good evening from los angeles. i'm tavis smiley. tonight a conversation with a award winning novelist joyce carol oats. she, is of course, one of the countries 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 title, "a book of american martyrs," we're glad you joined us. conversation with joyce carol oats in just a moment.

so please welcome joyce carol oats 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 oats, it's always an honor to have you on this program. >> thank you. >> i was just saying before we came on the air that all your books, people love your work. you're an american treasure. yet this book has been reviewed

in a way that i don't know -- do you read your reviews? do you read still? >> i read some of them. >> so the reviews have been beautiful about this book which really got me thinking, what it is 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 as everybody excited to read this book? >> well, when i was working on a 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's a situation which the novel i was working on turned out to be much more prophetic

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

because from the background like that very modest working class background. sort of small farm in upstate new york that wasn't very 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. i keep bouncing between the parallels. this is all your fault by the way. you write a novel but you situated in such a moment where the parallels are so real. thank you for that. but i wonder how much -- i heard this before. even from guests on this program. they suggested to me that only way we can navigate our way through this moment is to not be so jududge mental, to not be so harsh, to not, to use your words slight these other persons who see these issues differently

from us. and to your point, you try to be empathetic 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. >> i also put in my great faith in the younger generation. you know, many older people are just absolutely rigid and they made up their minds. they're not going to change. but there are children and their children are going to have a much more flexible attitude. so i focus and begin with the older generation, the parents. i begin with that generation. but then the novel shifts and so we kind of get into the, you know, the lives of the younger people, the two young women, the daughters. and we see when they meet each other, you know, first they're adversarial. but then they kind of, however unlike they are, you know, there's a feeling that you want to touch the other person and

absolutely touch the other person. so that way you are embracing. 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. and kind of em brats that person. >> although i think donald trump needs much more than a hug. >> well, we don't go there. >> i think your point about embracing people we see differently. >> less than a hug. i mean i'm speaking. >> yeah. >> okay. >> keep a long distance. i got it. all right. so you jumped ahead. i understand you answer my question. you jump ahead to the daughters. let's have use. tell the story. the stage is set pretty early in this book. >> yes. >> tell the story of the main characters in the beginning then. >> well, the main characters are two men who are very, very young. devoted to what they believe. one is an he vevangelical chris.

he's not a vain man. he doesn't want to make trouble. he feels it's been his duty. he's been brainwashed by the 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 that feels that god wants him to do that. 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's a doctor. he was a gynecologist and obstetrician, he was dedicated to women's reproductive rights and working with women's health. and by degree he gets into the reality of providing abortions because women need them. so it's not that he set out to be an abortion provider. he didn't really intend that

either. so both of them become martyrs for their causes, so to speak. not by any deliberate decisions but it's like a destiny pushes them that way. anticipate wanting to help women and girls that come to him desperate. he inat vert ently becomes a martyr. >> i want to go back to the notion of abortion. of all of the -- because there are so many -- i think about your last book whether you were on this program. >> yes. >> around what happened in new york. >> yeah. >> i can say all of these are controversial and devisive why this issue for this book? >> well sh i always wanted to write about a man who becomes involved in women's health

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

practice, you know, you might do that. you know? i mean it requires a real resilience and commitment and courage to keep on doing what you're doing even though you're getting death threats. >> see, the flip side of this issue for me which takes us a bit from -- away from the novel. but i'm curious to get your take. the flip side is women's reproductive issues are concerned, my sense is always that there are too many men talking about it. you talk about capitol hill. it's always these men. >> all the men, right. >> talking about what women can or can't do and should or shouldn't do with tlir own bodies. i find it fascinating that your novel swaituates men but in a different way. >> these are based on the fact that abortion providers who were assassinated were men. george tiller is one of the most famous. i think he's from maybe kansas. and my novel is not about george tiller. but it's about somebody a little bit like him in that tradition.

>> yeah. >> that's just the way it is historically. but it is interesting that these men will -- they have literally given up their lives to work with planned parenthood, to basically help women. they're quite right. something about men. they're always there. they're always at the center. what can we do about it? and the assassins are men, almost -- there may have been one woman assassined. mostly all men. that's the active sex, i guess. >> just men always screwing things up. >> you just got to get in there. >> you finished this, i'm asking. i want to take the next step. you finished this when, when trump was elected? >> long before. >> the reason i ask that question, what do you makest fact, not that it just, you know, it lands in this trumpian moment. >> i know. we talked about that earlier wlachlt do you make of the fact

that we had so many issues with trump and women during this campaign. >> i know. it's 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 and n. wisconsin or pennsylvania. >> or in russia. >> coming from russia. absolutely. i mean if you really maybe 50 years from now when people can sift through evidence, it would turn out that he didn't really win. i mean he didn't win the popular vote. so the sentiment that seems somewhat hostile towards women's issues, and maybe a false issue because the votes may have really been for women's rights. i don't know. it is mysterious. we don't have any investigations into the situation such as we

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

quantities of people getting out in the streets and young people. so i wouldn't say that there weren't doing anything or they were april themmic. it's hard to -- apathetic. it's hard to know what to do. an congressional investigation is the way to do it legally. but when you have republicans blocking that, there is not much an average citizen can do. >> is 50 years from now, we discover something that happened here that was absolutely appalling. then the other part of the question that historians are grappling with is what do 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's hard to see what average people can do. 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 that law is broken. when the law is not being enforced. >> yeah. >> as you know, laws are. there 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. and it's a tragic situation. >> yeah. the hope that you referenced earlier that you -- that the reader will find in the children of these protagonists, do you see that hope on the campus on which you teach in the young people? >> i teach at uc berkeley. i taught at nyu and princeton. and these are very excellent students.

