Novelist Colson Whitehead’s New York State of Mind

Novelist Colson Whitehead is one of only a handful of writers to win the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction twice—first for The Underground Railroad in 2017, and again for The Nickel Boys in 2020. He joins us on the heels of his latest novel, Cool Machine https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/742026/cool-machine-by-colson-whitehead/, the final installment of his acclaimed Harlem trilogy. We begin with his decision to close out the world of furniture dealer Ray Carney (3:00), why Whitehead felt compelled to keep returning to 125th and Morningside (7:30), and the artistic influences that shaped him as a teenager (14:15). Then, we walk through the personal scenes chronicled in Sag Harbor (15:15), the horror movies that eventually led to Zone One (17:38), and how his latest protagonist’s story unfolds alongside a New York City perpetually destroying and reinventing itself (21:48). On the back-half, Whitehead reflects on finding his voice as a young writer (31:30), why he “had no choice” but to write his debut novel, The Intuitionist (38:20), and teaching at Princeton alongside the late Toni Morrison (41:05). To close, we discuss the uncertain future of reading (44:55), the specter of AI (48:35), Zohran Mamdani’s first eight months as mayor (51:50), his love letter and elegy to the city after September 11 (55:00), and why, after more than a dozen books, writing still makes him feel a little more whole (1:03:00). Subscribe to our ⁠YouTube channel⁠ https://www.youtube.com/@talkeasypod. As always, our email: [email protected]. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  Is civilization in decline? Yes. Are we destroying ourselves? Yes. Is the AI scourge making everybody dumber, you know, as we outsource very simple tasks to this digital agent? Yes.

• 0:12Sam Fragoso?

  You're setting those up and saying yes, like someone's asking you to order a side salad or fries.

• 0:19Speaker 00

  Well, I think it's good. Things are so terrible out there.

• 0:24Sam Fragoso?

  Yes. Yeah, no, I'll have the truffle fries. Yeah, that's, that's fine. The end of civilization? Yes.

• 0:34Sam Fragoso?

  This is Talk Easy. I'm Stephen Fragoso. Welcome to the show.

• 0:51Sam Fragoso?

  Today, novelist Colson Whitehead. He's one of only a handful of writers to win the Pulitzer Prize for fiction twice. First for The Underground Railroad in 2017, and again for The Nickel Boys in 2020. And yet, Whitehead has made a career out of doing the unpredictable, hopping from one genre to the next. A mystery about elevator inspectors, a post-apocalyptic sci-fi set around zombie stragglers, an autobiographical coming-of-age story set in Long Island. He's done it all, including, in his latest book, completing his Harlem-set crime trilogy with The Cool Machine. The final volume opens in 1981 New York City, where Ray Carney,

• 1:32Sam Fragoso?

  a successful business owner and stolen goods fence, has just been named Sterling Furniture's Dealer of the Month. And so today, we begin by going back to 125th and Morningside, tracking how Carney's descent coincides with New York remaking itself as a city where money, crime, art, ambition, and corruption have all become increasingly inextricably linked. We also dive into how Whitehead worked to find his voice as a young writer, the impact of the late Toni Morrison, the future of literature, the specter of AI, how he knows when a book is finished, and why, after more than a dozen of them, writing still makes him feel just

• 2:12Sam Fragoso?

  a little bit more whole. I have to say, there is something unabashedly Gen X about Whitehead, dry and defiant, world-weary, yet can't help but examine and make fun of and then write about the world as he experiences it. And so I hope you enjoy this conversation. It's one I've wanted to have on this show for a very, very long time. And I'll see you on the other side.

• 2:39Sam Fragoso?

  Colson Whitehead, welcome to the show.

• 2:41Speaker 00

  How do you do?

• 2:43Sam Fragoso?

  How are you doing?

• 2:45Speaker 00

  Not too shabby. You know, it's a publication day, and so running around, but also that means that the people who pre-ordered the book are getting it in the mail. I'm doing the event tonight, and it's, you know, it's pretty exciting.

• 2:58Sam Fragoso?

  You know, dating back to your debut novel, The Intuitionist, it seems like each new book plays as an antidote to the one before. But The Cool Machine is the final installment in your Harlem crime fiction trilogy. And so I wanted to start here with Ray Carney, this furniture salesman with a loving wife who moonlights in the beginning as a fence, you know, a wall between the straight world and the crooked world. How did you think about this book in relation to the others? Because I imagine it's not an antidote to Crook Manifesto or Harlem Shuffle. How did you think about going back into it?

• 3:43Speaker 00

  No, you know, it's a trilogy, and, you know, I had a unifying idea for all three books. It's definitely an antidote to The Nickel Boys and Underground Railroad, both books that were very serious, a bit dark, and had protagonists who were very much defined by their social circumstances, by, by class and by race. And so when I started Harlem Shuffle, I knew that I wanted a protagonist who can win sometimes. I wanted room for humor. And so the trilogy as a whole is an antidote to what I was doing about 10 years ago.

• 4:18Sam Fragoso?

  And now that you've completed the trilogy, are, are you cured? Are you okay?

• 4:26Speaker 00

  Never, never cured. But, you know, I'm working on something else now. It's a different tone, not the same capacity, not the same room for humor and jokes. And so I'm adjusting to the rules of this book as I adjust to, you know, each book as I start.

• 4:42Sam Fragoso?

  So you saw Ray Carney as an antidote to what Cora in The Underground Railroad went through, or The Nickel Boys endured, which were the last two novels before the trilogy?

• 4:53Speaker 00

  Yeah, I mean, a shift in tone and subject matter. You know, if I pull back over the last 25 years, I'll do a short book and then a long book, a book that's a bit more sober or has more jokes. And so, once I'm done with a book, I'm definitely finished. I want to do something different. And, and, and changing tone and changing subject matter works.

• 5:16Sam Fragoso?

  So for those coming into The Cool Machine, which I think does play, even if you haven't read Harlem Shuffle or Crook Manifesto, how would you describe, or how do you see the arc of Ray Carney?

• 5:29Speaker 00

  Well, it follows him over 30 years. And so he's in his late 20s in the first book, in his 30s. And when we find him in the 1980s, he's 55, he's settled. His store, his front business furniture store is a successful concern on 125th Street in Harlem. He fences when he wants to, you know, recirculating stolen goods. So he's very settled. But also, I think be set by middle-aged, disquiet. What's next? Where's he going to now? His

• 6:10Speaker 00

  kids, who were one or two in the first book, are now grown and have left the house. His wife has her own business, Elizabeth, running a travel agency. And so his immediate anxiety about being a criminal is gone.

• 6:28Sam Fragoso?

  Replaced by middle-aged, disquiet.

• 6:30Speaker 00

  Yes. And he knows where he is. And so that's where, that's where we find him.

• 6:34Sam Fragoso?

  Was that the original title of this new book?

• 6:37Speaker 00

  I had a few titles. They're always auditioning. And Cool Machine, what does it mean? It's a line from a birthday party song. The birthday party is Nick Cave's first band. And there's a song called Release the Bats, which is like sort of an erotic fever dream. And he just chants out Cool Machine, doesn't make sense. But that's, that phrase has always stayed with me. And the middle section of the book takes place in 1983, and it's, we're not in Harlem, we're downtown in the East Village, Lower East Side art scene. It's a post-punk

• 7:16Speaker 00

  place. There's a new form of graffiti art that's taking, taking hold and getting more popular. And Cool Machine, this artifact of the post-punk era, seemed to be a good title.

• 7:31Sam Fragoso?

