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TONYA MOSLEY, HOST:

This is FRESH AIR. I'm Tonya Mosley, and my guest today is novelist Tayari Jones. She wrote her first novel more than two decades ago, but it was her fourth, "An American Marriage," that put her into the national spotlight. When it came out in 2018, Oprah chose it for her book club, and Barack Obama put it on his reading list. It went on to win the Women's Prize for Fiction and has been published in more than a dozen countries, praised as a compassionate portrait of love and justice.

By any measure, Tayari Jones had arrived until she hit a wall, spending years on a new project that just wouldn't come together. During that time, she was diagnosed with Graves' disease, and her heart rate was so high she nearly had a stroke. Even as her vision suffered, though, she put an eye patch on and kept writing, and what came out on the other side is "Kin," her latest novel set in 1950s Louisiana and Atlanta.

It's about two girls, Vernice and Annie, who grow up next door to each other without their mothers. One mother was murdered. The other simply left. That shared wound binds them, but their lives take them in different directions - one to Spelman College and Atlanta's Black elite and the other on a journey through the Jim Crow South in search of the mother who had abandoned her. With just one word for a title, Jones asks the question the entire novel is built around - who is your kin? Is it blood or something more profound? Tayari Jones, welcome to FRESH AIR.

TAYARI JONES: Thank you for having me.

MOSLEY: You know, I mentioned in my introduction that this book came after a difficult period in your life. It also came after "An American Marriage," after all of the accolades. You tried to write something. It just didn't come together, and then you got sick. And then you wrote this story. And what was it about this particular story of two women that broke through when nothing else really could?

JONES: You know, that question remains rather mysterious for me because I've never before had a novel kind of come to me. You know, you hear all these other writers saying, oh, you know, it came to me in a dream or I'm just a vessel. I was never the just a vessel type of writer. I'm not a controlling writer. Like, I don't know the end of the book, but I do tend to know what the book is about. So just imagine I'm contracted to write a modern novel about gentrification, you know, in the New South, in the 2000s, but the story wasn't coming together. Well, how can I put it? It's like, have you ever known anyone that plays in a jazz band, and they say, oh, the band was really swinging tonight or the band...

MOSLEY: Yeah.

JONES: ...Wasn't swinging?

MOSLEY: Yes.

JONES: The novel was not swinging, OK? It just was not. And you know what Ella Fitzgerald and them told us about that. It - if it, you know - what is it? It ain't got a thing if it ain't got that swing?

MOSLEY: That swing, right (laughter).

JONES: It was not...

MOSLEY: Yes.

JONES: It just - I felt like I was using hammers and nails and saws, and I was making a racket when I should have been making music. And I finally just pulled out a piece of paper and just decided to write with the pencil like I did when I was a child and just write to kind of entertain and comfort myself. Like you said, I had been ill. Things - you know, we were just after the pandemic. We had lost people. Just - it was just a lot going on. And I just started to write, not with an eye toward a contract or with what social statement I wanted to make about gentrification in the New South. I just started to write to see what was there in my mind. Who could come to me during this moment? And I met Annie and Vernice. But when I saw that they were living in the 1950s, I thought...

MOSLEY: Yes.

JONES: Well, clearly, clearly, clearly, these are the parents of my characters because I am not a historical novelist.

MOSLEY: Right. Slow down here, though, because you have solidly said over and over - and all your writing shows to be true - that you are a contemporary novelist. So, I mean, to go back to the 1950s and to also focus on friendship and sisterhood, what happened? Like, this all sounds kind of mystical, but, like, it just came to you.

JONES: I know. I felt like, you know, I felt like I was in - I don't know if I'm showing my age, but I felt like Marty McFly. Like, I went back to the future. I went to the past, and I felt like, creatively, I was looking around being like, why is everyone dressed like this? What has happened to me? But I think I know where it came from, finally. In hindsight, I think I know. You know, I...

MOSLEY: Yes?

JONES: ...Moved back home to Atlanta eight years ago. And I moved back home to Atlanta because I wanted an opportunity to get to know my parents as an adult. I wanted us to talk as, you know, as adults. Like, in the book, when Aunt Irene says to Niecy, you know, we're going to sit down and talk like two grown women - that, I think, was my fantasy, that I was going to come home and have these kinds of conversations with my elders. But it has become clear to me that that is not their fantasy.

But I think that my imagination took me back to my mother's era. My mother was a child civil rights activist, and so this is the world from which she sprung. And I think - and my dad is from a small town in Louisiana. So I think - you know how they say meet people where they are? I think this was me not meeting my parents where they are, but meeting them where they were.

