Sue Monk Kidd, THE BOOK OF LONGINGS

[0:08]Hi, I'm Zibi Owens, and you're listening to the award-winning podcast Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books.

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[0:53]Today's episode has been sponsored by Jump Start.

[0:56]Our world is changing fast, and in a time that is forcing positive change, my friends at Jump Start,

[1:01]a national early education nonprofit, believe that the need for the quality education will only increase with nearly 25% of all children across the country living in poverty and the widening opportunity gap due to the extended out of school time.

[1:14]Jump Start, whose vision is every child in America, enters kindergarten prepared to succeed, teams up with 79 colleges, universities, and community partners across 15 states to provide early learning for over 13,000 preschool kids and underserved community.

[1:28]At the core of their work is literacy. Their global read for the record campaign in the fall engages over 2 million people worldwide to highlight the importance of early literacy and make high quality books accessible for all children, no matter their color, socioeconomic status, or zip code. Read for the record participants are encouraged to read the selected book on the same day.

[1:48]This year's campaign book, Evelyn Delray is moving away, teaches kids about the power of connection, lasting friendships, and coping with change.

[1:56]To all mamas, daddies, educators, book lovers, and beyond, you can support this crucial campaign by visiting readfortherecord.org to purchase the book, donate, or support a classroom in need.

[2:07]I had this conversation with best-selling author Sue Munkit for the Friends of the North Castle Public Library event, which was really fun.

[2:16]Her latest book is called The Book of Longings, which is so great I told my mom she had to go read it, but she is also the author of The Secret Life of Bees,

[2:25]which of course went on to become a movie and was a massive, best-selling hit.

[2:30]Her other books include When the Heartweights, Dance of the Disident Daughter, The Mermaid Chair, First Light, The Early Inspiration Writings,

[2:39]Traveling with Pomegranates, A Mother Daughter Story, the invention of wings and of course now the Book of Longings.

[2:44]Sue Munkit serves on the writers' cancel for poets and writers and currently lives in North Carolina with her husband Sandy and their dog Barney.

[2:52]So welcome, Sue, thanks for coming. Oh, well, I'm really honored that you're interviewing me, so that's a thrill.

[2:59]Yeah, thanks. And I'm very excited because people here in the chat are like crazy typing comments, which I love.

[3:06]It means everybody's very engaged, so I'll keep reading from there as we go on. Let's start at the beginning with this book.

[3:13]What made you write? Well, maybe quickly tell people in case there's anyone here who doesn't know what your book is about.

[3:19]Can you please explain what the book is about and then what inspired you to write it?

[3:24]This is a book about Anna, so I like to make the point that it's not a book about Jesus in some book

[3:31]about Anna who happens to marry Jesus. I think a lot of people expected that it would be the life

[3:38]of Jesus through the eyes of Anna and it's not that either. So it's about her quest, I guess you'd

[3:44]say her quest to have a voice in the world. She's very ambitious and she wants to realize all of the

[3:51]largeness in her. She wants to be a scribe. She's a feminist when there wasn't such a thing as that

[3:59]word and she's a writer. So she wants to express herself and fulfill her creative life. And so what

[4:05]we see is her going through many years of seeking that longing and also her relationship with

[4:14]Jesus, which is very significant to her. So they have a great love really. And how did you

[4:19]come up with this? As I was reading it, I was like, this didn't really happen, right? Is this like an

[4:23]undiscovered story that nobody knows about that sumon kid somehow? Okay, you know, found? How did you

[4:29]come up with this? Yeah, I dug up a jar in Egypt and I felt this. That's how it happened. No,

[4:37]let's see. You know, really zippy about 15 years ago or so. This idea occurred to me. It just

[4:45]lit in my head one day out of absolutely nowhere. You know, when you're in the shower, you get

[4:51]the best thoughts. It wasn't the shower. And I never really seriously played with that idea the way

[4:59]I would do later. I just noted it. And I thought maybe one day. And so the idea kind of went

[5:06]in a waiting room and waited all this time. And then in 2014, I was reading about the gospel of

[5:14]Jesus wife, which is a manuscript fragment that a Harvard professor introduced to the world really.