  In The New Yorker, they called Ray Carney's journey, quote, fraught with Odyssean dangers. Do you see those parallels, especially with the Odyssey coming out? I'm thinking like a lot of people are, a lot of people have the Odyssey on their mind right now. Do you see those parallels? What does that mean or look like to you?

• 7:48Speaker 00

  You know, that's a durable structure. It goes back, you know, 2,000 years. I think Underground Railroad, which has our protagonist, who's a runaway enslaved person, going from state to state, and each state is a alternative America, is a very Odyssey-like structure. She has to solve each sort of allegorical dilemma before she can progress to the next one. With this, with Cool Machine, I think just Carney's in trouble. He's trying to, he's trying to keep ahead of the people who are trying to kill him and, you know, various, various mobsters. And is that Odyssean? I'm not sure.

• 8:28Sam Fragoso?

  I think maybe the Odyssean comparisons came from the fact that he's trying to make his wife happy.

• 8:36Speaker 00

  Okay, I can see that. There are a lot of, you know, things, a lot of structures to the crime narrative that I'm playing with. When you try to get out, they pull you back in. You know, that's a common trope. In this book, in, you know, in these stories, he wants to get out, but he has to get Jackson 5 tickets for his daughter, and that means getting embroiled with a crooked cop, a fixer. And so I'm, I'm trying to have fun with these conventions. I'm coming from the crime story from the outside. And there are traditions I want to embrace in the crime story, reject, and make of my own. And, you know, having fun in that way makes, makes the book lively for me.

• 9:19Sam Fragoso?

  At the end of Harlem Shuffle, the first book in the trilogy, you end in 64, where it was, quote, "unreal to have your city turned inside and out. The devastation had been nothing compared to what lay before him now. But if you bottled the rage and hope and fury of all the people of Harlem and made it into a bomb, the results would look something like this." Do you see the trajectory of Ray Carney kind of moving in lockstep with how the city changes in that time?

• 9:50Speaker 00

  There's, there's a parallel. You know, we're, in that instance, we're looking at the crater that will be, become the World Trade Center. In the opening section of the book, the very first pages, we're in Radio Row, which was a, a few blocks downtown where radio and TV hobbyists would, you know, trade parts and, and schemes. That neighborhood is totally erased to put the World Trade Center up. In Cool Machine, we thought the World Trade Center is there, the Twin Towers. And there's a scene where Ray and his wife Elizabeth are having a celebration dinner at the windows on the world. And it's a place of joy, you know. But from our vantage, we know that the Trade Center will not be there

• 10:35Speaker 00

  forever. And there's another cycle of destruction and rebirth. And so I'm talking about...

• 10:42Speaker 00

  In a simple way, the ups and downs of a person's life, the ups and downs of a city, and trying to find different moments and different places in that city where I can animate these themes.

• 10:52Sam Fragoso?

  I want to get to kind of like where you begin to build your own conception or vision of New York. I think to do that, you have to go back to the early 70s on the Uptown Number One train, where you and your late brother Clark would press your noses up against the windows as the train erupted from the tunnel on the way to 125th Street. Is this your first New York City memory? Is this where it begins?

• 11:22Speaker 00

  There are no fact checkers. You're going to keep me in line, but yes, that's very early. It's the early 70s and New York is in terrible shape. It's very dirty. You do press your nose against that window and it comes back city because it's just a dirty city. New York City is my big subject. I keep coming back to it over and over. Zone One is a zombie apocalypse novel, but takes place in New York City. And in some ways, it's a utopian city because everyone's dead. So there's no competition for taxis or Whole Foods. And then in this book, these crime stories, I'm dealing with a more direct and realistic depiction of the city.

• 12:07Speaker 00

  There are no zombies around, except for your normal neighbors.

• 12:10Sam Fragoso?

  Do you typically see your neighbors as zombies?

• 12:13Speaker 00

  I do remember being in a taxi at the corner of 79th and Broadway and the light change. And then these freaks were just walking across the street, you know? In my head, I heard like, ah, I heard zombie moans. And that's one of the images that fed Zone One, my zombie story.

• 12:32Sam Fragoso?

  To be fair, you were making those sounds, not them.

• 12:35Speaker 00

  Mentally, I provided my own soundtrack, yes.

• 12:42Sam Fragoso?

  So but when you emerged from that train, you and your brother, what do you see when you think of that now?

• 12:49Speaker 00

  Just, I mean, that nice stretch of Broadway between the subway and our building. We were on 139th and Riverside and we moved when I was in kindergarten. So I have only a few memories of that time. But different moments, I've been doing research, walking around Harlem to do location scouting for the Nickel Boys or the crime trilogy. And I'll get the zing of recognition and I look across the street and there's like the playground I played in. There's a giant cement tortoises and I remember climbing over them when I was a little kid. So it's a, when I'm in the neighborhood now, I get these flashes of early 1970s New York.

• 13:31Sam Fragoso?

  And those flashes, they feel what way to you?

• 13:35Speaker 00

  Yeah, very, very calming and nice.

• 13:38Sam Fragoso?

  You say that almost begrudgingly.

• 13:41Speaker 00

  I hate describing things as nice in relation to my life. But I would say, you know, there's a grocery store that I remember going to with my mom and it's still there.

• 13:56Speaker 00

  These gigantic overstuffed shelves, they haven't really cleaned up the place in 40 years. And while I don't remember much about that time, it is comforting.

• 14:08Speaker 00

  I guess I wasn't conscious yet and I didn't have any sort of existential horror.

• 14:12Sam Fragoso?

  So that's the question. When did you become conscious?

• 14:15Speaker 00

  I think in terms of having a sense of dread about the world, you know, probably high school, like reading A Tale of Two Cities, like, why did he have to die? Like suddenly the stakes of the world become apparent. So I would say high school, all that kind of identity formation one does when they're a teenager.

• 14:37Speaker 00

  That becomes really a nice adventure when you live in a place like New York and you have such opportunities to find that Velvet Underground record, to buy that Bauhaus t-shirt and go to that movie Repertory House, where they're showing Breathless or some other Goddard movie.

• 15:00Speaker 00

  And I think coming into one's own in a teenager, I think awakens you to certain existential realities.

• 15:10Sam Fragoso?

  Your sister talked about your family in The New Yorker and she said, "Talking about feelings just wasn't done." This is Lynn. And we all have a bit of that in us. And so instead of talking about feelings, I want to know in Sag Harbor, which you used to describe as a semi-autobiographical novel, but have since just gotten rid of all that and said it's basically biography. You compared your family to the Cosby's, quote, "good on paper." How would that paper read?

• 15:40Speaker 00

  Yeah, the kids are in good schools, a nice address on West End Avenue, having their own business. But my dad, you know, as his business started failing, became much more of a drinker. And so that's when the darkness comes in. I think about Sag Harbor a lot now because a lot of the cultural artifacts I put in to be realistic

• 16:04Speaker 00

  have become sort of sad prophecies. So Bill Cosby, when I wrote the book, had not been exposed yet. Afrika Bambaata, who, early hip hop artist, since exposed, has been accused of molesting folks. Mel Gibson was in The Road Warrior, which is a big totem for the main character. And of course, he's a horrible racist anti-Sunlight, so.

• 16:28Sam Fragoso?

  But at the time, we didn't know all this.

• 16:30Speaker 00

  We didn't know all that.

• 16:31Sam Fragoso?

  You could enjoy The Road Warrior instead of watching CNN, which is what your father wanted to do.

• 16:36Speaker 00

  Sure. And when I wrote the book, none of these people had been exposed yet. And so when I look back, it wasn't just my, not just the main characters, the main family in the book, who have this other life, but it's also a lot of the cultural references that are in the book.

