What he is looking for is he wants to find basically like gold silver and bronze like that's the thing he thinks is going to be like the signifier that this is Troy because he's thinking of you know this treasure rich city that Homer describes in the Iliad and he's also thinking that like well it's got to be a further down I has to be at the bottom right like Troy is going to be at the bottom of this pile and so heaps digging and he's finding more and more away or is with cities yes and then he gets to the bottom of these piles of cities and that's where he finds this treasure he finds exactly what he's looking for he finds gold he finds the silver he finds bronze he calls it Priam structure Priam being like the king of Troy and the Iliad but there's nothing on it that says like Priam speak you're a triumph banker or something you know Ok No no nothing like that it isn't hard to prove that it's Troy he doesn't mind writing which really helped. Can I ask one question yeah did he find a huge wooden horse. Because that would entail I don't know what of hers would wouldn't have survived I'm sorry. But the inadvertent things that happen when you start digging up the past and this is the point where Schliemann story gets more complicated Jim announces to the world that he's found the city the farmer was writing about he's found trite becomes internationally famous but the truth of the situation is is that the Troy at the bottom of the pile with all this treasure and all the school that actually was not Troy It was not Homer's Troy at least it got from thousands of years before Troy would have even happened the Troy that he was looking for was actually one of the cities that he had just dug through and destroyed in the process of digging through it so that he just digging down he reaches this his net throws it on the side is like debris Yeah that's garbage and basically he destroyed a big chunk of the agent city in trying to find the city the tree was looking for archaeologists understand now it was just 3 layers down and he dug 9 layers down so what this means is that like for any archaeologist today who's trying to figure out anything that's going on at Troy kind of screwed them over I called one of these guys His name is Brian Rose and he was a co-director of excavations at Troy for 25 years he's not a fan of Schliemann so he didn't really know what he was doing so there's a lot of information that we've lost on account of his speed and digging when I look through his notebooks he'll say something like Byzantine building and debris found today dismantled Now that doesn't tell me if it's early middle late Byzantine what the building looked like was it many rooms was it only one room what did he find there it was just be. Breve it was in his way debris that was in his way that actually manages to dig up and thrown a pile on the side you actually money excavated extensively and he had to put the earth that he removed somewhere Schliemann dumped all the earth from his trenches in the areas where I want to dig and part of the reason that he wants to dig in that area is because there might be writing there and to me that very hard because there's all this dirt all these uprooted ruins that are just on top of that area and it would take years and Brian says technology that doesn't even exist now to dig it up without doing more damage so you have 20 meters of dump through which you would have to go in order to get to a deposit that might have writing of late Bronze Age date that's something I'd love to be able to do but for now it's just too monumental an undertaking to do it. One of the things that has always kind of bugged me about the story is that of course Lehman died they actually figured out that he was wrong or they did yeah but he still remembered to this day for discovering Troy and one of the things I remember from that paper I wrote was that really ended up mad at him like. Like I was mad at him for like you were going to go visit Troy and he messed it up basically kind of but when I talk to Brian about it he's kind is that about it I would certainly express frustration which Leaman in the same way that an archaeologist digging at Troy in a 100 years would express frustration with me. I like his attitude Yeah I mean I think when you're an archaeologist you kind of have to take the long view you know you're aware that people are going to come after you and they're in a know more than you so you're very aware of your own limitations and that's actually our show today today on our program we have all kinds of people going and digging up stuff from the past full of hope. But definitely with their own limitations. And the search changes things. And the easy Chicago it's This American Life I'm Ira Glass Stay with us. Family Plot. We move now from the losers of the treasure more to the winners are anyway the descendants of the winners the people of Greece here's something you probably didn't know about Greece they don't have enough cemetery space and cremation is not very popular there so what they do is when you die you're buried in the ground and then 3 or 4 years later your family gets together and digs up your bones get you out of the ground give the space somebody else one of the producers of our show intimacies her parents were both born in Greece and she traveled there in September with them to do this for the very 1st time we're in a rental car driving from Athens to a small village in the south called stupa about 4 hours away my dad's driving I'm in the front seat moms in