February 2022 Meeting Transcript: Punch Me Up To The Gods
Brandon’s note: Last year, I shed light on some of the stories in Book Club’s community. The post below is what actually happens when the Club meets to share their thoughts, feelings and experiences about and around a given month’s selection. This transcript of our February 2022 meeting is lightly edited, only to give the reader more of the rhythm of the room’s speech.
Yahdon:
Welcome to the second Book Club meeting of the year. I think we're like at 70 books since the start of 2015, close to seven years ago. Welcome to the Literaryswag Book Club. I am your host Yahdon Israel. Before I start, are there any new members or people who are attending their meeting for the first time? We have Elizabeth, we have Rakia. We have Brian, we have Amy. Please unmute your cameras. Please, let's give a round of applause for these new faces and new places. Let them hear the applause.
Yahdon:
We need to hear that. That's usually what would happen in a physical space where we would get the crescendo and the sound effects. Welcome to Literaryswag Book Club, a monthly book club that meets every last Wednesday of the month, originally conceived and started back in 2015 as a partnership with Strand bookstore. I started it because I realized that, as a person who at that point loved reading books, there were not a lot of spaces for readers to talk their shit. I went to a lot of literary events. Constantly got told that I had to wait till the last 15 minutes to talk. And then when I wanted to talk, I was told it had to be a question that maybe I didn't have a question.
Yahdon:
Maybe I just wanted to talk to my shit too. I paid $30 to be in here. I wanna talk. Right? So I figured, I wanted to create an event for readers where we get to be the stars. I remember the first book we read for Book Club was Ta-nehisi Coates "Between The World and Me." To me, this was 2015. When he was on fire, you couldn't get on a train without seeing that. I remember every time I got on the train, I seen somebody with that book. And I remember when I told them(Strand) I wanted that to be the book. The first thing they asked was like, can you get him here? And I was like, I don't really, I don't got that kind of juice, but that shouldn't even matter. Because what I really wanted was for people, for readers to come to the meeting because they wanted to talk about the book, not because of who else was coming.
Yahdon:
That first meeting, we got 29 people to show up. Strand was like, listen, this is not sustainable at 29 people. So Book Club went on hiatus, five - six months later, ran the second book club at a friend's loft in Soho. And then at that point every month, since then I made it a point to make sure that every month a meeting happened. And so ever since February of 2016, we have not missed a meeting. Even with the Pandemic. We two years on zoom now, like next month is gonna make two full years, 24 months on zoom and we haven't missed a meeting. So the reason..I mean, everybody's seeing people recovering from food poison. People are moving. People be driving. People be doing a lot of things, but we always find our way back here because the community is centered around the conversations.
Yahdon:
And one of the things I also realize as a big pain point for readers is that there's so much energy put into people, buying books and reading them, but not as much thought and consideration about what happens after a person closes a book. Where do people go when they finish? Right? And some people go to Good Reads. Some people go to Twitter, but it is not the same community as when you watch a basketball game, or when you watching an awards show and you got that comradery. And I really believe that the Book Club is the community for where people can come. It is the thing that enables people to wanna finish a book. And so I wanted a space in a club that made readers the stars. And that's what this is. So like when we started Book Club, we didn't have our first author until like March of 2017, which was like a year and a half into book club. And by that time, And Brian, you're gonna experience this, when we start the meeting officially, is that people were not star struck. People were talking like the writer was just another person in the room. And so what enabled people to do is have a more genuine and honest conversation and it empowered readers to not defer where their opinions matter. It's like, if I don't feel like this paragraph was rocking, I'm gonna tell you that. I don't feel like I have to defer cuz you got a MFA and I don't, it's like, man, I don't get it. You gotta talk to me about it. And so what I love about this club and I think I'll speak for myself, but I think what people come back to is, even though we are in a digital space, this is not a space that was created on the internet.
Yahdon:
By that I mean, we have difficult conversations. People have difficult opinions and we don't censor. I've never told somebody what they can say or what they shouldn't say, but we challenge everything that needs to be challenged. And so if you are in a space to be challenged, this is your space. If this ain't your space, you're gonna find that out pretty quickly. Many of the members who have been here have been here for over two years, which is a testament to the community we've built. So the run of show as it were, what we always do, we start with a prompt that gets everybody talking. The prompt for this month, I'm gonna type it in the chat is, "what man in your life came to mind when you were reading this book?" The prompt is a way Randy's not here yet, but Randy is one of like one of the OG members in the club.
Yahdon:
He suggested when we were doing these book club meetings that I do a prompt to get everybody talking. So the prompt is just a ways for everybody to voice themselves and we get to hear and see everybody. And then we go to an open forum discussion where anybody can talk. And one of the beautiful things about this Book Club is that I don't elevate people who just read the book. There's some people whose lives look different and they didn't get to finish it or they didn't get to read it. But what's important is the discussion and the conversation, because what I know, because this community is here. Whatever you don't read now, you can always read later. But it's important that the discussion happens when it happens. Um, so we have an open forum discussion and this is where we talk about everything from connecting these books to movies, to our own personal lives, to other books, we've read in Book Club, to books we've read elsewhere.
Yahdon:
Then we do that for an hour. And then we end with a group picture where we take pictures with the book. I announce the next book. We share good news at the end of the meeting. And I talk about the littest members. And the littest member is a particular honor. People who in talking through the meeting, always find a way to connect the conversation back to the book, right? So while I don't condemn anybody for not reading it, I do uplift people who are constantly keeping us true to why we're here, which is the books. So with that being said, do we have any questions?
Yahdon:
No. Okay. Other thing on etiquette, when you wanna speak, you can use the "raise your hand" function, or if you can't find the raise your hand function, cuz some people I know use their cell phones, just type a exclamation point in the chat and we'll get to you. So this month's book, we got my man, Brian Broome with us. Thank you for joining us. Punch Me Up To The Gods. There's no way to talk about this book. You can't talk about this book and I'm in this world now. So I gotta highlight the Puff Daddy, the Sylvia Rhone, the Barry Gordy, we have Rakia Clarke with us. Who's the editor of this book. Can we give her a round of applause? Cause I think there is without the editor, there will not be the writer, right?
Yahdon:
Like she is the Jazzy Jeff to Will Smith the Rakim to Eric B. And she was the person who has been galvanizing this book before it was on anybody's Amazon list, before Darnell Moore reviewed it for the New York Times. We've been following, Brian, I'm running down the accolades in a subtle way. But Rakia has been somebody who has been a beacon of ironically enough, when she was an editor at Beacon, this was somebody who I met and fell in love with as a friend, as a mentor. But then also, she has been a beacon in this industry of what advocacy for writers and readers looks like. And so when she was advocating for this book, this was a book I knew I wanted to do, and I wanted to do it at paperback cuz the price point was friendlier. But at the same time I couldn't wait because when I cracked it open, I was like, now we gotta get this book to the people sooner than later. So, what I wanna do is special. Before we go into the prompt Rakia, just say a few words about what you think about this book before we get into this. Brian is the star, but I think you're the sky right now. So we just need, we need to open up with you with some words.
Rakia (Editor):
I'm happy to say some words I, I have thought about this book every day of my life, since I read it on submission and that is not an exaggeration. Every day of my life sometime gets devoted to this book, whether it was working on it in the editorial process or championing it to other people, championing to other people in house, outta house. There are people in this meeting who have heard me talk about this book for over two years. And so to see the reception that it's received is so gratifying. I can't think of a writer who's more deserving of the acclaim then Brian Broome and the fact that he's just getting started. It gives me goosebumps. I so appreciate everybody attending tonight. Brian, I appreciate you attending. Yahdon I so, so, so appreciate you choosing the book, because you didn't have to, but I'm happy that you did and, and I couldn't be more thrilled for this discussion to come.
Yahdon:
All right. So let's jump into the prompt. So the prompt is who did you think about, when I picked this book for last month, you know, I gave the citation or like the overview that like one of the difficult things about the picking of books by Black men, whether they be gay, straight, trans, it's operating from a heteronormative patriarchal standpoint. A lot of the books by Black men and I'm saying this as a Black man, myself, there's ways in which intersectionality doesn't make it into our stories and our narratives. And we, it's easy to identify when it's a white man, when it's somebody else who occupies these overlaps of power. But when one of the things that I appreciated about this particular memoir was that it reckoned with the ways in which the overlap and the price we as Black men, particularly as it pertains to this book, but in a larger sense, the question of what does one pay to enter the patriarchal system and what does one pay for one's manhood.
Yahdon:
That payment, not just being about, what we gained, but what we lose. I think that this book was a really brilliant way of assessing what one loses, what we lose by trying to get access to power systems. One of the things that I thought about it, what this book enabled me to do, is to think about the men in my life, through a lens of compassion, like who are the men who represented the other side of the punched me up to the gods, not the men who like failed to be punched up, but the men who were punched up so well, you don't even think about them as paying anything. You just think that they were always like that. And so that was what informed the prompt, cuz when I was thinking about, Brian, you did this structure really beautifully and juxtaposing your experiences with encountering the father with the boy on the bus is thinking about those moments that even I forgot about as a kid, but it just made me think about a lot of Black men and men I've known in my life.
