WGBH Radio; The Callie Crossley Show

I'm Cally Crossley and this is the Cali Crossley Show. Dennis Lehane the local treasure turned crown jewel of the literary crime scene is back in the hood by way of the Boston book festival a Dorchester native. The power of his prose is plates in his fiction inner city Boston is torn in two. By race and class warfare. And it's this city on the brink. That's the engine of his work firing up the drama that makes his books page turners and the movies based on his books. The stuff of blockbusters and Academy Awards Blaine joins us to talk about his forthcoming book and his take on dual citizenship how splitting his time between the Bay State and the sunshine state affects his work. From there it's on to the stage with Tina Packer and her performance. Women of will a tour of Shakespeare's heroines Up next the power of prose from Boston's bad streets to the Bard of Avon. First the news. From NPR News in Washington I'm Pam Colter. The gap between what we

sell overseas and what we buy is getting bigger. The trade deficit hit forty six billion dollars in August and Danielle Karson reports the deficit with China rose to an all time high. The bump up in imports came mostly from consumer products a good sign that demand is picking up. But earlier this year the spike in imports sliced the country's economic output by half. The Maquis chief U.S. economist at Barclays Capital doesn't expect trade will be as big a drag on the economy going forward. We need to have adequate more from GDP than it had in more than 60 years. What the data through August tell us is that a growth in the third. There actually will be a bit stronger than it was in the second quarter. Analysts expect the record trade deficit with China will put pressure on the White House to toughen its stance on Beijing's tightly controlled currency. Manufacturers accuse China of keeping the yuan artificially low to make its goods on U.S. shelves cheaper. For NPR News I'm Daniel Karson in Washington.

Americans paid more for food and energy last month fueling an overall increase in wholesale prices. The Producer Price Index rose almost half a percent in September matching the August increase. Food costs were up one point two percent energy prices were up half a percent. Applications for jobless benefits are up just a few weeks before the November elections. Initial claims for unemployment rose by 13000 the first increase in three weeks and a sign that companies continue to be wary of new hiring jobless claims have been hovering around 450000 all year. French students are blockading high schools and universities today protesting a plan to increase the nation's retirement age from 60 to 62. Some of the 33 miners rescued from that Chilean mine may leave the hospital today days earlier than expected. Reporting from the San Jose mine Richard Reynolds says most of the miners are in good condition. But getting back to normal will be difficult for some. A doctor told reporters that the youngest miner 1000 year old Jimmy Sanchez was struggling and appeared

depressed. He has spoken very little since coming to the surface. Other men complained of difficulty sleeping last night. Psychologists at the hospital with the men are being kept for observation say such reactions are commonplace among those subjected to extreme prolonged stress. The symptoms may not even manifest themselves for years and include severe depression anxiety and insomnia. The government has promised the men six months of first rate medical care but it is unclear if mental health care will be provided beyond that point. For NPR News I'm Richard Reynolds in Copiapo. Hurricane Paul is weakening but it's still dumping heavy rain on Cuba's West Coast. Sustained winds are only about 80 miles an hour and officials are optimistic the storm won't cause too much damage to the island's tobacco fields. On Wall Street the Dow is down 25 points. Nasdaq is off seven and the S&P 500 is down six. This is NPR. The head of a new Afghan peace council says he believes the Taliban are ready to negotiate peace. Former Afghan president BOR ha Nadine Rabbani told reporters the

Taliban have identified conditions for starting negotiations and he says initial discussions have been conducted. Pakistani authorities say they've gotten some critical information from seven suspected militants arrested yesterday in Islam abad NPR's Julie McCarthy says. Authorities charge the men were plotting attacks on the prime minister other senior government officials. A water canal and military installations. Police sources in the Pakistani city of Walla poor say the suspects belong to an offshoot of the virulently anti-Shia group Lashkar e John week which has ties to both the Pakistani Taliban and al Qaeda. They were arrested last night after the suspects opened fire on police who were attempting to pull them over for a routine check. The seven apprehended were produced in the city's anti-terror court. Police say they were plotting to kill prime minister Yousaf Raza Golani and Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi both of whom hail from the Punjabi city of Multani. Police say they learned of the terror plots which

also targeted senior police and military officers during the initial interrogation of the defendants who include a university lecturer in Islamic studies. Julie McCarthy NPR News Islamabad. The U.S. government is doing everything possible to help the family of the American man reportedly killed by Mexican pirates on a border lake. And Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is assailing the absolute barbarity of terrorists and criminals saying the beheading of a Mexican investigator shows exactly what we're dealing with. Pam Colter NPR News Washington. Support for NPR comes from FJC a foundation of donor advised funds working to maximize the effectiveness of charitable giving at FJC dot org. That afternoon I'm Kalee Crossley and this is the Calla Crossley Show we have award winning writer Dennis Lehane in our studio today to talk about his forthcoming book Moonlight

Mile. He's a local boy who's made the big time by way of his bestselling books like Shutter Island and Mystic River. The second annual Boston book festival has brought him back to Beantown. And we're delighted to have him join us to slang welcome. Thank you for having me. I first I just have to ask you about the book festivals in general because I think it's a great. It looks like a great fun thing for writers like yourself and I once had a writer tell me it's very different from book signings What do you think. I never I never noticed a distinction there I think that they're both what I like about festivals and I like about signings is because you know you spend so much of your day in a room years sometimes in a room and you don't know who you're writing to and then all of a sudden they show up when you do a book signing or when you do a festival. I don't think that's really neat. I love it. You know it's one of my favorite aspects of the job. OK great. So Saturday folks will be able to see you at the Boston Book Festival. Now one of the things you'll be talking about is a preview of your latest book Moonlight Mile which is a follow up to

