From Family Drama To Global Apocalypse, These Two Novels Keep You Riveted

DAVID BIANCULLI, HOST:

This is FRESH AIR. I'm David Bianculli, editor of the website TV Worth Watching, sitting in for Terry Gross. John Singleton, the first African-American to be nominated for a best director Oscar, died earlier this week at age 51. He worked as a director in TV, as well as film, directing episodes of "Billions," "American Crime Story," "Empire" and "Snowfall." But his first and biggest impact was in the movies, where at age 24, he earned Academy Award nominations for writing and directing the influential drama "Boyz N The Hood." Singleton grew up in South Central Los Angeles, and "Boyz N The Hood" was his very personal account of life in that particular neighborhood.

Singleton went to USC film school, where he wrote the beginnings of "Boyz N The Hood" as his student thesis. When Hollywood expressed interest in turning his screenplay into a film, Singleton insisted on directing it himself - which he did. Cuba Gooding Jr. stars as Tre Styles - a young man trying to navigate life in South Central LA and the only one of his friends who lives with and is being raised by his father. Laurence Fishburne plays his father, who in one scene, takes his son and one of his son's friends to a nearby neighborhood and challenges them to take a more thoughtful and political perspective on life in the hood.

(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "BOYZ N THE HOOD")

LAURENCE FISHBURNE: (As Furious Styles) I want y'all to take a look at that sign up there. See what it says? Cash for your home. You know what that is?

MORRIS CHESTNUT: (As Ricky Baker) It's a billboard.

CUBA GOODING JR: (As Tre Styles) Billboard.

FISHBURNE: (As Furious Styles) What are y'all - Amos and Andy? Are you Stepin, and he's Fetchit? I'm talking about the message - what it stands for. It's called gentrification. It's what happens when the property value of a certain area is brought down. You listening?

GOODING JR: (As Tre Styles) Yeah.

FISHBURNE: They bring the property value down. They can buy the land at a lower price. Then they move all the people out, raise the property value and sell it at a profit. Now, what we need to do is we need to keep everything in our neighborhood - everything - black. Black-owned with black money - just like the Jews, the Italians, the Mexicans and the Koreans do.

WHITMAN MAYO: (As The Old Man) Ain't nobody from outside bringing down the property value. It's these folk...

UNIDENTIFIED ACTORS: (As characters, groaning).

MAYO: (As The Old Man) ...Shooting each other and selling that crack rock.

FISHBURNE: (As Furious Styles) Well, how you think the crack rock gets into the country? We don't own any planes. We don't own no ships. We are not the people who are flying and floating that [expletive] in here. I know every time you turn on a TV that's what you see...

MAYO: (As The Old Man) Oh, yeah.

FISHBURNE: (As Furious Styles) ...Black people...

MAYO: (As The Old Man) Yeah.

FISHBURNE: (As Furious Styles) ...Selling the rock...

MAYO: (As The Old Man) Right.

FISHBURNE: (As Furious Styles) ...Pushing the rock...

MAYO: (As The Old Man) Yeah.

FISHBURNE: (As Furious Styles) ...Pushing the rock. Yeah, I know. But that wasn't a problem as long as it was here. It wasn't a problem until it was in Iowa, and it showed up on Wall Street, where there are hardly any black people. Now, if you want to talk about guns - why is it that there's a gun shop on almost every corner in this community?

MAYO: (As The Old Man) Why?

FISHBURNE: (As Furious Styles) I'll tell you why. For the same reason that there's a liquor store on almost every corner in the black community. Why? They want us to kill ourselves. You go out to Beverly Hills. You don't see that [expletive]. But they want us to kill ourselves.

MAYO: (As The Old Man) Yeah.

FISHBURNE: (As Furious Styles) Yeah. The best way you can destroy a people - you take away their ability to reproduce themselves.

MAYO: (As The Old Man) Yeah.

FISHBURNE: (As Furious Styles) Who is it that's dying out here on these streets every night? Young brothers like yourselves.

BIANCULLI: Terry Gross spoke with John Singleton in 1991, when "Boyz N The Hood" was first released.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED BROADCAST)

TERRY GROSS, BYLINE: When you sold the script for "Boyz N The Hood," you insisted on directing it yourself. I was wondering what the movie was like in your mind when you envisioned an assigned director doing it?

