Ep. 383 Oakland’s Incredible Legacy with Alexis Madrigal

Written By Wy'Kia Frelot

Journalist, Alexis Madrigal, joins the Stacks to discuss his debut book, The Pacific Circuit: A Globalized Account of the Battle for the Soul of an American City—the “American city” in question being Oakland, CA. Today, Alexis gives us insight into why he wanted to tell the story of Oakland in particular, and why it matters in broader national and global context. He also explains how COVID impacted this book, both his personal writing process and the city of Oakland at large.

For the month of August, the Stacks Book Club pick will be Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer. We will discuss the book on Wednesday, August 27th with Alexis Madrigal returning as our guest.

 
 

Everything we talk about on today’s episode can be found below in the show notes and on Bookshop.org and Amazon.

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TRANSCRIPT
*Due to the nature of podcast advertising, these timestamps are not 100% accurate and will vary.

Alexis Madrigal 0:00

I didn't even know that bookseller is this like craft, and yet it is. That's what I've learned over the last, like, you know, four years of doing the show, that it's like it really is a craft, and that hand selling books to people doing these kinds of recommendations are such a beautiful part of, like, our literary world, and they, and mostly they're like, young people who are nerds and love books, you know. And that's like, that's the nerd book loving job out there, you know.

Traci Thomas 0:29

Welcome to the stacks, a podcast about books and the people who read them. I'm your host, Traci Thomas, and today I am joined by Alexis Madrigal. Alexis is a journalist. He is also an author. His new book is called The Pacific circuit, a globalized account of the battle for the soul of an American city. The book is all about Oakland, California. Alexis lives there I am from there. We dig into the city and our love for it, and also talk about how this book expands the lens on Oakland to tell a bigger story about the world. We also talked today about Alexis other job, which is being a host of the forum show on KQED radio in the Bay Area, his commitment to running an ultra marathon, and of course, all of the books that Alexis loves most, quick reminder everything we talk about on each episode of the stacks can be found in the link in the show notes. The stacks book club pick for August is braiding sweet grass, indigenous wisdom, scientific knowledge and the teachings of plants. By Robin wall Kimmerer. We will be discussing the book on Wednesday, August 27 with Alexis Madrigal. Quick reminder, everything we talk about on each episode of the stacks can be found in the link in the show notes, if you love the stacks, if one episode a week isn't enough, if you want inside, access into the world of books and what I'm reading, I've got two awesome things for you to check out. One is Patreon. If you go to patreon.com/the stacks, you can join the stacks pack. You get bonus episodes. You get access to our amazing discord community. You get to be part of the mega reading challenge if you are so inclined, if you want to hear more of my thoughts about books, pop culture and still get that bonus episode. Head to Traci thomas.substack.com to subscribe to my newsletter. Okay, now it is time for my conversation with Alexis Madrigal.

Traci Thomas 2:27

All right, everybody. I am so excited. As you all know, I am from Oakland, California, and at least once a year I read a book that is in Oakland about Oakland, something Oakland related. And I say, You know what? Everybody else gets to talk about Oakland this month with me. And so today, I am thrilled to bring you the oaklandiest of Oakland books. This isn't just set in Oakland. This is a book about the town. It is called the Pacific circuit. The author is Alexis Madrigal. He is here today. Welcome to the sax.

Alexis Madrigal 3:03

Oh my gosh, such an honor. Big fan. First time guest. Thank you so much for having me.

Traci Thomas 3:09

First time, long time. So Okay, before we dive into the Pacific circuit, let's talk briefly about you. What's your story? Where are you from? What is your relationship to books. And then for me personally, when and why did you go to Oakland? Yeah,

Alexis Madrigal 3:25

so, you know I am. I was born in Mexico City. I grew up first in LA, actually out in the valley Sylmar, beautiful Sylmar, California, some may know it. And then we actually followed my Mexican grandma up to rural Washington state. And so I grew up in a little town of like, 2000 people called Ridgefield. I went to college. I wanted to be a fiction writer. Hey, I mean, I was a little football meat head for a little while in the early days of high school, and then I became a fiction writer. I wrote a novella for college my thesis. And thought I was going to go down that road, but eventually I went into journalism in my 20s, largely like because it turned out that I liked reading nonfiction books. I liked reading nonfiction essays. I was really into Harper's Magazine back in the day and the New York Review of Books, which I'm actually still into. The New York Review of Books. My relationship to books now, you know, I used to just like, go into Powell's bookstore in Portland, Oregon, and I would just like go walk and smell and, you know, kind of imagine what it would be like to have my name among the spines. You know, I had a very dreamy, very romantic sense of what it was to be an author. Now, I have a slightly grimier, more practical sensibility, in part because, you know, my day job is I host this show called forum on KQED. It's been on the air for 30 years. It's a Colin talk show. It's super fun. I love it very much. And a lot of what we do is we interview authors, you know. And so I talk to I. All kinds of people all the time, whether it's like WashU and it's someone who's like, about to win a Pulitzer Prize, or it's like a person who wrote a, you know, like today, there was a lady wrote a book about escapes from Alcatraz, you know, who grew up on the island as the daughter of a prison guard. You know. So I end up reading a ton of non fiction, mostly now, but like some fiction and Oakland, the story there is. I really love the Bay Area. And the second I hit the ground after college in 2004 with the ability to go somewhere, I went to San Francisco. My wife and I went to the East Coast. I was working for The Atlantic magazine, when we came back, we settled onto a little street in North Oakland, and we've never left that was like 15 years ago, almost. It's we know all of our neighbors, all the intergenerational connections, the whole kind of community here and Oakland is really the only place that's felt like home to me of all the places I've ever lived, I love the people, most especially. I love all the different types and fields of the neighborhoods. Yeah, I love just being able to go to all kinds of places and knowing no one people, you know. I mean, when people call it the town you know, I I personally think that should be reserved, you know, for like, special occasions. And people who really grew up in Oakland can call that, but I think, like thinking of the town is like, why do people call that? It is that like, you know, anytime I go out in Oakland to dinner or a drink or to the library or anything, I always run into people I know and I love that it feels like, does feel like living in a little town?

