Mindy: Welcome to Writer Writer Pants on Fire, where authors talk about things that never happened to people who don't exist. We also cover craft, the agent hunt, query trenches, publishing, industry, marketing and more. I'm your host, Mindy McGinnis. You can check out my books and social media at mindymcginnis dot com and make sure to visit the Writer Writer Pants on Fire blog for additional interviews, query critiques and more as well as full transcriptions of each podcast episode. at WriterWriterPants on Fire.com. And don’t forget to check out the Writer, Writer, Pants on Fire Facebook page. Give me feedback, suggest topics you’d like to hear discussed, and let me know if there is someone you’d love to see a a guest.
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Mindy: We're here with Bethany C. Morrow, author of Cherish Farrah, which is available now. I am so excited about this book. I just got my review copy in the mail last week, it is part of what is coming to be called The Social horror genre. So if you'd like to explain what that means, and then just tell us a little bit about Cherish Farrah.
Bethany: Social horror is a genre of horror that deals specifically with the sociological contexts in which we find ourselves, so it's a horror that is very much based on existing tensions and dynamics within our society. The one that everyone is probably most familiar with, of course, is Get Out. What I love about social horror is, in order to appreciate, partake or anything, you have to let go of this delusion, this gas lighting that we are so accustomed to in the United States. Which is that a person, particularly a racially marginalized person can say, This is my reality, this is what's happening, this is what's being done to me - and then other people can say, Well, I don't know if that's true. It further dehumanizes you by acting like it's up for discussion. And in order to engage with or even be entertained by social horror, you don't get to do that. You have to come fully prepared to deal with the reality of our society in order to take part in it. So Cherish Farrah. is about a 17-year-old. I wanna say right off the bat, this is not young adult. Having a teenage protagonist does not make it a young adult novel, which you will find very quickly as you're reading this book.
And she is very troubled, we are almost claustrophobically close to her, she's our POV character, and so we are privy to everything that's going on, interiority. Everything is sort of being interpreted by her, which is a very unsettling experience, the more you get to know Farrah. And she has a budding psychopathy, she also has a best friend who is the only other Black girl in their country club community, but her best friend Cherish is being raised by and has been adopted by a white progressive couple. And so Cherish is something that Farrah calls, WGS or White Girl Spoiled, and it's actually a very sociologically complex concept, despite the fact that it sounds almost playful, like a term of endearment. But it really is a name that Farrah has put to the kind of void that she sees in Cherish’s understanding and really just at the core of Cherish, because she has this family and this experience that is in total contrast to the reality of the rest of society. The rest of the country actually, and because of it, she is coddled the way that a White child might be, but not being white and therefore not having the sort of social political capital that comes with that, it simply creates deficits as far as Farrah is concerned. And it definitely gives her a foot in to sort of take hold of Cherish and be extremely important to Cherish.
Mindy: So many things going on with this book. You do a wonderful job of pulling the reader in, and I am so interested in the tight POV that you talk about. And also as Farrah having this budding psychopathy as you were saying, and this mask that she wears. I think it's super interesting. One of the things that I think is particularly nuanced about your writing in particular, but also in the social horror genre, if you have a white reader that is not perhaps familiar with the internality of what it is like to not be white, I think that is so revealing for the reader, and it gives you so much of an opportunity to impact your year.
Bethany: It's such a naturally enticing and challenging gene, and that's what I love about it, because as I said, you know me pretty well, so you know that I don't buy the bumbling bigot act. I don't buy the complete un awareness, because we are actually raised in the same country, we do have the same media, we have pockets and different things where of course you could hide out. But that would be intentional, you have to intentionally hide out in those places, and any time you're doing something intentionally, you know why you're doing it, even if you're unwilling to verbalize it. And so what I find really interesting about putting someone in such a claustrophobic situation is it challenges the really one-dimensionality that white supremacy imposes on pretty much everyone else. At the beginning of the book and Cherish and Farrah are eavesdropping on their mothers having a conversation, and Farrah’s mother is actually trying to warn Cherish’s mother. She’s actually trying to confess that she has concerns about Farrah and Brianne Whitman, which is the white mother, Cherish’s mom does not hear it as the warning that it is. We have these pendulum swings and it's either like, all black girls are villains or infants, and so Brianne Whitman, in her progressive-ness has gone all the way over to victims, infants.