the back we're on our way to stop by to Exuma my grandmother my father's mom my dad's talking about the cost of gas how much money it will cost to keep this car full of gas also other things about gas as well guys that. I recognize this conversation not for its content but for its design my dad an extraordinarily kind and thoughtful person he feels so much space with small talk. I hate small talk. Today September 19th is my mom's 66 birthday we weren't supposed to exam a grandmother on my mom's birthday is supposed to happen tomorrow because the forecasted rain we're doing it today why I think you've got my back. This will not be the last time she brings up her birthday. My grandmother spent the last 3rd of her life dying her disorder was never successfully diagnosed kind of looked like Parkinson's kind of looked like Huntington's but it was neither of those things a carrot cake or a distant cousin into Syria would come and change her diapers twice a day see her baby food. Growing up I was kind of afraid of my grandma she lost her ability to speak and she just kind of looked at me and moaned and cried it's both Korea. When you're having your problems on your To Do you just you have joint cannot provide it which of your hands and face and her head actually agree where Right. Yeah I mean. It means I'm dancing my mom says she's always answering questions for my dad I think he prefers it that way mama Roberts good to. Have the baby vote. My mom didn't go with my dad to his mother's funeral he went alone I figured he'd be doing the 2nd funeral this reversed funeral alone to. And while I don't know what this process looks like at all the thought of my dad examining his mother's body by himself it just sounded sad so and so a few months ago I decided I wanted to go with him to be there for him and my fantasy of it I'd be by his side holding his hand patient curious even which isn't how it usually goes between us my dad doesn't talk about his feelings too often half the time I think he doesn't even know what they are but then when I'm around him I get impatient. I guess this moment just seems really beg like a chance for us to be different with each other. But then when my mom found out that I was going she decided that she would come to she doesn't want to pass up a chance to see me she agrees to sit in the back seat while I try talking with my dad about what we're on our way to go do and general how the very comfortable and so mothers. I don't know I was. Right most people are uncomfortable in cemetaries the for some reason I just can't let it go. There must be a reason why I don't believe or. Expect with the same or a lot of them here when I say yes I think. That I've had to write this back and forth is so typical it's practically scripted you can he tries to play along to engage but I never think it's enough. You know when you're home is more. Fun with my contract you know it's actually she was born in 1025 she has. No she never swore she didn't drink or. I don't think she ever had then you know. What did she do for fun and of course that's cross-stitch. It's better if you. Do you think she was surprised. All. Right yes so. I'm the result of his terms at the time but yeah I guess your mission control was or. Was she good. I don't know I guess. I'll have to get my hands on the check engine light comes on in the rental or it derails the rest of the car ride each conversation circling back to the potentially faulty engine. When. We pull up to his family's village at 2 the woman who took care of my grandmother who is waiting for us in her yard I haven't seen her in 5 or 6 years she brings as cool water keeps remarking on how absolutely different I look I wouldn't recognize you anywhere she says then a different family friend so at the walks into the yard and joins us you look exactly the same she tells me you haven't aged at all signs of that oh yes so much of what there is to talk about is how old each of us is what age looks like on us and how we all wear it if you're. An hour later we walk to the graveyard it's me my mom my dad and so they don't he. Is carrying recycled plastic water bottles full of vinegar she's also carrying small white brushes the kind used to scrub dirty pots and pans. The villager in looks like a caricature of Mediterranean village the roads aren't paved the homes are all still. You can see the Mediterranean Sea and the mountains from anywhere. The graveyard is connected to the church which is connected to the school everything is dusty The graves are all white the buildings are all white. The grave digger is already at my grandmother's grave he's wearing blue overalls and a yellow t. Shirt he has on a Yankees cap his name is Arturo baseball isn't really a thing in this country I can't imagine where he got the hat. My mom walks to the opposite end of the cemetery where she sits down on a stranger's grave and he some shade she doesn't want to see my grandmother's body she says it's a small cemetery just a few dozen graves and they're also loved which makes sense no one is buried for long here so long as the bodies in the ground people come to visit each plot has photos on it bottles of beer and liquor potted plants candles many of them lit. My dad hobbles around inspecting the other graves to see who else has died since the last time he was here Chris was. Going to realize that whenever he recognizes the name he confirms that yes the person whose name is written on the gravestone is in fact dead. By now you know to me when you see. One of the graves occupied