John Manuel Arias, WHERE THERE WAS FIRE
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[1:03]John Manuel Arias is the author of Where There was Fire.
[1:07]He is a queer Costa Rican American poet and writer.
[1:10]He is a Kanto Mundo Fellow and alumnus of the 10 House Summer Writers Workshop.
[1:15]His prose and poetry have been published in Pink, The Rumpus, Friction, Joyland Magazine,
[1:20]and Akashik Books.
[1:21]He has lived in Washington, D.C., Brooklyn, New York, and in San Jose, Costa Rica with
[1:25]his grandmother and four ghosts.
[1:28]Where There was Fire is his first novel.
[1:30]Welcome, John Manuel, congratulations on your book, Where There was Fire, a novel.
[1:35]This book is so beautiful.
[1:37]Oh my gosh.
[1:38]What a work of art.
[1:39]Wow.
[1:40]Thank you so much.
[1:41]I appreciate all of his support and all of the kind where it's really meant to lock.
[1:46]I was trying to describe your book over lunch yesterday to my colleagues.
[1:50]And I was like, no, it's like Gabriel Garcia Marquez meets like modern day, maybe memoir.
[1:57]Maybe this is his family.
[1:58]I don't even know.
[2:00]It's like, anyway, I was trying to encapsulate just the most lyrical, beautiful language.
[2:07]Anyway, maybe you should do a better job and explain the actual plot, which of course
[2:12]I know.
[2:13]But go ahead.
[2:14]Well, thank you.
[2:15]So in 1968 in Costa Rica, there is sort of a sinister American fruit company.
[2:22]And it's mostly could have been an implantation burns to the ground.
[2:25]And with that burning plantation goes the future of a family of Costa Rican women.
[2:30]30 years later, we have our matriarch.
[2:32]Vanessa, she is haunted by the ghost of her mother, a missing husband, and she is a strange
[2:38]from her eldest daughter, Lita.
[2:40]And during a free hurricane, they have to reconnect in order to build a future together
[2:46]for its to lay.
[2:47]Thank you.
[2:48]See, I mean, you'd have a better summary.
[2:51]One of the most pivotal things around which I feel a lot of the book centers or sort of
[2:57]orbits is the death by suicide of Carmen and what that I'm not giving anything away
[3:03]because it happens early, right?
[3:04]Are we okay?
[3:05]It's pretty early.
[3:06]It's really funny.
[3:07]I've said it before.
[3:08]No, no, spoiler alert.
[3:09]I was like, it has another verse, 15 pages.
[3:11]Yeah.
[3:12]I feel like it's okay.
[3:13]I mean, I think this is fair game.
[3:14]But anyway, if you don't want to hear what happens in the first 15 pages, just fast
[3:18]forward, I guess like five minutes or something.
[3:20]But it's really the ramifications of this sudden unexpected loss that drive several people
[3:27]to either mutism or, you know, complete mental, disrepair, or that has such profound
[3:35]effects as any loss, particularly a death by suicide, does talk to me about that and
[3:42]how I know we have the whole backstory of their lives and everything in Costa Rica.
[3:46]But how that moment, how you chose to make that moment a pivotal point to like where
[3:52]it came from, I don't know, talk about it.
[3:55]So something kind of funny is that everyone in my family is currently reading the novel.
[4:00]It is out.
[4:01]They're excited.
[4:02]They have the arc or whatever it is.
[4:04]And people will identify themselves between Lita and Goodman.
[4:09]And so my aunt will be like, well, I'm Lita.
[4:11]And my sister is got him in.
[4:13]And my sister was like, I'm Lita and you're a carman.
[4:15]And I'm like, am I prone to see this?
[4:17]It's a very intense sort of embodiment, right?
[4:21]And got him in is a very sensitive person.
[4:24]She has always been sensitive since she was a little girl.
[4:28]She could hear other people's thoughts and feel their emotions.
[4:32]And that's a lot of weight.
[4:35]And during the tragic night in 1968, they're separate something from her.
[4:41]And she goes throughout the rest of her life, haunted and unable to sort of reconcile it
[4:48]within herself.