Traci Thomas 6:36

Okay, just on that point. But then I want to go back to your radio show in reading your book, one of my dear friends from high school, his dad is mentioned in your book. David Glover, oh yeah. And when I was reading your book, I text my friend drew his son, and I was like, I'm reading a book, and they keep bringing up your dad. And he's like, what's the book? I'm like, it's about Oakland, blah, blah, blah, and it was actually the day that I texted drew about it. It was the day before David's birthday, and David, since has passed away. So it was sort of like this moment. He was like, That's so crazy that you text me like this thing out of the blue. So, but I do feel like Oakland is one of those places like I can go, like I was at the Mississippi Book Festival and a girl walked up to me and was like, You're Brady Thomas' little sister. We went to Montera together. And I'm like, what? Oh, my God, like Oakland is certainly, I feel considering, like, how it is a pretty major city. It definitely does feel like a town.

Alexis Madrigal 7:36

I mean, part of it is, I always think San Francisco is like a city of the world. You know, it's like part of the Pacific Rim. It's part of, like the cosmopolitan archipelago of cities of the world. Oakland is like part of California. It's part of the West. It's part of the bay. Like it is this, I do I think it's like, it's a different organism from the organism of San Francisco, which I feel like, is like a place people pass through, and Oakland is a place I think people want to stay. And if they're lucky, you do get to stay.

Traci Thomas 8:09

Yeah, okay, well, we're going to come back and talk a lot more about Oakland, but I want to talk about because I never get to talk to people who also interview authors. How do you pick, or how does the show pick what books you're going to cover, what's the process there? How involved are you? And then, you know, you work for a major radio station, not a small little backyard podcast. How much, how are you doing? Questions. How much is it you? How much is it a team? Just, just let me fantasize about having a real job.

Alexis Madrigal 8:39

Well, I your job seems extremely fun, for what it's worth, but I, I would say that having a team is by far the best part of it, such a smart, cool, interesting team. And we all, I mean, every book that comes in the show like two people have read it like that's kind of amazing, you know. And I love that we do get the time and space. We make the time and space to read all the books. I mean, being is my second book that's come out, and having been on shows where it's like, clear the host has read like, four questions from a publicist, and then just recite those to you. You're kind of like, what is the point? How do we select them? You know, it is because it's broadcast in the Bay Area. I That is like the number one kind of filter. Not every single book has to, has to pass through that filter, but most of them do. So that's kind of like number one. I think I have, like, a real soft spot for histories. I just, it's kind of the way my brain works is, you know, I see something and I go, Well, where did that come from? You know? And I think there is something really. I think Oakland is a place that has really drilled that into me, because so, like, that doesn't the city doesn't make sense unless. You have, like, this historical grounding of what happened over, particularly the 20th century. And so we do a lot of that. We're also looking for talkers, you know, we're looking for people who you could put on the air and they're gonna, like, be funny and say stuff, and, you know, they're gonna be a little looser, maybe, than some others. And we actually have struggled with some fiction writers in particular, because you're like, No, you're right. The best of you is on the page, you know, like, it's like, hard to, hard to drive conversation. But I think, you know, my, some of my favorites that we've had, you know, aforementioned, WashU Ingrid, Rojas, Contreras, I think is amazing. I love, yeah, I love when we have on San Francisco writers, especially because I do feel like the Bay Area scene of writers. We all know each other, and it's very supportive, and it feels like, almost like, the opposite of what I think about the New York literary world.

Traci Thomas 10:55

Yeah. I mean, we've had, obviously, a handful of Oakland and then broadly, Bay Area writers on this show, for obvious reasons, but also because the work is good. Like some people I've had on have been like, Oh, I didn't even realize you were in the bay obviously, of course, you are okay, can you this is what I struggled with. I've been telling all the people in my life in Oakland about your book, my mom, my brother, my best friends. And then they're like, well, what's the book about and I'm like, well, it's sort of like about Oakland, but also it's about the it's called the Pacific surrogate, so it's about the portal. So can you do a really good job of telling us what the book's about, not only for my listeners, but also so that now when I tell people about it, I can just, you know, plagiarize your words. Yeah, it

Alexis Madrigal 11:39

is about Oakland's role in the development of the global economy, and the impact of that economy on the people of West Oakland, who are physically attached to the port through Seventh Street, which is a historically incredibly important place and was the seat of black life in the East Bay. So has takes, sort of the spine of the book as Margaret Gordon's life, who's an environmental justice activist in West Oakland, and kind of uses both her family story of migration, you know, from the kind of southwestern parts of the south to the Bay Area, as well as her subsequent life and activism as a frame for trying to understand Oakland's importance in the development of all these things, and why it would be that, you know, the it would have this incredibly important container port in the 1960s and be the place there was the stronghold of Black Panthers. Like those things are actually related as well as it's the way that it acts as kind of this shadow of both, like San Francisco as well as Silicon Valley, this place where those places are devoted to the future and developing this global economy, but like, where do those impacts actually land? Right? And so that's what the that's the story that the book tries to tell.

Traci Thomas 13:00

What is the Pacific circuit for people who don't know, because that's the title of the book. If the book is not called like, Oakland ish or something, right? Like, you're gonna see this book and be like, Oh, and also, the subtitle doesn't have the word Oakland in it, which I thought was really interesting. So what is the Pacific circuit for folks who

Alexis Madrigal 13:15

set of relationships that have really come to exist across the Pacific Ocean, between basically these cities that are on the West Coast of the United States that have become fabulously wealthy. You know, San Francisco, Seattle, these places, and they're technology companies which control all of this production in Asia and then ship it back through the ports of America. And that is a complex and really, like productive system that essentially produces everything that is target. You know, like, you go into Target, you pick up some other, it's like that came that, that is from the Pacific circuit, right? And so the things that I found really interesting about that is, you kind of need these, like three elements that exist in the bay. You need all this technology to control all that stuff, but it also is sort of where a lot of this stuff is produced. That's why, like, you know, when Donald Trump starts talking tariffs, Tim Cook is like, hey, Donald, let's talk about China, you know, because they're that's where all their manufacturing is. And it's important to know that, like, Silicon Valley grew up with by building that manufacturing model, you know, where a few white guys in Silicon Valley essentially control hundreds of 1000s of workers spread across Asia, you know, like that is what technology companies that make any kind of hardware. That's what they do. And that's how the whole place started, this fountain of wealth, which continues to spill out all over everywhere. And it also requires, yeah, the kind of like banks and capital represented by San Francisco and it all Francisco, and it also requires the actual physical stuff to come to port. And that's what happens in West Oakland, at the Port of Oakland.

