Under the Influence (with Jo Piazza) - Sunday Nice Things： SSR (Shit She Read) Pod

00:00:00.140 It is Sunday. Maybe you're hiding from your kids in the bathroom, or maybe you're listening

00:00:06.220 at a never-ending six-year-olds basketball game. I see you, my friends. I am you. I am.

00:00:15.100 And because it's Sunday, we're bringing you something nice. We're bringing you a taste

00:00:18.500 of another podcast that I adore. This week, we're bringing you the SSR podcast. SSR, much

00:00:26.780 like UTI, stands for something else. It stands for shit she read. Each week, a guest has to 1.00

00:00:34.500 reread a literary throwback or experience it for the first time. And guess who the guest is on this

00:00:41.680 episode of SSR? It's me. It is. As if you don't get enough of me during the week. It's me. It's

00:00:49.380 me talking about Laura Ingalls Wilder, in particular, Little House in the Big Woods,

00:00:56.160 which when you go back to read it, it's got some issues, much like when you go back and watch The

00:01:02.340 Parent Trap. That's all I'm going to say. But we are going to dive into The Parent Trap next week.

00:01:07.000 We are. So happy listening. Enjoy this episode of SSR. And if you like it, go subscribe to the

00:01:13.500 feed. Allie, the host, is amazing. She just had a baby, a very cute baby. I've been looking at 0.89

00:01:20.700 all the pictures of her and her little freshie baby. And you know what? I don't miss a freshie

00:01:25.120 baby. I don't. I'm good. I'm done. Now please enjoy SSR. On this week's episode of SSR, 1.00

00:01:33.820 we get reacquainted with the Ingalls family. But we are not going to the prairie. Nope. Instead,

00:01:41.260 we are going all the way back to The Little House in the Big Woods, the remote cabin in Wisconsin

00:01:47.100 where Laura lived in the years before she and the rest of the crew moved west. Little House in the

00:01:52.600 Big Woods is also the first installment in the beloved and also complicated Little House series.

00:01:58.880 It was published in 1932 and documents the mundane reality of life in 1871. It's a lot of chores,

00:02:06.380 with the occasional pause for Christmas, Making Maple Candy, and a first-of-its-kind trip to town.

00:02:14.160 Episode 230 explores the significance of what is truthfully a pretty boring book.

00:02:19.740 We consider why accounts of this kind of domestic work were so important when the book was written nearly 100 years ago

00:02:27.020 and why they still appeal to young readers today.

00:02:29.600 We also cover parenting, boredom, prayer, corporal punishment, the nuances of Ma and

00:02:36.660 Pa Ingalls, and why people come back to Little House in challenging times.

00:02:41.440 We touch briefly on the complex conversation around the legacy of the series, but I would

00:02:46.800 recommend you listen to episode 140 about the long winter for a more extensive discussion

00:02:51.800 about that.

00:02:52.740 Today, I have the pleasure of introducing you to someone who has been on my guest wish

00:02:56.740 list since the earliest days of the podcast.

00:02:59.600 Joe Piazza. I've been following and reading Joe's work for years. Joe is the national and

00:03:05.420 international best-selling author of many critically acclaimed novels and non-fiction

00:03:09.240 books, including We Are Not Like Them, Charlotte Walsh Likes to Win, The Knockoff, and How to Be

00:03:15.580 Married. Her work has been published in 10 languages in 12 countries, and four of her

00:03:20.760 books have been optioned for film and television. A former editor, columnist, and travel writer with

00:03:26.040 Yahoo, Current TV, and the New York Daily News, her work has also appeared in the Wall Street

00:03:30.820 Journal, New York Times, New York Magazine, Glamour, Elle, Time, Marie Claire, The Daily

00:03:37.820 Beast, and Slate. Jo holds an undergraduate degree from the University of Pennsylvania in

00:03:42.860 economics and communication, a master's in journalism from Columbia University, and a

00:03:48.180 master's degree in religious studies from New York University. She's also a podcaster, and as

00:03:53.660 you'll hear later in this episode, one of her latest podcast projects makes her an especially

00:03:58.540 perfect fit for SSR at this very moment. Jo lives in Philly with her husband and young children,

00:04:04.160 and you can follow her and all of her projects on Instagram at joepiazzaauthor and on Twitter

00:04:09.380 at joepiazza. Jo and I recorded this episode a few months ago, right before she had her third baby,

00:04:16.160 and I am endlessly grateful that we were able to make it happen. If you love what you hear today,

00:04:20.660 which I know you will, it would mean so much to me if you would take a screenshot of this episode

00:04:25.480 wherever you're listening to it and post that screenshot to your Instagram story.

00:04:29.600 Please tag me at SSRPod so I can see it and share. You can keep up with all the newest podcast

00:04:35.620 happenings on Instagram, and I also post on Twitter at SSRPod and on Facebook at the SSRPodcast

00:04:42.100 and the SSR Book Club. Show your support for the show by telling a friend or by leaving a

00:04:47.440 five-star rating or review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. It's the first full week of our February

00:04:53.220 book club over in SWR. That's shit we read in Patreon. The book is Jennifer Close's Marrying 0.99

00:05:00.660 the Ketchups, which has been on my personal TBR for what seems like forever. There's still plenty

00:05:05.840 of time to jump in and read with us. When you become an SSR patron, you get access to tons of

00:05:11.160 other goodies, including exclusive rapid-fire Q&As with podcast guests, bonus episodes,

00:05:17.260 monthly newsletters, an invitation to our Discord channel, and more. Learn all about the other

00:05:23.140 benefits of Patreon and join in at www.patreon.com slash ssrpodcast, or by going to www.ssrpodcast.com

00:05:33.080 and clicking support at the top of the page. SSR is an independent podcast, so if you enjoy what

00:05:39.000 you hear and the work I do, your contributions, even $1 per month, are incredibly important.

