when you're talking about going back and then saying, well, no, this isn't true, you're questioning something that is fundamental to their principles of education. It's as if all of a sudden you were telling them that two plus two no longer equals four, And so that's one of the biggest roadblocks to this entire conversation is that what we were taught quite simply is not right.
Amy Clark (36:25)
Yeah, I mean, I feel like as an adult, the reason why I'm such a reader is because I need to learn. Like, I don't know anything. And I think it has been a real reckoning with my upbringing, with what I was taught in school. My kids know much more than I did. You know, thankfully I feel like there is emerging like of some of the terrible history that we people have endured, you know, and my kids know more about things like Columbus Day, for example, like that's not something I was taught was anything to be, you know, considered as not a holiday, you know, it never even occurred to me and they teach me, know, I'm having Gen Z kids teach me things or they challenge me and it's like I'm sorry I never knew that, and it does take, I think, being humble and realizing that you don't know shit. Like you don't know anything, you know,
David Joy (37:22)
Yeah. Yeah.
Amy Clark (37:24)
And it's just awakening to that. Then realizing, okay, I, I need to learn more. Like I need to check out books. I need to watch some documentaries. I need to watch some films. I need to immerse myself and also listen to the stories of other people and try to make sense of what I've been taught. But you know, I think what's hard is when people are unwilling, right, to, do that as well, you because it's much easier, I would imagine, to put blinders on, to act like none of this is happening, we have no idea why it happened, you know, it, it, right.
David Joy (37:58)
Well, you don't lose anything, especially as a white person. You're not gonna lose anything by keeping your mouth shut, right? Like the truth is that if I never say anything about this, if I don't recognize that I'm a beneficiary of that system and I don't speak it aloud, my life doesn't change, right? You've got people who are putting on blinders because it's easier.
But then what you also have, is a government who is actively working to suppress art and literature. Like you look at the state of Florida last year had banned more books than you know any other time in history. That they had banned ten thousand books. There's a very real reason why that's happening and if you look at the books that are being banned, it's the types of books that we're talking about, right? It's the types of books that question the status quo that question everything that we've been taught. So I think what I think those are two more things that we are very much constantly at battle with
Amy Clark (39:05)
Yeah. Well, I think, you know, this is a good segue to talk about how you have used your voice because I do think I am shakily using my voice for the first time. And I think a lot of people are really scared to begin doing that because part of it is you might get it wrong. Like you may say something that's hurtful or harmful and that often holds me up, right? I don't want to ever hurt anybody or say anything wrong. I want to be liked, you know, and that's hard to like, you know, all of those kinds of things. But I, the reason why I picked this book, is that I stumbled upon you using your voice and I saved it and I showed my family over our dinner. We were talking about just, it amazed me. I know it went viral. Tell me about that moment.
David Joy (39:56)
I didn't know that it was being recorded. What's kind of wild about this novel is that you know this novel is about one of the central conflicts. It is about a real confederate monument that stands over the town of Sylvan, North Carolina which is the biggest town in the county where I live. I wrote all of those scenes about that statue before any of this happened, but in 2020, when when kind of there was all of these when there was you know there's no there's no way to not say it you know when Ahmaud Arbery was chased through the streets and shot like a dog in the state of Georgia and the DA would not have even pressed charges on the men who murdered him unless unless public outcry demanded it. And then you jump forward a couple months and the entire world watches as police officer Derek Chauvin kneels on George Floyd's throat for close to nine minutes until he dies before our eyes. Another man murdered.
You jump forward a couple months and you know Breonna Taylor is murdered by police in her bedroom and suddenly the country was at this fracture point where you could no longer choose to not engage with the conversation. And that's kind of a whole other topic because even then the greater desire was for things to quiet down just long enough that, phew, like thank God we can usher the monster back into the closet and not talk about that, right?
But in that moment you couldn't. And so you had all of these, these, you know, protests, counter protests, all of these things happening all over the country. Well, one of the places that it happened was in downtown Silva over that Confederate monument. And it was very wild to still be working on that novel and have the things that I had already written suddenly be playing out in the real world outside. And it's not that I'm a fortune teller, that I could see the future. It's that I've seen this play out time and time and time again over the course of my life and is still playing out and it's played out more so now than it has really it at any other moment.