Traci Thomas 14:50

And the Port of Oakland, for people who don't know, is like the biggest port.

Alexis Madrigal 14:55

Well, la Long Beach is now the biggest, first port of this kind. Yeah, first

Traci Thomas 15:00

of its kind. But it's major. It's not just like some little, yeah, no, it's a big deal. Like, Port of Oakland is, like, a big deal. I didn't, I actually didn't know that until, like, relatively recently. You grow up in Oakland, you grow up with the cranes, like the Dinos, that's what we call them. And like, one of my dad's best friends worked at the port like, I just didn't. When he he said he worked at sea land, I thought he worked at Sea World. Like, I didn't know, I'm a kid.

Alexis Madrigal 15:26

Sea land is, like the the company that creates global shipping in its current form.

Traci Thomas 15:31

Some of the like, social, political history I knew, like the Black Panther stuff. I feel like, if you're a black kid from Oakland, like, that's like, in you you're born knowing that, like you come out, you're like, Mommy, Daddy, you know, Black Panthers free breakfast, you know, like, that's like, what you're like so, but for people who aren't from Oakland or the Bay Area, why do you think this book is something that they should read or care about? Like, what is important for them to get out of this or to understand? Yeah,

Alexis Madrigal 15:59

I mean, this is the to, my view, this is the world like. This is how all of this, like commerce, works, you know? I mean, take, take a place like Dallas, right, very far from the shore. But basically, all of these goods, they come through like LA Long Beach, they get put on trains and they get shipped right to the logistic centers of like Dallas, right? There's a kind of concept that scholars have floated of this kind of second self, right? So there you got, you got one self that's going around, and it's doing podcasts, you know, alphabetizing your books, whatever you're doing at the same time. There's this other self that's out there, scavenging goods from all around the world, using labor from people all around the world in order to kind of create the things and products and services that we use to live our lives in this kind of modern technological society. And I think it's worth, kind of like knowing the biography of that second self. Like, what's it doing out there? You know, Oakland is a particularly charismatic place to tell this story from. But, like, you could do the same thing in Newark, you know, you could do the same thing in Long Beach. You could do the same thing in Seattle, Tacoma, you know, you could be the same. I mean, it's all over the world. You're the same thing in Singapore. You know, the reason, probably the core reason, to do it out of Oakland, is that the first person to really see the interconnection between technology, industry and logistics and the way that people would actually live their lives was Huey Newton. And, you know, Huey Newton's a very complicated figure, you know, co founder of the Black Panthers with Bobby Seale. There's a lot of things to say about him, but one thing that I think is wildly underrated is that, like, he was essentially a prophet of globalization, like he didn't want it to happen when it was happening, but he recognized that it was happening. And one reason is that stronghold of Black Panthers is literally on the same road as the Port of Oakland, which was the biggest at the time and most important and first container port in the world. And so you have, you know, this incredible intellectual heft coming out of the Panthers. And you also have, like, the reality of the port, and that's why, that's why it's grounded there, but it goes from there to the world, you know, yeah,

Traci Thomas 18:09

yeah, totally. I mean, I think what's really cool about this book, and something that I actually struggled with when you and I were trying to pick what we would do for book club, we decided on braiding sweet grass people. So be sure to read that. But, you know, I was as I'm reading your book, I'm like, oh, like, Alexis could probably talk about the color of law, because this book has a lot to do with redlining and gentrification, like he could probably talk about, you know, there's a book you mentioned that's, like, all about the shipping stuff. It's called, like, the box. And I was like, that would be like, a weird, interesting thing. There's a book you mentioned that's like, American apartheid, like, there's all these different kinds of threads that are running through this book, in a way that to me, I'm like, oh, right, this city, Oakland, is, in a lot of ways, a microcosm for the rest of most American cities. Maybe you don't have a port in your city. Maybe you don't have, you know, these people. But so, like, if you have black folks in your city, this story, I feel like, fits into all of it. And it is this, you know, and of course, there's, like, the story of the Great Migration is also part of this book, and the story of, as you mentioned, the Black Panthers. And it's just like, to me, it's like, about so many pieces of the American city story, right? Like, this is like a city book. This is a book for city people about city life. Like, there are rural elements, but so much of America is also about the city, like we rely on rural places and all of this, but like, the story of the city feels so like American. Maybe air quotes on that,

Alexis Madrigal 19:52

yeah. I mean, a part of the reason for that is that, you know, I basically wanted to tell. Tell a story about what happened to Seventh Street like that was kind of this, like, core motivation to this book. The main character lives on Seventh Street, you know, Hugh Newton gets into this gun battle on Seventh Street, the container port, you know, begins literally down, down the road of Seventh Street. And there's a, you know, massive BART station, you know, that's our public transit system in the bay area that gets plopped on on Seventh Street. All these like, elements, you know, urban renewal, the kind of I almost feel like, redlining, undersells, like, you know, the variety of tactics that were used to, like, both hold black people there, as well as, like, disinvest from those places. You know, the Pullman Porter said, you know, had a big outpost there, because the railroad station, which is the end of the transcontinental railroad, this stuff is like, all like, right there. It's all like, you could walk from one end of this book's like, main setting to the other in like, 20 minutes. And yet, all of those stories kind of pour out of that, you know, it's story of American race relations, story of, you know, logistics, the story of kind of radical politics, and the way that it sort of is able to observe American life in different ways. You know, it's the story of, like the way that American society has viewed black women, you know, I think, like something that I think is so for me, was horrifying in this book. Was like going back through different ways that people talked about leadership in black communities during this kind of 50s and 60s era where community leaders, largely black women, were just absolutely vilified as being the problem with the black community, as opposed to, like a set of folks who were looking out for this community matched up against, like a power structure that's really is destroying these neighborhoods. I mean, that is what it does, and that's what was happening. So I don't know. I mean, I didn't intend to write a book that had quite this sweep, to be honest with you, like that was not really what I was after, but it's what happened, and it's kind of the small version of it in a horrifying to contemplate way.

