Tayari Jones on Finding Her Voice, Toni Morrison & the Power of Storytelling

Bookshelfie: Women’s Prize Podcast

In this episode of Bookshelfie, bestselling author Tayari Jones discusses her historical novel Kin, exploring themes of motherhood, sisterhood, and the

Key takeaways

• Tayari Jones explains that Kin centers on cradle friends Annie and Vernice, whose bond is forged by shared motherlessness but sustained by genuine love rather than tension.
• Jones discusses Toni Morrison's Jazz, noting how her adult perspective now questions the novel's romanticization of an older man's obsession with a teenager, though she still praises Morrison's linguistic mastery.

Main topics

• Creative intuition and the writing process
• Toni Morrison's influence on American literature

Notable quotes

"I don't think those pages will ever show up again."

Conclusion

Jones' reflections highlight how reading widely, trusting one's creative instincts, and

Transcript preview

Speaker 2 (0:00) We hope you enjoyed this episode with Tayari Jones. Now, Tayari will be one of the judges for Originators in 2027, a new mentoring program for writers from the Women's Prize Trust presented by Chanel. So if you are an unpublished and unagented writer based in the United States and you want to find out more about the opportunity, just head to the Women's Prize Trust website. Speaker 1 (0:22) Coming up on Bookshelfy. Sometimes you need a deep, ferocious Intellectual crime. Speaker 2 (0:30) I've Speaker 1 (0:31) had Speaker 2 (0:31) a few of them in my time. Ferocious. Yes, I mean, it's so rare that Speaker 1 (0:35) you can be completely destroyed by a novel that at the same time is so intellectually rigorous. It doesn't choose between its head and its heart. There's so much to love about Morrison. She's my favorite writer. One of the things she does that's so interesting is that she writes about ordinary people, but with her language, she raises them almost to the level of myth. Speaker 2 (0:58) Yeah, they're gods. Yes. Speaker 1 (0:59) And yet they're still recognizable. Who does not like a happy ending? And I am fully in favor of happy endings when they are earned. And Celie and Nettie and Mr. and Shug, everybody in that book works hard to achieve their happy ending. It's so easy to get swept up in what the trends are, what other people are doing, to doubt the uniqueness of your own voice. And I say embrace the things about you that are unique. They're yours. I love to relax with Speaker 2 (1:32) a Speaker 1 (1:32) little Speaker 2 (1:32) murder. Speaker 1 (1:33) It takes the edge off for me. Speaker 2 (1:36) Hello, I'm Vic Hope and this is Bookshelfy, the podcast from the Women's Prize that asks women with lives as inspiring as any fiction to share the five books by women that have shaped them. Now, before we begin, remember to subscribe or follow so you never miss an episode. With thanks to our sponsor, Baileys. Speaker 2 (1:56) Today I'm joined by Thierry Jones. Thierry is the internationally best-selling author of five novels, including An American Marriage, which won the Women's Prize for Fiction in 2019. It was also in Oprah's Book Club selection, was included on Barack Obama's summer reading list, and has been published in two dozen countries, selling over 350,000 copies in the UK alone. Tayari was born and now again lives in Atlanta, Georgia, and is currently Professor of Creative Writing at Emory University and an Andrew Dixon White Professor-at-Large at Cornell University. Her most recent novel, Kin, was an instant New York Times bestseller and has been named a Best Book of the Year so far. It's also another Oprah Book Club selection. Oprah called it a masterpiece of a novel that will live with you long after you turn the last page. Welcome to the podcast. Thank you for having me. You had that amazing quote and many, many others. There's Oprah and Patchett, media reviews. How have you found the reception to this book? And specifically, because I know you're in the midst of a tour, a world tour of Promoting Kin. How do you find the reception worldwide? Speaker 1 (3:07) One thing I've discovered traveling with this book is about the nature of the universal experience. I used to really balk at that word universal because I thought it meant something so bland that it wasn't tied to any particular place or people. But with this being a novel about friendship and motherhood, I think it really is something that people all over the world have experiences with in a way that is kind of. fraught individually, but not as fraught culturally, so people can talk across their experiences about motherhood, about their best friends, about marriage, all the questions that are raised with this book. Speaker 2 (3:49) It's your first work of historical fiction. What made you want to reach into the past? Speaker 1 (3:56) Well, I did not want to reach into, I feel like the past reached out to me, actually. I was working on another contemporary novel. I had a contract for it and I couldn't, the novel wasn't interesting to me. It seemed like a great idea, but when I sat down to write, it wasn't musical. It was more like it was noisy as opposed to being musical. And finally, I just had to give up after writing a couple of years in vain, putting down words, but not having art. And I just started scribbling just to see what was on my mind. And that's when I met my two characters, Annie and Vernice. And I was astonished to discover them to be living in the 1950s, to have them living in really my mother's era. Speaker 2 (4:47) When you spend years on something and you then sort of feel like it was noisy, it wasn't musical, you couldn't carry on with it. Do you take anything from that into your next project? Does it feel like it is, like you say, totally in vain or could it be resurrected? I don't Speaker 1 (5:06) feel like any endeavor, anything we do is in vain, Speaker 2 (5:09) period. Speaker 1 (5:10) So in writing all this time and having to walk away from it, it was... humbling