Yahdon:
There's something more at play than just them being these harrowing figures. They too were once boys who were looking for the kind of compassion and love that they realized they got in a way that they didn't understand and they did what they did with it. So that is what's behind the premise of this prompt. Who was the man in your life that you thought about while reading this? So as the prompt goes, you say your name, where you're based, your pronouns, if you haven't yet, please type your pronouns with your name so that we make sure we are referring to everybody correctly here and in the third person, I'm doing it myself. So you say your name, where you're based, your pronouns and then just the person you thought of while reading this book and why, and I'm gonna start it off.
Yahdon:
Good evening everybody, my name is Yahdon. And one of the first people I thought about when I was reading this book was my older brother, super tough. This was the man I wanted to be like, cuz he was the dude that would get in the fight with three people. He was like the dude that everybody called when shit went down and when I thought about this book, I, there was a point in my relationship with him where I got to see that because he was that kind of dude, there were things that he did not know how to do. He didn't know how to emote, like he had to drink or use drugs to access emotions. And while I resented it for him for a long time, cause that dude was my hero.
Yahdon:
I saw that what this book enabled me to do is like, what does it mean to be like, he was seventeen years old and my mother would call him when my mother and father would get into fights. And what does it mean to be a 17 year old boy? And your mother's calling you to fight a grown man off of her. And I didn't think about psychologically what price he had to pay to be the dued that gets called. I always wanted to be the dude that got called for beef. And I used to resent like, man, why nobody called me. But, there's a price for that call. And that was one of the people I thought about while reading this book and it enabled me to think about like, he had to pay a lot to be that guy. That's my person. Eunice. Why is this not an alphabetical order? I'm sorry. I'm gonna just go down the list that is offering. It's not alphabetical, but I don't know why it's not.
Eunice:
Okay. I'm Eunice, she/her from Ohio. Brian from Ohio. His name is Dr. Brown and you know, it's so interesting. He's like 80 something years old. He was the guy who created the master program at Franklin university. And I went there. I didn't do a masters there, but he had this deep voice and he was a military guy. And he thought he did no wrong. He was the go-to man at this university and he did no wrong, but he was the man that you thought all these other guys should be, but they never got there. He, he wasn't on drugs. He's just arrogant as all get up and would, you know, flirt with the girls and make passes. I just winged him off. But that was him. He was the man. He thought this is who I am Woohoo. Right. But that's who he was. So, he was the man.
Yahdon:
And quickly just, why'd you think of him when you read this book? Why did he come up for you?
Eunice:
Well, he's what you would identify what we call, the guy that most men would wanna be like, especially at that university. And to some of the ones that were there, he's what you call "a real man." He's a military guy, he's intelligent. He has traveled around and taught at this school, this school, he brags about it. But you know, it is really true who he is. He's and now he's 80 something years old calling me up. I'm like, what do you want me to do? Let me call Mike. Well, he's 80 now. You know what I mean? But back in the day, I identify him with a strong guy. Not my father, not like him. He's an intellect. You know, my dad was, you know, eighth grade education, labor. Dr. Brown's where a lot of Black men will wanna be.
Yahdon:
Okay. Thank you for sharing. Amy,
Amy:
Hi, I'm Amy She/Her. I'm based in LA. And I thought of my grandfather with this book, because I didn't know any of this, any of his story until after he died. But he, my dad's father, apparently he, he was like the quintessential Southern family man. He had the three boys and the Cadillac and successful salesperson. He went to church, did all the things he was supposed to do. But, when my dad was 16, he left. He shut down his business. And he left with a man who he ran the business with and went away to an island and had a relationship with this man for 16 years, then came back to the south and rejoined my grandmother and pretended like nothing had ever happened. Like I said, I didn't know the story until after he died. He's definitely villainized by my dad and his brothers for obvious reasons cuz he left the family. But I just kept thinking about how difficult it must have been for him to be a gay man in the deep south, in the late thirties, forties, fifties, whenever. So that's who I thought of this book.
Yahdon:
Thank you for sharing that. Um, next on the docket is Christina. On you, homie
Christina:
So, I have a couple people actually, but one that I'll focus on is, one of my close friends from college. Oh and sorry, introduction, Christina. She/her, I am in Jersey city, but originally from Ohio as well. The person that it reminded me of is a college friend that, also was like struggling kind of with his sexuality. And it's interesting because I feel like there are a lot of parallels that I noticed in the book and everything from him kind of leaning very heavily on alcohol. We actually did have a strained relationship just given how he was starting to kind of get into habits with alcohol and you know, even becoming an alcoholic. But I think it's also interesting, especially towards the end of the book, as you talk about more of like trying to find an escape and getting to these different locations and whatnot.
Christina:
I think he had a similar situation where, he's not originally from the U.S. He's originally from South Africa. So I think it was really interesting because his life here having moved here for college, was almost like an escape for him where he was able to kind of get away from family and maybe the pressures that he thought he would feel there. But in some sense, after the years, I think the struggles that he was still having internally were clearly still sitting with him. So I just found a lot of different parallels that I think...obviously I don't fully know all of his internal experience, but I did notice some things that seemed to stand out.
Yahdon:
Thank you. Christy, It's on you.
Christy:
I'm Christy I'm from, just outside of Philadelphia in Pennsylvania. And I actually kept thinking of this little redheaded girl I went to college with. Well, I knew she was a friend of a friend, but that's maybe a story for later, but I guess if I'm thinking of a man, someone I taught with my second year of teaching. He's 10 years younger than I am. I'm 50, he just turned 40. But when we first started teaching like 15 years ago, he was someone who I thought had everything together. He, he was super organized, had great classroom management, like was one of the smartest people in the room, fun to go and hang out with and party. But one of the things that I felt like I knew about him right away was that he was a gay man and he had to hide that because in education, you know, if you're teaching young children, people feel like, I think, I feel like you have to hide that, especially if you're a man.
Christy:
He would get to the point where he would have ulcers and stomach issues and had to go to the emergency room because I feel like he was holding all of this in, so he would not have to talk about it school. So no one would find out. We've been friends for 15 years and he still has never said to me or to many people that in our circle, I'm a gay man. I still feel like, he still feels like he has to hide some of that or can't say it out loud. So I thought of him a lot when I read this.
Yahdon:
Okay. Thank you. Eggie. On you, homie
Eggie:
I'm Eggie, he/him out of New York city. Uh, so when I was reading this, I didn't really think about other men yet. Maybe I didn't get deep enough, but in the first part of the book where I'm up to, it really just reminded me a lot of myself and assimilating to the kids that I thought were cool. So I just got to the point in the book where, Brian was kind of outed by his roommates. Up to this point in his childhood, up until the focus on the things you(Brian) don't have is all really resonating with me personally. I'm seeing a lot of myself in the book, so far, so I'm not really at a point where I'm seeing like other people just yet.
Yahdon:
Okay. We'll take it. Elizabeth.
Elizabeth:
Elizabeth, she/her, I am in Brooklyn. I think for me, so oddly enough, I also lived in Ohio for a while. There's lots of connections. When I was reading about Ohio, I was like, "yep. Yep. That all tracks, that's Ohio." What's frustrating is, I'm also an educator. I know the person just said they were teaching. What's frustrating is I thought of a lot of my students, especially with the part with the roommates. I deal a lot with residential students, students living in housing and stuff like that. Thinking about situations I've had that are very similar. So that's where I was.
Yahdon:
Okay. Thank you. Now, Errol it's on you homie.
Errol:
Hi Guys, I'm Errol from Brooklyn, he/him. I thought about my cousins in that, a lot of what I know about them is through posturing. Like, like they're not all fake, but there's a lot of posturing and a lot of, you know, you say "pause" for the most inconspicuous reason, like, "yeah, I'm having a bowl of fruity flavor" "pause" something like that. There's a lot of just masculine posturing. Then there are times where I can have deeper conversation and see wow, there's actually a lot of history and pain that's behind this and behind all the bragging about bringing girls home and all that.
Yahdon:
Yeah. Thank you. Forrest on you.
Forrest:
Hi, I'm Forrest. he/him I'm in Brooklyn. I didn't think of somebody in particular when reading the book. But Brian, I wanna say, I think the book is amazing. As a dad trying to raise kids, it really felt like every sort of turn of the page and a different story was teaching me a different lesson that when raising kids, things that I hadn't thought about or don't think about enough. I really enjoy it.
Yahdon:
All right. Appreciate you, Forrest. Gilah.
Gilah:
Hi. She/her I'm from Brooklyn and I thought about tons of different people when reading this book like Eggie said, myself. I was just thinking about everybody, but, more in reflecting, I thought a lot about my own family line and dad very much is attached to, what I would call very much problematic notions of masculinity. Growing up, he was very, very, very, very hard on my youngest brother. I thought a lot about, you know, when you were describing Brian, some of the interaction between the father and your character in the book. Thought about a lot of that, that relationship there, and then it wasn't until much later in my adulthood that I learned that my father had experienced the same treatment from his own father. So I was just thinking a lot about that cycle and that learned behavior that is so problematic and absorbed into and really eats away at us in the trauma.