Traci Thomas 22:04

Yeah, well, that's sort of I wanted to ask you about. So I think in your acknowledgements, or your notes, or somewhere at the end, you talked about how this book you've worked been work. You were working on it for like, nine years. And you also mentioned that there was a time when your book was on the rails, and George Saunders gave you some advice. So I'm curious, was going off the rails. Sorry, off the rails. I want to know about that, but I want to know, like, what did this book start out to you as? And like, how did you get it to be this other thing? And also, maybe this is a separate question, but I'll throw it out now, because I think it's part of the story. How did covid impact or change what this book is, was was going to be,

Alexis Madrigal 22:44

I mean, covid was bad for every single in progress book. I think there's no, no doubt about, I mean, that's part of how the book was. Was off the rails. You know, this book started out as, like, yeah, trying to figure out the relationship between, you know, the port and Seventh Street that was kind of it, in part, because I had gone out on a ship and, you know, you have to imagine you're kind of clanging up the gang way, you know, it's like the metal and stuff. And I got up into this ship, and I was there, you know, as kind of a media person, and I'm sitting in this, like, total tiny room. You know, keep in mind, containers are being loaded and unloaded. These, like, cranes are swinging up, these like 50,000 pound containers, like a tote bag. You know, all these things are happening all around. And then you go into the little, tiny human space on this massive ship, and everyone in the room is like, Filipino. You know, there's, like, all the people, all the workers are Filipino, all the, you know, the captain and those folks are Eastern European and, you know, it's just this wood paneled room. It's like the only place dedicated to humans. I just was so taken by the strangeness of this world that we've built to deliver ourselves target, you know? And then, like a ship captain came into the room, you know, he's big Russian guy, you know, he's got his Marlboro reds, and he sits down across the table from me because he's heard there's like a journalist on board, you know? And he just, like, looks across, and he goes, What is your intent? And I was just like, Oh, my God, I don't know. I don't have an intent. I've never even been on a ship before, you know, it was, like, more than 10 years ago. And I just, I was just like, this world is crazy, the fact that this workspace, this workforce, the port itself, and all the Longshoremen you know who do have this kind of rich interracial history in the Bay Area as one of the earliest integrated unions in the country, also very far left. You know, the joke being that the East Coast is controlled by the mafia and the West Coast controlled by communists. This is kind of like, this is ILWU. The union is like, super powerful in the in the 20th century in particular. And so there's just all these elements. That I wanted to tell that story, the relationship between that world, which felt like such a world apart that, like people in Oakland, unless you're a longshoreman, never visit, and then Seventh Street, you know, this place which I knew had this, you know, incredible legacy, and also kind of sad current state, you know. And so Miss Margaret ended up being the thing that tied all those things together. And that's sort of where the book went. Then, of course, I wrote, like, whole histories. I realized that, like people would want to know about Silicon Valley, I wrote a whole, whole history of Silicon Valley up through the 1960s most of which got thrown out of this book because I didn't really want it to be a shadow history of Silicon Valley. I wanted to tell us this story. And what covid really did is I ended up working on thing called the covid tracking project, hundreds of volunteers generating data for all these things. And I really the book was just like on the shelf for for a couple of years. And during that time, there were all these logistics snafus which kind of revealed the weaknesses of the system. People may remember, there are all these ships piled up at the Port of LA Long Beach. There were shortages of various goods. All these things were happening in this kind of logistics world. And so it just, you know, the book was changing and moving. And most importantly, this is the long edge. But most importantly, Oakland had been rapidly, rapidly gentrifying. It was like a bomb was going off that was draining black people out of Oakland, out of West Oakland, and after through and after covid, Oakland had a lot we've just been in a hard place. You know, there's, I feel like there's been a you know, if you thought gentrification was bad, don't worry, it could get worse. You can sort of maintain the high housing prices, but lose all the stuff that people thought was gonna come with gentrification. And so the book has to reckon with the fact that Oakland both is like a poster child of gentrification, but also a poster child of the failure of gentrification, and also poster child of the failure of anti gentrification efforts as well, you know, like we somehow ended up in this place where we've displaced so many people, and yet there, the city is not a crime free sparkling, happy place, you Know, there it still is struggling with, you know, just a variety of budgetary, public safety and other social problems, you know,

Traci Thomas 27:30

yeah, yeah, I was, I'd never kind of connected the link between the end of redlining and gentrification, like, and you do that in the book, and that was A moment where, that was actually the moment where I moment where I was like, Okay, I think Alexa should come on the podcast. I was, I was like, I was like, Okay, I'm in i He's got me, he's got me. I won't spoil that for people, but, I mean, it's not a spoiler, but just like, it's just an interesting moment in the book. Okay, what did George Saunders say to you? What was his advice?

Alexis Madrigal 27:58

Well, you know, I was interviewing him for thing in San Francisco called City Arts and lectures. And, you know, he'd been on the show and, you know, had kind of, I mean, it would be a stretch to call George Saunders friend, but he was, like, a guy that I had, like, friendly relationships with in in this sort of host, guest kind of format. And I was reading back his first book and, and I think it's at some point in that, maybe it's in the acknowledgements or something. He says something about before that book was published, he was like watching his writing career drifting away, you know, into the horizon. And my book had been really stuck at the publisher. Covid was a big part of that. There's big backup of books, like all these things were happening. But also it was, like a big book, and I think it was like the editor was kind of having a hard time getting his arms around it, and I was really worried that it just wasn't gonna get published. And so, you know, we were kind of sitting there before the show in this big empty auditorium, and I was like, man, you know, I'm going through this thing. Sorry to dump on you. George Saunders, you know. But I was really, when I read this part of your book, I was really feeling it. I feel like I I'm watching my writing career, you know, 10 years of work or just like, drifting away into the sunset, and I don't know what is going to happen, you know. And he was like, tell your editor, I want to read the book. And and I was like, okay, it sounded like a ploy from like a George Sanders novel, you know, but I did, and it helped redirect the attention of my editor back to the book. Things started to really get back on the rails. Things started to go along. I got to send George Saunders happy updates about all the things that were going on. And eventually sent him the book and all that stuff. And it was, it was just, you know, kind of, he's, like, known kind of universally as, like a kind person, you know, you hear that from, from everybody. Yeah, but also, like, you know, at the after the show, I wasn't actually going to take him up on using this ploy, but at the end of the show, like, he literally gave me a hug and was like, do the thing, come on. It's going to help. You know, it's just like, Man, what a guy, you know, like, just,

Traci Thomas 30:14

she's such a great story. I love that. That's very cool. Okay, we have to transition from talking about the boat to talking about your reading taste, so we're gonna take a quick break and we'll be right back.