MOSLEY: I want to ask you a little bit about your health. How is your health right now? And what a time to be writing it at the moment that you also discovered you had Graves' disease.

JONES: I feel like Graves' disease, even to say one discovers it, it is not a subtle thing. It is a horrible - it's an autoimmune disorder. Actually very common. But when the doctor said Graves' disease, I said, come again? He said, not - Thomas Graves, not the grave, which was helpful because I was not sure. But I was so sick, and it came out of nowhere. Like, I was well, and then I wasn't. And I didn't tell anyone. There's a certain shame associated with illness. Like, I didn't tell anyone until I was better.

And I wish that I had told people earlier, because when I finally kind of mentioned having Graves' disease - I put it on Facebook when - 'cause everyone was saying, what took you so long to write this book? And I was thinking, I have been going through it. So many people I know, particularly Black women, have these autoimmune disorders that affect, you know, the endocrine system. Thyroid diseases. But it would have been so helpful to know other people who've experienced this.

MOSLEY: Well, "Kin" is such a powerful contribution. And I'd like for you to read a passage. You mentioned the characters' names, Annie and Vernice. They are young women who grew up with each other. And as I mentioned in the intro, they were motherless children. And this passage that I'd like for you to read, they've now set off on their own paths - Vernice to Atlanta for college at Spelman, and Annie in search of her mother in Memphis. And in this passage, she's still on her travels to Memphis and she's preparing to write a letter to Vernice.

JONES: (Reading) Me and Niecy weren't sisters and nowhere near twins. I didn't have what she got, nor the other way around. What you have isn't the same as what binds you. Hearts grow strings because of what you know that's the same, what's happened to you that's the same and when what you want is the same. I was halfway back to the shack when I realized that I had envelopes and paper but no pencil to write with. It was all I could do not to cry at the story of my life.

MOSLEY: Thank you for reading that short passage. That sentence - hearts grow strings because of what you know that's the same - that is not a sentimental idea of friendship. That is something that is earned. And it is written with such simplicity but so much truth to female friendships in particular. Where does that come from for you?

JONES: I think during the time when I was writing this - trying to write this - getting geared up in the early 2020s, I lost a good friend quite suddenly to something mysterious, and I miss her. Her name is Aisha. I miss her so much. I miss Aisha every day. And so I can feel that sense of longing that Annie and Niecy have when they're far away from each other and her to be unable to write to her. It kind of feels the way you do when you, you know, lose a friend. You can't - you have things you want to say, and you cannot. And so I think I was kind of tapping into that, into my own feelings of grief, I guess. There's no other word for it. It's just grief and friendship. When you're friends with someone, you know, your name will not be listed in any obituary, but it breaks your heart to lose your friend.

MOSLEY: Let's take a short break. If you're just joining us, we're talking with novelist Tayari Jones. This is FRESH AIR.

This is FRESH AIR. My guest today is novelist Tayari Jones. Her new book, "Kin," is about two motherless girls in the 1950s, Louisiana, whose bond carries them on very different journeys in life. Jones was born and raised in Atlanta, Georgia, and went to Spelman College. Her first novel, "Leaving Atlanta," draws on her own experiences growing up during the Atlanta child murders from 1979 to 1981, following three fifth graders whose lives are shaped by fear and friendship and the struggle to survive in their city.

You use this device of letters. And these letters hold this friendship together. We're kind of learning who they are in a deeper way as they move through adulthood. And I found it very reminiscent of, like, when Celie writes to God and to Nettie in "The Color Purple." You are able to use this device to give us, like, a sense of their inner world and even the way that they're feeling about each other. You actually come from a letter-writing tradition yourself. What does...

JONES: It's true.

MOSLEY: Yeah. What does that act of writing a letter do in a friendship that a conversation really can't?

JONES: Well, one thing, when you put it - whatever it is, when you put it in writing, it's a little more emphatic than what you say. People speak flippantly, but they seldom write flippantly. Furthermore, with this being said, in the age it was, you know, Annie has to work hard for that stamp 'cause she's basically living in a sharecropping situation. It's a unique sharecropping situation. But when she has that - tries to write that letter to Niecy, she has to buy that stamp. She has to buy that pencil. So you don't waste, you know, you don't waste paper. You don't - it must be something urgent, worth the cost of a stamp.

And also, you spend time. Once you write the letter, you read it over. You think about it. You may edit it. And the letter serves three functions to its recipient. One, obviously, the information contained. Secondly, a letter is meaningful as a gesture - I thought of you. And third, the letter itself is a physical artifact of the relationship.

MOSLEY: You mention that Annie is kind of in a sharecropper situation, and I chuckled at that because what you're talking about is on her journey to find her mother in Memphis, where she believes - her mother that has abandoned her, she believes, lives in Memphis. She gets stuck at a brothel, and...