by the priest who bless my grandmother's body just a few years ago at her funeral. But I just saw him just my dad says it was my mother's funeral he's dead. All week people have been saying to us. Which I understand as we hope she's melted such a strange way to say I hope your grandmother's flesh and Oregon's have finished decomposing by taxi driver who picked me up from the airport in Athens told me that at his aunt's examination he'd had to wash the residual skin and blood off of her bones which is a thought so unnerving I don't think I fully fathom did it still I stand beside the grave digger defiant as though to say even if none of you are going to look I'm going to look for more than an hour there's nothing to look at or just shoveling out rocks and dirt placing it all in a pile at the foot of the grave and I stand there sweating waiting for whatever is going to happen my mom keeps sitting on her shady grave My dad keeps reading the names of the headstones he's running out of names he recognizes growing up in this village like the rest of Greece was homogenous everyone was related to everyone but now there are Balkan migrants living here retired Germans and Brits even some ex-pats from the us. In Greece they're called. Strangers. Or they're listing the foreigners in the us. Eventually he walks over to where I'm standing I think to check in on me if you want. To say something like. I do feel. Kind of not. Kind of. You know it's it's time I'm not saying. Will. Fit in and they're all you know up themselves to say look there's water to drink and he walks away to the corner of the cemetery. Has set up a makeshift water station. Arturo's dug for 5 feet down and switches the shovel out for what looks more like an ice pack. That they were going to. We're getting close to the body now he said. Dad walks over to stand with me so to speak but my mom comes over to which at 1st I find shocking but it's not really she doesn't want to feel left out. Yes. Slowly he sort of says go to the Gulf and. So I was put on the right. Who has hovered over our Taro holding out a giant trash bag she's collecting any pieces of cough and that haven't disintegrated in the past few years. For a moment everyone is silent. But again. It's time for us as be very careful the body is ready. To give time of. My life to it so live and you know. My grandmother's head of the ground and hands of the piece we are there still some hair on it but no skin she plucked the hair off the skull which isn't white like the fake skeletons I remember from science class it's dark brown closer to black. My grandmother's eye sockets are filled with dirt. Rubs her skull clean with a scrubby brush she holds it up to us to look at pointing out my grandmother's gold teeth still intact it's like she's saying See it's really her can have at least on . Our Taro keeps pulling out pieces of cough and pieces of my grandmother they're not connected to anything anymore most of these bones have come loose he pulls out some ribs a shoulder bone what I think is a femur but my mom says as a clavicle. Collects each bone one by one and lays them out in the sun. Oh. This was her left shoulder she tells us see you can still see the metal pin her bone from when she got her surgery. For the next 20 or so minutes she reconstruct as much of the body as Arturo can salvage it's also bizarrely d.i.y. . He climbs into the grave with her. To help pull out Bones neither of them is wearing gloves in Greece explains to me we bury the dead with their heads pointing west because that's where the sun sets and so that's where life ends and this process of examining it's conducted from the head down the head comes out 1st and Arturo works his way down the body the last thing that comes out are my grandmother's feet that's. Right I like. Both of my grandmother socks like wool are intact was fabric doesn't disintegrate she was buried in them on purpose so that they know when they've made it to the end to his or her socks and if. I. Could Talk. To them I could have to move. To mine saying in English. She's. From defeat could come. Shield the from the heat of the. We stand there for a moment watching wipe down each bone it's jarring how practical this whole process is or how unceremonious it feels to bury your loved ones and socks so that you'll know when you've finished unburying there remains. Ok. With us well you know. This is going to be with me for a while my dad says right as my mom says this is not scary. I feel annoyed with my mom for stepping on his answer on what he might have said just so she can say that she's fine that she's not scared but then when my dad does have the space to tell me what he's feeling he can't seem to catch his breath. It's the skull. It's all her bones when it 1st came out it looked like a coconut because it was still here on. The. Table. I'm Ok he sang. Tells us that it's over we can go while we're away she'll keep scrubbing the bones 1st with water than with vinegar so place them in a small box that will go in a shed which holds the remains of all the other exam Braz events of this graveyard many of them people my grandmother grew up knowing. Some foreigners. I ask to see the shed which really is just a shed like where a friend's dad may keep his lawn mower except for this one's got stacks and stacks of small boxes and some are labelled many aren't It doesn't seem like anyone visits was a place I just made a bastion of a mess. Later we'll come back to the cemetery to watch a place to live less my grandmothers. One last goodbye but