Traci Thomas 30:31

Okay, we're back before we get to your answering all of my stacks questions. We do something here called Ask the stacks, where someone has written in for our book recommendations, and I'm going to read what they wrote, and then you and I are going to come up with a handful of recommendations. Oh, I love this. Okay, so this comes from Annalise, and they say, I'm hoping you can help recommend some reads for my husband. He's a non fiction reader that loves books that dive into niche or specific topics and processes, processes, I don't know.

Alexis Madrigal 31:01

I'm glad you gave me this one. Traci,

Traci Thomas 31:03

it's actually was the top on my inbox. I try not to tailor them too much to the guests, to be honest, because I also don't know. Sometimes I'm like, Oh, I used to tailor them. And then sometimes I'm like, Oh, I don't read those kind of books. I'm like, you literally wrote that. And they're like, Yeah, I don't really read it, though. Anyways, so here's what Ali's this is end of it. She says some recent faves include The Barn, Charlie Hustle, The Pardon, Shine Bright, Five Days at Memorial, Monsters, and Into the Raging Sea. He's open to anything, but is interested in whiskey, basketball, music and any sports or sports adjacent scandals. So that's kind of a lot of things. Do you see anything pop into your head? Or would you like me to go first?

Alexis Madrigal 31:51

You know what I was gonna recommend to this person was gonna I was gonna recommend other minds.

Traci Thomas 32:00

Oh, the John Rose. It's

Alexis Madrigal 32:03

got octopus in it. It's about the sea. But also the guy is, like, you know, it has this kind of Peter Godfrey Smith, is his name, this kind of Australian, you know, scuba diver, swimmer, kind of guy has all these, like, little encounters. So it has like, a little bit of that sport edge, or that like embodied sensibility, but also it does get into all this wonderful niche stuff, like what the cuttlefish is thinking and how different brains work. And I think this guy would like that one. That'd be my right off the top. And I have one other one. When you

Traci Thomas 32:34

said other minds, I actually that. Mean I was thinking of the best minds. Do you know that one? No, it's, it was like, it came out maybe two or three years ago, and it's the guy, seems to be like, Jonathan Rosen, and it's about his friendship. I wasn't prepared to talk about this, so I don't have notes, but it's about his friendship with a guy in college. They maybe went to Harvard or Yale or something, and eventually the friend ends up killing his girlfriend, and so it's about like schizophrenia and mental illness, but also it does have this sort of crime element, not a sports scandal, but it is definitely a scandal, but it's like a big chunker of a book that kind of does a lot of the weeding, braiding stuff. The original book I was gonna recommend, though, was love and whiskey. And it's the subtitle is the remarkable true story of Jack Daniels, his master distiller, nearest green and the improbable rise of uncle, nearest by fawn Weaver. And this is a book about how Jack Daniels had a black guy who was the mastermind behind all of the distillery and made Jack Daniels. Jack Daniels and the uncle, nearest brand? Yeah, exactly. And the uncle, nearest brand of whiskey came from this guy, nearest green. So it's the story of these two people who work together. And obviously the black person nobody knows, and Jack Daniels is, as you're familiar Jack Daniels,

Alexis Madrigal 33:59

yes. Unfortunately, familiar with Jack Daniels, yeah, the, you know, the other book that I'm gonna recommend, this is a good one. This is right on the this is right on the nose, I think. Okay, the book is called Boomtown, the fantastical saga of Oklahoma City. It's chaotic founding. It's purloined basketball team and the dream of becoming a world class Metro by Sam Anderson. That book is super fun. And also by maybe one of the greatest crimes in NBA history is stealing the Seattle SuperSonics and sending them to Oklahoma City. So that is, that would be, that would be my other recommendation.

Traci Thomas 34:39

That's a really, really good one. Okay, my last one is that book Born to Run. Did you ever read that?

Alexis Madrigal 34:44

No, it didn't. Okay. So it's about running, shit, I am a runner, yeah, oh,

Traci Thomas 34:48

I loved it. It's about running. And it's about this, like guy, and he goes to run with ultra runners, and he learns about, you know, it's a little bit like white savior. He, like, goes to this community, and they're indigenous people, and they run, and they're barefoot, whatever. But also he does the history of, like, the running industry, so how Nikes became Nikes and running shoes, and, like, being a jogger and that whole thing, and how that rose culturally. And this is actually the book that I read when I first started running, because I'm the kind of person that will get an idea and be like, I'm gonna run a half marathon, having never run more than a mile. And I was like, Okay. Mr. Stacks was like, That's my husband. Mr. Sax was like, You should read this book. It's so good. And I read it, and I was like, I'm a runner. I'm locked in, but it's really entertaining. I do think, and I've never gone back, there might be some scandal or something weird attached to the author now. So if he sucks, now I'm gonna my recommendation. But when I read it in 2010 I loved it. I have not revisited. So if he sucks, if he's a monster, like, I'm not team I think his name's like Chris McDougall. I'm not team that guy. Okay, so those are our recommendations for your husband. Anneliese, if he reads any of them, let us know. Everybody who wants a recommendation, email. Ask the stacks. At the stacks podcast.com,

Speaker 1 36:09

Gene gang, all stars. That's the other one if you want fiction, nonfiction, but that book is, yeah,

Alexis Madrigal 36:15

that's true. I know, I know. But that one so good and has and has a it's a sport book. It is

Traci Thomas 36:21

sport. It is the worst sport ever. And we love Nana here, so we're changing all stars all time. Recommendation. Anyways, ask the sax at the sax podcast.com email us. We'll do this for you. Okay, Alexis, you're back in the hot seat. Two books you love, one book you hate,