Gone Baby Gone those characters and Gone Baby Gone. Yeah. And so why did you feel the need to revisit those characters. You know it's I didn't feel the need they came knocking on the door that's the way I've always put it with them. I can only write about them when they are really any character but particularly them when they tell me to do so or when they get in my head and they had just gone silent for about 11 years. I used to picture them in a room somewhere and and the phone would ring and they'd see my name on the caller ID and if they don't pick up don't pick up. So finally they just sort of knocked on the door and started talking and I think you know I wondered if there was fan pressure and other pressure because the end of Gone Baby Gone leaves us all going. Well yeah. So then I wrote prayers for her and I wrote the fifth book in the series in 1999 as a sort of you know let's do a little closure which I'm not a big fan of Personally I think it's a myth that has been shoveled down our throat by Oprah. But I thought all right I'll give I'll give the

fans closure I wrote the last book in what I thought was a series I thought that was the last book and then they went away for five. Well for 11 years and then they came back and obviously there was something about the Amanda McCready case the girl goes missing in Gone Baby Gone. That just didn't want to lie down and just it just kept coming back up and so I decided to revisit it. And having read the book it does answer a few questions that it really again makes you have a few thoughts about because I like the ambiguity of Gone Baby Gone at the end of that. And I think that's what drew a lot of people to it wondering well what would I do in this in the same situation. Yeah a lot of people and certainly I saw it again when the movie came out. What I saw was the split down gender lines it tends to be women tend to have a very clear sense on what they would do. And so women tend to take very much more a strict relative morality approach to it within this situation I would not that let that little girl go home. Men tend to say well we can't just decide who we let live with their parents and who we don't.

So it tends to split gender lines and I find that really fascinating. I find the argument really interesting and I think it's going to be picked up again with this book that's what I'll say ok to everything because it's really pretty interesting. Now one of the things about this book and every other book that you've written it's based in by so Boston everything about it is Buston. Yeah so I mean I know that your experience growing up here but was there more about Boston that makes you want to write about it in this way. You know it's just it's it's my well and and so I have a perfectly good well that's still drawing water. And so when people say Would you ever think about running someplace else. It was going to be my question why would I why would I cross the field to go to somebody else as well when my well has still drawn plenty of water. I'm fine. I I love the city of fastener with the city. My. Is my dad when anybody gave me the sort of addiction to it because he hated highways so we used to just drive the streets even when nobody was doing it in. We

crossed neighborhoods to get to other neighborhoods which in the 1970s nobody did in the inner city they always got on the expressway. So I just I got this real hopeless head over heels love affair with the city. And it's like any love affair there are days you know you just you just kind of wish you could get a divorce you know but the vast majority of time you're in it you love it it's great. So why why do you love it so much. I don't know it's unique for one thing the more I travel the more I see how few unique places are left in this country. I mean the vast majority of America that I can see and that I've seen is a sort of suburban homogenized America in which the only way Tom Wolfe has a line the only way you can tell you've entered a new town is by the 7-Eleven 7-Elevens new border into the next place. And it's you know it's all 7-Elevens and Abercrombie and Fitch isn't everybody kind of thinks the same and looks the same and talks the same and they have Bostons. Now it's very different. It's very. It's just a unique place people.

You have to get out of here to understand how different this is from the rest of the country. I think you know when you look at unique cities you look at Boston you look at New York certainly look at Chicago Philly. San Francisco seems a very particular you know Pittsburgh has something to it but Akron not so much. You know Des Moines not so much. A lot of places where it seems like it used to be communities were built around a church. Now it seems like they built around a mall and that I find just really it may work for other people but it's not my thing. I like it here. I like my Dunkin Donuts and my Newbury Comics and my and my just like guys who you know call everybody kid you know. I like the way the city works. It's interesting because when you started writing these books of course many years ago so in a span of you know some 30 years of your writing these books featuring Boston as a character and then just how old are you guys.

All right. OK 20 years OK. There's been a huge change in the city. I mean is this today's Boston is very different. I would say even from reading your latest book I read the book and I think this is a place in a time and I know people like that live here but it's very different now. Yeah it is. And I think I would I wrote about it very much. I wrote about that very much in Mystic River that was what Mr. Gore was about Jen here comes gentrification. What is he going to do this neighborhood. And and I think in the Patrick book whenever he is in Dorchester in this new book he is talking about the sort of the my neighborhood when Vietnamese went to the neighborhood where I grew up which was Irish Polish when I was there is now sort of Vietnamese Cambodian. So he doesn't he does note that and then I think if I were to look at Boston now I'd want to look at specifically and look at Boston 2010. I'd want to look at the way it has been gentrified now. And yet the old things are still underneath. You just gotta know where to scratch. But you have a city that suddenly looks

