Welcome to the inaugural writers hour at James Madison university. We are glad you are here. I want to thank the provost, the first person that i post about in this series. The everyone at the communications further help promoting the event. The we wouldnt be here so thanks to you. We also wouldnt be without john grisham. He should have his own show. Before i met him i knew he was generous with his time and money and you cant go three days and i got to know him most would agree he was a gravedigger and never met someone that for their fame so blithely. Hes a regular person. But of course he is a famous writer. In one place that sold a quarter of a billion bucks and another place he sold 300 million so at some point you throw in the towel and say a boatload. This is academia there is no keeping it loose but here we are on stage in academia. Weve probably got john on the cool side of the mountain where he belongs and i hope he becomes a regular visitor. Please welcome our friend and benefactor, john grisham. [applause] we have to talk about this as a way to have conversations with writers. I got tired of signing books and pretty lazy anyway and didnt want to travel around the country and if you cant publish or pay for it its important for business providers to meet the fans. I would invite him to come to the store to have a conversati conversation. We sit around like we are about to do here. I enjoyed reading but also the crowds really enjoy the hearing of talking about what they do. So we began our conversation about doing something here and we worked on it for a year and here we are. One is in the fall and one is in the spring to see how they go. If the students enjoy it and you enjoy it. We feel very lucky to have as our first guest James Mcbride, a writer, journalist, musician, songwriter, composer who is still a writer in residence at new york university. He is best known for his 1995 memoir the color of water which became an instant classic since then hes written three historical novels, all exploring the complicated issues of race and tolerance and survival in america. Hes written a biography of james brown which we will talk about in a minute. He is a serious musician. Hes played with a lot of grou groups. He is also a member of probably the worst band ive ever seen in my life. Theres a rock band called rock bottom remainders. They think they belong on stage and think they can play. They perform and book festivals and conventions. I guarantee hes the only person who belongs on stage. In 2016, president of the award and the National Humanities medal and in a ceremony at the white house president obama said James Mcbride has humanized the complexities of discussing race in america. Through the writings of his own uniquely american story and his works of fiction formed by our shared history, his stories display the character of the american family. Please welcome James Mcbride. [applause] welcome to virginia. Glad to have you here. You have never really left a. Two years i. Of two years in bose two years in dc but mostly in the new york area. Most of my family is still there. I have three kids. One is 25, one is 26 and 2016. Also i have an adopted child is 23. Thats enough. You havent spent much time in virginia but it is a state that is very important to your story. My mother was a polish refugee. Her father was a jewish rabbi ran a grocery store. Your mother at a young age realized she was rejected by the white kids because she was jewish and she felt more comfortable around the black kids. When she was a child that antisemitism is pretty strong, no shoes, no dogs, those kind of things. The jewish were not accepted in her community. Her best friend was a gentile and she could go to Graduation High School because she wasnt about to walk into a forbidden place. By her father and the way that she was raised. He was a very strict orthodox jew. It wasnt that she wasnt that welcomed. In the south it is up to about that much but it was prevalent when she was a child and in some ways it is still quite prevalent so it was quite an education doing the research to put together. She flooded and always hated the South Pacific or experience growing up. She didnt care for her father, either, right . Her father was a rabbi that was very abusive towards her. Sounds like a lousy rabbi. Yeah i mean coming have to be careful when you use these terms because you say rabbi. What does that mean. He was someone who in those days jewish synagogues in the states would sign a contract with a person and that person would have to stay there for a year and if he was good they would sign another. We traveled quite a bit because he was a terrible rabbi and no congregation wanted him around. [laughter] when he got down to the south there were not a lot of who wanted to stick around so he managed to stick around long enough for her to finish high school but he was a predator. He wasnt a true rabbi in the sense of what a holy man in his. He abused her for a long ti time. He was certainly sexually abusive towards her, and yeah. Postcode. What about her mother . Her mother suffered from polio. She was from a good family that was kind of pond off to him because the arranged marriage was part of the European Jewish wife. Because they both came from europe. She just suffered until she died. She was alone in a very charismatic women and was admired because she was so kind. People who understand the suffering are often kind, but she died of some kind of stomach cancer and when she died, once my mother left home and married my father, our family situation ritual. She never saw her mother again after she left home. Said she pleaded to new york. She hung around harlem for a while and was attracted to that life. She was working for her aunt that had something to factory in the bronx. She almost got sucked into that life there was an employee there who was a violinist from North Carolina named Angela Mcbride and she ended up marrying him and starting a small Baptist Church in greater brooklyn that still exists today. He was also a preacher . In those days it was called a bible school, bible college. They started at a Church Called the metropolitan baptist which became a black church in harlem that is bigger because of adam clayton