Alexis Madrigal 36:37

okay, one book I love. Oh, boy, this is I knew it was coming. I should have been prepared more. I can do my my book that I hate, and it came out of my book research, Tom Wolfe's book of essays called Mao. Mao the flat catchers. I absolutely despise this book. It is wildly racist. Tom Wolf is an amazing prose stylist, and it makes it worse, not better, when you're that good of a prose stylist and you're being racist, I tried to re report some of it for the book that says a lot of it is set in these are supposedly non fiction essays set war on poverty. Stuff is set in San Francisco, and it's just, it's just racist about everybody, Samoans, black people, everybody, just like the and I, and also, when I was trying to re report it, I discovered that I, more or less like could not find any of the facts. I couldn't fix any of the facts that he supposedly had for these different organizations that were involved with war on poverty, I went to archives all over the state. It was just, it was so annoying. So it's not only that I racist, but also I think some of it is made up. That's a That's my theory. I'm, you know

Traci Thomas 37:53

I love, before you go to the two books you love, yeah, did you read the power broker as part of your research for this? Because it feels like Matt would

Alexis Madrigal 38:02

be like everyone else. I read the first two chapters of the power broker. I think I got up through maybe when he was in college. That's a long book. I did think about it. But, you know, I cannot claim to have read the entire power broker. Definitely not. I

Traci Thomas 38:16

can't do it. I want to do it. I want to be a person who's done it. I can't do it.

Alexis Madrigal 38:22

I cannot do it. I cannot I'm just, yeah, I cannot do it. I cannot do it. Okay, so I'm gonna give you Okay. Books I love. This one is like, maybe too obvious, but it is my favorite book, parable of so or Octavia Butler. I've gone back to it over the years about every couple of years, and every time I'm just like, damn, this book, you know, it is so good, so interesting. And I always find new, new elements of it. And I actually, weirdly, the earth seed components, you know, this is the religion that's invented by the main character in the book. I actually find it like an actual spiritual credo for myself, like, I think I might be an actual adherent to it, both like the simple parts about it of how, you know, God has changed, you know, that's it's all that exists, which I think is actually a really deep, deep insight about what it is to be alive and all living things, and also the parts about, sort of, no matter how hard and post apocalyptic the world is getting, you kind of do have to keep yourself focused on, like, what is the point of humanity? What's the point of being alive, you know, and what is the point of, like, trying to do some massive collective enterprise, which in that book is, you know, going to the stars. But I don't think it has to be that. I think be that, you know. And people always, you know, people in that couple of books, think it's so crazy, you know, in this post apocalyptic world, you know, Lord is like, no, let's go to the stars, you know. But she sticks with it, you know. She's like, No, this is actually part of. It. And I find that part of her see really beautiful. So that would be it on the on the the other book. And I feel like all of Ross gays books, like the the book of delights and inciting joy, and all the like all those little essayette kind of books, I just love them all so much. I listen to him when running sometimes, and I just laugh out loud. And he's such a great reader. You know, when he's reading those in the audio book, the book of delights, in the book of even more delights, or whatever that

Traci Thomas 40:31

would be my one. I love it. We, we've done both. We've done a book by Ross gay and Parable of the Sower for book club here. So yeah, but we did it, one of his poetry books, which I really struggled with because it was not short and delightful host, poems are long. That is hard for me. I was struggling, no lie, no secret. Here people know I was like, I don't get it. These poems are eight pages, like, what am I supposed to do with this information?

Alexis Madrigal 41:00

That's so funny, I mean,

Traci Thomas 41:02

but I did read the book of Delights that what's the first one? The book of the book of Delights is the first one. Yeah, that's the one I read. And that is delightful. And he's so good, so

Alexis Madrigal 41:12

human and lovely. You just want to live in that I just want to live in that world, you know?

Traci Thomas 41:16

Yeah, no, I get it. What's the most recent book you read that was just great. Well, you

Alexis Madrigal 41:22

know, it's a book that I'm reading, actually, right now, and I'm really loving Gary Stein guards latest book is fantastic. It's called Vera I'm, I'm loving that book. And I just, yeah, I would say that it's, it's just great, like, great in that way where I'm just like, Ah, this is just so nice to read a book that is a novel that's well constructed, that feels really wonderful. You know, I so I would say that one

Traci Thomas 41:50

okay, and Are you a person who can read multiple books at a time, or are you just reading this Vera book?

Alexis Madrigal 41:58

No, I have to. In fact, I'm almost always reading multiple books. So I am reading that book, and I am also about to start as soon as we get off this call Mary Roach, his new book, read advanced reader copy of that

Traci Thomas 42:12

book. And how do you divide your like reading for work versus reading for pleasure? Is it like I read certain things during this time. Or

Alexis Madrigal 42:22

I try and just like, read it. I honestly, I try and like, make all the books that I really want to read books we do on the show, same then for other things that I'm researching. Like, my next book is a book about running in consciousness. So I have a whole bunch of things in that realm. Those are things that I separate out because they can wait. You know what I mean? Like, I don't need to be reading them at any one time, and so I tend to, like stockpile those. And then when I have a little bit more free time, or I don't have books for each of the show, then I go into this, yeah, got

Traci Thomas 42:57

it? Got it? A running book. Okay, well, now you have to read.

Alexis Madrigal 43:01

I know, I know it's on my it really that is on my TBR. And I've read a bunch of other running books. I just don't like them very much. I don't

Traci Thomas 43:09

either that was the only one I bought or someone bought me the like Murakami, and I just never wanted to pick it

Alexis Madrigal 43:16

up. Only you know what, I'll give you the tip. Hot Tip on Murakami. Just read the ultra marathon chapter out of that. Read chapter one, where he's talking about running and jazz bar and Tokyo, and that's, like, very charismatic. And then the ultra one is the only good chapter about running, actually, I think in that book. Thank you. Honestly, that's it. I'm saving you. That's the edit. That's the I don't even

Traci Thomas 43:39

really run anymore, like that. I'm, like, an indoor treadmill sprinter type person now,

Alexis Madrigal 43:43

like, peloton treadmilling. I do orange theory.

Traci Thomas 43:47

So that's all, like, the max you run is for 23 minutes. So it's all, like, speed work. It's, no, I don't go outside and do I did one marathon, and now I'm like, great, did it

Alexis Madrigal 43:58

done? Yeah? Did it Yeah? Check that off, yeah. You know, I'm actually preparing for my first ultra marathon right now. Ultra designed, I designed myself. I think they call Ultra anything that's more than 26 but this is going to be for Bay Area. Anybody the top of Mount Diablo to the top of Mount Tam, and how many miles it's gonna it's like 50 some holy, yeah, yeah. I'm, like, definitely feeling I'm feeling

Traci Thomas 44:23

it. What do you listen to on your runs playlist, audio books, podcasts, a combination. How are you training?