• 16:53Sam Fragoso?

  So would it be around this time of year that you and your family would be out in Sag Harbor?

• 16:58Speaker 00

  Sag Harbor is a resort town, Long Island, part of the Hamptons. And in the 80s, when I was growing up, it was the sort of, yeah, much more homey and hokey and not sort of glam like it is today. So we'd go out late June and be out there until Labor Day. A lot of my friends' parents were teachers, so they are off. My parents could work out there. They could work at home. They had their own business. And so it was, you know, two months where we're very pretty free range and having adventures.

• 17:35Sam Fragoso?

  When you're asked about childhood, you give the same line over and over again. And I still, I've not been able to stop thinking about it since I heard it the first time, which is that you were stuck on this idea that, quote, "A monster is a person who has stopped pretending."

• 17:52Speaker 00

  You know, my idea of the zombie, you know, the sort of main monster in Zone One is your neighbor, your family member, your teacher, the people working on the store, who have dropped the mask of humanity. Like my zombies in that sort of manifestation of anxiety for other people is in Night of the Living Dead, Dawn of the Dead. Also, I think Invasion of the Body Snatchers, I would put that as a zombie narrative. People go to sleep and they wake up and they look the same, but they're totally different. I watched a lot of horror movies as a kid and definitely saw Night of the Living Dead and Dawn of the Dead very early.

• 18:35Speaker 00

  And when I decided to write about the zombie, that was my sort of anxiety,

• 18:45Speaker 00

  the anxiety being expressed, like this fear of other people.

• 18:47Sam Fragoso?

  What is a psychotronic childhood?

• 18:50Speaker 00

  Psychotronic is a made up word in a sci fi movie from the 60s, I think. And a guy named Michael Weldon made an encyclopedia of B-movies from the 30s up to the 80s. And, you know, capsule reviews, 100 words about The Creature from the Black Lagoon, Last House on the Left, Halloween by John Carpenter. And he called it the psychotronic encyclopedia. And it's basically biker movies, monster movies, sci fi movies. And in my household, we always loved watching horror movies. We got the annual Stephen King book and I would go through it.

• 19:33Speaker 00

  My perfect afternoon is watching, as a kid, was watching, you know, Horror Party Beach, you know, some terrible black and white monster movie on Channel 5 in the afternoon.

• 19:49Speaker 00

  And I wrote an essay about it called Psychotronic Childhood, which is about loving exploitation movies as a kid and then finding one's voice as an artist.

• 20:00Speaker 00

  I basically thought if a movie was on TV or in movie theaters, I meant it was good. I didn't have any, you know, any idea of this is a good filmmaker or a bad filmmaker. If it actually existed and somebody paid to put it out, then it was art. And then, of course, you develop taste, perhaps when you're in high school.

• 20:21Sam Fragoso?

  I don't know. I think that's kind of a nice way to go through the world. You know, making art is very hard, as you know more than most people. I think that kind of generosity, I'm sure those filmmakers appreciated it.

• 20:33Speaker 00

  Yes, but also, you know, you end up watching a lot more terrible things. I think if you loved movies, the.

• 20:46Speaker 00

  Proliferation of video stores and the rise of video store culture was really great. I mean, I was watching horror movies when I was 10 and 11. And then when I got to college, it was Fellini, Scorsese, and I think so much of who I am as an artist is formed, maybe not from the horror stuff, but just that accessibility of, you know, you've read reviews of Truffaut, his name dropped in the Village Voice newspaper and different reviews, and then you can go and get them. And suddenly, it's accessible in a way that,

• 21:27Speaker 00

  you know, 20 years or 10 years, it was not. You had to wait for it to come to the rep house and for the midnight showing at the downtown theater. I think for a young artist, being able to have access was really important.

• 21:45Sam Fragoso?

  One film that does pop up in The Cool Machine, or at least you reference it, is Escape from New York. Did you and your brother watch that together the first time you saw it?

• 21:57Speaker 00

  We were big John Carpenter fans. Assault on Precinct 13, and Halloween, and The Fog, and then Escape from New York. It was definitely important for us as like a sort of genre outing. You know, he was a very, I think, smart director, and he plays with genre in a very different way. And there's this kind of cynicism and countercultural energy that I think we picked up on that was very refreshing. It appears a lot in Cool Machine. It's a constant refrain. The book takes place in the 80s, it's 1981, and Escape from New York is about to come out. And Ray Carney, who's a diehard New Yorker,

• 22:38Speaker 00

  just sees the title. He has no idea what the movie's about. And he's confounded, like, why would you escape from New York? How would you do that? What kind of freak would hatch such a scheme? And so it's, you know, it comes up a lot.

• 22:51Sam Fragoso?

  I love that the most unfathomable part about it is like, you're gonna leave New York?

• 22:56Speaker 00

  And do what?

• 22:57Sam Fragoso?

  That's, you know, it's ridiculous proposition.

• 22:59Speaker 00

  And go where?

• 23:00Sam Fragoso?

  Yeah. What would one even do?

• 23:01Speaker 00

  I mean, I'm, you know, I have a son who's in 7th grade, and he'll go to college, you imagine, one day. And then definitely, my wife and I think will leave the city. I've, you know, I've been here my whole life, and I think I've done my bit. I'm not at the point where I am taking advantage of the city. I'm not going to the opera house. I'm not going museums every day and doing whatever is cultured people do. I'm just in my house, brooding, thinking about my work, and working on my chili. And I can do that anywhere, not necessarily in New York.

• 23:37Sam Fragoso?

  I'm not someone who wants to completely redesign a room every six months, but I do love finding one little thing that makes the whole space feel that much better. I recently got a new felted bed from Article. It's one of my favorite pieces I've ever owned. It's soft and sculpted. It makes the room look even warmer than with my old wooden bed frame. That's what I like about Article. They have a range of mid-century modern, coastal, and Scandinavian-inspired pieces. Everything is designed to work together, so you don't need to be an interior designer, and of course, I am not, to make a room feel cohesive. And with the new bed, I noticed the quality immediately. The construction is sturdy, the upholstery beautiful, and it feels like a piece I'm going to have

• 24:20Sam Fragoso?

  for a very, very long time. They also offer fast, affordable shipping, professional assembly if you want it, God knows I need it, and customer care seven days a week, including free interior design services if you need some help pulling a room together. Article is offering our listeners $50 off your first purchase of $100 or more. To claim, visit article.com/talkeasy, and the discount will be automatically applied at checkout. That's article.com/talkeasy for $50 off your first purchase of $100 or more. MUBI is a global film company bringing great cinema to the world and to you. Everything

• 25:02Sam Fragoso?

  at MUBI is handpicked with an emphasis on visionary filmmakers and movies worth discovering. One new movie is called Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma, from writer-director Jane Seanbrin, who made the film I Saw the TV Glow. The film stars Hannah Einbinder and Gillian Anderson. It follows a young director tasked with resurrecting Camp Miasma, a once-beloved slasher franchise that, after years of sequels, has fallen out of favor. Looking for inspiration, she visits the reclusive actress who starred in the original film. What begins at an attempt to revive the franchise soon pulls the two women into a blood-soaked world of desire, fear, and delirium. It's a world-expanding, genre-bending movie from one of the most

• 25:44Sam Fragoso?