Yahdon:
Thank you. Jake on you, homie,
Jake:
Jake. He/him in Brooklyn. I thought a lot about the part at the end when Brian's saying, I know it's not my place to tell you about your feelings, pain and what it takes to be a man. In the context of thinking about my dad and then also my older brothers who all have kids, and then kind of my role in that dynamic and thinking through all the skills that you realize most parents don't have. And, kind of me as someone who doesn't have kids, but as an uncle to my nephews and nieces of what role I play or what role community members played. So thought a lot about just that dynamic.
Yahdon:
Thank you. Jules on you.
Jules:
Hi, Jules. Based in Oakland, California originally from New York City. I was actually while reading the book, mostly captivated by the young boy and remembering many, many bus rides where I felt like I was sitting, not in your exact seat, Brian for a lot of reasons, but just sitting across from a father and a son. That's a lot of what I actually came back to you over and over again while I was reading it. But, Yahdon, your prompt and sort of the framing that you set up, especially around like the cost of trying to access systems of power brought me to thinking about, the black men that I went to high school with who I went to a private high school in New York city, and it was predominantly white.
Jules:
In that context, thinking about all of the sort of intimacies that I had no awareness of. Going to school and what they in particular, were experiencing in this really white elitist space, and what that was costing them, as they were growing up. And what sort of tropes and stories they felt like they had to uphold or fit in order to be safe enough to be friends with the white kids and go home with them, or what other were kinds of pressures they felt to fit a certain mold. So those, those are some thoughts.
Yahdon:
Thank you. Thank you, Kate, talk to us.
Kate:
Kate. She/her From San Anselmo California, not far away from where you are now, Brian. We're having a cold snap. It'll warm up. Don't worry. I got the prompt before we logged on and I immediately thought there wasn't a man I've known who this book didn't kind of bring to mind. In terms of how the culture of patriarchy also inhibits men from living the full experience of who they are in so many ways.
Yahdon:
It was a prompt. I didn't want people to start listing a bunch of men. haha "Ronny, Bobby, Ricky, Mike" (members of New Edition)
Kate:
No, no, no, but I mean, that was the first thing that came to mind though, who didn't. I think of my son, I thought of my dad, I thought of my partner. I thought of, yeah, probably mostly my dad who I don't think ever really got to, I know he has not gotten to fully be himself. He was the middle child of five and called Mary from a very young age and just picked on as a feminine kid. So I really thought maybe a little bit more about his experience, and the way he's used alcohol, his entire life to, to endure. Thank you for this book, Brian.
Yahdon:
Thank you for answering. Kristen.
Kristin:
Hello. I'll be on camera for a sec, but ignore the background. I'm Kristen, she/her, currently in Williamsburg moving to Clinton Hill. I can tell how much I enjoyed a book by how nervous I get if the author is here. So my heart is palpitating, Brian. Amazing, amazing work. Um, I love the prompt because on page 54, I, well first low the prompt and what Gilah said about cycles, because at first I was thinking about my dad and how achievement focused he was. That was a huge, huge number one, value system for him. That was obviously passed down to me. But, the part where you wrote, about a reflection on hating to come home. "So I learned to lie because the only thing I felt when I looked at my family, this house was shame and I hated my father.
Kristin:
I hated his infectious poverty. I hated his daily visit to prophetically pill for food and attempt to poison our minds." And I think back on generational cyclical behaviors. My grandfather came, into the U.S. as like graduating number one in his University in Korea. He was an engineer and he came and couldn't find work. And so he turned to alcohol and my dad, reflects on just coming home and being so ashamed and saying I'm never gonna do that. I'm always gonna be the breadwinner for my family. Seeing that behavior as I read those words, I just, for the first time really was able to truly understand my dad. So thank you for your work.
Yahdon:
All right. Appreciate you. Who's next. Maggie on you.
Maggie:
Hi, I'm Maggie. I'm in Seattle. She/her. Thank you, Brian, for this book. Last month's book was "Crying in H Mart," which I thought was very personal about something internal about grief, which was something you could relate to in a personal way. This book, even though it's an incredibly personal story, I found myself every chapter relating it to a person, maybe not just one person. And thinking about the perspective, maybe a little bit of a regret of perspective you could have had on someone's life or empathy or grace you could have had. Especially some of my friends growing up, like my friend, Billy, who, the basketball star in our school, and couldn't go to parties and nobody could understand, of course you couldn't go to parties cuz if one bad thing happened there, his whole scholarship chances and everything like that was, was ended and just every, every chapter. And then when your mom kicks in that really that shift was just, I lost it. I just absolutely lost it. And I thought that was in a way what the whole book was about was hopefully it was getting you to kind of go through that Rolodex in your mind of when you could have been more present, when you could have acknowledged more, when you could have saw more of what somebody else was going through. I just, Ugh. Thank you. It was amazing.
Yahdon:
All right. All right. All right, Mel. Mel.
Mello (Melissa):
Okay, so first I just have to say to Brian, thank you for having the strength to what felt to me like you left a piece of yourself on these pages. I felt like I was involved with you when I read this book and I now have three copies of it because I got an advanced copy. I bought a copy when it was released and now I have the Literaryswag copy. So I am definitely a fan. I am forever grateful for having read this book. An answer to the prompt. I would say it took me back to college. I went to a historically black college and I, myself was closeted as a queer person. And I surrounded myself... Some, I knew, some I didn't know, closeted, queer black men. If you've been to college, you know what that feels like already. The posturing, the immaturity, the trying to figure yourself out, but stack on top of that, young, black people trying to move into white spaces, professional lives. Add on top of that. The posturing of different socioeconomic groups. Meeting each other and all of that, that's coming through the mask, closeted gay men who were having girlfriends, knowing they also had a boyfriend. The film gay men who would straighten their back would straighten their arms, would deepen their voices. It was just layers upon layers of identity that came to me as I was reading this book both within myself and my own story and these men that I met throughout all of my time in college.
Yahdon:
Thank you. Miwa On you.
Miwa:
Hey, I'm Miwa. She/her and I'm back in New York for the moment, at least. So when I first read, "Punch me up," I was reading off of a PDF of the manuscript. So I, I had Brian's name and I knew Rakia was the editor. So I'm just gonna own that piece of it right now, but I couldn't stop thinking of Kiese Laymon while I was reading, because the way Brian, you tackle what you're doing and what Kiese does, not just in his memoirs, but the idea that you're going to be that honest. I was like, okay, all right, let's see what happens. Let's see where this goes. And yeah, there are a lot of dudes from different periods of my life that I could easily pin this on. But I mean, to not say that Kiese was the guy that I was really thinking about while I was reading this book, would be a disservice to both of you.
Yahdon:
Thank you. Rakia! Throw your hat in the ring with this one,
Rakia:
Happy to. Rakia Clarke. She/her, in Harlem. I thought about a lot of guys that I had dated, but one guy in particular that I was dating when I first read it, who even in the most intimate spaces found it difficult to show any emotion that wasn't like excitement at a sports game, or like anger because something bad happened. Like those were the acceptable emotions, but felt very uncomfortable expressing joy, even in the most intimate spaces. Like that was an uncomfortable feeling for him, didn't know how, and I never understood it. He and I didn't last, but working on this and reading, I was like..
Yahdon:
I'm sorry, I'm not laughing at the fact it didn't last I'm just laughing at the way...oh Jesus
Rakia:
But from reading the book, somebody said something about perspective earlier. And this book gave me perspective for maybe why that was. From boyhood if you are groomed to suppress part of your humanity, then by the time you're 35, and someone's saying, what about this part of your humanity? You don't even know what that person's talking about. And if you do know what they're talking about, assessing it feels really, really Herculean. And so a lot of the men that I dated, but that one guy in particular,
Yahdon:
Thank you. Ricca it's on you.
Ricca:
My name is Ricca. I live in Brooklyn. She/her. I love the book and I'm excited to talk about it, particularly the chapter from the mother's point of view. I really wanna know more about that. So I'm just putting that out on the table. I thought a lot about, I have a really good friend from high school. Who's also, a black gay man and his story is very different from yours. We came of age at a different time. And I think he was the beneficiary of that, but I, I still wonder what experiences that he may have had that he didn't talk to me about or talked to his other friends about, or talk to anyone about, in being black and gay and coming into the knowledge of his identity and all of that.
Ricca:
He lives across the ocean and sometimes I I've been wanting to call him and talk to him about this book and I wanna send it to him. I'm also an educator and I just think that I wanna be able to give this book to students of mine. I mean, older students obviously, but because I just feel like how profound it would've been for you to have a book like this when you were growing up and how profound it could be for a kid now to have this book. So thank you.
Yahdon:
All right. Tali.
Tali:
Hi everyone. Tali she/her. Manhattan. Like everyone, the book made me think about so many different people, because Brian, you encompass so much in yourself. It did make me think of one particular friend who was navigating some of the things that you described in the book, like just trying to get through the day to day and the drugs and finding the money and figuring out how you just keep going. And I remember one conversation with him where he said he kinda shared a little bit more, he was getting ready for some meeting or a kind of thing he had to go to. And he said, "I'm sharing all of these things with you and talking really openly about it, so that when I get there, I have my straight face. I'm like going in. I'm like the big strong man. I know what I need to do there. And it's helpful to know that I have this space where I can kind of unload to prepare myself." And it's just kind of the concept of you may interact with someone in a certain way, but you never really know the whole story behind him or how they're showing up to your engagement or conversation.
