Markets are mostly higher investors in China are keeping an eye on the communist party congresses leadership meeting held once every 5 years this is n.p.r. News a federal judge in New York is set to hear arguments on whether to allow a lawsuit against President Trump to move forward Wednesday's hearing focuses on the so-called email you meant to clause in the Constitution the case brought by a group called Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington alleges that trump violated the Constitution by allowing his businesses to accept money from foreign governments and Justice Department lawyers are expected to argue Wednesday that the clause pertains to gifts or payments to a u.s. President in his official capacity for the 2nd year in a row American writer George Saunders has won Britain's best known literary award the Man Booker Prize Saunders's best known for his short stories won this year's award for his 1st novel Lincoln in the bardo more from N.P.R.'s Lynn Neary Saunders at the prize for a book the judges described as utterly original it's set on the night that Abraham Lincoln visits the graveyard where his young son has just been buried evoking the Buddhist concept of the bardo a place between death and reincarnation Saunders brings the inhabitants of the graveyard back to life in a story The Man Booker judges said explores the meaning and experience of empathy until recently the Man Booker was only open to writers from the u.k. And Commonwealth nations Saunders is the 2nd American ever to win the prize Paul Beatty won last year for the sellout the prize comes with a monetary award of $50000.00 pounds which is about $65000.00 Lynn Neary n.p.r. News Washington going on Asian market shares are mixed slightly lower in Hong Kong I'm Chase Devens n.p.r. News in Washington. Support for n.p.r. Comes from a not are creators of the Japanese made Dreamwave massage chair with shiatsu point detection and 16 preprogrammed massages including morning and night time sessions retail dealers nationwide more at Dreamwave chair dot com. This is Fresh Air I'm Terry Gross my guest Amy Tan is best known for her novels The Joy Luck Club the Kitchen God's wife and the valley of amazement her fiction has drawn on her extended family her grandmother was a concubine in China tens mother was married to an abusive husband in China she left him for another man who had worked with the u.s. Information service agency in China as a ham radio engineer they married and emigrated to America where Amy and her siblings were born in America her father became a Baptist minister Amy Tan tells her own story in the form of a new memoir titled Where the past begins and in telling her own story she writes the stories of her parents and maternal grandmother as part of her preparation she went through 7 large plastic bins filled with memorabilia letters photos and family documents including her parents' student visas notices about possible deportation and their applications for citizenship which they did get she also found condolence cards from when her father died of a brain tumor her brother died within a year also of a brain tumor Amy 10 was in her teens at the time. Amy Tan welcome to Fresh Air You know it's searing to me reading your book that you had 2 really different sources of seeing the world one from your mother one from your father your mother was the daughter of a concubine she grew up in China and then your mother was married to a man she described as evil who forced her to have sex. And who you know she had like 5 children with him one of them died one of them was stillborn. She runs away with your father and leaves that marriage and then and she's always telling you stories about you know like curses and ghosts and her mother being a concubine and then your father becomes a Baptist minister and he's. Evangelical and fundamentalist bottom Bible imagery and they're both Chinese but they both come from really different cultures in a way and really different ways of seeing the world so did that affect you did you feel like you grew up in this like dual brain like household. One of the dual brain had to do with mother father mother a little that. I presented suicidal father honest cheerful leader in the community yes very Christian but what I didn't realize is that I was also getting these 2 different senses of the culture the one that you described which included a lot of bad things determined by fate or bad luck or ghosts or karma and the one of my father that was dictated by God through prayer and it was always there with my mother but I didn't know the actual background the history of her life that had contributed to that you know her and her warnings about men who were going to destroy me and make me want to kill myself it's not a very good way of introducing your child to you know procreation. But you know that was always there and it wasn't I was getting more sense of it when I was writing and asking her questions but even more when I was doing the research for this book I think you said and hearing about the understanding of God that your father taught you your father a Baptist minister. God was a voice that came to my father when he was lost and he was lost because he had had this affair with my mother in China and he had come to know I did States. And he was looking for direction and he decided that because he came from a very Christian family he decided that maybe