  distinctive filmmakers working today. Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma is now streaming exclusively on MUBI. You can try MUBI free for 30 days at mubi.com/talkeasy. That's MUBI, M-U-B-I dot com slash talkeasy for a whole month of great cinema for free. I think the best clothes you own are probably the ones you spend the least amount of time thinking about. They're just there when you need them. The sweater that goes with everything. The perfect pair of pants or the tee you always reach for first. That's what I've always liked about Quince. They focus on everyday staples, made with premium materials like organic cotton, merino wool, and 100% Mongolian cashmere. Their cashmere sweaters

• 26:27Sam Fragoso?

  start at just $60, and everything is designed to be versatile enough to work with what you already own. And now that the temperatures are starting to drop, they also have premium down jackets and classic wool outerwear. Easy layers that can carry you through the fall and into winter. I've had a few of their merino wool all-season tees for just over a year now, and they've really become my go-to in my wardrobe. The quality was the thing that surprised me when I first tried them out. They're comfortable, easy to layer, and after a year of wearing them regularly, they've held up remarkably well. I use them all the time and would absolutely recommend them. Quince works directly with ethical factories and cuts out the middlemen, which allows them to price everything 50% to 80%

• 27:09Sam Fragoso?

  less than similar brands. So you're paying for the quality of the materials rather than a big brand markup. It's not just clothing. Quince brings that same approach to hotel-quality bedding and bath, kitchen essentials, and thoughtfully designed furniture. Well-made pieces for everyday living. Find your next fall favorites at Quince. Download the Quince app for app-exclusive offers, or go to quince.com. You can get free shipping on your order and 365-day returns, now available in Canada and the UK, too. And when Quince asks where you heard about them, let them know it was talkeasy. It's really the best way to support the show. Enjoy.

• 27:48Sam Fragoso?

  After I come home from a trip, the places I remember most usually aren't the ones I planned to visit in the first place. Let me give you an example. I was doing a few tapings in Philadelphia just a few months back. And in between those tapings, I'd have just a little bit of time to wander. And one morning, I found myself walking through this neighborhood called Society Hill. And it was early in the morning. There weren't that many people awake. I was grabbing a coffee, and all of a sudden, I noticed that a bookstore was just beginning to open. And I kind of sheepishly, but excitedly, walked into this bookstore. And evidently, those are the moments I remember most about the trip. They tell you more about a city than any guidebook ever could. And honestly, that's

• 28:31Sam Fragoso?

  one of the reasons I've been thinking about listing my space on Airbnb. Especially when I'm away, whoever stays there gets to experience a part of Los Angeles that I've come to know and love. Not just the landmarks, but the rhythm of an actual neighborhood. A place with a kitchen, a comfortable space to come back to, and of course, a chance to feel connected to the city instead of simply passing through it. And if listing my space also helps offset the cost of my own travels, well, we'll call that a happy accident. Your home might be worth more than you think. Find out how much at airbnb.com/host.

• 29:09Sam Fragoso?

  Well, I want to talk about what you do to do that. Why don't we read a little bit from a passage? I'll set it up a little bit. When you were on the cover of Time Magazine in 2019, you said in the interview that your father's personality was sort of the weather in the house. And I wanted to know, you know, thinking back to your teenage years, where you started to have those existential crises, what did the weekly forecast entail?

• 29:40Speaker 00

  Oh, well, I mean, just never knowing when there'd be a sudden thunder shower, you know, something would set him off. And he'd start yelling at me or somebody else. And so you just never knew what was gonna happen. And definitely, by the time I was 17 or a senior in high school, I was just sort of counting down the days till I could go to college and get out of the house and not have to worry about the weather forecast.

• 30:06Sam Fragoso?

  Or the sounds in the house and anticipating them.

• 30:10Speaker 00

  Sure. I guess I should read from Sag Harbor, this section?

• 30:14Sam Fragoso?

  Yeah. I mean, sure is not a ringing endorsement, but we'll accept.

• 30:21Speaker 00

  Poomp. It was the magnet. There was one magnet with which I was well-acquainted. It resided in the next room in the lower-left quadrant of the kitchen island, securing the liquor cabinet door. It produced a sound, poomp, when the twin metal strips on the cabinet door connected with the magnet in the cabinet itself. Poomp meant the liquor cabinet had been depleted. Poomp meant it had started. The ball of tangareth thunked on the wood of the kitchen counter, followed by the tinny rasp of the bottle cap sliding clockwise. Crack, crack. The gin shattered the ice, slicing planes through the cubes.

• 31:01Speaker 00

  I was well-acquainted with all those sounds and heard the other silent things. This made no sound. My father stirring his drink with his finger. This also made no sound. That dreaded calculation. How many is that today? Certainly, this made no sound. The understanding, I'm pushing my luck by hanging around here. And silent now, but soon to make itself heard, the chemical reaction in his brain that said, let's get this hate in gear.

• 31:33Speaker 00

  Can I turn the channel, I asked? He had turned to CNN.

• 31:38Speaker 00

  Road Warrior is coming on.

• 31:41Speaker 00

  Go ahead.

• 31:42Sam Fragoso?

  Reading it now and thinking back on that time, obviously, where does it land with you?

• 31:48Speaker 00

  Well, um, it's so detailed, you know, I think I really did.

• 31:54Speaker 00

  This personal archaeology when I was writing it, trying to get

• 32:01Speaker 00

  the sights and the sounds and the feelings of that time. And definitely I haven't done it in that particular way since then. This really sort of getting my, my hands dirty in that sort of way. And so I think I'm in the books in different ways since then. You know, I look back and I think it was actually quite good, good for me to get in there like that.

• 32:25Sam Fragoso?

  And is it good for you to get in there, reading it now, today with us?

• 32:30Speaker 00

  I always resist going back to the earlier stuff. And then I'll have to for some, you know, for something, maybe, you know, things like this, or my book is being taught in the class and I have to just remember what the characters are named.

• 32:45Sam Fragoso?

  In this case, though, they're, they're, they're representations of you and your brother and your father and your mother. So it's probably a little easier to remember who they are.

• 32:53Speaker 00

  Well, I think people have said, you know,

• 32:57Speaker 00

  about that section in particular have said, oh yeah, you really sort of nailed that kind of dread of working, of living with somebody who's out of control. You know, time slows down and the sensations and the sounds are warning you that a storm is coming. And you want to batten down the hatches, but there are no hatches to batten.

• 33:18Sam Fragoso?

  So I guess I want to, I want to know how you managed to weather the storm, so to speak. Like to quote the book, the alterations you had to make in order to survive. What did those look like?

• 33:32Speaker 00

  You know, pulling back, it was, I'm not going to live in this house. And so, you know, turn 18 and then don't spend time at home, make your own life. I think, you know, later, when I pulled away more thoroughly from, from my father, it was more clear that I don't have to, I don't live in that house anymore.

• 33:54Speaker 00

  I don't have the same reactions. I'm not as powerless. And it's time to not worry about keeping the status quo in the house. And instead, you know, taking care of myself.

• 34:07Sam Fragoso?

  Was that daunting?

• 34:10Speaker 00

  But also one of the best things I've ever done, so.

• 34:13Sam Fragoso?

  Yeah, it can be both.

• 34:14Speaker 00

  Like, like anything, it's hard because it's worth it.

• 34:17Sam Fragoso?

  You know, after you graduated from Harvard, where you studied English, can you tell us about this, this solo trip you had to Brazil? I think you're 25, I think coincidentally, reading The Odyssey. What did, what, what did that do for you in that moment? Where were you at?

• 34:35Speaker 00

  I got a job in the book section of The Village Voice. There was a monthly literary supplement. And in between issues, I'd be off. So I'd have, you know, six weeks.