Yahdon:
Thank you. Nuratu, on you.
Nuratu:
Okay. Hi everyone. I am Nuratu. She/her and I live in Brooklyn now. First I am hugging little kid Brian, on the cover of this book and telling him that he is beautiful because this toothless little boy and this very difficult story, were a lot. Who did I think of? Well, for one, I thought of my son who is very much figuring out life and the world and his place in it. I actually took pictures of parts of the book and sent to a friend of mine who is a new dad. And I think I thought of every black man that I've ever loved and been in relationship with who would benefit from having the nuance understanding that was very eloquently written in this book.
Yahdon:
Thank You. And then Brian, we going bring it back around to you. I mean, you wrote it. So I guess the different question is for you, from the time this book has entered the world, what has been the most fortifying thing you've been able to learn or see since the book came out?
Brian:
Oh man. You know, first of all, thank you everybody. Thank you Yahdon for having me, like, I think that when I started to write the book, I thought, you know, "I'm gonna write a book for black gay men," because "I don't want any other black gay man to go through the black gay shit I had to go through.So I hope that this book reaches black gay men," you know, I just had this sort of tunnel vision of who would have access to it, who would read it and then, it would be done. And then I would have a book out and then I could go get a job somewhere. That was my plan. I think the most gratifying thing has happened in the last, like 30 minutes, you know, different versions of people saying how the book has affected them and how they're gonna bring the book forward into their world.
Brian:
You know? I didn't expect, a white, straight man to be here talking about how the book has sort of made him think about things. I didn't expect women, I didn't expect, anybody to connect. I guess I didn't really, it's rough to even say "I didn't expect it." It didn't even enter my realm of thinking that anybody other than black gay men, would have any connection to the things that happen in this book. And I think what I've learned is that the plot, what happens to the author is, that's interesting and that, you want to figure that out. But the thing that I've learned is that the overarching sort of feelings in the book have reached more people or more kinds of people than I had ever thought possible. Yeah. And that's what blows my mind, every single day.
Yahdon:
Okay. Well, so before we jump in, I wanna, again, transition. I told Rakia to tell you, is there any section that you particularly, I don't know if you're moved to read or is there a section, cuz I think that the readings are like live performances where you go out on tour and you have in your mind a set list of things you wanna read. And then as you're starting to get interactions, you're starting to finally get the feedback from audiences and readers. You start to realize that there is certain sections or portions. That's that resonate deeper than others. Is there any section that you have?
Brian:
I don't know if there's a particular section that I have. I know where I get the most response.
Yahdon:
Well, take us there. This is a room for response. This is a response room.
Brian:
Okay. I'll take you there. Gimme one second to find it.
Yahdon:
Okay. And then once we get with the reading, we gonna jump into this open discussion or do you wanna end with the reading and we just jump into discussion now?
Brian:
I want actually read it and see if I get the same kind of response.
Yahdon:
Okay.
Brian:
That I get normally.
Yahdon:
All right. Don't tell us what the response is. Tell us after. So we know. So people ain't being fake on here.
Brian:
Wait, hold on. Let me see if I have the right place.
Yahdon:
Tell us what page. Cause we all got the book.
Brian:
It's on page 142.
Yahdon:
I miss being in Book Club so much like everybody, who is in book club. You would see the whole room, it was like a church. All you hear is :makes page turning noise: That's all you would hear.
Brian:
"We fall into bed kissing and I begin to remove my clothes because I guess that's what you do. And I'm waiting for something to happen. I'm waiting for sex to take over. I feel nothing apart from the action of removing my clothes and now my skin is clammy. She feels nice and warm next to me. And I wonder if this is all there is to it, but I keep kissing her, hoping that something will kick in. And she is writhing a little with her head thrown back and pushing the top of my head down further and further until I arrive where she wants me. And I look at the space between her legs, where I am once again, fascinated. I am fascinated by nothing but the spectacle of absence between her legs, this sheer not there of it all. She is hot between her thighs and smells like the earth and I know what I'm supposed to do now.
Brian:
So I dive in, I slam my face in like I'm bobbing for apples. And she taps me on the top of the head, "gentle, gentle." So I pull back a little and I look at it and I stick my tongue out, but this isn't enough. More, more. So I try to find a middle ground, but her gyrations are becoming slower and slower. And I can't tell if this means I'm doing it right or not. I place my hand beneath her buttocks so that she knows that I mean business, but I'm not getting much of a response. So I pull back and I look at it. I look at it square in the face and decide that I will conquer it. I kiss it. Then I pull back and look again, I kiss it again and pull back. She's stopped moving altogether. I keep going, but I can feel her enthusiasm dying.
Brian:
"You okay down there?" I look up and she is a blur behind my smeared spectacles. She tells me to come up here. I do. I lay beside her on the bed and she looks down at my dick and just knows it has just been checked out the entire time. I ask her, "you want me to try again?" "No, every time I look down, you looking at my pussy, like it's made outta math." She turns over on her side, away from me and I play the outside spoon. I hope down to my bones that she doesn't think that it's her that's the problem. It's me. I'm the problem. I'm a liar. We lay in silence for a while until I break it. "You warm enough?" "Yeah." "You want some more blankets?" "Yeah." I covered both of us in blankets in my last attempt to be her protector, the father of her children. Normal. I ask her, "what do you wanna do tomorrow?" She snuggles her butt up closer to me in size before she answers, "I don't know. What do you wanna do?" I know that there will be no more hand holding. No more kissing. No more putting on a show. I search my depths for an answer that isn't a lie. I don't know what I want to do tomorrow. I honestly and truly, have no idea."
Yahdon:
Oh, y'all gotta unmute your cameras for that. Come on, man.
Brian:
(Eunice yells out "Pussy Man" and everyone laughs) That is my favorite line. Because that woman is still my friend today. And we talk just about every day on the phone and it's like she was responsible for my writing career cuz I remember so clearly when she said that and at the time it was devastating. Like I thought I was going to die and now, you know, 30 years later it is probably the funniest thing I've ever heard.
Speaker 9:
It's funny. I'm funny.
Yahdon:
All right. So we gonna jump into it. So, Jake then Eunice.
Jake:
Yeah I guess a question along the lines of the two things Yahdon asked or asked you to even read is, there's the general idea if that it's therapeutic to go through a process of writing a book like this? Of working through your story and your trauma, but as time moves forward from the book, is that true? Does it become kind of more therapeutic? Are you learning more about yourself and your history as you deal with it? Or on the flip side, does it continually be traumatic having a book that does see success, but requires you to have these conversations and think about these times of your life on a fairly regular basis?
Brian:
Well, I mean, other than forums like this, where it's a group of cool people, like talking about a book, like, you know, sometimes you sit in front of interviewers, people from, television and radio and people who do podcasts, and after a while it starts to become rote and you're talking about these events in your life that were and are very traumatic, but you start memorizing answers, to these very personal questions about your trauma. So I think that what I ultimately get from having this book in the world is that I don't have to lie anymore. I feel free from all of that. I feel freer to be myself and I, and that's the biggest gift of all.
Brian:
Like, it's not really the gift that keeps on giving, I mean, in a way it is, but when you talk about it over and over and over again, it does kind of lose its sting, cuz you're kind of now reciting things to interviewers. But ultimately I'm glad it's in the world because I do feel like a weight has been lifted off my shoulders and I've had to answer a lot of difficult questions from friends and family after the book came out. That has been difficult, but it's also been very freeing as well.
Yahdon:
Eunice then Jules.
Brian:
Eunice is from Ohio and you just do not fuck with people from Ohio.
Eunice:
I got power over here. Right? Well, anyway, what I like to read is in the introduction and they were really talking about your book and I just love to read that part and go to the party to just knock me up the socks. And I was like, Saturday night live is reading, but anyway, the third page. It says down here, "he reveals one of the disappointing or another and then like a seasoned standup comedian, delivers an antidote punchline." I just love that. So I'm gonna go to that punchline.
Yahdon:
What, what page you on?
Eunice:
Yeah. Just listen. "The disembodied voice." Tuan, the kid's name is Tuan?
Brian:
yeah. Tuan. Yeah.
Eunice:
"Twan" is how you pronounce it? "The disembodied voice of Tuan's mother comes through the loud speaker clear on a speaker phone, first word she says...Motherfucker!" (Breaks out laughing) So that goes back to what they said in the very beginning, like a standup comic. I'm like, I can't even finish the rest of it, but you know what I'm talking about. Right.
Brian:
What's so funny is that she said it exactly like you just said i.t The same inflection, the same tone, the same, volume.
Eunice:
Same tone.?
Brian:
Exactly the way you just said it
Eunice:
Can't go no further. That's it.
Yahdon:
That's that's her comment. That's it. Page 81 for everybody.
Eunice:
Stand up comic.
Yahdon:
Jules on you.
Jules:
I love that. Thank you.