[4:49]And she tries and she tries and after the birth of her son, she enters the state of
[4:54]of postpartum depression and it just becomes much too overwhelming for her.
[4:59]And so those with traumatic histories are more prone to postpartum depression, a more
[5:03]prone to suicidal ideations.
[5:06]And I really wanted to document that.
[5:08]And I thought that it was important for Lita.
[5:11]It was important that it's to rattle their relationship more, how much it could take.
[5:20]Yeah.
[5:21]You have the foil of Christina, the neighbor who's like on the outside, looking all social
[5:27]lady and happy and whatever.
[5:29]But of course, she has her own demons and her own troubled marriage and does does dario,
[5:36]right?
[5:37]Who feels these effects forever.
[5:39]And then you get to watch as they all sort of age together and what that means and that
[5:44]feeling of responsibility and friendship versus enmity or whatever and how, you know, that
[5:49]the complexity of female friendship too.
[5:52]Where are you getting all this?
[5:53]This is amazing.
[5:54]You know, it's amazing.
[5:55]I mean, I've always lived with women.
[5:58]My mother, my sister, and for four years I lived with my grandmother in Costa Rica.
[6:04]And that was full time.
[6:06]My three great aunts were living there as well.
[6:08]And so these different dynamics of generational dynamics and also this friendship and is
[6:16]there a little bit of animosity between family members or between friends and it really
[6:23]played out in the novel in the way that I wanted to put these characters through these
[6:29]obstacles between themselves, between each other to sort of explore what they would do.
[6:36]And so, you know, friendship is such an interesting place to be an interesting sort of
[6:43]of clay to manipulate and it was very fun to have that is something who is much more
[6:49]reticent, who is unable to reconcile the past outwardly with Christina, who is still stuck
[6:56]to the socialite status, who is still stuck to my life as perfect.
[7:00]I live in a very rich house.
[7:02]My husband was a sculptor.
[7:03]He molded my hips out of marble.
[7:05]And so they're both unable to let go of the past, but they express it in different ways.
[7:10]And this also causes this sort of like frenening dynamic between them, but the love that
[7:16]they share.
[7:17]You know, I want the reader to take away the amount of love that these characters have
[7:24]for each other because it's there.
[7:26]That's why they're so hurt, right?
[7:27]They wouldn't have been so hurt if their love wasn't so deep.
[7:30]Well, I feel like their relationship speaks to this sort of bigger theme of really responsibility.
[7:36]What is your responsibility to your good friends?
[7:38]What is the country's responsibility to its workers?
[7:41]What is a parents' responsibility to a child?
[7:45]And all these things are people sort of not exercising what should be their responsibility.
[7:51]And what happens when all of that falls to pieces.
[7:55]And all of the sort of Aaron Brockovich style sort of under-
[7:59]Oh, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, totally.
[8:02]It was really interesting, too.
[8:04]Tell me more about all of that.
[8:05]Totally.
[8:06]I love that.
[8:07]Actually, this is a great movie.
[8:08]Yeah.
[8:09]If you left me and everything ugly shoes, great line, you know, like I said, a lot of
[8:17]people are unable to let go of the past, just like we in real life are often unable
[8:23]to let go of the past.
[8:25]And so Lena expresses it in being incredibly curious about the night where this banana
[8:30]plantation burned and the parallel of her family being ruined.
[8:35]in order to understand emotionally what happened because she cannot speak to her mother.
[8:42]So she cannot access the emotional sort of familial history at this point.
[8:46]She turns to the actual history, which is gossip columns of why the banana plantation
[8:52]burned to the ground.
[8:53]Yeah.
[8:54]The newspaper clip being sort of a first person narrative and she's desperate.
[8:59]And one day she finds, I don't know if this is too much of a spoiler.
[9:02]Let's just not say one day she finds something.
[9:05]One day she finds something that is the crew that she needed is the spark that she needed
[9:14]in order to like the spire within herself and understand and illuminate what she needed.
[9:19]When did you think of that piece of it or how did it all of this come together?
[9:23]So there is fabulous book out of Duke University press called Banana Wars.
[9:30]And there was an anthropologist who went to Costa Rica.
