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Zombie Book Club
Welcome to Zombie Book Club! We're a Podcast that's also a book club! We talk about Zombie / Apocalyptic horror novels, TV and movies.
Zombie Book Club
'Talc: A Haitian Zombie Story' with Special Guest Jenna Chrisphonte | Zombie Book Club Ep 88
In this episode of Zombie Book Club, we sit down with author Jenna Chrisphonte to discuss her groundbreaking novel Talc: A Haitian Zombie Story. Jenna reimagines zombie mythology through an authentic Haitian lens, tracing its origins to colonial exploitation and pharmaceutical manipulation. We explore how Vodou, Haitian history, and modern systems of control intersect in her work, and how her storytelling challenges Western misconceptions about Haiti and its culture. Jenna also shares insights into her creative process, her upcoming projects, and the resilience of Haitian traditions in the face of global exploitation.
Join us for a conversation that will forever change how you think about zombies, colonialism, and the power of reclaiming cultural narratives. Whether you’re a fan of zombie fiction or interested in the untold stories of Haiti, this episode is a must-listen.
Contact Information for Jenna Chrisphonte:
- Website: Chrisphonte.com
- Instagram: @JennaChrisphonte
- Books: Talc: A Haitian Zombie Story is available on Amazon and other major retailers.
Relevant Links:
- Haitian Vodou: Vodou in Haitian Culture
- US Occupation of Haiti (1915-1934): Wikipedia
- Cholera Outbreak in Haiti: CDC Report
- Hillary Clinton and Haiti: Politico
- Zombie Book Club Links
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Welcome to the Zombie Book Club, the only book club where the book is a chilling reminder that people in power can make any of us into zombies. I'm Dan, and when I'm out trying to decide if my anxiety is a mental health issue or just a rational response to living in a world built on genocide and exploitation, I'm writing a book about how the powers that be love to use genocide and exploitation to line their pockets and how a zombie outbreak might just be the best tool for them to achieve all of their goals.
Speaker 2:That doesn't sound good. It's already bad out here, Dan I don't want to let that not become real. They need to stop taking my ideas.
Speaker 2:They really do, and I'm Leah. And today we are beyond honored to have Jenna Crisfanti with us to talk about her excellent novel Talc, a Haitian Zombie Story. Born in Haiti and raised in New York, jenna's novel follows characters tied to Haitian culture across national boundaries as they navigate a global zombie apocalypse. Jenna is also an accomplished playwright, whose work has been presented at venues like the Classical Theatre of Harlem and so many more, and she previously served as the director of Civic Alliances at the Perelman Performing Arts Center and has held key roles with the Dramatist Guild of America and Global Affairs Canada. Welcome to the show, jenna. We are so thrilled to have you here.
Speaker 3:I'm excited to be with you today, absolutely, absolutely overjoyed and excited.
Speaker 1:Me too. We've got some rapid fire questions for you. Don't worry, because we'll judge you on your answers to these questions. Alright, so you get to choose. You know there's zombies, we know this, they're just out there. But you get to choose. Are they fast or are they slow zombies?
Speaker 3:Are they fast or are they slow? I can tell you it's the wrong question. The question is are they weak or are they strong? They are strong, and that is why this book was written on this issue. We'll get into that later, but I'll let you go with the other question. The question is are they weak or are they strong? They are strong.
Speaker 1:That is an interesting question. That's something that we don't typically ask. Usually we just think of the speed, because they catch up to us fast.
Speaker 2:But if they're strong.
Speaker 3:That's also a problem but no, but if we're going back to your faster slow, then they are fast, because track stars are strong too and they are fast, that's true they retain their physicality yeah, so if they're weak then they're slow that makes sense. Yeah, that makes sense right, stars are fast, but they are strong. If you were to punch a track star, it would hurt. If a track star would have punched you, it would hurt yeah, I'll try not to um.
Speaker 1:I haven't been in any beefs with track stars, so I think I can avoid that I think there's other people much more worth punching yeah, um, don don't look at my blue sky. Uh, so you know, you got, you got your, you got your zombies. Um, wait, did you choose weak or strong? Strong, strong, strong, strong. Okay, you picked your strong zombies, which also happened to be fast.
Speaker 1:Um what is your weapon of choice. Weapon of choice for zombies is fire. You know nobody's I don't think anybody's told us fire, but it's definitely the best, the best tool, guaranteed. You know the fire does the work for you. Really, you know once you set it, it just goes.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you don't have to get in close contact. That's also really smart.
Speaker 3:Well, you definitely avoid an after and, unlike bullets, you can run out of. Bullets you can run out of. You know, you still have to sharpen knives or or blades or swords.
Speaker 2:We don't run out of fire as long as you don't let's just do this in california, though some places this might not be the right strategy.
Speaker 3:If you think that, historically, whenever you had extreme amounts, like in ancient Rome, when they used to bury, when they were treating bodies, they didn't bury them, they burned them because it was one to contain. I mean, they didn't use languages like germs and biomicrobial, they didn't have that kind of language, but they understood that if there was something that killed people and you know the body is rotting, that other people could get sick and that burning it keeps, whatever the insect I mean they don't again, they didn't use the terms we use today, but they understood, they knew inherently that the fires helped protect everyone yeah, um, yeah, as long as that we're.
Speaker 1:we're watching a show called alone and currently currently it's in Tasmania, australia, and it is so wet there that nobody can start a fire. And, yeah, as long as things aren't wet, then I think the fire is a good tool, but once it gets wet, oh my God, those poor people.
Speaker 2:They're in trouble. But also, I think this is a key point here, which is that when the body is dead, you need to burn it.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:It doesn't matter if it's moving or not, you still need to burn it. This is a key thing that I think is a lesson here that you're teaching us with zombies, yeah, and just for health.
Speaker 3:Yeah, we know that. I mean that's one of you know. They always tell you don't serve raw chicken, you have to cook it all the way. There's no medium rare chicken, you have to cook it all the way. I think it's the same thing that certain bacteria or certain things that cause infections have to be cooked. They have to be burnt, they have to be cooked to a certain degree for it to go away. I would follow that train of thought.
Speaker 1:Speaking of food? Okay, of thought, uh, speaking of food. Okay, it's the zombie apocalypse and you get to choose just one unlimited, shelf, stable food item to read, to eat for the rest of your life. Uh, what do you pick?
Speaker 3:self-stable product for the rest of your life.
Speaker 2:I think I'm gonna go with peanut butter yes, yeah, this is becoming the best answer where it's starting to become a theme, and I think it's also probably the smartest answer. But tell us why for you peanut butter? Because historically.
Speaker 3:Again, I'm going back to before all of these, because now, today, in the year 2025, in the United States and so many countries, meat is standard, but if you go back 2,000 years ago, people did not eat meat every single day. Yeah, so that's first and foremost. Secondly, when you say stabilize, so we're thinking, okay, we have no power. So even if I were to have a can of spam or a can of tuna fish, I open it. I, technically, we need to eat everything that's in that can right then and there that day. Because within what? 24, 36 hours? Again, we don't have a fridge, it would go, it could go bad. Whereas peanut butter, even if it's a can or a jar, I open it.
Speaker 1:Even without refrigeration, it will hold yeah, and there's just so much in there too and it's like really healthy, yeah, and yeah, I love peanut butter.
Speaker 2:I think it is the right answer to this question which, if you're a future person that's going to be on this podcast one day and you're listening you have to give us a new, unique reason for peanut butter. I really think you have a good reason.
Speaker 3:Yeah, the oil. So peanut oil, because you know, if you use like the not the fancy ones like Jif or Skippy where it has, like, the honey in it, not those, but the natural ones the oil separates from the peanut butter. You got to stir it back in that or you can use it for your skin if you're going to use it, if you have a cut like, if you need something to put on like, because sometimes if you take a little bit of that oil, like if you have something on your hand, you get it.
Speaker 1:You could use that too for other things that are topical yeah, that is, you can cook with it if you find other food out there.
Speaker 3:You got peanut oil for deep frying if it's raining, if you have something else in your body that's ailing, a little bit of peanut oil that's in the peanut because it separates. It doesn't spoil but it does separate a little bit of peanut oil. You could use it for your elbows if you have a cut, if you have a gash. That could help to. You know, there's no neosporin in the apocalypse, so a little peanut oil might be a neosporin substitute.
Speaker 2:Honestly, I just want to keep my lips hydrated, and I think you've solved my problem, because one of my fears of the apocalypse is like what if I don't have chapstick, jenna, it's not going to be good. You're going to have to test this out.
Speaker 1:Maybe you'll be making the switch to peanut oil.
Speaker 2:Well, I've used coconut oil, but I'm like this is not really. You know, Vermont is not the place where coconuts come from. Well, peanuts either, but Well, that's true, but I think it's going to have an easier time finding peanuts.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I have one last question. Yeah, and I almost skipped this one because my eyes weren't working right, but you know, you got your zombie apocalypse. You got your strong, fast zombies. You got your peanut butter. Um, yeah, you got your weapon of choice, fire. You got a lot so much fire, uh, but, um, would you choose that zombie apocalypse or would you choose a 40-hour work week?
Speaker 3:a zombie apocalypse or a regular?
Speaker 1:40 hour work week.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Only 40 hours, not any more than 40 hours, but you definitely have to put in the 40.
Speaker 3:I could do the job. I mean, that means I'm still having all my, I still have access to my car, I still have internet, I still have my phone, I have all my clothes, heat and air conditioning. But you know, I got to be to my car. I still have internet, I still have my phone, I have all my clothes, heat and air conditioning. But you know, I gotta be a little nicer. Maybe I work. I would do it. I think I could get through it. I think I could.
Speaker 1:Ah, you know I I salute you because that sounds tough for me. You're braver than I can do it.
Speaker 3:I can do the 40 hour work week and be happy and like good mood, understanding that on the other end would be a zombie apocalypse. I'll play, I'd be happy.
Speaker 2:I'd be grateful it's a good point. Yeah, to be like. You know. We should be grateful it's not a zombie apocalypse. I think that might be. I might need to like make a sign in our house says it's okay, it's not a zombie apocalypse. There are people who listen to this show, jenna, who really want and would prefer a zombie apocalypse, so they're going to disagree with us.
Speaker 1:We need us.
Speaker 2:Well, I've told you before I joke when I say I want the zombie apocalypse. I don't actually want it, I would. I don't think that anybody really wants that, except for you, maybe, and a few of our really intense listeners.
Speaker 3:True, I'm not wishing that on anyone. No, I'm not wishing that on anyone.
Speaker 1:My comparison is the current apocalypses we face at all times which is kind of what your book is about, in a way.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it is Overall and I don't want to give it away, but overall it's about. Well, I'll start with where it comes from. My husband is a huge fan of walking dead nice. When it came out the very first season, he was hooked, and we and my husband's white american, fourth generation italian american from Queen and I would watch the show with him and he would hear me and I would just he's like what you hemming and hawing for? What are you hissing about? I'm like this is not what zombies are like, and he's like Gemma, zombies don't exist. I go, but this is not what zombies are like. He goes what are you talking about? I's like Gemma, zombies don't exist, I go, but this is not what zombies are like. He goes what are you talking about? I was like zombies are strong and that's why because I explained it and I'll explain it to you now, and this is the explanation Coming from Haiti zombies are a part the story of zombies.