JOHN SINGLETON: I never could envision an assigned director. That would be like selling my mother. You know what I'm saying? It'd be like (laughter) - it would be like selling one of my relatives to someone. Can you imagine somebody like Alan Parker trying to direct "Boyz N The Hood"? You know, it would probably end up - Furious would be a Baptist minister. Tre would be a choir boy. And at the end of the movie, Doughboy would sing a gospel song. So I don't think anybody else could've directed this film outside of myself.

GROSS: Alan Parker is, by the way, the person who directed "Mississippi Burning" among other things - for our listeners...

SINGLETON: Yes (laughter).

GROSS: ...Who are trying to figure out which director he is. So you thought it would be shown in things that would end up being stereotypical and generationally - and location would - all wrong.

SINGLETON: Yeah. I couldn't let nobody from, you know, Iowa or - you know what I'm saying? - or Idaho or even Encino to write this film. It had to be directed by somebody who lived it.

GROSS: What kind of neighborhood did you grow up in?

SINGLETON: I grew up on Vermont and 101st in a part of South LA known as Inglewood in the flight path of LAX. And it was rough, but it wasn't as rough as it is now - because, you know, the neighborhood is now seeing the aftereffects of the last decade of the burgeoning crack trade. And, you know, it's suffering because of that. It's now just trying to get back up.

GROSS: Do you have any friends who were killed?

SINGLETON: A couple.

GROSS: Yeah?

SINGLETON: Yes.

GROSS: What were the circumstances?

SINGLETON: Well, I had one friend - his name was Robbie Stringer. He got killed because he - in the mid '80s when cocaine was made cheaper in the form of crack, you know, because that all happened in the early '80s, right?

GROSS: Mmm hmm.

SINGLETON: You know, he started getting involved in the trade and stuff. And he got killed when he was 17. He got killed in an alley down the street from my house. It really changed my neighborhood just like, you know, when one of the kids in the film gets killed. It changes everybody's life.

GROSS: How did it change your life?

SINGLETON: It just - it made me - it was like a crux in which all these things that were happening - growing up in the early '80s - were, like, coming to fruition. And I was realizing that there was a certain system in order to - that was working towards, you know, my demise, you know, and to bring me down. I could just look around. I can remember being able to go to the park when I was a kid, and there would always be a park supervisor there. You could check out a basketball or a baseball or whatever. And after certain laws were passed here in this country - the Reagan administration and Proposition 13 here in Los Angeles County - tax money didn't go towards park supervisors or anything, and social programs and stuff was being taken away. And I could see that, you know? So what does a park become then? The park becomes a turf. It doesn't become a recreational facility. You know, I can remember when Ronald Reagan deemed ketchup to be a vegetable. I was in sixth grade. So I'm now a product. I'm a product of the last decade, and now I'm out for change.

GROSS: Mmm hmm.

SINGLETON: You know, it's the '90s. And so I'm ready to deal a new hand.

GROSS: Now, "Boyz N The Hood" is - a lot of it is about the importance of having a father around - a strong father...

SINGLETON: That's right.

GROSS: ...As a good role model and also to kind of discipline you and, like, teach you the difference between right and wrong.

SINGLETON: There's a whole population of young people - black, white, whatever - that don't have a strong father figure or strong family background, for that matter. Most people don't even talk to their kids, all right? And the deal is that it's my belief that a young boy needs a man to teach him how to be a man. A woman cannot teach him how to do that. She can only teach him her perception of what she believes a man to be.

And as a result of this, since we have a whole population of young men that don't have father figures, that don't have that direction, they're always in pursuit of their manhood, you see? They're always going to be not really in tune with themselves as young men and throughout their lives searching, searching, searching for a sense of what being a man is.

GROSS: Did you have a strong father?

SINGLETON: Yes. My father was the model for Furious.

GROSS: And in the movie, the parents of the main character are separated. Your parents were separated, too.

SINGLETON: My parents never married. But they were still good parents, you know?

GROSS: So who did you live with?

SINGLETON: I lived with my mother for a certain period of time. And then when I turned 11, I went to live with my father.

GROSS: It's kind of like the character in the movie.

SINGLETON: It's exactly like the character in the movie.

GROSS: Now, in the movie, the character changes because the mother kind of made a pact with the father that if discipline became a real problem with their son that she would send him over to the father and have him live with the father. Was that what happened with you?

SINGLETON: Yes. Yes, it was.

GROSS: What was - what were you getting into that was a warning sign to your mother?

SINGLETON: Just, you know, fighting too much and (laughter) getting into some certain things that I shouldn't have been getting into. I was on the wrong path, and I needed to be guided onto the right path. And that's why I went to live with my father.

GROSS: What did your father do to lay down the law right away?

