Ernest J. Gaines on A Lesson Before Dying

tell people what my characters and and as the store they'd move and yeah countless anything in the book that says not leave the characters as i got out of on and a member of the last that surviving ah you're listening to kbr ninety point seven fm portland and we're ready to combine to that was really because of course when members of the narrative continues to gain says being interviewed by patricia watch you're more trouble than when it was only and then i like to go it those in which you want to do with their spouses their one cicada yell at the radio i'm patricia world's most of the programs like she went wrong direction for mozart and the library manager portland branch library thank you for joining us this the resentments are the same level as host of a serious all the to very special everybody reece interview organized by michael mccann eli very end the book that island college and a traditionally library foundation every bite he says the community really tragic cases involve about seven months internet is in tatters thousands of important areas areas as a beginning january we've all been reading and discussing one great book ernest j gaines a lesson before dying this classic book was chosen because it brings people of all ages together on common ground as someone worse about the moment we can live or act until you get the publicist was this tragic has been

tremendous this is julia chan of book lovers with the support of the library foundation the library provided three thousand six hundred copies of a lesson before dying and oh that's more than chicago use for similar project all of the subject of the early january seems families adults everybody has been coming to book groups for former says film screenings community forums to talk about this thought provoking and terrific book we are grateful for the support of presenting sponsor prep meyer and many other community partners have helped make everybody read such a success this week everybody read scalia's a visit by ernest and thick thick jay gates to portland is against the cia at the arlene schnitzer concert hall at seven thirty pm tickets are fifteen dollars and twenty dollars and will be available at the dorm and now i have the great honor of interviewing current state gains on k b o o portland's community radio station we joined today by a community applies the audience will be submitting questions

in this against our reagan in the second part that show ernest j gaines welcome to portland though this is portland's first everybody reads program it's like your in your first what you're book has been chosen as the book that everyone in town will be reading in a number of cities can you tell us what that was like the first time for an arctic know that a whole community was reading your book that it was that well thought of him and what it's like now that you've done this many times well you know all right and never knows what's going to happen to his book once you write the book but he feels that the book is published and avid public view of that his review and then it's after the interview you the public was it looked but found or the lesson is that there are so many things happen

oprah picked the book after four years and then now shadow passport of the oil once anyone read the discussion of a lot of well armed are thinking of the writer has ever had this experience art in the history of a country farm that's where cities as the cities all over the country picking up that one book and having all the people to low income and really recover fully our book love so a bit of rum vodka was not even aware of and youth and asian church members and all this good to read in the book so if there's a protest it's a great avenue in a writer i'm lucky i've made a lot of the ones really that level but that my book was chosen ominous was and i asked him i said why do you take

it for granted that he will be chosen that maybe once a year something will call you and say we're doing your book on the lawn a lot of hope also known as the last time i said what if a thousand writers out there and i met us that next time to discuss a book ok i have we all have lots of questions but some of my questions are coming and jefferson high school i just heard douglas tim ray clare says it hasn't ticked up their books said that they would share some other question so if i ask you a question that comes in that class i wanna let you know that as a matter fact odd the second level for such as say tell us a little bit about lessons for the fifteen people and sam who might not be familiar with the plot to give us a little synopsis and then just tell us what inspired you to write the book because that's what theo from jefferson high school wants to know one of the

first guys it's a brief synopsis of the lots of jesus somebody out that it was about a young man who has been sentenced to arm who was and with two other guys who robbed drug store went to a liquor store and the video they all have a story a skill and collision an appeal and this one young man chosen at another delivered when he was with him at the time and he is arrested tried is at his trial is compared to an animal town hall by the opposite that it's trying to lose people to this jury to show them what we want to add not have in a corner of the sky and the doctrine and this just does not have the intelligence to have committed this crime ball and usually compares him to go to an animal it but still has to is arrested

and he's going to prison and now he's been sentenced to be executed because the jury is back in the forties in the south louisiana the jury just well a white a white man was killed so on this twelve of his jewelry made up twelve white men because at that time in the south are on a white men served on juries calm citizen to buy arm is just as godmother and in louisiana a car approaches the young schoolteacher on the campus on a plantation and she wishes want him to visit jay allison and the jail because now chosen as began to act like animal that this thing that is so i'll describe so if she wishes that he would this young teacher visit him and some way make you realize that is not an animal that is a man before he dies she knows is