Speaker 3:The idea of a zombie is quite real. So if you were to ask a Haitian person who was born in Haiti, reared in Haiti, grew up in Haiti, wherever they are in the world right now have you ever seen a zombie? They would swear on their kids? Yes, wow, not. Oh, yeah, I think so. No, they would swear on their kids' lives Like you don't have. That's an intense kind of app of information of like you know, when they say, swear on the Bible, swear on court. No, I'm talking about my Haitian Santa Swear on my kids. I've seen a zombie. Why is that?
Speaker 3:Here in New York City we have our subway system. I don't know if you've been to New York City subway system. It's its own thing, it's its own maze of everything and this is what I would compare it to In New York City. I grew up here in New York City a lot of times you have, you know, the diversity of people in terms of everything, in terms of education, money, age. When you're in the subway, you really do have so many people coming into one space that you normally would not interact with in any other city. So in LA and Houston and Miami, you just don't. I mean, you're three inches away from the other person and you might just like you're three inches away from the other person.
Speaker 3:So in New York City there's a term it's a derogatory term, but there is a term that is used too often the term of crackhead. Mind you, people don't know this person, they don't know what happened to this person, they have no evidence of this. But New Yorkers will see a certain person or certain someone in the subway system acting a certain way and, again knowing nothing about this person in their head, will say, oh, that's a crackhead, that's a very new york thing to see someone and just say, well, it's fucking crackhead, that is very new york. If you were to take what new yorkers you know too often label as a crackhead and fly that person and drop them off in the streets of haze patient people, that will that be zombie. They would call the, they would call that person a zombie. That is the real part. So in their head they're not.
Speaker 3:I know from a sort of western or american point of view, they think haitians are being superstitious, like where and that's what my book looks at it's like well, why is that? And one of the things that I look at is big money because quite often, huge pharmaceutical companies. Historically, how did they run their tests? They ran their tests in poor neighborhoods, poor black communities in the United States, poor black communities in the Caribbean. This is documented. This happens in the Caribbean. This is documented, this happens.
Speaker 3:So one of the things I look at is what happened? How did that happen? Because quite often it's attributed to the culture of Vodou. Vodou is a religion in Haiti and often people say, well, they were casting spells, they were casting spells, they were casting spells. But the question is what does it mean? To cast a spell If someone comes to youah or to you, dan, and puts poison in your turkey sandwich? That's not a spell, that's poisoning. Yeah, that's not magic, that's poison.
Speaker 3:But let's go back over 200 years ago, more than that, because we had our independence in 1804, but, let's say, during the time of enslavement, when there were some certain slave members who refused to acquiesce or to give in. It's an idea that I'm exploring. This is completely fiction. This is not scientific at all. This is a fictional work, but it's the idea that one of the ways that they controlled enslaved Africans on the island of Haiti back then Saint-Domingue, was to drug them. We've heard the story People got beat, some people got amputated, some people got separated from their family and sold somewhere else. There are tales of how they, what techniques they would use to control those who didn't want to obey. One of the ideas I explored was okay, because I've asked, because so many people have asked me. They describe what you see as a zombie To me, and not just that.
Speaker 3:You see pictures of people that they've described as a crack of asking me as a zombie in Haiti. To me, having grown up in New York City, though I would in a New York perspective point of view, this person looks like they're under the influence of drugs. To me, that's what I see. So my book looks at that whole thing the question of big money, big pharma, and what would have happened over 200 years ago. And remember, you know, when you think of certain countries, you think of cocaine. Haiti is not known for cocaine but in terms of climate, coca leaves can be grown in Haiti. So even though Haiti was not a manufacturer or export of cocaine itself you know it was never that but it's sort of like when you look at things like mangoes or guavas or pineapples, climatically Haiti can grow those things, colombia can grow those things. By climate, even though Canada is beautiful, canada cannot grow pineapple, and mango, culturally, physically, in terms of climate zones, can be grown in haiti.
Speaker 3:So I look at it and I just ask myself the question, because they're adamant, like I mean any patient person you would have met, grow up in haiti, and ask have you seen some zombie? Yes, we. So what they all do this? It's not one person, it's not one region, it's not one class, it's not a question. They all. I've met haitian people, phds, haitian people who are illiterate. They all say yes, me, I don't be icy, yes, and I'm like. Because I've heard this till the child, I was like they're joking. This thing must be joking but they're not they, they're not joking.
Speaker 3:I've grown up and I've looked at different things and then again, the descriptions that Haitian people will give of zombies are always strong, because, again, going back to the idea of enslaved Africans who did not want to obey, again compare that to what New Yorkers call a crackhead Crackheads, even though they're struggling mentally, mentally, physically, you would never step up to a crackhead, no, and think you could do something, but you know, physically he could punch you in your face. He's retaining his physicality, his strength. Now the question is in regards to forced labor. If the question is okay, I'll give you this bits of cocaine in some form, way or powder I don't know what it would have been, but but something derived from cocolate at the time and then you do the labor for 10 hours a day and then you come back, which is what a lot of drug addicts do. They do how many things to obtain access to drugs. And then they do that, but they're not complaining anymore. They'll do what you want. And then they go to work. They do what you want and they to make work, but they still are strong. So they need them to, like, literally, plow fields. They're plowing the field. They need them to cut sugar cane. They're cutting sugar cane. So in my mind, I'm just examining what it could have been that so many Haitian people say this outside of the context of food, that they say that. So I always look at it and all Haitian people believe in this.
Speaker 3:Haitians in Haiti. Again, there's a distinction between Haitian people who grew up in the United States and Canada and France and elsewhere, but Haitians in Haiti, if you see zombies, like the last time I was in Haiti was 2018 and there were a lot of unrest. You know, can I confess what I did, knowing Haitian people the way I know Haitian people, because I am Haitian and I was by myself. I was in to do something additional, but I was by myself and I had to get around. I was running a lot of errands, but you know, there's always a risk. You know what I carried with me? I carried a little thing of Johnson Johnson baby powder. You know why? Because I know the Haitian mentality so well and I had it ready. I was like if anything pops off at any time and I had it ready. I was like if anything pops off at any time because I wasn't going too far from my hotel, because everything was still walkable because I wasn't doing like more. I wasn't going anywhere more than like 10 or 15 miles. I was like, if anything pops off, I'm going to douse myself in this Johnson Johnson baby powder, because if I walk through the streets of Haiti looking like that, it would classify me as a zombie.
Speaker 3:So whatever is popping off be it gang, anything, political unrest, whatever it would have been, or just someone wanting to rob you Forget about political or gang and someone is like she looks like she came in from New York two days ago. Let me see what she got on. Just the appearance of anything zombie-like was like no, that's not. It Just like. Again, if you're in the subway in New York City and you think, ok, I'm going to rob someone, you can go for the person in the nice clean suit. You're not going to go for the person who looks like they haven't bathed, because, again, that's that sense of like zombie type. It gives you that sort of like. It looks like a zombie, literally. You've been out in the street for too long.
Speaker 2:That's not the brilliant. And your book is called Talk. Your book is called Talk, yeah, and it's like in your book. There's both these kind of moments where, like, talk has this positive association, like with Carnival, and then it also has this really dark association, which is it's being used as preparation to make people into zombies and then they're being paraded and the smell of Talk and the powder you can see coming when there's, without giving anything away, there is an army of zombies in this book and it is intense and very scary and I'm curious if you could explain that connection for the listeners of talk and voodoo, voodoo. I feel like you said it in a way that I've never heard before, which means I've been saying it an American way.
Speaker 3:It's pronounced voodoo.
Speaker 2:Voodoo.
Speaker 3:Voodoo and yeah, so it's pronounced voodoo. Voodoo and yeah so talc. And it's fascinating to me because I watch it. First of all, when I smell Johnson Johnson baby powder. It smells like childhood, right, it's a friendly smell, it's a familiar smell. But you know it's been pulled off the shelf. It was lint-canned, that's my understanding. There were so many lawsuits in terms of it being carcinogenic.
Speaker 1:Wow.
Speaker 3:And that the company knew that it was carcinogenic and it didn't tell people, and so many people got cancer from it. They had to pull it from the shelf and the lawsuits were intense. I wouldn't be surprised if they've had to pay out close to a billion dollars by now. Okay, I wouldn't be surprised if they've had to pay out close to a billion dollars by now. But again it's a question of is it science or is it magic? So, again, going back 200 years when they're making because again it's a question is it magic, is it science? And that's really the question I'm asking, when people say, oh, they cast so-and-so's cast a spell, did they cast a spell or did they use poison you? And the question is the sort of vougon which is sort of like a vaudou priest did he cast a spell or did he just poison you?
Speaker 3:And the powder one of the ingredients that quite often would have been in such a powder was talc. So talc is a mineral at its core, and talc does exist in Haiti in terms of its. What's the term Geology? Oh, I does exist in haiti in terms of its. Um, what's the term geology? Oh, I didn't know that. It's like a mineral, like a mineral. So, like you know, iron, sulfur, all these it's in, it's in the land. So 100, over 200 years ago there was, there is still, talc in haiti. So what was it used for? That's and that's the question how, and that maybe what was going on in Haiti over 200 years ago were early forms of pharmacology, apothecaries, etc. All of those type of things.
Speaker 3:But yes, because, again, if anyone puts, we all know now, today, 2025, in the United States, if you ingest too much health, you're going to get sick. We didn't know that when we were kids. So when I'm 45 now, when I was five years old, that was not the standard understanding of talcum powder by Johnson and Johnson. Today it's different. So imagine, and that's treated, that's assisted, that's purified, it has perfume in it to make talc I mean Johnson and Johnson baby powder, talcum powder. But let's imagine over 200 years ago there's talcum powder in Haiti.
Speaker 3:What effect did that have on people? So those are the questions that I'm asking in the book. Is it magic, is it science? But it does have an effect. So if we know today, talcum powder in its best form, like Johnson Johnson's powder in its best form, makes people sick 200 years ago, if people were trying to use it to cause harm. There's the other deep and disappointing question and I think it did. I think it to cause harm. There's the other deep and disappointing question yeah, and I think it did. I think it did cause zombies or had such an adverse effect that people literally just like someone who's using drugs too much or too often. It happens so often that people literally lose their capacity to function and reason all the way, and that's what I'm sort of examining in the series.
Speaker 2:It makes a lot of sense and it goes back to what you were saying about like why burn bodies? Or like why is fire the best weapon, and that in egypt they burned bodies. They didn't have the words that we have, but they had the knowledge. They just had a different way of talking about it. And I think there's this really amazing juxtaposition in your book between this uh farm pharmaceutical company, which I know is uh, diva. I don't think I'm saying, am I saying that right?
