smiley. evening from los angeles. two nights a conversation with joyce carol oates. this is our 10th anniversary season. we are heading toward show no. no. 2000.n -- show joining me now is our second producer and the man responsible for all the research i have to read every night to get ready for these conversations. good he is also responsible for all the visuals. we could not do it without you. >> thank you.

could be partou of this. >> a conversation with joyce carol oates is coming up right now. >> there is a saying that dr. always the right time to do thei try to live my life every daywe know that we are only halfway to completely eliminating hunger and we have work to do. walmart committed $2 billion to fighting hunger in the u.s. as we work together, we can stamp hunger out. >> and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you.

tavis: if you look up the word --lific combined no doubt the word prolific, no doubt it contains joyce carol oates. she has written novels for young people. accursed."is "the some how it manages to put the woodrow wilson in the same world as ghosts and vampires arrogant -- vampires. you have been away from princeton for a while teaching at berkeley. how'd you like it? >> i love it. they had not varied backgrounds compared to princeton, has been

exciting. tavis: word has come back in a couple years you are going to retire. i will teach at columbia or in the area of. tavis: what changed? you have been doing this for some time. give me an idea as you look back on this vast career of yours. >> they have to be selected by princeton and then the writing program, so the students i would .et are about 10 students .ow they are book oriented

young people are more oriented to film or video or more electronic forms of communication. these did not exist, so they were more focused on the present. about the creativity of the students? >> that is about the same. people who teach in universities or will all say an excellent student is an excellent student. timeless. student in 1949 is like in 2013. .hey tend to be self motivated tavis: let me jump right to the book. title.ve the

how did you come up with the at that of the >>h i started working on this in 1983. i finished the first one in 1984. it was an immodest to h.p. lovecraft. -- an hommage to h. p. lovecraft. i thought it needed a new title. i love it. it is always amazing to me how in get this creative spark 1983. did you finish at the first draft in 1984, and we get inman in 2013. what is happening in that time?

>> it is the historical drama. bedrock is kind of a reality. new things come along. of to mention the election barack obama. we have some black president, and this is about racism. behavior, so the idea that now we have a different president is really upsetting. but just the fact women have the vote. but there is a woman president in princeton university, all , soe things are outrageous

to see those rapid changes. like an old nonsexist world, looking back at slavery. -- like an old sexist world, looking back at slavery. many people are unsympathetic -- are not unsympathetic which the confederacy. there are darwin's new ideas, all these new ideas are in the the workunionizing force. and was really a conflict, the energy released by the conflict between them. good >> npr did a wonderful piece, and they use a wonderful line that the book is about conscientious people who cannot find their conscience.

give me a sense of what the story is. >> the story emerges from the first chapter. wilson is a good president. he is a good reformer. the gunman is very agitated. the night before there has been a lynching. it is a different world from princeton. it is not about fart in geographical terms. pleaseasically saying, will you use your position against these horrible thing, and basically it woodrow wilson turns theort of

proverbial blind eye. is nors them, but there measure in his heart. but it does not go anywhere. because of the hypocrisy, the plot falls from the. you learn later ron he is actually a black person. he is very light skinned, but the idea woodrow wilson has invited him into his home, and this racist person has embrace and now you find out the true background. it sets in motion a number of

comic episode triggered the comedy of seeing hypocrites' on unmasked.ano -- >> what is it to see this piece of work? with race,book class, and sex. .ut has to be fun to work with how in the riding of this -- writing of this --how did you and we'vetoric part in fiction? what is the process? >> i do not think it is that difficult. there was a lot going on at the turn of the century. there was a lot going on.

i mention the unionizing of the work force. children as young as five or six were working, and people were trying to help the working people. women were hoping for the vote. they were trying to get a movement, and there were advances and a revolutionary spirit in science that science would be more open to questioning dogmas of christianity. things are really just happening, so if you are about theseou read events occurred just happening -- that are just happening. you read about woodrow wilson. he said many sexist and racist .hings

i had my ups and graphs region in -- i had maps and graphs. the fictitious people and the real people like a graph with intersections, so you can see where things are moving in .hronological time tavis: does it in any way to disservice to the faction? >> many historians weaves fiction in. been biased.have there are anti-semitic historians and racist historians who write about the south and

are not about critical of slavery, but others are very critical. criticism. objective shakespeare and many other writers use history as material. a novel called "blonde" about norma jean baker. it uses the material as if it were a myth. in maryland and wrote is this middle -- marilyn monroe is this mythical creature. i am not writing a biography. i am writing an epic about someone who stands for something, so i call my novel "blonde,"meaning it is about a myth rather than a person, but many people write about war. if you did that as a fiction writer, you would have real

generals under real president mentioned. it is hard to have a completely fictitious portrayal of a complex cultural situation where there are no real people. tavis: what you said does raise a question. you are right that history is written by historians who offer their own interpretation. of thatus are left out history. be ofsuspect should we historians and the stuff they put out natoma -- they put out? >> you would not want to read a lot of them. to give you an idea of woodrow wilson's racism. when he was in europe and out to talk about the united states, he mentioned all these ethnic minorities.