00:05:45.760 If you are looking for the perfect way to treat your book-loving valentine or the perfect way

00:05:50.860 to treat yourself, I recommend sneaking a peek at Inkwell Threads. Shop bookish stickers, tees,

00:05:58.280 totes, sweatshirts, and more at www.inkwellthreads.com slash ssrpod and use code ssrpod at

00:06:06.240 checkout to get 20% off your order. Now let's go to the show.

00:06:13.100 Welcome to the SSR podcast. You may recognize SSR as an elementary school era abbreviation

00:06:18.880 for silent sustained reading, but if you don't, that's okay. What it stands for here is shit she 1.00

00:06:23.800 read. Each week we'll crack the binding on an old school read written for kids or teens and talk 1.00

00:06:28.960 about it from a kind of grown-up perspective. We'll obsess over heartthrobs, relive the

00:06:33.560 frustrations of middle school, and say an occasional WTF to a beloved author.

00:06:38.020 If we haven't met yet, I'm your host, Allie Hofkosik, freelance writer, lifelong bookworm,

00:06:43.000 and lover of anything covered in rainbow sprinkles.

00:06:45.720 So find your favorite reading spot and a glass of wine.

00:06:48.400 We're about to revisit some literary throwbacks right here on the SSR Podcast.

00:06:57.160 Hi, Jo.

00:06:57.920 Welcome to SSR.

00:06:59.540 Hi.

00:07:00.140 Thanks for having me.

00:07:01.100 we have a little house day and not only do we have a little house day but we have the first

00:07:05.800 ever little house kind of little house day we are talking about little house in the big woods

00:07:10.940 and I want to hear from you about the connection that you have not only to this book but to this

00:07:15.640 series and to Laura Ingalls Wilder do you have a connection do you have memories of reading these

00:07:20.300 books when you were a kid so it's so interesting because these books are at my parents house I

00:07:26.340 have them I know that I read them because I was a big reader I read everything that I could get my

00:07:32.360 hands on but I did not connect with them in an intensely visceral way that I know that a lot

00:07:38.960 of young girls did my gateway books as as a as a young girl young woman were Judy Blume like if

00:07:47.980 you were to ask me what my formative books were I'd be like oh Judy Blubber just as long as we're

00:07:53.300 together. Sally J. Friedman. I mean, I can just rattle them off. I was obsessed with Judy Blume

00:07:59.320 books. And yet I know I can tell you the broad strokes of all of the Laura Ingalls Wilder books,

00:08:06.200 but they didn't hit me the way they've hit a lot of people in my life. Namely, one of my closest

00:08:11.240 friends and podcast collaborators, Glynis McNichol, who has driven me across the country.

00:08:18.720 she drove me across the country when I was moving in with my husband in San Francisco. And during

00:08:24.120 that trip, because she is obsessed with Laura Ingalls Wilder and all of the Little House on

00:08:28.520 the Prairie books, she dragged me to numerous Laura Ingalls Wilder homesteads. Oh my gosh.

00:08:35.720 Taking us well off course every time. That's a friend. That's a friend. I don't really drive.

00:08:43.420 So I was really at her mercy. And we talked endlessly about Laura, to the extent that this year we were working on another podcast I was doing called Under the Influence. And because she won't stop talking about Laura, I finally just said, why don't you do a podcast about it then, Glynis? Why don't I executive produce it? And we'll create a podcast called Wilder about Laura Ingalls Wilder, her life and her legacy, her books, the TV show, and what the hell it all means to me.

00:09:13.420 today and iHeart let us do it so i've been immersed in the world of Laura for the past year

00:09:21.460 researching and producing this podcast and to do that i have been rereading all of the Laura

00:09:29.220 Ingalls Wilder books and reading them on my own listening to the audiobooks which are done by

00:09:35.500 Cherry Jones which is so good because i'll listen to Cherry Jones read the phone book and also

00:09:42.120 reading them with my children who are five and three. And so I'm getting an adult perspective

00:09:48.340 and a childhood perspective on the Laura Ingalls Wilder series, particularly Little House in the

00:09:56.560 Big Woods. And as I've been rereading it, I do remember now reading it more as a child and the

00:10:02.360 things that stuck with me, the things I liked and the things that I didn't like. And it's also

00:10:07.540 fascinating to see what my five-year-old is taking away from the books what he enjoys about them

00:10:14.120 yeah oh my gosh you said so much there that I want to dig into the first is that I knew about

00:10:19.600 Wilder and so to be fair I didn't really give you a choice I was like let's do a Little House book

00:10:25.440 and you were kind enough to agree and you chose Little House in the Big Woods which I don't think

00:10:30.460 I read when I was a kid so while I did read some of the other books in the series I think this is

00:10:34.960 the first time for me reading little house in the big woods and i'm really interested to hear how

00:10:40.300 your five-year-old is reacting as we go through this because something that i kept thinking about

00:10:44.580 as i was reading this one was like how does this translate to a kid in 2022 or 2023 because i'm

00:10:52.300 just gonna say up front like not that much happens in this one um it's a slow slow burn and so we did

00:10:59.660 read for previous episodes Little House on the Prairie and The Long Winter and while of course

00:11:06.200 we get similar peeks into their lifestyle there are a few more like actual events that happen in

00:11:13.580 those books and so because this book is really just like a peek into their life I'm curious

00:11:18.180 if it would translate at all to audiences of kids today who clearly have so many other forms of

00:11:25.980 entertainment at their disposal and probably can relate even less to a kid like Laura who is

00:11:30.720 literally just spending her life watching her parents do chores totally totally and I I talk

