The New Yorker Radio Hour - The Pandemic and Little Haiti, Plus Thomas McGuane and Callan Wink Go Fishing

Episode Date: May 12, 2020

For more than fifteen years, the fiction writer Edwidge Danticat has called Miami’s Little Haiti home. The neighborhood is full of Haitian émigrés like herself, many of whom support families back home. Though the virus has barely touched Haiti, the economic devastation it has wreaked on the U.S. will have dire consequences on the island. Over the years, Danticat has watched as Haiti’s struggles—political, economic, and environmental—have affected her friends and neighbors in Florida. “People would often say, ‘Whenever Haiti sneezes, Miami catches a cold,’ ” says Danticat. “But the reverse is also true.” Plus, two Western writers—Thomas McGuane and Callan Wink, separated by more than forty years in age—go fishing on Montana’s Yellowstone River, and share a pointed critique of “Western writing.” New Yorker Radio Hour listeners, we want to hear from you.  We have a few questions about the show and how you listen to it. The survey takes about twenty minutes, and your feedback will help us make our podcast better.  Take the survey here.

This is The New Yorker Radio Hour, a co-production of WNYC Studios and The New Yorker. Welcome to The New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick. The novelist, Edwij Dantica, has been writing about Haiti and the experience of Haitian-American immigrants like herself since she started publishing in the 1990s. For almost two decades, Dantica has lived in Miami's Little Haiti, not far from Biscayne Bay. Gentrification is changing the neighborhood, but it's still very much an immigrant community. Dante Carr wrote recently about the particular challenges that a place like Little Haiti faces during this time of economic collapse. Little Haiti when I first moved here was extremely colorful. The buildings were painted a lot like storefronts in Haiti with colorful murals and even the signs were bright and they were like Haitian paintings. There's music blasting from different stores, no matter what the store was,

and barbershops and beauty parlors. But the busiest place in the neighborhood would often be the money transfer places. There were a couple that had existed for years and years, and people would go in there to not only send money, but also to send rice, you can send oil, you can send cornmeal, which was then delivered to people in Haiti. Often people are working, if not two jobs or three jobs, but they're working to send back to family back home.

And so when I started seeing restaurants closing, people who clean homes, people who work with the sick here, being sent home and people who won't get stimulus checks or won't get unemployment, because they're undocumented. I started thinking about the disaster that that is for them, certainly will be dire, but also what it will mean for the people they were supporting back home.

When I was two, my father moved to the United States to look for work. Before my father started driving a taxi, he had two jobs. One was in a car wash and another one in a glass factory. He used to tell us that one job was for him to pay for his expenses in New York, and the other job was for him to pay for his expenses in Haiti, to earn the money that he was sending back to support us. And I see a lot of that repeated in the lives of the people around me. There are a group of women, usually older women,

who will set up shop on a street corner. Some of them will sell spices, some of them will sell used clothes. A former neighbor of mine who sells used clothing, she had a chair in the back of her van was open, and she had anything from jeans to use like Timberlin boots. That's how she's made her living for many years. That's how she sent for her children in Haiti.

That's how she pays her bills. There are not many customers these days. but she has to go out there. I have quite a few family members in Haiti, and when this started, they were following the news, just like all of us were. Often they would write us and text us to tell us to be careful, because at that point, Haiti had not registered any cases,

but they kept hearing about the growing numbers of cases here. These past three years, especially, immigrants have become political tools, and they've been scapegoated, they've been maligned, and have been used as sort of punching bags for this administration. In the past, for example, on the website of the U.S. Immigration Service, it used to say that this was a country of immigrants. recently that was removed right like the idea of the immigrant who comes from the old country who remakes a new life who contributes to that that idea of the immigrant has been revised by this administration as as people who just take take take which is which is untrue hearing about people becoming infected with COVID-19 and detention or and being deported. boarded during this time, some of them while having the virus. And then seeing the struggles of everyday families around here, it makes me angry and then it

makes me sad. And sometimes it even makes you question the humanity of folks. But there's always some reminder that we're not forgetting our neighbors. and that no matter what's happening, we have to try to stand up for each other and help one another. When I first moved to Little Haiti and whenever anything was happening in Haiti, whether it was a hurricane or a coup,

people would often say whenever Haiti sneezes, Miami catches a cold. Since this pandemic has started, I'm also reminded that the reverse is also true. You know, whenever Miami sneezes, Haiti catches a cold. And I think the larger lesson is for the whole world. When any of us sneezes, the world can catch a cold. And a deadly one at that.