• 34:46Speaker 00

  Sorry, there are 10 issues a year. So there were breaks where I'd get, you know, my very low salary, but I didn't have to go in the office. And so I had six weeks and I'd never traveled anywhere. I had all these friends who'd gone to Europe, you know, and I'm going to Italy for, you know, junior year abroad, wherever. I never did that. I had no interest in Europe. And over the years,

• 35:07Speaker 00

  these Lonely Planet guides were, I would take them and put them on my desk. So I had like all these Lonely Planet guides, Lonely Planet, Cuba, Brazil, South America, Ecuador. And I had a friend who was going to Brazil for a conference. I would have had two, two free days in a hotel. So I said, okay, I'm going to take my big journey to my big trip. I'm never going anywhere and it'll be to Brazil. I was really broke.

• 35:37Speaker 00

  And I brought two books along that I had not read. And one was Ulysses by James Joyce and the other, The Odyssey by Homer. And I would just go from, you know, Scuzzy Beach Town to Scuzzy Beach Town, as outlined in Lonely Planet Guides,

• 35:56Speaker 00

  with my cut off jeans and sit on the beach and, and read these books. And I was 25 and I real, and I said sort of pretentiously, well, I want to be a writer and I should get off my butt. If I don't do now, when am I going to do it? And so I started plotting my first novel. And so I left, you know, New York City as someone who didn't have a lot of direction, sort of had a wish, had a dream to be a writer, but wasn't actually writing anything. And then it turns out six weeks when you can't talk to anybody and don't have a lot of money,

• 36:39Speaker 00

  some certain things get into clarity, like I had to fix my life.

• 36:44Speaker 00

  That relationship wasn't that great.

• 36:47Speaker 00

  Maybe to try something new for the second half of my, of my twenties.

• 36:50Sam Fragoso?

  But there is a streak of self-loathing that, that I've seen in all of your interviews. It's in some of your work too.

• 37:00Sam Fragoso?

  But is that a fair characterization?

• 37:03Speaker 00

  I would say self-deprecating.

• 37:04Sam Fragoso?

  Self-deprecating, okay.

• 37:06Speaker 00

  Yeah, I mean, I would say, you know, it's a mix of false modesty and imposter syndrome and it comes off in a certain sort of way.

• 37:13Sam Fragoso?

  You know, I'm thinking about the AI piece you wrote where you said, the amount of water required for the data centers to mimic the amount of self-loathing and narcissism writers have. We, we don't have it. Is this something that you've always kind of had? Is that something you still have?

• 37:33Speaker 00

  I think it's a, you know, it's a, a useful defense. I mean, I think.

• 37:38Sam Fragoso?

  But what are we, what are we defending against? That's what I want to know.

• 37:42Speaker 00

  Letting people in, letting the reader in, you know, I'm sort of riffing here. But I think I may come off a certain way in public.

• 37:55Speaker 00

  There's a persona that maybe comes through in the books or from Sag Harbor.

• 38:01Speaker 00

  But there's also me behind every that, all that. And I don't want to give that up. I don't want to share it. And so

• 38:09Speaker 00

  if I want to be self-deprecating as a barrier to keep folks away, that seems perfectly reasonable.

• 38:18Sam Fragoso?

  Your, your opening line of Noble Hustle, a book I really liked. You write, I have a good poker face because I'm half dead inside. Is that your favorite opening line you've ever written?

• 38:32Speaker 00

  It's pretty good.

• 38:33Sam Fragoso?

  It's amazing. It's amazing.

• 38:35Speaker 00

  And I think, you know, an opening sentence, an opening paragraph, you can really sort of nail it. You have a map for the rest of the book, the rest of the article. And so that came, you know, that book came about when I got an assignment to cover the World Series of Poker.

• 38:52Speaker 00

  I initially didn't want to do it. And then they'd say, well, what, how about if instead of paying you to just observe it, we paid your entrance fee to be in the World Series of Poker? And, and definitely people had said in my home games, my simple home games, that I was hard to read.

• 39:10Speaker 00

  And so that's where the line came. And once I had that sentence, it unlocked the rest of the book. So having a good opener is very useful. And I'm always very grateful when, when it comes together like that.

• 39:24Sam Fragoso?

  When you published your debut novel, The Intuitionist, in 1999, and then I think 2000 is the year you first have the idea for Underground Railroad. We mentioned your father earlier. He had literary aspirations, right?

• 39:39Speaker 00

  He did. I mean, he wrote poetry and self-published, you know, some poetry books.

• 39:47Speaker 00

  You know, a lot of it's about having an impossible love affair and doesn't really seem to match up with my mother. So, you know, it wasn't really stuff I, it wasn't really, you know, I didn't really delve that deep. But his, his idea towards literary

• 40:04Speaker 00

  work was, if it's a bestseller, you know, I'll make a lot of money. And it was always like a sort of a get rich quick sort of thing.

• 40:14Sam Fragoso?

  Famously books, not, not the way to do that.

• 40:17Speaker 00

  In the early seventies, there was a guy named Rod McEwen, sort of before my time. But he, he wrote the sort of, not this great, not really great poetry and like sold millions of copies. And he's sort of forgotten now, but it was like a, I think that was like my dad's model. Like if you have accessible poetry,

• 40:34Speaker 00

  we'll be able to buy, we'll be able to buy a nice apartment or something. Yeah.

• 40:37Sam Fragoso?

  So when it turned and this stuff happened for you, starting in 99, what did he make of your burgeoning career?

• 40:46Speaker 00

  He didn't really understand the kind of stuff I was writing, like an elevator inspector novel. You know, how many people are going to buy that? The last novel he read was for college, A Passage to India. And, you know, he hadn't read a novel in decades. So he wasn't exactly tuned into contemporary literary culture.

• 41:07Sam Fragoso?

  As you started writing, you know, think about any of those, those early books, John Henry, you know, et cetera. Is there something you felt like was missing? Was there an avenue not being filled or just, was there a void that you wanted to fill in, in those early books?

• 41:26Speaker 00

  There's a lot of territory in terms of the black experience that hadn't been written about. And it's.

• 41:34Speaker 00

  Partially about upper middle class black kids growing up in the eighties. John Henry, the folklore hero, I didn't think had gotten a thorough examination by the culture. And if no one has done before, then it's your territory, territory, you can make it your, make it your own.

• 41:52Speaker 00

  Ray Carney is a fence. I'm not aware of any crime novels or movies about fences. And so it's just sitting there. It's a subculture I can explore, I can invent.

• 42:04Speaker 00

  And the territory is there. And so I never wanted to do what, what other people were doing. Writing a book about, as elevator inspectors didn't seem like I was going to put my career on track. But it was the book I had to write. And definitely, there's not a lot of competition. You know, if you're writing the great American elevator inspector novel, there aren't a lot of people, you know,

• 42:26Speaker 00

  in line.

• 42:27Sam Fragoso?

  You weren't doing the get rich quick.

• 42:30Speaker 00

  No, yes. But I had no choice. This is the, you know, and, and I thought that the book might, might not sell the intuitionist, but I'd be a better writer for having done it. And maybe the, the third book or the fourth book will, will take off. And each failure will make me

• 42:51Speaker 00

  more technically proficient.

• 42:52Sam Fragoso?

  Was that true?

• 42:54Speaker 00

  I hope so. Hopefully you get better at stuff the more, the more you do it. So, um, you know, you mentioned the noble hustle, which, you know, I think my, all my books should be bestsellers. I think they're all really good and I, a lot of effort in them. So I'm always confounded when this book or that book doesn't take off.

• 43:11Sam Fragoso?

  When you say, I had no choice, people think they have choices, but you felt like you didn't in any, in any way. You felt like you had to do this.