[9:34]He was interested in the banana plantations, the leftover United Fruit Company plantations
[9:40]and the workers to interview them.
[9:42]And finally when these Costa Rica workers trusted this white guy enough, they said, hey,
[9:47]we got a box of memos here.
[9:49]We have a box of United Fruit Company memos and they go back a hundred years and they
[9:53]reveal this very, you know, is that the word sinister, this very intricate conspiracy.
[10:00]the organized assassinations of quelling of revolts, of ways to manipulate workers and it's all
[10:08]there in black and white that they're just admitting. And it is because some Costa Rican
[10:15]foreman decided not to destroy this box of documents. It's revealed how we Latin Americans knew
[10:24]we knew them that way. We were well aware of it. But now it's for all the world to see.
[10:29]You know, it is from the horse's mouth and it is sort of fascinating. And so what is what can be
[10:36]done now? I mean, I know you're approaching an infection and getting even more people to know about it,
[10:41]which is wonderful. But don't you feel like, you know, now what? Like what? I mean, so there is this
[10:48]very infamous pesticide known in Costa Rica and Nicaragua and parts of Central America
[10:53]known as Nemecon. And it was used by standard for company, which is Dave Doldenanas. And it was
[11:01]known. It was told to them through empirical evidence that it was sterilizing mail workers. And
[11:08]instead of allowing doubt to discontinue, they sued them for everything that they had and they
[11:15]used them on for another 10 years. And it sterilized 30,000 workers. Oh my gosh. So they're fine
[11:22]for the last 50 years to litigate across countries from Costa Rica to go to Guam from people in
[11:30]California. It was used in California. It is still in the water tables in California. And it's
[11:37]this conversation that's very pushed. And that's the point because these lawyers, you know, besides
[11:42]organizing assassinations, the lawyers of these fruit companies are so powerful. They have
[11:48]overwhelming power. And so the conversation that is intentionally silenced. And if I can publish this
[11:56]book, if I can start a little bit of a conversation, if I can tell someone, or if they could be the
[12:00]novel and say, huh, never got a very evil name. I wonder what it is. And they can book. And they
[12:08]find this history. How does that radicalize them in the same way that it radicalized we? How does it
[12:13]start that conversation? And once we're confronted with it, there is something to do. But I only have
[12:21]the power to sort of spark that conversation for that is the way that I feel that I can't.
[12:27]Yeah. Well, that is a lot of power. I mean, it's pretty good. I really hope, though, I mean, it's been
[12:32]super surprising. Like I said, these lawyers are very powerful. And the fact that they've let my novel
[12:37]look at this far is kind of bananas to me. To use a fruit reference. Yeah. A little of bananas
[12:46]to me very honestly, when I went back to Costa Rica in April, I was telling everybody, of course,
[12:53]about this novel and about the nature of this pesticide. And they said they're going to put you in
[12:57]jail. But you know, my America, we know the consequences of going to get something is powerful.
[13:03]But here, you know, there is a little bit of a maybe unfounded paranoia. But I do know that
[13:12]historically something like this couldn't really have happened.
[13:18]So for anyone listening, if John Manuel ends up missing suddenly or something untoward
[13:24]happens, you heard it here first. No, literally, exactly. I mean, you know, if I disappear one day
[13:30]sales, no, I'm just kidding. Actually, that's an interesting book in and of itself. I mean,
[13:37]everyone is asking for a people. It's really funny. Everyone is asking for a sequel. And I never
[13:42]thought of that. You know, I stand here. Yeah, just published a sequel of Dreaming in Cuban,
[13:48]banishing maps. And it took her about 20 years to even sort of think about it. And so who knows,
[13:53]20, 20 or 20, 40, three, a sequel to where this fire?
[14:00]I'll save you a podcast spot.
[14:04]Oh my gosh. Well, I know we've spoken a lot about that element of it. But I feel like that's almost in
[14:09]the background to the relationships and the interplay of all of the women and even the mental
[14:18]health aspect of the book and how you have us, you know, enter into a church run mental health
[14:24]asylum. And I guess this is another way that, you know, the country is sort of shirking responsibility.