And you realize immediately how dehumanizing that is regardless of whether you think it's a good stereotype or not, or a beneficial stereotype or not. It's not, because you're dehumanizing people to the point that you can't see them clearly, or you're refusing to see them clearly when you're dealing with somebody like Farrah. What are the possible consequences of that? Using such a tight and close POV, and it being social horror and dealing with the public that I don't actually believe is as bumbling and unaware as they pretend - at least not of themselves - and why they are doing what they're doing? Why they feel so comfortable in these lily white communities? I don't think that it's gonna be hard for people to understand that something is wrong with Farrah, and to pick up on the nuance of Farrah, in order to even decide she's unreliable. But as I say, all narrators are unreliable. Any human is unreliable. It doesn't mean that they mean to be, but they are. And the question is, Is it malicious? Are they dangerously unreliable? Who is the safe person to trust, not because they're reliable, but because they don't mean you any harm? And you have to make those kinds of decisions because all of the information you're getting is through Farrah, is through the lens of how she sees the world, and you'll be there with her in an interaction and then you'll hear how she's interpreting it. Do you believe her? Is she still the safest person to believe in this scenario?
Mindy: Absolutely, I love that approach. You're so right, any time you're in a POV, you're experiencing the world through that person. Since we all have our own lens, everything that we carry with us that we've been taught or how we experience the world is part of interpreting our moments. So it's all going through that funnel, the character is then relating it to the reader, the reader doesn't have access to how a funnel was created, so they don't know. That's a wonderful point. I love it so much.
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Mindy: I also wanted to bring up Such A Fun Age by Kiley Reid.
Bethany: It's been brought up a couple of times today, and I need this book.
Mindy: It is so good, I enjoyed it so much. I highly recommend the audio, the audio is amazing because the performer does such a wonderful job of even the way that the words are spoken and the nuance of how the characters are even processing their internal thoughts is different for the white narrator versus the Black narrator. It was a wonderful book. I enjoyed it so much, and it goes back to what you were saying about that POV, because you have both characters experiencing the same situation, and one of them is through a white lens and one of them is through a black lens, and it changes everything.
Bethany: Right, I just had to look it up to see who reads the audio because of course, as a fellow author, I know how important the audio book is and how important the talent is, and it's Nicole Lewis. I'm really looking forward to listening to this, the audio book for Cherish Farrah is performed by Angel Pean. And I was really serious about being involved in that process because from an accessibility point of view, and also just the way that people sometimes choose to read, there are certain people for whom the audio book is their only experience of this book. I want to make sure that they are reading the same book that I wrote.
It was really wonderful to really talk with not just Angel, but also with the director Barbara about it. Barbara had very obviously read very closely. I really appreciated all of her direction and stuff, but when you're talking to somebody about what's gonna make or break the audio book for a book like this, it is absolutely the fact that, yes, it's all narrated by Farrah, but some of it is happening outside of your head and some of it's happening inside of her head. And if you don't understand how strategic she is, you might make the mistake of having a pretty consistent performance, and that's not the case with Farrah, because so much of what she's doing is based on who she's talking to and what she's trying to get out of the interaction. Listening to Angel in the same scene, be talking to Cherish as Farrah and then be talking to the reader as Farrah and just lose any sort of joviality in her voice or any sort of lightness in her tone, I was like, Oh, okay. She's nailing it.
Mindy: It's so important, isn't it? I love what you're saying about audio books and being involved and knowing even the narrators that are working in the aren. As a consumer, I definitely have some preferences about what I like, whose performances I like. Do the male narrators just pitch their voice high when they're doing women or do they actually perform? And the same for female narrators when they're doing male characters. I wanna see an actual performance. So as a consumer, I have preferences. When it comes to being a creator, because it is a performance and the nuances are so important, and like with Cherish Farrah , that is even more important and... Yes, you wanna be involved. It literally changed the book, if it's not done right.
Bethany: Exactly.
Mindy: It is a step removed from the medium that you delivered it in, and so someone interpreting it.