Yahdon:
Everybody gotta curse now. Everybody's comments gotta end with "Motherfucker". Now for the end of the meeting, you gotta be
Eunice:
That's how they say it. I've heard it so many times. You're like, okay, I'm sorry. Go ahead.
Jules:
You're good. I have one question before I ask a question, I really loved on page 144, the description around your parents' relationship and it just, it was a passage in particular that just made me really, reflect on so many heteronormative, hyper masculine, dynamics in a marriage. I feel like I've seen this play out over and over again. And so there's just a relatable universality you write. "I wonder if my father ever really listened to my mother, I wonder if they ever actually had a conversation about anything other than money. I never once saw him take anything she said seriously. Anything she said was relegated in his mind to the ramblings of a woman. Anything she liked was foolishness.
Jules:
Her anger was dismissed as hysterics. Whatever she did had to be completely focused on shoring up his confidence and alleviating his insecurities. There's nothing sadder than an insecure man hoisting his insecurities off on everyone else because he is unable to process them to be an adult, adopt them and ultimately to deal with them. I know because I've been that man, my myself too many times." I love that passage and I feel like you offer all of the tropes of, anti-feminist language that show up there. So thank you for that. My questions is really just more about the structure. I loved it so much. And not only the use of the poem, but also sort of this, the foil of, Tuan and his father's bus ride. And so I'm just curious if you wouldn't mind talking a little bit about the choices, Brian, that you made and how you came to structure the book in the way that you did.
Brian:
Well. Some of those choices were Rakia's. I would love to take all the credit I would love to, but, I remember the bus ride. I was trying to go off in all different directions, on the bus ride, you know, and I remember Rakia telling me, "just keep it Tuan." On the bus I was like looking out the window and seeing things. I remember the bus ride very clearly, and I was writing all that into the narrative. And Rakia was like, "just talk about what you're seeing with this father and this son." I trusted her and that turned out to be the best thing to do.
Brian:
I know that we, in the beginning we had a bit of a problem because, in keeping with the Gwendolyn Brooks poem, like the narrative is gonna switch back and forth in time, in order to address a specific line of the poem, and I think she trusted me to do that. In the beginning I said, I'm gonna need it to switch back and forth cuz I remember we had a big talk about tense. We had a tense talk about tense. I remember saying I'm keeping this going back and forth in time and we just wanted to really make sure that the reader didn't get confused as to what was happening.
Brian:
And so we worked together to make sure that that didn't happen, but as a first time writer, I was like, "Rakia has no idea of my artistry." And she was like, "be quiet and just do what I say." And it worked. And then at one point she really did let me take the wheel, about the going back and forth in time. And we just worked on making sure that the reader wasn't confused. That's kind of how the structure came about. You get a good editor and somebody who knows when to say, "okay, stick with or do this." And then somebody who also know knows how to say, "okay, you do the thing that you want to do. This is your baby," and give you the confidence to do that. So that's how it came about.
Rakia:
Can I jump in right quick? Yahdon, just to add something?
Yahdon:
Yeah. Do your thing.
Rakia:
Yeah. So everything Brian is saying is 100% true, but also the on submission, the Gwendolyn Brooks, initiation of Tuan, Brian, that structure was already set. And so it was just the balance of it is what we had a lot of editorial conversations about. But what was immediately attractive about the book on submission was seeing the structure, like when I saw Gwendolyn Brooks' poem and then saw how he was weaving his story in hers, it put him in conversation with an idea and it's like my inner English major completely lost her shit. So the structure that's there, it was already set that's all Brian. And then the question editorially, was the balance of it.
Yahdon:
Hmm. All right. So Kristen, Ricca, and Elizabeth
Kristin:
This is actually a perfect segue cuz I was so interested in understanding the structure of the book. And I have two questions for you Brian. It's so interesting cuz the spelling bee section it's so clear that you are extremely well read that maybe there was a future in writing or, a dancing of words. And I'm just curious, when you first sat down to write what came first, was it the recollection of the bus ride that really like spearheaded that or was it, your biological stories, like really wanting to come out onto the page. And then the second question is what kind of stories were left out? Did you have to pare anything down?
Brian:
There was a story that was left out. I'll answer that last one first. There was a story that was left out and it's a story that, interestingly enough, people have said, "what, how did he get sober? Is he still sober?" There were people who wanted to know the process of recovery from addiction. There was a story in there about that. About when I went to rehab, there was a whole story about me being in rehab and you know, the people I met in rehab and there were actually two other black men in the rehab with me. The story was long, very long and as far as I can remember, and it didn't quite fit. I think it's still a good story.
Brian:
I may use it somewhere else but, it didn't quite fit. It sort of knocked the reader out of what was happening, the main thrust of what I was trying to do. The message that we wanted to get across. And there was another story about... I don't know how to say this in polite company. (Yahdon reassures Brian that he is in polite company..and if necessary, will "strike this from the record") I gave a dude to blow job on a school bus, which we all have. I mean, let's just be honest.
Eunice:
We, all?
Brian:
Everybody that I'm looking at right now has had the occasional school bus blow job given or received
Mello (Melissa):
In fairness, it was a Greyhound bus.
Yahdon:
Oh, shit this is Book Club after dark. You and Deesha, yo, y'all in Pittsburgh really be bringing this shit out.
Eunice:
He's real. I love it. Go ahead.
Brian:
Fine. It was a Greyhound. No. That story was pulled not because of the sexual content, but it was a whole other story that was just trying to communicate one idea. We decided that it didn't really belong. I'm sorry. I forgot the first question. I apologize.
Kristin:
It was what came first, your stories wanted to come out onto the page or was it, you really sat there at the bus and you've felt this wave of inspiration and have a story you need to tell?
Brian:
No, the stories came first. A few of those stories were written before I actually took that bus ride. I think the process in my mind was, I was on the bus, the 61A in Pittsburgh. And, I thought, wow, what I'm looking at, right now, sitting so close to this father and his son, like a creep, this fits in with my stories, this fits in. So I just started to write, I started scribbling down just like notes of what was happening. They would do something I would write. Okay. He pulled out an iPad. Okay. The kid's playing with the iPad. I still have those notes. Like, "he's playing with the iPad." "You can't keep the iPad working." "His father takes the iPad." I was just writing like little scribble notes.
Brian:
Then I got home and I had a hard time reading them cause I was just scribbling them so quickly. So the stories and then the bus ride happened. So that's how that happened. I forget when Gwendolyn Brooks came into it, but I know that I was absolutely certain that I discovered her, that nobody else had read this poem before. I'm like, why isn't anybody talking about this poem? I remember I read it in the university library at Chatham University. Then I was like, wow, this thing fits in with what I'm trying to do too. So, how can we jam both of these things in there? So that was the evolution. Like it was the stories. And then, I wrote more stories as the bus ride in cooperation with the bus ride and the poem.
Kristin:
Thank you for your insight into your process.
Yahdon:
Ricca then Elizabeth and Eggie.
Ricca:
I love both of the chapters that sort of have more of a focus on your mom. The one that you write from her perspective, but also the carnival chapter about, her sort of her layaway scheme. I loved reading about that and all of the language that you use to describe what it felt like going to that place. It was just, yeah. Oz, Narnia Xanadu Hills page 201. "My mission was to lay my sticky fingers on every item on the sales floor, an caress it with a child's lust wantingly and I wanted everything." That's so great. All of that description and then the bit with the shirt, but I also wanted to ask about, just the chapter on your mother and where did that come from and how...I don't wanna like ask something too personal. Did your mother give you that material? How did that come to be?
Brian:
I asked my mother if I could interview her. My mother still doesn't know what I do for a living. Like she still doesn't really, like, she..
Yahdon:
She doesn't know or, that she doesn't understand it?
Brian:
She doesn't understand it. Like she does. Like, my mother comes from a generation where you do a thing and you go there for eight hours and then they give you a paycheck based on those hours that you work. Right. So I told her, I'm writing a book and I kind of at one point, got a little tired of the sound of my own voice in the book. My family was going through something at the time. I have definitely arrested development from being an active addict for so many years. So it came to me late that my mother is actually a person. Like my mother had a whole life before I entered the picture.
Brian:
So I started to question that. And so I just asked her if I could interview her. My mother's not a very demonstrative person. She's not emotional. She doesn't wear any feelings on her sleeve at all. She's all business in the way that a lot of people, again from that generation are. You keep the house business in the house. I went back home to Ohio and I had this microphone and one of those little recording packs and my mother and I went off into my aunt's bedroom and I just interviewed her. I just asked her questions, "where were you born?" And she told me, where the place she was born in Georgia. "What kind of things did you do as a kid?"
Brian:
And she would just give me these matter of fact answers. How did you meet my father? And she would say, I think at this point, when you get older too, you just don't give a fuck anymore what anybody think. She was just like, I got pregnant and that's how, you know, I met your father and this is how I was introduced to him. And this is who introduced me to him. And this is why we got married. I mean, she was just giving me like, just the facts. And so I then took that recording back home and listen to it over and over again. And I, started thinking like, how would I feel if I were this person? if I were this woman who was essentially forced into marrying a man that she barely knew, didn't like, for the sake of keeping up appearances. For the sake of, this is what a girl like you does or has to do because you know, of Jesus or a shame or whatever, you know?