very different than the city I grew up in you know a very small city that had the really low bond rating. The city was in really rough shape is suddenly it's not that city anymore and yet we still have an underclass. And yet we still have a lot of issues that the economic issues facing us we have a lot of social injustice still going on in the city. There's a lot of things going on. I brought I wrote an editorial in The Boston Globe a couple weeks ago because I bristled at a line with the Boston Globe seem to be taking us writers to the woodshed for writing dark stories about this city. And I thought you know and they said this is not representative of most people's experience and I said really because that would be news to people and not a pan that would be news to people in Dorchester that would be news to people in Roxbury where we still have generational poverty we still have generational violence. We still have just this terrible cycle spinning over and over and over and over and over again. And I think to just say that's not Boston is is a lie and it's going to end it. That's an it's type of sweeping the problem under the rug which I don't believe it. So we have

you know we're still in transition we're still in flux I think as a country we're still in flux and it's everything is moving so fast that I'm not sure I can keep up sometimes be honest you know when people say Do you tweet man I wouldn't even know I would even know how to do it. Do you do that on your phone. Yeah do it on an abacus. Yeah I mean well you have your phone you computer. Yeah. OK that's all right. You know I'm lost I'm not quite a lewd act but if I'm in the I'm in the vicinity. All right so let me go back to just the changes in Boston as you've described them and how your characters and Moonlight Mile your latest book reflect that or observe that a little bit but you know they're not really they they're observing it but it's interesting to me because if you know lots of people don't know that 54 percent of busted now is is minority. Right right. And but your characters interact with a lot of people in the community but they're of a certain you know they remind you of the direction. Neighborhood really yeah yeah yeah. Absolutely I mean you have to dip your toe in some of

these other populations. I would dip in only in so far as it's the same question as to why don't I write about another community in another state say another area. I think I can do it. But the end of the day I'm a tourist. I'm on the outside of the glass looking in. And and if I could have Patrick enter into a an issue or a community that that I found interesting in a way that I said OK he'll be my tourist he'll be me as a tourist. But what I write from the inside out. No I don't think I understand at this point. Certainly an interesting Cambodian culture in a way that I could. I don't think I don't think I could understand Brazilian culture enough if I wanted to dive in for 10 years and and learn. I guess I could but you know I mean I'd rather I'd rather see the great Brazilian novelist come out and do that I would rather see the great Cambodian American writer come out of Dorchester you know I mean like like Come join the tent we're all here you know. But I don't necessarily think at 45 years old I'm the guy to go navigate

those waters. OK. No not at this point I understand. Certainly I think I feel very comfortable. I think I could write from the perspective of an African American if they were from Pandora just rocks. You know where I get it where I can sort of understand your Grove Hall attack and kind of I can float in here you know. But but no I don't I honestly don't think I could say grasp the culture of the Brazilians in Allston or in some of oh you know I mean I think I could just only as a tourist come in and I could write about it. But so it makes sense. Yeah and it's and a lot of people don't know you don't live there anymore. I do live here. Well this is you know I do. Well you're in Florida. I'm in Florida half the time when I'm in Charleston the other half of the time. Everybody knows where to find me in Charleston. And yeah I've been working my way steadily back. I was I was I went down on those steps from a clean

getaway I want to teach in Florida and I met my wife. Simple as that. So I couldn't look her in the eye and say I can only write in Boston. I tried but she called B.S. on that so. So I'm working my way back were here six months now every year and I think we'll be at a nine month point within within four years. How do you do this split screen in terms of you know keeping that sort of Boston focused. I mean obviously living every six months helps but you've got to be influenced by Florida and what you're experiencing there. And you've been teaching down there as well writing so I wonder a little bit but I'm just not at the end of the day I think this is so in my blood now it would have been a few years ago but now I just it's it's ingrained. I mean it's just it takes seconds to get the mind set back it doesn't take me long at all. OK. I would have a drink and I was in a little bar and and this guy kept coming in and thanking me for writing the for writing The Departed.

And thank you for saying I didn't write that if you know I mean and. And he said Yeah yeah so was Jack Nicholson like you know what I mean. I'm like that's Boston. You know what I mean. I didn't write it. I know you didn't but what was their mission. So so yeah it doesn't take me long to get the mindset back. Well I mean I think that's a perfect segue to what you're going to be talking about at the Boston Book Festival this year which is about taking books and going to screen and I think the reason that he would think that you would have written The Departed is so many of your books have been turned into movies. So in essence a lot of people's impression and understanding of what Boston is is really that which you have created. Yeah I'm sure I'm sure Mayor Menino loves me. Yeah it's like if there's if there's a gun in a bar fight must've written it you know I mean there's a movie and there's a gun in a bar fight it happens in Boston must be playing. I've already had one person come up and thank me for running the town. You know we dislike you both you know the guy who wrote the book or the guy who wrote the script are friends of mine. I did

not do that. But you did write mystic just so people know you know Mystic River Shutter Island Gone Baby Gone Baby Gone Yeah okay yeah I wrote the book and other wonderful people wrote the screenplays and yeah I think when I started writing about it not too many people were writing about the neighborhoods they were writing you know you saw people writing about Boston you know Parker most famously Robert B Parker. But people were writing about Dorchester or ever to Chelsea Charlestown you know people are doing that. I was and then when I did Mystic River I was so much wanted to write about all the neighborhoods that I said let me just create one representative neighborhood. And that's how East Buckingham was created and and and then the movie gets made and something hits this I guess it becomes vogue it becomes involved to do Boston. For lack of a better word Boston gangster stories I guess. Well I want to give our listeners a chance to hear a little piece from Mystic River. If there's someone out there there's a

moonlight Mystic River first. This is from the 2003 film Mystic River it's based on Lane's novel of the same name it stars Sean Penn as Jimmy Markham who is reunited with two childhood friends after his daughter's murder. And in this scene Jimmy mourns the loss of his daughter with his friend Dave Boyle played by Tim Robbins. It's like people who like to pee. Will. You go for Clark. I want. And if you start a pistol you know you can cry. My own little daughter you know I can't fly. Jimmy. That's there you see even though you don't write it seems to me has the essence of what I wrote that's what you have to do yeah yeah directly you have a scene in the book. Yeah and how do you feel when you hear that. I mean does I mean a book in a movie a totally differently I say Oh yeah yeah.