to me to just try my best and not have something that I could use. But I think I grew from it because one way you know good writing is to do bad writing as well. I don't think those pages will ever show up again. I don't think so. They weren't good. It's kind of like when you realize that you are in a bad romantic relationship. Are you going to carry something to its fruition merely because it has begun? Or can you just stop like giving yourself permission to stop and do something else gives you control of your life. And you're in a better position not Speaker 2 (5:55) being in. side something that is wrong for you, you are further forward. It's not a step backwards. No. Speaker 1 (6:02) And I learned, you know, the other book, I was at a contract and I did feel that I was, had kind of contracted out my creativity, that I was writing to the contract, not writing to my spirit. Speaker 2 (6:12) And Speaker 1 (6:13) once I started writing, Ken said in the 1950s, engaging entirely different questions than those I had originally set out to do. I did feel like I had my imagination back. Speaker 2 (6:27) Like you mentioned that that theme of motherhood of course runs throughout it also a special type of sisterhood between Annie and Vernice they're cradle friends can you tell us a little bit about Speaker 1 (6:37) that? Yes Annie and Vernice have known each other since they were two infants in a cradle they are both motherless and so this is an identity they share those poor motherless babies but That is what brings them together, but it's not what keeps them together. They love each other. I wanted to write a novel about women who love each other. People often compare Ken to Toni Morrison's Sula, you know, which is her novel of friendship. But her main character, Sula and Nell, I feel like they're frenemies. You know, as much as friends, their relationship is very tense. And although my characters do have conflict and they have to... They have growing pains as their lives take different directions. Their love for neither of them ever doubts the love that the other has for her. Speaker 2 (7:26) Toni Morrison came up there and looking through your list, she does feature a couple of times, deservedly so being one of the greatest writers of Speaker 1 (7:36) ever. But Speaker 2 (7:37) I just want to touch on that magic that you described that you need to feel when you're writing. Do you need to feel that when you're reading? What books really, really matter to you and why? Speaker 1 (7:51) Yes, you do have to feel the magic. As a matter of fact, I have, speaking of giving myself permission, I've been giving myself permission not to finish books. I used to feel that if I'm started, I owe it to myself. I owe it to the author to finish. If I couldn't finish a book, I would blame myself. Like, why is it I can't find my way into this book? Like I'm at fault. Yes. So many others have read it. Why can't so many others have read it? And they liked it. Why don't I Speaker 2 (8:16) like it? What's wrong with me? Am I Speaker 1 (8:17) not reading it right? Am I Speaker 2 (8:18) missing Speaker 1 (8:18) something? And I've discovered this feeling of deciding that it's who do you hold in higher esteem, yourself or these other people? That you don't know. That you don't know. Because you do need to feel the magic in the reading. And I think a story can work for you. There are all these different factors. Imagine you need a grand total of 100 points. So some stories get most of their points from interesting characters. Some of them get their points from just beautiful writing. Others, the plot. The plot, you're like, oh my God, what happened? What? Wait, what? And you keep turning for the twists and turns. So any of these can be the reason you continue to read. And some of them have a little from every category. And of course, there's a holy grail of a novel that does all four. But to me, if they can contribute from each. of the categories, but one is very strong, it's enough for me to finish. Speaker 2 (9:14) It's so funny that you use the analogy for a relationship when it came to your writing and about how sometimes if they're over, they're over, but it's okay, we've learned, we move on. Me and my friends use the analogy of a relationship when talking about this sort of these categories, we use that as well. That's why we don't always understand each other's relationships, but that's because they're getting different amounts of different categories, whether it's the conversation, the physical attraction, whether it's the peace, the understanding. But we all build them in our own ways to get our hundred. And the same, you're so right, the same goes for reading. It might be a different combination, but that doesn't make it any less Speaker 1 (9:52) good. But you do need something from each. Yes. Just like if a relationship is only sexual attraction, but you don't have anything else. Speaker 2 (10:00) Absolutely nothing Speaker 1 (10:01) else. So you have to get some from each, but there can be a standout. Like really interesting standout characters can carry you a long way. Just like... a memoir that is outrageous, you will forgive a lot of bad writing to find out what happens next. Speaker 2 (10:18) Well, let's delve into the books that have that little bit of everything for you, and sometimes a lot of those things. And your first is, of course, by Toni Morrison. It's Jazz. First published in 1992, Jazz is the second book in Morrison's beloved trilogy. Set in Harlem, it tells the story of married couple Joe and Violet Trace and Joe's younger lover, 18-year-old Dorcas. In a jealous, obsessive rage after the affair turns sour, Joe fatally shoots Dorcas at a party. Passionate and profound, jazz brings us back and forth in time in a narrative assembled from the hopes, fears and realities of African-American life. Why have you chosen this novel today? Speaker 1 (10:59) Well, I chose it because the question was, what's a novel that has challenged you and changed the