you would find this direction through God God spoke to him and said This is the way you go so my father decided to get a degree at the Berkeley Baptist and that in the school now I always thought that God would talk to me as well if you believed if you were going to be baptized he would have to hear this voice and I pretended that I heard the voice and walked at the church I old to say I believe in Jesus that I heard the call and I hadn't I had lied. And I think you know I had this confusion but I had the so the kind of voice in my head not not a schizo frantic voice but the voice of your own conscience in a way the voice that is your narrative on what you are seen in the world and. I just wonder just does everybody have that you know is it just me. That has this running commentary now the voice didn't tell me what to do they didn't tell me walk up the aisle or seeing him. You know convert people he had made outs or patients and it told me you know what I was seeing and how I would interpret the world yeah that's why you're a writer. I think a lot of I don't know what do you do that I mean yeah I do and I don't write about I've always had this kind of like narration and I had of like what's going on yeah but in commentary you know color commentary did you feel the sense of guilt like you're lying to yourself to the congregation to your father and to God. Especially to God you know because I knew that. He knew you know he knew I was lying that I hadn't heard him he hadn't spoken to me yet. But I thought it was what was good about this you know my father talking about the voice and you're having to have this belief and make the decree the declaration of the belief that what you had to do was really know what you believe and you had to really feel it and I didn't feel it in the way he wanted me to feel it but it gave me that sense early in life this importance of belief. Difference is in my father's world the beliefs are handed to you and you were told this is what you must do in your life based on the eat it that are issued by the Bible it's very literal and I reached an age where not only was I rebellious because it was teenager my father my brother die now that's going to kick into gear a really huge rebellion and I got to discard all these beliefs I was forced to in order to survive. So when you were growing up with your mother stories about ghosts and your father's belief in God Did you see the difference between ghosts and God or did they kind of combine in your mind as 2 things that are 2 different forces that were powerful and unseen and mysterious that you couldn't quite comprehend and they were sort of of the. You know the same kind of force but they were different say John. One was magical realism and the other was a different kind of magical realism and I don't know if I can call Christianity realism and you know it's not that I'm. Pulling people who are Christians but what I one of the differences with my mother of course is that there was a kind of thing that was guided by the known and or something called New luck or bad luck or. She would guess sometimes it was karma or functionally or is my father's sense of fate was really based very strongly on faith and those would make the decisions they were there would be miracles you would have blessings come into your life and if you didn't you had to be patient and God would show you the way so I. I grew up with East you know 2 different versions of fate and you know I would say that at a certain age I would prefer of course the Christian one that wasn't full of bad things in my mother's world also had to do with curses and you feel kind of helpless when there's a curse going on in your life did you hear a lot of biblical language that your father read from the Bible a lot at home and where there are passages that stood out in your mind and I'm also wondering if they're ones that seemed very important to you know they were beautiful or an ominous way that you didn't quite understand and maybe misinterpreted I'll offer as an example when I was growing up I heard the song with the Valley of the shadow of death which they used to read in school all the time because this was before bible readings were banned from public schools I always thought that sounds really powerful the valley of the shadow and death but it was also the valley of the tea gun these ads for something called Geritol that were supposed to feel like lift you out of the afternoon sleepy slump and so I didn't understand I was very young and I didn't understand the difference between the valley of the shadow of death and the valley of fatigue they both sound really like ominous to me and maybe connected in this way that I can comprehend. When I think of the. That song when I picture is a pile of dead people you know it's terrifying I know I grew up listening to this from the time I was a baby all our friends Rick Christians I heard I sang hymns I think one of the ways that I learned to read instead I was trying to read the same words that were in the hymns God and then Christ whatever and you know so my father's language to people in fact. I was these quotes from the Bible may God bless you and keep you and and I read those now in his letters and I and I was disappointed I was so proud of him when I was a kid but I was disappointed because it seemed to me they were like pat phrases and that's what I grew up with they were very comfortable things