It just feels. It feels weird. I don't I don't know as to put it I look at it and I just go Oh what a wonderful alterna universe of my books. I think I love all three films and I'm big fans of all three films but I have only been able to watch them once. Really. Yeah it's you know that feeling you get when maybe you don't get a question on the radio but you'll feel most people get when they hear their voice on a recording. And it's like oh I don't know about that. I take that magnified by about two million and you're somewhere near what you'd feel seen your words spoken by an actor on a 70 foot screen. It's really strange. So I did it one time and one time only and then I just go. I'm good I'll never never see that again. Even the DVDs they set my house in they're still in the cellophane room. Wow. Yeah I watched about 10 minutes of Mystic River wants to be a Latino because I wanted to hear Sean Penn say is that my daughter in Spanish. I thought that was cool but that's it. So I

don't know how else to describe it it's this alterna universe and I'm I'm very happy with it. But I don't really engage it. Now here's the thing that I think as just a person enjoying your work whether on the screen or in the book. Yeah. How do you as a writer you've written these words these are yours you created them they're in your head they come knocking when they want you to come back to them. But now I would think it would be Casey Affleck. Amy Ryan from Gone Baby Gone when you write a follow up to that and it's you know no how do you you don't do you see them in your head when you're writing Patrick and Angie. Not at all not at all. They're they're so. My patronage or my Patrick and Angie and in the book they're 44 years old. Forty four and forty three. Where is Casey Affleck was 30 in Gone Baby Gone so if I were to write you know I mean if I was think about Casey Affleck I'd be trying to age him and all this case he was an actor interpreter in a role and he did a phenomenal job I love that character. But it's not my Patrick it's Casey's Patrick. And he did

a terrific job. My Patrick is over here said in my books and very much locked into my head and I know what he looks like and I know I just know a completely different Patrick. And so no I think I have this really clear sense of the bifurcation between a book and a film. I've always had it I've had it long before I wrote and I can enjoy both. But I never mix the two they never can I can sit there and tell you how much I love the book L.A. Confidential and I can tell you how much I love the movie L.A. Confidential. But they're two totally different entities to me. So the same thing with my own work. OK. Alene Amy Ryan. That's my favorite performance of any of my characters Amy Ryan and Hellene McCready and carrying on. I love her but I'd also written for her on the wire so I knew her as a totally different type but you know I've I've written two different roles. So when she did that character she nailed it she killed it. It's a perfect perfect performance. When I brought Helene McCready back in Moonlight Mile I never once thought of Amy Ryan I thought

of the holly McCready that I had in my head when I first created her in 1997. Well let's listen to a little of Patrick and endure Patrick and Angie from your book Moonlight Mile. Do you. I'd love you to read a passage with just an exchange between the two of them. Oh yeah this is this is right after Patrick has been beat up and he's sitting at the table with Angie who is now his wife and their daughter Gabriella. So so yes he has a child now. You know what's funny Angie asked in a voice that suggested something that wasn't. I do not I assured her most private investigators don't get kidnapped and assaulted. The practice is rumored to be trending upward I said. She frowned and I could feel both of us trapped inside ourselves not sure what to do with today's violence. There was a time we would have been experts at it. She would have tossed me an ice pack on her way to the gym expected me to be raring to get back to work by the time she got back. Those days were long gone though and today's return easy bloodshed drove us into our protective shells her shell is made of quiet fury and a kind of wary

disconnection. Mine is made of humor and sarcasm. Together we resemble a comedian family in an anger management class. It looks awful she said with a tenderness that surprised me. I said it only feels for five times as bad as it looks really I'm fine. That's the percocet she said and the beer I reminded her. I thought you weren't supposed to mix the two. I refused to bow to conventional wisdom I said I'm a decider and I've decided I want to feel no pain. How's that working out. I toasted her with my beer. Mission accomplished. I really love the way you are the exchange between those characters and the way you're able to. Just put their relationship on a page. In those dialogue exchanges I just love that. Oh thanks thanks yeah that's I mean the fun of them has always been there's a line I think in the book that I thought really summed up their relationship where he said. Marion Irish temper to Italian temper and you get broken dishes and I think that's you know they they love each they fight as fiercely as they love each other

they have this I have always had this very very much give and take tug of war relationship. But they're very much in love and they're equals. I like that in the way that you've portrayed them. There yes and that was again that's a perfect example of a distinction. And I adore Gone Baby Gone I think in a weird way of all my films it's my favorite because it was shot purely in my neighborhood and I think Ben I understand Ben Affleck understands let me put a pause here let people just hear a little clip for sure so they can put it in their head that this is a trailer from the 2000 film Gone Baby Gone is based on Dennis Lane's novel of the same name. It's directed by Ben Affleck The film follows two private investigators as Patrick and Angie in their search for an abducted 4 year old girl for your own shots on the street for young kids to talk about they want to warn you about 10 percent of the song. This is day three. People in the neighborhood don't talk to the police. Water. They want to hire you to augment the investigation. You still have my dog. Soon. Son you have to