Speaker 3:diva pharma I mean, it's not a. It's not a real word, it's just, it's a made-up name. It's not a real word.
Speaker 2:It's not a real company, yeah I mean, but I, yeah, and you know I don't think anyone here is fan of pharmaceutical companies. I'm gonna take a wild guess, but there's. So there's devotee pharma, pharma. And then there is a very powerful man in haiti, uh guo piero, and both of them are making potions that involve things like talc and they're doing other things to well, and the pharmaceutical company is doing like weird genetic manipulation stuff, but they are also using talc in some ways. But both of them are making potions to control people and to profit, and they just have different explanations for the same phenomenon.
Speaker 2:And I think that what I really appreciate about that is in the way that I grew up and how what I was taught is like science is the way to know things, it is the superior way, and I don't think that that's true. I think that lots of cultures have ways of sharing knowledge. That's just a different way of sharing the same thing, and that's what I feel like is happening in your book. There's these like really strong parallels for me the whole way through.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and I think the other part of Gualtiero is that he's a pharmacist himself, because that was part of European culture too, that apothecaries hundreds of years ago were classified in some way, shape or form, under magic, and then it became, you know, apothecaries became pharma, you know pharmacists and something else. But there was a tremendous historical overlap between the use of pharmacology and the use of apothecaries. And then magic to medicine and medicine to match. There was huge it does. I don't think I don't know where one starts and one ends. I know that they go back and forth quite often, but I don't know where one starts and one ends.
Speaker 3:And that's very true in Haiti, because quite often, you know, I want to say, with the fall of the Juvia regime in 1986, over 51% of the Haitian population was illiterate. In 1986, when it fell, the regime fell, over 51% of the Haitian population was illiterate. In 1986, when it fell, the regime fell, over 51% of the population was illiterate. So how were they surviving? If you can't read, so, you're definitely not understanding full medical discourse on anything. So they were going back to the story in terms of what they had and what they're doing, and the only thing I can say to that is right now. The Haitian population is estimated to be somewhere at 11 million, whereas very, very wealthy countries like Japan, a lot of the EU countries, are struggling with fertility rates right now, struggling with fertility rates as a country full countries struggling, whereas Haiti does not have universal health care. Countries are struggling, whereas Haiti does not have universal health care. I don't know if it's still. The majority of the population is illiterate, but it's interesting to me. How does that work for the Haitian population Technically, even with not enough food, certainly not enough education, struggling with running water, have been able to maintain their collective health? That's a question. I'll be very honest with you.
Speaker 3:Out of my four grandparents, three of them died in their 80s. My family was literate, like all four of my grandparents, but most of them weren't. I think it was a testament to Haitian understanding of trees and plants and leaves and fruit and vegetables, inherently inherent understanding of what's around them, so that they could survive, because there wasn't the capacity to go to doctors at every single turn. So if something was wrong or scratched you with your throat, they knew exactly which kind of tea to make you. There are certain types of teas that my mom used to make for us. She used to make the peels from the garlic that wasn't thrown away. The garlic peel, that's tea and something's scratching your throat. You've got to have garlic peeled tea. Then go and ask for a few hours, see how you feel and it works. That's one thing that, to me, is Haitian culture is that, even though Haiti is not industrialized, when you talk about doing the best with what you have, that's the spirit of Haiti.
Speaker 1:A big part of what I love about the zombie apocalypse and, just in general, the culture of people prepping and becoming more self-reliant, is we're realizing that there are these old ways of doing things that worked for thousands and thousands of years that our society has kind of forced us to forget. You know, a lot of people don't even realize that, like, if you walk past a lemon tree in la, that lemon is the same lemon you would buy in a store. You can. You can pick it off of the tree and eat it.
Speaker 1:Well, I mean, maybe not eat the lemon, but you know use the lemon, yeah, yeah and uh, and we're kind of coming back to that and I think, like thinking about the zombie apocalypse has always like given me like a, a fun way to think about studying these things, and I think that it's interesting how um haiti is already. You know, they've, they've, they've maintained this knowledge because they've always needed the knowledge yeah, yeah, they've had.
Speaker 3:You know, um, they have to, they've been forced to. That's because I mean, yes, they're, they're right now. The political unrest right now is intense. So many of the doctors and the nurses and fully certified doctors and nurses have had to leave Haiti because the violence is so intense. So hospitals have shut down, not because they don't exist, but there's no one to staff them. Wow.
Speaker 3:But even with that, you know, especially in the outer provinces I'm not talking about the capital of Port-au-Prince, but the exterior provinces, people who live on the outside for some families, they're surviving on what's there when it comes to sort of healthcare. So, whatever their families would have done. I mean, the favorite thing that Haitian people love, it's like, if you want to get ready for the zombie apocalypse, I can tell you what Haitian people love. It's like, if you want to get ready for the zombie apocalypse, I can tell you what Haitian people would have survived on it's castor oil.
Speaker 3:In Creole it's called rin-ma-ki-ti, but you have something wrong with your skin, something wrong with your body. You have a swollen, anything, something they're going to rub you down in castor oil and bring you back. Castor oil can also be ingested. Oh, it can be ingested. So if someone were suffering from any sort of intestinal or tummy issue, they're going to have you sit down some castor oil. So I mean there are a thousand and one reasons or ways that Haitian people have survived off of just castor oil. No doctors, no health care, no insurance. They're surviving off of cash. I'm not saying I obviously I want haiti to have full industrial, 21st century health care, but I'm just telling you how they survive yeah, that's fascinating because I don't think I've ever had castor oil in any home I've ever lived in it's here right now it
Speaker 2:is. This is what shows you. This is what shows you a gender breakdown. Is that? I know castor oil from a beauty perspective. It can supposedly help screw your hair.
Speaker 2:I put it on my eyelashes, my eyebrows, I've used it on my skin, but yeah, as a white cis man over there, I'm sure the Western one, but I didn't know about its healing properties and I think, like, obviously, I think it goes without saying. I agree with you, like Haiti deserves and the people of Haiti deserve to have all of the things that I have access to here in North America as a middle class person, and I think that capitalism and the way that it works has deliberately abstracted those things from us so that we think we have to take a pill all the time and I'm not saying we don't need pills. I'm on medication that I need, but we don't know that it comes from plants. We don't know that we can use castor oil. You just taught me about peanut oil. I've never thought about peanut oil as a healing thing and we really need, as a people in this world, to get more in touch with what's around us and how we can connect with it and use that for how we survive and do well and also have running water and all the wonderful things that we're lucky to have here.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I want to dive into some of your characters, because you've got some really awesome characters and you follow four people throughout. There's lots of other great folks, but the four folks are T Joseline, samantha Savin, guopiero and Chris the Cop. I forget what his last name is, but I think of him as the Golden Retriever Cop and I wanted to start. Since we talked about Guopiero a little bit, I wanted to hear a little bit more from you about what inspired his character, because he's complex, he's not good and he's not bad. He's a lot of things in this story. So who is he to you?
Speaker 3:So for me, Gopal represents a ruling class in Haiti. There is a ruling class in Haiti. People don't see that, but there is a ruling class in Haiti. Definitely part of that. In his way, I think, what people don't realize about Haiti, the majority of Haiti, even though the majority of Haiti again, I can't speak to the numbers now, but with the fall of the Javadiyah regime in 1986, the majority of the Haitian people were illiterate. But today I would say with an utter confidence that the majority of Haitian people, meaning 51% of the Haitian population, in Haiti they speak different amounts French, English, Spanish and Haitian Creole.
Speaker 3:Because I remember the last time I was there in, I was in front of the Marriott Hotel. There was an older woman, as beautiful as she was, but she was older. I couldn't tell. She could have been 75, 80 years old, you can't tell. Sometimes with an older lady and she was so canny and sweet to the tourists. She was doing it in French, in Spanish, and she was counting out the money in Spanish, in English, in French. Ninety-nine cents, Dos cientos. She was giving it to them in four languages. And I'm looking at her. I was like she might not be literate, but she knows that she has to count out her money in four languages, and to me, that's the spirit of Haiti. What it shows is that, even though he was educated in france because there's a huge part of that population that will I mean, even before castro.
Speaker 3:Let's even go further back when haiti gained its independence, when the us closed or um, essentially um implemented trade embargoes against haiti. It could no longer sell its coffee, its chocolate, its commodities to the United States. So what happened was one of the ways that they did it. They started shipping things with Spain, so, even though it wasn't independent yet. But what was Cuba then and what would eventually become the Dominican Republic? That's how Haitian people started. And then you go to what became what would become now Colombia, Venezuela, Ecuador.
Speaker 3:That's such a part of Haitian culture to speak Spanish. People don't realize that so many Haitian people will speak English to a certain degree how well, I don't know, but in a functional way. It's the exact opposite of a lot of Americans who, even if they're wealthy and have had access to I mean literally cotton-level university education, if you ask them more than two sentences in English, they can't give a cheat, Because it's the expectation that the United States is the best. Why do I have to keep these other languages? People said that I remember this and I went to public schools here in New York City but there were kids every semester, every single term, would say why do I have to learn Spanish? I'm not going there was that part I've never had. Why y'all learn Spanish, I'm not going? There was that part Not.
Speaker 3:Who had kids in Queens who would say things like that out loud, yo, mister, I'm not trying to be out loud in Colombia or in Spain. Why y'all be learning Spanish? Not who had Queens spirit, but it's bigger. Because the United States is like that. You have very wealthy Americans who say that same thing. Well, you know, english is enough. I don't really need it and they do that. You'll see them go into their I mean, I used to live and work in Paris.
Speaker 3:Americans go into establishments speaking English under the assumption that everyone must speak English with them. They do that in countries all the same, and people are looking at them as Haitian people, even if your family, specifically, is wealthy in Haiti. That is not the expectation. The expectation is that if I'm Haitian and when I travel abroad, I must speak the other language. So so many Haitian people are polyglot. You won't realize that, but a lot of Haitian people are polyglot. It's inherent to Haiti, just to survive. So the wealthy families in Haiti, like a in Haiti that would own a chain of pharmacies.
Speaker 3:Imagine this, let's just put us in 2025. Whoever's running, let's say, the pharmacies in Haiti today, they close the airports and the ports in Haiti. What is that person doing to bring in goods or commodities? That means he's sending a truck into the Dominican Republic. When he calls Dominican Republic, they don't speak Creole, they don't speak French. And then he has to place that order in Spanish and send his staff and his truck to go pick up his deliveries and his commodity. You know whatever he's looking for. So it would be the same for medicine, for fresh eggs and milk, for petrol, whatever he's looking for.