to say you knew exactly you know the right sentiments now I do have I do have a favorite. Passage and it I think the that it's Paul's 2nd letter to the Christians and it's about love and I and I want to keep that in mind that this is the quality of Christianity that people should not forget you know that Christianity means love and it's not intolerance it's not about you don't believe what I believe and so you know you're cut out you don't get the go be on the red velvet. Ropes and get into heaven if you're just joining us my guest is Amy Tan She's the author of The Joy Luck Club in the valley of amazement and a new memoir that's called Where the past begins we're going to take a short break here and be right back this is Fresh Air This is Terry Gross the host to fresh air every day k s k an n.p.r. Here for you stop and think a moment about who pays for it over 70 percent of k.s. 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Were dying of brain tumors and they died within a year of each other. Your mother broad in faith healers and karma adjustors. Was your father aware of that. Not really I think that he she was able to hide a lot of these beliefs from him until after he died or was pretty close to dying and his is cognitive abilities where impaired. But she would call in these functionally people to see if there were imbalances in her in our house she would count bad things that happened in the neighborhood in 2 different neighbors and say I should have seen this. She called than people who were babbling in tongues and and I knew at that point she'd gone crazy. She brought pot stickers to the cemetery to give to my brother. She saw signs in and everything and I would say the signs are what a lot of people would see when a loved one's dying you know you feel something you believe something when somebody squeezes your hand and doctors will say that's a reflex but my mother took it is a sign. Of a really huge sign his greatest you know my father believing in their own so your mother believed that there might be a curse on the family that caused the death of your brother and your father. And that the same of her wrists might also affect your mother in the future and you and your younger brother did you believe that did you worry that there was a curse that might come and get you to you were 15 when your father and brother die . I both believed it. And rejected it. You know when you have a brother who's dying in a father's dying and you see them and their head is you know been shaved and they have stitches like railroad tracks across them. You're scared and so somebody says you know there's a curse and this is going to happen to you end up half the leaving it and then you push it away you cannot believe you cannot imagine yourself looking like that so I also tried very hard to reject that but I would say that I believed it more than I didn't because I was fearful and whenever we had a headache or whenever see anything went wrong my brother and I would look at each other and we would wonder if this curse was beginning again so you must have thought a lot about death and your own mortality when you were in your mid teens. I I did you know I and I it started then it's confronting me every day I go to the hospital I hear people talking about it but I also heard a lot about the opposite which was the miracle. I will say as a consequence of these experiences with death at a very early age death is something I think about every single day and not with the grimness not with the sense of the curse that my mother had instilled in us but with this notion you have to think about your life every day and it is what you're doing meaningful. Did you discover something new today what do you believe at this moment. And I think it's a wonderful. Perspective of life that I mean it people think that I'm paranoid or. I think they're avoiding the you know the Avid ability that this is going to happen. But this is this is true I think of a lot of writers you think about death or you think about obsessions you I mean you you have obsessions that others would not have. And this that I think directly into my writing when I when I look at the nature of the narrative that you are making certain decisions leading up to a point that is a belief or you're discovering that belief and whether you think that what is happening is coincidental or is it a kind of faith or is it an avid Belit he because of character and all of this early background of what to believe that. Is part of my fiction. Let's talk about your mother. Her mother your mother's mother was a cocky. What did being a concubine mean what did it mean. It a man who had a 1st wife and then he could have other wives they were referred to with the title you know number 2 wife number 3 wife but essentially they were mistresses and they lived in the house concubines were very low position wise for you know right there in society and concubines right not now if you were concubine you were not really fit to remarry somebody who was in a you know a well to do family. So my name my grandmother who had been who we thought the 1st wife of the scholar now was somebody quite low. And there was this shame associated with my mother used to cry about this and say you don't understand this was China you're you know American and this was a shame we could never wash off our backs you know this is a shame I still have and it's taken me a long