come to see. Us. I just that that film had a mood to it. A sense of place in which always what you're achieving is you're writing to us and it's a really authentic Boston movie. I mean and that's probably why it's got a little kind of special favor flavor for me because only a Bostonian could have made that movie the way that Ben Affleck made that movie. I mean he just even even to the point where there were points where he was shooting streets that gun every gun is the only book that has I could trace some factual minutiae to it and there were certain times where I'd say to Bennett say you know you're shooting on the street we're actually one of these events have actually happened. He had no clue. I mean it was that kind of alchemy was going on. So so the only thing having said all that the only thing that we ever disagreed on and we were very clear that we would always have a gentleman's agreement about how we spoke about it was that it was Angie and Angie in the

movie is not the end of the books and she's just not the same character is not the same person at all. So what I love about Angie in the books is that she is. She never gives in and she's 100 percent. Patrick's equal 100 percent his peer and I and I like that I enjoy writing them in that way because every time he's just going to get a little too cocky and become a little bit too much the guy she takes him down a peg you know. So it's fun. You as you write these characters. I was interested also in your just focus on you know little class issues that rise. Sure through the book there's a section in there I'd love you just a little piece of you know what you achieve in and in the book and try to just be I think in people's heads about you know what's going on now. OK well this is the scene where Angie is there looking for Amanda McCready has disappeared again now she's 16 17 years old and they run into a woman at a dog park and who may or may not have seen her. And she says I can't understand why this woman is not really being forthcoming and she says this girl could very much regret running

away. Harvard was waiting for Yale wherever she wanted to go. The woman yanked on a dog's leash so she could watch enter some cubicle at a slightly higher rate of pay. Hang her Harvard diploma on the partition wall. She spends the next 30 40 years learning how to short stock and steal people's jobs and houses and therefore in one case but that's OK because she went to Harvard sleeps like a baby at night tells herself she's not to blame it's the system. Then one day she finds a lump in her breast and it's not ok anymore but nobody cares honey because you made your bed so do us all a favor and die in it. The woman's eyes were red by the time she finished in her free hand shook as she reached into a person came back with a cigarette. The air in the park felt raw and she looked like she was in minor shock. I'd taken one step back. The woman had never raised her voice but the rage she dispelled into the atmosphere had been so torn and pitiable it had rattled us all. And it wasn't rare. Quite the contrary. You asked a simple question lately. I made an innocuous aside and suddenly you were the recipient of a hollow of loss and fury.

We no longer understood how we got in here. We couldn't grasp what had happened to us. We woke up one day and all the street signs had been stolen all the navigation systems had shorted out. The car had no gas. The living room had no furniture. The imprint in the bed beside us had been smoothed over. It's amazing to me that you are able to continue to capture that feeling because obviously you're way beyond working class at this point in your life. That was a good part of your early life. It was a good part of my early life and most of my friends are still working class. And so I've watched them go through this economy. Look I took a hit in this economy lot of people took a hit in this economy but but my hit was more like oh I didn't get to resell my house for what I thought I'd get for it that's that's you know. Yeah not quite different. Yeah exactly where I have other friends who are honestly they don't know if they're going to be able to pay for their kids next year schooling their benefits have been cut. It's a scary terrifying world out there and the fact of the matter is that everybody who we

trusted to take care of us lied to us and let us down. And I don't know that. I'm not sure this is a different shaking of our confidence than say what happened in the 70s with with Nixon. This is far worse in a way you know. And and I don't know how we're going to recover. I honestly don't. And and so that's what this book and a lot of ways is about Patrick's a guy who's an independent contractor he has no benefits he has no support system and he's at a point where he has a wife he has a daughter and there's little going to do. There's no money coming in. That's right. You know so so I wanted to take a look at that. And the good thing about the Patrick books is you can take a look at things. Without getting on your soapbox something about his voice allows me to be. I don't know if there's a touch to it that I carry and I was ready to get away with it without being like rah rah rah rah rah you know. Yeah right and I agree. Yeah. So what's next. Moonlight miles a follow up to Gone Baby Gone and don't come knocking for another two I don't know. Yeah.

The next book I think is going to be set during prohibition it's going to be my sequel to the given day the book that was preceded this about the Boston police strike and then I've got some various of irons in the fire in terms of TV but I can't get any spin. I can't get any more specific about it than that. Too bad. I know I'm sorry. You once said a long time ago that you want to hope that you would never when you became successful become kind of a jerk. You said in a different language what we want so yeah okay yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah Abel did I think so. You know a friend of mine had a great line. I felt great about this. My boss at the time the head of my publishing company said to a buddy of mine he's so he's so humble he's so down to earth has he always been this way and my buddy said Oh no he used to be a lot more arrogant you know. And I think that's some weird way I've become a lot less cocky and a lot more aware of how I need to than I used to be. I was much more of a jerk and I think that a lack of a better word my 20s and I am now.