for now we 3 my mom and my dad we pile back into the run to drive to a neighboring village where we're staying for the next few days and suddenly my dad starts to talk about his feelings and it worse. It was my moment so. I was. I think it's a big. I don't know I think this was. I was expecting to I did I did not know what to expect but I spent a lot of hours out of my. Time just about you know and I think I heard you say you must I got to be authentic and it really was. And that was that it was over not as dramatic as we thought it would be here this I was so in here in this car all my family has is what we've always had I start fussing over my dad's writing went back. And he let you know you're glad when it's good for it and then I start feeling Karthik that one of the almost every bad habit I have with my parents begins to bubble up and instead of doing the things that I came here to do instead of engaging with my dad I become a kid again complaining about an upset stomach I just throw up like you if you're. Yeah I was like I don't have good the. I want you to not try as I. Was. Not going to. Bring. Listening back to this car ride what sticks out to me most is the moment my dad tries doing the exact thing I came to Greece hoping for he tries talking about his feelings and he probably would have if I hadn't so quickly stopped listening was just up you have the money you have the phone on your back Ok I did not try. A couple days later my last name Grace with my parents we decided to go out for dinner when we get to the restaurant my mom pulls me aside to ask if I'm going to be good tonight if I'm going to be present I'm always present I lie she says no the only time I was present on this trip was at the cemetery Otherwise I'm the same as ever we're all the same as ever. The only thing that's different really is we have one less day. When I'm a t.t.s. Is a producer on our show. Back to next of kin. It is about people and burying the past and when people leave us they don't just leave behind physical objects. The matter when me talk to a man about a digital excavation Gloria Wayne was a voracious reader a Sunday of has vivid memories of when he was 6 or 7 going with her to the library in the world in northwest England they made a trip to has will library every couple of weeks returning and replenishing his stack of bird mills and their novels it was a habit Gloria maintained ols for her long life and so for Christmas back in 2011 his sons got her a gift to aid in that habit a Kindle Gloria was suspicious of online security in general so they paired her Kindle with Dave's existing account and added an unlimited subscription so she could read whatever she wanted whenever she wanted to read it. This year Gloria died she was 83 years old a speck today on the phone about his mom and we talked about the way of life admin that suddenly becomes super important after such a loss. Maybe the most significant. Thing morning she would go. To sort of the next month description can I show her around 3 years or. So only hours after she'd gone and still in the days Dave went to do the responsible thing the thing he knew his mom would approve of cancel the Kindle subscription and then I thought well just for old time's sake let's have a look I was. So I clicked on the library and that format found $3046.00 books. And this and the time period between Christmas when you're laughing when. Both of the candle to have a passing are made a list of things she had purchased. Over 3000 books which was quite remarkable reading. David had an idea of his mum's literary interest a book shelf contained a good amount of romance novels of the sort he remembered from childhood he also used to get email notifications every so often remember his account was linked to her Kindle all these years but he didn't really pay attention to what his mother was buying romance novels he kind of expected but what the was was a number of. The diplomatic a really too much die. Oh it's Ok this is the rest. And it wasn't just the vanilla stuff it was a real pick and mix of sexual expression if you're listening with kids right now don't worry this is not in any way x. Rated I mean not wanting to throw the whole 20 Cup here of acronyms at you but the and that's and I fast as fast and careful and have all kinds of different combinations of relationships and sexual encounters which was quite staggering to be honest you know there was no one back there was no one I could tell I was that she got drawn to it it was a whole variety they've tweeted about both his mother's passing and his inadvertent inheritance of the Library of what he described tongue in cheek as magnificently epic sleeze he concluded it with attributes of sorts mother he wrote I raise a glass. Discovering the library may date curious he and his mother shared similar tastes in music and film maybe they would be unlikely common ground he had to he decided to make a project of his discovery he would delve into his mother's virtual stack of filthy literature his words maybe find one more thing they had in common it was an especially taxing you know was only a fairly sure kind of thing it was a 90 minute char and ever. So for a 100 days on the run up look at the. Other favorite title was there any title that stuck out to you as just either abominably bad or actually fantastically good looking at a post to be honest I'm not without doubt spanked by the Italian mob. In the past because it does what it says on the page it is literally about a girl who wants to be spanked by