time to relation a you can't look at these from an American point of view with no you were a victim of society you know of course it's washed off your back this is an emotion I realise that you can't it's just stuck in you your grandmother was a concubine but her husband was a wealthy you know privilege man but she wasn't the. As sort of living in that home she did not have that privilege herself she was considered lowly in. In the Chinese system actually she would have been lowly in this in society outside of the home she was actually the favorite in the house she had the best room she she bossed around the other concubine she she was the one who sat in the room at night with the husband and smoked opium and you know got to write around a carriage he promised her a house in Shanghai that she could live in just my mother and she could live in this house and be away from the other country but so even though she was a concubine to this man she was the number one wife. Is this all the information you got from your mother and was your mother a reliable source since your grandmother died when your mother was 9. My my mother was half reliable and I had to look at this in terms of a 9 year old girl looking at her mother and wanting to believe many things about her that were pure and elevated and and then I had to look at this other evidence why was she given the best room and people told me that several people told me that why would they tell me that and then I talked to another woman. Who said Now this is all recent I talked to another woman and she said Oh your grandmother she was very loud she she had a lot of opinions and if you didn't believe her or you didn't follow her you were scared later now that sounds like my mother and so I do believe that and I believe that my grandmother was that way and that she wasn't considered number 4 in the household she was the favorite. My guest is Amy Tan her new memoir is called Where the past begins we'll talk more after a break and marine Corrigan will review a new nonfiction book about a deadly London smog I'm Terry Gross and this is Fresh Air. The new power Family Foundation supports w.h.y. Was fresh air and its commitment to sharing ideas and encouraging meaningful conversation and support for n.p.r. Comes from this station and from Progressive Insurance offering a way to buy home insurance with their home quote Explorer tool custom quotes and rates are available online learn more progressive dot com or 1800 progressive Now that's progressive. And from Sarah Crighton books and Farrar Straus and Giroux publisher of reckless daughter portrait of Joni Mitchell by David Yeah Phoebe reckless daughter is available where books are sold. 'd 'd 'd This is Fresh Air I'm Terry Gross back with Amy tam the author of the novels The Joy Luck Club the Kitchen God's wife and the valley of amazement her new book is a memoir titled Where the past begins in writing about her own life she writes about her family her parents were immigrants from China her mother's mother was a concubine. Your grandmother your mother's mother killed herself by overdosing on opium in 1025. That left your mother and orphaned pretty much at the age of 9 or at least motherless. And then your mother later married a man she came to believe was evil she forced her to have sex with him she how many how many children did she have. Which she had and. She had 4 living one stillborn and 3 abortions and one of them died of dysentery. The son he was he had dysentery and the doctor was playing with her husband playing Mahjong and they didn't want to interrupt the game and my mother was holding on to the 3 year old I think it was 3 and he died in their arms she said it was very fast it happened within you know 24 hours. Her husband would bring his girlfriends home. So from day one day one of their marriage she would bring these girlfriends home she went to be with your father she kind of ran away to be with your father her husband tracked her down brought her back she was in prison for a while with prostitutes because she'd run away but the way you describe it the laws changed the marriage laws changed when the communists were coming to power so that a man was no longer legally allowed to have several wives and a woman was allowed to initiate divorce proceedings against her husband which is what your mother did don't have that right. In a way. I think it was still up to that the husband had more say in this than the woman. He had to decide you know because of this new change in the law he had to decide who was married to and my mother played you know she went through a ploy with the help of other relatives where she caught him in a public place with his khaki pine and said to him in front of all these people who is your wife which one of this is your wife and the concubine standing next to him had been living with him for quite a while and also was a very strong woman gave him a stare and he had to say she's my wife and my mother said fine sign here she had the paper with her sign here I am no longer your wife. It's a great story. My mother was you know she was one of these people was prepared for everything she was so clever. You know I think about this now that she she could find ways to get out of situations you know she wouldn't be trapped she saw what happened her mother both of them hated being controlled by people they hated condescension and it's a trait that they