OK well we're all the better for it. I've Calla Crossley we've been speaking with award winning writer Dennis Lehane. His forthcoming book is Moonlight Mile hits the bookstores on November the 2nd. And thanks to the Boston book festival you can catch Dennis Lehane this Saturday at 1:30 at the Back Bay event center. He'll be participating in a panel titled from page to screen moderated by The Boston Globe's film critic Ty Burr more info at Boston Book Fest dot org. Up next its actors Tina Packer on the women of William Shakespeare. We'll be back after this break. Stay tuned. Eighty nine point seven. WGBH. Support for WGBH comes from you and from Solomon's collection and find rugs in Quincy now accepting entries from kids ages 11 to 14 for their design a rug contest for the WGBH 2011 auction to download an entry form you can go to

Solomon rugs dot com and from new Repertory Theatre presenting Cherry docs by David Gallo directed by David R. Gammons and featuring Tim Elliott a new rep favorite Benjamin ep it. Runs October 17th through November 7th info at new rep dot org. And from outside GC. Providing on demand in-house corporate legal counsel to growing and established companies. You can find more information on the web at w w w dot outside GC dot com. On the next FRESH AIR Philip Roth talks about his new novel Nemesis set during the polio epidemic in the 1940s. The novel draws on Roth's memories growing up in the 40s. Also jazz pianist D.J. Iyer describes what it's been like as one of the first successful jazz musicians whose parents came from India. Join us for the next FRESH AIR. This afternoon it to an eighty nine point seven WGBH. Hi Brian O'Donovan PR from help exposure and if you explore the roots

and branches of Celtic music with me every Saturday then consider starting another tradition by discovering the pure joy of the eighth annual presentation of A Christmas Celtic soldier and joined the WGBH Celtic help with a gift of one hundred fifty dollars and I'll send you two complimentary tickets to the show. Details online at WGBH dot org slash Celtic. Everybody posses loans to the world. He has he didn't just get in front he's wrong and he definitely gave me my money. Coming up at 3 o'clock on eighty nine point seven. WGBH. Good afternoon I'm Kalee Crossley and this is the Calla Crossley Show. My guest Tina Packer is a Shakespearean actor director and scholar. She's also the founding artistic director of Shakespeare and Company. Her acclaimed performance women of will a tour of Shakespeare's heroines is the centerpiece of a Shakespearean character on trial. A

two day series of events happening this weekend at Wellesley College. To the Packer welcome hello Kelly. I'm very excited about this because I am just interested in all things Shakespeare to begin with and yourself fabulous. So how can we live here. Let's talk specifically about the production women of will is structured around certain groupings of female characters Yes. And there's five acts in the show. Yes 10 women of the one hundred seventy seven characters that Shakespeare created. Yeah. Well. One of the groupings telling us well why did you do it that well what I'm doing is following the progression if you will of Shakespeare's writing in other words I looked at all the characters in the chronological order in which he wrote them. And I really wanted to see did they change did he get better at writing women. Could we hear anything through the women's voices that we couldn't hear through the men's voices. And the answer to all these questions is yes you know that in fact as Shakespeare

matured his writing of the women you know in the early days he just projects on women you know there are the virgins all the holes that shrews all those sweet little things you know. And and then as he gathers he start shifting. And then really starts writing from inside women. And one has to ask what happened to him that he did start so with Juliette you suddenly get an embodied woman. Do you know what I mean. And from then on he his writing of the women is so full and because there are only about 100 77 I mean it depends on how you count you know all faeries women you know. OK. OK. But there are about 177 to about seven hundred seventy men so when the women are always outside they're always the outsiders there's two or three of them in the play as opposed to a whole mass of men and they're always looking at the power structure and seeing how they like how they figure in the power structure how the power structure affects them you know can they be powerful

can they not. Are they going to be killed raped murdered what's going to happen to them. And so if you look at Shakespeare's writing from the beginning to the end you see how profoundly He changes in his relationships to women. Gallium by the end of his life he's saying For God's sake men get with the program if we don't listen to what the women are saying we're all going to be dead. So he turns out to be an incredible feminist. By the end of his life of course I like you know yours. I want to pick up on something you said. You know he he writes through women yet is that me. Well I meant that instead of writing about women you do. Do you know what I mean in other words. It's a real shift between him looking at women and thinking oh she's cute she's there she's that you know. So you can hear this masculine kind of voice judging that woman over there. Then he becomes the woman. So it's like an actor

taking on of the role he becomes the woman. So every nuance of her thought her sexual passion her intellectual passion all these things start getting reflected which are there in these dumbbell women or these shrews Well they are they're a bit more in the shrews but. It's like he embodies them he takes them on they're in his body and he writes as if he's a woman and he understands what women think and feel. And I do think it's because he was an actor that I was able to do that I think that's that he was an actor and like any good actor he's suddenly got it about these particular people who happen to be not the same sex as him but he's suddenly get got just as an act to do. And you know we play all kinds of people not necessarily our own sex but but also people who do things that we would never do and yet we know how it feels as an actor to be a serial murderer for instance or somebody who's just you know got

so little power that they bounce all over the place. Even though we're not like that. What an actor's gift is to be able to understand the psychology of other people and making your own thinking to come out like that so that's what he does he takes on the women they he embodies the women are there. Just a quick comparison someone you can think of yes doesn't do that who just sort of stands back doesn't right through the one eye Well I think most of. I know. That's not me. I'm now we know where you are now. Oh it's really obvious you're not you know I mean somebody like Bear writes great women you know incredible Tolstoy writes great women so you know of course any great artist. Well just look at the Greek authors college women and you know women in Greece were not allowed out the house they weren't allowed any say anything they had to live in the back. They didn't even have names didn't even have names in legal documents there. The daughter of so and so or the husband of so-and-so and yet you look in Greek drama