JONES: Indeed. Sharecropping brothel. Well, aren't - I guess all brothels are kind of sharecroppery, really.

MOSLEY: Well, explain that a little bit. And you really got into scene setting for this one. It sounds like it was fun to write.

JONES: It really was fun. Well, see, for me, as I was writing it, they went to this mysterious place, and it's called Lulabelle's. And when Lulabelle said to them, well, this here is a whorehouse, I was shocked. You could've knocked me over with a feather. I was as shocked as Annie. And then I thought, oh, you know what this book is doing? I think this story is swinging at this point.

MOSLEY: I'm so interested to know about the way that you see yourself as a - within the writing process, because the way you talk about it is as if these stories are literally moving through you, and you're just the vessel that's putting it on the page. Has it always been that way?

JONES: I don't like that. I don't want to be part of the vessel crew, but it did feel like that. There is a point in every novel I've written where something has happened that has surprised me. Like, a character will reveal their identity, and I will be like, no, get out. But when I look back at the story, I see the hints I had given myself. I liken kind of the first draft of a novel, it's very similar to lying. You know, I don't know if you have any young people in your life, but they will lie to you. And you can see them composing that lie as they tell it.

MOSLEY: (Laughter) Yes.

JONES: You know, they haven't outlined it. And you can even see when they surprise themself with the lie. It's kind of, like, almost like when people...

MOSLEY: Ooh, that's good. Right (laughter).

JONES: But you can - yeah, and then they're - but once they've told one portion of the lie - the dog ate my homework. It was a little bitty dog, and it was wearing a green sweater, and it was with the old lady who had knitted the sweater. You know? And then it goes on like that. Like, you just keep building upon it. And I feel like when I get in a scene, it's kind of like that. Like, I'm just - I'm imagining it. I'm involved, but I'm not in control. However, when it's time to revise, oh, I'm totally in control. No - I'm nobody's vessel when I have that red pen in my hand. I am my own professor.

MOSLEY: Oh, that's so interesting. Also, I'm curious about how the research comes into play here because this is a story that's set in the 1950s, and it feels emotionally true and set there. Everything around it feels like a historical piece, but there's something about it that also feels very contemporary in its execution. There's queer love that makes an appearance there in a very fluid way that feels true, but also feels kind of shocking for the time period. And I'm just curious about the research that you went in discovering these truths.

JONES: I read a fascinating memoir called "A Mighty Justice" (ph) by Dovey Johnson Roundtree, who attended Spelman College in the 1950s. And just reading - I read between the lines of her memoir. I mean, it was clear to me that her memoir was kind of written for an audience that was interested in her life in civil rights. She ended up being an attorney representing people who refused to give up their seats in public transportation. But I was looking at the way the culture was, and it occurred to me that everything we feel today people felt in the 1950s. They may not have had language for it. They may not pass this story down to us, but it's like, queer people were not just invented. You know, they've existed as long as people have existed. And so when the story went in that direction, it made sense to me.

MOSLEY: Tayari, I want to talk to you a little bit about your first book, "Leaving Atlanta." When did you know this was the first novel that you were going to write?

JONES: I actually knew it when I was too young to write it. When I was about 18 years old, I would babysit a little boy, and I'd pick him up from the bus stop and take him to tutor him in math. And once, I went to pick him up and he was not there, and it caused me what I now would call a panic attack, but I didn't have that language. I couldn't find him. I was looking for him. I went back to my dormitory, and I asked everyone to help me. I said, he's not there. Can you help me?

And the young women who came to help me look for him were all from Atlanta. But I thought this was just kind of hometown allegiance. But I now understood that they also had grown up during the Atlanta child murders. So this little boy being unaccounted for for five, 10 minutes registered to us as an emergency. The - you know, the girls from New York, from Philly, they said, oh, he's probably just, you know, at Popeyes getting some chicken. And by the way, that is exactly where he was.

MOSLEY: (Laughter).

JONES: But I could not...

MOSLEY: Yeah?

JONES: I could not bear not knowing where he was. And I said to myself, one day, I should write a book about this.

MOSLEY: And for those who aren't familiar with the Atlanta child murders, from 1979 to 1981 there were at least 28 Black American children and adolescents and adults in the Atlanta area who were murdered by a man who was later arrested and convicted of many of the murders, Wayne Williams. The worst of the Atlanta child murders actually happened from the time period when you were around 8 or 9 till about 10 or 11.