passed on to me I see that I see why it's so strong because it was so strong in my grandmother that she killed herself so you know your grandmother killed herself when your mother was 9 so your mother was exposed to suicide a very young age. And then throughout your childhood your mother threatened to kill herself she nearly threw herself out of the current when all the children and your father were in the car and she was in the front passenger seat. Do you think that her mother's death created suicide as a constant possibility in her own. Mine Absolutely because oftentimes in her threat she would say that she wanted to join her mother she said when she described the funeral of her mother that she was trying to fly off with their mother she said she would have these. This feeling it was like an uncontrollable feeling that she needed to leave and sometimes she said she was going back to China but most of the time she said she was going to kill herself and so it was always with anger and this would see for days and she would not speak to anybody and because you know I would say you know there were times when she would say it you know once a week or more and then there would be relatively peaceful times when she didn't say it for a month or 2 but when she did we always had to take it seriously because she had to write you only need to have your mother tried once before you are quaking every single time she says that you think your mother was mentally ill Did she ever have a diagnosis. She never had she never saw a doctor about. This mental illness and I do think she had one. I would say it was depression and and she might have had a personality also that my grandmother had maybe what people would call borderline. I don't really know all these terms and what they mean that I have a number of friends who are psychiatry and I think part of the meaning is that whatever she is feeling you were supposed to feel and and that I found to be true it was really one of the ways that I was able to get along with her where I could stop the suicidal tendencies in her I would say I understood her that when she was angry I would be angry I would be furious to match her anger and that was the only thing that would calm her down and I think it's really hard for a lot of daughters to break away from their mothers and to differentiate the. Differentiate their own personality from their mothers and their own destiny. But for you the way you describe it where you had to kind of feel what your mother was feeling in part to like help protect her from suicide was it hard for you more hard more difficult than it might ordinarily have been for you to break away and establish who you were and what you thought your direction should be since you had mastered the art of feeling what your mother was feeling. I think is hard only in the sense that I was feeling I had betrayed her I no longer wanted to feel and be her compatriot and fury and depression. When I wrote the 1st book The Joy Luck Club I remember myself back into her mind but in a way that I could understand her I didn't have to just take the exterior part the manifestation of anger that came out of this subtext that I didn't know about I could live her life again I could It was as if I was there the witness in the room and somebody who became her in the fiction and I I knew her I could my mother sense that she she that was the only book she read of mine and she said at the end of that you know me I don't have to say anymore if you're just joining us my guest is writer Emmy tan she has a new memoir called Where the past begins to take a short break then we'll be right back this is Fresh Air. This is Charles will 4th coast of hometown Alaska Do you ever feel discouraged about all the conflict in the world I do and that's one reason I enjoy doing hometown Alaska and being part of the k s k community here's a place we can turn when we want to join with others for real meaningful conversation it's a place to pitch in and make something good for our town for each other a place where we can discuss debate and we respect each other a place to listen it works because everyone helps what you do your part to keep this community of listeners healthy call 550-8484 make the decision that today you are going to make a generous pledge of financial support to k s k thank you for listening and thank you for supporting cascade Hi I'm Sharon Richards our proud member and passport member of Alaska Public Media 91 point one f.m. Is that spot on my radio dial where I know I can hear articulate and knowledgeable people talk about issues that I care about it's where I hear fresh ideas that challenge and inspire me as a member I know my contributions help Alaska Public Media remain a constant source of accurate and balanced reporting I know my support helps make a difference you can make a difference to make a donation on line today at Alaska public dot org. Support for n.p.r. Comes from this station and from Home Advisor matching homeowners with background check professionals for a variety of home projects from minor repairs to major remodels homeowners can read reviews compare prices and book appointments online at Home Advisor dot com and from Cancer Treatment Centers of America working to outsmart cancer through the use of genomic testing to profile each individual's cancer and reveal possible treatment options learn more about precision cancer treatment at