[5:22]And Jesus refers to his wife in it. Well, it turned out this is a masterful fraud, but I found

[5:30]that completely irrelevant because the minute I read about it, I was so electrified by this idea.

[5:37]And it was like, oh, yeah. And this time, I decided I'd take it on earlier. I don't think I was ready.

[5:44]I don't think I had the courage. I don't think anyone was ready to read it. But it just

[5:49]seized my imagination. And I think what creativity is really about is the imagery that

[5:56]wells up from God knows where inside of us to solve the unconscious. And we play with those images

[6:03]and creativity is essentially play. And I played with that idea a while and thought, yeah,

[6:09]I'm meant to do this. Wow. It's amazing to have that conviction and to have the idea stay with

[6:13]you for so long and then be able to see it all the way into everybody's hands. Amazing.

[6:18]I was really taken by how many ways you expressed ideas about a woman's voice and how the voice

[6:26]can get out. And it starts with the incantation bowl that you have Anna write her prayer into. And

[6:30]I'll just read this little prayer for everyone. Lord, our God, hear my prayer, the prayer of my heart

[6:35]bless the largeness inside me, no matter how I fear it. Bless my read pens and my angst,

[6:40]bless the words I write. May they be beautiful in your sight. May they be visible to eyes

[6:45]not yet born. When I am dust, sing these words over my bones. She was a voice. So beautiful.

[6:51]So that is sort of what propels and you see the inside of Anna's longing through this bowl.

[6:57]When did you decide her? How did you think about the theme of voice and all the different ways

[7:02]that it can play out in the in the book? It's a theme that's incredibly near and dear to me

[7:08]all the time. I write about this a lot ever since I wrote the dance of the distant daughter. I

[7:14]have been really concerned with particularly women having places to express their voice

[7:22]or as we say, find your voice or use your voice. And I'm talking about an authentic voice.

[7:28]One that is really true for that individual. So it kind of is innate, I guess. It just matters to

[7:36]me deeply, you know, having grown up in a little town in Georgia, South Georgia, rural area,

[7:45]3,000 people in the little town when I grew up in the 60s. I was coming of age in the 50s and 60s,

[7:52]pre-feminist world. I witnessed a lot of things. I mean, this is true about race too, but that's

[7:57]another story, which is why I wrote other books I wrote, but I think we gravitate to things because

[8:04]they matter to us. And so I guess it comes out of that longing of my own longing, you know,

[8:11]to say something about voice. And that incantation bowl was just a God's gift or something.

[8:19]It was a treasure because I stumbled upon it while rummaging around on the internet. And I had

[8:26]gotten lost from, I couldn't even remember what I had googled at that point. And there they were

[8:33]and I thought, oh, here is a concrete physical object that can hold her longing. And I always

[8:41]like to have that, some sort of iconic something that is not just abstract. Oh, my voice, you know,

[8:49]but a thing that she could carry through the whole novel. So that was why the incantation bowl.

[8:55]Interesting. So how much research did you do? How true to life? I mean, obviously it's impossible

[9:01]to prove, I guess. But how much did you dig up essentially that you put in here that was actually

[9:07]factual? Because it sounded like it was all factual, the way the writing tools and the

[9:12]skilled papyrus and all of the little details that you put in. Tell me about finding all of that

[9:16]information. Yes, I guarantee you that's all factual because I spent 14 months researching this

[9:27]before I started writing. And I wanted so desperately to get it all right and to layer it full of

[9:35]rich, authentic details. So I mean, I started by reading of course. I collected a lot of books and

[9:43]just read constantly all day long for days and months. And I watched documentaries. I listened to

[9:50]the great courses on all kinds of topics where you have lecturers from universities giving lectures.

[9:59]I traveled.