00:11:36.360 about this a lot with with Glynis because she is so obsessed with Laura and I'm like what is it

00:11:41.380 what was it about her and she's like well she just seemed like she had this wild existence she was

00:11:47.340 you know a kind of a tomboy running around on the prairie and living a life that was completely 0.99

00:11:54.800 unlike planuses and my existence growing up in the suburbs right like she was doing crazy wild 0.90

00:12:04.080 prairie things or in the in the woods you know really homesteading kinds of things they're

00:12:09.740 they're making butter they're making bullets for christ's sake and that was exciting for her and

00:12:15.020 that is actually what's exciting for my five-year-old now to me i actually find little

00:12:21.960 house in the big woods. You're right. Nothing happens. I mean, it's very slow. It's so much

00:12:29.600 about the work of the home, about how Pa and Ma, like you said, are doing chores. But it's those

00:12:36.960 chores that my five-year-old finds fascinating. He's like, they make bullets in order to

00:12:44.060 kill the bear to protect the house and to kill the deer for food. It's just like,

00:12:51.960 it's giving him all of these ways to talk about how easy our life is today. And all of the things,

00:13:00.620 it's a great entry for me to talk about the things that we take for granted. I'm like,

00:13:04.100 well, we go to the grocery store, but they, if they wanted to eat, they had to make a bullet

00:13:10.020 and go out and hunt and shoot a deer. And it wasn't that easy. And maybe we shouldn't take

00:13:17.300 these things for granted or maybe you know when Laura and Mary were bored they were told to figure

00:13:23.120 it out as opposed to my kids who have every book on the planet every television show at their 0.99

00:13:30.680 fingertips on demand a whole slew full of stupid ass games and yet they get bored and I use it as 0.99

00:13:41.440 a parenting tool now I'm like would Laura and Mary be bored in the little house they just they 1.00

00:13:48.120 had to go play with a pumpkin for Christ's sake and they loved it and they loved it they I'm like

00:13:53.780 she had one doll so with that like it's those things that they actually are interested in like

00:14:01.500 that's how you make butter I'm like that's how you make butter I mean similar that must have been

00:14:06.240 what I liked as well I know what's what Glynis liked just the idea that there was a different

00:14:11.340 kind of life that wasn't so much so long ago it was a hundred hundred and twenty years ago when

00:14:18.940 I was reading the books and so they still really do enjoy that and they I don't think that for the

00:14:26.460 kids it feels like nothing's happening I think that we're just more critical going in like but

00:14:33.560 where's the plot and kids don't really need a plot they're like oh well it is interesting that

00:14:39.580 they're like how they're making this and and what this is like one thing for me though is it a little

00:14:45.940 house in the big woods there's a lot of god and a lot of prayer on sunday and what we do on sundays

00:14:56.300 and like coming from a more agnostic household like that is completely foreign to my kids and

00:15:02.220 it's something i didn't notice as a kid but it's really god heavy yeah it is and so i mean that has

00:15:08.900 also opened up a can of worms but who's god like oh wow okay there's just there's a lot of

00:15:14.940 conversations happening in my house right now yeah i think that's really interesting because

00:15:18.900 there aren't necessarily events that happen but there are these big picture themes so god comes

00:15:23.340 up laura's frustration with her many many rules about the sabbath and really not being able to

00:15:28.860 do anything on sundays also of course this theme of self-reliance comes up again and again something

00:15:34.260 that I thought was really like, it kind of smacked me in the face as far as like the perspective of

00:15:40.000 it all was there's an explicit line in the book about how Laura had never even seen two houses

00:15:45.720 together in this part of her life in the 1870s. Like she really, they're so remote. And I think

00:15:53.200 it's so easy to lose sight of that. You and I both live in Philadelphia. And even if you live

00:15:57.320 in a suburb, I grew up in a suburb, or even if you live in a more rural town, rural now is not

00:16:02.740 the same as having never seen two houses next to each other in your entire life. And so I liked

00:16:10.400 that this as an intro to the series was really explicit about exactly what circumstances the

00:16:16.480 Ingalls family is living in. And as a reminder, listeners, at this point, they have yet to make

00:16:21.520 their covered wagon journey, which I think also I want to make sure I mentioned before we say

00:16:27.320 anything else. This book is kind of, it's a little bit of a breath of fresh air in talking

00:16:33.160 about the Little House series, because when we talked about Little House on the Prairie

00:16:36.100 and The Long Winter, there were a lot of even heavier themes. And this series, of course,

00:16:42.020 has come under fire in recent years because of its inherent racism, particularly against

00:16:47.200 indigenous folks. And so in this book, that's absent. We don't have to talk about that as much.

00:16:53.580 But I, of course, want to acknowledge that we, over time, are looking at this collection as a whole through a different lens.

00:17:01.600 And I certainly want to be mindful of that.

00:17:04.060 Oh, yeah, absolutely. Absolutely.

00:17:05.280 And that's something we really explore in the podcast series.

00:17:09.460 And there's so much in the books that it's obviously, it's the perspective.