Cancer Center dot com This is Fresh Air and if you're just joining us my guest is Amy Tan who's who's the author of The Joy Luck Club in the valley of amazement and the new memoir where the past begins so many of your stories are about mothers and daughters but you decided against having children and I be interested in hearing why and I ask this from the perspective I don't have children either so I'm not asking you and I like how could you possibly decide not to have children you know I'm not asking this in a scolding Yeah yeah I'm just kind of interested in why people choose to and choose not to have children I think the default question should be Why did you choose to have children why do you choose you know to have children in the future because the very reasons the very answers to that would be the reasons why you would not have children. If you don't feel you have to pass on your genetic d.n.a. For a custom child you would say Ok well you know I don't need to have a child for that reason if you didn't feel that you needed to have this 6 quiz it. And found the mobile kind of love that you would have for no other person your life and then you didn't need to have kids you didn't necessarily see that your career was as important as having a child in that experience maybe you wouldn't have children. Those are the reasons why I decided not to have children as well as the feeling that if I had been a mother I would have raised them with the same exact he's obsessions and anger that my mother gave to me you mentioned in your memoir that you were pregnant once and you didn't you didn't particularly want to be a mother you didn't feel like you had the money or security yet to be a parent and you didn't know what to do you know if you should have an abortion or or have the child and you told her mother what your mother said was really interesting I'd like you to describe what she said. My mother and I were sitting in the car on a rainy day about to go into a restaurant and I told her what had happen I said I was really not sure I wanted to have a baby but I had also been on vacation with this happen and I had been having a cocktail you know in the morning in the evening and my mother and I said where we don't have money we can barely make our rent my mother looked at me and said If you want to have that they be that nothing can stop you from having this baby you can take care of this baby no problem. And then she said with a different look on her face but if you do not want this baby no one not your husband not your mother in law not your friends can tell you you must have this day and then she told me what had happened to her in China. She was an essence telling me I had to make my own choice. I felt so grateful you know that not just that she was my mother but that she had given me this understanding of what I should feel that I had to take control of my own life and make this decision ultimately I did not have to make that decision. I had a miscarriage was just you know I immediately 4 days later something but I went through the agony that I think most women go through when they are trying to decide whether to have an abortion people think it's so easy or that you know you just do it and you next day you forget I have never forgotten it every year I think about who that child would have been and I think that it would have been a daughter and I like to think that she would have given me a really hard time and made my life miserable for a certain number of years. It was part of what your mother to hold true that that she had had abortions when she was in China. And she told me the reasons why she had these abortions she had a man who put a gun to her had to make her have sex she was so sure how she had her 1st husband not my father right 1st husband it was an arranged marriage Ok she didn't love him and she was told this is a very good marriage you're the daughter of a concubine why wouldn't you do it and and so she had this cruel sociopath for her husband and she would have these babies and he would come back from his flight missions as a pilot and with gonorrhea. And so after a while she started having a bow. She said she was like a machine she was a sex machine for him and she she did this she said she had to do this. She made the decision and my circumstances was they were nothing like hers is married to a very kind man. But it was that notion you decide what your life this is and no one can tell you what that is. What are you what what your understanding was of being female when you were growing up because you know your mother was the daughter of a concubine she was married to this abuse of monstrous sounding man and your father was a Baptist minister who you know. Had a lot of things that were off limits to him you know because because of the biblical prescriptions against them. And I don't know what his idea of being a woman was but you're again there's just like 2 different sets of influences you're growing up with 2 really different kinds of brains and ways of seeing the world so with the messages you were given at home about what it meant to be a girl. My mother. Sort of she subjugated her life to her has been my father she was he tried to be the minister's wife and not where fancy clothes. She didn't smoke she was trying to be pious she prayed but when he died all of that want to weigh in and I saw that she was a different person she didn't pray any