But so the county eventually decided that what they would do rather than, you know, remove this statue was kind of this typical government appeasement. We're gonna leave the statue, but we're gonna pay to have this bronze plaque made to cover the Confederate flag that's on the front of that statue. And we're gonna make this statue a memorial to all veterans. So that's what they did. And that was something that I didn't agree with, but at least it was done through some type of civic process and you had these two sides kind of both being heard. Well last year what wound up happening is that to this day we have no idea which commissioners that would be it even was they had a private phone conversation where they decided they were going to remove this plaque that the county has spent fifteen thousand dollars on.
And it happened overnight. They just removed it. No place for public comment. No one willing to stand up and say, I'm the one who did it. Nothing. And it pissed me off. And I was actually out of town at the time and I told my girlfriend, I said, I've got to get home. And she was like, why? And I said, because I've got to tell these people they're trash. And it was like I want to go there and stand stand in front of your face look you in your i'd tell you that you are trash
Amy Clark (43:27)
Yeah.
David Joy (43:28)
And that was why I went there and so that's what happened in that moment. I had no idea that it was being recorded but I'm glad that, you know, I'm glad for, you know, what it did and if nothing else you know maybe maybe giving people the power to you know
The other thing though is that it's very easy for me to do that and I don't want to dismiss that privilege. Which is to say that once again I'm a six foot five, 225 pound white man. Right? Like the truth is that I'm not in very much danger when I choose to be vocal. I'm very aware of that. And I don't want to make light of that.
Amy Clark (44:06)
Yeah.
David Joy (44:06)
But so that was what was going on in that county. At this point, the county has basically erased our library. Like all of these things are happening at the same time. And, you know, I just think about not only all of the black people who have lived in this county, born and raised in this county, who are on our police force, who are our teachers, are, you know, business owners, who are all of these different things. But when somebody visits this place and they walk up those steps to that courthouse and that's the thing that they're confronted by is this, you know, giant confederate monument with a granite confederate flag overlooking the entire town. What does that say to them? And what was it placed there to say? Like the context of of you know the daughters of the confederacy placing this in a moment right after reconstruction was very much a ‘we are still in charge’, right?
Like you think about Alexander Stephens and I mentioned Alexander Stephens when I spoke to those commissioners and I wish to God I had forced them to tell me who he was because I can guarantee they couldn't. Right? But Alexander Stephens was the vice president of the confederacy and when the confederacy folds, and that war ends, Alexander Stephens isn't imprisoned. He isn't tried for treason. He isn’t hanged ten years from that moment. Where is he? He's the governor. He's the governor of the state of Georgia. Which is to say that reconstruction was this short-lived moment that ushered in an era of Jim Crow that we're still living in the shadow of, and that's the context that those statues were placed in that's the history of of what that means.
And so for me, I think that we have to be vocal about those things. And I also don't think it has to look like that. I can remember at an event when this book first came out, this woman standing up at this reading and saying, but what if it gets you killed? And in that moment, it kind of frustrated me because my first thought was you've never had to live in real danger.
The people that we're talking about protecting live in an ever-present danger. And so there was that part of me. But then when I sat there for just a moment, it was that that's not what this has to look like. Like if you don't want to go stand in front of commissioners and do that work, if you don't want to go stand in a protest and do that work, you don't have to.
Because the truth is that where these conversations need to be taking place is at the dinner table. They need to be taking place on the porch. They need to be taking place in car rides like it did with my father, looking at him and saying, well, no, Dad, that's not right. And the truth is that, typically speaking, that's a fairly safe space because at the end of the day as long as that conversation is approached with respect and also a recognition that we are going to get things wrong you are you're going to get things wrong I am too we are human. I'm sick of this idea that that we need to be infallible right and we can never be wrong growth demands it but growth demands that you be wrong.