JONES: Yes. Two of the kids who were killed were students at my elementary school - were two boys who could not have been more different. One was very quiet and in the gifted class, and the other was - well, to me, he seemed like he was so much older than us, and he could - he rode a moped. But when I did my research, I saw he was only 13. He looked like such a baby when I looked at his pictures, you know, in newspaper clippings. But when I was, like, 9 or 10, he was this almost, like, this adult person that was in our class. And it frightened me because I felt like, oh, if this invincible person is vulnerable, then what's going to happen to us just regular kids?

MOSLEY: People ask you all the time if you believe that that experience kind of, like, stole your childhood. And you always say no. But I wonder, what do you call it, then, when you're 10 years old and you're worried about kids' stuff, like recess and all the fun things that you do as a 10-year-old, but you're also worried that you might get murdered?

JONES: I think that a lot of young people, a lot of children all over the world worry about if they're going to be murdered, but they're still children. To say - when people say, oh, you must not have had a childhood, childhood is a fundamental part of our human experience. So that's almost like someone asking me, oh, are you not a human being? You do not need ideal circumstances to be human. So, yes, I was a child. I remember - one of my key memories from that time is that when I was about 10 years old, I decided that I should have a training bra. Some other people had them. And I convinced my mother to take me to Sears and Roebuck. We were going to get this training bra. And the lady measured me with the measuring tape and smirked at my mother and said I needed a size 28AAA.

MOSLEY: (Laughter).

JONES: Which is essentially no brassiere at all.

MOSLEY: Nothing, yes.

JONES: And I knew they were mocking me. I didn't understand the sizing, but I knew they were mocking me, and I kind of flounced away. And, you know, in those department stores, they would have all the televisions on the wall that they're trying to sell all turned to the same channel. And I looked, and I saw the face of a boy I had gone to - that was in my elementary school. And so, for me, those two things, this very childish experience of this 28AAA bra and this murder, you know, of a classmate, they're the same thing to me, and I responded to it as a child. So everything I did, I did in a childish way because I was a child.

MOSLEY: Our guest today is novelist Tayari Jones. Her new book, "Kin," is about two motherless girls in the 1950s, Louisiana, whose bond carries them on very different journeys in life. We'll be right back after a short break. I'm Tonya Mosley, and this is FRESH AIR.

(SOUNDBITE OF THELONIOUS MONK'S "REMEMBER")

MOSLEY: This is FRESH AIR. I'm Tonya Mosley, and my guest today is novelist Tayari Jones. She's the author of five novels, including "An American Marriage," The Untelling" and "Silver Sparrow." Her new novel, "Kin," is about two motherless best friends growing up in the South in the 1950s. Jones grew up in Atlanta, and her parents were both academics and former civil rights activists. She attended Spelman College before earning graduate degrees at the University of Iowa and Arizona State University. Today, she's a professor of creative writing at Emory University and has received fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and Radcliffe Institute, among others. When we left off, we were talking about her first novel, "Leaving Atlanta," which is a coming-of-age story that centers on three fifth graders at the time of the Atlanta child murders of 1979. It was inspired by her experience of living through the tragedy as a child.

I wonder about the grief you feel. Does it change? Does it morph? Does it shift? Does it mature as you get older? You mentioned one of the boys that you knew from your school, and he seemed so big when you were a kid, but then as an adult, you can look back and just see how small and how young he was. And I wonder if time changes that emotional core for you when you look back and think about those young children whose lives were stolen.

JONES: I think in the moment, like, before I wrote "Leaving Atlanta," I couldn't find anything written about the experience from the point of view of those of us who were children. You know, there's Baldwin's famous "The Evidence Of Things Not Seen," Toni Cade Bambara's book, but they're all about the way adults who had, you know, participated in the Civil Rights Movement only to have the children be murdered. Because people - adults see children as symbolic, not as real people. Like, you know how people say that children are the future? So I think Baldwin and Bambara, they saw it as someone is preying upon our future. But children don't understand themselves as the future. As Margaret Atwood said - I think I'm probably misquoting her, but it's really close. She said something like, little children do not find one another to be cute to each other. They are life-sized. And I would say that Black children do not understand themselves to be the future. They are just who they are.

And - but when I started looking back as an adult, looking back on the murders, I started understanding myself as a symbolic creature, understanding the moment. I never - you know, think about it. I'm 10 years old. I'm not saying, wow, we're just 20 years post-civil rights or 15 years post-civil rights.

MOSLEY: Right.

JONES: That would never occur to me. But now I can understand myself in that context, understand Atlanta as a symbolic space. Like, wow, these children were being murdered just blocks from where, you know, Martin Luther King grew up. What does that mean? So I think as you get older, you can start assigning meaning, where when you're young, you only have feeling.

