AYESHA RASCOE, HOST:
Ruth doesn't fit in. And the entire point of her insular religious community is to fit in. Ruth tells jokes. Ruth has ideas. She reads everything she can get her hands on, but those choices are pretty limited.
KATE RILEY: (Reading) It took Ruth trial and mortifying error to learn what of the Bible was now accurate only in metaphor. Ethiopians, Jews and Greeks still existed. Pharisees, Samaritans and barbarians did not. Magi still existed as Persians. Leprosy still existed. Pharaohs did not. At Saracens, Moors and eunuchs, Ruth wondered. Not to mention all that the Bible didn't - China, India, America, outer space. The library's encyclopedias, clear and sedative beside the Bible's cryptic thrills, still misled. Ruth lived for decades in an alternate reality containing Zanzibar and dipsomania.
RASCOE: (Laughter) "Ruth" is the main character and the title of a new novel by Kate Riley, who joins us now. Welcome to the program.
RILEY: Thank you so much.
RASCOE: Tell us about this community that Ruth is born into. What do they believe?
RILEY: So they're - the community is in the Peace Church tradition, which would be the Amish, the Friends. It's a group that came from Europe. They were persecuted by the Catholics because they didn't believe in infant baptism. They thought that everybody who wanted to be a Christian should make that decision as an adult. That was a hot take (laughter)...
RASCOE: Back in the day.
RILEY: ...In the Middle Ages (laughter).
RASCOE: Back in the day.
RILEY: Back in the day.
RASCOE: Yeah, it's a big deal, yeah.
RILEY: So they don't have any private property. They share everything in common. They don't have any official hierarchy. Like, you come to decision through consensus and prayer. It's sort of, like, being in summer camp your whole life.
RASCOE: (Laughter) Yes.
RILEY: Like, when you get to share all your appliances, or get to - have to share all your appliances...
RASCOE: Yeah.
RILEY: ...With your closest neighbors. You don't have quite as much to worry about, except you got a lot more, like, community negotiation to do, to make sure people are getting what they want, when they want it.
RASCOE: What is it like for Ruth in particular? - because, as we said, she is very curious. She is kind of questioning. She has a lot of thought. She's trying to figure things out.
RILEY: It is in a lot of ways based on my experience in a community like that, and I - I'm a very inquisitive person, like, often to my detriment, but, like, just wanting to know how things work, wanting to know what's going on outside and inside, and not knowing whether that curiosity is itself kind of a bad thing. Like, should I just be content with the information I'm given? 'Cause a lot of people seem really good with that. Like, that (laughter) - that seems to satisfy a lot of people, and what's wrong with me that I want to know everything about everything? That was something that I felt constantly.
And I didn't grow up in a community like that. I had the information of, you know, growing up in New York City and, like, having access to all sorts of internet. But I wanted to, like, explore what it would be like if you didn't come from a place of total access but had that same drive to, like, see the world and know what people were thinking and know what the rules were in other places or why the rules were the rules. Like, all that stuff is so interesting to me.
RASCOE: I hate to do this to an author 'cause it's not that Ruth is you. But...
RILEY: (Laughter).
RASCOE: ...Is Ruth kind of your exploration of your own - some of your own thoughts?
RILEY: Yeah. I mean, it's real weird to know that basically a slice of my brain is now being sold as fiction.
RASCOE: (Laughter).
RILEY: Yeah. A lot of her interior life is based on my own - and my own, you know, worries about being bad or worries about why do I feel different or why is something that seems so easy for other people really tough for me? But I think I definitely was not the only person struggling with any of those questions there.
RASCOE: What happened there? Or how did you end up in joining the community, and how long did you stay and all of that?
RILEY: It was the kind of thing where - I mean, I was preoccupied with being a good person, and I studied philosophy in college, and I did not find any answers or any that, like, seemed to track in real life. And when I met the kids from this community, to see people who seemed so sincerely, like, kind and thoughtful and hardworking in a way that I couldn't twist into, well, they were just naive or they were just deluded. Like, they were smart and engaged.
And it was, like, the first time I'd seen a group of young people, specifically, who seemed to be able to both, like, talk and act on moral beliefs. But they just happened to exist in this weird, cloistered place that the only way to learn about it is to go there and do it. I can't get this information remotely. I have to go and try it for myself.
RASCOE: So you tried it. How long were you there?
RILEY: I mean, all told, about a year of living in that community and then time beforehand sort of visiting or trying for shorter times. And it was some of the happiest time of my life.
RASCOE: Why did you choose to write this novel, like, as a series of glimpses into Ruth's life over the years, like, these vignettes?
RILEY: Well, one, it's a real easy way for me (laughter) to write. I can't hold big thoughts in my brain. So (laughter) it's nice to just have, like - to focus on a moment or a memory. There are two books by a writer named Evan S. Connell, that are "Mrs. Bridge" and "Mr. Bridge," and they are biographies basically of his parents, but they're told in the same way.
And the first time I read them in high school, I was, like, oh, this is - he figured it out. Like, this is the best way to tell anybody's story 'cause that's all, like, my experience of being a human. Like, you're not having these sort of sweeping thoughts about your own narrative. You're just moving through the day. You're like, you know, having a weird interaction on the subway and then sort of getting lost in thought, looking out the window.
And so telling a story in just those actual moments gives you a much better sense of what this person is like day to day. I like specifics. I like lists of nouns. I like particular moments and feelings and phrases. And that was why I chose to do it that way.
RASCOE: This community in the book - I think some people reading it - and I was reading it, too, like, is someone going to come out? Is there going to be an abuse scandal?
RILEY: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
RASCOE: Is there going to be some, you know, violence or abuse? That's not there. It's very gentle, mundane. But it does seem like with Ruth in that community - it's not that she is harmed, but Ruth doesn't seem all that happy. Does that matter, the personal happiness of Ruth?
RILEY: I think I - aside from the time when I lived in that community, I have basically been told, like, do what makes you happy. Like, that is the, like, resounding message that I've grown up with is, like, your happiness is of prime importance, and whatever you need to do to find it is, like, the right thing to do. And I've still been kind of grumpy a lot, like, grumpy as euphemism.
Like, I've been (laughter) very unhappy at times in my life. And when I was living there, something that I heard from, like, lifetime members, something that I saw and something I absolutely believe is, like, no particular lifestyle is ever going to spare you the basic difficulty of being a human being. Like, nothing, like, not that you...
RASCOE: Of existing 'cause it is hard to exist.
RILEY: Like, as long as you love things in the world, you are going to be hurt in the world. And no marriage is easy. No relationship with your children is 100% good, no matter where you are. And there are definitely systems that I think make it more humane or more fair. But I think a lot of the things that that character and I struggle with are things that would be struggles as long as you are conscious. I mean, yeah, like, that's about having a brain rather than where that brain happens to be (laughter).
RASCOE: On the book jacket, under your author photo, it says, this is your last book. Why?
RILEY: (Laughter) I got to set the bar real low, Ayesha. It is so nerve-wracking to me that anyone would expect more (laughter). So if I manage to achieve anything after this, it will be a nice surprise.
RASCOE: That's a way to look at it.
(LAUGHTER)
RASCOE: Kate Riley, author of "Ruth," her first, but maybe not her last, book.
RILEY: (Laughter).
RASCOE: Thank you so much for joining us.
RILEY: Thank you so much, Ayesha.
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