gonna die but she wishes that he does as around as a man and not as the animal disease as is described and the young and the old courtroom so this is sort of the problem ok and several young readers want to know why you chose to write this book what inspired you with something in your life for instance that your life the most of my life and seven sisko the scruff of a somewhat minimum lynn county and um i owned during that time when o'neill was an execution it would take on a rant on tuesday she's the morning and talk and i often wondered how it must deal with someone to know what is the diversity day at a certain hour you know this for several months what happens also we saw how

allows ifill and i was having nightmares about that because i feel myself are our family member all friends being executed this world all alone and i thought that the way to exercise that was throughout write about it so long when you write books are you writing just for yourself too to get something out of paper that you need to deal with our you're often writing without with the hope that your books will save the lifeline right because i have the right as a baseball player was play baseball all fine was fired up about football and i got right out of the forum for myself and a lot of ways and then from a lot of group that i'm writing for all i write because i have to write a country with nielsen to my wife

alma i read it right i wish i could be that they knew the real white by detaining you you'd find some ranches and that and then obliged of those characters the problem of the crop all they of the way that the book is written the spot amid all this is the cowardice believable is that the dialogue believable as the arm narrative believable of the locale place a can you see that place and you really believe in those people are the sort of the first atomic clock but they're detaining you then own like for you of course to get something out of it but i don't believe in preaching preach and as mark twain said to me the original teach about religion and be the object of writing a novel but that became his end result should be both a book you should get something out of the book with wild ride in

here right because this is set in the forties and yet the issues they're involved in this barbara topple the day i mean the whole issue of the death penalty the whole issue of what it means to be a man issue of personal responsibility these are all issues that are in the matter when you're reading what's the process of writing for you need some people get up at six o'clock everyone in some people wait so inspiration comes some people say i will the right mix of military brass every day what's your surprise there's no such thing as inspiration of faulkner once said writing is maya nine percent perspiration and one percent inspiration i don't wait for our inspiration a couple of the word right well let's get into my desk by nine o'clock when i'm writing it into the best buy nine and going for about five hours six hours whatever alm i still write longhand my first restaurant and i go to check out in longhand and then i tried to

protest and because of that one so this can i recall and here with my long planned attack against a red white people for hours of sunday so you're always a pot and then i am i going to write their first draft of the all of typing it as usual know real people then i my mojo a volley of white people would listen to my body to minimize our publisher in new york ok on to become a writer and there are lots of people who like to write and they know that in addition to their day job or wherever they will right but when did you make that transition and see yourself as a writer if you're like oh i'm a i am a writer and i don't know that i've made it yet

and still every book is a challenge to restore is a challenge but i decided to become a writer when i was about sixteen years old the designer and i i thought that i thought was a marble but no one else thought was also on a second the author of gaza city back to mount auburn again and in several of the yard they're in vallejo calif book tour and would be writers from that i was sixteen years old these you know other writers as a somebody that was a role model you know what i don't i did know a writer i am i visited the librarian in vallejo california a public library for the first time because i was not allowed to live and a lot of rhetoric and louisiana much as sol of books they are and with his back and forty nine and there were no books there in the library by like all about

blood and a vibrant and forty nine and north america i just read and read and read and calm i you know i thought i'll try to write i thought writing a book should not be too difficult because of the books in the library and many many of the thousands of boats they're so much fun to write a book and of course and i failed at the beginning and then i when i i wanted to get into the army spent two years the army when i came back out of the army i enroll the services the state university as it was censors the state college at that time and there are you know what i took home took a creative writing and in an american literature and i had a very good teacher and what they're good teachers at state services the state and encouragement to write about that

awkward cheetahs of class element anthem in nineteen fifty five was it was a month where the pointless seventeen so within contact since nineteen ninety one and belated happy birthday to you i've learned early definitive birthdays on january third you decide to come out and i felt like with your family at the road only to celebrate and social services that we feel about me being a writer all i don't look at me as a writer i think the government my mother my name is sam recovery ej are burning and my brother says to feel the same way i think that they you know that would just rather the system together i guess what i'm thinking of is you know a lot of us are it's all they can go out and get education and you get a man the flag benefits including sharp when you were coming up you just said that you didn't see that many african american writers but farmers sell so i'm just want to get your family think where did this come from where i always supported they say what it gets a job at the post office and do this on the fire