the Italian mob. That's what they're getting a little in the end. I mean the whole series The Last of spanked by books was about 6 or 7. Wow with this post girl being spanked by the righteous man. I checked out the series by the way it's by Alexis dong the actual title Davies thinking about is sponsored by the Irish mob each book teaches a heroine looking for a spanking and getting it from the u.k. The navy seal an unaffiliated mobiles and others. As they've read more books he found himself enjoying some of them enough that he started to have a few they were it's opposing embrace what was in a man from the. Past And I think that's great I quite like the playful nature of the title that was written by as Karen said like the great care. And no one called what was written by you and your own Marco sexsomnia 6 percent Manhattan and I was very good indeed as well which is a light tone and slightly left of an explicit nature to where now that 100 book challenge is over they've kept his mum subscription going and he's still reading her books they're reminded that his mom was more than just his mom she was a real whole person with their own quiet obsessions in reading these books do you feel is it helping is it in any way a balm for you yeah because it kept her spirit present. You know you find yourself almost having a conversation matter while you read them you know you read a particularly heretical explicit line you think Good gracious mother what are you doing. So yeah you did this and to extend that relationship. While we can never of what happened. To. Memory more visit. According to day his mom was a homebody and in a decade after a lifetime of working hard Luria like to stay home and watch a bit of mud he would enjoy his money no. Finding a library is a combination but his mom always did whatever the hell she wanted more than anything else it just makes him admire him more. The amount I would make is when the dishes I shall. Going up the hipbones connected to that is not connected to anything in this case like nothing at all that's in a minute it's got the public radio when our program continues. Support for j p r comes from Medford food co-op thankful for the opportunity to serve the Rogue Valley Medford food co-op is committed to nourishing the community with real food inspiring wholesome meals with organic produce sustainable meets core made cheeses and a wide selection of gluten free and plant based options Medford food co-op and the cafe are open daily 7 to 9 located at 945 south Riverside just north of Barnett Moore at Medford to dock. Every day j.p. Your feed your curiosity with in-depth news and we showcase the best in indie rock pop singer songwriters and more you know none of this would be possible without your direct support listener contributions pay some of the bills but business underwriters also play an important role in making great public radio possible learn about becoming a j.p. Or underwriter at r.j. P.r. Dot org Just click the support tab or call us at 187261912 my for America last Today Show digging up the bones stories of people on our think things from the past trying to make sense of them we've arrived at Act 3 of our show at 3 in the case of the curious bone David Kestenbaum has the story about a man obsessed with a single bone a bone that is inexplicably large really just do big make any sense out of it all it was a fragment of a bone so old it had turned to stone the man trying to puzzle it out was a naturalist and professor in England named Robert Plant He writes about it in this beautiful meticulous book The Natural History of Oxford char published in 16th 77 the curious bone he writes was quote dug out of a quarry in the parish of Cornwall given to me by the ingenious Sir Thomas Paine Easton your eyes that seem to be some part of a fiber except way too big it measured 2 feet and weighed almost 20 pounds. This is the 16 hundreds and no one in the world had a good explanation for it alone met big. Plot rights for almost 9 pages in his book about the strange boat and he is methodical in trying to reason out what the heck it is. First he considered the possibility that maybe it's not a bone at all but just some natural rock formation which is admirable it's so easy to jump to conclusions. But the more studies it it really does seem to be part of a colossal bone you're right that it has the capital if and Morris inferior end quote the seat of the strong ligament that rises out of the thigh and gives safe passage to the vessel descending into the leg. And then inside the bone there is what looks like marrow you can see the marrow preserved inside. But what in the world was it from. Quote It will be hard to find an animal proportionable to it he writes. He runs through the possibilities eliminating them one by one horse oxen too small he considers something other people have suggested that maybe the bone is from an elephant perhaps brought over during the Roman invasions back around 5080 he spends 2 pages on this possibility but it seems unlikely to him he's clearly read through lots of historical accounts quote Tony is in his life where he is very particular concerning this expedition into Britain mentions no such matter there was one elephant Tis true he writes sent as a present to King Henry the 3rd from the King of France in the year 1255 and perhaps 2 or 3 other elephants brought in one for show since then but quote whether it be likely any of these should be buried at Cornwell let the reader judge. Also of the bones from an elephant he writes Where