Speaker 3:That is part of Haitian culture and the very poor in Haiti too, when you think of people who are really living day-to-day. They all go into the Dominican Republic to pick mangoes or cut sugar cane and again, when they're in the Dominican Republic, no one's speaking Creole or French to them. They have to speak French. So that part of Gopiero is inherent Haitian. People have to be international just to survive, and I think Gault Pierrot represents the growing class in Haiti in that he is international. The fact that he lives in France, the fact that he can speak perfect English, the fact that he is still in Haiti, it shows what's going on, because that's part of Haiti. They all are like that.
Speaker 2:This is an amazing conversation, and what I love about talking to folks like you is I just never know what we're going to talk about in an interview. I think I'll just say briefly that the United States and I'd say a lot of Canada, although at least we are required to learn French from a young age has some arrogance that we should assume that everybody speaks English, and I think that we would all be better served to take on that polyglot perspective and realize that it's when you're going to somebody else's house you follow their rules, you speak their language, you try at least. So I want to no, it's very true, go ahead. Oh, no, it's okay, I wanted to talk with you about or actually I'm going to pass it to you, dan, it to you, dan to talk about chris oh, chris the cop, and then we'll talk about t just jocelyn and samantha.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so, uh, you have a character, um, chris, he's a cop. Um, who's leah has referred to as the uh, a golden retriever of a character um, I can kind of imagine what she means by that um, but he's not like a typical cop character. He's kind of like he's a socially conscious type of person, supports Black Lives Matter, reads NASA articles. Again, this is another complex character. What made you want to flip the usual cop stereotype on its head in that regard? In that regard, Because I think.
Speaker 3:Well, I think to me, the most interesting part of that, of his character is the fact that he's wealthy, because wealth is not always expressed the same way, right? So when people say, you know, they use the term new money, that's a thing. People who've got to like wear the Gucci glasses and I've got to show you I've got a Versace belt, like that whole thing. That's so new money. There are people who literally have never experienced the lack, and I've seen this in real life too often and I've seen it so often that it's scary. There's so many people that I've met who truly grew up with money, who truly grew up with their parents going to some of those name brand universities or being extremely well known in their communities, like I'm talking about in terms of government or politics or business sectors you name it. The people I met whose families really grew up in abundance, in all forms of abundance. I found that they're not the racist ones, but I'm not joking, I'm being sincere. I felt like the people who really had things are not the ones out here doing all this. I feel like you know the abuse, the mistreatment comes from the lack. I really do. I've seen that so often it's scary. So when I meet someone and this is probably a punishment I see someone and they're doing too much, the car's too flashy, the clothes are too flashy, it's this sort of like flashy, flashy, flashy, look at me. I always step back like why are you doing too much? Why are you doing all this? You know, I think, to speak about police here in New York um, a lot of families, a lot of families that were once working class became little class by joining NYPD. So remember, to join the NYPD, I mean they just changed it. They lowered the amount of credits. I don't know what they lowered it to, but officially for New York City, for NYPD, you have to have 60 credits. Not an associate's degree, not a bachelor's degree. You have to have 60 credits Because remember the finished degree you need to have to follow very specific rules. Even for associates that means you have to have this credit and this and this and this and math and math. You know it's very specific to get the degree. Like, you need to have this much in science, this much in math, this much in this to get the degree. Same thing for bachelor's. There's a structure. You're why it's not that for NYPD you have to have 60 credits. So the kid wants to go in and do 60 credits of physical sports therapy. If he does those 60 credits he can become NYPD. He has to complete the credits. They just lowered that now and I think that's the way Truthfully.
Speaker 3:And I've met great cops and it's not to insult cops. There's been so many lives lost by cops across the country but again, I really found that people who come from actual abundance don't act like that sincerely, and that's not trying to prop up the rich or to glorify the rich, because this billionaire culture is a new thing. Right, this is a very new thing. This billionaire culture, seen right, this is a very new thing. That billionaire culture, did it exist? Did it exist? I don't know, I was born in 1979. Maybe Warren Buffett was a billionaire in 1979. Was he? I think he was probably one of the few yeah, probably.
Speaker 3:I think it was Warren Buffett, I think there were corporations of billionaires, but individuals, when we talk about wealth and abundance in the American sort of environment, it meant a very specific thing. It meant you owned your house. It meant that your parents held sort of advanced educations or positions. It meant that you were not in debt anywhere. You know what it meant. It meant that you traveled and a certain thing, but I just I don't know. So that's where Chris comes from. Chris comes from this understanding that the best people are not trying to hurt people because they weren't hurt. They came from a different perspective and they're not trying to do all this extra stuff.
Speaker 3:I think that's where Chris comes from.
Speaker 1:So they're like not you know down here like trying to scrape for everything they've got, and they have a lot of opportunities to like educate is what you're saying.
Speaker 2:And they also don't have the risk, and that's why.
Speaker 3:Chris is handsome.
Speaker 3:I'm a guy who's handsome and was never broke. I promise you he's not going to understand why people out here fight. I'm sincere. Look at a man. I think it's for women too. Look at someone who is naturally not plastic surgery, not makeup, just naturally had a pretty face. They're not out here doing all this stuff. They're not out here causing people problems. In the same way, there's something that's missing, that causes the attacks, the abuse, but there's something that happens. But for me, because I've met people like this, I've met men who were tall, who were handsome, who never experienced poverty, and when you talk to them you're like nothing's wrong and they don't get. And I think that they don't get why I'm out here fighting, like what's the issue?
Speaker 2:I think that is because I've met so many people like that I mean that makes sense just from the um, the premise that billionaires and the powerful class need to point at somebody. So if you're thinking about, like a poor white person or a person who has a history of family that struggled, we all know that we don't want us looking up right so that we have to create this idea of race and create this idea that, like, we deserve at least a little bit more than these other people who we've decided are a different race from us. And then now this is like this reality that we're all living in with racism. So I think what I'm hearing you say is like that's less necessary for a person who has what they need. They're not as gullible for that. That perspective. Is that what I'm hearing, or would you say more?
Speaker 3:I think so. I think there are people who are, because it's not just wealth, it's also the internal part, that piece, that sense of actual. Some people actually have that, because I know that a lot of marketing companies or designer clothing companies or you know whoever they're trying to make us think we need to wear a $3,000 dress to be pretty. But if I promise you Angelina Jolie or Halle Berry wearing a Hanes t-shirt, they don't need the $3,000 dress. They knew, I mean I'm talking about. Take the cheapest Hanes t-shirt and put that on Halle Berry, put that on Angelina Jolie when they were 15, they were pretty without the designer theme and I think that's an acknowledgement that a Chris type would have known that. So if you're tall and you're healthy and you really did grow up with parents who were, you know, all teenagers at some point found their parents out of their nerves. That's a different thing. But overall you were fine. You were never like struggling in such a way. I think it's a thing I really do.
Speaker 1:Because if you look at people around here causing the most harm they live through harm, that's a real thing. Yeah, that makes sense. Um, something that I, uh, I've I really found interesting in your book was how, um, your book, you know, while it's, while it's a a work of it also includes a lot of real-life stuff that's actually happening in Haiti, like the cholera outbreak, and some other things, too, that we might talk about later.
Speaker 2:Oh, we're talking about Clinton. We can't not talk about that.
Speaker 1:From my own point of view, I haven't really known a whole lot about these things other than the brief little snippet that you see on the news, maybe. So this was kind of interesting to see that perspective built into this story and see it fit so clearly. What made you want to include real-world things into this story?
Speaker 2:Yeah, real world tragedy amidst also a zombie apocalypse.
Speaker 3:Well, I think it's always there. It's always there, like when you read regular fiction, regular novels. They always allude to things that are real. If you read Jane Austen, there are allusions to the queen. Whoever would have been king or queen at that time they're referenced.
Speaker 3:It's a time tool, right, it's a time tool. Trump is listed in there because he was president when that book came out. It's a time tool, so it lets you know that shit's already hit the fan, literally right. If you're reading a book and they reference the president as FDR or Eisenhower or Kennedy, it already places you in your sphere. It's a writing tool to name the president or to name whoever would have been the head of the monarchy at the time. It's a writing tool Instead of saying it's 1936 or 1936, because that's a harder, more bulky. But if you say Trump said President Trump said, we know what century we're in, we know what decade we're in, and I think it makes it clearer to the reader. But it's not. I mean, that's another book that you could just use to attack Hitler's state. But for me it's more about referencing time and again, even referencing clinton. That references time. But we know, once we say clinton, we know it's past jubilee yeah, and it's also.
Speaker 2:It also taught it also like refers to the power dynamics at that time, like the fact that the cholera outbreak is caused by the un, for example. Um, which, like these, are things I didn't know, so thank you for putting that in your book, cause then I spent down a rabbit hole reading about all this stuff and being like whoa. Like whoa that's my most articulate quote for this episode. That was how I felt when I was reading it. But, like, the UN was responsible in some ways for that cholera outbreak, or how, um, the clinton foundation exploited a catastrophe with the hurricane to actually um not actually put all the money towards haiti, and other people were profiting uh, non-profits were profiting. So those power dynamics, I think, are also really important in the book.
Speaker 3:Uh, and that they're absolutely there, absolutely there, like I mean, people don't see it that way. The haiti, in many, many ways, is like hey, america's you know bastardized, unclaimed, illegitimate child that they don't acknowledge. So like if your father was they. I mean, if you're a white family, middle class or you know wealthy white family, your father had a black mistress on the other side of town and then, yeah, somewhere else he's a half-sister. Wow, that no one wants knowledge who your father's name's not on their birth certificate. But when you see her, everyone's like, oh my, truthfully, it's like Arnold Schwarzenegger, who has a kid with his housekeeper. He has, like how many. I think he has four kids in the restrival, beautiful kids. But of all the four kids he has in the restrival, the kid he has with the housekeeper looks just like him Fitting image.
Speaker 3:And I think Haiti, in many ways, is like you know, the United States is. You know, undeclared, bastardized, illegitimate child. We're always here. If there had not been an American Revolution, there would not have been a Haitian Revolution. They're one and the same American trade between Haiti and the United States back and forth. That was its economy. When America imposed a trade embargo, it was severe. It's like we're not going to give you anything. Stay out there. Meanwhile, the reason why all these Africans were brought onto the island of Saint-Germain was to grow the chocolate and the coffee and all these other commodities to send to the US. That's why we were there. If there had not been a United States, there would not have been a Haiti. So it's that part that I think Americans don't want to acknowledge. It's that part they don't want to acknowledge where it comes from when people talk about this part.
Speaker 3:Just to go back to the UN, when UN workers came into Haiti, it was documented. This is not gossip, this is proven that a lot of UN workers raped women and children. Wow, un workers raped women and children in. Wow, un workers raped women and children. And then Haiti. I mean, it's those things that I get upset about. It's just that because when people malign and insult Haiti or Haitian people, they don't want to talk about their own behavior and the things that have occurred. And that's why I always come back and bring it to them, because I do, and that's why I was coming back and bringing to them Because I do. I have worked with people from very, very from the UN and all these different institutions and foundations. I've been to these places, but I always looked, I would sit in the back and just like listen.