i am the kind of encouragement or a discouraged me was a time that the main event in the sport myself anyone a riot but because of what time job and a supportive so you know the recent book the brothers and sisters are you a mother doesn't sell and i don't i can assure you that there is a many many a top top top years between know graduating in fifty seven and up it's going to be recognized in sixty seven but it wasn't ten years the rule of a lot of the right amount i said ok ten years i couldn't prove that are find something else to do but i never knew what what i would do now a sort of crisis to someone the young says this as if you were a writer what could you can imagine in the i have no idea maybe a schoolteacher and i have no idea

what these violent changes that it's like to be alive during that time work in libraries are you know like the mahdi army about a part time job a moderate senators from states and olive oil also a commissioner of my roof commissioner and services to the citizens as though mr ahmet commissioner for the state of california theres a lot of committed the lovers all in the atlantic another one very young about questions latino do you have to stop the young men or to be a great writer what you start later in life ft jonathan ames i wish i could have said i wouldn't apply for him for the first time when i was sixteen years old with a nobel i've really for our i wish i'd have books when i was six years old i would've had to have shiso what are the makeup and sixteen that

problem as well six seven eight nine pm on i don't know of reading books at six to make your writing all weather report said that it will make it right that i think is something that you're born with it and you get in if you're lucky you will you find ways to our listeners as much as i was told was solidly ahead wonderful people too low to encourage middle of our one of the people of sport played it it i attended stanford university when you're an ipod it's never put two quarters and go i have someone in my class who was what eighty years old and she was this is going well and historically which he was writing and

like you said she's often used to be a writer did you mean that if you are successful says a successful c'est self sustaining person which if you could make a living off of it that made you a writer what if you're a writer who was not picked up by a publisher but who still loves to write three things that you respect and appreciate even if others don't are you any less of a writer because you don't have a country well i don't know people who would like to write or destroyed because of that because of not recognize all this is destroyed because they're not recognize at all but many people were destroyed because they recognize too early to know you write one book in your twenties and also mimic the rich on the hollywood

makes a return and now you want become a celebrity you become a professional celebrity right right you know you don't you don't write anymore so long i toss a little bit about your upbringing yeah i can imagine a time when i could i'm going to live free at the met as you feel like people are here but what was your upbringing like tells about little bit about that because it certainly comes through in ways you're writing also tells about your upbringing the implication which is primarily shoot and now at the time was a kid growing up was cotton and sugar ten i went to the over love money is all of you know picking cotton in irish retailers in ferguson and what the country school at a church in that was illiterate

we have less than six months of education that you know it's one pitcher we were going to school there so we're going to be a lot of religious school along that was pretty much my and i have six years of education like that if you go in education father went to a small catholic school for three years the california so that a family my mother and stepfather what california in nineteen forty half of the jobs in iowa and left me with my aunt my art was crippled why i never walked in i get them alive still she raised me and my siblings and the oldest known altogether that will work well what at that time around about six of us and

chronological she lived in a mid fifties archie arm she should've cooked the food for us of what would bring everything to the soul of the arm would winning still where she would make sense there ah she was not told to bring the water that took no water or divorce or a missile and software that egyptian regime she says racial our hands of a similar tale and it was killed was their own sales of discipline us aware of that well it would have been wrong how to break your sleeves and susan goes out into the yard and the right let's switch sides and we add the chicken jason snell

with economies and take the punishment she also like putting i haven't a vegetable garden however was partitioned in a vegetable garden you saw the house all the animals house was beside the house and the people who lived in the united states going to be a vegetable garden and what the model is different vegetables whatever beans and bees all over the tomatoes a lot which it got and they got it the carrier along with the country's not backyard and she would probably although sec and gather pecans and grow a magnificent cook running and all are on a cookie is it

is that if the second present it you know it's really all together and you cannot be a collective effort you to do that you know in all this time fifteen years ago that marked a neighborhood have complained once about a condition some of what you want to grow the floor but as many times but especially young kids but my obstacles for my cab fare like my characters words for example joseph grew up all this feeling of nonhuman to this judy gross spoke to avoid other charities might have a basis in some obstacles and i feel that