are the tusks. Finally as he's writing it he explains that an actual live elephant comes to town which he examines and decides no elephant completely different shape definitely not elephant. And here you can feel him starting to piece things together he's on the edge of seeing this thing he mentions other large bones after the great fire in London in 666 under the wreckage of St Mary will church quote there was found a bone now to be seen at the King's Head Tavern in Greenwich in Kent much bigger and longer than ours and also people have been finding unusually large teeth in fact people have been finding unusually large bones for centuries there's one account by a Chinese scholar from the 300 b.c. But none had a satisfying explanation is remarkable reading Robert Potts book to think how close he was such a stunning fact about life on this planet. Where you can know a lot and still not see sometimes you don't even know it can't see you just can't imagine the possibility of even when you are holding the thing in your hand. By the end of the section of the book plot has reasoned out the one remaining possibility the only thing that makes any sense to him. The bones they must have come from Giants people just a little bigger. Which I have to say it's way more sensible than the truth. David Kestenbaum is executive editor of our program every pot bad in 696 people in Figure out the whole dinosaur thing for another 100 years the bone Pod puzzled over was lost a long time ago but from the drawings scientists think it was a mega Soras that in Cornwall some 170000000 years before him and yes I thought about. That for revision Quest. So we initiated a with somebody who dug up bones from our past and then years later went back to the same site to dig them up again Susan Burton explains. Giles husband died a few years ago they met in 1970 when Joe was 16 and he was 47 and in spite of the age difference they were passionate about each other from the start it was a happy marriage that's one way to tell the story here's another Jill's husband died a few years ago they met in 1970 when Joe was 16 and he was 47 she was a student and one evening after class he Kister they started sleeping together. You might call me a predator or say he abused his power but everything turned out Ok it was a happy marriage. Chills a writer her full name is Jill cement and years ago when she was in her forties she published a memoir that told the story the 1st way. Now she's reading that story again and considering it from the 2nd. Not to correct the record she's trying to understand why she wrote her story the way she did. The 1st memoir is called The Life the one she's writing now is called The other half when I wrote half a life rigidly You know I wrote this thing from the depths of my heart I was supposedly telling the truth which I really deeply believed I was but with the beginning of the me to movement it was a kind of catalyst that made me think What if I told my story again from this vantage point from the vantage point of me being 66 in the vantage point of the world having completely changed she'll know exactly where she wanted to start by writing down the story of their 1st kiss what she wrote about it when she was in her forty's is not how she remembers it today here's what she remembers today. The night of that kiss Jaylen Arnold her teacher were in an art studio it was an evening class most of the other students were retirees the class it ended and Joe was alone with Arnold and for the past 6 months he had been doing things like saying I wish you were older and you know not making sexual advances but certainly making me aware he was attracted to me and I was completely attracted to him and all I did was fantasize about him and so we went into a studio supposedly he was going to give me the names of people I was about to drop out of high school moved to New York to be an artist and he was going to give me the names of other artists who would become maybe mentors or hire me as an assistant and as we got into the room I remember he took my wrist and pulled me towards him and we kissed and you know I look back and I realized I hadn't written it that way Ok I had written it is if I had been the sexual aggressor could you go ahead and read how you describe the scene and have a life absolutely on the last night of art class I dawdled in the hall until the other students were finished the soon as they were gone I slipped back into the classroom and shut the door behind me Arnold was leaning against the window frame arms folded eyes shut yawning this time I approached him without a hint of quaintness without the spark of a blush I am button the top 3 buttons of my peasant blouse cross the ink splattered floor and kissed him. What why did you write it that way in 1906 I don't know. I think I viewed myself is and I always have I viewed myself as someone who was always in charge I never felt powerless and so maybe a way of illustrating that was to make me the sexual aggressor at least as far as the kiss went but I I have I don't honestly know I mean that's why I'm writing this whole book to try to figure out why it seemed the truth in I would never have done it purposely Ok did seem the truth when I wrote it in 1996 why it seemed the truth here is what interests me one reason it seemed like the truth was that later when Jill and Arnold slept together for the 1st time she was the one who seduced him she certain of them they both were but that 1st kiss when I look back on it he did instigate this and I don't