Speaker 2:I'm like okay, because they're bullshit, yeah, and they're just as sorry, they're just as bad with the aid, the aid organizations, a lot of the time as the more overt acts like interfering in Haitian elections and the embargoes, right, and I think that was a key thing that I really appreciated being pointed out in your book. Just a little bit of background about myself, my background in international development studies, and so I went into that thinking, jenna, like oh, I'm going to go. I had like full weight savior complex, I'm going to go, I'm going to save the world, I'm going to do all these great things. And then, thankfully, I had a lot of really good professors.
Speaker 2:That was like wait a second, leah, let's talk about how we got to this place where places like Haiti have all of these struggles and places like Canada are doing so well. It is not because one of those countries is just not figuring it out right. It's a very deliberate oppression and exploitation. And I realized it was a really harsh reality to realize when I had that naive, 18-year-old view of myself that, in actuality, so much of what we get in countries like the United States and Canada and Europe is on the backs of exploitation of countries like Haiti, and that includes aid. It includes the things that are supposedly good, quote unquote that we're doing for other countries that ultimately are very often about just making more Americans or more Canadians more money.
Speaker 3:This is all true. This is all true. You know what I think of now, because Americans have taken so much for granted Again to me. I always try to be grateful. So Dan's question of would you rather a zombie apocalypse or a 40-hour workweek I will always pick the 40-hour workweek because it's not a joke, you know, it's real. I mean real catastrophes happen. I don't think the American population understands, because Haiti's had puppet government. Haiti has had people who served as head of state who were appointed by an outside figure. This is the first time that this has happened in the United States to such an extent.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we're dipping our toes into it. Give it another try.
Speaker 3:Not even dipping our toes. We're fully on the end of the pool, like it's all the way, and I look at this. I'm like this is insane, but this is what has happened to Haiti for a very long time that different heads of state were so. The last time Jean-Baptiste Moise was assassinated and I think, the one I would really highlight in terms of ridiculousness the president before him was Michel Martelly. Michel Martelly is a very, very accomplished musician. So start like 1980s, all the way until his election. When was he elected? 2010? You know, he was arguably the most famous, most accomplished musician and he's so popular with the people that when he ran for president, he won.
Speaker 3:How Michel Martelly is that? He and this is not slander and this is not defamation, because there are pictures of this online he's a crackhead. There are pictures of him smoking crack. There are songs where he talks about cutting up the cake, cutting up the coupe g. I think that I believe that's a cocaine reference. I believe so. No, I'm wrong. He's very handsome. Again, polyglot. You can find videos of Michel Marceli as head of state of Haiti in French and Spanish and English and Creole, delivering speeches with a suit like, looking like the head of state he's supposed to be, but that was not him operating in real time. That was not him operating independently. He was under the influence of a drug that I believe controlled by the United States.
Speaker 2:I feel like I just keep saying wow in this conversation, jenna, yeah.
Speaker 3:He was a zombie. Yes, exactly, it's about a zombie. So what Dan mentioned before about is it fast or is it slow? But for me, the way I would always answer that question, above all else it's about your physicality versus your mind. Because zombies, there are sicknesses that people get that render them frail, where they can never cause harm. So if someone has I don't know lymphoma, or someone has leukemia, or someone has a respiratory ailment, they cannot, even if they wanted to punch you. So certain illnesses or certain things you physically cannot inflict harm. So that sickness takes your physicality, it upends your physicality. But I think about what unites zombies even if they're slow, they still have some measure of their physicality which allows them to inflict harm, slow or fast, yeah.
Speaker 1:And that's by their numbers. That tracks across all zombie media as well. While they're rotting and shuffling along, they grab you or they bite you, it doesn't matter what you're wearing, they go right through it. So it does make sense that you're that you know zombies would be physically strong. It's like they ignore.
Speaker 2:They ignore their frailty, yeah we're gonna have to I think we're to revise our question. Yeah, uh, because of this conversation, um, but I do want to make sure that we give the uh time and space to two of your other really powerful characters t j Jocelyn and Samantha Savin. They're two main Haitian female characters and they have some similarities but also striking differences. In some ways, they felt like two sides of the same coin and I wanted to know a little bit more about what inspired you to create both of these characters.
Speaker 3:Sure so in Haiti it's like a coin cloth. I'm glad you use the word coin because it's like a coin toss, unlike the United States or Canada and EU countries. Even if you're not born into wealth, because the public education system is so strong, it's so hard. I'm not trying to oversimplify or talk about fairy tales. I'm not even talking about fairy tales but the educational system is so established that, even literally, if you grew up with just regular working class parents or, let's say, illiterate, you really go. You know who I think of this. Remember Faith Hill, the country singer? Say the name again, faith Hill. She had that song that said breathe yes.
Speaker 3:Faith Hill talked about this. Her father was illiterate and she spoke about that. She spoke about that extensively, that growing up down south and her father was illiterate, what that was like for her. But the example you know. And she's older. How old is she? She has to at least be 50, 50. She has to at least be 50 years old. Now she is older than I am, but that shows you that at the united states, at a basic, that even if you're born to a family that was illiterate just the education, wherever you are in the 50 states, you will be taught to read because it's institutionalized.
Speaker 3:I think the character between Samantha and Tijousli, the difference in Haiti, shows where it's a twin cost. So if you're born to a family and they don't know how to read, your life will not have the same courses, whereas Samantha was born into a family that had the full capacity to read and then that means they moved to the United States. They had regular To be an immigrant and to move to the United States or Canada or Europe and you don't know how to read. It's too much impossible to make any. It's not even about writing hoity-toity academic papers. You have to be able to read, you have to Like if you're going to get through the streets of New York, if you can't read, you can't ride the subway. I mean, I think people try, but it's I'm talking about like 1970s New York you have to know how to read, whereas for C Joseph, you grow up with a family that didn't know how to read and it was stuck.
Speaker 3:And those are the parts. That's the difference within Haitian culture, that it's not guaranteed, whereas here in the United States, for whatever reason, if your parents were literate, if you enter a public school in any of the 50 states, you will read, reading I mean, assuming that you're not a learning disability or something else but you're going to have access to reading. I think that's the difference with the Indonesian culture that people don't understand is, if you don't have access to a school, you really don't have access to a school and you don't know what's new next. And I think Tijosi's character is special because she does find Gopiabu and Gopiabu gives her the opportunity to come into another element of herself and to grow past what she's already been, because a lot of patient women do that too. A lot of patient women do that, that they're born into the most abject and dire situations, but they come through beautifully and she just didn't represent a lot of patient women who've done extraordinary things with literally nothing.
Speaker 3:Nothing there's nothing and they done extraordinary things with literally nothing, nothing With nothing. And they do extraordinary things just through grit, pure grit. And Samantha, you know, I think she represents Haitian people who grew up outside of the United States, excuse me, outside of Haiti, be it in the United States or in France or in Canada. It's a very different thing that you're still Haitian, cause we're always reminded that we're Haitian. Canada, not as much because you can have a French last name. In Canada, they assume you're from Quebec. But in the United States you have a French last name. If you are nowhere near the state of Louisiana, people are like where are you from? And it just feels like a Black person. Like if I were a white woman and I had a French last name, they would assume I'm from France. But if you're Black English, French, latin you're like. That's why you said my name in English is Chris Fonte, but in French it's Chris Font. It's a huge difference.
Speaker 3:When I'm in France or I'm in Montréal, quebec, no one ever mispronounces my name, ever. Every time they get it right. It's weird. It's weird because it's always funny. You want to know? My trick to tell someone from harvard is ridiculous enough. Yes, this is. And I judge them harshly. I don't care. Do not care if they look at my name and they hold a harvard degree and they don't know p and h make f. I'm looking at the sideways, looking at the. Looking at them sideways. I'm like English is the only language you speak. You know PNH make out. You're not out here saying Al-Pah-Ha-Bet, you're not out here saying Katasha-Pah-He. Why are you looking at Chris Fonte saying Chris Pah-Ha-He, pnh, make out. So yes, those are the kind of things I look at. When Americans speak to me, they don't realize I'm judging them Sideways. They do that all the time I can't even count.
Speaker 3:I don't have enough to count how many people from Harvard and Yale really look at my last name and say Chris Pottante. I'm looking at them like really I don't say it because it would be contiguous. My husband doesn't like when I. He doesn't want me to be confrontational, but every single time I'm looking at them sideways, like can you make my guess? I feel like a Haitian person, even a more Haitian person. If they met someone they didn't know, they would ask how do I connect to me? They would just ask Because, again, to be from Haiti, it means that you're not coming from this exorbitant like like first in the world imperial history wealth.
Speaker 2:But you gotta have some sort of humility yeah, we need a lot more of that from our leadership right now. Any at all, any, any humility would be great. I want to. I want to talk briefly about samantha's mantra. Um. So, samantha, just a little bit of backstory for folks who have not read this yet which, by the way, you need to go get it. Uh, samantha is uh, I am not a scientist and I gotta say I had to look up some of the stuff to be like is this real, this like this gene technology is wild.
Speaker 2:Um, but samantha is a scientist and she studied the cholera outbreak in haiti and that's where she wanted to spend her time, but she had to. In order to survive and get a job, she had to work, work for this devotee pharma and put her effort there, and so she's, while she, compared to T Jocelyn, has a lot of opportunity and, yeah, I guess, a lot of opportunity and comfort in her life and, like, good things happen in her life. Good things happen in her life. She's also been through some hard stuff and there's a particular moment in the book towards the end, where the zombie outbreak is happening and samantha shares that. Her mantra is beauty and terror happen, keep going. And that felt really like. When I read that I got chills and I wanted to know what the origin of this is I think it's the truth.
Speaker 3:I think it's the same thing again. I think it's two sides of the same point. I think it's the truth. I think it's the same thing Again. I think it's two sides of the same point. I think it's the truth. I'll be very honest with you.
Speaker 3:I've been recently, especially with the administration. I've just been like this is so scary that to be a Haitian immigrant means to understand what a coup d'etat is sincerely and how it literally uproots you from where you are. I don't think most Americans understand that at all, what that means. I think Haitians, we have an excellent understanding of what a coup d'etat means Because we've had so many heads of state come in and disravel, break, destroy. We've had it too often that we see it like. It's like oh, we know what this is. When you say beauty, when you say terror people, I think don't see it when it comes. I think that's why it is the thing. For me, beauty can be simple. Really, beauty can be a sparrow. It's not a sparrow, it's brown and gray. It's not as beautiful, let's say, as a blue jay or a cardinal, or a red robin, but it's small.
Speaker 3:To me it's beautiful. I think terror is the same way. People, when terror comes, they're expecting pitchforks or military tanks all at once. No, I think they come in very subtle, subtle ways and you have to really pay attention to get it or to see it, because if you're not paying attention, you're going to miss it and it's going to lead to it either way. So if something's really beautiful or really kind or really wonderful for you, if you're not paying attention, you're going to miss it and it's going to lead to it Either way. So if something's really beautiful or really kind or really wonderful for you, if you're not paying attention, it's going to come back and see it and it's going to go away. And then, if terror comes in, if you're not paying attention and you don't see it, it can wreak havoc. I think it's about paying attention and seeing it, understanding what's going on, but still moving forward.