Alexis Madrigal 44:33

Yeah, for that, well, I listened to a lot of the books for the show on it, but on all my long runs. This is, this is freak shit, sorry. Can I swear on this? Yes, I decided, because I'm trying to this is, this is a book about running. This is a book about consciousness, of like, look at what does it feel like inside when you're running? I'm going to raw dog the long runs. So nothing, no. Audio Book. No music, just me and the open road in it is occasionally I love it. Sometimes I'm like, I'm tired of myself. I don't want to be in here anymore. Get me out of here. Get me out of here.

Traci Thomas 45:16

That sounds so horrible. Alexis, like, truly, in a way to me that sounds like punishment, because it is just running. And like the honestly, for me, the first two miles were always the worst. And the thought of, like, the first, I don't know, 1520 minutes, just me being mad that I'm running. I don't think I'm running an ultra. I think I'm running two miles maximum for the rest of my life, because I'm not getting past like, I'm not getting past it. I can't even imagine, oh, my God, nothing, just but I'm

Alexis Madrigal 45:50

doing it for you. I'm doing it for you and all other runners to observe myself like my what's happening in my brain, what's happening in my body? I'm communi you know, I have some, like, somewhat out there biological theories about our ability to communicate with the different systems of our bodies. And I actually think there's going to be science about this eventually. So I'm like, checking in with all the different parts, and I'm doing all this stuff. It's insane. It's insane. Wow.

Traci Thomas 46:16

I'm obsessed with this. Now. I'm like, Oh, should I start a podcast that's about running, so we can keep doing the two versions. How long does a race like that take you? Is it like eight hours? 10 hours, 15 it's

Alexis Madrigal 46:29

going to be like 1520, hours. Oh, my God. And you know the other weird again, more freak shit. You have to learn all this stuff about yourself, like in particular, your sweat rate, how many liters of sweat per hour you lose while running. And so you have to weigh yourself at the beginning, weigh yourself at the end, subtract out any water that you drink and all this stuff. Because if you're going to run for 15 hours, think of how many liters of sweat that is. Because it varies among humans between, you know, a few 100 milliliters, you know, and like me, one and a half to two liters per hour. So you've got to ingest gallons of water during a run like this. It's got to have tons of electrolytes in it, because you're losing about I went and got my mineral content of my sweat. Feel free to cut all

Traci Thomas 47:16

this from the podcast.

Alexis Madrigal 47:20

We have mineral I got the mineral content measure. First

Traci Thomas 47:22

and foremost, how are you transporting gallons of water while you're training? Because obviously, on the race, they're going to hand you things.

Alexis Madrigal 47:30

Well, I'm self crewing so my neighbors again, I'm deep in this Colby verse of that's on my street in Oakland. My neighbors are crewing it for me. I'm doing it solo, so I'm going to be carrying three liters of water on my back at any given time. I've built some refill points in. They're going to meet me at certain spots with some more because you're eating a ton too. Just for those who've ever dieted, this is insane. You're in a lot of these races, ultra runners are putting between like 60 and 100 grams of carbs in every hour. Wow. So you're just pounding carbs in the form of whatever your stomach will accept.

Traci Thomas 48:07

I'm also putting 60 to 100 grams of carbs in every hour reading books. I just want people. That's right. Well, that's work too. Car bloating, because at any moment, I might need to run an ultra marathon, so I need to be carb ready. What are you eating? What are you

Alexis Madrigal 48:25

eating? What are you mostly these weird gel things there. You know, this is brand Martin's, but there's a, there's a gel that exists for, for everyone's taste. And I'm starting to work on eating other stuff because over 18 hours, I think it can be tough. So you wanna, I'm gonna eat some peanut butter and jelly sandwiches I've tried, which I really liked. Although a lot of real ultra runners would be like, no peanut butter. Leave that out of there. Just eat the just get the carbs in there from the bread and the and the jelly. But mostly it's these packets. Yeah. Do you ever see the movie Snowpiercer? You know, it's like, about the end of the world. It's the last train on Earth. And then they turn all these bugs into this, like, slurry that the all the poor people get. That's kind of what it's like.

Traci Thomas 49:10

Okay, I used to do the, like, goose or the gels or whatever that, like, whatever the, you know, for

Alexis Madrigal 49:15

regular, gross goose are, like, toothpaste. I just can't even handle them. Yeah. So

Traci Thomas 49:19

I, I I was like, Oh, this is what I'm gonna do. And then I realized that they were giving me intestine issues, like I was making my bowels not great. I'll leave it at that. I have heard recently one of my favorite candy snacks is really big with runners, nerd clusters.

Alexis Madrigal 49:36

No, really Yes,

Traci Thomas 49:40

because it's basically the same as, like, a goo or a gel sugar. It just tastes good, whatever. And if you're not running like, you need a certain level of nutrients that most people don't need for a three to five hour run, like, if you're running a marathon and you're in that range, you don't really need a full whatever. It's fine. You'll be you'll be fine. And so. These are, I guess, and they're easy to pop. They're easy to pack you don't like you can just throw them in your pocket or whatever. So apparently this is the new running sack. And I was like, I'm gonna get back into running so I can even

Alexis Madrigal 50:10

just so you can pound some nerd clusters. Yeah, nerds are one of those things that I so deeply, deeply associate with middle school that actually I think my armpits are starting to sweat just thinking about nerds, just because I'm thinking about the social shame of seventh grade, you

Traci Thomas 50:27

know, oh, my god, well, nerd clusters, they're the new generation, and it's time for you to own your shame and step into your confidence and eat those and feel proud. And I'm available for any product.