MOSLEY: I'm thinking about what this means for what you choose to write overall because 20 years after "Leaving Atlanta," you're still kind of writing - even though the stories are taking on a different story altogether, this latest book, for instance, "Kin," you're still writing about children who encounter violence before they have language for it. So I'm thinking about Vernice - how she witnesses her mother's murder as a baby and she doesn't speak for the first years of her life. Do you think that there's something about maybe what happens to a person when the worst thing comes before there are words for it that you find yourself coming back to?

JONES: I mean, I'm nobody's neuroscientist, but I do think that even in little things that once you find a word for something, you understand it differently, which is one of the reasons why I think the internet can be so dangerous. I feel like the internet has given us so many reasons, so many words to describe our bodies and find problems with our bodies. Like, once there's language for a body defect, you start to believe it's a real thing. I think that's true for feelings - lots of things. Yes, like, even when I said I had a panic attack but I didn't have that language.

MOSLEY: Yeah.

JONES: Now that I can tell you it was a panic attack, I can tell you what happened. At the time, I just knew I just felt ill and cold and confused and dizzy, which is very different than me being able to say, I had a panic attack.

MOSLEY: Man, I find that in your writing. It's so interesting because if I'm thinking about the characters in this book "Kin," there's a lot of language. I think maybe that's what makes it feel contemporary, is that you're putting language to an experience that they didn't have.

JONES: But I don't - I think it was very important to me that I not be anachronistic by putting words that didn't exist yet to feelings...

MOSLEY: Yeah.

JONES: ...That did exist. And so I had to figure out with the language that they had access to, how then can they describe this experience? That was the real challenge, I think, of writing historically. Like, for example, you can't - like, you can't use the term reproductive justice. Well, you can't use that anyway in fiction. It's not a fictiony term. But you - I had to figure out, how can I talk about unplanned pregnancy before people used words like unplanned? Like, Planned Parenthood made us start saying planned and unplanned pregnancies. Before that, people didn't call it that.

MOSLEY: You had to figure that out - because it does happen in the book, where there is a situation in that way - without using those words.

JONES: And here's something, too. I mean, I don't know if this is relevant, but whenever people create new words, it's because the existing words aren't getting the job done. That's why people get - that's why people create brand-new words. It's just that when poor people, Black people, create new words, it's considered bad English. But other people create words all the time, as well. The corporate - like, corporate America has created so many words and it's fine, like, you know, because I think they have respect. But people create new language. They take the language we have and they bend it. I mean, I think that that's one of my favorite things about Black people, is the way that we take this language of English that has been kind of imposed upon us and bend it to suit our needs. Like, nobody can turn a phrase like a Black person.

MOSLEY: You know, I've really been reflecting on this recently with the death of Jesse Jackson because he was one of the first to really champion Ebonics and to say, well, we need to embrace Ebonics. We need to understand this is a form of language that should be respected and it's an American contribution. And back then, there was just lots of, like, pushback on that, even among Black folk. And now, you know, some 40 years later, so many Black words and sayings are part of the international lexicon, you know, in a very profound way. We use this language just in everyday language, you know?

JONES: And I think that Black - just like Black cooking, Black music, Black - all manner of Black vernacular culture has - you know, I think Black people have been believed to be kind of the arbiters of hip. And so Black language, Black music, Black dances, all these things have become this American export. But I once met a linguist, and he was saying that you can tell that something is a language rather than merely a dialect if it has words that cannot be translated. He argues that African American vernacular English has words like trifling that cannot be translated.

MOSLEY: (Laughter) Yeah. Did you use trifling in "Kin" - in this book?

JONES: Annie's mother is trifling.

MOSLEY: Yeah (laughter). Yes, you do.

JONES: Annie's mother - yes. And trifling can be used to be something as insignificant as you're a person that only lotions the parts of your body that show. That is trifling, is it not?

MOSLEY: (Laughter).

JONES: Just those shiny shins and the ashy knees. That's trifling. But it's also trifling to abandon your children. You see what I mean? Like, not paying child support is also trifling. So trifling can be small, it can be large, but it has something in common that speaks to a certain moral. It's like a moral failing that can be scaled up, it can be scaled down.

MOSLEY: Let's take a short break. If you're just joining us, we're talking with novelist Tayari Jones. We'll be right back after a break. This is FRESH AIR.

This is FRESH AIR. My guest today is novelist Tayari Jones. I mentioned, Tayari, that your parents were both civil rights workers before you were born. Your mother has this amazing story. She was 15 when she helped organize sit-ins in Oklahoma City. And your father was expelled from college in Louisiana for demonstrating. What did it mean to grow up in a house like that?