SINGLETON: He taught me a sense of responsibility. He made me work around the house. He taught me to value myself and my culture. And when I was - you know, just, you know, where - and respect him, you know? And, you know, I looked up to my father like most people look up to Superman, you see? And...

GROSS: Did you - I'm sorry. I didn't mean to interrupt.

SINGLETON: No worries, Terry.

GROSS: I wanted to know if you ever defied your father.

SINGLETON: Yeah, a couple times. We got into it and stuff. (Laughter) You know, I didn't do everything my pops told me. I would never - I wouldn't be here right now, you know? I mean, my father wanted me to go into real estate. And I was, like, no.

(LAUGHTER)

SINGLETON: He's, like, real estate - you know, real estate is the way to go. You can get your license before you finish college. I was, like, no. I'm going to be a filmmaker, you know? So I don't do everything my father tells me.

GROSS: Were you ever looked on by some of your friends as too much of the good kid of...

SINGLETON: Oh, heck no.

(LAUGHTER)

GROSS: OK - just...

SINGLETON: I've always been a psychological person. I've always been a kind of person that could (laughter) sway attitudes and sway weak-minded people into certain directions, whether that - whether or not they wanted to or not go into that direction.

GROSS: This is a great trait to have as a filmmaker. How did you use it as a teenager?

SINGLETON: Well, I mean, there are certain people I could get to do certain things that they ordinarily wouldn't do. My father always taught me to be a leader and not a follower, to work smarter and not harder. And so if you have a certain population of people that are followers, they're easy to be led. And they're easy to be led through the power of the way you speak to them. You see what I'm saying? And so, I mean, my father taught me to value that. And also, I learned that a lot from comic books, too.

(LAUGHTER)

SINGLETON: I mean, no - you learn a lot from comic books. You read comic books, and you have certain characters who are kings and consider themself royalty and certain people who command respect like Doctor Doom and stuff. And you look at the way they speak and the way they - you know, they describe them. And there's stories about how they walk, and they've been - you know, that what they're about and everything. And as a kid, I internalized that - me and my little friends, you know? And so I had my little pack just like, you know, Doughboy, Ricky and Tre.

GROSS: "Boyz N The Hood" has gotten very good reviews. It's doing really well at the box office. How is that going to affect the next movie that you make? Do you know what that movie will be? Are you getting surprising offers?

SINGLETON: I'm writing my next film right now. And my next film is going to be even more experimental. I mean, now that I've done something like this, it allows me to be more free and - with my work. And it's going to be about the war between black men and women on an economic level, you know? (Laughter) It's a romance.

GROSS: (Laughter). That's...

SINGLETON: It's, like - you know, it's a straight-up street romance. And since it deals with emotions and love, it's even more dangerous than "Boyz N The Hood." So maybe you'll have couples shooting each other in the theaters.

(LAUGHTER)

SINGLETON: No, not for real. I'm just joking. I'm wondering whether or not...

GROSS: (Laughter).

SINGLETON: ...I'm going to be able to get a date after this movie.

GROSS: Well, John Singleton, I want to thank you very much for talking with us.

SINGLETON: Thank you very much. All right. Peace out.

BIANCULLI: John Singleton, the Oscar-nominated writer and director of "Boyz N The Hood," speaking to Terry Gross in 1991. He died earlier this week at age 51. After a break, Soraya Nadia McDonald reviews Damon Young's new memoir of essays called "What Doesn't Kill You Makes You Blacker." This is FRESH AIR.

(SOUNDBITE OF AHMAD JAMAL'S "THE LINE")

DAVID BIANCULLI, HOST:

This is FRESH AIR. Damon Young is best known as the editor and co-founder of the blog Very Smart Brothas, where he's built a faithful readership thanks to his social commentary on race and culture. His website is now part of the black news and culture site The Root. Young calls his new book "What Doesn't Kill You Makes You Blacker: A Memoir In Essays." Critic Soraya Nadia McDonald has this review.

SORAYA NADIA MCDONALD: Here's how you know you're a very smart brotha - when you find a way to get paid and praised for your insights about race and stick it to your high school bully at the same time. In his new memoir about his experiences as a native son of Pittsburgh, Damon Young writes about a tortured relationship he had with a high school basketball teammate named James. The essay reveals so much about the performance of race, masculinity and class. Both boys pretended to be something they weren't.

James pretended to have more street cred than he actually did. Young tried desperately to hide the evidence of his family's poverty. His parents were twice served with eviction notices. Young recalls one of James' taunts. Yo, how are you going to drop 28 game and not have no hos? It's like being a millionaire and no one cares.