Edwidge Dantica. Miami-Dade County has had about 400 deaths from the coronavirus outbreak as of last week. and the nation of Haiti has reported just 12 deaths so far. You can find Dantica's essay on the outbreak and much more for work at New Yorker.com. This is the New Yorker Radio Hour. More to come. This is the New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick. If you've spent all too much time inside lately,

let's try this. Let's relax and open your ears and imagine yourself in some form of heaven, by which I mean on the Yellowstone River, on a spring day. in a 15-foot drift boat with a couple of fly rods and a box of tackle. Tom McGuane and Callan Wink are more than 40 years apart in age, but they've got a lot in common. Both are Michigan natives, and there were both former fishing guides who moved to Montana.

McGuane is someone you probably know from his books of fiction and sports writing and much more, and Callan Wink just published his first novel called August. This particular fishing trip took place in 2016 before the words, social distancing was something that we said all the time, but so that we don't get anxious, let's imagine Wink and McGuane sitting in their boat six feet apart. Oh, I don't know what that was. That one looked kind of good.

We're not exactly lighten them up here this morning, Tom. That's all right. I can't believe we haven't gotten a eat on that nymph yet. If we go another half mile with no action, we're going to have to reconsider our lives here. It sort of sounds like fishing to me. How's the fishing been this last early season? Just really getting going, isn't it?

Yeah, it's just been getting going. It cleared early this year. We didn't have our normal long runoff. You see the water is still, it's still a little up and slightly cloudy here. The Yellowstone is interesting and that it doesn't, it never runs perfectly clear like some other rivers you see. because it is the longest undammed river in the lower 48, I think. It always carries some sediment in the flow.

Lots of headwaters that can blow out individually. They all have a little different color, too. Yep, that's exactly right. When it's brown, that comes from the Lamar. When it's this kind of milky green, that's from the gardener. Right. Okay, so. Oh, we got a little...

A little split shot, little rubber leg woolly bugger thing. They were eating that yesterday pretty well. Again, we were fishing it under an indicator yesterday, so a little different presentation. But if you just kind of cast towards the bank and give it a slow strip, we'll see what happens. We'll do. So what are you working on now?

Well, I'm pulling together my collected stories for the fall. Knav's going to publish them in the spring. And I've started enough. It's been kind of an interesting, you know, at this age, I partly don't really want to get obsessed with something for three or four years. You know, there's too many, I like the world too much. Yeah. And, but I'm sort of heading that way.

And I've started this novel that sort of combines some of the stuff about my life when I was living in Key West and guiding part-time. and it was an unbelievable era for those of us who were there then. And then I really never written much about my family, you know, or my growing up and stuff like that. I've sort of found a way to include it in that story. I come from a remarkably dysfunctional family, and they were so spectacularly dysfunctional. I never could figure out how to write about them.

It's not close enough, is it? No, it's perfect. Oh, is it? Yeah, get in there too far. It's just going to get... Oh, snag. That one might have been a drop. I'd take a white fish right now, Tom.

I mean, that's where I'm at right now. You're worried about where than I am. I'm just thinking about writing. I have to make sure I pay attention. Yeah. Are you on the everyday program right now? No, not really. Pretty good.

Yeah, I feel like when I, have a good stint of doing it a lot, then it just all becomes easier. Oh, that's absolutely right. When you've taken a month off, like I basically do guiding, even a couple months. Very hard to do it. Then it's just a torturous process to get back anything in shape for writing. I think, you know, that is the best reason for having regular work hours is just to not beat yourself up. when you try to start up again.

Yeah. Yeah, I guess when it comes down to it, there does need to be. Oh, man. Heartbreak. Heartbreak. That was a little guy, I think. That's what we'll tell ourselves.

We want anything, though, right? Yeah. And then do you ever just get one that just comes out? Oh, yeah. Like, it comes out. Dead easy. It's almost finished, you know? Yep.