[10:00]awesome to museums and I mean there's a museum in Ireland which of course I'm now

[10:05]forgetting the name of but I walked through there and there were all of these

[10:09]ivory sheets that had been beaten down that were at the same time of the first

[10:16]century that I could see all these different ways things you could write on

[10:21]palm leaves so I just walked around with a notebook for about a year and a

[10:26]half and recorded everything I could and learned everything I could and

[10:31]kept notebooks full of notes I actually think I over researched. I don't know

[10:39]because I feel like your book was not only a story and a love story and almost

[10:45]like a coming of age but it was also a history book because now I was just

[10:48]telling this to my husband I was like I feel like now I understand I have a

[10:52]visual for that entire period of time I can imagine you know walking down

[10:56]these pads and how I would you know what the rooms would look like every

[11:00]little thing you literally created like a perfect replica of a world that

[11:04]now is in my imagination and everybody else is it's really so impressive I know

[11:08]that other novels do that but the authenticity factor is just like sky high I

[11:13]have to say. So if there is a tree or a food in that book it was real you know I

[11:23]I would have to stop writing a lot and just make sure look up something if I

[11:27]wanted to be sure that it was current at the time it was quite something but

[11:32]I sort of enjoyed the research and got a little carried away with it. Did it

[11:37]come from your research the moment when Anna and I won't give anything away

[11:40]but was going through something very emotional for her and she just needed to

[11:44]write about which anybody who's listening can probably identify with that

[11:47]feeling when you just something is you just have to write and so she ends up

[11:51]breaking a potter her actually it was her and to broke the pot on her

[11:54]behalf and she ended up writing all over the shards of pot pieces did people

[11:58]really do that and should I go try it when you think have you tried it? No but I

[12:03]would like to. Sometimes I have tried things I haven't tried that one I

[12:08]remember when I wrote The Secret Life of Bees I knelt on grits which is

[12:12]something my character did and that was really painful but no they did actually do

[12:19]that because it was an inexpensive way paper was you know rare and precious

[12:24]and people could write on I mean broken pottery. The idea that Anna was gonna get

[12:31]in trouble for stealing a piece of ivory on which they used to write the

[12:35]thoughts that a piece of paper I mean which just seems so expendable these

[12:39]days I mean obviously there's awareness of the trees and you know we're not

[12:42]being unkind to the environment but just like the prevalence of paper

[12:46]versus what they had to go through and all the hurdles to writing do you feel

[12:50]like I know you referenced your your childhood a little but do you feel like

[12:54]you had any stumbling blocks in pursuing your career as an author I mean

[12:59]there seemed like there were so many hurdles for Anna to jump over I'm sure

[13:03]they weren't that extreme but there must be something that you can relate to in

[13:06]that from your own life. Well of course you know I I wanted to I mean Anna is I

[13:14]similar to me in many ways she's probably the character I drew on more than

[13:20]any other jewel myself more than any other character I've written but yes I

[13:25]think probably the biggest hurdle for me growing up was that a failure of courage

[13:30]to really pursue what I wanted to do which was to write I think I was born to

[13:35]write I mean I feel that strongly and I don't know if there's something

[13:39]innate in us all I know is that when I was very young I started telling people I

[13:44]wanted to be a writer and it was like this little flame I a little light

[13:50]inside that I had and then of course I lost it and I can't not say that it

[13:57]wasn't something about the cultural milieu I was in too because my

[14:03]guidance counselor in high school actually said to me you know well you

[14:07]really ought to consider doing something practical what if something

[14:10]happened this is what we heard in the 60s what if something happened to your

[14:15]husband you need something to fall back on so this is the kind of nonsense

[14:21]you know that we were applied with but I was 17-18 and I decided I would do

[14:28]something practical so I studied nursing and I got to be

[14:33]a degree in nursing and I worked as a nurse until I was 30 years old

[14:37]and that's when I just said I can't do this anymore I'm just homesick for

[14:41]myself and I'm homesick for my little light so I started writing

[14:47]that's so beautiful being homesick for yourself that's a great

[14:50]way to say that it's amazing so then how did you do it how did you just

[14:54]how did you switch gears and did you just walk in one day and say I quit and then

[14:57]you sat down and started writing I couldn't have been that easy how did you