Then Young delivers a compassionate analysis of what both boys were going through. There were dozens of Jameses swaggering the halls of the suburban and solidly middle-class high school, all desperately wanting to be exactly what America would see when it saw them, he writes, all searching for a fabricated authenticity that didn't exist.

"What Doesn't Kill You Makes You Blacker" is a work about the many absurdities that come with living while black. In one chapter, Young explains how he feels he's missing something because he's never gotten into a fight over someone calling him the N-word. (Reading) Being just black wasn't enough. I wanted - needed - to be black enough to not be the guy white people asked for directions or sat with if the seat next to him on the bus was free, Young writes, so I could finally prove to myself that I had what it took to overcome it, to persevere past it.

When someone finally called him the N-word, Young was so stunned that he couldn't come up with a quick response. Then he realized the folly of itching for a fight. His wishing for an N-word instigation reminded me of middle school classmates bragging about how they would fight back against the slave owner's lash or brutal cops. It takes a little more living to understand that those calculations can be more complicated than they first appear, and Young's way of illustrating this is funny and relatable.

Young gets more serious in reflecting about the right way to be a man. He offers a mea culpa in a chapter called "How To Make The Internet Hate You In 15 Simple Steps." Young recounts the very public education he received on sexual violence in 2012. After publishing a response to an Ebony column about who bears responsibility for rape, Young faced an immediate backlash. What's stopping us from steadfastly instilling no means no in the minds of all men and boys and educating women on how not to put themselves in certain situations, he asked.

In his book, Young explains what he learned from the experience. He realized simply going through life not assaulting or harassing women was not the same as being an ally in the fight for gender equity. Decent was and is a baseline, Young writes. You are decent not because you do things that actually matter and actually help but because you don't do anything. What mattered and still matters is being worthy - worthy of the readership and the follows and shares and retweets and comments of the thousands of black women who continue to engage with and amplify my work.

Young is 40 years old with a wife, two young children and a mortgage. He is by all measures a real, true grown-up. But youthful uncertainty lingers in his writing. Jay-Z once remarked about the reason rappers so often grab their crotch on stage. The bravado is intended to deflect from internal insecurity. Young deploys humor and repetition the same way. He punctuates the story of his basketball bully with a few pithy lines that read like an unnecessary safety net. (Reading) I'll settle for hoping that James accidentally butt-dials someone he really, really, really, really, really doesn't want to talk to today and ends up in a 45-minute-long conversation with them, he writes before tossing out a few more hypothetical unpleasantries. It's like a perfect "SNL" sketch that becomes a little bit less so because it carries on just to mine a few more cheap laughs.

Young's book reads like he still has one foot in the world of blogging and another in the more literary style of essay and memoir writing. His sometimes petty, repetitive humor is what put him on the map. But it may be time to put that behind now that he's transitioning to a different stage of his career. Young has much to say that's valuable and important about race, about power and about how to be a modern man.

BIANCULLI: Soraya Nadia McDonald is the culture critic for The Undefeated. She reviewed "What Doesn't Kill You Makes You Blacker" by Damon Young. After a break, Maureen Corrigan looks at two other books, and we listen back to an interview with Jo Sullivan Loesser, the musical comedy actress who died Sunday at age 91. I'm David Bianculli, and this is FRESH AIR.

(SOUNDBITE OF JASON MORAN'S "LULU'S BACK IN TOWN")
DAVID BIANCULLI, HOST:

This is FRESH AIR. I'm David Bianculli in for Terry Gross. Jo Sullivan Loesser, the musical comedy star who was featured in the first New York production of "The Threepenny Opera" and originated the role of Rosabella in "The Most Happy Fella," died Sunday. She was 91 years old. When she was cast in "The Most Happy Fella," she met and eventually married the show's composer, Frank Loesser, who wrote such other musicals as "Guys And Dolls" and "How To Succeed In Business Without Really Trying." He died in 1969.