00:17:15.880 the books are so complicated if you look at them as they are books that are set in the late 1800s

00:17:24.260 but that were written in the 1920s 1930s by a woman in her 60s remembering her childhood

00:17:36.160 that are now being read 150 years after that right so we're dealing with so many different

00:17:43.300 perspectives we're dealing with a woman living through the depression writing about her childhood

00:17:49.940 on the prairie which is a totally different time and then we're now looking back on all of it

00:17:55.860 with a critical eye so there's a there's a lot to dig up and there there are a lot of flaw like the

00:18:02.380 books are flawed in a way looking at them from a politically correct perspective in 2022 and that's

00:18:11.580 something we're trying to explore in the podcast series is how do you continue to love something

00:18:17.320 that is flawed and our thesis on that is it's kind of like how we love America because the

00:18:24.220 Laura Ingalls books are the story of America the story of the expansion of America and

00:18:29.520 we also live in a very flawed country and so we're kind of juxtaposing those two things throughout

00:18:35.840 the series yeah you're wrestling with a lot of the same questions that I wrestle with here on

00:18:41.460 the podcast more specific to little house of course but i like that thesis and i think it

00:18:46.200 encompasses a lot of the conversations that we've had on ssr too so let's dig into a couple of the

00:18:51.680 more specific themes that we see in this book you spoke about god and how god comes up again and

00:18:56.000 again something else that kind of shocked me was how many times corporal punishment comes up in

00:19:01.320 this book the number of times that we see pa spanking or i think the word is used like tanning

00:19:07.640 or whipping is used. Tanning or hide. Yeah. Over and over. And there are references to it with

00:19:14.240 Laura and Mary's cousins. Like I want to say there are five or six times in the book where

00:19:18.240 there are specific references to spanking or tanning or whipping. And I'm not here to like

00:19:24.060 get into all of that. But I do think that we in 2022 are just like not exposed to such obvious

00:19:31.840 and like kind of shameless references to this kind of parenting and this kind of punishment.

00:19:36.400 and it was it was shocking I don't really remember that from the other books yeah no it is it's

00:19:42.580 shocking to read on the page and I'm also very I'm very lucky when I read it out loud to my five-year-old

00:19:49.320 he can read but he's not following along so word for word especially because we read it like at

00:19:55.600 night when he's tired you're gonna hear him you can you can probably hear him by the way yeah he's

00:20:00.220 he just wants to participate always always they're also off school for so-called fall break this week

00:20:06.000 so i can skip over some of those parts and i have and but i haven't skipped over all of them and

00:20:12.560 again i think it's a really interesting learning moment to be like this is how children used to

00:20:20.840 be punished and not 100 for the majority of history of parenting right it's only very recently

00:20:28.540 that we've we've gone in the other direction with what it means to touch a child and touch

00:20:35.240 a child's body and consent and it's it's opened up some great conversations for us about like

00:20:40.400 you know do mommy and daddy ever hit you and then he just laughs at me because who's the boss in this

00:20:45.220 household and he's like no and then he's like b hits me and then his sister does like punch him

00:20:51.680 and i'm like okay we don't touch each other's bodies but i i think it is it just but but then

00:20:57.280 my husband has brought it up too because then my son felt very comfortable than asking my husband

00:21:01.540 And he's like, did your parents spank you?

00:21:05.100 And he's like, yes, this is how I was punished.

00:21:07.520 And just talking about how things change with them has let us talk about things, which has been really interesting.

00:21:16.400 I do think it's jarring for us to see it now.

00:21:19.780 But a good reminder, a good reminder for me that parenting is so malleable.

00:21:27.780 the ways that we are a good parent are constantly changing because i would not say despite the

00:21:34.400 tanning of the hides i would not say that pa and ma are bad parents no i think they are very good

00:21:39.520 parents actually the fact that you know laura got through everything that they got through i think 0.90

00:21:45.680 pa is manic as fuck but i do think that they are good solid parents that's just the way that it was 0.94

00:21:53.100 done and it reminds me that we're constant society is constantly shifting how we view 0.99

00:21:59.860 quote good parenting and how we do this and what is acceptable and what is not acceptable

00:22:05.980 totally i'd love to talk even more about the parents because we've had some different kinds

00:22:10.600 of conversations about ma and pa over the years on the show the first time we talked about little

00:22:16.160 house on the prairie was very early in my podcasting career and all that i really knew how to talk

00:22:21.860 about at that time was what was directly on the page and what I liked about the book. And so it

00:22:27.040 was pretty 1D in that way. I also grew up with old VHS tapes of the series and as a member of a

00:22:37.240 family with all sisters. And I very much have a girl dad and I always felt very connected to

00:22:42.520 Michael Lanzan on the TV show. And so I had like a lot of powership when I came into that first

00:22:47.140 episode when we talked about the long winter it got more complicated a because i had some more

00:22:53.200 years under my belt as a podcaster but also because i just think he becomes more nuanced

00:22:59.060 with every book from the series that you read and when we were talking about the long winter

00:23:03.980 there was more conversation about how like in 2022 2023 generally like in contemporary times

00:23:11.080 i don't know that many people would tolerate a lot of pause whims and like you said just like 0.98

00:23:16.800 his bullshit like he he is very manic he has all of these up and down desires and interests and 0.96

00:23:23.340 I think we could probably like psychoanalyze him forever if we wanted to but based on what we have 1.00

00:23:27.600 on the page he would be a hard person to be married to and Ma just like kind of follows him

00:23:32.600 and does whatever he wants and I think that my guest on the episode about the long winter and

00:23:37.260 I were kind of joking about the fact that like today Ma's parents would probably like not be

00:23:42.540 that thrilled that their daughter had married Pa because he's just kind of like dragging her all

00:23:47.160 over the place and not really following through on all of the things he says he's going to do to

00:23:52.480 support his family and since we are seeing them in this very like paternalistic light that's a

00:23:58.400 failure on his part so I do think the conversation about Pa is very nuanced and I'd love your take

00:24:03.220 on on it especially since you're so immersed in the world yeah absolutely I don't know if

00:24:09.920 laura's parents would have been psyched or if caroline's parents would have been psyched for

00:24:13.900 her to marry someone like pa i think that a lot of men were like pa in fact i think yeah probably

00:24:20.020 the majority of men back then were like pa it was very american manifest destiny we will keep moving

00:24:29.900 and keep moving and nothing is good enough and we'll never feel settled and our vast fortune