• 43:20Speaker 00

  This is the book that's most compelling. This is the book that, uh, is,

• 43:28Speaker 00

  I can't get away from, I keep thinking about it. And when, when something like that happens, it's arguing for its creation. So it took me 14 years between having the idea for the Underground Railroad. And when I actually started doing it, at a certain point, you avoid it for so long that it seems obvious that that's the thing you should be doing, you know, uh, the hard, the hard thing is the one you should be doing.

• 43:52Sam Fragoso?

  Before we talk about how you win back to back Pulitzer prizes in Underground Railroad and Nickel Boys, I heard you had plenty of contemporaries who liked your work. One of them being the late Toni Morrison, who I think also taught Princeton around the same time that you were teaching at Princeton. What did she mean to you? And what was that story?

• 44:14Speaker 00

  I started teaching at Princeton and she was retiring and they wanted to find a new writer who could do creative writing and African American studies. And so we overlapped.

• 44:30Speaker 00

  And, um, you know, I'd see her on campus and she was always very friendly, would definitely,

• 44:38Speaker 00

  you know, it was very striking, you know, you have this idea, image of her from her, her jacket photo, and then you see her in person and it's like, you know, that is, that's a human being. That's, that's a real person. So, um, she's always very nice and, you know, she'd say like, let's have coffee sometime or have lunch. And I never took her up on it just because I think I was sort of depressed that year and didn't feel like I was up for

• 45:03Speaker 00

  being sociable in that way.

• 45:04Sam Fragoso?

  Why were you depressed?

• 45:06Speaker 00

  Um, it's one of those period, periodic, you know, dark periods where I was not feeling very good, which happens sometimes, not so much anymore, but definitely, um, in the older days. Anyway, I was like, I was glad I got to meet her a couple of times. She's, you know, always very nice and just talked about,

• 45:26Speaker 00

  her mortgage and the house and the weather and was a normal, normal person.

• 45:31Sam Fragoso?

  You, you said in time, I think, uh, I was too embarrassed that she invited me. It's like getting someone else's mail.

• 45:39Speaker 00

  I had no idea what I would talk to Toni Morrison about. And I'm glad we had the weather to talk about because, um, definitely I didn't feel like I was a peer.

• 45:49Speaker 00

  How's the book going, Toni? You know, uh,

• 45:52Sam Fragoso?

  Yeah, you're trading, you're trading, trading war stories and writing books.

• 45:55Speaker 00

  Yes. No, it's more like, um, you know, yeah, you're warshipping, not talking to a peer.

• 46:02Sam Fragoso?

  Would you do it now?

• 46:04Speaker 00

  I'm more, I'm more used to going and I think I've placed my life where,

• 46:09Speaker 00

  the sort of random things like that are definitely more amusing and, and, and doable. And, uh, yes, I definitely would.

• 46:19Sam Fragoso?

  In the summer, it can be challenging to figure out the right setup for your bedding. You want it to feel soft and inviting at the end of the day, but you don't want to climb in and immediately feel like you've added five degrees to the room. That's something I've appreciated about Bowl and Branch. I recently got their signature comforter set. And the first thing I noticed was how soft and substantial it feels without making the bed feel overly heavy. I went with the color shore, which is the serene misty blue shade. It immediately made the room feel a whole lot calmer. Bowl and Branch designs their summer bedding to be breathable and lightweight. Their sheets are made from 100% organic cotton and woven specifically for airflow,

• 47:00Sam Fragoso?

  rather than relying on synthetic cooling technology or chemically treated fabrics. For me, I noticed the difference the moment I retire for the evening. I've been really happy with the upgrade and would not go back to anything else. Sleep cooler this summer with Bowl and Branch. Get 50% off your first order plus free shipping at bowlandbranch.com/talkeasy with code TALKEASY. That's bowl and branch, B O L L A and D B R A N C H dot com slash talk easy, code talk easy to unlock 15% off. Bowl and branch.com slash talk easy, code talk easy. Exclusions apply.

• 47:42Sam Fragoso?

  In the beginning, we talked about how this Harlem crime trilogy tracks the 30 years of, of Ray Carney, but also the ups and downs of the city of New York. And thinking about this present moment, um, I'm sure you've seen, or at least heard of people reference what I think The Atlantic called the end of reading. And as someone who is putting out a book, we're talking on the day of publication, when you think of post literacy, end of reading, does that make any sense? That you've taught in schools before, you have young kids, where are you at on that?

• 48:20Speaker 00

  Yeah, I think, you know, the arts are always under attack. I'm sure people said the same thing. When, uh, radio came into being and television, um, I guess as an artist, I don't, going back to not having any choice, I don't have any choice but to write a book. And so whether the audience is a million people or it's a hundred people, I'm going to write the book. And I might not make any money off of it and I'll have to do something else to support myself. But, uh, writing is the thing I do. So whether or not there's an audience or not is really kind of secondary. My son is, is 12 and he's an interesting case. I mean, I don't think he's representative of his generation. He doesn't like fiction, but he's really into nonfiction. And so,

• 49:06Speaker 00

  he's like, oh, you know, for Christmas, can I get that new Churchill biography? And I'm like, what are you talking about? Like Winston Churchill? He got this book last year. It was like Churchill, Stalin, Roosevelt, and it was like 700 pages long. And he's like, you know, Stalin was on his school paper. And I'm like, you don't have to give it up for Stalin. Like you don't have to, um,

• 49:32Speaker 00

  I know you're only on page 30, but it doesn't, doesn't really turn out well when he grows up. And so he reads a lot, you know, his friends read.

• 49:43Speaker 00

  I just keep doing what I'm doing and, uh, and, and don't worry about trend articles in The Atlantic, I guess.

• 49:50Sam Fragoso?

  So that, you think that stuff is all kind of nonsense then?

• 49:53Speaker 00

  It's, yes, out of my control. I mean, is civilization in decline? Yes. Are we destroying ourselves? Yes. Is the AI scourge making everybody dumber? You know, as we outsource very simple tasks to this digital agent? Yes.

• 50:08Sam Fragoso?

  You're setting those up and saying yes, like someone's asking you to order a side salad or fries.

• 50:14Speaker 00

  Well, it's, I think it's good, it's good. Things are, things are so terrible out there.

• 50:19Sam Fragoso?

  Yes. Yeah, no, I'll have the, the truffle fries. Yeah. That's, that's fine. The end of civilization. Yes.

• 50:26Speaker 00

  Yes. I, I've done my bit. I'm 56, you know, I'll know much more I can do. So, we're leaving, you know, my son's generation, a very big heap of trouble. And hopefully they're, they have better sense than we do, but, you know.

• 50:41Sam Fragoso?

  So you've done your bit with New York City. That's what you said in the beginning of this interview. Now it seems like you're taking it one step further. You're done, just period. 56, calling it quits. That's what we call early retirement, I have to tell you.

• 50:54Speaker 00

  Uh, only nine more years, you know, I'm, I'm inching along, almost there.

• 50:59Sam Fragoso?

  You don't believe this, do you?

• 51:00Speaker 00

  Uh, I'm told that writers don't quit. Um, I definitely do not want to be one of these people who is still doing like a book a year. And it's like, oh my God, like Updike again has a book, you know, just like, at a certain point you shouldn't, should hang it up when you've run out of things to say. And hopefully someone tells me when I've run out of things to say.

• 51:21Sam Fragoso?

  Well, there was a moment while you were writing The Cool Machine,

• 51:26Sam Fragoso?

  where you We're stuck and you didn't know what to say, what to write, where to bring or take Ray Carney. And you turned to AI to assist you.