Brian:
So I just sort of put words in her mouth in terms of the feelings that I thought she was feeling. I was very nervous about it, hoping that I got that right. She told me that I did get it right. And that was very gratifying. She told me that's exactly how she felt, lonely and isolated, and resentful and all the things that you would imagine somebody would feel in that position. So that's how that chapter came to be.
Ricca:
Cool. What did she, what did she think of the book?
Brian:
She likes it. She says she had to skip through the nasty parts. She was very angry with me about, divulging her Hills, you know, scam, the layaway scam. She was like, "I never," I knew what she was doing.
Yahdon:
You can't reveal the scams man. Cause she probably still running them. (Group Laughter)
Brian:
I don't even know. Do people still even have layaway anymore?
Eunice:
(Do People)Still run layaway scams. Yes.
Ricca:
I feel like it's an older woman too. She would be even more effective. I feel like, like nobody suspects an old lady. Right?
Brian:
Well, yeah. Now she might even be more effective. Maybe she was mad at me for giving up the game.
Yahdon:
Giving up the game, man.
Yahdon:
They're like "What's your last name? Hold on. Now we got you. We got a picture of you up here. We know your scam."
Brian:
So no, she liked the book. When I won the Kirkus prize, it was one of the proudest moments in my life because I called my mother cuz she was watching. I called her and like she had to hand the phone to my stepfather. She couldn't speak, she was just so overcome. When I spoke to her later, she said, "how were we to even know that, all that we both went through, would come to this, you know?" That was again, one of the most proudest moments in my life. So she likes the book. She still doesn't really understand what I do for a living, but she's happy that I am happy and we are also much closer cuz I can talk about my life. Now I can tell her about the blow jobs I give frequently on the Greyhound bus.
Eunice:
(laughing) Crazy. That's great.
Brian:
I gets to tell her all about that now. So we bond over that. (Group laughter)
Ricca:
Yeah. I love that. Thank you.
Yahdon:
All right. Elizabeth, Eggie then Amy
Elizabeth:
I don't even know how to follow that. I don't feel like anything I can say that makes sense right now. Okay. So I'm gonna try...
Yahdon:
Oh, okay. I didn't know if you was like, I'm not asking anything.
Elizabeth:
No, that's probably one of the funniest things, I'll laugh about that for a while. On a completely, almost irrelevant side note. I don't know if you had anything to do with it, but I love the way the book feels like the hard cover and the pages. I don't know who picked the pages, but the paper, it's just an enjoyable book to hold and read. I'm a very texture person. So I don't often feel that way. So just side note. Thank you
Brian:
Thank you. I think that's Rakia as well. Yeah. That's that's Rakia.
Yahdon:
When the paperback drop Rakia, you gotta put on the line, "a book that feels better than a ride on the Greyhound. You'll get it later" (Brian/Group laughter)
Elizabeth:
Something that really stood out to me was, "the fire." At the end of that one, I just remember being like, "oh, holy fuck. That just happened." Just the feeling of being a man and the concept of man, and to, just to start breaking that down and thinking about it. I also listened to your audio book, so it was just really interesting to hear it through that way as well. I don't know if anybody else did the audio book too. Yeah. Cool. Kate. Yeah. It was really interesting to hear it through that way as well. So thank you for indulging me in this. thank you.
Yahdon:
Eggie then Amy.
Eggie:
Hello everybody. I might have to double up here, but I'm gonna start with the first one more importantly. I think your bar game is crazy. The bar for bar, this is probably one of the best books that we've had in a minute, no disrespect to any of the other books or authors or nothing like that. But your bar game is crazy. So I want to ask you about one specific bar just to get an idea of how you guys are putting those together. Like what came first, you know, chicken and the egg type thing. So it's on page 40. You are talking about growing up in your town... "Growing up, my town was perpetually colorless and damp even in the summertime and the place where I showed up every day for education was built like a prison. The school colors were red and gray, like a gunshot wound through an old man's head. And every wall in the high school hallways was painted pea soup, green." "Don, Don DeMarco" right there. Right.
Yahdon:
Smack Battle .Ha Ha. Yeah.
Eggie:
He said, yeah, he said "like a gunshot wound through an old man's head." And as I read further into the book, that analogy just kept making more and more sense. Right. When you come up with those things, is it happening in a bubble where you're thinking about your school and thinking about the colors or is it happening within a larger framework where you're thinking about where the story is going and then that analogy is the best way to describe like the colors of your school? Cause that's just how it felt like. Let me know if that question makes sense or if I need to clarify it a little further.
Brian:
Well, I mean with that particular analogy, I remember writing it and it just came out so fast. "like a gunshot wound through an old man's head." It was just the most aggressively dire image I could think of, you know? And so I wasn't thinking about where it was going or anything like that. I mean, after I wrote it, I just kept going because I hated that place so much, that that's the image that popped into my mind. And the walls were like that Pea soup, vomit green, that a lot of institutional places choose for some reason. So yeah, I wasn't really thinking about where that was going. It just was the ugliest image that just popped into my head as I was writing.
Eggie:
Yeah. That was a ill bar, honestly. Then the other one was a much more brief question. The show that you mentioned on page 57, just outta pure curiosity. I wanted to know what the show was, one of your favorite shows with the two daughters and the son and the parents are former hippies. The son is a young conservative. And as you were describing it, I'm like, yo, I don't know what sitcom this is at all.
Brian:
Everybody else knows. I see people like mouthing it
Eggie:
Really? What was it?
Brian:
Anybody want to take it
Rakia:
Family ties
Eggie:
Rakia that's not fair. Of course, you know the show
Ricca:
Michael J. Fox.
Brian:
Yeah. There was a show on, in the 1980s called "Family Ties." It was a show about this happy family, this super white, happy family. It was a sitcom. They didn't have any real problems. Any problems they did have were solved in 30 minutes, including commercials. I wanted to be in that family. The hook was that the parents were hippies and Michael J. Fox who was like 20 at the time, was the conservative son. The thing that grabbed me about that show was that at the end, they all talked about how much they just loved each other and they were all so close.
Brian:
I would sit in front of the TV, alone, with parents who didn't talk to each other, envying this made up world, that literally I used to think that this was the way white people live. I used to think that's what was going on in every white household every night. Turned out white people are just as fucked up as we are. I learned that as I got older, but the show was family ties. Yeah.
Brian:
You should watch it.
Yahdon:
Amy on you.
Amy:
Well, to reiterate, Brian, thank you for the book. I read a bajillion books. I'm sure everyone else does. This is like a book that has stayed with me every day since I've read it. In some way or another, I keep processing new parts of it and I just think it's super powerful. So, thanks. Like a few people mentioned, I love the chapter about your mom, right. And you just mentioned, like at a certain point you realized she was a person too. Obviously your dad has passed away, but if he were alive at the time you had that realization with your mom, would you have wanted to interview him as well? And if so, is there a part of that that you would've wanted to include in this story too?
Brian:
That's a really great question that nobody has asked me before. Like literally nobody has asked me before. And I think it's because, in this sort of binary thinking that we do, oftentimes in storytelling, we want to have a villain. And I know that from going through interviews, for the past year, a lot of people just sort of cast my father as a complicated villain. I don't know that I really see him like that. I think that if my father was still alive, that's a really great question. You know, I don't really have an answer...
Eunice:
Well, the question would be would you be able to get anything out of him?
Brian:
Right.
Eunice:
Being a person he is, that would be the real question.
Brian:
I think that he was so deeply embedded in the idea of what a man is supposed to be. Right. That even broaching the idea of this, of examining it would be anathema to him. I don't think he would know what the hell I was talking about when if I said, "Ima examine your masculinity" or like, feel your feeling. I just think that, that it was beat out of him. My father, something that is briefly mentioned in the book is that my father was beaten when he was a boy, by his father. My mother told me that, my grandfather on my father's side, who a man who died before I was born, was the meanest man she ever met. I think that it was just so early physically beaten out of him, this idea to feel feelings, that he would not understand what I was talking about. So I probably wouldn't have interviewed him because I don't think, like Eunice just said, I don't think I would've really gotten much out of him. I think he would've been confused as to what the conversation was even about
Yahdon:
Can I offer something? Cuz I think something even I've learned, I remember for example reading, what book was that? Phil Klay's "Redeployment." It was a short story collection. This was a Book Club pick back in like 2017/2016, I don't remember. But my brother and sister's father, so I'm in the middle of five. My mother, all the men she's married or has had kids with, have been in military. So he was a Marine, fought in Vietnam and he would always tell his story about how he fought in Vietnam. And this was like a man's man. You would come over, he would give you a knife when you were like 14. That's was his gift giving. He would give you money and some sort of weapon, brass knuckles or something.
Yahdon:
And he'd say, "you gotta protect yourself." And he would always talk about this Vietnam shit. And one day I'm talking to him about this, this Phil Klay story. And I think it was the short story, (titled) “In Vietnam They Had Whores” and the story is particularly about the relationship that one of the U.S. Soldiers had. It was an intimate story about the relationship one of the GI's had with one of the women and he comes out and he explains that he actually never was in combat. His job in Vietnam was to take care of a Vietnamese family. And I'm sitting there getting this story. Like you lying mother fucker, the entire time he was talking about Vietnam, like he was Rambo, he was killing over there. But the reason why I bring this story up was what I realized, that story had given him a certain kind of permission to contextualize and experience that when he came back, there was no space to tell the particular story of, well, what was Vietnam like?