00:24:36.300 is just around the corner that seems to be ingrained in the majority of men from that era

00:24:43.860 whether they were homesteaders or whether they were railroad robber barons right and women because

00:24:51.960 women have been subjugated since the beginning of time and forced into roles as wives and 0.99

00:24:58.640 caregivers were just along for that fucking ride and reading it as a modern woman you look at 1.00

00:25:05.620 Caroline Ingalls, who is a real person. And when I was a kid, I did not think about Laura Ingalls 0.99

00:25:10.880 Wilder as a real human. I read these as fiction. Reading them now, you're reading them as auto

00:25:17.720 fiction, autobiography with a tinge of artistic license. But Caroline Ingalls was a goddamn 1.00

00:25:25.640 champion, but also just indicative of the majority of women at the time, who had no choice, who had 1.00

00:25:32.960 no agency who had to go along with whatever her husband said because what else is she gonna do

00:25:38.720 you can't be a single woman alone on the prairie and i think a lot of the a lot of caroline's

00:25:44.400 actions and what we see of her and some of the things we can criticize her for

00:25:50.480 one of the things that comes up again and again in the podcast is caroline's thoughts on the native

00:25:56.000 americans and how terrified she is of them and some of the racial slurs she uses against native

00:26:02.560 americans and you think about what it was like for her to be left alone for her by her husband

00:26:09.120 for days and weeks on end caring for babies two or three babies alone during a time when

00:26:20.160 strangers including native americans can just come in your house and take whatever they want

00:26:24.800 Because you're squatting on land.

00:26:26.880 You're living there illegally.

00:26:28.760 And when you put it in that perspective and think about it, all of it just seems terrible.

00:26:34.740 Like, I was like, these books should just be renamed.

00:26:36.680 Like, everyone is awful to each other.

00:26:39.140 Yeah, seriously.

00:26:40.840 Unless they're playing the fiddle.

00:26:42.660 Unless they're playing the fiddle.

00:26:43.760 And life was terrifying for everyone.

00:26:48.100 but what does come across to me is the world that she and maybe i'm very nostalgic about this

00:26:55.180 because i'm about to become a mom again for the third time and i i do see how hard she tried

00:27:03.920 to create a safe world for her children no matter what was happening out there right like a bear is

00:27:10.400 attacking and she is creating a story to be like it's okay we're all okay everything's gonna be

00:27:15.600 all right because those kids were five and under they were little babies and I

00:27:20.560 see it see myself in a lot of what Caroline does when I will do anything

00:27:25.500 to keep my children safe to keep them calm as bad things are happening in the

00:27:29.780 world around us I'm trying to create a safe place for them to live in and I

00:27:34.120 think Caroline did that and I think that Laura does paint her mother in a very

00:27:38.680 beautiful light in that way I also think that she just does so much work so much labor in the home 0.89

00:27:50.680 she is the one who is making all of the meals who is taking care of everyone so many women do that

00:27:58.340 but we're seeing her do this from scratch we're seeing her do this with nothing and it's such a 1.00

00:28:02.620 good reminder now in 2022 of the unseen uncredited and unpaid labor that all women are doing

00:28:10.720 because we're physically seeing caroline ingalls do this work on the page in little house in the

00:28:17.700 big woods and then in little house in the prairie yeah i think in that way this book and this series

00:28:22.520 in general does celebrate domestic work in a way that many other pieces of media today don't because

00:28:28.340 that's really like there was just so much to it and whenever i have read the little house books

00:28:33.300 as an adult i am reminded of the fact that ma and pa were probably in their late 20s or early 30s

00:28:40.200 yeah they were they were like and i am 32 years old and so when i think about the fact that ma was

00:28:45.920 probably several years younger than i am now and left alone in the middle of nowhere with like you

00:28:53.240 said joe all of these children and all of these other things to take care of i have so so much

00:28:59.500 respect for the kind of person that she was and like you said this sort of like safe universe that

00:29:05.840 she created for her children and i think something like very sweet about laura and about this family

00:29:10.960 and these books in general and it brings me back to that place is this this very um naive childlike

00:29:17.720 sense of knowing in your heart, in your stomach, in your gut, that as long as your parents are

00:29:23.780 around, everything is going to be okay. And that feeling is so beautiful and tender, and it

00:29:31.120 obviously gets lost in adulthood. But the way that these girls look at their parents, and of course

00:29:36.900 Laura has a particular worship kind of relationship with Pa, but the way that they look at their

00:29:41.940 parents and think about their parents, if you're lucky enough to have even a shred of a positive

00:29:47.520 relationship with your parents I think you can't help but go back to that feeling when you read

00:29:51.880 these books because that's what it's about like these people provide ultimate safety under very

00:29:57.560 unsafe circumstances for their children and that just makes me feel like settled in a weird way

00:30:03.860 well and I think it makes a lot of people feel settled we saw a surge in sales and reading of

00:30:11.740 the entire Little House series during the pandemic. And it's happened during different

00:30:18.200 shakeups in the country. It's happened during various recessions. It's happened during various

00:30:23.480 times of strife. People have returned to these books over and over again to find comfort in the

00:30:30.940 home and in the family unit. And I think that is what these books, and it's what the television

00:30:37.480 show that was loosely based on the books provided for people in an uncertain world it provided

00:30:44.280 comfort and safety and security and the irony of that is that laura was living in the most insecure

00:30:52.880 world possible and they're living in they're just they're constantly living on the western border of

00:31:01.680 this country which is loosely defined there are wars being fought all around them but i think the

00:31:09.380 whole point of little house in the big woods is that they were in this little house in the big

00:31:13.820 woods with their family and they felt safe no matter what was going on outside pa and ma made