[14:29]But, you know, what was to happen with this whole class of people who were resistant or
[14:35]they weren't the meds at the time and what you do with them and what you do in a loved one is there.
[14:40]And all of that was this research based as well. Like, does this from a pocket of history? And
[14:45]you wanted to explore it. Like, and just how is all of this? Like, how did I, which pieces of this
[14:52]instigated the whole novel writing process or did it all just sort of come together as you got going?
[14:56]I'll answer the last part. First, there was so much research involved. There were so many
[15:01]tricks even before I looked at my grandmother. I started this novel, you know, I wrote this for
[15:06]sentence in 2009 and throughout college, I worked on it and it called to me and it wouldn't let
[15:14]me sleep. And so I had to go back to Costa Rica. I had to do research and even something just as
[15:21]simple as taking a ride with my grandmother to visit where my great aunt who was a nun used to work,
[15:28]even though things are research, even those things bubble up into a novel, right? It's not just
[15:34]all essays or anthropological accounts. But mental health has always been very important to me as,
[15:43]you know, a disability rate. And with Costa Rica, you know, a lot of readers might find this novel
[15:52]a little chokaule is the word in Spanish. And I'm trying to think of the word in English.
[15:58]But they might sort of clash with it a little bit because there's a huge geographical and there's
[16:03]a huge generational sort of gap that one has to jump. And so a Costa Rican can absolutely jump in
[16:10]and say, oh, of course, the government didn't handle mental health at all. We as a culture have
[16:14]not talked about mental health at all, especially women's mental health, right? Women are held to a
[16:20]standard in Costa Rica where they have to be graceful and always put together and they have to be
[16:25]the perfect mother and they have to be the perfect poor maker. They're not, you know, patriarchy doesn't
[16:31]allow them room to express any sort of mental health concerns for mental illness, right? Which is very
[16:38]important to treat, which is where government came in as well, right? But that was always a very
[16:43]important thing for me to go through to do or trade as something that happens that is valid to
[16:52]give enough space and generosity as the novel could to these women and to allow them to live
[16:59]and breathe and live authentically. Well, I can totally see why people are asking for a sequel
[17:06]because the characters are just so real. And the way you kind of go through different perspectives
[17:13]and different timelines and there's even one passage that I'd like to read that shows what a fabulous
[17:18]writer you are and the way that you really take us into the scenes, into the place and feel it
[17:24]and smell it. So this was Christina Barrio, Avila, 1995, forgive my accent. An aberrant hurricane
[17:30]arrived on Tuesday morning, rain swelled and burst from the sky, forcing bright baked birds to seek
[17:35]refuge and car mufflers underneath Romilia de umbrellas or inside crowded chicken coops. No one in
[17:41]Costa Rica knew exactly when morning it actually began because roosters distracted by the storm
[17:45]or by the bright beaked invaders forgot to crow, vendors tried and failed to open their stands,
[17:51]beggars filled their empty cups with clinking hail. Politicians stayed secure in the warmth
[17:57]of their canopy beds. The old women who once danced for rain had indeed been right as always.
[18:02]But who could remember the last time a hurricane and fluttered its heavy body, this
[18:07]are south. So beautiful. Thank you. My gosh. I mean, you just go on here just this last one.
[18:12]In Barrio, Avila, the ruins of La Guario railroad, I'm sorry for butchering your language became
[18:17]a violent river. It became a violent river of rainwater from the current emerged a cartel of
[18:24]cane toads gray and bulbous as the clouds. They hopped out of the river as triumphantly
[18:29]as the first organisms to haul themselves out of the sea and made their way beneath the
[18:33]rickety doors of concrete houses. Once inside, they deflated their bodies and scrounge for any
[18:39]unfortunate bugs that might have sought the same sanctuary. I mean, how great is that? You basically
[18:45]just told us about a frog, right? Why would I care about it? You know, I mean, like now all of
[18:50]a sudden, I'm really caring. I'm in the perspective of a flattening frog underneath the house.