Then you're like, how did that happen? and how can I do that again? I know. Yeah, well, you just keep maneuvering, hoping you'll get your head in a place to do that. I always think of this thing, I remember reading long ago, it's been in my mind a lot,

where Chekhov is off in his summer dacha, and he's writing a story. And he's almost done with it, and this thunderstorm comes up, rainy thunderstorm, blows all his papers out into the yard, and rains on him. And he was nearly finished with a story.

And his house guests said, you know, it's not a big problem. You just finish, just go a while it's freshen your mind, go back and write it again. Chekhov said, I don't remember anything about it. I thought that's really a true story. Oh, yeah, yeah. I mean, I've had one kind of disappear into the nether world of the Internet or, you know, the computer one time. Kiss the goodbye, right? It was just like, I was pissed about that for days.

I'm sure. Well, you know, John Chiever said that all fiction writing is basically improvisatory. And I agree with that, you know. Yeah, it seems like quite often when I get to the end of a first draft, I have to go back and, like, redo the whole beginning because it was starting off in a certain way. Like, I had an idea. Right. And then, yeah, a page or two in, the story is completely taken. It almost makes you feel you don't need an idea.

You just need to go to work. Yeah, yeah. And that's kind of what I strive to do. I'm not always good at it, but just starting with something. I think kind of waiting for a good idea is one of the many subtle things. forms procrastination takes. Or not even waiting for one, or just even the belief that you need one, is in itself procrastination.

Yeah, that's true. And that's what makes, when you're not writing, makes you feel so guilty. At least I'm speaking of me, personally. No, I know exactly what you mean. Well, at 76, that's exactly how I feel. If I don't write, I just feel like, my life is... You know, just I'm throwing it away. That's amazing.

You still have the... Yeah, maybe more... ...burn to do it. I mean... Yeah, I really do. Maybe more than ever. I hope I still have some of that. I'll ask...

We'd had enough, hadn't we, Colin? I was just going to sit here until you hooked one, basically. So I'm glad it happened eventually. The... That's a nice thing. fish. Real nice. They're strong down here.

Yeah, they are. A little rainbow. I know. There's plenty of, plenty of a boogie. They're kind of strong down here. They must not have learned the catch and release routine here. No, there's not a mark on this fish. Yeah, a pretty little good one.

Thank you. You know, I've been living on a ranch of some kind or another for over 40 years and for a long time running a lot of cattle. And if you were in the house, you were a shirker. Yeah. You know, you don't, you know, I would sneak to be, to do my writing where no one could catch me at it. It was like I had some kind of sick masturbating habit or something. And I think that was one of the reasons I got so into kind of rodeo type stuff, you know.

It was like, build up my legitimacy with these people. I can say, oh, he's in the house all the weekend, but he won the roping. Yeah. And then that was okay. Oh, there's one. Yeah, I mean, it's the, they kind of, I don't know if you feel like you got, I mean, kind of the brand as a Western writer. I mean. Yeah, I mean, I know.

And I don't really want that brand. Yeah, yeah. It's, yeah, what is Western writing? I know. It used to be, you know, even in my years in the West, it used to be a lot of writers who were local writers like Ivan Doig and Mary Clearmid Blue and... Let's keep going left here.

Bill Kittridge and all these people. A lot of what they wrote was almost like land claiming, you know. It's what I call prior appropriation memoirs. You know, you know, Mary Clearman Blue's story about my grandpa was here in 1890. I remember the five-bottom plow. And she's a good writer and stuff like that, but it was all about, you know, a kind of ersatz nativism.

iPhone kind of tiresome. You know, and I remember, you know, even Wallace Stegner was kind of complaining that Western literature didn't, was all sort of historical, you know. was, you had to only like 5% of Montanaans are ranchers. But there's been a feeling for a long time. You know, it's all your stories supposed to be kind of ranch stories.

And there's just, you know, you never meet people of the kind in Western fiction. It's changing, but you never would meet anybody in Western fiction that resemble anything like the people you knew in Western towns, which are like, a lot like people everywhere else. But that's changing. But it is considered, you know, violating the, the men. There he was. Got a little cloud cover all of a sudden. You might start actually biting.

Well, that's good. You got a look on that top fly. Yeah, I know. I need to be looking when it was looking. That was always Jim's classic move, looking for his cigarettes. Yeah. You know. That's when he'd get one.