Terry Gross spoke with Jo Sullivan Loesser in 2006 when "The Most Happy Fella" was being revived by the New York City Opera. "The Most Happy Fella" is about as different from "Guys And Dolls" as a musical can get. "Guys and Dolls" is streetwise and slangy, a jazz-inspired comedy about gamblers. "The Most Happy Fella," on the other hand, is inspired by Italian opera. It's set in the Depression at a California vineyard where a lonely waitress becomes the mail-order bride of an older man. She betrays him only to later fall truly in love with him. Here's Jo Sullivan Loesser from the original cast recording.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "SOMEBODY SOMEWHERE")

JO SULLIVAN LOESSER: (As Rosabella, singing) Now I'm lucky that somebody somewhere wants me and needs me. That's very wonderful to know. Somebody lonely wants me to care, wants me of all people to notice him there. Well, I want to be wanted, need to be needed. And I'll admit I'm all aglow 'cause somebody somewhere wants me and needs me, wants lonely me to smile and say hello. Somebody somewhere wants me and needs me, and that's very wonderful to know.

BIANCULLI: That was Jo Sullivan Loesser from the original cast recording of "The Most Happy Fella." She got the part while she was performing in the first New York production of "The Threepenny Opera" with Lotte Lenya.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED BROADCAST)

LOESSER: The producers saw me, and then they dragged Frank down to see me. And then, after that, I auditioned about 20 times. And in those days, there were about three of us that that sang all the soprano roles. You know, in those days, the sopranos, the leading ladies, were little blondes. And one was Barbara Cook, and one was Florence Henderson, and one was myself. So we all auditioned, but I guess I was more Southern. I sounded more like a waitress than the other two, so I got the part.

TERRY GROSS, BYLINE: What did you do each of those 20 times? I mean, were the auditions different from time to time?

LOESSER: I would sing the same song some of the time, but he would have you do something that absolutely drove you nuts. He would have you sing "Happy Birthday To You," and he would have you sing it higher and higher and higher and higher. We would have to go (singing) happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you, happy birthday, happy birthday, happy birthday till you almost hit the ceiling.

GROSS: So what was he like to work with that first time before you were married to him? Did he give you a lot of direction about how he wanted the music sung or what he was thinking when he wrote it?

LOESSER: Frank gave everybody a lot of direction about how he wanted the music sung. He was very - the words were very important to Frank, too. He loved the words because when he wrote a piece, he always wrote the words first. And then he would write a melody. And he would - used to say to me, now, don't pay any attention to this melody. It may not be the right one. It's just a dummy melody. Just listen to the words.

GROSS: Now, it was during the making of "The Most Happy Fella" that you and your husband fell in love. I mean, you met through the show. I imagine that's when you fell in love because you got married...

(LAUGHTER)

GROSS: ...Afterwards.

LOESSER: Yeah, we did. Yes.

GROSS: So at what point did you realize that you were more than his star and he was more than your director?

LOESSER: Well, you just couldn't work with Frank and not sort of fall in love with him. He was enchanting. He was - I admired his work greatly. He was witty. He was just a wonderful, wonderful human being to be with. And both of us were not exactly happy in the arrangements we had. Both of us were married. And so we just sort of got together after that.

GROSS: Did you try to keep it hidden during the show?

LOESSER: Well, of course (laughter), naturally. But there was a spark there. I think people sort of knew it. And we were married two years after the show - after I left the show in 1960. I have to think of the year, my. It was wonderful to be married to a composer. I didn't sing after that for 17 years because he didn't want me to sing. He wanted me to be with him and go where he went. And we had two beautiful children, two girls. But it worked out fine. I was very happy.

GROSS: Well, how did you feel about giving up performing? You have such a beautiful voice.

LOESSER: Well, thank you very much. I frankly didn't even think about it. I was very busy listening to - going to all the shows with him and listening to what was going on and seeing how things were working out and taking care of two children. And Frank was a handful, I have to say.

GROSS: In what sense?

LOESSER: He demanded - well, he demanded a lot of attention. He wanted to make sure we went on trips. And listen to this - he wanted me to listen to that piece, listen to this piece and learn that piece for him and see if it sounded right. And I played the piano, and I would play parts of it for the piano with him to see if it was right. And he was a handful.

He used to go to bed at 12 o'clock at night and - around 12 and get up at 4 in the morning. And from 4 in the morning till 8 o'clock in the morning, he would write - on a silent piano, thankfully. And that's because the telephone couldn't bother him. He could write and compose and be completely clear about that. He would also get in the car, and you would drive him around. And he would write in the car because a telephone couldn't get to him, too, at the same time.

And then in the morning when I would get up - 7:30, whatever - he would be having a martini, and I would be having a cup of coffee because he'd been up for four hours. So he was having lunch, and I was having breakfast. It was kind of a funny (laughter) arrangement.