Yahdon:
Like do I tell you, "Yeah man, it was crazy people dying. Well I was baby sitting and watching the family." How do you understand war in that complicated way when there's this larger narrative? So I'm only saying that to say that one of the things I think that even your book is indicative of and even knowing how much older you were writing this book. And I think about even Darnell Moore, I don't wanna talk about the context of the idea of "redemption," but this idea that it's never too late for somebody to show you something that you didn't think they had. Right. I think what happens if you God forbid, you would've died before, you wrote this book, right? Like there would've been no indication that the Brian who had that sexual encounter with one of your best friends that could evolve and grow into anything.
Yahdon:
And that was one of the things that was the most touching to me is, I mean, everybody in Book Club know, the books I pick are books that are really centered around cultivating some sort of language of compassion for people we feel deserve it, the least. Because we're in a moment where..I don't wanna say easy, but, heterosexual men fucking up in many different ways, but I think what this book contextualizes, there's a history to this, right. Where it's easy to say "oh, men need to open up." And I remember personally, like when I read like on page, the early shit, the shit that grabbed me, that made me go, "okay, I'll fuck with this book. I'ma deal with it."
Yahdon:
It was on page 15 when you said "tears by far have been my most pernicious traitors. And it took a long time before I was able to dry the well spring up." And I often tell a story about my father Marine dude, who trained me not to cry. Like sat me in front of a mirror and I could not leave the bathroom until I did not cry anymore. And so later now I'm in a relationship, I'm thinking about what Rakia said. A woman that I love is crying. I recognize, I intellectually understand. I love her and I care about her, but I see her cry and I laugh. Not because I find it funny because I emotionally, I don't know what, what do you want me to do here?
Yahdon:
And it's like, "you need to feel your feelings." Okay. But the trajectory of knowing that there were people, being gendered, there are people whose trajectory enabled them to feel feelings. And there's the trajectory of people who can't. And so we're learning two different languages of how to navigate the world. And I'm coming to the conversation recognizing I'm not fluent in whatever it is you talking about. And this book to me provided the, provided a landscape to understand, okay, we can talk a lot of shit about how men need to be better and grow, but to contextualize not that there's not villains or villains are made, but, if you look at how patriarchy, and that's why I said this whole..what is.. and you start the chapter...
Yahdon:
Particularly, the initiation of Tuan and that first section starting with the situation with the project girl. And I remember those situations being around boys and girls, in those similar situations and being so afraid for me that I just wanted to get the fuck out of there. It's like, I can look back and say, "oh, that poor girl." And what you wrote on page 13 where you said "her nonchalance was an indication that she already knew boys were just something she had to endure in order to get ahead. She was already accustomed to the idea that in this life much like a building or a telephone pole or a car, her purpose was to be leaned on by boys." And I remember reading that line about something she had to endure. And I often feel that way around men too.
Yahdon:
And I'm a man. I go to the barber shop and I take a deep ass breath before I walk in. Cuz I already know what I have to navigate. But the assumption is, "oh, you a dude. So like you're a part of this." And it's like, nah, I'm trying to navigate this space and get the outta here safely like everyone else is. And sometimes what that means is you're encountering this interaction with Tuan, but you don't intercede because you know, there's very little you can do to change that trajectory cuz you could say something in that moment, but that thing aint about to change what's gonna happen the next day or literally five minutes after you get off the bus. So you then have to, you pick your spots. Right. I'm just saying to say one of the things I appreciate about this book the most is that it, it gave language to a lot of complicated things that I know I've tried to articulate without it sounding like I'm trying to cop out like, "oh, I can't do it."
Yahdon:
It's more, "no, you're asking me to do something, how would I know how to do that?" So it's like when you hear businesses say, why didn't that person just get a bank loan? Do you know how hard it is to get a bank loan? (The response is usually)"And you're making excuses." No, You don't understand. So it's like, "why don't you just emote?" The last thing I'll share on the subject is you're talking about these emotions or even the interaction you had with the woman, who is now your friend. And I remember oftentimes there was always women who were pulling my card about something I was incapable of doing. And I remember resenting those moments. Not because they pointed it out, but because I wanted to know how to do it, but I did not how to ask how to "how do you do this?"
Yahdon:
I remember like a girl told me "you don't smile." And I said, "what you talking about, girl? I'm always laughing." And she said, "no, no, no, no, no, you don't smile." And then at that point I look back at all my pictures and I'm like damn, I don't. And then I remember trying to do it. And I felt like a serial killer in pictures. I didn't know how to contort my face in a way that would get a smile. And I had to train for two years, I've timed it. It took me two years to learn how to smile genuinely. I had to teach myself how to do that. And so we're in a culture where it's like, people want people to make as men in this patriarchal society, which I understand, it's like the expectation is for us to make this switch quickly.
Yahdon:
But it took years and decades to build us to the point where we don't know how to do it. So, if it took me two years to know how to smile, the difficulty of this is, I'm not trying to cop out and say, "you know, girl wait for me." Or, "this is just the way I am." But this is going to take time. And don't wait for me cuz I can't even tell you when I'm getting my shit together. But the sincerity of looking at your life and knowing that you're like, plus 50, and you arrived here. The thing I thought about is, what does it look like to cultivate a language of compassion that doesn't give people time because there's no such thing as giving people time.
Yahdon:
But understanding that the time it will take for people to arrive at these things, which is not to go without the interrogation and the challenges, but that the fucking number that patriarchy does on everybody. That sort of decolonialization or whatever, I don't know what the the term would be, but undoing that is not something you could do on Twitter in five minutes. Like "Oh, I realized I was sad and I'm sorry." It's like, nah, this is going take years of undoing and I appreciated that you lay it out. Like if you were 27, it would just be like, "oh you see, you can do this easily." But to know how old you are and understand oh, this is a lifelong thing.
Yahdon:
And so the last thing I would say is to Ricca's point about like having younger people read that somebody who's on the other side of 50, I think what it does is it equally gives people a trajectory to think about, right? Like if I can't conceive of a life past 18, trying to see myself at 50 is not even something I conceive of. So I'm only gonna prioritize the things I think I can do. But if I see my life beyond 25, beyond 30, beyond 55, I get to see more possibility for my life that I could live a life like you said, live through addiction and navigate that. And there's still something more to live for. And there's things that while I broke them, there are things that I can repair. And I think that while this book talks a lot about brokenness it also because you document that brokenness the way you do, I think that this book is a book about what the language of repair can look like and what that language is, is just addressing it. And the ways that you do. So thank you for this book.
Brian:
Thank you. I mean, that, what you just said is, a big thing, because I still struggle with the things that I'm talking about in the book. You know, I still act like my father sometimes when it comes to whatever masculinity is. I still have what I consider some homophobic tendencies, um, you know, because it was put in so deep, you know, there's still things I won't wear because it's, you know, "too girly" or whatever. So those things aren't, you snap your fingers and say "emote (snap), now feel." What you just said, these things that took years and years to put inside of man, you're not gonna just snatch out, like it's a kidney. It's not something that can just be excised. And I think that that's something that we also need to talk about. It is multi-layered and it is complicated, but, I think the great thing now is that, more people are having the conversation because, when my father was growing up, nobody was having the conversation, right. When I was growing up, nobody was having the conversation.
Yahdon:
And the last thing I'll say before I pass it to Eunice, is that coming back to this book of repairs that this book provides almost like a language to talk about this, right? I think about what "all about love" did for a lot of the people who did not have the language to talk about love in a sort of concrete way. Even, bell hooks being like, there's a distinction between care, respect, all these other things. And then love is an amalgamation of those things. Just having that was like, whoa, or Malcolm, you know, using that word oppression and saying, "I'm gonna use that word." So you've provided more than the fact that no one could talk about it is like, how do you begin to talk about it?
Yahdon:
And that's why I bring it back to that story of my brother and sister's father because I realized he had wanted to tell that story for a long time. Cuz it came out. It wasn't like I had to prod it was just "you know, when I was in Vietnam," it came out like that. Like I wanna actually tell you what happened, but what would've been the context for him to say that otherwise like, you know, so you've provided almost an excuse for people to begin to talk about these things. Cuz it's like now there's something to refer back to. So you created like a cultural reference. Man that's not light at all. Eunice on you.
Eunice:
Okay. I'm just gonna go back to what we were talking about. Brian's father being the villain. As I came up and I can relate to that. My dad is king Kong who came in the house, everything need to be done and what have you. But as I got older and you know, we'll say at a certain point, I'm in my twenties and I can ask him certain questions, but I didn't get direct answers. But as he got to a point where I was like, my dad asked me, "well, how much money you make?" I said, "dad, I know you didn't just go there." But at that point I could interview him and get anything I want. But he got older. He understood that his baby was like neck and neck with him or more, in dollars.