[15:01]do it and how did you go from there to a 30-year career of writing and

[15:06]so so many successful books at that well it wasn't an overnight thing I

[15:11]loved when people said the secret life of bees was an overnight

[15:15]success because I had been writing for so long the secret life of bees my

[15:20]first novel was published when I was 53 I started writing it's 30

[15:25]and the way it began was I just made I seized my intention again and I made

[15:31]an announcement to my toddlers we're eating breakfast

[15:36]and my husband and they all looked at me like okay mom and I took a course

[15:42]you know a writing course at the local college and I didn't know what I was

[15:47]doing really I didn't know much about writing I just knew that I had this

[15:51]impulse of the heart to do it a passion to do it and the way I think I

[15:57]developed writing was I learned everything I could about the craft

[16:02]I went to a writer's conferences I read books about writing and then I read

[16:06]good fiction you know that intimidated the heck out of me

[16:10]so it was and just writing and writing and writing and trying to find my

[16:14]voice so I free-lanced and I wrote nonfiction and I wrote essays and I did

[16:19]that for a while and then I began publishing some nonfiction

[16:22]memoir type books oh I didn't start fiction until I was in my 40s

[16:26]well I feel like it's such a gift and I think that's what draws me to talking to

[16:31]authors all the time how do you create these worlds especially even

[16:36]on a world that's actually our worlds and just in another time but

[16:40]and make it just so intricate and so many facets I mean all your characters

[16:45]felt so real to me like they could just walk in the door

[16:49]essentially how do you do such a great job with character development

[16:54]as one of many things that you did well but how do you make them so real

[16:58]they're very real to me so because maybe they're very real to me

[17:03]I can transmit some of that I hope I write in first person

[17:07]I always tell myself one day I'm going to write a book in third person and it

[17:10]never happens I always revert back to first person

[17:13]because it is so intimate it allows me to just drop into the character

[17:19]and I just try to see the world through her eyes and feel it with her heart

[17:24]and I think I know her so well usually by the time I start writing

[17:29]I have no idea part of it is probably a mystery I'm just trying to write

[17:34]the intimate spaces of her heart or the character's heart and just hope that

[17:39]the reader identifies with her and has the same empathetic participation

[17:45]that I'm having with her

[17:47]we certainly succeeded tell me about the religious aspect obviously a book

[17:52]about a purported wife of Jesus you can't get away from the fact that this

[17:57]has religious implications for any group any person reading the book

[18:01]how did your own sort of beliefs play into the book and the story and

[18:08]what do you think life would be like if this had been the actual story of the world

[18:13]well I think the world would be very different to answer your last question first

[18:17]that occurred to me right away I remember thinking almost the first day that this

[18:23]idea struck me not the first time but the the last time and I remember thinking

[18:30]if she existed my god she would be the most silenced woman in history

[18:37]and it made me want to give her a boy so desperately I mean I grew up

[18:43]in this little town as I said where we had two churches there was no Jewish synagogue

[18:49]we only had a Methodist church and a Baptist church so you had to belong to one of the other

[18:54]or you were just you know a pagan and there were none of those everybody was church

[19:01]and so I was schooled in that and I have a very distinct memory of one Sunday I'll make this

[19:09]short one Sunday a visiting minister came to our little Baptist church and I remember sitting

[19:15]by my mom I was 11 I think and he gave the order of the hierarchy of authority in the human

[19:24]world and it was God man woman children or something like that and I was outraged you know I was

[19:31]just shocked and outraged and anger and my mother later would say I think it all started right

[19:38]there and maybe so so I had an uneasy relationship with the church probably all through my childhood

[19:47]adolescence but at the same time I have a very contemplative kind of soul and a longing to

[19:55]have a spiritual life and I do have a spiritual life it's just much

[20:00]bigger than Christianity. And I'm a cultural Christian. That metaphoric story of Christianity still

[20:07]speaks to me. So I have a lot of background in that. And I'm sure that showed up. There is one

[20:13]last thing I'll say about this. And that is, there's a line in the book of longings where

[20:18]Anna says something like, well, she's in this cave and she's just, she's having this conversation

[20:24]with Jesus. I think it's their second meeting. And she says something like, why don't we just

[20:30]free God? And he says, he laughs. And he says, yes, I would like to see how that happens or something

[20:37]like that. Well, a lot of my religious life has been about trying to free God, our narrow concepts of God.

