good evening from los angeles. i'm tavis smiley. tonight a conversation with award-winning novelist joyce carol oates. she is of course one tv country's most honored writers and most prolific with more than 70 novels and short stories to her credit. she joins us to talk about her latest titled "a book of american martyrs." we are glad you have joined us. a conversation with joyce carol oates in just a moment. ♪ ♪ ♪

and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. ♪ thank you. ♪ so please welcome joyce carol oates back to this program. her latest novel, "a book of american martyrs," begins with an abortion doctor's murder. over the next 700 pages we see the consequences of that act ripple through two very different and yet intimately linked american families. joyce carol oates, as always, an honor to have you back on this program. >> thank you. >> i was just speaking to you before we came on the air, all of your books, people love your work and you are an american treasure, and yet this book has

been reviewed in a way that -- i don't know -- first of all, do you read your reviews? >> i have read some of them. >> yeah. so the reviews have been beautiful about this book, which really got me thinking, what is it about an issue that is as old as the issue of abortion, that is as well-worn as the issue of abortion, that is as controversial as the issue of abortion, that you have found a way to give a treatment to that has everybody excited to read this book? >> well, when i was working on the novel -- of course, obama was president. >> sure. >> so there was a different atmosphere. the issues of the vulnerability of planned parenthood and social welfare and so forth, those issues were important and were debated but they were not as tragic as they are now. so it is a situation in which the novel that i was working on turned out to be much more

prophetic than i would have wished it to be. i mean i really am sorry that so much has come true that is seen in the novelty possibilities. >> and i take that and i figured that might be part of your answer, that the moment that this book is delivered -- >> yes. >> -- situates it in such a -- >> yes. >> i take your point. >> it is almost more tragic. >> it is tragic i think. what fascinates me about that point even is that the country now on that and so many other issues is so divided. >> so divided. >> and here is a book about a divided america. >> absolutely. yes, i wanted to show the divided america in terms of two families, and i really felt much sympathy for both families. obviously you can tell from reading the novel that my sympathies may be a little more obviously with the planned parenthood people. >> uh-huh. >> you know, the pro-choice people. but still, i don't really want

to slight the other people because i'm from the background like that, very modest, working class background. sort of small farm in upstate new york that wasn't prosperous at all. so the people who are likely to be anti-abortion people are people who i might know. you know, i don't feel superior to them. i just feel very different. >> i want to come back to the book and that story in just a second, but i keep bouncing between these parallels. >> yeah. >> this is all your fault, by the way. you write a novel but you situate it in such a moment that the parallels are so real. >> i know, yeah. >> so thank you for that. but i wonder how much -- because i have heard this before even from guests on this program who have suggested to me the only way we can navigate our way through this moment is to not be so judgmental, to not be so harsh, to not, to use your words, slight these other persons who see these issues

differently from us. >> differently, yes. >> and to your point, you tried to be 'em pathetic to the other side of this issue. i wonder if you might say a word about how that strategy, if employed, might make a difference in this moment at large? >> well, i also put my great faith in the younger generation. you know, many older people are just absolutely rigid and they've made up their minds and they're probably not going to change, but their children and their children will have a much more flexible attitude. so i'm sort of focusing and beginning with toldehe older generation, the parents, i begin with that generation, but then the novel shifts and we get into the lives of the younger people, the two young women, the daughters. we see when they meet each other, you know, first they're adversarial, but then they kind of, however unlike they are, there's a feeling that you want to touch the other person.

so just sort of absolutely touch the other person. so the novel ends with them embracing, and i just felt that was absolutely true and that we need to get beyond the ideas maybe and just sort of see that this is a human being. kind of embrace that person. >> although i think donald trump needs much more than a hug. >> well, we don't go there. >> i take your point about embracing people we see differently. >> he needs less than a hug. i mean i'm speaking, you know -- yeah, just keep a long distance away. >> i got it. all right. so you jumped ahead, and i understand because you answered my question, you jumped ahead to the daughters of the protagonist here. let's back up and have you so i don't give too much away, because the stage is set early in this book. >> yes. >> why don't you tell the story of the main characters. >> well, the main characters are two men who are very, very devoted to what they believe. one is an evangelical christian, and he's not a vein maain man.