Speaker 3:It's a question of concentration. I think we all can do it, and that's the thing for me. I think we can all do it. It's a question of are we concentrating, are we being distracted, are we allowing ourselves to be distracted? But I think we can all do it. It's just like when we say remember to drink your water today. It's like that. I think we just have to make that. It's like some days, we days we remember, okay, get our eight glass of water, and others like I don't think I had half a glass of water today. But I think it's like did we take the time? Did we look around us? Um, because it can come at any time.
Speaker 2:All the good things and the bad things I think it's a mantra we really need for this time. That's what I felt. I felt like there were a lot of things in this book that are specific in time and place and, uh, like a power, dynamic dialogue between the United States and Haiti, but also there's just some fundamental truths of like human existence and the reality we're facing right now that are encapsulated in that one statement. So I just want to say thanks for that, because I will be like the other one. What was the other one? I said I was going to write on my wall. I've already forgotten. I'll have to listen to my own podcast to remember. You said something else. I was like that's smart. I think I'm going. I'm an artist, I love to paint. I think I'm going to make a little message for myself about this, because we do need to pay attention, and both are here all always. Yeah, not just now, but before and after yeah, they're always here yeah, there's something about paying attention to that.
Speaker 2:I think that will um help me see the beauty in the hard times, but also keep going when there's terror and know and be ready to respond in this weird time that we're in, by looking at the small things.
Speaker 1:Absolutely so hard pivot we're gonna talk about clinton. Yeah, so, something that I thought was fascinating, I learned, I learned something from your book Well, lots of things, but this one was weird and I did not know anything about this. So you, you talked a little bit about Bill and Hillary Clinton in your, in your book, and how they came to Haiti a long long time ago and, uh, yeah, made a, made a deal to become, uh, president of the united states, and I'm like, I'm like this must be made up. So we looked it up and, sure enough, what was it? 1974, bill and hillary clinton went to something like that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, they went to haiti for their, their honeymoon, and they actually saw a voodoo practitioner. Um, we don't, I don't think we actually know what. Well, I don't know what happened, I wasn't there, but but can you tell us a little bit? More for those who don't know if it's true or not.
Speaker 3:I don't know if it's true or not, I don't know. I'm just telling you what haitians will say about them. Oh, most haitian people who grew up in Haiti would say this is not me saying this, I'm telling you what it's said about. It's sort of like how you know a rumor about you. It follows you, like there's always rumors about certain famous people, right? I'm trying to think like a good rumor. That's not true. You think like who's a good rumor? I mean like who's a good rumor? I mean there's no such thing as a good rumor, like here's a rumor.
Speaker 3:This is a rumor in new york. I don't know if it's true, but here's a rumor from new york city. Mayor ed Koch was mayor 70s and 80s in new york city. There were rumors that he was gay. Remember this is before members of the gay community were were allowed to be public. But there were always rumors in new york about ed Koch being gay and to this day I don't know if it's true. I haven't read anything official, official, official, official that it may exist, but I haven't looked for it.
Speaker 3:But that's like a rumor that people say. Is it true? I don't know, but it's said so often that people assume it's true at this point. It's said so often. So in Haiti, haitian people have been saying for so long that Bill and Hillary came to Haiti while they were. I don't know if they came to Haiti for that, but they were in Haiti and they met a voodoo practitioner who cast a spell so that they could get the presidency. That is what I said by a lot of Haitian people about the Clinton. That is what they say that about. I'm not even joking, I don't say that, but a lot of haitians. If you say that, if you say hillary in front of in a room full of haitians, someone's gonna like. You know how it's like there's someone that says something out the middle of the back, someone would say that. Someone would say that in a in a room of mixed company, they would.
Speaker 2:They would say that i's what they think of them. I kind of want to believe this.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'm going to adopt this. Believe it 100.
Speaker 3:It's fact now no, I can't say fact, because I've got to be alive. I wasn't. I wasn't alive in 1974. When did they write 1974 and 75? I wasn't alive. So I certainly don't know. But I'm just telling you the rumor that follows them in Haiti. That's what people say about them they're back.
Speaker 1:So, following the earthquake relief that Hillary Clinton was in charge of and the misappropriated money that never went to Haiti, and then that's also believed that that's why she lost the 2016 presidency- because the voodoo practitioners said, basically, we're not going to keep helping you anymore.
Speaker 3:Yeah, this is fiction, this is, oh, darn it no, it's true.
Speaker 1:I believe that that is.
Speaker 3:That is complete fiction, that that part I made up, because that again, that's like a Haitian. Haitian people holding a grudge is definitely part of Haitian culture. Someone would have held a grudge. I'm like, no, no, no, that is part of Haitian culture. The whole grudge is in there. It's based in the Haitian culture. So, yes, I added that because that fits the color of Haiti, the character of Haiti, the way haitian citizens reasons and things like what you did, that and you didn't, and people.
Speaker 2:That's grunt, that's begging for a grudge can I add my conspiracy theory to this? Or, dan, it's yours originally actually, so we have it. We've decided to add to this rumor mill. Yeah, we're gonna add a rumor um.
Speaker 1:So I was, I was, I was thinking, I'm like, okay, so, um, haiti wanted to punish hillary clinton for screwing them over by taking away the presidency from her, but that left donald trump in instead. And I'm like, why? Why would that make sense? That wouldn't make sense. But what if donald trump is america's punishment from haiti?
Speaker 3:oh, that's a bigger question. I mean, first of all, it wouldn't just be haiti. Right, when you think about military, military coups, I had to state across africa, across South America, in Asia, eastern Europe, let's take it out of Haiti. Let's take it out of Haiti because I don't know if that's true, I have no idea. But if we were to apply an Indian standard of karma against the United States, it's well documented A lot of Americans you know, know was the term that I would use a lot of American interference in national elections across the world have taken place.
Speaker 3:I mean, there's so many countries that couldn't start to name which one. So, if we're just going to, let's just go back to the idea of Hinduism and the idea of karma, because that's what it feels like to me. To me, it feels like karma. It feels like you have replaced too many heads of state. There have been too many heads of state in too many countries and too many continents that have been appointed or they've had elections interfered with by American government, and now it's coming back. It feels, and no one has ever anticipated it could happen to such a extent. That's what it feels like, because it's not just that, it's not just okay, he won, but I feel like his first term. Yes, he won, but it felt more like him, like, if it makes sense, it felt like it was him. Now this really feels like he's working, like he's working for the Russian government. Yeah, he's definitely a zombie seriously.
Speaker 2:It feels like he's working for the.
Speaker 3:Russian government. Yeah, he's definitely a zombie. Seriously, it feels like that to me. Is that true? I don't know, but it doesn't feel American it doesn't feel American at all.
Speaker 1:It did have me thinking is Donald Trump a zombie? Is that why he wears so much bronzer?
Speaker 3:I don't know, I don't know, but again, zombie is about losing control of your mind. That's what it's for me at least, zombie because you still retain the reality, the use of your body. It's your mind that's gone. Um, I don't know. I really don't know, because, you know, when I watch the news and I watch, you know I see the imagery of the videos. I'm like it. This is a horror that people you know, people patient, I'll say this most Haitian people don't like to discuss zombies. They do not. So that's kind of how a lot of Americans don't like to read. Steve King, what made you write a book about?
Speaker 2:zombies then.
Speaker 3:I told you, my husband didn't like the fact that I was criticized and walking dead and he didn't enjoy zombies Stop when walking dead. I was like zombies are not. And he didn't adjourn zombies don't exist. Stop saying these things. I said well, zombies are not like this. So what do you think zombies are like? I said, well, zombies have to be strong.
Speaker 3:Zombies have to be able to move. Zombies have to have a physicality. A zombie's not going to be slow enough. I said no, a zombie has to physically move. But that's tied to the Haitian understanding of labor, for Haitian labor for over 200 years ago. There's a physicality behind labor. To plow fields, to cut sugar cane, to harvest coffee, you have to be physical. That's not a desk job. I think it comes from there. It's tied to field work, agricultural work, all these things that are not desk jobs historically, that you need to physically be able to use. So that's where, for me, the stand is, and I think it's broader for Haitian people too. All the descriptions I've ever heard Haitian people provide to zombies, there's a physicality to them. It's not the sort of yeah.
Speaker 2:They're afraid Donald Trump doesn't meet the physicality criteria. Like, I'm not afraid of Donald, but he wields other power. He's strong in other ways mentally, though, I think laughing.
Speaker 3:I think he understands what he's doing. I think he doesn't care which is worse, yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's a good point.
Speaker 3:I think it's worse. I think actual zombies don't actually understand what they're doing. That's why a lot of people like again, using the idea that sort of New York City has about people who are drugs, and they call again. They don't know what these people are on, but they call everybody a crackhead. A lot of times, when people are actually fully under the influence of drugs, they don't know what they did, not. That it's their behavior. I'm not trying to accuse their behavior, but quite often they don't know what they did.
Speaker 3:I think I would say that I don't know. I think this administration sees and I think they understand what they're doing. Technically, I wouldn't give them the title. You know who I would give the title of zombies. I would give it to their voters. I don't think they understand. I really don't. I don't think they understand what they're supporting. I don't think they understand what's occurring. They're like, yeah, this is going to be good. I don't think they understand and to me that's what makes them the zombies. They're still walking around. They're still walking around. They're still doing this, but mentally they don't see it. And even worse, someone was saying this on one of the shows that they'll never come back. That's the other part of the zombie. It's not like, okay, I have the flu and I'll be back, I'll see you in three weeks, like when you enter that sort of zombie realm. You don't come back. In a way, you don't come back. I think I would call the people who voted for me. I would call them zombies.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I have to agree. I read a book a long time ago I think it was called Zombified, and it's kind of like this psychological look at zombies, an anthropological look at zombies too, and it defines zombies as a an organism who is taken control of by another organism.
Speaker 2:Um, and I think that fully describes your zombies and also definitely trumpeters yeah, for sure oh, it's depressing because I want to believe and for a long time I really wanted to believe that that like it's possible to break through those differences. And I think there are people like there are certainly people who I think that is still true who voted for trump, but I think a large number, unfortunately, you're right, there's there's not, uh, reaching them anymore, and that's that's hard to reconcile, because I want to believe that we can. I think I say it every episode why can't we all just get along?
Speaker 3:I think, where I see hope, I think the number I saw I could be wrong with this number, because 33% of Americans didn't show up to vote at all I think that part, that part that doesn't mean just because you don't show up doesn't mean you're a zombie. I think some people just I'm not dealing with this and they just because that happens a lot, that people just don't want to deal with something or they're legitimately busy with other things, or they have other things. Like that happens, you can get busy and doing other responsibilities. My hope is that the 33 that didn't vote they show up and they start paying attention. Yeah, yeah, that I think could bring us into something new, because, again, it's a question of using our lives.