because of her and she never complained about anything but she had the result of anyone i knew and yet she helped chernobyl plant i'm sure she she was the private time and you know but she would know the museum of golden oldies of my siblings and i was responsible early age and the inability of them in charge so well those moderates may and insurers to choose the greatest influence in my life well there's a man as well as a lot of over learned from many people locavore people learn from books and went to music and art in major worked on a picture that means implicit in nyc the inspiration for alice jane to men only through her courage and so she could not do a mistake mistake on a walkin or

haya one time some of the most negative especially marked a little earlier we were talking just off like about um hum training an actor and then we could be resolved cultural differences with that there's certain things that part where expected when i was growing up i think i still expected in certain parts of the country in terms of how children conduct each other how children relate to adults and also ideas about you know what is appropriate ways that and as i listen to you talk about you know your life and i think about the young people man who think that if they don't have rights issues they cannot leave the house life is over i know that you talked to a lot of young people what do you tell them what kind of things do you share with them because obviously because you have such a wonderful example now i understand why the anadarko was a big deal the show if you want to do it you just got there and didn't what young

people nowadays when you talk to them if they appeared to be hopeless and i think that life is just too difficult charm love of my life the bottom of my heart and what i write about the characters that i write about to see any favorite characters oh no they're all my children they either given to know and characters but i don't have any i haven't had a character is disliked i know so what was the company that the i don't think he does this like cursing is a happily for us those homey and contributed to dissipate but it's still in the same time i love all my characters i created them

hour one a young readers said in your book you emphasize how hard it is for a black man to live in the south did you as an individual encounters some the same racist attitudes are from white people you encountered when you were growing up of course is a live themselves the committee voted and of course no segregation of the time so in this little town that i called a young in my book all those locus of town nestled town were attributed that water all in a sandwich or anything like that alm the business office on the result was welcomed to desegregate you in one area and some of the other area if you want an illegal crossing railroad tracks

are we as i have i suffered only early on in the racism will tip in the middle of the political debate and yet you have chosen now to live in louisiana and you could certainly live anywhere you wanted not just in this country but in this world why did you choose to do that anything but a louisiana it on we live in now michel to live in the same parish and south louisiana since the time of slavery a long ago to write about that or read about those people are all was the boat or whatever might live in and services and the bay area home that the body was that of the soul and spirit and the love and the feelings are still back there

or my articles they're reading my people long before that will live or die and what they're there so was this by this wrong phone connection to the book of the people are on i was invited to come back to a louisiana well you know was that was mr lapierre back in nineteen eighty one and arm they made me an offer that i couldn't refuse they teach which you want a peek at twenty one of the chip and it was a house to live in and so i thought ok i'll take one of the semester half the year and have a heavier less than a census or writing so that's always thought it would be going back to louisiana all make a willow my wife and i bought some of that land on the same medication or muffled it was the slaves so on

ok and act that comes out that love the land that connection to the land comes out a lot of the books as i admit as you i am listening to you a gathering of all man and one of the characters is looking out actually some vision is what's not bear any talks about the clouds that they are wonderful call and response yes that that those things a mother anymore right on into memory like the fields of taken over twitter michael schmidt watch live bill is right and i think that that that status of stalin's a beautiful connection i would say to any beauty of not well from my perspective if you could read one of your book and it's a gathering of home and educate you tell people if you could read and i know that your children eleven but if there's just one other book and you have to make this decision what would be the debate the other book that you would tell people that she would tell people to read next president read all about what would be the book that she would tell people to read next aftermath but in

ohio and make that and distinctive about all gullible men i am the mayor of the bloodline stories about a notebook dingell of michigan i think as your defense is it love letters as you write some of the best strongest that's the thing i didn't know that and i think we're about midway through and elwood one open up a little bit is there anyone out there to join in fb ok let's see that question is what did the library seem like to you when you first went to the leyland who raise that question how

well the radio audience heard that i'm sure i'm as a librarian which is my back or nine i'm really curious what the libre feel like her seem like you when you when ann for the first time at age fifteen when it was up and the phrase they are wedded to the end to the library and i you know and i'm walking up the marble steps to avoid it and they're just people they're reading sitting at a table reading and the different people on different pages of different races sitting on his reading and go on to set of a table and the magazine at random and spent most of the time looking around that i did reading that i notice some steps stairs going that's going to a