[18:54]Like that is so cool that you do that because you can feel everything. Anyway, how did you
[18:59]learn to write? Do you teach yourself to write? Did you always write like this? Tell me more about
[19:05]that. Well, thank you. So, besides starting this novel, when I was much younger, I was always attracted
[19:11]to poetry. I always read, you know, I actually didn't start reading sort of intentionally until
[19:18]I was in late high school and college. You know, academics and literature and me have always had a
[19:25]bit of a clash to bring back. But in college, I was allowed the freedom to actually read
[19:32]who I wanted to read. So I could read at which Dantapat and sort of leave Jane Austen behind.
[19:39]Sorry, Jane Austen. But she just wasn't for me. She didn't speak to my sort of literary heritage,
[19:47]right? My literary legacy. And I could read these writers and I could, you know, all writers,
[19:54]I think at the very beginning, we mimic or we give bulk.
[20:00]the style of other writers. And a huge one that actually gave me a lot of permission
[20:05]was Arun Tadi Roy, in the God of Small Things. And the way that she plays with language,
[20:11]the way that she takes a colonial language and she makes it all so fascinating. Like a poet,
[20:18]you take language and you mold it to what you need it to be. You create new words, right? You
[20:24]use alliteration in order to pop a reader throughout a sentence. You add momentum, you add
[20:31]sort of a different dynamic and it is so much to start and stop. And that's who's always
[20:37]very fascinating to me about language. And so as much as like a play, right, there's joy,
[20:43]there's so much joy in writing in the way that you can play that I think I've always been
[20:48]like that. And so a lot of people, a lot of other writers, gave my work a lot of permission.
[20:53]in order to grow. Wow. That's amazing. What advice do you have for aspiring authors?
[20:59]Eat at it. But also be strategic. To be a writer is, you know, I think there are very few
[21:04]writers who want to do it out of fun. A lot of us definitely want to become authors. And there is a
[21:10]way to do it strategically before and after the book deal by Courtney Mom is a really fantastic
[21:16]book. She really, she did it for the culture. She did it for all of us. Thank you Courtney,
[21:21]shout out and just doing your own research. And a lot of people submit to literary magazines
[21:28]because it's a really great way to get your start, right? It's a really great way to access
[21:32]other writers as well. But they do. So I've seen the logic that the point is to receive 100
[21:39]rejections. And that lets the one acceptance be special. It's like, you know, you look for the
[21:45]the acceptance. You know, if there are 100 rejections you're doing something wrong, you are not
[21:51]listening to the journal. You are not following its guidelines. You're not in conversation with the
[21:57]other writers in the issue. So the point is not to shotgun everything just like it is with agents,
[22:03]just like it is with editors. You have to be strategic and you have to look for your own success
[22:09]because no one is going to help you as a writer. There might be brands. There might be people in
[22:14]the industry who you are connected with. But being an author is a very solitary act, not just
[22:21]writing at our desk, but also when we're trying to navigate this industry, right? All of us are
[22:26]different and success looks different for all of us. So sit back, analyze, really take stock of
[22:33]what success looks like to you and the best route you can get there. Yeah, love it. Excellent advice.
[22:40]Okay, well, if it's not a sequel, quick preview into what's coming next from you, any ideas?
[22:46]Well, novel two might be done with no three in the chamber. Wow, I will say that novel two
[22:56]deals much more with brotherhood and with revenge and destiny and a river full of man eating crocodiles.
[23:06]Whoa. Okay, that was a very good teaser.
[23:11]It's the crocodiles. The crocodiles are really, really, really great. Who doesn't love them? They're
[23:16]terrifying. Totally. John Manuel, thank you so much. Congratulations again and where there was fire.
[23:21]So beautiful. And I feel like we'll be reading in English class. My kids will be reading it in
[23:25]English class many years from now. Thank you. Thank you so much to generosity. Again, I appreciate it.
[23:31]No problem. All right. Have a great day. Okay. Thank you. Bye. Take care. Bye-bye.
[23:37]Thanks for listening to this episode of moms don't have time to read books.
[23:41]Don't forget to follow me on Instagram at zebi Owens and at moms don't have time to read books.
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[23:55]the Sound Editing. And thank you to Morning Moon Productions for providing this fantastic intro
[24:00]and outro music.