know if I would have had the nerve at 16 then later 17 to acted upon all the things that I acted upon without him being the initial instigator. In making your is self the instigator were you protecting him you know I don't think so I think that I was trying to tell the truth of my own desire I saw him I wanted him and I went after him and I don't think I knew how to reconcile that with the idea that he kissed me 1st in our forty's you want to write a love story about love across a great age span this kind of story it's almost always told from the man's point of view Jill wanted to read it from the perspective of the young woman and also not make her the victim. And even though Jill still emphatically does not see herself as a victim some of the choices she made in writing her 1st memoir seem startling to one who like her account of the letter are not Center after they slept together. Dear Jill are you ever coming back to class. When she didn't respond he called her in the 1st memoir still plays the anecdote for laughs the 1st time it's treated like of course it's funny what 47 year old man is going to write a little girl at her house when her mother can open the mail but when I rewrote it this time what I saw was I saw a 47 year old man having made love to a 17 year old girl after which he doesn't hear from her for a month he writes a letter to her house soliciting her again in this sort of you know fake love letter and when he doesn't hear back from that little girl again he calls her now into in today's world we would see that as a predator going after an underage girl and when I think about that I'm totally shocked. I'm shocked they didn't see that the 1st time but you know the end of a story really really makes you change the beginning and so I think that that's part of it I think that part of the reason that I wrote it this way is because I was having a wonderful marriage and part of the reason I wrote it this way was because in 1970 when all this stuff was happening it wasn't as appalling for an older man to do this. Back in 1700 Nobody ever said to Joe that they saw anything appalling in Arnold's behavior at least not directly here's the thing I can I mean I remember going to a party one time when we were 1st going out where the hostess served everyone a martini and me a glass of milk so I'm I'm sure people noticed Ok when Joe looked back at the 1st book she was struck by the part she left out parts of scenes the Messier more revealing parts but other missions to ones that are more profound like about her father who was the exact same age as arm. Most of the 1st book is actually about Jill's father she only meets Arnold about 2 thirds of the way through. By that point her father had moved out she really saw him he was troubled and explosive and incapable of emotional connection essentially absent from her life. I found her writing about him wrenching but weirdly incomplete. It was just so clear that if it had be your art teacher was a substitute for your father in so many ways and you don't write explicitly about this and have a life and I wonder if you could talk about why. You know I can't believe I didn't do it I mean I'm doing it now in this version it at 45 it seemed obvious and the obvious in those days I believed made things less literary God knows why Ok but that's what I believed and I just don't think it's true anymore and I think the idea that a father of this girl goes out and finds them a father and then uses that man to heal themself of having never been loved by an older man I mean maybe I didn't know how to handle it at that age maybe it was impossible to do while both my father and my husband were alive. What has reexamining your story like this done to to your picture of your husband or your memories of him or your perception of your marriage Well I mean it it it changes the picture because I can't no look at him without realizing the lines that he crossed and at the same time I'm really glad that we cross those lines I really question a lot of these you know these these inferences that it is always wrong it wasn't wrong for me and it will never change my feelings about it being an amazing marriage what what things do you say in the new book that might have been hard for him to read oh my God the whole thing. I mean I would never have written this book if he was alive I mean it would be so hurtful like in in half a wife he seems you know like he has always been a successful older man and to describe him as somebody who had a mid-life crisis and was struggling to find himself again I think would have been really painful for him to read Arnold was a painter he was struggling as an artist when Joe met him but he flourished in the years that followed it's interesting to hear you say that the thing Arnold would be hurt by is the depiction of him as a struggling middle aged man and not at the questions about his role as possible predator or aggressor. I don't think he was I mean I don't think he ever thought of me that maybe he did who knows I think that he never thought of me as someone who wasn't as strong as him yeah. And so I think he would be I think he'd be shocked and surprised by these nuances in which I'm looking back at our relationship the questions Jill's asking about what she included in what she left out about what she realizes now that she didn't back then those questions interest me because they're questions I'm asking myself right now too. I'm almost exactly the same age as Jill was when she wrote half a life and I have a memoir coming out