metaphor and it was there where all the fiction laws and poetry and philosophy that in a long time to get up there because my views do this boeing anywhere i wanted to go with you know i'm not really in a beautiful about so fundamental minded love there and it was there that i discovered all those books and there was a lot of reading and reading and spending all my time reading books it was a strange experience to go there for the first time but there's a lot of areas ever since if you know he had six inches is based on a bookshelf which books he devotes of those six inches six inches and really make it maybe yes dr about

for the book oh it's going to the bible encyclopedia oh maybe a dictionary and i think that i think you know this is in question the more outrageous i suppose all my books in the books jefferson was executed for a crime he didn't commit what are your thoughts about the bustling capital punishment with this possibility of executing it should be

ok essentially the writer wants to know what your thoughts on capital punishment with its possibility of executing an innocent person well i'm a nice rnc a career as a narrative as the narrative great weekend seems emotionally distant how did this aspect of the narrative seemed important or unnecessary to the telling of the story well graham is also one of the main characters of the story ended in order someone to get so so emotional that he couldn't the objective on a revote dealing with someone who wrote a cynical than to

have someone of soul on modeling that i just cannot throws it is that there's a different narrative our own budget greg was idyllic tell the story because it all want a contrast between grant and jefferson and crack and grant ended and the minister tell the story a mission to interview but i chose the top from a forced was because i read that are from the forest was rather than a dozen the mission oh this is a rather lengthy questions about to do just as i used to work in hospice and many of the themes that the character jefferson addresses a similar to many of the chips are similar to what many in hospice face questioning the reality or presence of god reflecting on their own words the martinez and receiving

now reviewing their life situation and thinking what if what if this situation is different have you ever been faced with or help someone as they as they lived since died before you wrote that book ok let's see something or not someone as they are of a little they died so essentially did you ever have someone at the end of a life some of them knew there was they were going to die if they were facing they're more mortality before you wrote a lesson before dying the petition i teach creative writing that egypt night after getting of lawyers in my class and dumb but in the mid eighties

i've always tell when he had met this young man singers unknown because see the train waste look when you come into the classroom and they're just before the young man was to be executed my soon as they evolve like to go to angola to visit him and i said no i can't do that our unemployment has no space in knowing that he's going to die of them are in a day and the day that our and i'm aware of it so i said no and i think as well the reason why ryan is not a justice is execution eye because i couldn't face it in reality reality all right as the face of an oven as many many times y is where they were when should be there and i said well great was not strong enough to be there were an award show that contrast again we bring the minister and grant

the ministers from another raven span and walk with jay allison but although i hadn't been there for a long time it was not good never spent that on that particular that last fall a last minute and yet it seemed as if a grant and everybody at least everybody in the african american community was there in terms of awareness of the book i was about and not just you know everybody seemed to sense the moment and supernatural portion of a death that connectedness little bit more about the minister because at first the minister is not an appealing character he seemed to be a weak a character and yet when you look at his life he says the problem is it's really important

yeah you know back in time of slavery they've given them the masters of my patient use them many of them to keep us and our people and check fall forget all the problems you're going through today on there's a great a world where a wheelbarrow and a puzzle and grants is on grant would resent that i don't know about the cross and ready on river into heaven i want to live on the site the river the day and of course the minister and back in the forties did not know was not a martin luther king civil rights leader his job was to cover the hill to bear the dead the issue to visit

you when you ill this is what is today and the greatest sin time for stronger well the needle itself i need something else and that something else is so true and to many others the most amazing week but he tells graham strong and anne i know and i'm very well educated because i know what they must do for people you you're not doing you teach reading writing and reporting what you don't know anything about people and i know people so in a ways is a very very strong person although that can't see it and the president was like that is the symbolic end of course is a concert what struck me was the passage where he helped gray was irritated with his this party and as godmother to really appreciate what these women had done it seemed to me that the parliament says raul it was to help people who had no hope of a

better life to be able to have these they air and have as much dignity as possible in this life and that's something that gray says didn't see that he didn't see what he's got hit bottom for granted that it's increased my respect for him and that was even a question on a car to let me go to the next question from the audience which is are you currently working on a book well as hemingway once it doesn't do talk about it until our astronauts are another marvel of written about seven chapters of it but the juice is not coming to use mike's and strongly as the distant past so yes there is another book in the making but when will be completed it so you can find the news that you can't summon mammy if the well known as a whole as an old saying barrio of an old preacher have that god may not come when