• 51:37Speaker 00

  Like many people, I have outsourced a lot of my daily labor to a digital agent. I call mine the Gooch. And last year, when I was finishing Cool Machine, I was stuck and I'm not really proud of it. But I did go to the Gooch for help.

• 51:53Sam Fragoso?

  As one does.

• 51:54Speaker 00

  What is a novel, anyway, by just a big pile of content when you get down to it? And that's what these guys churn out, content.

• 52:03Speaker 00

  Cool Machine is a crime story, so I devised a prompt about crooks and cops and City Hall and corruption, the whole grubby mess, and let her rip. And this is what the the Gooch output to me, it was not very helpful.

• 52:18Speaker 00

  Quote, "In the criminal justice system, the people are represented by two separate, yet equally important groups. The police who investigate crime and the district attorneys who prosecute the offenders. These are their stories, Chung Chung."

• 52:39Speaker 00

  I sort of recognized the Chung Chung part. I was like, isn't that the opening narration of the long-running Dick Wolf Police Procedural Law and Order? I asked.

• 52:49Speaker 00

  The Gooch responded, "Does not compute, does not compute, kill, kill," and gave me the silent treatment for the rest of the day.

• 52:56Sam Fragoso?

  You know, as a big Law and Order fan, I was trying to get offended, but I couldn't because I thought the joke was too good.

• 53:03Speaker 00

  No, I did it in Germany and I didn't really care whether they knew the show or not. And there was like one American who laughed. Everyone else was like, what is this guy talking about?

• 53:11Sam Fragoso?

  They didn't get the Chung Chung?

• 53:13Speaker 00

  It did not ring a bell. I'm sure when they dub the narration into German, they also dub Chung Chung to whatever its equivalent is, Teutonic equivalent.

• 53:23Sam Fragoso?

  So you don't really care about articles that say the end of literacy is near? And AI replacing me, you, everyone we know, you think one of that?

• 53:38Speaker 00

  Well, I think if you look at where the world is today, no one's really making much of a contribution anyway. So why not have AI do everything?

• 53:49Sam Fragoso?

  It'd be amazing if we ended the interview right there.

• 53:56Sam Fragoso?

  I'm just trying to make you laugh. You know how your friends, when you were in those house games and poker, said that you were hard to read? I have felt like we have done this entire interview and I cannot really track whether you've disliked it the whole time or just in pockets.

• 54:13Speaker 00

  This is my, uh, this is my joyful face, frankly.

• 54:19Sam Fragoso?

  This is joy?

• 54:20Speaker 00

  Yes, yes.

• 54:23Speaker 00

  Yeah, I mean, I was born this way. Yeah, I have a very flat affect.

• 54:28Sam Fragoso?

  You're born in a great way.

• 54:30Speaker 00

  It is helpful for poker, not necessarily helpful in other situations, but yeah.

• 54:34Sam Fragoso?

  But let's wind our way back to the Cool Machine and this trilogy.

• 54:40Sam Fragoso?

  You know, part of the book, as we've said, is about New York City constantly changing, that it's that it's always in flux. When Zoran Mamdani was running for mayor, he tapped you and many others to, I'm not really sure what it was, it was it was a committee of people, basically just a committee of smart people that I like to do, I don't know, on a council with who, I don't know. But when he ran, I'm sure you remember this, a lot of New Yorkers felt he is going to kind of irrevocably ruin New York City, that he is going to trample upon it, that is, that is going to be burned down to the ground and you're going to have to go to Florida for the tax write offs.

• 55:22Sam Fragoso?

  Two things, one, what was that dynamic that you guys had? And what was your, I guess, your poster role in that? And, and two, now that he's six months in, what have you made of of his job of this city?

• 55:36Speaker 00

  He was elected, elected, and his inauguration was January 1st at noon. And a week before, I got an email saying,

• 55:46Speaker 00

  Mamdani is putting a list of people he wants on his inauguration committee, people like Sonny Rollins, would you like to be on it? And I was like, yeah, Sonny Rollins, sure. We'll get you, we'll get you a ticket to the inauguration. And it was like 10 degrees and I was like, I'm not going to stand out in 10 degree weather. So my name is on, my name is on his committee of people with a lot of other distinguished New Yorkers. And I was very psyched, but didn't actually entail anything except saying yes to an email. And now that he's been here for six, seven months, it's nice to have a mayor that actually seems to enjoy the city. You know, previous mayors always seemed sort of angry that they were forced to do this job.

• 56:28Speaker 00

  And it is nice to have somebody who just seems to be rooting for their fellow New Yorkers.

• 56:33Sam Fragoso?

  So as someone who was tapped to be part of the inauguration committee, I assume it's because he liked your work. I have to imagine.

• 56:41Speaker 00

  I haven't met him. I haven't met him.

• 56:45Speaker 00

  I'm not sure, you know, if he has like some cultural guru who's like, yes, you know, there's this guy and this filmmaker and this, you know, opera singer.

• 56:54Sam Fragoso?

  By the way, if there is a cultural guru, Sonny Rollins and Colson Whitehead, great work.

• 57:00Speaker 00

  Sure.

• 57:00Sam Fragoso?

  On their part.

• 57:01Speaker 00

  And you asked about, you know, rich people will leave the city, you know? I think every couple of years, people are like, New York's over, the pandemic, New York's over. You know, it's never going to come back, it always comes back. We're going to leave the city, they don't go anywhere, we're also going to go. So there are all these kind of, you know, whiners and complainers. And they make a lot of noise, but, and New York endures and defeats its haters usually.

• 57:31Sam Fragoso?

  So, you know, thinking about the book and the changing city, Carney's store, the furniture store, 125th and Morningside, we see through this trilogy the ways in which Harlem changes. And near the end of Cool Machine, there's a scene in which Carney and Elizabeth dine at, I think you referenced it earlier, the windows on the world, which is coincidentally where you end Harlem Shuffle, Carney looking at the World Trade Center, the plots and what will be built. I wanted to read from a piece you wrote nearly 25 years ago in the New York Times, two months after 9/11.

• 58:14Sam Fragoso?

  This is The Way We Live Now, 11/11/01, Lost and Found.

• 58:20Speaker 00

  Our streets are calendars containing who we were and who we will be next. We see ourselves in this city every day when we walk down the sidewalk and catch our reflections in store windows. Seek ourselves in this city each time we reminisce about what was there five, 10, 40 years ago, because all our old places are proof that we were here. One day, the city we built will be gone, and when it goes, we go. When the buildings fall, we topple too. Maybe we become New Yorkers the day we realize that New York will go on without us. To put off the inevitable, we try to fix the city in place, remember it as it was,

• 59:04Speaker 00

  doing to the city what we would never allow to be done to ourselves. The kid on the Uptown 1 train, the new arrival stepping out of Grand Central, the jerk at the intersection who doesn't know east from west. Those people don't exist anymore, ceased to be a couple of apartments ago, and we wouldn't have it any other way. New York City does not hold our former selves against us. Perhaps we can extend the same courtesy. The Twin Towers still stand because we saw them, moved in and out of their long shadows, were lucky enough to know them for a time. They are part of the city we carry around. It's hard to imagine that something will take their place,

• 59:49Speaker 00

  but at this very moment, the people with the right credentials are considering how to fill the crater. The cement trucks will roll up and spin their bellies, the jackhammers will rattle, and after a while, the postcards of the new skyline will be available for purchase. Naturally, we'll cast a wary eye towards those new kids on the block. But let's be patient and not judge too quickly. We were new here too, once.

• 1:00:17Sam Fragoso?