he doesn't want to make trouble. he just feels it is his duty. he's been somewhat brainwashed by his religious leaders, his duty to try to stop an abortion provider. and he feels that he has like a mandate or a commandment almost from god, and he doesn't really want to do it. he's not a nasty, malicious person. he is somebody who feels that god wants him to do that and this is part of what he was born to be a soldier of god. but then on the other side is the abortion provider, and he is a doctor. he was a gynecologist, an obstetrician. he was dedicated to women's reproductive rights and working with women's health, and sort of public health. and then by degrees he gets into the -- the reality of providing abortions because women need them, you know. so it is not that he set out to be an abortion-provider. he didn't really intend that

either. so both of the men become martyrs for their -- their causes, so to speak. not by any deliberate decisions, but it is like this destiny pushes them that way, and wanting to help women and girls who come to him desperate. dr. voorhees inadvertently becomes a martyr. >> i want to circle back to where i started this conversation, and that is with this notion of abortion. of all of the -- because there are so many, i think about your last book when you were on this program. >> yes, yes. >> around what happened in new york with twanna briley case. >> yes. that case. >> with all of the issues that are controversial and divisive, why this issue for this book? >> well, i always wanted to write about a man who becomes

involved in women's health issues. i mean it may be that i know someone like that, or i want to write about plan -- the planned parenthood advocates and how selfless many of them are. they really give their lives to this. and in so doing they incur a lot of anger, a lot of hostility, death threats, vandalism to the clinics. and i did a little research into abortion providers who were assassinated. they're all men. i mean not that many of them really, but they're very extraordinary, courageous people. i'm not sure that most people are really that courageous. >> when you use the word courageous, unpack that for me in this particular instance. >> well, if you received a number of death threats and your place of work has been vandalized and maybe you even received a bomb in the mail, telling you to stop what you were doing, if you could just go back to private practice, you

know, that you might do that. you know, it requires a real resilience and commitment and courage to do that even though you're getting death threats. >> i think the flip side of the issue for me, which takes us away from the novel, but to get your take on it, the flip side is where women's reproductive issues are concern is my sense has been there are too many men talking about it, particularly when you talk about capitol hill. >> it is always men, you're right. >> always men talking about what women can or can't do, should or shouldn't do with their own body. i find it fascinating that your novel centers men at the center of the story but in a different way. >> well, these are based on the fact that the abortion providers that were assassinated were men. george tiller is one of the most famous, i think he is maybe from kansas. >> sure. >> and my novel is not about george tiller, but it is about

somebody a little bit like him in that tradition. that's just the way it is historically. but it is interesting that these men will, they have literally given up their lives to -- to work with planned parenthood, to basically help women. you're quite right. there's something about men, they're always there. they're always at the center. >> uh-huh. >> what can we do about it? and the assassins are mind. i mean there may have been one woman assassin, but they're mostly all men. that's the act, the more active acts i guess. >> men always screwing things up. >> well, just got to get in there. >> yeah. you finished this -- i'm reading my masking because i want to take the next step here. you finished when? before trump was elected? >> oh, long before. >> long before? >> long before. >> the reason i ask that question is what do you make of the fact, not that it just lands in this trump moment -- we talked about that earlier, but what do you make of the fact

that we had so many issues with trump and women? >> i know. >> during this campaign. >> i know, it is so true. well, of course, as you know, trump didn't win the popular vote. >> exactly. >> and if one looked into it carefully, as i guess nobody is really going to, it may be very well that the election was rigged. i mean there may have been things that were done in wisconsin or pennsylvania -- >> or in russia. >> coming from russia, absolutely. >> yeah, yeah. >> i mean if you really -- maybe 50 years from now when people can sift through evidence, it will turn out that he didn't really win. you know, i mean he didn't win the popular vote. so the sentiment that seems somewhat hostile towards women's issues, it may be a false issue, because the votes may really have been for women's rights. i don't know. it is sort of a mystery thing because we don't have any investigations into the