Speaker 3:You know, I think truthfully I was having this conversation with someone the other day I think they're also playing their hand because and here's where the difference, here's the huge difference between Haiti and the United States Someone who's born in Haiti with nothing meaning their parents are illiterate, they're living in one of the sort of outer provinces and they really are living in truly, truly abject poverty. Yes, they know things aren't right and even if they throw protests or they riot. That's not the United States, even in this. And defining poverty is different in the United States. So if you live in the United States and poverty quite often is defined as living in a project or living in a trail, in parks, right, those are defined as poverty. But even within that realm of poverty, you still have shelter, you still have access to food, you still have access to free education, you still have access to hot water. You still have because America is so wealthy that even if you're poor in the United States, what you receive being poor in the United States is still more than what people are experiencing in abject poverty outside the United States. I don't think the people in this current administration understand what that means. Someone who's always had running water their entire life, if all the water remember what happened with Flint, michigan. If we see that happening too often, it becomes scary If people who were living on counting on sort of food stamps and SNAP benefits to help feed their families all of a sudden so many groups don't have access to the basics. That's going to cause a problem.
Speaker 3:I think the expectation across the United States is much higher than Haiti did support this administration when, all of a sudden, things that they took as standard, because a lot of those cuts are for Medicare, social Security, snap, benefits, because, again, someone coming to Haiti doesn't expect that they have nothing. Like I said, they're literally picking the lemons, picking the dandelion. They're picking things to survive because that's where they're starting from. The American starting point is much higher than that. Do you know the last estimate of what people in Haiti live off a year? What to survive? Because that's where they're starting from. The American starting point is much higher than that. Do you know the last estimate of what people in Haiti live off a year? What? $500, $600 a year, the poorest one.
Speaker 1:Wow.
Speaker 3:Even someone who's living on post security and Medicare and welfare who's them. They're doing $500, $600 a month. You know what I mean. So I don't think this administration understands what poverty absolutely is. I think too many of them have never experienced poverty. It's just too much. I think it could be devastating, just to safety. And they think it's a joke. I don't think it's a joke. I think Luigi Mandione has set a new template Because historically, when you look at governmental agencies, what they did was they went after groups, so like, let's say, the Black Panthers, or like organizations, like they looked at organizations but or high profile not just that or high profile so like OK, some have said that you know Malcolm X was assassinated, in some way shape or form tied with the government.
Speaker 3:I don't know if that's true, but that's what's been said in some way shape or form tied with the government. I don't know if that's true, but that's what he said. Even though he left the nation of Islam, he was independent at that point, but he was so high profile. If you look at Luigi Maggioni, he was not famous, he was not high profile, he was not part of any group, he wasn't out there protesting anything. He just woke up and said you're a fucking problem. What are they going to do with that? I'm not joking. That's another template. He didn't even buy a gun.
Speaker 2:He's an engineer.
Speaker 3:He did a 3D gun. I'm not even joking. The United States is so huge, the wealthiness even I would use the term that even though people consider themselves impoverished in the United States, they're still wealthy compared to other countries globally. Yes, so you have again a crazy template and I was like I don't think they see that coming from them. I don't think they see that coming from them and it's real and I don't think they see that. So my hope is sincerely that we do not enter a zombie apocalypse Because again Haiti right now is going through and you know.
Speaker 3:The other thing I didn't mention is where the idea comes from, where it actually comes from. You know, the US military occupied Haiti between 1914, I think, until like 1935. And the whole story of zombie apocalypse it comes from Haiti. People don't realize that Sort of like how a lot of people think yoga comes from Beverly Hills. It actually comes from India. But the zombie story it comes from the fact that US military when they occupied Haiti, they had stories about voodoo and zombies and magic and again the apocalypse, because what had happened was the head of state, the government collapsed, so there was an apocalypse. Everything had to stand still. The US sent in their troops to bring back some order. So it was an apocalypse. So when we see the video games, the TV shows, the films, it's based on the fact that those American servicemen, when they were turned, they came back with stories about zombies, because they saw them too. That's fascinating. They saw zombies. When they returned, they came back with stories about zombies because they saw them too.
Speaker 1:That's fascinating.
Speaker 3:They saw zombies. What Haitian people saw is like, again, this is what they label. I don't know if it's true, but this is how they labeled them. So when a Haitian person would have seen, you know, the American military, because they were there they stationed for months and years at a time. That's a zombie. So they came back. You know, I saw zombies and that's a zombie. So they came back. Yo, I saw zombies and what's that? And then they started to write their own story, which became the zombie genre. But it came from American military servicemen, soldiers in Haiti, coming back writing about zombie stories.
Speaker 3:So if you look at it, it's always the same thing it's a collapsed government, a collapsed state. The zombies are in the state. There's collapsed states. The zombies are in the street. There's this overarching poverty. There's that violence that arises and comes out of nowhere, and then it's trying to figure out what to do next. What to do next? What are we going to do next? That's what the service, that's what the american soldiers experienced in haiti 19, like 100 years ago, and it's become the genre. But if you look at it, the actual root of it, the foundation of it, it comes from haiti yeah, that makes so much sense yeah, like I knew that the zombie was haitian, but I didn't realize the origin of that.
Speaker 2:Like zombie apocalypse template of a story. Yeah, yes, it is, don't get me wrong.
Speaker 3:You have zombie stories in, like an ancient chinese story. They have their version, which is very different. Um, so, I can't say all zombies come from Haiti, but the way that it's depicted in American TV shows, video games and films because if you look at World War II with Brad Pitt and then you compare it to Walking Dead, again it's a collapsed government. People don't know where to go. It's that part. It's the fact that the American soldiers arrived in another place, government toppled because that's the way they get that from. The American government had never toppled it like that.
Speaker 3:I mean, civil War is something else, but they came in toppled. They came in with arms, remember, and not just that. Look at that. They always have guns. They always have a gun with them Because you ask, well, which weapon would you use? But the American story I think this is where it diverges. The American story relies heavily, heavily, heavily on the guns, whereas Haitian people in Haiti themselves, historically not now, because everybody uses guns for everything now, even from playing games, like people are shooting a Campbell's food can. So that's not now, but historically, let's say again, going back 200 years ago, they would not have had access to all these guns, so they would have been more reliant on things like fire and things that they would have had at their disposition, where guns are something that are more contemporary. But that's what I would say. The biggest differences would be because of how Haitian people are looking at it, but in the book, if you remember, gorpio does use guns.
Speaker 2:Yes, he does.
Speaker 3:Even though he's Haitian. It's contemporary. It is contemporary, but it's sort of like looking at what he had access to. The question is what would he use if he had no, because, again, bullets run out. What would you do? I have my heart and in my mind. I just feel like if they didn't have access to guns and bullets, mind, I just feel like if they didn't have access to guns and bullets, the guns would stay, but if they run out of bullets, I feel like they would turn to fire, and they do burn the body.
Speaker 2:I hope that's not a spoiler. There's burning of bodies after they use the guns, and the other difference that I think is worth pointing out is that the Walking Dead zombies and most zombies that are in the mainstream you have to shoot them in the head. These ones, they just need to bleed out because they're not truly dead. And you explained that Like I wanted to say thank you for somebody who's not from the Haitian culture and knew a little bit, but not a lot, Like you do such a helpful job of just weaving in explanations throughout the book, so it was like a teaching moment too. I was like, oh okay, Like it's a different. It's the version of the zombie that I have grown up with has its roots in Haitian zombies, but also there's some rules that we've made up about, like shooting in the head and that they have to be dead and come back that are not actually like the same rules that apply to a Haitian zombie, One of my former co-workers.
Speaker 3:she's a writer. I worked with her at the Dramatist Guild. I won't say her name, but she knows who she is. She's a writer and she's from romania. I was like I want to read your vampire story, because most vampire stories are not written by romanians like I want to know from your. I want to see a vampire story from someone like her who is romanian, to see what are, what haven't we seen or what are we missing or what did we get wrong? And I think and I did I I've been encouraged I don't know she hasn't done it yet, but I've been encouraging her. I would love to read a vampire story from a Romanian perspective. And what do they see? Or what do they know? How did it originate for the Americans or the British? I think Mary Shelley, she was American, but I think Bram Stoker was he British?
Speaker 3:kevin burley order I think he was british, but I'm I might just be guessing, but they weren't. Either way, neither one of them were romanians. I mean, most of the time when people think of like heart it comes from yeah, I say it comes from uk or somewhere else, but it doesn't come from romania, for vampires and I think for this, for me, I wanted it to take the haitian point of view and just understanding of how haian people view, because, again, I promise you go find a Haitian person who grew up in Haiti and asked them are zombies real? They don't swear on their kids and say, yes, they're like, yes, zombies are real and they're not joking, they're not exaggerating and they're not lying. They're like I saw one. Yes, Me.
Speaker 3:I saw a zombie. Yes, I know they don, but again, I think it comes from the fact of seeing someone who's been under the influence of drugs in some way, shape or form.
Speaker 1:I think we should add this question to our rapid fires have you seen a zombie? Are zombies real? Have you seen one?
Speaker 2:Why not? I think it's a good new one and you actually have two other zombie books, are they a?
Speaker 3:continuation of talk. Yes, they are, they're coming. I'm finishing up rum right now. Finishing up right now I'm working on my editor and pushing that up right now, and then it's going to be with iron. So it's rum and then iron.
Speaker 2:I get out some of the other really excited for the rest of this trilogy. Let me tell you, you left it. You left us at a cliffhanger, like you. It was good because you explain the things that need to be explained so folks don't think you're going to be like left wondering too much. But then there's a whole new character that's introduced. You hear about him before, but then there's this new character, the chairman, and we're really at the breaking point of a full-on zombie apocalypse when we end the book and so very anxious to read the next one and I wanted to know is there any chance you would ever do an audio book?
Speaker 3:Yes, that is absolutely on my to-do list. I do need to do it. You're right. I've been asked that. I want to say at least a hundred times now I do need to do it. Well, that's good. I'm not exaggerating, because this book is 2019. We're six years later. I've been asked that so many times. I do need to put that on my priority list. So we go back. They do work. You know, during the day I work with regular office type job things. But yes, the audio book will come out.
Speaker 2:It will come out. When it does, I will be spreading it far and wide to the folks who I know are like exclusive audio book listeners. There's one friend of ours who's a listener of the show too, who's driving across country right now. They'll be there when they hear this come out in a couple of weeks. But I was telling them about this book and they're like oh, it's an audio book. And I was like, no, and they're like it would have been perfect. The physical book is available. Could you let us know where people can find your book and learn more about you? Sure.