  Rereading that around, you know, the 25th anniversary, which is coming up.

• 1:00:24Sam Fragoso?

  How does it play to you?

• 1:00:25Speaker 00

  I remember writing that, those sections. The Concert for New York was going on as a fundraiser for firefighters and like David Bowie, Elton John. I remember just saying to myself, let it all hang out. You know, the same way when I was writing Sag Harbor, I was like, let's not have this barrier between me and the characters and, and the story, just like be honest and say what you want to say without any postmodern subterfuge or avoidance. And so I remember that decision and feeling that, you know, it's working. I won't always be here. We won't always be here, but I think it's hardening that New York will still be standing.

• 1:01:10Speaker 00

  It's been laid low many times across the centuries and always comes back. And so we take the city for granted, but it's still there for us. You know, it forgives our transgressions.

• 1:01:23Sam Fragoso?

  Throughout the book, there's this dynamic between Freddie and Carney. You go back to the beginning and there's a part of Carney that I think, you know, the ghost of Freddie, I think, says to Carney, remember me, remember what my smile looked like, remember me or no one else will. And that has played like a refrain since the first time I, since the first time I read it. And I wondered if you felt like part of the mission statement, or the reason you do what you do, which you have done for a long time, is to remember those who came before you, those who left us too soon, those in your family that you loved, but can't speak to.

• 1:02:08Sam Fragoso?

  Do you see that as part of the reason why you've committed your life to writing?

• 1:02:14Speaker 00

  It's not the mission, but if you want to, it's one of, I think, the natural human emotions and ideas and, and hopes that occur to people. And when I'm making my characters real, the situations real, I'm drawing for myself and what I see in other people. And that moment of recognition between the writer and the reader is most efficient, I think is most beautiful, when I've hit upon something for myself and in doing so have articulated something for other people.

• 1:02:59Speaker 00

  And so definitely there are moments like that in the books and a lot of other moments where I'm talking about personal losses, my brother, or what it feels like to walk through Central Park on the first day of spring and feel part of this revitalized city. And if I can capture that and I can find the right words, then other people can, can be there. They can tie it not to the first spring, first day of spring in Central Park, but the first day of spring in their city, in their town. If I can evoke my losses and capture them with a certain, with the right combination

• 1:03:39Speaker 00

  of words, then I can unlock other people's similar emotions, moments when they've been in the same position.

• 1:03:48Sam Fragoso?

  When you think of 9/11, do you think first of the tragedy or of your brother?

• 1:03:55Speaker 00

  What do I think of first? I think of September 11th as my brother's birthday and 9/11 as the day of the tragedy, of the tragedy. And they seem like sort of separate, actually.

• 1:04:05Sam Fragoso?

  He's so much, I feel like everywhere I look in your work, I find him. I like, I, I see it, I see him in, in there.

• 1:04:16Speaker 00

  I mean, he's still here.

• 1:04:21Speaker 00

  In my memories and my sister's memories, and I've put him in this or that book, with the Nickel Boys especially. There are two kids who go through this experience in a repressive, abusive reform school. And one person, one of them figures out how to be a whole person, the other person doesn't. And I think there's a mystery there that I wanted to explore. So when I think about him and our relationship, he's definitely in the Nickel Boys. And the Carney-Freddy relationship, which you sort of mentioned, is in Harlem Shuffle.

• 1:05:00Speaker 00

  And definitely the dynamic of trying to save someone who doesn't want to be saved and accepting that you can't save them is part of that book. But I'm grateful that I can do that kind of work of thinking about Clark and, and make something positive or make art out of it. It's something tragic and then, and putting him in my books, this or that book, like I said, he's, he's here again. And I've used whatever talent I have to access those emotions and make them open to other people.

• 1:05:45Sam Fragoso?

  Remember when you said earlier that when you were beginning writing and you wrote your second novel, the first one that was published, you said that I had no choice. I had no other option.

• 1:05:59Sam Fragoso?

  Around that time, you said in one interview, "A lot of people thought I was on a fool's errand, but there's nothing else that was going to make me whole." Has writing made you whole?

• 1:06:12Speaker 00

  I am more whole, but luckily for my career, there's still a lot of missing bits. So I can address those in books to come.

• 1:06:23Speaker 00

  You're not feeling it? You're not feeling it?

• 1:06:25Sam Fragoso?

  You, I mean, it's never good when the question's longer than the answer. I don't know if, I don't know what they said.

• 1:06:33Speaker 00

  Sure. If I was whole and complete, then I would have very little work to do. So luckily there's always new questions that come, come up, different sectors of the world to explore in the way that I do. So I think it'd be very sad if I was made whole because I would definitely have, not have that much to write about.

• 1:06:55Sam Fragoso?

  I guess the question is, is there, is the reason you do what you do, has it changed since you wrote The Intuitionist? Like from, from, from 98, 99 to now, has the reason you wake up and get to work, has that changed at all? Or do you still know why it is that you do it?

• 1:07:16Speaker 00

  Having an idea about the work, having an idea of what kind of artist you are, having an idea of how your work will complete you if you finish it.

• 1:07:28Speaker 00

  It's all sort of noise, I think. I have a book I'm working on now, and that's what I'm thinking about when I'm not doing interviews, I'm not touring.

• 1:07:39Speaker 00

  I have a companion. When I wake up at 3:00 AM, I can think about the book and fix a sentence. When I'm traveling on a book tour and I'm between towns, I'm on a plane or on a train, I have a book, I have a mission. And each book is different. They're talking about the world in different ways. The voices are different, the characters are different.

• 1:08:04Speaker 00

  So I'm no longer, I think, searching.

• 1:08:08Speaker 00

  I have the answer. And the answer this year is this particular book. Last year it was Cool Machine. Four years ago, it was Crook Manifesto. And it's getting it done and getting it right. And that has sort of has to be enough.

• 1:08:26Sam Fragoso?

  Colson Whitehead. Thank you for the time, sir.

• 1:08:29Speaker 00

  Thanks for having me.

• 1:08:46Speaker 02

  I'm Dan Heath. On What It's Like to Be, I interview people about their jobs. Here's a married couple that drives a long haul truck together.

• 1:08:54Speaker 03

  We backed up and they loaded fresh dead rats.

• 1:08:58Speaker 02

  I mean, how many rats would you guess were back there?

• 1:09:00Speaker 03

  There were 32,000 pounds of them.

• 1:09:03Speaker 02

  32,000 pounds of frozen dead rats.

• 1:09:09Speaker 02

  Find out what it's like to be a long haul trucker, a couples therapist, or an FBI agent, all on the podcast, What It's Like to Be.

• 1:09:17Speaker 04

  History gets written, then rewritten, sometimes by scholars correcting the record, sometimes by committees deciding what a generation of kids will and won't learn. The version that makes it into the textbook isn't always the only story. It's the one that won out. That's the kind of thing Ground News was built for. It shows you how outlets across the spectrum tell the same story, side by side, so you can spot the shading for yourself. Ground News gives each outlet a factuality rating, so you know how much weight to give the source, and shows you who owns it, so you know what's behind it. The Nobel Peace Center called it "an excellent way to stay informed, avoid echo chambers,

• 1:10:01Speaker 04

  and expand your worldview." So go to groundnews.com/rz. That's G-R-O-U-N-D-N-E-W-S.com/rz for 40% off unlimited access vantage plan. Get it yourself or gift it to someone who'd rather know than not. Use my link, groundnews.com/rz, so you get the discount and they know I sent you. If you're a fan of learning all sides of history, then Ground News is for you. One more time, groundnews.com/rz.