situation such as we should have. >> right. >> we don't yet. >> i'm glad you said that. it seems to me -- i mean you can't make up this stuff. but if ever there were a great book, if ever there were a great movie, it seems to me this trumpian moment, it is so fascinating for me on this particular issue. >> yeah. >> that we're discussing now because i just do not see the outrage that the american citizenry ought to have over the fact that an election may have been -- >> i know. >> -- rigged. i mean i just -- i don't know what to make of that, that people already have resistance fatigue or they don't know how to get at it or they feel unempowered to do anything because the republicans have the house and senate, i don't know what to make of it. what do you make of the fact we have an election that could have been tampered with, if not rig, certainly tampered with, and the american people at large seem unbothered by this. >> i don't know how to speak for the people at large, but there's

been tremendous effort. i mean women's marches, historic quantities of people getting out in the streets, and young people. i wouldn't say that they weren't doing anything or they were apathetic. it is hard to know what to do because a congressional investigation would be the way to do it legally, but when you have republicans blocking that, there's not much an average citizen can do. >> if 50 years from now we discover something that happened here that was absolutely appalling, then the other part of the question that historians will be grappling with is what did the american people do in this moment when -- i mean the boston tea party, we know what happened. the civil war, we know what lincoln did, we know what happened. what are they going to say about what we did or didn't do in this moment? >> it is hard to see what average people can do outside of protesting. i mean i have wonderful students who are very idealistic, and they march and they protest, but what can they do literally and

legally? we're a nation of law. and when -- >> and the law was broken. >> when the law -- you know, the law is not being enforced, as you know. laws are there, but they have to be enforced. there's a lot of discretion or prejudice on the part of prosecutors. like they don't have to bring a case against donald trump if they really don't want to. maybe another prosecutor would, but the people who are in power, they're not doing that for obvious reasons. it is a tragic situation. >> yeah. the hope that you referenced earlier that the reader will find in the children of these protagonists. >> yeah. >> do you see that hope on the campus on which you teach in these young people? >> i teach at uc berkley right now and i have taught at nyu and princeton. these are very excellent students. i mean they're serious students and they tend to be liberal-minded students. so i'm not seeing a wide range

of students like from kansas or oklahoma, you know. i'm really not seeing a cross section of american students. >> yeah. what does this book, this novel, this story say to us about what happens when we get wed to or -- either wed to or -- i'm trying to recall the world you used earlier, but we get brain -- >> brainwashed. >> thank you. we get wed to or brainwashed by a particular ideology which sends us in a certain direction, what does it say to us about being careful of ideology? >> well, it is a situation in this country that we have maybe a small percentage of the population has a lot of money, and because they have so much money and the corporations are mega wealthy, they have a lot of interests in paying less taxes than they do.

so they sort of take these social issues like abortion, maybe it was gay rights at one point, and they kind of wave that flag to get people to vote -- people to vote for their issues, which is lowering taxes. they're also voting to overturn rowe versus wade. it is like putting everything in one basket. if you want rowe versus wade overturned, you have to vote for no taxes, you know, or lesser taxes for wealthy people. so it is kind of manipulating credulous people, evangelical christians who want to do the right thing according to their religion, so they end up voting for someone like trump whom in a way they probably don't really respect him, but it is a political gesture. their leaders have told them to vote for him so that they can overturn the abortion, you know, law, allowing abortion in all of the states.

so it is a kind of political employ where you dupe people into voting for what you want by promising them something else. that's what trump did, i mean very clearly, and it worked. >> what does this novel say or how did you wrestle with the issue of not just faith, because here you have an evangelical christian and you respect faith and i'm a person of faith, but what does it say about the dogma that some faith traditions teach us? >> well, it is a spectrum really. i was trying to look upon quite seriously the idea of being a martyr. you know, if you have anything that you would die for, that maybe is a noble thing. it is good to feel something so passionately that you would actually die for it. but on the other hand, your faith may collide with somebody else's faith. you know, in a democracy having your own ideology is you, but forcing that on other people,

that's the problem, you know. forcing some of these laws, draconian draws on other people, that's a problem in a democracy. >> yeah. how do you read into your point now, how do you read in the moment that we are -- that muslims are having to navigate their way through in this country? >> think if we just follow the law, which in this country separates church and state, we don't really have a problem. but when a church starts becoming more powerful than the state or the two are together, our founding fathers -- once again, the fathers, you know. >> there are those men again. >> founding fathers wanted church and state separated. so it is not quite right to be prosecuting anyone because of religion, because you're not supposed to elevate anyone because of religion, you know. so that's the problem with banning muslims, is that it is against the constitution. >> how do you guard against