more at dinner she when we were in a restaurant there was in Switzerland there was free why on the table and we wanted coke and she said no this is for you drink this you know my father this is for you know when the sins she didn't care. What she told me though was more important I don't remember the exact age but my mother said to me you are not as good as a man she said you are better and you have to work harder to prove to them that you are. She told me a lot of messages like that and the other one was the repeated one that had to also do with choosing what to do with your own body and that was no one can choose your life no one can look down on you you know they might look down on you but you cannot believe that that is not who you are you have to have your own way of escaping from somebody who's bad you know whether you do that through job she felt the job was very very important and she said the minute you know don't count on looks because that's going to be over by time you're 30. She always told me actually I wasn't beautiful I was sort of average looking so don't count on that no Also when you're 30 it's really going to be over so you really are so high school that was scarce Yeah yeah these are you know I cried when she told me I said to my beautiful to Chinese people no you're not you're you know you're just average She said she said you know I was upset she said why should you be upset look what happened to me I was beautiful and it ruined my life you know so. The great consolation there. So when I think your mother believed in ghosts your mother died in the late nineties. When you write about her now in memoir form not disguised in fiction do you feel like she knows what you're saying about her and that you have to be careful what you say. Absolutely she knows she's right there she's my you know my truth detector I was about to say something else but she's my truth detector. And I do you know I have thought about what she might have thought or what she's thinking or what my grandmother's thinking about things that I'm writing but they were so much about the truth it's no longer about what society thinks that absolutely I think that they would be not only approving but grateful that I am saying the things that were true in our lives. Me 10 it's been great to talk with you again thank you so much thank you Amy Tan's new memoir is called Where the past begins after a break Maureen Corrigan will review death in the air the true story of a serial killer the great London smog and the strangling of a city this is Fresh Air This is Terry Gross the host of Fresh Air I've spent my whole adult life working in public radio that means I spend a lot of time on the air urging listeners to support public radio and here I am again because no matter what's been pledged in the past the future is as always dependent on your support so I'm urging you whether you've supported k s k a before never taken that step please support us now thank you for all you do to keep this great source of news and information alive here for you and for everyone else who listens it's a team effort thanks for being part of the team you make it possible with your support give on line at Alaska public dot org or call 550-8484 Raise your hand stand up and make a difference today donate at Alaska public dot org or call 5508484. This is Fresh Air the hurricanes and wildfires that have dominated the news this fall make a new nonfiction book about a deadly London smog seem particularly timely Here's our book critic Maureen Corrigan is review of death in the air a real piece Super a London particular those nicknames for the quintessential foggy day in London Town always make it sound so quaint and impression that's been intensified in art and literature certainly the London of Sherlock Holmes would be a lot less mysterious without that obscuring fog and impressionist painter Claude Monet who famously depicted the Houses of Parliament shrouded in mist said that without the fog London would not be a beautiful city it is the fog that gives it its magnificent breath Monet was talking about an added dimension to the city but breath as in human breath was precisely what the fog stole from London in the terrible winter of 1952 for 5 days in December of that year London was blanketed by a yellow toxic vapor that smothered its inhabitants by the time this poisonous air mass moved on and death records were correctly tallied some 12000 people would be recognized as fate Tallaght of what was called the great smog of 1952 journalist Kate Winkler Dawson has written an intriguing book about this silent disaster which was born out of a perfect storm of freak weather patterns and environmental ignorance the moist air of the Gulf Stream stalled for days over London that winter long enough for there to be a deadly buildup of thought sulfur dioxide and. Other poisons emitted from the cheap c Call known as nothing the slack that most Londoners used to heat their flats and houses the great smog also gave off a great stink acrid and burning in fact on the cover of Dawson's book there's an arresting black and white photograph of a young woman wearing a pearl choker and a Tweety looking suit with her chiffon scarf wrapped around her mouth like a face mask that photograph is no doubt meant to be suggestive of Dawson's other disturbing subject here death in the air attempts to be a kind of true crime book about to Stranglers