he did not say one word about african americans. as president of the united states had actually forgotten. it is stunning. can you imagine the president today during the -- doing that? that is stunning. it is almost unconscious. the racism is so deep it is almost unconscious. princeton is not just a setting. it is a character. >> in gothic novel -- gothic novels there is a large house. is a wholet community. was very affluent. then it was a very white d extremelyntenn

selective, a prestigious, with old families who came over on , and peopler involved in the revolutionary war whose names are famous. with georgeined , people like five. that.n -- people like that community is a kind of exemplary community of who areed people conscientious christians but in a very narrow way. they really only granted full humanity to people like themselves. --y did not a working man

immigrants were fully human beings, and they did not think women should have the vote. even many women did not think they should have the vote. gotavis: i know you are not a psychologist, but you are an expert at know what you do. i wonder if you might offer your the whathts about prevents these people from being connect with their conscience and now. what is the blockage? >> cowardice, but two is a little more subtle. speakk when people do not out against something, i think there is a secret complicity.

these white people are sort of ofing, the ku klux klan methods we do not agree with, and they are white trash, but they have the right idea, because we do not want racism either. the idea of what they called race among realization -- race mongrelization, they were all afraid of that. when the coup clucks klan was terrorizing black people to keep them in their place, -- when the coup clucks klan was terrorizing black people to keep them in klar place, -- the ku klux n terrorize them, they said maybe we do not want to stop them. people should speak out clearly. there is a lot of silence about

terrorism. we speak out against it. naturally, they would. you would expect muslims to speak out much more clearly against extremists in their own mints, and we wait for the period -- wait for that. there is an on nerving silent. are these supranatural eruptions. youdemonic comes to punish if you are not acknowledging the situation. tavis: my grandmother who had a second or third grade education in mississippi. she used to always say to me, joyce carol oates, when you know better, you ought to do better.

i raise that, and i am not naive and asking this, but it goes to the heart of your novel. how is it the people who know better cannot seem to find no way to do better? you think of the elite communities like that princeton community, and you say to how could you look the other way? how could you not connect to the she manatee of the other because the humanityer -- of the other because you know better? >> the conservatism had to do with newer scientific ideas and women's suffrage. it was not just racism itself. oferal conservatism is fear change, but at the same time

there is the socialist and revolutionaries and young radical list, and they represent this very exciting youth movement. like a socialist collegium organization. .t was not all white people the socialists felt all white -- all people were brothers. i think they also felt women should have the vote, but they believed in free love, which is extremely revolutionary and so it wasd taboo, more than just these white people. there were other people as well. to come awaynt

from the book. you can see i am fascinated with this idea of conscientious people. speaking of "the accursed" as i was going through this the other day on a couple plane rides, i put the book down. i am reading your book of a couple of newspapers and magazines, and things started crisscrossing, and i am thinking about "the accursed" and how as a nation americans who make up this country commo, that we areg to find ourselves a cursive if we do not connect to our own consciousness about things that happen that we are turning a blind eye to, be it guantanamo, the use of the drones, and i want you to offer your thoughts toto the challenge to us

connect to our own humanity. does that make sense? >> i think our nation has been pretty good. pretty liberal and pretty generous in terms of sending foreign aid around the world and doing many things, so we have are really good record. of course we have a negative record of the imperialists think of ourt i nation as a enormous and maybe blundering. like an enormous creature that can make a mistake, and for some voters can be brainwashed, and they vote sometimes against their own interests. let alone voting against the

interests of people who need them, people who are poor.franchised and they often will not vote. the politicians who are supporting them are really being very charitable. they're not going to give them billions of dollars in campaign funds. it is like being an animal rights activists. animals are never going to vote for you. animals are never going to give you any money. it is something you are doing out of the goodness of your heart. >> charity and justice are different things. throwing them of bone is different than reveling in their asanity and treating them they ought to be treated. >> foreign aid, it was probably

an attempt to help people reestablished their economies. the best way of doing it would be to give them some sort of employment. tavis: teach them how to fish, as they say. the new one by joyce carol oates. every time she writes when it is an automatic "the new york times" best seller. i think you will find it delicious to read. thank you for being on this program. things for watching. as always, keep the faith. today's show, visit tavis smiley at pbs.org. join me next time for a conversation with the doors drummer about preserving the band's iconic

legacy. that is next time. we will see you then. >> there is a saying that dr. always the right time to do the right thing. by doing the right thing. we know that we are only halfway to completely eliminating hungerwalmart committed $2 billion to fighting hunger in the u.s. as we work together, we can stamp hunger out. >> and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. thank you. don

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