BIANCULLI: Musical comedy star Jo Sullivan Loesser speaking to Terry Gross in 2006. More after a break. This is FRESH AIR.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONNY ROLLINS' "TOOT TOOT TOOTSIE")

BIANCULLI: This is FRESH AIR. Let's get back to Terry's 2006 interview with musical comedy actress Jo Sullivan Loesser. She died Sunday at age 91.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

GROSS: Frank Loesser was a kind of interesting singer himself. He recorded some demos that were put together on CD. And I really love that recording, so I thought we could pause here and listen to one of them. I thought we'd hear him singing something he wrote for "Guys And Dolls."

LOESSER: I put that - we put that album together to make sure that he sang - I thought he sang terrific. I mean, let's face it. He didn't have a very beautiful voice, but he certainly knew how to put a lyric over. I mean, you could see how important the lyrics were to him, and I think it shows on this album. I think it's great fun to listen to.

GROSS: Oh, me too. Let's hear it. This is Frank Loesser singing one of his songs from "Guys And Dolls," "I'll Know."

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "I'LL KNOW")

FRANK LOESSER: (Singing) I'll know when my love comes along. I'll know then and there. I'll know at the sight of her face how I care, how I care, how I care. And I'll stop, and I'll stare. And I'll know long before we can speak. I'll know in my heart. I'll know, and I won't ever ask, am I right? Am I wise? Am I smart? But I'll stop, and I'll stare at that face in the throng. Yes, I'll know when my love comes along.

GROSS: You know, we heard Frank Loesser singing one of his songs. What was his attitude towards singers and musicians who took liberties with either his lyrics or the music? And I'm talking about on their own records. I'm not talking about when they were appearing in a production of one of his shows.

LOESSER: I don't think he cared when they were on a record. I know that he used to say to me, oh, let them do that. That song is so famous; it doesn't make any difference. That would happen often. But if you did decide that you were going to do something and change the way you sang or whatever, his rhythm or whatever he wrote in a show, then there was a lot of trouble. And in "How To Succeed," he had such a fight with Rudy Vallee.

You know, Rudy Vallee had been singing for many, many years, and said, listen; I don't need anybody to tell me how to sing a song. Well, Frank said, well, you're going to sing my song this way. They almost came to blows, but the fact was that Frank quit the show. When he came home, I said to him, I think you've gone a little far this time, Frank, for God's sakes. But he quit the show, and they had to beg him and cajole him to come back. And of course he did.

And then when they made the movie of "Guys And Dolls," Frank Sinatra would not sing the songs the way Frank wanted him to. And Frank wrote him a great song called "Adelaide," and Sinatra and he never spoke after that. They had such a fight that they never spoke after that movie.

GROSS: What exactly was the fight about?

LOESSER: Because Sinatra would not sing Frank's songs the way he wanted him to.

GROSS: Melodically or lyrically?

LOESSER: He was going to croon them more, and Frank didn't like it and didn't think it suited the part.

GROSS: Oh.

LOESSER: And I think he was right.

GROSS: So who won in the movie of "Guys And Dolls"? Was it Sinatra or Frank Loesser?

LOESSER: I think that Sinatra sang it the way he wanted to.

GROSS: You know, your husband, Frank Loesser, died at - what was he? - like, 59...

LOESSER: Fifty-nine years old, yes.

GROSS: ...Of lung cancer after you were married about 10 years.

LOESSER: Yes, we were.

GROSS: And he left to you - what? - his publishing company, which was publishing rights to all of his songs.

LOESSER: Yes, yes, he left me his publishing company, his - he was a superb businessman.

GROSS: So what were some of the difficult decisions you had to make about rights to his songs and rights to his musicals?

LOESSER: Well, I remember that he told me - first of all, we never allowed anyone to sing "Adelaide's Lament" on television. And Frank told me, don't let them sing the big songs too much. Save them for big moments because they'll ruin it. So I keep "Luck Be A Lady" - every week, two or three times, somebody calls and wants to do "Luck Be A Lady," and I don't let them do it. Very, very seldom do I.

GROSS: Before you did Frank Loesser's "The Most Happy Fella," you were off-Broadway in the original New York production of the Kurt Weill-Bertolt Brecht musical "The Threepenny Opera," and this was the production that Marc Blitzstein wrote the translation for. It's a really famous production.

LOESSER: Ran for five years.

GROSS: Yeah, and the cast recording is still around and still, of course, wonderful. I want to play your duet with Bea Arthur, who eventually became known for her TV role as Maude and then for her role on "The Golden Girls." This is called "The Jealousy Duet" because you're both...

LOESSER: After Mack the Knife, of course.