For me that's what all of this is about right it's not about starting out perfect it's not about the ending perfect but it is about trying to live in a world where you can recognize privilege and you can recognize suffering and and you can recognize right and wrong we teach it to our children and we forget it as adults
Amy Clark (47:58)
Yeah, I think so much of social media has made it impossible to just be human to human with each other. And you know, it has changed our feelings about each other and what we stand for. I agree, the best and most impactful conversations I have are the kind that I have in real life with people that I do my life with. you know, and I think we get so hung up on the grandstanding and how it needs to be so much bigger or that it needs to be something beyond just you know not being confrontational but inquisitive maybe I don't know asking the right questions and being open to the responses and being okay to correct yeah
David Joy (48:44)
Being inquisitive? That's absolutely right. Like, and I'll give you a perfect example. The other day, my mother was talking about taking her dog to a groomer. And this, this person is transitioning. They, you know, they were, were born male, and, and they are trying to transition to female. And my mom was asking, well, I don't know what to say. And I said, have you ever asked? She was specifically worried about pronouns because this person has changed her name. But she was specifically asking about pronouns. And I said, Mama, ask her. I said, she would appreciate you asking her.
It's not a thing that she's going to be defensive about and if she is then then you know that's her problem because what you're trying to do is saying I respect you enough that I wish to get this right you know. And my mother loves this woman right? Like she thinks she is great at her job she loves interacting with her and yet she's scared to do this because she's scared of getting it wrong and and we've got to be willing to get it wrong. To me I don't know what that I think we just got to be braver and we've also got to be willing to just remain uncomfortable
Amy Clark (50:07)
Yeah. I completely agree and we do get it wrong. And it's good to hear that, we have to also have grace for people who get it wrong because at least they're trying. And I think a lot of times we are not giving people the chance to course correct, to even make inquiries out loud like that feels super brave right now because we don't want to be canceled, you know, cancel culture is so, it's so prevalent and we're not really giving people a chance to grow or learn. you know, that we can't do that. We have to listen to each other. Well,
David Joy (50:40)
Yeah.
Amy Clark (50:42)
I feel like we have to talk about Marie Cochrane. You know, her name appears both as a dedication and then you acknowledge her in the book. I had a lot of fun looking up her art and I saw that you had done an exhibition with her called Those We Thought We Knew Reimagined. And I want to know a little bit about that.
David Joy (51:04)
Well so I actually haven't even seen it. I didn't get a chance to see it and that and that was Marie's entire thing. I think that there was a whole lot of reasons that went into me dedicating that book to her. I think it came as a very big surprise to her. Some of the earliest conversations with regards to black identity in Appalachia for me happened with her when she was working at Western Carolina University as a professor in the art department and I was dating someone in college that was an art student. That's kind of how I got to know her.
But so Marie grew up in the mountains of Georgia. That term Affrilachia is a term that was kinda coined by Frank X Walker a poet from Kentucky. And then it kind of an entire group of writers from Kentucky. So Crystal Wilkinson who I absolutely adore came up with this term Affrilachian. Marie kind of took that term and spun it off of just writing to encompass art in general so she developed something called the Affrilachian artist project that was meant to promote and uplift black art coming out of this reach. Because the truth is that you know if we if we try to have a conversation about Appalachia the majority of people talk about it as if it's a as if it's a town on a map right like i've been to Appalachia you know and and the place that they're talking about is Eastern Kentucky and West Virginia right. Later talking about coal country. They can't even recognize that this region is something that stretches across thirteen states, four hundred and twenty counties, two hundred and five thousand square miles, you know. It's forty thousand square miles larger than the state of California. Which is to say that this is an incredibly diverse region with a whole lot of different landscapes in a whole lot of different cultures.
But if you were to ask someone to draw a picture of what someone from Appalachia looks like, it would look like me. It'd be this tall, lanky, bearded man probably in overalls, probably sitting by a moonshine still, right? What we don't think about is all of the black communities that founded a church like Mount Zion or the community that Marie grew up in. We don't think about writers like Crystal Wilkinson. We don't think about the huge LatinX community that is growing in. That's the biggest demographic shift of the county that I live in of the last twenty years, you know. I've said for a long time that I think the next great Appalachian writer will be LatinX and I believe that. I think that's a fascinating blend of cultures and and and identity.