JONES: I mean, I grew up with an expectation that whatever one chose to do with her life, it needed to be in the service of, like, race work. I knew that, you know, Mommy had participated in the sit-ins when she was just a teenager. And Daddy had been expelled. Daddy went through so much to go to college. And he put it all on the line and, you know, was punished for it.

And also, I grew up in Atlanta, where we all live in the shadow of Martin Luther King. I remember when I was a kid, I had a teacher who used to look at us. Like, let's say you did something trifling, like, you know, didn't do your homework or didn't properly groom yourself. She would just look at you with sadness, more in sadness than in anger, and say to you, that is not what Dr. King died for.

MOSLEY: (Laughter) Wow.

JONES: So you constantly knew that this was - you know, Dr. King had died for you, and here you are, you can't even put on lotion. So there was that kind of sense.

MOSLEY: You went to Spelman at 16 years old. Did you skip grades?

JONES: I did, I did. I skipped grades very early. I remember when I was 4, I did half the day in the kindergarten, the other half a day in the first grade. And the art teacher would come and see me in both spaces. And the art teacher said to me, oh, do you have a sister? Because there's a little girl in the kindergarten that looks just like you. And I said, I do - we're twins. And she said, oh, well, why is your twin sister in the kindergarten and you're in the first grade? And I said, she's slow, but she's sensitive. Don't say anything.

MOSLEY: Tayari.

JONES: And so I had this lady thinking I was a set of twins for, like, a month and a half until my teacher said, Tayari is not a set of twins. She's one person. So I was always younger than my classmates. And I have to say, I do not recommend that people skip children in this way because you really encourage children to build their identity around something that becomes less significant with every passing day.

MOSLEY: Oh.

JONES: That moment when I was 4 and they were 6, they were 50% older than me. Now we're all the same age. They're two years ahead. I'm 55. They're 57. We are the same age.

MOSLEY: Well, that's true. But I wonder, going into college at 16, I mean, Spelman of all places, because it was a women's college, what was it actually like in the inside?

JONES: When I arrived at Spelman College in 1987, it was the year that Spelman College inaugurated our first Black woman president, Dr. Johnnetta B. Cole, who, if you've ever met her, is the most formidable person I have ever met. And she came into college when I came into college. So we were, in a way, new. We were freshmen together. She was our - you know, it was her first year as the president.

And she said to me, once I ran into her crossing campus - she has this big voice. And she said, (imitating Dr. Johnnetta B. Cole) Tayari, how is the writing? And I didn't have any writing to show her. But I said, the next time I see her, I'm going to have something to say. And I was so moved that she remembered that I had mentioned that I wanted to be a writer. And she, like - it's like she held me to that.

And all of the most exciting Black women in the country came to Spelman when we were there. You know, so I was able to have breakfast with Toni Morrison, who had not been told she was having breakfast with me. And she wasn't that excited about it. But I was excited enough for both of us.

MOSLEY: You and Toni Morrison? Just the two of you?

JONES: And she was not happy about it. They did not tell her that a very eager 18-year-old was coming for breakfast. But there -and this was back, too, when people used to could smoke in public (laughter). And she was smoking a cigarette. And I said to her, ma'am, did you know that today is the Great American Smokeout? Remember there was that day when people weren't supposed to smoke?

MOSLEY: Yes.

JONES: And she inhaled on that cigarette and kind of languidly exhaled that smoke and said, no, ma'am, I was not aware.

MOSLEY: (Laughter) Well, here's my thought in hearing you tell this story. You went to college knowing that you wanted to write. But as you're encountering these legends, did you see yourself as one? How were you thinking about yourself in the midst of all of them?

JONES: Well, I will tell you, I took a writing, creative - I saw a creative writing class listed in, you know, the bulletin for what courses were coming up. And I did not know that people could take a class in writing. I thought - you know how, like, you know some people in your life who can sing? I thought writing was like that. Like, some people can sing, some people can write. But I didn't know that you could take it in school. And so I decided I was going to take this creative writing class. But it was not - freshmen were not allowed to take the class. And, frankly, I thought this was discrimination.

And I really wanted to take the class. And this was in the '80s, when there were no computers. If you wanted to take a class you didn't have the permission to take, you just needed your adviser's signature. And it was a little honor system-y. And I had seen my adviser's signature, and it wasn't much of a signature. It was more of a squiggle.

MOSLEY: Tayari (laughter). Yeah.

JONES: And I was thinking, like, let's just say, hypothetically, maybe I could replicate this squiggle. And maybe that could be a kind of civil disobedience, because I did think it was wrong that I was not allowed to take the class. And I thought it over. And I just wanted it so bad. And I may have squiggled. And I took the class, and there I met Pearl Cleage. I met a writer, and she was my teacher. And I sat right there in the front. And I hung on her every word.