Eunice:
You know what I mean? So, I don't know where your father was, but I'm sure at some point you may have been able to get there if he wasn't so torn down. That's the trick. You know what I mean? Whereas my dad wasn't torn down. He was just old. But again, you know, as they get older, they get softer, cuz he had to learn how to say, "baby, I love you." I'm like what? My dad says I love you? You know? So he had to get to that point because I was kind of defiant at one point. I wouldn't talk to him for a whole year. I just split, you know? Like I want my way. Yeah. I was that kind of a girl. So I'm just saying it could have gotten to that point maybe later if he would've lived.
Yahdon:
Yeah. One of the last questions I wanna ask you, cuz on page 237. You have that quote, "the details and symbols of your life have been deliberately constructed to make you believe what white people say about you. Please try to remember that what they believe, as well as what they do and cause you to endure, does not testify to your inferiority but to their inhumanity and fear." And when I saw this whole concept, the thing you did with Baldwin, one of the things I thought that was indicative of this book that I think about, what essay is it? The essay that Baldwin's father dies the day that his youngest sister is born. Do you know the name of the title of the essay is?
Eunice:
That was his autobiography. Wasn't it?
Yahdon:
No, that was in Notes of Native Son.
Eunice:
I think it was in the autobiography, too.
Yahdon:
Oh, okay. But he writes this essay. I don't know if you know it Brian, where he writes about his father and despising his father. And I think what I'm curious about, cuz you talk about like this whole concept of while our culture is used to reading binary. So someone has to be good, like an antagonist and a protagonist. I think that one of the things I saw in this book that was consistent in the legacy of Baldwin was, even though he wanted to honor in different ways, the people who menaced him, he also found ways to write compassion into the people. It wasn't like a, this person had no other choice, but to be who they were. But it was, who else could they be because of the world in which we had to live in. And I, think you managed to do that.
Yahdon:
And while the book ended with this quote about white people, I think that you did a real, which is not easy. And I think Rakia could speak to this too about making the book, a book that is fighting against the white world, but really dealing with the intimacies of a black one. Right. The imediacy of what we face every day is, yes, are there larger structural things that we see, but in our everyday we see people that look like us articulating and gestating these larger systems. But I appreciated the fact that you, you based the experience and how do we read compassion into people who look like us, who we might and thinking we're doing the work of being a, creating a solidarity, are creating a distancing and you managed to keep everyone, at least for me, I'll say that what you've done brilliantly is, you've managed to keep everyone feeling like they were close to you. Even on that bus, the proximity from you to Tuan and his father, everything just felt like you kept everyone close.
Brian:
That's like a thing. I'm writing something new right now. And I think I'm kind of like accidentally doing the same thing. Like I'm very much, into structure. I think about the structure of something before, oftentimes before I write a word. As far as the Baldwin quote, my father believed in those binary things, he believed that white people were the enemy, at all times. That's what fueled in many ways, his hypermasculinity, because he felt so beaten down and there were things that, that frankly, white people did to him that were awful. He saw things that white people did to other black people that were awful.
Brian:
And so, built into this already need to be masculine, top of that is also, "I have to be the most masculine in order to show white people that they cannot with me." I think that that's what a lot of in terms of black men, I think that's what a lot of what fuels a lot of hypermasculinity in black men. There's also the racism on top of that. But I do like to keep everybody in a story close, because I think just, symbolically, we all have something to learn from each other's story. And you can't do that if you're far apart. So I like to put people on a bus. I like to put people in a room. I like to people in a house. I don't think you're ever gonna read from anything from me where people are in a big, huge field. I just can't write that. I like to keep things close because the stories can more easily ricochet off of each other. I think that in my mind when I'm trying to write something, I'm not sure if I'm addressing what you said, but that's just what it made me think of.
Yahdon:
Oh yeah. Nah, you addressed it. It was not necessarily a question. I told you. I made the Book Club cause I don't necessarily be having questions, I wanna talk. So a beautiful note to end on. Can we unmute our cameras and phones and all the devices. Turn the cameras on because we coming to the end. Can we give this brother and Rakia round applause for being here? Thank you. Thank y'all so much for pulling up. We really appreciate this was a beautiful meeting.
Brian:
May I just say, this has just been one of the best nights of my life. I really do love, talking with intelligent people about books and writing and, this is just one of my favorite things to do. So thank you each and every one of you. Yahdon for inviting me and for all of you for coming. I'm gonna go eat something, that's not good for me now. Probably some barbecue ribs and possibly get on a Greyhound. (Group Laughter)
Yahdon:
Before you leave, let's just do this group picture, we got the book.
Yahdon:
All right. 1, 2, 3, uh, cheese, boom. All right, we got it. Um, so thank you, Brian. You know, enjoy Enjoy the Greyhound. That's going be the new slang for 2022. Like I'm about to go get on this Greyhound, Y'all
Brian:
Please carry it, carry it, go forth with it. Go forth with it. Thank you all.
Yahdon:
All right. Have a good night. of course, littest member of the night. You know, what was it, Christy? You brought it up. You know, Kristin, I think that was the most skilled way of talking about the book. Like, I'm gonna talk about this book, every chance I get, you talked about it in the prompt that was brilliant. This
Christy:
How she pulled the exact page number. Like I am so amazed. I told her I'm totally impressed with that.
Yahdon:
All right. I'm sorry. This is the hours when I start powering down. So Kristin, Eggie with bringing the bars to the forefront, Eunice as always just, just..."Motherfucker" (laughs)
Yahdon:
Rakia for being here, for being like I said, the eye in the sky who saw it all. You the people's champ behind the scenes that got this project together. So thank you for getting us here. Jules, Amy, that question, you stumped the brother in Book Club. That's fire. That's fire. Anytime we can stump somebody in Book Club, we get better. We get bigger writers. I remember when Nuratu asked Claudia Rankine, "what brings you joy?" And Claudia was like "ohh, damn." This is Claudia Rankine. She got a answer for every thing. She was like, joy, hold on.
Nuratu:
I Remember her answer too.
Yahdon:
she was so impressed by that question. She was like, "what y'all reading next month? I might pull up," like she wanted to join the Book Club just because the questions were so good. But, thank you all. Are y'all ready for next month's Book Club pick? Yes. So ready for March. Ready for March. So, constantly y'all know, I'm trying to make sure I don't double tracks. We did an Asian American author last month. We did black American gay male non-fiction, so I'm always trying to figure out ways of how do I make sure I'm touching things we haven't touched before? So we're gonna do a book.
Yahdon:
If you follow me, you saw it in my stories, but we dropping it on here. We're reading, "In Sensorium: Notes for My People," for this month. This book is built like a fragrance. And what I mean is the book is structured, like the way in which you smell the notes of a fragrance. And I was thinking about one of the things that books don't don't do as often, as much as we should is how many senses does a book engage. Right. And I think about what we got to talk about because of "Crying in H Mart" we got to talk about food. We got to talk about those sort of things. And like, I seldom think about what things smell like when I read books or sometimes especially in fiction, you might get a description that goes, "Ooh, okay."
Yahdon:
Or, "oh," but I really wanted to tap into some more sensory. So we're gonna jump into this. I'm gonna read the first paragraph, just so y'all get a sense of what y'all getting this this month. It's the author's note, "portals, perfume as portal. Let us begin at the end of the world. I sheltered in place in New York City where tens of thousands of my fellow city dwellers died of a virus, and in mid-April of the year 2020, I, too, became sick. For two weeks, I was immobile from fatigue and headaches. Everything I ate came out of me as liquid, and my sense of smell grew faint. My illness began around midnight, when I received news from Dhaka -- my maternal grandmother, Nanu, had a fever and seemed to be nearing her end. Her breathing, her cries for her son who died, her sleeplessness, her prayer, and, of course, her will that we should practice Islam, were as familiar to me as the scent of her body, one of the first sensuous cartographies in my memory --jasmine attar, violet talcum, paan juice crushed rose powder, coconut oil, Pond's cream, Tabasco sauce, canola oil. Nanu's tastes were village girl through and through. She loved a bright red lip and attar of Jasmine, a narcotic floral with an animal stink. After each meal, we watched her methodically prepare her paan, filling the betel leaf with contents she kept in a metal tiffin. First, she stroked the leaf with white limestone paste, then filled it with names I read off the bottles in Bangla: Supari, chaman bahar, jorda. I later learned the words in English: areca nut, rose powder, tobacco. Carcinogens be damned --this ritual brought her so much pleasure. As a Bangladeshi Muslim raised in the United States, I am still just two generations out of the village.
Yahdon:
I've felt called to do right, to write, because of my grandmothers, both child brides, who lived as British, Indian, and Pakistani, and never had a say in shaping the world outside of their homes. My paternal grandmother did not live long enough to witness the birth of Bangladesh, a fifty-year-old country at the time of this book's writing. Whereas a body cannot escape circumstance -- in my grandmother's case, she married at thirteen, did not finish school, lost her son and husband at a young age -- a perfume allows us to, if only for a moment." That's just the first two pages. So we gonna get into some smell good. This, March is coming, spring, flowers, allergies. You see how I thought about all of this?
Yahdon:
I think about a lot, right? So this is the Book Club pick for this month. I wish you all a good evening and a good month. I will see y'all next month. Have a good night. Thank you. All right.