on the loose in London that winter one and environmental killer the smog the other the infamous serial killer John Reginald Christie who Lord women to his Notting Hill flat and murdered them by suffocation he is responsible for at least 8 deaths those parallel plot lines never quite intersect death in the air would have been an even more compelling book without Dawson's somewhat forced attempt to make connections between these 2 London Stranglers another strike against the Christie story is that his grisly career has been exhaustive Lee documented in books and films the great smog however was underreported when it happened and it's still not all that widely known it seems an even more timely tale in our own age of extreme weather and environmental catastrophes Dawson cuts a precise narrative path through the smog by marshalling together and a ray of government a newspaper reports and interviews with people who lived through those terrible 5 days when trains buses and ships on the 10. Came to a standstill and crime was rampant most affecting are the 1st person recollections of a woman who was 13 years old that winter Rosemary Sargent's working class neighborhood had been bombed during the Blitz and she and her siblings had been separated from their beloved father for years during the war when the great smog began Rosemary's father his lungs already weakened by war work started gasping for air she and her mother stumbled to the doctor's office to get a nitroglycerin tablet by the time they returned Rosemary's father had died he had to be laid out in the parlor of their small house for 2 weeks as Dawson says one of the most astonishing things about this deadly fog was who it 1st alarmed not politicians reporters or even doctors but undertakers across London funeral directors reported a surge in bodies so many that the demand for caskets was insatiable when the smog finally lifted it took months even years for officials to realize that the thousands of deaths attributed to heart disease or the flu were really caused by the toxic air in 1956 Britain passed the milestone Clean Air Act which tightened restrictions on industrial smoke and banned coal in many houses and industries Dawson says it was the 1st comprehensive legislation to attack air pollution the number of fog events and deaths immediately dropped the lessons for the present Dawson suggests are as clear as the air in front of our eyes. Marine Corrigan teaches literature at Georgetown University she reviewed death in the air by Kate Winkler Dawson tomorrow on fresh air we'll talk about vice president Mike Pence with the New Yorker Washington correspondent Jane Mayer her new article the president pence delusion takes off from this premise many of President Trump's critics are hoping Trump doesn't serve his full term but what kind of president would Mike Pence make mayor writes about how he became an evangelical Christian his political career on the far right and his backing from the billionaire Koch brothers who are the subject of her book Dark Money I hope you'll join us. Our interviews and reviews of. Any salad. And. I'm Terry Gross. Support for n.p.r. Comes from this station and from f.t.v. Offering a variety of florist designed and florist delivered bouquets for life's moments from birthdays to graduations f.t.v. Works to help people express their feelings with a hand crafted bouquet Moret f t v dot com and from Universal Pictures presenting the new film The Snow Man based on the thriller by UNESCO and starring Michael Fassbender in theaters Friday you're listening to k s k Anchorage f.m. 91 point one where listener supported radio thank you for your support. You're listening to the world Cathay I'm jelly and Schlanger today on the show Wishing a very Happy Birthday to the river we. Were Springsteen released his album the river on this day October 17th back in 1980 according to the boss he were 1st recorded and rejected the baton. To whittle the liver down to 20 tracks some of them make you want to throw a triumphant fist in the air some of them make you want to throw your arms around someone we're going to listen to a couple later in the show and from the river of rock to a street in. New music by New Zealand. That's coming up to the World Cafe. Hello I'm Gerri Smith with the b.b.c. News President Xi Jinping has told the thousands gathered for the start of the Communist Party Congress the Chinese should take center stage in the world and woe to build a great power the address in Beijing's great hall of the people which lasted over 3 hours provided important policy clues for the direction of the country John Sudworth reports from Beijing the world's largest authoritarian state is confirming its leader in office for another 5 years in true Leninist fashion and it is opening address Xi Jinping spoke of the need for party discipline but for China watchers the interest is not in the system but in the man seen by some to be accruing more power than any leader since Chairman Mao So the weeklong Congress will be watched closely for clues possible changes to the party constitution for example and the selection of Mr She's top leadership team. A senior member of the Kenyan Electoral Commission has resigned saying the country cannot hold credible elections next week Rosalyn a combo criticized the integrity of the electoral body and said it was under political siege She added that it had been difficult to pub.