you call him when he's always on time so the news of the one time when when when it was time to the musical this person also was known how long did it take you to write a lesson before dying another lesson that photon torpedoes seven years of writing on a half of the year because it has one semester to write when i'm writing it is a huge because teaching dating takes a lot of all my time always on a long pass but it takes a lot more time and writing is a very jealous mistress she will not share with anybody you get for all your time or so you will not bring anything you're not produce anything how important even by various are in today's electronic environment and what's gonna happen in the future but on it goes below average way to limit

of the box but the library will deliver before i said well there's always a place to go and not all of us you know no computer in lockup served almost law while also smaller rooms and not go around others i don't know about what will happen but i don't know where this sort of thing and listen up the greek dream now you can curl up with even at book traffic ok explain what's really inspired you which obviously you enjoy reading today oh i am you know i still read maybe our old office that i had to read one of all one out of college i am i'll read a book and usually the bookstores and if you visit a this is a pretty good on all read it

so i wonder what she likes and this is saying that it is then so for when they are so i don't have to read the book for some angel recommended dose which reading something i realized that that you know as if she is a writer and says she's a lawyer she's an avid reader and i thought how wonderful for an unfair to have a lawyer that they could just the thing he told that to a fortunate to have at contrast so young writers that they are aspiring writers keep in mind when a trusted a tin roof until you find the best rated you wanna get a lawyer especially one who can also be an editor for the cheese most workers will feel about any words translate into films that you think the reader is that we're right here on this whenever a

producer of the ashram of film waiting to get as much money as we can i set a certain amount of wealth because of the rise of the right image agent todd whitman until we get there i think some of the fields this summer we're beginning with the autobiography mission goodman on the stars brie which is a short story a gathering while men and a lesson before dying i think that at a very good job with us about nine but

there's a rule the script wasn't a white woman from south africa and she had read the book very well and she had them read other books by me and my other books and articles book about me and says events are a background mr lai was my world and having come from south africa and she could see these business world so much alike as better themselves and the forties in this country is i'll tell it was compared to then into the life that she knew and now in south africa but it's interesting what nobody who wrote the boy kept her boy became early eighties and still so much about the realities of an apartheid lives in portland maine and has involved many of us had a chance to listen to him and as i think about his books and listen to the things he said just such similarities you know he's unemployed a nineteen sixteen south

africa but the similarities are absolutely they are deep i didn't realise until i read fishery the book inside of listening to you about a gathering of all manned that quarters it just didn't think of the highest level the court is micheline foreign slave quarters so again since people were still living and working in the sack same environment all of it will work and this doesn't get done in slavery everything was done with an all huge huge operation that came with that with a machete and are you lord and everything with lord wyo austria in particular

this person says you're writing style a lesson to defeat us information just what was needed but not a moment before is this intentional ok allison your writing style and less intended to feed as information when it was needed and not a moment before is this intentional says this mission with us it's been a week now i wanted to write about it

as though you were experiencing this at the moment that i wasn't all the moment that the characters were inspired through these things so i was not writing any our introduction to what could happen what you do is live from one woman to another and a lot of it was intended your book was very touching and made a lot of people try to use shed any tears are a minimum of the first draft in a shift is that it was not because of the situation but the writing was so and it was going to write this book i cannot and i shipped is now and i one night when i see the film unless the harm me

on the play the characters on stage and then chivers well when i was there writing creating these characters i was pretty cool about it when i was there was you know there on performing on stage all regulars on ok and this is that as someone question what was the most difficult scene in the theater i mean if you for example i wrote the first two chapters of three chapters selina for jobs and then i didn't leave the relief well be the writing and collectively senator teach and home a lot the writing does at a time when brett what would go back to arm the visit jettison alone i had no idea and i was away from the right about six months

what what what was teaching them services everett thingamabob that published what's written services wire as well it is because you when you are other places you teach you don't look at them that they are not on the monastery that wall in right now are so i you know i had no idea what he would say the chosen when he walked into the jail i know i mean what would say and i have six months to think about that one when are worried about the scale and um windows of the film jaws in the volatile as inadequate as something for these ten pages i just if i can walk out the gentleman's here and now in this do something within this hour interview and when our people