I know. God, what a cigarette habit he had. but he had. Let you hit that to the right here. Just right out to the middle. Okay. I knew Jim Harrison from the time we were in school together, and he had this unusual,

charismatic personality, and was a real, real driven lover of everything about literature. He was an irresistible guy. But he also, in addition to being so artistically, inclined he loved the outdoors, loved to hunt and fish. So anyway, we got along immediately and stayed in touch all our lives, really, until Jim passed away this last year. I grew up reading him because he lived in Michigan, was born very near where I was born, actually, so my dad was always a big fan. Yeah, we had some good times on the river, you know. I'd take him

handful of times every summer. And, you know, with Jim, like, the fishing was of marginal importance, but he would call me several times the night before we were supposed to go to make sure that I remembered the salt for the chicken thighs and the hot sauce and the hot peppers and, you know, things like that. That's where his main concerns were around what we were going to have for lunch. Yeah, I know. I'm making sure that I didn't forget it.

Yeah. You could be in a lot of fish, and he'd have to go eat. Yeah. That's great. Should have saved some of the voicemails he left me. I mean, they're just classic. And he would always call and be like,

hey, this is Jim Harrison, like full name. Like I couldn't recognize who he was. Right. That's funny. That's a good point. Well, you know, he was so unlike anybody who will ever know that, you know, his absence is pretty powerful, isn't it really? Yeah, I mean, he's just kind of always been, always been around, been Jim, you know. It's kind of surprising to...

But not having Jim to write to is a hardship, right? I have to be honest about that. Yeah, I mean, how often were you guys writing? every week at the least that's amazing but usually more than that yeah and not always

consequentially it's just you know I always felt like I had something in my mind often something nobody else would be interested in you know or get and just dab it up to the gym well that's just a cool collection of

letters I mean you know that people are going to want to read those I'm going to edit mine with a heavy hand He said a lot of Disreputable things my day I want to talk about So okay, swing that left now I mean those are all the things everyone's going to want to read

You realize that, right? I go left here Over here Yeah Yeah, I mean Harrison You know, he's a rascal, you know And I mean, for example

I was working on this story when Tyne Harrison was that he liked the title so he just took it. Legends of the Fall. Are you serious? I had never heard that. Yeah. That was your title. That was my title. Oh, that's classic. But what he did with it

was way more than what I was going to do with it, so it was okay with me. Yeah, that one you kind of have to be like, well... Yeah, no, that was worth it. Give that one up. That's still a great book. I mean, I I've re-read it last year. I mean, it's... Yeah.

It was extremely good. And full of emotion. Yeah. You know, there's so much cold, well-done stuff out there. There's something that really gives you heartaches. It's kind of rare. Nearing the end here. The end is nigh.

Jeez, this has been a nice little jaunt. Cock up fish. No one fell in. No one fell in. I used to always say that at about this point in my day. Oh, you know, good success. We caught some fish. No one fell in.

And then, of course, at one point, after I had said that, between, like, here in the boat launch, a guy fell in, you know, after I made my statement. I was like, I got to stop saying that until we're in the car. It's what I hear over in my county, you'll say to people, you say, how are the kids, and they'll say, well, nobody's in jail. It's just like, it's the basics. Yeah, yeah, I mean, I can't expect too much more than that.

Tom McGuane's most recent book is Cloudbursts, a collection of stories. And Callan Wink's new book is called August. They met in 2016. You can find stories by both writers at New Yorker.com. I'm David Remnick, and I hope, if you can, that you can get some time outside, too, and enjoy the spring. But please do it safely. And join us next time. for the New Yorker Radio Hour.

The New Yorker Radio Hour is a co-production of WNYC Studios and The New Yorker. Our theme music was composed and performed by Merrill Garbus of Tune Arts, with additional music by Alexis Quadrado. This episode was produced by Alex Barron, Emily Boutin, Ave Carrillo, Riannon and Corby, Calalia, David Krasnow, Gauphin and Putubuele, Louis Mitchell, Michelle Moses, and Stephen Valentino, with help from Alison McAdam, Meng Fe Chen, and Emily Mann. Additional help on this week's program came from Owen Agnew.

Music in our segment on Little Haiti came from Guy France and Montvelino and Riva. The New Yorker Radio Hour is supported in part by the Cherina Endowment Fund.