And one day, she said to me, what are you thinking about these days? And I got ready to tell her and she said to me, no, don't tell me. Write it down. And with that, she became my first audience. And she took me seriously, and so I took myself seriously. And that is when I feel like I became a writer because I became one in my own head. And I had an audience.

MOSLEY: Tayari Jones, thank you so much for this book. It's been a balm for me. And I thank you for this conversation.

JONES: I enjoyed it. Thank you so much.

MOSLEY: Tayari Jones' new book is called "Kin." Coming up, David Bianculli reviews the latest TV shows so far this year. This is FRESH AIR.

TONYA MOSLEY, HOST:

This is FRESH AIR. It's only a month or so into the new year, and already our TV critic David Bianculli feels way behind. So today, he's going to attempt a TV-reviewing equivalent of speed dating and cover as much ground as quickly as possible. Here are his reviews.

DAVID BIANCULLI, BYLINE: "The Pitt" on HBO Max doesn't need much explanation. It just won an Emmy as outstanding drama series for its first season, and Noah Wyle just won best actor in his starring role of Dr. Robby. New episodes roll out Thursdays through April. I'm enjoying the second season just as much for the small moments as well as the big, intense ones. In one recent episode, a couple is being treated after being in a road accident, and the husband regains consciousness to learn from Dr. Robby that his wife is in critical condition.

(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "THE PITT")

UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #1: (As character, crying) Please don't - my God, please don't let her die. Please.

NOAH WYLE: (As Michael Robinavitch) I can assure you that she is in excellent hands.

UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #1: (As character) Is this how it works?

UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #2: (As character) How what works?

UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #1: (As character) You think things are important - that everything's so important - and then you end up here and see.

WYLE: (As Dr. Michael Robinavitch) Yeah, that is how it works.

BIANCULLI: Health - mental, as well as physical - also is at the heart of "Shrinking," which recently began its third season on Apple TV. One therapist, played by Harrison Ford, has developed Parkinson's and reluctantly visits a specialist. In the waiting room is another patient, who strikes up a conversation. The patient is played in what turns out to be a very moving guest spot by Michael J. Fox.

(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "SHRINKING")

MICHAEL J FOX: (As Gerry) What are you in for?

HARRISON FORD: (As Paul) Parkinson's. You?

FOX: (As Gerry) Just a haircut. (Laughter) I usually get more of a laugh than that.

FORD: (As Paul) Sorry. I'm just going through it today.

FOX: (As Gerry) You look good. Your voice is firm. Makes you sound wise.

FORD: (As Paul) Yeah, I am quite wise.

FOX: (As Gerry) How's your balance?

FORD: (As Paul) Not bad. The stupid exercises help.

FOX: (As Gerry) Me, I fall three times a day. I'm thinking of taking up stunt work.

FORD: (As Paul, laughing).

BIANCULLI: Another show rolling out weekly episodes, at least through the end of February, is the six-episode "Game Of Thrones" prequel, shown Sundays on HBO and HBO Max. It's called "A Knight Of The Seven Kingdoms" and is set about a hundred years before "Game Of Thrones." I've seen the whole season and was surprised by how much I enjoyed it. Peter Claffey plays a wannabe knight - a towering hulk of a man named Ser Duncan the Tall. Dexter Sol Ansell plays his tiny, bald-headed squire - a kid nicknamed Egg. And the two of them are a very funny, charming, odd couple indeed.

(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "A KNIGHT OF THE SEVEN KINGDOMS")

DEXTER SOL ANSELL: (As Egg) Do you think I'll ever make a knight one day?

PETER CLAFFEY: (As Ser Duncan The Tall) Sure. Why not? You're a likely lad.

DEXTER: (As Egg) I'm a bit puny...

CLAFFEY: (As Ser Duncan The Tall) You'll grow.

DEXTER: (As Egg) ...Even for my age. Everyone's always told me so.

CLAFFEY: (As Ser Duncan The Tall) Everyone's always told me I was stupid.

DEXTER: (As Egg) And?

CLAFFEY: (As Ser Duncan The Tall) Hmm?

DEXTER: (As Egg) Hmm? What?

CLAFFEY: (As Ser Duncan The Tall) What?

DEXTER: (As Egg) What did you do when people said you were stupid, Ser?

CLAFFEY: (As Ser Duncan The Tall) What business is that of yours? My problems are my own.

BIANCULLI: Other recent TV shows are out there in their entirety already, but deserve mention. All eight episodes of "Down Cemetery Road," an enjoyable and impressive mystery series starring Emma Thompson and Ruth Wilson, are available on Apple TV. And a second season is in the works, which is great news because Emma Thompson is playing one of the quirkiest, funniest TV detectives since Peter Falk starred as Columbo.