it must do something with this hour so it was difficult another difficult chapter was the chengdu when expanding at a bar just before sings vivian vivian oliver hall all its hand people we will meet this girl and he's having a drink an antidote to what you gonna do during that hour i just say that it's for the bone dry for now and what that something so this was forty eight to start expanding point jackie robinson and as robin based on twenty seven so what a bit about this whole man at this bar talk about jackie robinson and the old guys you know operating more of the reagan i am now and they were showing how jacket rehman i'm mowing through the although obviously the base so i want to learn it once i

thought about something to write about at the same time i was writing about james joyce's i think in the committee room that short story and greg putting all this together they added in the committee room shelves or like james joyce as well as with his old man but when i went there the war i had no idea of the gravest i go drink but what would you do afterwards what would he do and so those ideas here's another one a fight in the rainbow grill graham williams is under pressure from all sides throughout the story he acts out violently towards other man once in the bar are how was it seemed necessary to him and to the story of the big fight scene well i think it was explaining to be frosted with everything around him and it would hear these guys talking

and how to relieve that frustration and any involvement by picking on his ally colony starts and rhythm in your writing and i know that music is very important to you are you listening to music it deliberately trying to have that rhythm receptors why the culture that you're writing about and love music or lose the musical that my wife and i keep the classics the suspicion on all all day we wrap up the one of oddball the deal on love in classical music you love question sleep at night without music and so we are we leave the light on and know she's an upgrade it would generate a request for music online so what we are what we have a lot of music there and where our collective music i

love of hundreds of copies and own jazz all of gospel music alone rural as well as urban blues soul of a familiar with this and we talked that way we would cost repeating things and especially in a place like louisiana all we never say it was very hot that day we were saying it was hot hot but they are all winners this is really something we'll will look totally given the so called response he and getting the signal it might ignore bike if i can that we need to start wrapping up a pierced one question i do have that as the last word from the high school classes from what we should and she says in your book their security without insurance do you go to church are not a lot

of change all the time and she's always getting on the initial glitches with that are available okay i can sue one more than another time will have to get the answer to a question what is the most fun about bea arthur scientists there say i want to thank you very much to the games for sharing your insights with us today on thank you all for listening of dissipating everybody reid's i would encourage everyone to join us again is again this evening for the lecture at the arlene schnitzer at seven thirty tickets still available and if you would like to tell us what you think about this program and every drawing for one hundred dollars worth of fred meyer give certificates you get a job evaluation on the everybody reads website which is that the deadly debbie a mako like that org slash reads daddy daddy daddy had that m u l t c o l i p o r t slash rt at asked if he still didn't get it just come into our call your

local branch this is the jewish about a cave and radio saying thank you very much for joining us today it's been the point oasis the testing want to treat because that one group report doesn't want to free home there's been one to three fourths of the military is testing one two three four just wanted to set his

intestine and its volatility low in nineteen forty eight ninety three it's big that is

beer i remain in unity all right now okay it sounds very soft very go roaming and most of you know me i'm very laughed and i'm the vice president public affairs thank you for coming today there will be more people juggling is they punched the clock of a ride share their lunch hour that we want it kind of set the parameters and talk a little bit about what's happening today so welcome to the special everybody reads the event is organized by volvo mechanic

library in the library foundation everybody reads is about thousands of friends and neighbors since the beginning of january we've all been reading and discussing the one great book <unk> ernest j gaines a lesson before dying his classical book was chosen because it brings people of all ages together on common ground as you know fred myers the corporate leader interstate because the support we provide to were the community projects throughout our region we're pleased to be the presenting sponsor of everybody reads and who played a critical role in making a huge success that has been in the portland area today's event will be an interview with the author of a lesson before dying mr ernest j gaines moderated by a librarian patricia welch at the north portland branch library this is our opportunity to hear about bernstein's life as a writer and to ask questions about this year's everybody reads the book again a lesson before

dying one of the exciting things that today's event is that is going to be broadcast live on tv radio is the first ever live radio broadcast here at the fred meyer headquarters i'll be enjoying being part of a studio audience for this interview questions of mr gaines please write them on the cards that are on your chairs and on tables we've also provided some pencils at the tables from the heart you will have an opportunity at roughly twelve thirty to ask these questions of mr james an aunt in a few minutes we will be turning it over to picture show we will the lives of the strike of twelfth and the live for the next hour thanks for being here you know thanks for having this conversation

and many of the questions fb