i mean, they're serious students and they tend to be liberal minded students. i'm not seeing a wide range of students like from kansas. i'm not -- or oklahoma, you know? i'm really not seeing a cross section of american students. >> yeah. what is 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 word you used earlier, we get brainwashed. we get wed to or brainwashed by a particular ideology? >> yes. >> which sends us in a certain direction. what does it say to us about being careful about ideology? >> well, it's a situation in this country that we have maybe a small percentage of population has a lot of money. and because they have so much money in the corporations are mega wealthy. they have a lot of interest in paying less taxes than they do. so they sort of say the

sourceful 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 roe versus wade. it's like putting everything in one basket f you want roe versus wade overturned, you got to vote for no taxes, you know, for a lesser taxes for wealthy people. so it's kind of manipulating decreed lus, maybe idealistic people, evangelical christians that want to do the right thing according to the religion so they vote for someone like trump in a way that they don't really respect him but it's a political gesture their leaders told them to vote for him so that they can overturn the abortion, you know, law. allowing abortion and all of the states. so it's kind of political ploy

where you dupe people into voting for what you want by promising them something else. that's what trump did. i mean very clearly. >> yeah. >> it worked. >> what does this novel say or how did you wrestle with the issue of not just faith but you have an evangelical christian and you spreblgt faith and i'm a person of faith. but what does it say about the dogma that some faith traditions teach us? >> it's 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's good to feel something so pass natalie that you would die foirt. on the other hand, your faith my collide with somebody else's faith. in a democracy, having your own ideology is you. >> right. >> but forcing that on other people, that's the problem.

you know? forcing some of the laws draconian laws on other people, that's a problem in a democracy. >> yeah. >> how do you read into your point now, how do you read then the moment that we are -- that muslims are having to navigate their way through in this country? >> i 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 g again, the fathers. >> those men again. >> the founding fathers wanted church and state separated. so it's not quite right to be prosecuting anyone because of religion. because you're not supposed to elevate anyone because of religion. so that's the problem with banning muslims is that it's against constitution. >> how do you guard against

leaning to too far in on a particular side with what readers are looking for as a novel that is interesting that, is fun that, is exhilarating? >> tells a story. >> tells a story. not one to advance a position that author may have. how do you find that balance? >> i see people as very complex. and even in -- the people who are very liberal and liberal minded and left wing sort of politically, looking at some of those people, they're not so sure what they think about abortion. 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 difference is that she would have her own beliefs to herself. she wouldn't impose them on other people. that's a problem. you know, like if you're a veegian, that's fine. but you don't want to make me be a vegan, thank you. >> yeah. >> 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 wlachlt is happening in our culture that is making us -- donald trump is exhibit a. but a lot of people voted for him. a lot of people in their daily lives who never knew the president emulate that behavior which is to say, forcing their opinions and will to the extent they can on other people bhachlt is happening in the culture is that is making us become these kind of characters? >> i think we have a crisis in our democracy right now. i don't think that if the election were really wrong, it may go differently. i think it was maybe a fluke in history. because of the focus of the mainstream media hammering, hamme hammering, hammering at the woman that is very qualified, ti think that they assumed hillary clinton was going to win. and so they are kind of hammering at her e-mails and i'm thinkingst "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. the trump people, they all got out and voted. so the mainstream had to do it over again, they may not have obsessed so much about this trivialish you've the e-mails. but now donald trump is doing sorts of things with his cell phone, you know? he is violating all sorts of things way, way beyond anything that hillary clinton did. so it was all kind of a rues. >> whatever you thought of hillary clinton, and whatever you thought of her use of the e-mails, the e-mails pale in comparison to what this other guy is doing now. >> exactly. exactly. it's almost like it was a perfect storm of things going wrong. but i do think that mainstream media assumed that hillary 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. i i wonder whether or not the flip side of whether or not there are lessons in here or just ideas or just motivations in here that women might take from the story for how to navigate themselves through this moment. >> well, i think so. i think that i know this sounds really morbid and weird, but one of the parts of the novel that i spent a lot of time on and motionally too is the effort of the pro-life people to rescue these aborted fetuses, you know, give them ray burial. now i'm not myself a christian. i'm not a religious person. but i have to consider deep respect for religious conviction that would care so much, you know, for strangers and for

giving a decent burial that goes back to the ainncient greeks th believe you always have to bury -- you owed a human being a decent burial. so i spent time in a lot of emotional energy on that section in the novel which some people may think to be really weird and sort of morbid. but i mean i cared. i cared for those people. and i that shows that widow of the assassin is a very passive woman. but when her husband is gone, she's got to pick herself up. she goes back to work and becomes a nurse's aide. you know, somebody who is addicted to painkillers, she was dakted 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've done and you do it so well. you're one of the most prolific writers in the history of writing in this country. her name is joyce carol oats. she has done it once again. everybody is talking about this new one. it is called "a book of american martyrs." tonight we scratched the surface on it. i think he will enjoy it. joyce arl oacarol oats, always pleasure to you have on. that's our show tonight. good night from l.a. as always, keep the faith. hi, i'm tavis smiley. join me for a conversation about david graham. the indian nation murders, that's next time. we'll see you then.

good evening from los angeles. tonight a conversation with michael render, better known as kill a mike. one half of the super group run the jewels whose latest albums run the jewels three received widespread acclaim. what are we talking about tonight? knowing mike, a little bit of everything and you don't want to miss it. i'm glad you joined us. a conversation with killer mike in just a moment.