And "Wonder Man," the newest Disney+ entry in the Marvel Universe, recently dropped all eight episodes at once. It stars Yahya Abdul-Mateen II as Simon Williams, an actor who has some superhuman abilities he's trying to hide while auditioning for the movie role of a superhero. Helping him is Sir Ben Kingsley as Trevor, a veteran washed-up actor who was introduced in an "Iron Man" movie as an actor impersonating a villain. Kingsley is so much fun in this expanded look at Trevor, he won me over immediately. Here he is taking Simon on a tour of his souvenir-filled apartment, littered with old VHS tapes, scripts and even a prop skull from his stage days. Simon reacts admiringly to some of the memorabilia.

(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "WONDER MAN")

YAHYA ABDUL-MATEEN II: (As Simon Williams) "Coronation Street." You played Ron Jenkins, right?

BEN KINGSLEY: (As Trevor Slattery) Well done. A pint of bitter, please, and one for my friend.

MATEEN: (As Simon Williams, laughing).

KINGSLEY: (As Trevor Slattery) Every Brit did their stint. The producers were thrilled to get me after my run as Lear. Oh, careful with that.

(SOUNDBITE OF FOOTSTEPS)

KINGSLEY: (As Trevor Slattery) There's a tradition in the theater of handing down your prop to the next generation. This particular skull's had quite the journey. It was used by David Garrick when he played Hamlet. He gave it to Kean, who passed it to Irvine, who passed it to Burton, who left it in a bar and I nicked it.

BIANCULLI: And I'll end with a shoutout to "Sunday Best," the Netflix documentary about Ed Sullivan that I think everyone should enjoy and be surprised by. I always knew that Sullivan, with his popular CBS variety show, was a longtime champion of minority artists, but until this documentary, I never fully understood why. I'll close with this story and performance by Harry Belafonte, who in 1950 was in danger of being blacklisted for his support of civil rights and certain communist causes.

(SOUNDBITE OF DOCUMENTARY, "SUNDAY BEST")

HARRY BELAFONTE: He wanted to talk to me personally, so he invited me to come to his hotel. He said, I'm told that I can't have you on my show because you are very favorable towards the communist ideology and that you're out there making mischief. That's not in the best interests of our country. And I said, oh, Mr. Sullivan, everything that you have suggested I'm guilty of having done is true, but tell me something. When the Irish did battle with the British, the rebel mood was considered quite heroic by all the Irish citizens in the world. Explain to me what the difference is when those of us of color also strike out against the same oppression. The Irish rebels who do that are heroic. Black rebels who do that are not patriotic. We thought this was not about loyalty to the nation, it's about loyalty to the human condition, and our humanity was being terribly brutalized.

I left the meeting with nothing really resolved. And I couldn't have been back in the office more than an hour or two, then I got a call from my agent, and he said, I don't know what you said to Ed Sullivan, but you're on the show.

(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "THE ED SULLIVAN SHOW")

ED SULLIVAN: Now, ladies and gentlemen, here's the moment we've all been waiting for. Here's one of the great artists of our country and one of the greatest artists of the world. Here is Harry Belafonte.

(APPLAUSE)

BELAFONTE: (Singing) Good morning, Captain, good morning, sun. Oh, well, it's good morning, Captain, good morning sun. Don't you need another muleskinner out on your new mule run?

MOSLEY: David Bianculli is FRESH AIR's TV critic.

On tomorrow's show, actor Stellan Skarsgard. He's won a Golden Globe and earned an Oscar nomination for his performance in the film "Sentimental Value." He'll talk about his many roles over the years and recovering from a stroke that impaired his ability to memorize lines. I hope you can join us. To keep up with what's on the show and get highlights of our interviews, follow us on Instagram @NPRfreshair.

(SOUNDBITE OF KENNY SMITH'S "HALF STEP")

MOSLEY: FRESH AIR's executive producer is Sam Briger. Our technical director and engineer is Audrey Bentham. Our interviews and reviews are produced and edited by Phyllis Myers, Ann Marie Baldonado, Lauren Krenzel, Therese Madden, Monique Nazareth, Thea Chaloner, Susan Nyakundi, Anna Bauman and Nico Gonzalez-Wisler. Our digital media producer is Molly Seavy-Nesper. Roberta Shorrock directs the show. With Terry Gross, I'm Tonya Mosley.

(SOUNDBITE OF KENNY SMITH'S "HALF STEP")

Transcripts are created on a rush deadline, and accuracy and availability may vary. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Please be aware that the authoritative record of Fresh Air interviews and reviews are the audio recordings of each segment.