powell. Then they left the metropolitan and started a small church when we dont do the projects in brooklyn and it started in the living room of our apartments. There is still one living member, the last one and i see her almost every week. So she marries a baptist preacher in brooklyn. She wanted her son to write a book. [laughter] she had to provide the material, right. [laughter] she had eight kids in about four years. Eight years over the course of 13 years. My father died of cancer and she had investigation going back to her jewish family for help and they wouldnt help her. Once youre out of the family, you stay out. I brought her along with me. When we met people i would say im James Mcbride and this is my cousin and the 10gallon hats would go like this. [laughter] what about barbara bush quick. Yes. She did for 25 years but she had the big c texas style in downtown houston. And barbara bush put on the big dog in houston. It was a big show she would invite three or four writers every year to come she put her whole body on a plane and flew all over you cannot tell her no. I was a big fan of mrs. Bush. She reminds me of my mother a little bit and tells you like it is even if you dont want to hear it. [laughter] 25 years ago her husband had left office and was always there with her to do the literacy thing so we had a quick dinner afterwords then drinks and a big crowd. We sat down together in a corner with me and h w and had a heineken beer and he was telling baseball stories from the days he played at yale. We swapped stories for about 30 minutes with big bush. That was a lot of fun. And thinking how did i end up here . Why am i lucky enough to be her here. Back to your mom. This is your first book. Obviously your mother converted to christianity. Yes. It wasnt a pumpkin conversion but the real deal. Yes the oldfashioned where they bring up the bench and you sit down you sit on the moaning bench. She recalled the moment where she accepted jesus into her life very clearly it wasnt phony baloney stuff you see nowadays with the camera on. And never heard of the moaning bench. They could call it a chair. The same thing. So they bring up a chair, a bench and you sit on it. Some people call it the moaning bench some people call it nothing. [laughter] you just come up and we stand there that the minister says will take you to the back room. I know what the deacons do back there. [laughter] is that when you baptize . No. In my day i know she went through but they took you back there then you had to go to bible study then they baptize you later. All kids . I dont know the last two or three i dont know if all of them did that most of them did. Toward the later days when we moved to queens some went to Movement Church and they didnt demand as much 11 00 oclock or 12 00 oclock. Get out. [laughter] we heard about churches like that we couldnt believe it. [laughter] lutherans were really christians the. [laughter] but we couldnt get over the black folks down south come to church at 10 00 oclock and then go and tell about 1 00 oclock we are caving with hunger and end on get a bite to eat and then go on all sunday night. And then it stops. And now its another 20 minutes right there. [laughter] there was no clapping. Its beautiful that old gospel the old baptist hymnals. I have an album because i use to work with a guy from arkansas he used to hire a lot of us when we werent working on the road and he was an old southern baptist. In fact he had a group of 100 choir directors in would sing those old baptist hymnals. Beautiful music. I have them all memorized. [laughter] mollys house was orchestrated chaos between eight through 12 children i was lost in the sauce so to speak i was in a house little money and little food the power was derived from who you could order around. Thats what money called one of the five young ins. And with the power grid of the household fit to be tied tortured, tickle tortured, tickled, tormented, id and commanded to suffer all sorts of indignities at the hands of the big kids didnt believe in the tooth fairy and mommy yielded ultimate power. She was large and in charge. In her house. She only had to say pick up that bag and eight people would kneel down. [laughter] there was no discourse. I always thought she was very mean that she was strict. She was the only white person around and didnt care which made it worse. [laughter] she would never admit to being white. She wouldnt talk about it she would say im lightskinned and change the subject. She didnt like to talk about race too much she wasnt hot and bothered too much. Just do good why should they like you . You dont brush your teeth. She would find ways to cleverly maneuver around the race issue to focus on school. Its all about education and religion. The 19 sixties . Were there other biracial children in the neighborhood . No. The range of color and black america in my neighborhood made some very light white looking also very dark that i knew no one who had a white mother i did meet anybody like that i cant remember. May be in college there was a kid in high school his mother was white that he grew up on the white side of the tracks and he acted more white. Whatever that means. [laughter] lets dont go there. I liked him he was a nice gu guy. Who was her second husband . He was in the housing projects where we lived and he was a very good person. I love you very much because he raised me. He was from Richmond Virginia he was a different type of man he was very firm and really had grown up in hardship in richmond came up on Campbell Soup they were hard men. Not then that they didnt talk much but but when they addressed you they looked at you dead on there was always business and they would take care of business if necessary. They want that way but he was a very firm person. He chose not to live with the family. He had 12 kids. [laughter] we never thought. To i assume anybody would bother with us but the house was so chaotic and he was such a well ordered and neat person and had been a bachelor most of his life and he married this woman with all these kids so eventually he they had to because they sold his brownstones they sold them for middleclass development but he had a basement area that was his. Neat and nice and tidy