00:31:22.500 them feel safe and that is a message that i think a lot of people want to hear especially in times

00:31:30.760 as uncertain as ours I agree and I do have a theory in addition to the one you just shared

00:31:35.760 about why people myself included will stick with a book like this even though nothing seems to

00:31:43.940 happen so here's my theory it's meditative and it is like watching somebody's vlog yeah like why am

00:31:51.060 I sitting around watching somebody show me their grocery haul why am I sitting around watching

00:31:57.920 somebody explain to me how they budget and I do occasionally watch these vlogs okay I'm not proud

00:32:04.040 of it but I do it sometimes we all do we all do like it's very meditative it takes you out of your

00:32:10.880 own tedium and reminds you that other people also have to deal with the boring business of life

00:32:16.120 and I just find that it like I'm not somebody who meditates but there's something about watching

00:32:20.720 somebody live their life that I'm like maybe this is what people talk about when they talk about

00:32:25.260 meditating because I feel like I'm leaving my body a little bit I'm just watching somebody in

00:32:30.100 the rhythms and routines of their own life and it feels really good and so this whole like vlog

00:32:36.040 culture seems to me like the best contemporary analogy for a book in which mostly what's

00:32:43.700 happening is like you said making bullets making cheese making milk making butter rounding up the

00:32:49.060 cattle like all of these things I would I guess in 2022 they could vlog all of that exactly

00:32:55.140 exactly i think and for me i think it's not the vlogging it's the it's the scrolling instagram

00:33:00.760 to peep each up people's houses right yeah i want to see your home decor i want to see you baking

00:33:07.280 pie i think it is the old school equivalent of that i want to see you churning the butter and

00:33:15.260 make sewing the curtains and there's something it's like meatloaf content it's calming it's

00:33:24.220 soothing and for children it does remain fascinating for children it frankly is still

00:33:29.660 an adventure and I think we lose sight of that as grown-ups it seems boring but their lives were so

00:33:39.020 raw and so different from the way that we live now that for kids today it does seem like something

00:33:45.840 like really really different they don't care that like I said they don't care that nothing's

00:33:50.900 happening right we do get a few breaks in the monotony in little house in the big woods and I

00:33:55.740 wanted to call those out briefly so I loved the section where we get to go to Laura and Mary's

00:34:03.180 grandparents house and they have a whole dance that is basically like sugar themed the whole

00:34:08.760 theme of this event is maple syrup and turning it into maple candy and we spend so much time not

00:34:14.740 just in this book but in the series as a whole again like watching them live their lives in

00:34:19.140 their little house with their family unit and so getting to go with them to another location they

00:34:24.600 never get to go anywhere so going with them seeing how they react to that they get to play with their

00:34:29.200 cousins they get to see all these other adults we even get a little bit of a glimpse of ma and pa's

00:34:34.140 backstory because laura talks about how before she married pa ma was really fashionable and she had

00:34:40.740 dressmakers make special clothes for her so we get these like glimmers of whatever the 1870s version

00:34:47.480 of glamour for these people would have been just because these girls are watching their mom get

00:34:52.680 dressed and I remember when I was little like watching my mom get dressed to go out to a dinner 0.90

00:34:57.680 or a party and so they do that and then they they watch her interact with all these other women as

00:35:02.200 they get ready and then they're all dancing like I just thought it was really kind of magical to

00:35:06.640 see them a out of their element and be taking in taking in this like celebratory vibe because so

00:35:14.100 much of their life is hard work and just drudgery. And so they're seeing people dance and make music

00:35:20.020 and to top it all off, they get to eat all this candy. So much maple. Do you know how much maple

00:35:24.840 sugar candy I've had to buy my kids? Really? It is so good. It's so good. It's delicious. And we

00:35:30.920 also, we, we do have maple trees that we tap. We have tapped maple trees in our yard, not in,

00:35:36.880 not in Philadelphia, but up in, up in the Catskills where we go. And so that has opened up a whole

00:35:42.820 world of this is oh my gosh laura gets maple syrup we get maple syrup and now i want all of

00:35:48.880 the maple sugar candy but i think it's also such a nice reminder not to take the good times for

00:35:56.520 granted but then also not to let the bad times dominate yeah like everything right these people

00:36:04.260 could have been seriously depressed their lives were so hard and yet the majority of of of the

00:36:12.020 chapters are very joyful and very celebratory including the massive celebration around sugar

00:36:20.580 snow season and the maple syrup harvest and they really they really did know how to throw a party

00:36:26.760 didn't they yeah they do they really do they sure did and big woods banger it was a big woods banger

00:36:33.920 is what it was i maybe that's that would be a good alternative title for maybe yeah maybe

00:36:39.820 subtitle but again just a reminder that it was evokes this sense of coziness and a family coming

00:36:48.980 together and also community you know because Laura is surrounded by her relatives and her cousins

00:36:55.680 in a way that my children are not and so I think that they find that really novel in a way of oh

00:37:04.880 why she's so many cousins she's so many so many people around her to play with which my kids

00:37:11.780 don't have I'm an only child and so they find that fascinating so there are these there's moments of

00:37:17.900 darkness there's moments of loneliness but I think what the big takeaway is the joy and the comfort

00:37:24.080 and the finding of the joy and the celebrating the joy when you can get it because life is hard

00:37:30.020 and I think that is also something that we've lost sight of. I can talk about how bad the news

00:37:35.620 cycle is all day long, how bad it actually is, and how bad the media makes it for us to just

00:37:42.080 constantly have bad news thrown in our faces. And I think it's very easy for us to lose sight

00:37:48.360 of the joys in life. And Laura's books offer us reminders that we need to celebrate those moments.