But so for me, it was very much wanting to acknowledge that that is the voice of this place that is you know an equally valid piece of Appalachia. And so it was kind of just an homage to to those early conversations because the truth is that before that it wasn't something that I was even thinking about. You know it just wasn't. Yeah, and I think that she has done a whole lot of incredible work, particularly just uplifting other people's voices.
Amy Clark (54:37)
Yeah, I love that. Well, I'm wondering, you had a clear kind of demographic, I think of readers that were following your work and you changed lanes like this. What was the response from your readership? Do you feel like you gained new readers? Did it change anything for you?
David Joy (54:58)
I think I probably gained some new readers. I think I probably lost some new readers. To me I wanted and when I say this is not saying that a black reader can’t engage with this text and enjoy the book or get something from the book, but it is to say the majority of the conflicts and issues within this book have been lived, discussed, understood ad nauseam by that community, right? This isn't something new for them.
I wanted to take white characters by extension white readers and force them into the conversations that they are unwilling to have. And so, you know, we were talking earlier about that moment in 2020 when all of these things stacked up and the conversation became unavoidable. And that greater desire even then for things to quiet down so that we could be comfortable. Again I think that white America has a really really big problem with being comfortable. And so we're unwilling to engage in these conversations for any length of time we avoid them at all costs; there's nothing to be gained from that. You most assuredly can't expect any sort of social change when you can't even have a discussion about what's happening. And so for me, I wanted, like I said, you know, I wanted to force these characters into that situation.
And then as far as kind of the mystery form, I think that it felt playful to me to write a whodunit where I cared less about the moment of discovery being who committed the crime. I wanted the moment of discovery to be an illumination of self. I wanted you to suddenly think about things in a different way and sit with these big questions and these big ideas and think about how you were raised in what you were taught and what you believe. And all of it that felt playful to me.
And I think that art and I think that literature are one of the only places where you can do this with security and with safety. I think that one of the things that I love most about literature is that it's a safe space to sit with challenging ideas. And that's to say that if we sit down at a table and try to have this conversation, we may very well reach an impasse where we disagree and that disagreement may turn into defensiveness, that defensiveness may turn into anger. We may get up shouting and leave the room and never talk to each other again.
But if you read this book and it makes you feel that way, you can slap that book closed and you can throw it against the wall. But at the end of the day, it's just you and that book and you're gonna have to account for that. And so I love that aspect of literature. I love that.
That thing that George Saunders said when he said that fiction when it's done well has the capacity to serve as empathy's training wheels and that's right. You know which is to say that for two hundred and fifty pages, four hundred pages you have the opportunity to walk in someone else's shoes and and that's an exceptionally valuable thing
Amy Clark (58:23)
Yeah, I agree and I think too in some ways, in some aspects of the story, there's a mirror there where we can see these hard conversations happening between your characters of a Black character and a white character having a conversation. I remember highlighting so many passages from those sections about the responses from the Black community, right, what we should be looking at. And, in those moments, they're having uncomfortable, hard conversations. And those are conversations that you can then talk about with your book club. Are there any other things that you would like to see book clubs talking about? What does your dream evening look like for our book club?
David Joy (59:05)
I think it's that I think it's I think it's being willing to be vulnerable and being willing to be made uncomfortable I think that there is so much value in that the truth is that when this book came out for the most part it didn't do the fact it didn't do the things that I wished it had done and so often the people shied away from the hard conversations and they weren't willing to ask me the hard questions.
And then I went to France, you know, and I toured two months out of the last year. I was in France touring for this this novel and they were so much more willing to engage in this conversation and to be willing to be made uncomfortable. I think that there are a lot of things that play you know. I think that America is an air-conditioned culture. You know we set our thermostat at 70 and if it gets 72 we're burning up and if it's 68 we're freezing to death. I think that we have eliminated any space for civil discourse. For a very long time now, it's been something where we kind of retreat to our echo chamber and we surround ourselves with people who say the same things that we do, who believe the same things that we do, and we kind of virtue signal to the people around us but we don't engage in those difficult conversations across the aisle. And part of the reason for that is that that is not something that has been rewarded.