in a few months. The book tells the story of my adolescence but I assume it reveals just as much if not more about who I am now at 46 and who I was at 16. It's about the eating disorders that defined my teenage years and if I'm being honest my adulthood too. Until recently I've never talked about this stuff with anyone so in that way the book is very exposing. The maybe what's not there is just as revealing I know there's a lot I can't yet see and I wanted to talk to Jill about that. I know that if I had you know waited another 5 years I would have understood more and sometimes I wonder should have waited to tell my story until I understood it better but I do I don't think you and I don't think I understand my story better than I did at 45 Ok yeah I look back at my 45 year old self and I think oh my God she she didn't have this information I I see how young I was at 45 I look at my 45 year old self in much the same way that my 45 year old self looked at my 16 year old self and it's you know it's a kind of compassionate view of who you were before you had all the information Yeah. When you think about yourself and 45 how do you see your 45 year old self now differently than she saw herself. At that point I I was still thinking about the ascent of life you know I was still moving in this this forward motion I was even at the a maybe at the height of my powers and when I look back at that I realize how how delusional that is you know what happens is you're writing at 45 from all the information experience that you've had what I didn't have was the experience of taking my husband all the way to death. In her new book Jill's not just exploring the beginning of her relationship she's writing about the end of it too you know it's the 2nd part of sleeping with your professor it's the you know the part you know where suddenly you go from being the young lover to the caretaker in that's an entirely different transition taking someone to death that's the most extraordinary experience there is and so in some ways who kissed whom 1st seems really small in the length of this journey. Jill always thought that the more interesting way to write memoir would be to return again and again to a monumental moment in the life rather than telling the story in order all the way through. Revisiting a story doesn't necessarily make it any better she says but it does make it different. Even when we read about the past always telling a story about the present. Whether we mean to or not. Susan Burton is one of the producers of our show just cements latest book a novel called The Body in question. Big enough. To get up. Next new member that's bad. Weather was produced day by Emmanuel Berry and drumming people put a show together today could be a matter with me Baker Susan Burton Ben Calhoun Deanna chip Sean Cole been in grave Michelle Harris Sept land Jessica Watson help in the mid sixty's Katherine Raimondo 90 Raymond Roth and Sammy and Christopher is a talent mad tyranny imagine editors Diane will or executive editors David Kestenbaum Presidents Day 3 said Ryan Hines I website This American Life dot org We can stream our archive of it riseth 180 episodes for absolutely free. And there's videos and favorites lists and tons of other stuff there too again This American Life dot org This American lives to go to public radio stations by p r x The Public Radio Exchange support for This American Life comes from Amazon publishing with a new book If You Tell Greg Olsen the true story of murder family secrets and their breakable bond of sisterhood if you tell a valuable at Amazon dot com slash if you tell and from Indeed with that skill tests both employers want to see a deeper sense of the person behind the resume more and more at Indeed dot com slash higher taxes always co-founder Mistry matter to you know when I would run into an appointment this week on this 50 story skyscraper Sept 1st the 45th story we thought our point was we were sure it was 45 wasn't right and we looked at 44464248 I was confused about which story he was confused about which story I don't think I understand my story better than I did at 45 America last back next week with more stories of this American. 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Just beyond those talks those ideas gap did for radio. From n.p.r. . I'm Guy rise coming up what is the place of humans on the floor in the history of the throne the history of the universe why are we around as homo sapien we said easily might not have been around this is one of those deep human questions that I feel like we as a species should be trying to answer this episode how it all began 1st the news live from n.p.r. News in Washington and Barbara Kline the f.b.i. Says No arrests have been made in connection with Friday's shooting at the naval air base in Pensacola Florida the gunman killed 3 people before he was shot and killed N.P.R.'s Greg Allen reports a number of Saudis on base at the time of the shooting are being questioned the gunman was a 21 year old member of the Royal Saudi Air Force on base for flight training the f.b.i. Says he legally purchased the 9 millimeter Glock he used in the shooting somewhere in Florida the agency is withholding specifics the f.b.i. Also won't confirm reports that some Saudis on base videotape the shooting f.b.i. Special Agent in Charge Rachel Rojas says other Saudis training at Pensacola have been restricted to base and are cooperating with authorities our main goal right now is to confirm whether he acted alone or was he a part of a larger.