00:37:56.420 yeah there's a real romanticization of the little things I remember that from the show as well we

00:38:02.100 are recording this in the middle almost of the holiday season and I think about the Christmas

00:38:06.180 episode and the joy that they get from these like very small to us little gifts in their stockings

00:38:11.780 and we see that in Little House in the Big Woods as well like everything just feels romantic and

00:38:15.680 special the other kind of exciting moment in this book is that they get to go to town

00:38:19.680 and Laura has never been to town and so it's such a production even Ma is up late the night before

00:38:24.920 getting their breakfasts ready and they all pack into the wagon and and Laura comments on how she

00:38:29.840 didn't even know the sky was so big and she sees the lake like these are things that I know I take

00:38:34.020 for granted and I know many of us take for granted and we see Laura kind of getting

00:38:38.060 uncharacteristically overwhelmed and shy when they go to the store and we're used to her being so

00:38:44.000 outgoing and so sure of herself and just the sight of all of these things on shelves it kind of blows

00:38:50.500 her mind and so I just love when we see characters out of their element in a new environment one of

00:38:56.500 my writing teachers always says if you don't know what to do with your characters just move them put

00:39:00.040 them somewhere you wouldn't expect and of course this is as you said joe autofiction so this is

00:39:04.360 something that we are made to believe really happened but it is just refreshing as a reader

00:39:09.080 to see these characters out of their little house and taking in a whole new environment and even

00:39:14.180 though it makes me sad to see laura unsure of herself it's cool to know that like this was a

00:39:19.080 big a big moment for her oh yeah it was it was a huge moment but that's such good writing advice

00:39:24.880 right if if your characters are getting a little boring or a little stale take them somewhere crazy

00:39:29.300 right for them town was crazy one of the coolest things that i've gotten to do this year is i've

00:39:36.300 now been to the little house in the big woods twice i oh wow yes yes again gleness has dragged

00:39:43.240 me to these more than on more than one occasion the first time we were was not during that first

00:39:48.580 cross-country road trip it was we were on a book tour together when my novel charlotte walsh likes

00:39:53.840 to win came out and her memoir no one tells you this came out and we were driving from minnesota

00:40:01.080 to wisconsin and we went to the little house in the big woods which is in pepin

00:40:05.440 pepin wisconsin right on the shores of the mississippi river and my son took his first steps

00:40:11.780 there that's amazing right outside it's a recreation of the little house it's but it's

00:40:16.640 the same size and wow so you go in and it's so tiny um and charlie took his first steps there

00:40:22.180 and then for the podcast we went back this summer and spent some time in pepin which is just a

00:40:29.340 lovely little little riverside town it's it's great we have the best with the best pie of our

00:40:35.680 lives there uh you drive from pepin the little town on the shore of the river and you drive the

00:40:42.100 seven miles which laura describes in the books up to the cabin through still most like it's mostly

00:40:50.660 farmland and some some forest most of the big woods are no longer big woods but you see how

00:40:58.180 far they had to travel on foot and it's a windy road and it is it's a fairly steep road and

00:41:05.780 it's not an easy journey. Going to town was a big fucking deal. It was a big deal. Like, 0.98

00:41:13.480 even though it's seven miles, it is a far seven miles. So that was, and you can sense Laura's

00:41:19.560 excitement. That's one of the moments I think that you can tell that Laura, looking back at this

00:41:25.640 in her 60s, could still picture every moment of that day. Right? And again, I find it fascinating

00:41:33.600 that she was writing all of this as a fully grown woman who had gone through it who had gotten not

00:41:40.240 even just the things she went through in the books but like her whole life was very hard after the

00:41:44.880 books too and when she before she wrote the books she was very very poor like the fact that she was

00:41:52.480 able to write these books and become kind of a celebrated author so late in her life is just

00:41:58.800 extraordinary which is something i mean now i'm coming at it as a reporter right so i know all of

00:42:03.280 of this. But now I can't get it out of my head. Of course. Well, you've already offered us so

00:42:08.480 many great insights about this book, given all the knowledge that you've acquired. To sort of

00:42:13.160 wrap it up, though, how would you say that Little House in the Big Woods and even the series as a

00:42:17.120 whole has aged? And how do you kind of absorb all of this now versus the little that you knew about

00:42:24.260 it when you were a kid? I knew nothing about it as a kid. And also, well, one, when you're a child,

00:42:31.460 you don't think about any of this even children today my kids don't think about it um I know I

00:42:36.860 do know that some of my friends older children often point things out but my kids don't except

00:42:43.500 for the fact that they will say because they go to a very progressive wonderful Montessori school

00:42:48.360 when the word Indians is in the book they're like we call them Native Americans and I'm like yes we

00:42:54.160 do because that's nice that's why that's why we're sending you to that school yes yeah so

00:43:00.840 they like that's that's the extent of where they're at with with correcting the the record

00:43:06.660 at this point but looking at it from i don't know how useful honestly and i'm choosing my words

00:43:13.640 carefully because everyone has to choose their words carefully these days but i don't know how

00:43:17.400 helpful looking at it from our 2022 perspective is unless we're truly going to parse and dissect

00:43:25.800 what the world was like at the time and we have a whole episode of the series where we're trying

00:43:32.800 to do that because I think a lot of people read The Little House on the Prairie books and it was

00:43:38.700 probably their first introduction to the Westward expansion and it was definitely mine and I didn't

00:43:45.780 know any of the real history surrounding it. Laura leaves out a lot of the violent context

00:43:53.800 of where America was at that point from the books. We don't get much of a sense of all of

00:44:02.100 the American government and native wars that were going on miles from where they were.