[20:46]And to give us a sense of equality in our imagery of what is divine.

[20:53]So I actually think and believe a lot like Anna did in this story.

[20:58]The jig is up. We know what all your innermost thoughts now. One of the times when when Anna is

[21:06]talking to Jesus, she was asking, she overhears him saying referring to God as the father. And she

[21:11]hadn't heard that before. And she asked him, what's this about? Why are you calling God father?

[21:16]Because of the time that hadn't happened. And he said, the practice is new to me. When my father died,

[21:21]I felt his absence like a wound. One night in my grief, I heard God say to me, I will be your father

[21:26]now. And then Anna says, God speaks to you. And he says, only in my thoughts. I thought that was

[21:31]so interesting how now, of course, that's like common parlance. Everybody does it without thinking,

[21:35]God, the father, blah, blah, blah, blah. And this is this perhaps is where it came from.

[21:39]This is part of researcher. This is speculation. Well, I think Christians probably mostly think

[21:46]Jesus started this. But my research showed that it was not uncommon at all for Jewish men

[21:53]in the first century to refer to God as father. But it was an intimate way to do it. And it was

[22:00]the word was abba. And you know, Jesus, of course, made it quite popular.

[22:06]And also the turn the other cheek, you attribute to Mary.

[22:11]Yeah, I got away with that, maybe. I don't know. No, I think she probably had a lot to do

[22:19]with her son's success, maybe, or who he was as a human being, which was quite amazing.

[22:27]And you know, moms don't always get the credit to you. So I was determined that she was going

[22:34]this human Mary was going to get some credit for Jesus. And he learned from her. And I had that

[22:41]be her line that she taught him. But he was, he learned pretty well. So it's Mary as the ultimate

[22:48]Jewish mother apparently. Yes. The spelling about her son. Love it. This is just a tiny point. But

[22:56]one way that women were sort of asserting their will, which was they almost had nothing they could do

[23:01]was taking all these herbs to prevent themselves from getting pregnant, which I didn't know they

[23:05]had been doing back then as a form of birth control and all the rest. Tell me about that line of

[23:09]research. Oh, that was absolutely fascinating. I mean, women had a lot more access to things than we

[23:18]can imagine. They knew how to abort children. They knew how to take herbs to encourage getting pregnant

[23:26]when they were barren. They knew how to prevent pregnancies. It was a fail proof, but any means,

[23:33]but the midwives, the wise women, they were called typically controlled that and women went to them.

[23:41]And it was sort of a secret world for them. So I'm not sure I could even tell you what all they

[23:46]were right now, but they were accurate in the book. Well, I just love today and none of them.

[23:54]No kidding. Oh, my goodness. So tell me you spend 14 months researching. Tell me about what happens

[24:00]after that. Do you write like right in this room that we're looking at you and now? Do we? Where do

[24:06]you do your writing? Do you do how do you do your outlining? Tell me about the process a little more,

[24:11]please. Yes, this is my writing study. I call it. And I do an outline in an unusual way, probably.

[24:19]I call it a collage, but I think there's a better term for it that's more literary. It's probably a

[24:27]storyboard or no, it's something else. But anyway, I will take all kinds of postcards and

[24:34]like I'm a child at kindergarten. And I cut out images that speak to me that actually hook

[24:41]my unconscious. This is how I do every novel. So I'm very visual and they could be huge boards that

[24:48]I'll put up with all of these images all over them. And they evoke something for me. It could be

[24:54]a motion. It could be a character. It could be some piece of something that a description. But

[25:01]mostly it's about the story itself and how that narrative is going to unfold in the book.

[25:08]So I start with that. And then I like to know two things when I start writing. And until I know them,

[25:16]I can't really start writing. And they are, who is my character? Who is she? It's usually a she.