and you knew that when you walked in you had to keep it nice like with a record player. Oldfashioned. He was a good person. Who would marry someone with a kids and then have four more . He loved having the kids. He was very proud of us. I talked to his brother many years later and i would tell them you are crazy whats matter with you . Why you marrying this woman . He said have enough for a baseball team. A football team. [laughter] and come on weekends with sacks of groceries . We would wait for him to bring sacks of groceries and entenmanns cupcakes. When i became a grown man i wrote a entenmanns and thank them for their cupcakes. [laughter] but i still think of him when i see those cakes. And wonder bread that was near his brownstone. And i read this . My brothers and sisters were my best friends. When it came to food they were my enemies. [laughter] there were so many of us we were constantly hungry. Scavenging for food in the refrigerator and cabinets. We would hide food from one another. Squirreling away of precious Grilled Cheese or fried bologna sandwich but the hiding places were known to all and foraged by all the precious commodity was usually discovered and devoured before it got cold. Entire plots were hatched around swiping food complete with doublecrossing and backstabbin backstabbing, intrigue, outright robbery and gobbled evidence. [laughter] said thats why its so easy for me to write about slavery later on. [laughter] i went through it. Lets talk about slavery. One more question first. So once you guys are all gone, lets back up all 12 went to college. Because she was determined you have the best education shouldnt care about money or close or food but she cared about education and your religious faith. Thats it. She really didnt want to hear. If she was raising kids now they might put her in jail. [laughter] she was so adamant and strict we were not allowed to stay out after dark ever. We were not allowed to bring friends into the house ever. We were not supposed to tell our business to people ever. So people ask you what is your mother were . I dont know. Was your father were . I dont know. Until mommy showed up and then say is james adopted and then she would get mad. But it was a strict way she raised us to think because we were taught not to trust outsiders we were taught to believe they didnt like us and they would hurt us some kind of way and she created the us against the world. Nobody will care for you other than your family and gods go to school and do the work i dont care what anybody else does dont tell me about it doesnt matter its only what you do. How is it possible to dream of going to college in that environment . You wanted to escape the house. You were dying to get out and go to college or the army. She didnt want you to stay. Hundreds of thousands of doctors if you look in new york not how many of the great cardiologist in psychologists and architects turned out so many minority and jewish people who went for free but none of us were allowed to go there. She said dont apply if you stay home you mess around you get into drugs your old enough to go out on your own this doesnt even apply to city college. And then she would write zeros all the way down and then sign it and in those days you would mail it in and then she would send it my mother didnt see overland and tie graduated i saw for the first time i went. How did you pick that quick. My brothers first wife went there everyone before me had gone was in the process of goin going. I did not even know how to spell it. They would send me the application and they gave me the most money so i went there. That simple. I was so grateful. So once you are all gone all 12 are in college 11 finished. What was her life like in her later years. She had to adjust to be a widow when she was 56 i think we lost the house in queens she cannot afford to keep it. We moved to wilmington she did not like it she did not drive and then she went to philly of the working class. So by then we were able to support her that she had Social Security when i got out of school i started to work and she just managed she had her purse snatched two or three times at least a couple times in philly. And then she had openheart surgery but then she went to temple and graduated at 65 she went back to school and graduated 65. Listen to this i had a friend who went to temple and said they had a test your mom was trying to ask people what to write on the test. [laughter] and a cup of those papers and said i helped with those. She majored in social work. And she did that for a few years before she retired. When you talk about writing this book what was her reaction . She wasnt crazy about the idea. They are all dead. Im dead to them. Because i wrote a story it was a mothers day event i want to write the story for mothers day and to do some research and i did it anyway. That started it that was 1981 or two. And then to square with me what happened in her young life and was extraordinarily painful for her. Its hard to talk about being sexually molested by her father. She didnt say it just wrote the words on a piece of paper and held it up to me. Was hard for her. And then to leave her sister behind. Her brother was killed in world war ii. Left on the 15 and never came back and died in the army. Killed in action. And a younger sister and when she ran off she abandoned her sister and she felt tremendous guilt about that. That lasted the rest of her life. She met her sister after the book came out one of her sisters children but she had tremendous guilt and i dont think, there was one thing she did not get over it was leaving her mother and sister. She came to christianity after losing her mother and felt god had saved her and redeemed her and gave her a Second Chance and jesus had reborn her for the sin of leaving her mother but she could never quite get over the guilt. That something she bore with a degree of dignity her and her sister met in later years. They were not close but she had a cousin in california she grew close to that her and her sister were different people that she had enormous respect and love for her sister and vice versa are on vice verse even of her sister was a hard woman because she had a hard life. As a bestseller and a classic