Mira Jacob Talks to Maris About the Denial of Evil, “Good” Trump Voters, and More
We’re thrilled to present the debut episode of The Maris Review, and will now quickly pass the mic to Maris herself, to tell you what it’s all about:
I’m Maris Kreizman and on The Maris Review I’ll be talking to authors you should know about their own books and the books they love, the shows and films they’ve watched, the music they’ve listened to, and the links they’ve clicked. Guests will talk about the ways in which a wide variety of culture affects their work, because very few authors live in bubbles without TV and internet. I hope the format will allow us to be both profound and very silly.
Things you can expect on The Maris Review:
· Conversations with authors about their work and their cultural influences
· Book recommendations
· Good-natured, feminist negging of Karl Ove Knausgaard
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To kick off the podcast, Maris talks to Mira Jacob about her new graphic memoir, Good Talk.
From the episode
On teaching her son about racism
Mira Jacob: I think there’s this fantasy that you have, both before and long after you’ve become a parent, that you can control more things than you can. I often hear from older white women, I don’t know if this is a good thing for you to be talking about with him—as if there were an option.
Maris Kreizman: Right, what else are you going to do?
MJ: As if there were some world I was introducing him to that they themselves weren’t making possible.
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On denial
MJ: I absolutely had thought this man [Trump] is representing a very specific point of view that is so vitriolic and so cruel and so entitled, and that’s not really what the country’s going to be about. And I thought that despite—it’s interesting for me to look back and parse through how much my fantasy was informed by my privilege. I thought that despite seeing what was happening in the Black Lives Matter movement, and despite seeing how Muslims were being treated and how Mexicans were being talking about, and being adjacent to all of that, and still holding on to that fantasy of the good people of America. And it was a surprise.
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On relatives who voted for Trump
MK: When I first read the book months ago now, my first inclination was I wanted to send it to everyone who was on the fence, or was voting for Trump but was quote-unquote good. Because I felt like you made such a compelling argument about how it affects people negatively, how racism is bad, basically. I guess there’s more liberal media—
MJ: I’ll tell you, that’s a fantasy. The fantasy that you could send this book to someone and change their mind about him. That’s just not going to happen. And I’ve had to let go of that fantasy, too. I didn’t write the book to change their minds, because I understood I wasn’t going to. And that heartbreak is real for me. The fact that there’s nothing about our lives and our past that matter enough to them to change their minds is heartbreaking. I say that in the same breath to tell you that they love me. It’s not about love.
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Mira Jacob is the author and illustrator of Good Talk: A Memoir in Conversations. Her critically acclaimed novel, The Sleepwalker’s Guide to Dancing, was a Barnes & Noble Discover New Writers pick, shortlisted for India’s Tata First Literature Award, and longlisted for the Brooklyn Literary Eagles Prize. It was named one of the best books of 2014 by Kirkus Reviews, the Boston Globe, Goodreads, Bustle, and The Millions.
Mira’s recommendations:
Heavy by Kiese Laymon · Survival Math by Mitchell Jackson · Sabrina and Corrina by Kali Fajardo-Anstine · We Cast a Shadow by Maurice Carlos Ruffon
Audio books: Loving Day by Mat Johnson · The Changeling by Victor LaValle
Further reading:
Mira’s Twitter thread about WOC in publishing. · “Love in the Time of White Supremacy” by Rebecca Carroll · “Climate Signs” by Emily Raboteau