Bethany: Right, and the thing is that they don't necessarily mean it that way, because they mean it to be, okay, you've got your hard cover and you've got your audio book and you can choose between them... Well, any time you have more people involved in the process of presenting it, of course, there's gonna be some interpretation. And anybody who's had any audio books where they weren't involved, you don't even think of all the ways that something can be implied in the delivery and completely change the tone of the scene, completely change the meaning of the sentence. You don't think about it until you hear it done and go, Oh, I wouldn't have even known to flag that. I didn't even think about all the different ways that a person could say that. It was really important with this book, just from the onset, this being my fifth novel, and my fifth audiobook, I knew that this book, you would not get the same story if I wasn't involved, if I didn't have a chance to hear and give feedback and talk to them about the characters and about the dynamics. I was really concerned, and I want people to have faith that when they listen to the audio book, they're getting the book that I wrote.
Mindy: Yes, it's so important. It's critical. It is similar in ways to having your book turn into a film because it's being filtered through others.
Bethany: In that case, you expect that this is an adaptation. Movies, those are adaptations. An audio book is not considered an adaptation, it's considered a book. I know that adaptations are completely different animals. I'm always interested to see the decisions they make, because if you try to just make a book into a TV show or into a movie, it doesn't work. These are completely different mediums, their strengths are different, the storytelling tools that you have are completely different. There's usually one thing you have to get right, it depends on the book, but there's usually one thing you have to get right, sometimes it's the world, sometimes it's the theme, sometimes it's the main character. If you really secure that you're gonna do right by the original work. But an audio book, the reason it’s so jarring when it doesn't match up is because it's not considered an adaptation, so you're expecting it to match up.
Mindy: Yep, yep, I agree. And you were talking about not even knowing to flag something as the author, and how you'll hear a certain line delivered and be like, Oh, oh no, that is not what I said, even though they're the same words. And I think it is really interesting because I have experienced that just as a person moving through the world, I certainly don't think of myself as a nice person. I always tell people I'm kind, I'm not nice. I’m not going to be unnecessarily flattering to you, right? You fall and I will help you up, I will certainly never push you, but I'm not gonna say nice things to you and watch you cry and bring you a Band Aid. I'm gonna get your ass up, we're gonna keep moving. So it's like, this is just kind of how I operate and none of my intentions are ever cruel. And I know this because I know my internality. As a child and then later growing up and being in junior high and high school, and people will be like, Oh yeah, I would not fuck with you, you are rough around the edges or whatever, and I'm always like…. But I'm not.
Bethany: Right, I... Listen, we are very, very similar in this way, and I think it's probably why we hit it off immediately in our first meeting. Because everything that you're saying right now... I'm like same. Yes, yes.
Mindy: Exactly. Yes, and then of course, today in the world where we all have cameras and phones and video recorders in our pockets, it's like I will re-watch me on a panel or even a conversation that I'm having with someone else with friends or something, and someone’s gonna be like, Oh my gosh, let’s get this on video. And I'll watch it and I'll be like, Oh damn. That did sound bitchy.
Bethany: And it's because, again, as a student of Sociology, we are always responsible for the social contract. That agreed upon, and that doesn't mean everybody got a vote, but the agreed upon correct. The way to engage, and most of it has nothing to do with being genuine, with being honest, with being helpful. We err on the side of flattery before we err on the side of aid. We think that a feel good story is... We're gonna give 10 teachers a chance to crawl around on the floor for $100,000, and that's such a feel good story. Let's show this all over the media, and if you think about it... That's cruel.
Mindy: Oh, it's demeaning.
Bethany: That's terrible. You're telling me that you know that they don't have everything that they need, you're not gonna do anything on a policy level, you're not gonna push for any sort of change, you're gonna think that it's a good thing and it's a nice thing because you can make this moment of content, where somebody ends up getting something and then we're gonna focus on that one person to the exclusion of what is the reality of the situation? And I think people like you and I are more concerned with what's the reality? Not what’s actually nice. What's actually mean? What’s actually helpful? And so it's really difficult to always adhere to these little games that you know are sinister honestly, because they don't care about fixing anything, they don't care about helping anybody, they care about getting that feeling, getting a feel good for it. And just focus on that and not really look at what else is happening, and for some of us, we go - we can't do that.