and you repeat these and Sophocles. All right all right these great women characters. So you see if an artist actually a true deep cover artist can do this will take on artists of mostly be male in the past will take on the women's voice and really start saying things through the women's voice and you can see the story Shakespeare's own psychological development you know deepening and understandings things that you he wouldn't he would never have seen if he hadn't taken on the women characters if you hadn't bothered them. Does that make sense to you. It makes perfect sense. Yeah. I wonder what it is that attracts you to certain of his women there other than the fact that he evolved in and became a feminist but you know early on it wasn't so. Yeah and your kindness and richness and those characters as well. Well you know the very first part which I call the warrior women from violence to

negotiation actually the first woman I do is Kate in Taming Of The Shrew and she early on says My tongue will tell the anger of my heart or else my heart concealing it will break. And rather than IT SHALL I will be free even to the uttermost as I please in words. So you get that he feels that she's oppressed and she's got to say what she thinks and feels. But by the end of the play he's abandoned that woman he's abandoned completely and he makes it right for Patou Keogh to bully her take away her clothes take away have food and force her into speaking the language he speaks you know he forces her. And there's no moral condemnation on Shakespeare's part of that is like oh this is the order of things. That's what should happen to it that's right and good. Do you understand me he's not understanding. And yet by the time you get to you know the like a Rosalind in as you like it Rosalind who is banished and and has to go and live in another place actually turns

that into by disguising herself as a man and living underground which is the third part called Living underground or dying to tell the truth. By living underground and disguising herself she's able to actually start finding out who she is herself by having a language. But then also organizing everybody else and she's living in the forest so there's no social political structure you know. So that's the third section of the play. OK we're coming back. My guess is he a backpacker we're talking about the women of William Shakespeare Desdemona Lady Macbeth Juliet Mozart when we come back after this break. Stay with us. Support for WGBH comes from you and from Boston private banking Trust Company Boston private bank provides private and commercial banking and investment management

and trust services to individuals and businesses. You can learn more by visiting Boston private bank dot com and from the New England mobile book fair in Newton. For 53 years. New England's independent bookstore. The New England mobile book fair find them online at any book fair dot com. That's an e-book fair dot com. And from your New England Toyota dealer. Celebrating 10 years and three generations of the technologically advanced nature inspired Toyota Prius hybrid. You can learn more at by a Toyota dot com. Next time on the world Swiss born Islamic scholar Tariq Ramadan says Westerners are growing more intolerant of Islam and he says Mainstream Muslims are getting tired of having to defend their religion. So let us work together. Instead of asking us to justify by saying Islam is the controversial Islamic scholar Tariq Ramadan coming up next time on the world. Coming up at three o'clock here at eighty nine point seven. Believe it or not 2011 is right around the corner. But before the ball drops. Eighty nine

point seven needs your help in getting the WGBH 2011 challenge. It's 2011 listeners become WGBH sustainers before January Burns an eighty nine point seven can eliminate the first on your fundraiser of the year. Make the switch to sustainer and maybe 9.7 your NPR station for more news more music and much fun reading more on line at WGBH dot org. Brian O'Donovan Come join me every Saturday at 3 for a good old fashioned session on a Celtic So you're not on any 9.7 WGBH. Afternoon I'm Kalee Crossley and this is the Calla Crossley Show we're talking about the women of William Shakespeare with my guest Tina Packer. She's a Shakespearean actor director and scholar. Tina Here's a question. You're a stated feminist you said. Shakespeare caught up with you too at the end of his life. One of the characters you're playing is

Juliet. Yes. Thirteen yes but Europe mature woman yes leave right but any age out there. So do you bring a certain today feminist sensibility to that that maybe he didn't intend or how do you how do you handle that. I do. I have to tell you Ali what I do is I just think Juliet I be Juliet. So I'm following Shakespeare's questions rhythms cadences and I just my thinking switched switches to her thinking. And because he's such a brilliant writer the way in which he thinks allows me to become HAR. So she says you know what's in a name. A rose by any other name would smell as sweet so Romeo would. Well you know Romeo called retain that dear perfection which he always without that take a Romeo doll thanks you know she's the thinking patterns become my thinking patterns. And it's really just through her spirit that I do it you know and I'm hoping the spirit is so strong they

forget I'm a slightly overweight middle aged woman. I know I do. Because I want what I want and I know you have a different take on it then you might. I don't know I think I think the only thing that I can do which I couldn't do now then is that I have the technique to often switch. I can I can allow my voice to actually be my thoughts much more than I could when I was in my 20s you know. And there have been actually some incredible for I remember Sibyl Thorndyke was 42 when she got to play. So I know there have been some incredible maturer Juliet's that have actually managed to nail it. I don't think I could probably email the whole part but I can do the balcony scene you know and I am mad about my scene partner Nigel Gore so I can he's middle aged and I was. So it all works out. Yes I have to ask you which one of Shakespeare's women are you the most fond of and I ask that by way of saying For me it's Lady Macbeth and she is just

horrible I know but I just love I love that play it starts off with women then you get the evil woman at the center like that. Yeah. That says something about you. I know it does. I mean I write I have to say it is one of my favorites as well you know I mean I I just in fact the Macbeth sequences the longest sequence in the play we do about 20 minutes of that we did go from the top of the play to all the way through to the end in 20 minutes. And it is one of my favorite sections and why I love it so much is that you say This is Section 4 so it's called Chaos is come again. The lion eats the wolf and what you see in this is that the woman's voices and it's a period of despair for Shakespeare I think. The women's voices have no separate voice from the men so all this masculine drive for power for supremacy for my way or the highway I've got the biggest army the largest economic power I'm going to force you into doing what I want. The women joined at that point like Corey