GROSS: Exactly, exactly. So we're going to pick this up in the part where you're singing the main part because it kind of alternates between the two of you. So here it is. From "The Threepenny Opera," my guest Jo Sullivan Loesser and Bea Arthur.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "JEALOUSY DUET")

LOESSER: (Singing) Yes, they call me beauty of the town - see my legs and say, now, those are pretty. I'm glad you're glad to admire beauty. Note the trimmest ankle in the city.

BEA ARTHUR: Go peddle your wares somewhere else.

LOESSER: (Singing) I knew I would make a big impression on my Mackie.

ARTHUR: (Singing) Oh, did you? Did you?

LOESSER: (Singing) You'll be pleased to know I've met his Jackie.

ARTHUR: (Singing) Have you? Have you?

LOESSER: (Singing) Well, you kind of make me laugh.

ARTHUR: (Singing) Now I kind of make you laugh.

LOESSER: (Singing) Who would want a big giraffe?

ARTHUR: (Singing) Who would want what big giraffe?

LOESSER: (Singing) Ha, ha, ha. You are so pitiful, imagining you're beautiful.

ARTHUR: (Singing) Bet you wouldn't ask him.

LOESSER: (Singing) Certainly I'll ask him.

ARTHUR: (Singing) Go on, then. Ask him.

LOESSER: (Singing) You better ask him. (Vocalizing).

JO SULLIVAN LOESSER AND BEA ARTHUR: (Singing) Mackie and me - he never could refuse me. Mackie and me - and he will never lose me.

LOESSER: (Singing) He likes a nice, petite girl.

ARTHUR: (Singing) He likes a big, complete girl.

LOESSER AND ARTHUR: (Singing) Him leave me for a street girl - asinine.

GROSS: That's my guest, Jo Sullivan Loesser, along with Bea Arthur from "The Threepenny Opera" production with the original New York production with lyrics translated by Marc Blitzstein. Now, one of the amazing things about this production is that Kurt Weill's widow, Lotte Lenya, was in it. After you married Frank Loesser, did you kind of think back to your experiences with Lotte Lenya and how - what her relationship was like with her husband and his work? I know he was - he had already passed away by the time...

LOESSER: Yes.

GROSS: ...You were in "The Threepenny Opera." But still, she must've spoken to you about what it had been like to work with her husband.

LOESSER: She spoke very little about that. I know that I stood in the wings and watched her all the time because she was superb. The woman was absolutely superb. And a few - I was - started to sing Frank's songs by then in clubs, at the ballroom and in hotels and concerts, et cetera. And I would never talk about him. I just didn't feel like I could say anything, you know? Like, oh, he always liked to wear a blue shirt.

And I went to hear Lotte. She talked all about Kurt Weill, and she told all - many stories about him - how he worked and what kind of a person he was and their relationship. And I was fascinated. It was so interesting. And I said, well, I - I'm going to do that from now on.

So I started talking all about Frank - about how he would work and how he'd get up at, you know - at 12 o'clock at night and his martini in the morning and that he always loved blue shirts and always wore them. And he would write notes. He drew, I must say, beautifully. And he would write me a note and make it like an airplane and throw it through the door. And it'd say, are you ready to go out now? How about, at say, 8 o'clock? I have 300 of his drawings that are wonderful, musing - he had great, great wit - drawings. And I talked all about his drawings and did some songs that weren't famous and all of that sort of thing. And Lenya's the one that helped me do that 'cause I saw how interesting it was to know those things.

GROSS: Well, I'm glad you've kept alive your memories of him and have shared them. And thank you for sharing some of them with us today. Thank you so much for talking with us.

LOESSER: And thank you so much for asking me. I really enjoyed it. Thank you.

BIANCULLI: Musical comedy star Jo Sullivan Loesser speaking with Terry Gross in 2006. Jo Sullivan Loesser starred in the original 1956 Broadway production of "The Most Happy Fella," where she met and married the show's composer and lyricist, Frank Loesser. He died in 1969. Jo Sullivan Loesser died Sunday at age 91. Coming up, Maureen Corrigan suggests two new books to add to your summer reading list. This is FRESH AIR.

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DAVID BIANCULLI, HOST:

This is FRESH AIR. Our book critic Maureen Corrigan says it's never too early to get a jump on summer reading. She has two good books she wants to recommend.