The way that this plays out on the television is that we hand the microphone to whoever screams the loudest. It's because sensibility isn't sexy. Right? Like it's just it's just whoever screams the loudest. It's the latest headline. It's what somebody's, it's some, you know, catty response back to what somebody said from this end. And it's like, I'm not interested in any of it. I mean, not to get political, right? But like when something happens on the right right now, it's always what Gavin Newsom said in response. Well, I don't give a shit, right?
Amy Clark (1:01:10)
Yeah.
David Joy (1:01:10)
I'm sick of us handing the microphone and handing power to children. Like it is a time for adults, you know, the children have spoken long enough and it is time for adults to take control of that conversation again. And it is time to, you know, approach that conversation with enough respect and enough dignity to where we can have that conversation and we can have things that we disagree about. And at the end of the day, we're all trying to get to the same place.
I mean you think about that moment in the in the in that you know public forum that time when that person was screaming about Barack Obama and John McCain stopped him. And you know and that's two people who politically were very far apart. I've very much disagreed with the majority of John McCain's politics, but it was a moment recognizing dignity and respect and humanity and saying no you're not going to say that. And it died on that day and that's the truth of it. I can't look at another moment since then when that has happened. We have got to be able to get back to that place and it starts with with all of these other rooms it starts with with dinner tables and it starts with book clubs and it it it starts with all of it
Amy Clark (1:02:25)
Yeah. I couldn't agree more. Well, I know that we are going to be taking you behind the paywall, but David, as we close out, we always ask our author what they're feeling proud of, whether it's with this project or with life in general. And it also gives me a chance to say thank you for trusting me to tell your story. I don't take it lightly.
I am so grateful to get your stories, but to get time with you is just, it's an unbelievable gift. And this will be one of my favorite interviews ever. And I appreciate you so much, but I would love to hear what you're feeling proud of right now.
David Joy (1:03:00)
Yeah, well I'm finishing up a novel that I've been working on for a really long time. It's kind of a return to a whole lot of the things that I loved about writing early on. I kind of feel like with those last two novels, they were trying to do these very big things. And kind of when, especially when that last one didn't do all of the things that I wished it had done, it broke my heart in a lot of ways. I kind of lost the fun for a little while.
And so the novel that I'm finishing was kind of me wanting to take that back for myself and kind of write the type of story that I have always loved reading. But I think with life in general, I don't know, I think I'm at a moment in life where I'm recognizing a whole lot of really old patterns that were ingrained in me when I was a child the same way that you know that all of us are. You know all of us got that little kid inside me. It's kind of the first time in life that I really took the time to sit with him and try to lose some of the things that aren't serving me anymore and celebrate the things that are and grow.
I don't know. It's been a really odd three years. It's been a really hard three years for me. But I can remember writing something to myself once during that time that I wanted this moment to be like a reclamation of self and a renaissance of self because I felt like I had lost a bunch of what I loved. And I also wanted that idea of renaissance, right? That idea of of something entirely new feels feels really powerful to me is but especially in this moment
Amy Clark (1:04:58)
I'm proud of you. That's amazing. What if we all tried to evolve a little bit? I think that's a great idea.
David Joy (1:05:05)
That's why we're here, I think.
Amy Clark (1:05:07)
Well, friends for $5, you can join the book club and you will also get to unlock a spoiler section with David Joy. So I will meet you behind the paywall. Of course that keeps us commercial free. It gives us space for many writers to get to tell their story and we are so grateful.
This transcript is provided for informational purposes only. While every effort has been made to ensure the accuracy of the transcription, errors and omissions may occur. The content of this transcript may not be comprehensive and should not be relied upon as a substitute for professional advice or judgment. The views and opinions expressed by individuals in this transcript are their own and do not necessarily reflect the views of the transcriber or any associated entities. Furthermore, this transcript may be subject to copyright protection. Any reproduction, distribution, or other use of this transcript without the express permission of the copyright owner is strictly prohibited.