lane as his mother the law. They joined the masculine voice. And what happens is is fascism ends and ends up happening. So I love doing Lady Macbeth because I love seeing her. Suddenly realizing that she wants to be his dearest partner in greatness she wants to have power and all that she knows about power she wants what he wants and so she's going to be twice as bad as him in a way and if he starts becoming kind of more feminine and wondering about this unpoetic know she's going to push him because that's what he wants and that's what she wants and they're gonna get it. And of course he thinks he's going to make their relationship into the best relationship of all time. And of course it destroys it. You know it absolutely destroys it. So I love following that progression. I mean it's perverse it's like you say well she's my favorite. But theater is in a way about allowing yourself to see your own evil your own deepest darkest thoughts your own blood

lust. You know it's a place where you can see it and therefore in a way by seeing it not do it in life I mean it really does it really has a real function. And I think that often movies and the Internet because they're show so short in their thoughts spans and in their motion their to to later remiss Sheens rather than really allowing yourself to think deeply about it and theater does do that. So you know I'm very hopeful as time goes on that theater is going to make a huge comeback because our society is going to need it for its own health. So now let me. This is my favorite. Are you saying she's your friend she's one of my favorites. Yes but I do like some of the later women as well I love Paul Lyneham in Winter's Tale for instance because she's the one that makes it all come right. In many ways she's a witch you know. And she says to lay on Tees he said I'll have you burnt because she keeps on telling him the truth and he's going to kill us for it and she says I cannot. It is an heretic that makes the

fire not she that burns in it. And she says things like that I love saying those lines you know. There's just something so powerful about that. And of course the other woman I just adore is Cleopatra. I mean you go girl just got exactly. And I again I love Cleopatra because you know she's from the beginning very narcissistic and by the time she comes to the end. She's actually Sheehan and truly find each other. And the second part is called the sexual merges with the spiritual new knowledge. So it's all about this understanding that Shakespeare got with these great lovers beginning with Romeo and Juliet and obviously looking at Beatrice and Benedick for instance Troilus and Cressida who decimated by the war but finally Antony and Cleopatra how they the power structure in fact destroys them but they

find a love for each other which transcends all that. And Antony and Cleopatra for me is the greatest example of that both power hungry individuals who love each other in the beginning and by the end of the play they're actually saying love for each other is greater than the whole of the kingdoms of the Roman Empire and so on and so forth so I love Cleopatra as well and I did play. So I just I feel I scratched the surface and Nigel was Antony in that as well so I feel as if as if we just scratched the surface and I don't know whether we'll ever get back to it. But anyway that part appears in the Part Two part. Speaking of transcending you know there people say all the time that Shakespeare's language transience you know there are the themes that you've selected in these groupings Yes seem to suggest as a transcending of themes. With regard to women in their lives yet the way that we need to pay attention yes. Yeah and that's what you're saying. That is what I'm saying what I'm saying that. So if you actually start

looking at the language that he uses he gets greater and greater in his language as he goes on. And you know this conference at Wellesley It's called Shakespeare character on trial. Well the truth is one of the ways in which you can understand Shakespeare characters is not just by the actions that they take though obviously that's key and not just in the way their thought patterns like I was doing with with Juliet but also in the structure of the verse. So if you get a late play like Winter's Tale and you get her money some of her verse is sublime So the line will go since what I am to say must be but that. Which contradicts my accusation and the testimony on my part no other. But what comes from myself it still scares blew me to say not guilty mind integrity. And can you tell where the line endings are with that because there's a thought. The line endings and he's pausing in

all kinds of odd places and that's where you start seeing the building of the character. Why does she pause there. Why is she getting a new thought there when it's an. And you know she's getting a new thought after the end of a nan and of course with her man in that speech she just came out of prison she's just she's very weak she's near death which is. But then she says mine integrity. And then she starts building out of her integrity and then powers divide and she starts building out of that. I don't know if I've explained that very well very well and so there are all these things. And in fact this whole conference that they're doing at Wellesley is about how performance and scholarship need to be able to come together. So the new house Center which is supporting this and I want to support them you know is actually saying that theatre practitioners and academics have got a lot to say to each other and they really want to put these things together so that we can look and

bring all the things that theatre knows and obviously most of my life has been spent in theatre. But I also you know I'm I have an intellectual bent as you know and I'm putting these things together I think is it. I think it's vital. And and that kind of knowledge embodied knowledge I call it when you hold it in the whole of your body and you experience what you're thinking about. Then we're going to get somewhere if you disassociate. We're going to disassociate ourselves into killing the world frankly. Well I think it's vital that this and interesting that this is going to be at a women's college yesterday color all of these things. Yes. So we have been talking about the women of William Shakespeare with my guest Tina Packer. She is a Shakespearean actor director and scholar. Thank you so much for joining us. Oh thank you. The Boston area premiere of her acclaimed performance of women of will is a centerpiece of Shakespearean character on trial. The two day series of events this weekend at Wellesley College.

It's sponsored by the new house Center for the Humanities all events are free and open to the public. To learn more log on to our Facebook page or visit sick Shakespear dot org. This is the Calla Crossley Show where production of WGBH radio Boston's NPR station for news and culture.