00:44:10.160 there's a lot of absence of storytelling around how the homestead act came to be how the ingles

00:44:19.080 get their land the fact that they're just coming out of the civil war is something we they hardly

00:44:26.040 even touch on so there's just there's a lot of absence of context in the books themselves

00:44:30.460 that i think laura chose to leave out because

00:44:35.540 again let's think about the perspective of her writing this as a woman in the 20s

00:44:43.760 30s and 40s I think she wanted to create something that was lighter that was not dark

00:44:52.460 that would allow children to enjoy this journey and this adventure and she chose to leave out

00:45:02.800 a lot of that violence and a lot of that historical perspective and so we're looking at it from our

00:45:09.980 2022 lens of what a woman in the 20s 30s and 40s chose to leave out of books from the late 1800s

00:45:19.240 so there's just so many layers of it yes right and there's so much absence of perspective and

00:45:28.060 history but then you also have to think how much of that can you put into a book for children

00:45:35.440 I agree with all of that and listeners if you want to dig into those layers that Joe referenced

00:45:40.780 you got to check out Wilder and I'm so grateful that you shared some of the insight that you've

00:45:44.300 gained from that experience here other than Little House in the Big Woods Joe what have you been

00:45:48.660 reading lately that you might recommend to our listeners oh my gosh so I just finished a book

00:45:54.020 last night that I have been hand-selling to two people um we all want impossible things from

00:46:01.720 Catherine Newman and I don't know it's a novel and I do not know if my pregnancy hormones are

00:46:08.260 through the roof but I bawled for three hours but I also laughed it's hilarious it's wonderful it's

00:46:13.500 a story about best friendship and you know a friend taking care of another friend while she

00:46:18.380 is in hospice and actively dying but the love between these two women is so intense that I

00:46:25.900 just adored it I read it in one fell swoop from 10 at night till about 3 in the morning which is

00:46:31.660 terrible because I'm 100 months pregnant right now and I can't recommend it enough I really

00:46:38.900 really enjoyed it great well I will include a link to that in the show notes for this episode

00:46:43.440 Joe as you know I have been a big fan of yours for a long time you and I have kind of been in

00:46:47.360 touch in the journalism, podcasting, reading, writing world forever. And so I know that you

00:46:52.940 have so much out there for listeners to consume. And I will make sure that there are links to all

00:46:58.960 of your books, all of your podcasts, everything else that you have going on in the show notes.

00:47:02.380 But I also know that as this episode drops, you have a book out for pre-order. So can you tell

00:47:07.420 us a little bit about that before we sign off? We do. We do. So I have another book coming out

00:47:14.340 with my co-author Christine Pride who I co-wrote We Are Not Like Them with and when the show airs

00:47:21.420 it'll be coming out in just a few months it's called You Were Always Mine and like We Are Not

00:47:27.160 Like Them it explores race in intimate spaces this time it is about a black woman who finds

00:47:33.720 an abandoned white baby and decides to foster her and the impact that that has on her relationship 0.74

00:47:42.520 with her husband her entire community her view of herself as a mother or not a mother and then

00:47:48.840 also her relationship with the um white birth mother and it's it's great it's different from 0.79

00:47:55.800 we are not like them but i think it gives people and book clubs a lot to chew on a lot to talk

00:48:01.800 about a lot of ways to talk about race in america today that might help you start conversations and

00:48:08.780 ask questions you may have been uncomfortable about broaching before and so yeah that is called

00:48:14.700 you are always mine it is available for pre-order right now we are also already starting to book

00:48:20.500 our book club appearances we did hundreds and hundreds of book clubs on zoom and in person

00:48:26.180 for we are not like them and we're planning on doing that for you are always mine so we're bumping

00:48:32.560 up book clubs that are pre-ordering the book so if you want to pre-order the book for your book club

00:48:37.700 and then reach out to us we will make sure you are on our schedule for book club appearances

00:48:44.120 from the two of us um well we are going to have to talk about that because we have a book club

00:48:49.560 through the ssr patreon oh my gosh make that happen that would be so fun so fun absolutely

00:48:56.100 absolutely so yeah so we are we're just so excited about that and we're also working on the we are

00:49:01.600 not like them television show right now as well yeah so christine and i are writing that as we

00:49:10.700 speak just there's a and you know i just gave birth so there's a lot going on yeah we're for

00:49:15.280 context listeners we are recording this in november and this is while i'm while you're a

00:49:20.020 hundred months pregnant so so many other things could even happen so many things could happen

00:49:24.980 between now and when you're listening to this but um joe i will make sure to include links to

00:49:29.320 pre-order your new book um we will talk about the book club thing that would be so fun it was really

00:49:34.640 fun connecting with you and i appreciate you making the time and your very busy schedule to

00:49:38.180 spend spend this hour with us this has been wonderful thank you so much bye bye ssr is part

00:49:46.080 of the frolic podcast network find more podcasts you'll love at frolic.media slash podcasts

00:49:52.300 thanks so much for listening to the ssr podcast check out our website at www.ssrpodcast.com for

00:50:01.340 show notes and other information and be sure to connect with us on social media for updates on

00:50:05.420 upcoming episodes behind the scenes inside scoop and some good old-fashioned book talk

00:50:09.440 find us at ssrpod on instagram and twitter and search ssrpodcast on facebook to join the group

00:50:15.420 to reach out directly you can send me an email at hellossrpod at gmail.com

00:50:20.720 If you're loving the show, it would mean so much if you could subscribe,

00:50:23.940 leave a five-star review, and share your thoughts with a comment.

00:50:26.440 And don't forget to tell your friends, too.

00:50:29.320 In the meantime, happy reading.

00:50:30.960 I'll see you next time on the SSR Podcast.

00:50:50.160 Thank you.

Under the Influence (with Jo Piazza) - February 18, 2024

Sunday Nice Things： SSR (Shit She Read) Pod

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