leaning too far in on a particular side when what readers are looking for is a novel that is interesting, that is fun, that is exhilarating? >> tells a story. >> tells a story, not one to proslethize or how do you find that balance. >> i see people as complex. the people who are liberal, liberal minded and left wing sort of politically, looking at those people they're not so sure what they think about abortion. you know, it gets right down to it, this woman who is the mother of the abortion provider gets right down to it, she's not sure if she really believes in it, but the different is she would have her own beliefs to herself. she wouldn't impose them on other people, that's the problem. you know, like if you are a vegan, that's fine but you don't want to make me be a vegan, thank you. you know, i think we can just lead our own lives and have our

own religious convictions, but to impose our thoughts on other people i think is really not american. >> yeah. what's happening in our culture that's making us -- donald trump is exhibit a, but a lot of people voted for him and a lot of people in their daily lives who would never be president emulate that same behavior, which is to say forcing their opinions, forcing their will to the extent they can on other people. what is happening in the culture that's making us become these kind of characters? >> well, i think we're at a crisis in our democracy right now. i don't think that if the election were rerun, it may go differently. you know, i think it was maybe a fluke in history. because of the focus of the mainstream media hammering, hammering, hammering at the woman candidate who was very qualified, i think that they assumed hilary clinton was going to win. so they're kind of hammering at her e-mails, and i'm thinking of the "new york times," day after day after day, sort of beating

down the qualified candidate to the point where many people didn't vote. they thought, well, hillary is no better than trump because the media has been telling us all. i think i'll just stay home. whereas the trump people, they all got out and voted. so if the mainstream media had it to do over again, they might not obsess so much about this relatively issue of the e-mails because now donald trump is doing all sorts of things with his cellphone. he is violating things way, way beyond anything that poor hilary clinton did. so it was all kind of a ruse, you know. it was really not very sincere. >> that is the ultimate irony, whatever you thought of hilary clinton and whatever you thought of her use of those e-mails, those e-mails now pale in comparison to what the other guy is doing now that he has -- >> exactly. it is almost like it was a perfect storm of things going wrong. but i do think that the mainstream media assumed that hilary clinton was going to win. >> yeah. >> and so they could sell

newspapers by seeming to kind of scandalize her name. >> yeah. this is a novel, "a book of american martyrs," and yet i wonder, the flip side of prosletization, whether there are ideas or motivations in here that women might take from the story for how to navigate themselves through this moment? >> i think so. i think that -- i know this sounds morbid and weird, but one of the parts of the novel i spent a lot of time on, and emotionally too, is the effort of the pro-life people to rescue these aborted fetuses and give them a burial. now, i'm not myself a christian. i'm not a religious person, but i have to consider deep respect for a religious conviction that would care so much, you know,

for strangers and for giving a decent burial. that goes back to the ancient greeks who believed that you always had to bury -- you owed a human being a decent burial. so i spent time and a lot of emotional energy on that section in the novel, which some people might think to be really weird and sort of morbid. but, i mean, i cared, i cared for those people, and that showed that the widow of the assassin is a very passive woman, but when her husband is gone she has to pick herself up. she goes back to work and becomes a nurses aide, you know, somebody who is addicted to oxycontin, i think it is called. she was addicted to that, but she throws that off and she has to become more like a man. she has to be less of a passive female.

so i really admired her being able to do that. >> yeah. i admire what you have done and you do it so well. you are one of the most prolific writers in the history of writing in this country. her name, as you well know, is joyce carol oates and she has done it once again. everybody is talking about this new one. it is called "a book of american martyrs." to night we just scratched the surface on it, but i think you will enjoy it. joyce carol oates, always an honor to have you on. thanks for stopping by to see us. >> thank you. >> my great pleasure. that's my show for tonight from l.a. keeping watch and keep the faith. >> for more information on the show visit tavissmiley pbs.org. >> join me with conversations with dr. saltz and jacob collier. that's next time. see you then. ♪

♪ and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. ♪ ♪

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