[25:22]And I will spend a lot of time trying to figure that out. And the other question is what does she

[25:27]want? And that is the seminal question for me. If I know what my character wants, I can write

[25:34]the book because it's all about that for me. And so I write down the opening scene. I know the

[25:41]last scene usually. And sort of vaguely what's going to happen in the between. And that I start

[25:48]writing. Wow. And how long did that take, at least for this book? Well, the whole thing took

[25:54]four and a half years counting that research. So another three years. Oh, I'm slow zippy.

[26:01]Whatever you do, it's working. Don't change things. The pace you need to keep

[26:06]meticulous process. Yeah. Somewhere in the comments is saying how much they'd love to see the board

[26:11]for this book. Do you still have it? The vision board? Oh, of course. Yeah, I haven't somewhere.

[26:16]It's buried in the closet. But I'm creating a new one now that I can't even talk about. Don't

[26:22]even ask me because it's so new. But another thing I do is I create a what I call a plot clothes

[26:30]line. And I have a line and I hang the scenes on it. And I can move them around. And

[26:37]because often, like with the invention of wings, I had two narrators, two main characters. And I

[26:43]had to have two clothes lines. So I do things like that, you know, to help me navigate the story

[26:51]and keep up with what's going on. That's great. I can just imagine you with your little

[26:55]clothes hooks or whatever. That's fantastic. So you can't say a word about your new book.

[27:02]Have a little something. It's not a historical knot. I tell you what it isn't. It's not a historical

[27:08]novel. So I've done the last two were going back further and further in time. No, but I'm going to

[27:16]write pretty much close to the present. And oh, my, what else could I say that's really vague?

[27:24]Is it post COVID pre COVID or do not address COVID? I know that's been a topic of conversation.

[27:30]Well, you said shortly before COVID, but I have to think about that whether we're going to

[27:37]include that or not. I think this is going to be a big question for authors.

[27:42]Yes. Do you have, I know you've given lots of tips already about the way you approach learning

[27:47]how to write, but would you have advice for other aspiring authors at this point?

[27:51]Well, authors always have a little bit of advice. And it's typically things like read a lot.

[27:57]My advice about reading is read at the level you want to write, which is why it's so intimidating.

[28:04]And then realize that you can never achieve that idea in your head and that it's always going to

[28:11]come out less than you imagined. I'll let yourself write badly initially. And for me,

[28:18]it's all about rewriting. And I rewrite as I go. A lot of writers say, don't do that, but

[28:25]that's the only way I can do it. I need to get it just right for myself before I can go on.

[28:31]So when I finish a book, it's pretty much done. That's good.

[28:37]Well, it took three and a half for you.

[28:42]I don't want to go over time here. Someone saying, by the way, the ending for Anna was very

[28:47]satisfying in case you were worrying about that. So satisfying ending all around.

[28:51]I'm very glad to hear that.

[28:53]There's other comments thanking you for everything and all the rest and how brave you are

[28:59]writing and how inspirational and just all of it. So, and do it.

[29:05]Can I just thank all of them and say thank you for being readers and for reading my work?

[29:11]If you do, I appreciate it very much. I do not take one of you for granted. And I think about

[29:18]my readers when I'm writing a lot. You know, what would they like to hear? What do they need?

[29:23]That's why my endings will never be really tragic. You can count on that.

[29:29]Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you, Zibi.

[29:33]Thanks again to Jumpstart, whose campaign read for the record begins this fall.

[29:38]Go to readfortherecord.org to purchase Evelyn Del Rey's moving away to help donate and support a

[29:44]classroom in need and help Jumpstart reach their goal of achieving early literacy for everyone.

[29:49]Thanks for listening to this episode of Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books. Don't

[29:53]forget to follow me on Instagram at Zibi Owens and at Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books.

[29:58]Also sign up for my newsletter at the

[30:00]TheBOins.com and sign up for my virtual book club

[30:02]and meet lots of authors on Zoom every other week.

[30:05]Thanks so much to Steve and Ryan at Textures Sound

[30:07]for the Sound Editing.

[30:09]And thank you to Morning Moon Productions

[30:10]for providing this fantastic intro and out trim music.