Speaker 3:Honestly, if you Google tell a Haitian zombie story, it pops right up. No one else got it. There's no confusion, because I know that you did have a gentleman on who wrote a Haitian zombie story, but it's not listed as zombie per se. It's his own accomplishment, you know. It has its own rigor. If you Google, my name is Jennifer Santi, it pops up. If you Google tell Haitian zombie, it pops right up.
Speaker 1:I'll also have links in the description.
Speaker 3:Yes, and it's on different sites. It's on different sites. It's like on if you're from Canada. It's on different sites. It's on different sites. It's like on if you're from canada. It's on the indigo website for canada. It's on amazon, it's on it's up.
Speaker 3:It's because I think the way google works, um, I know when I've traveled, like I google it to see how you know google they control, they do. I'm not joking, I believe they do, but when you're depends on where you are, because when I was in montreal last month, I googled, the first thing that popped up was indigo and I walked into the sunset. Oh yeah, I forgot about indigo. I mean, I've been there dozens of times but I forgot. But it pops up. So now I googled someone else, since I was in montreal last month and I physically walked into indigo. Now one of the first things I pop up is Indigo. I'm like where's the poor? I don't know. But yeah, that's another question. But it's on Amazon, it's on different sites. Just Google the book and, wherever you are, it'll show you, it'll come up and you can get it Well.
Speaker 2:It is one of my favorites to read in the last little while, so thank you for a truly harrowing journey as I was going through this book knowing what was going to happen next. I'm so grateful, I'm so grateful.
Speaker 3:Thank you.
Speaker 2:Well, we're glad we could have you on the show, and I do want to also just finish off by saying that you are not just an amazing writer of a Haitian zombie story and some more to come. You've also written a children's book, which is, by the way, but my favorite flower, the dandelion, which I will be checking out. I think adults might need this book too, and you're a playwright and you have written several plays, so is there anything else that you want to share about, like what you're doing now, uh, with our audience?
Speaker 3:well, the thing that's top, top, top of mind right now is mariela musical. It's based on the life of marlle Franco. She was a Black lesbian elected official in Brazil, in Rio de Janeiro. She was assassinated in 2018. Just to tell the truth for speaking truth to power, she was assassinated 38 years old and I remember it made me so upset, so upset. I was in tears when I saw her. You know why I was in tears? Because when I was young, like you were saying when you were in grad school, I'm going to work in international aid. Me at 15, I was I'm going to go back to Haiti and become president. That was where I was at 15. That was where that was a vision I had of myself at 15. I'm going to go back to Haiti and become president.
Speaker 3:My beloved husband, who again is from New York. But when I say that there are guys or there are men who grew up in privilege and who are good people, my husband grew up here in New York. He followed the banker, he grew up really comfy and he, coming out of law school, he's worked in politics his whole life, essentially. And when I told him that he goes and you know what's funny, his parents used to collect Haitian art. So my husband, before we ever met, my husband grew up going back to Haiti because his parents used to collect Haitian art Wow. So he had an understanding of things from me, right. And when I told him when we first started dating well, I want to go to Haiti. And you know that was always the dream. That was always a deep you know. When you have't want to do this, I want to try that. It was a deep dream for me at 15, 16,. I gotta go back and be pregnant.
Speaker 3:My husband heard that he goes don't you dare, you'd be shot dead, Don't you dare. And he's so calm Like he's Italian-American. So usually when they talk about Italian-Americans, they make them sound like they're all 22 pounds. This is not true. My husband's Italian-American history. He's more like Columbo. You remember Columbo A little bit. He didn't you know, because that was his profile. He didn't know anything. He never raised his voice, but he always understood what was going on. He always knew what was going on. My husband's very much like Columbo, but when I used to tell him I'm not going to hate you, I'm going to become the president of Haiti, don't you dare, you'll be shot dead in a year, don't you dare. He gets like very, very testy. So and that's you know, that was years ago when we first started doing it.
Speaker 3:So when Marielle, who was exactly my age, born in 1979, but in Brazil, she was in Brazilian politics and she got shot. I promise you, when I saw it I started crying, flooding out of fear. But she was shot, she was murdered. She was fighting the good fight, she was doing what she was supposed to do and they murdered her for telling the murder truth. So you know, when I saw that, I was like, well, we're going to tell her story, because the people who are trying to silence Marielle Franco, we're going to make her. We're going to make her, we're going to, we're going to literally bring her back from the dead, we're going to resuscitate her and that we're going to put her life to song. We're going to make it bright and happy and joyful. We're going to celebrate the life that she did live. Because that's what's happened. I think the people who killed her in brazil, they thought, oh, it's going to go away. We're going to make her sign. She's had streets named after her in france and germ, she's become a martyr. Like you, google Marielle Francis. It's tremendous. Every time something major happens to her it makes the newspapers in Tokyo. It's international. Now she's become literally a star. So they turned her into a martyr. So I wrote a musical based on her life using the music.
Speaker 3:I was given permission to translate the songs of Marcino Davila. He's one of the absolute stars of samba music. So if you think of like the like stevie wonder in the united states, you know how like, when you say stevie wonder, like like, because when I meet people who are resilient and I tell them, well, yeah, machino de vila, I, I met with him and he's given me right to translate and use his songs, they're let me be marchino davila it's like if you're an american, doesn't matter which state you live in. He's like you mean stevie wonder. Stevie wonder because it's so big. Yeah, he really is that gentle like you can.
Speaker 3:When you think of stevie, wondering his impact on american music, but I just go, you know, like marching to do, those songs are like that in brazil that when you play them, doesn't matter who you are, where you are. You know, like, marchina de Vil's songs are like that in Brazil, that when you play them, it doesn't matter who you are, where you are. You know all the lyrics. You don't know how she's like. She gave me permission to translate her songs into English and to use to serve as a soundtrack of the music of her life, and right now that's what I'm working on sort of bringing it to the stage here in New York and hopefully to the world, and that's what I'm doing.
Speaker 2:No big deal. No big deal. Just you know writing a really powerful musical, and I think this is the first time in a long time, as a very hermity person who lives in the mountains of Vermont, that I'm like you know what? I think I'm going to have to go to New York to see this. You're going to get me out of my little rural hole and I'm gonna come to new york city to watch this. It sounds incredible.
Speaker 3:I promise, when it comes to the stage, you and dan have free tickets to come. I promise you you will get the. I'm serious, I'm sincere. When it comes out, you will get free tickets.
Speaker 2:Come on down thank you so much. I would love Because, even though it's politics- zombie apocalypse.
Speaker 3:Overall, we're talking a lot about politics. Marielle was politics and in that case, when she was murdered truthfully, many say that's why Bolsonaro lost his presidential campaign. Bolsonaro had a state in Brazil when she was assassinated. The people flooded the streets in Brazil, people flooded the streets. I, the people flooded the streets and I can't remember. Can I read so many political articles? I can't even keep the journalist's name straight, but someone wrote I found a very insightful piece comparing the havoc in Brazil to the havoc in the United States and they felt that the people in Brazil really showed up. Right now they have a more progressive president, but the people showed up in such a way that they clapped back. You can't assassinate one of our elected officials. This doesn't work, this doesn't make sense, and Bolsonaro lost his presidential campaign. The two elected officials who were accused of her assassination are currently under trial. And not just that.
Speaker 3:This administration invited Bolsonaro to come to the inauguration in DC on January 20th. The judges in Brazil seized former President Bolsonaro's passport. You're not going anywhere, so he had to watch it on TV, even though he was invited. Sit up front, I'm not joking. So the journalist who wrote about the difference between the United States and Brazil's response said that the people themselves of Brazil showed up and said no, you're not going to put us in something now. So in my heart, I'm counting on the 32% that didn't vote to see this to sort of come on out, stop playing video games just for a little bit, come off the sofas, come join us out here. It's for all of us, not just for individuals. But I know that they're there. I know that they're there, come on out, come on out. I know some people will never see it, but the 33%, I think they can do it. If Brazil can do it, I know the United States can do it, I believe in us?
Speaker 2:Yeah, do it. I know the united states can do it.
Speaker 1:I believe in us. Yeah, we're gonna make a good ruckus. I think it's time. It's uh, we need to. We need to study what what they did in brazil and and uh, try to apply that to here.
Speaker 3:I'm not trying to open up, they're not done, they're not done. But I think they are holding people accountable. It's not, oh, it's not just one thing, it's holding accountable. So, right now, every time, they're always like what did you do? What's going on? Like, and they don't let it slide. They're not letting things slide right now, and I think that's encouraging. I think we have the capacity to do even more in the United States yeah, accountability would go so far.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's not about having the perfect end. It's just like having the struggle continuously and making it a little bit better and, like you said, honestly holding people accountable would be huge in the united states. So let's get there.
Speaker 3:Um, I think I think we can do it, yeah, and we don't have to be zombies. I think we can read about zombies, but we don't have to be zombies, we don't have to. I think we have the capacity to do short. We always do. It's part of being in the United States like to innovate and to do new things, to try new things. But you know, yes, for all the ways that we can criticize, you know things that make you know things.
Speaker 3:Truly to me, magic, magic in the true sense that Americans really can look at something and say, well, I don't like that, let's do something else, let's make something new, let's create something that never existed before. That is quintessentially American, quintessentially. If there's a spirit in the United States, it's that spirit, and I think that's the spirit of the book and that's the spirit I would call right now is for all of us to really look at what can we create new or what can we, you know, you know, invoke in terms of positive change in a way that benefits us all? Cause I don't think where we are right now is it, and I've seen America, americans, create things for no reason all the time. I know that they can do it right now If it's a new. If it's new this or new, that I feel like it could happen. I mean we're going towards adjustments, right.
Speaker 2:We could not end this podcast on any more beautiful note than that. Thank you for leaving it in that place of hope. I needed that. I guarantee many people listening to this needed that, and again I just want to say thank you for the most enjoyable couple of hours I've had on a Saturday in a while. It's really just a pleasure to get to know you. What a lovely excuse to have a podcast to get to know folks like you, and we'll definitely be seeing you at your play.
Speaker 3:Yes, I promise you. The minute the tickets are out, you and Dan are getting tickets to come on down in New York. Wow.
Speaker 1:I can't wait.
Speaker 2:Me neither. I really want to leave my little Vermont Hill for this. Well, folks, please go check out Jenna Crisfanti's book Talc, A Haitian Zombie Story. You can find it, like she said, on Amazon anywhere. Just Google it. You can also find Jenna on Instagram. That's how I found you, I think, originally, and all of those things will be in the show notes. Thank you so much for joining Zombie Book Club today. You can support us by leaving a rating or a review. You can send us a voicemail up to three minutes at 614-699-0006. You can find us on Instagram at zombiebookclubpodcast, or join the Brain Munchers Zombie Collective on Discord. That's where we're hanging out most of the time. All those links are in the description. Thank you again, Jenna. It's been a really awesome conversation.
Speaker 3:Absolute pleasure. What a great, great Saturday. Great Saturday, absolute pleasure. What a great, great saturday. Great saturday. Bye, everybody, bye bye everyone bye.