MAUREEN CORRIGAN, BYLINE: Save the experimental fiction for fall. Summertime reading is all about storytelling. As a preseason teaser, I'm recommending two new, very different novels that tell the kind of stories readers can get lost in. Sarah Blake writes in the historical fiction tradition of a Herman Wouk. In her 2009 bestseller "The Postmistress" and her latest door stopper "The Guest Book," multi-family dramas intersect with the larger forces of war and social upheaval.

"The Guest Book" opens with a domestic shocker. The year is 1935. The place is New York City. Kitty Milton and her husband Ogden are insulated from the anxieties of the Great Depression by a rock-solid fortification of old money. One afternoon, Kitty enters her family's hushed Upper East Side apartment after a pleasant interlude at the Philharmonic. She flings open a window in the master bedroom - remember, this is the pre-air conditioning era - and proceeds to freshen up. When Kitty looks in her mirror, she sees that her two sons have entered the room. And the rowdy older one, Neddy, age 5, has climbed onto the window seat, stood up and is about to toss his teddy bear out onto the street 14 stories below. Kitty calls his name, and Neddy falls out the open window.

That moment warps the fate of the Milton family for generations. But in the immediate aftermath, Ogden makes a desperate gesture to lift Kitty out of depression. He buys a mansion on a tiny island in Maine. It's there the Miltons and their descendants will summer for decades to come. And it's there that most but not all of the Miltons will fine-tune the WASP practice of shrouding tragedy and secrets in silence.

Blake is an accomplished storyteller, braiding in a large cast of characters and colorful excursions to places like pre-World War II Germany and 1950s Greenwich Village. She's also hip to the fact that this kind of lush historical novel, tied to the annual visits of a wealthy clan gathering to crack lobster tails by the sea, absolutely reeks of off-putting privilege and literary mothballs. No matter - "The Guest Book" proudly owns the appeal of an old-fashioned, sweeping storyline and in so doing complicates many of its characters beyond the shallow first impressions they make.

In fact, one of the most engaging characters here defends the essential human yearning for a good story. Kitty's granddaughter, Evie, is a professor of feminist medieval history. A postmodernist, Evie knows better than to believe that the past has a plot. And yet, she admits to herself that she longs against reason for the promise of a pattern, for the relief, the unbearable relief of an omniscient narrator. "The Guest Book" offers that relief and much more.

If "The Guest Book" is a kind of Victorian novel with a gloss of contemporary self-consciousness, "The Last" by British author Hanna Jameson is an unusual thriller in which Agatha Christie's "And Then There Were None" collides with Stephen King's "The Shining" and Nevil Shute's apocalyptic chestnut "On The Beach."

The premise alone is golden. An historian named Jon Keller is attending a conference at a grand, but remote, hotel in Switzerland when the world ends. According to news reports that quickly peter out, a nuclear holocaust has wiped out Washington, New York, Berlin and on and on. The 20 survivors left in the hotel after others have taken off debate the wisdom of walking to faraway Zurich or staying put and waiting for the nuclear cloud.

When the water in the hotel begins to taste funky, Jon and some other guests climb to the roof to investigate the water towers. In one, they find the corpse of a young girl who's been murdered. "The Last" raises the moral question of whether one isolated murder would still matter given what appears to be the erasure of most of the people on the planet. Jameson presents her story in the form of a diary that Jon writes, so there's a you-are-there vividness to the events.

Here, for instance, is an entry from day 27 of Jon's stay in post-apocalyptic limbo. (Reading) I'm sure I heard guitar music last night. I went for a walk, which was terrifying even by candlelight, and tried to locate the room it was coming from. But I couldn't find it. Fourteen floors, almost a thousand rooms, and I didn't see or hear a single person.

Like "The Guest Book," "The Last" tells a story readers will get lost in. But it's also a story you'll be very relieved to escape from.

BIANCULLI: Maureen Corrigan teaches literature at Georgetown University. She reviewed "The Guest Book" by Sarah Blake and "The Last" by Hanna Jameson.

On Monday's FRESH AIR, why would anyone want to revisit the awkwardness of their middle school years? We talked with Maya Erskine and Anna Konkle who do just that in their Hulu series "PEN15," which they created and in which they star. Also, John and Molly Chester tell us about creating an environmentally sustainable farm, the subject of their documentary "The Biggest Little Farm." Hope you can join us.

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BIANCULLI: FRESH AIR's executive producer is Danny Miller. Our technical director and engineer is Audrey Bentham, with additional engineering support from Joyce Lieberman and Julian Herzfeld. Our associate producer for digital media is Molly Seavy-Nesper. Roberta Shorrock directs the show. For Terry Gross, I'm David Bianculli.

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