Mindy: No, no. And in my interactions with other people, I just, I don't do fake, I won't do it. And so people ask me, How are you doing? I answer them.
Bethany: Right, right.
Mindy: Not I’m fine, I'm Okay. At one time when I still worked at the school, the superintendent’s secretary, she called me, I was at my desk and I answered the phone, and she's like, Hey, and she needed me for a couple of minutes, but she was like, Hey, what are you doing right now? And I'm like, I'm menstruating.
Bethany: Look, I just wanna be honest with you, and I wanna be transparent. I’m bleeding right now. That is what's up.
Mindy: I am menstruating. When a person does that it throws everyone else. As you are saying that social contract that we've all been trained up to, and then most of us operating within it for a very long time, and I'm just like... You know, I'm gonna step outside of this. And I'm just gonna be me. And I’m menstruating.
Bethany: It's not as useful as we pretend it is. It is absolutely oppressive, and intentionally oppressive. I think it's like grease for the wheel, it doesn't actually care about the health of the organism, it just wants to keep running. And one of the things about Cherish Farrah , here's a person who can pretend. How useful is this contract, if it can be faked? If you're not actually safe with this person just because they know the right thing to say? And it doesn't mean that they will always adhere to it, they're choosing to adhere to it for a time, and of course... The thing about the book is - how many people are actually doing that?
Mindy: Yes, yes. So powerful. Well, I agree completely about that social contract being for the benefit of the system, but also... So superficial, my experience of it would be Thanksgiving dinner. Right now, I'm gonna talk about this, I'm upset and I have a problem with this, and I'm not gonna be like, Oh, the turkey wasn't dry this year.
Bethany: And that's where you get all those buzzwords and those reactionary insults that are meant to put you back in your place, you get words like divisive. Whomever is not allowing the system to function as it's functioning... You become the problem, if you talk about the problem, yes, because we've been trained to be like, Everything's fine, as long as I'm allowed to feel good regardless of reality, it doesn't matter what the reality is, and actually anybody who tells the truth and forces us to see that this is a fiction, that person is actually to blame.
Mindy: Yes, absolutely. And all of this then ties back into Cherish Farrah and the mask that Farrah is operating with and how it slips, it starts to slip as the story evolves.
Bethany: There's an aspect of it where a little bit of it slips because she's sort of destabilized from losing control and people will try to read her sort of simplistically, which it will be a mistake, which is to say like, Is she envious, jealous of what Cherish has? No, she's not, she believes in control and she believes in ownership. So she is concerned with owning Cherish, she's not concerned with becoming Cherish, she's not concerned with anything other than continuing to be the most important and necessary person in Cherish’s life. And that maybe becomes stronger because she loses the control in her personal life because of her parents foreclosure She is entirely entirely about control. The thing is, I'm gonna say this and I still think it'll be difficult for people to ignore. Farrah is the story you think you're reading, until you know the story you're reading. And that means multiple things can be true at one time. She is exactly who she sounds like. Does that mean she's the only one in the know? Does that mean that she's the least reliable? If we accept that she's unreliable, does that make her the most unreliable? Is it possible for other people to simultaneously be unreliable? And it's one of the things that her mother is trying to get her to grasp, there are always multiple stories, multiple narratives being told.
Mindy: Last thing, why don't you let people know where they can find you online? And where they can find Cherish Farrah .
Bethany: You can find Cherish Farrah anywhere that books are sold. I do encourage people to also pick up the audio book, narrated by Angel Pean, and you can find me always on Twitter at BC-Morrow, that's BC, M-O-R-R-O-W, because that's where I live. And you can find me at the same handle on Instagram. I'm not as good at it. I don't know what to tell you. And my site is Bethany C. Morrow dot com.
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Mindy: Writer Writer Pants on Fire is produced by Mindy McGinnis. Music by Jack Korbel. Don't forget to check out the blog for additional interviews, writing advice and publication tips at Writer Writer Pants on Fire dot com. If the blog or podcast have been helpful to you or if you just enjoy listening, please consider donating. Visit Writer Writer Pants on Fire dot com and click “support the blog and podcast” in the sidebar.