Alexis Madrigal 50:43

Yeah, nothing, nothing I accept about myself can be used against me, right? A little Audrey Lord defense for seventh grade. Yeah,

Traci Thomas 50:50

you're right. She actually wrote that thinking about nerd, thinking about how I that's how I read it the first time. Okay, we gotta go back to books. We gotta go back to everyone listening. I'm sorry, but you listen to this podcast because, you know, I'm gonna get to snacks, and so we had to get there. What is a book that you love to recommend to people

Alexis Madrigal 51:13

I really have been having fascinating time recommending this book is a river alive by Robert McFarlane, and I like recommending it, in part because I actually struggled with it. I also interviewed him. I really it kind of changed me a little bit in a weird way, like it reconfigured something inside me. Even though I didn't love every part of the book, in an interesting way. It's because it's basically about how to think about what a river actually is, and the relationship between environments, like, you know, like a river, and the life around it, and human beings as part of all that. And I thought I knew enough about that that I wouldn't enjoy the book. But, you know, then, after I read the book with my one little, tiny vacation sans kids, I like, went to visit the Klamath River because these dams had just come down, and I wanted to see the river. And I was like, where did that come from? You know, that's from this book. You know, the other book you've had them on already. But the other book I love to recommend to other men is Carver Wallace's book. Another word for love. I think it's, it's so hard to to find books about masculinity that say anything interesting at all. I mean, literally at all. I'd take anything, one nugget, just a paragraph, you know. And like carvels book has like 30 things like that in it. So I love recommending that. And I'm just, I'm just cheating by keeping going Italy moans, poetry books I love, for people who think they don't like poetry, boom, Ailey, moan, you're gonna love it. You have to. It's required. It's like stipulating. It's like, just a Contract with America.

Traci Thomas 52:50

I love that. Okay, do you have a favorite bookstore?

Alexis Madrigal 52:55

Oh, boy, I so I know a lot of bookstore people here in the Bay Area. So this is tough, but my wife and I are opening up a little community space that community space that is next door to East Bay booksellers here in Oakland on college Ave. So I would say East Bay book sellers, I but, you know, here's the thing, and I would say there's so many fascinating types of bookstores in the Bay Area that I like. It's why I couldn't leave like our bookstores, you know you want. You want feminist reading. We got womb House books, whole, whole feminist bookstore, you know you want, sort of like a big, cavernous, kind of bookstore you can go down to, like Kepler's or whatever. You know, there's like all the Point Reyes bookstore, if you want to get into some nature writing. You know, Marcus books, you know, one of the oldest black bookstores in the country, there's all of these different places that are all doing different stuff, and they're all, but they're like booksellers. You know, I do events all the time with green apple books. You know, they each like, take, I didn't even know that bookseller was, is this like, profession, this craft, and yet it is. That's what I've learned over the last, like, you know, four years of doing the show, that it's like it really is a craft, and that hand selling books to people doing these kinds of recommendations are such a beautiful part of, like, our literary world, you know, they make it worth being a part of the world of letters, you know,

Traci Thomas 54:14

yeah, I mean, bookseller is, I don't know, it's not the exact same, but I feel like they're like nurses in Some ways, like it's like they're the people who are on the ground taking care of you, listening, responding to your desires and your needs and your anxieties and whatever it is, in the way that, like the doctor is just not doing that. You know, like the doctor might show up and hear you out, but the nurse is like, Oh, I'm so sorry. You want red jell O, not orange, jell O, and like, I am listening to you, and I care enough to help you. And it's like a certain it's like takes, like a kind of person. I big fan of booksellers around here, for obvious reasons. What's the last book that made you laugh? I'm

Alexis Madrigal 54:57

gonna say, what is queer food by John? Birds, all,

Traci Thomas 55:00

I just saw this in the bookstore for the first time. Yeah,

Alexis Madrigal 55:04

I thought, I thought it was really, it was really funny, really an unusual kind of book, you know, as maybe the title kind of gives away, you know, it's this, you know, a guy who'd worked in kitchens, but also has written about food for a long time, really trying to make sense of kind of the, like, the relationship between hospitality and cooking and food with this kind of queering of culture. As a gay man, it's just, but it's just, you know, he's just a funny writer. He's like, one of those things where it's just, some people are just funny. And, I mean, scary steinger book is pretty funny too. And, you know, actually, in a totally different vein. Case, Johnson's book had some fun, funny moments too. This was a book called a physical education which is sort of about her journey to getting swole. And I thought that was they had some good moments

Traci Thomas 55:58

too. What's the last book that you read where you felt like you learned a lot.

Alexis Madrigal 56:03

Oh, this is a I feel like this happens a lot, but I'm gonna shout out this particular book how infrastructure works inside the systems that shape our world. By Deb chatra, such an interesting but, you know, they're an engineering professor, so smart, so interesting. And it's just, like, a lot of stuff that you just kind of like, oh, yeah, how does a water system work? You know, you just like, you don't necessarily think of all those things, you know, and, and so that that is one where I feel like I learned a lot, and I feel like I knew about some of those things, and I still, it was still amazing.

Traci Thomas 56:39

Yeah, I want to read this. This looks like a book I would love. I love like a micro, like deep diving. What's the last book that made you angry?

Alexis Madrigal 56:51

Oh, there's so many things to be angry about these days. I know

Traci Thomas 56:54

you could really you could take that question in any direction that sparks joy for you.

Alexis Madrigal 57:02

You know, I think the book that I'm going to say here is a book called Sex is a spectrum by Augustine Fuentes, who's an American anthropologist. And the reason it made me angry is not just because I sort of have a non binary kid in my life, but just a sense of how much scientists, while posing as completely objective observers of the natural world, have been shaped by their times and circumstances to kind of weed out all kinds of queerness and non binaryness of different kinds across across scientific disciplines, and that this queerness, it's just left out in ways that are, that are invisible, unless you really, really deep inside it. And can, can, can sort of demonstrate that. And so I would say that is that would be a book that the book itself didn't make me mad, but that what it was pointing towards was, was very upsetting. I mean, I could also all of Rebecca Solnit books. They're good for this too.

Traci Thomas 58:10

Sure, sure. Okay. What about is there? Do you have a problematic favorite book?

Alexis Madrigal 58:16

I do I like David Foster Wallace. I'm sorry, everyone I do, we don't have to talk about it. I promise. I thought brief interviews with hideous men is was totally brilliant. And I think about it like once every three days,

Traci Thomas 58:29

I've never read any. David Foster Wallace, not because I'm better than you, but just because it did not interest me. But now I'm like, maybe

Alexis Madrigal 58:35

I should read it. You don't have to. Not trying to press it on anyone. You know, yeah, I gotta, you know, it's like, hidden. It's like, you know, hidden inside the other books in the bookshelf. At this point, I feel like, just because it's become known as a thing that, like sad literary men like to detain people talking about,

Traci Thomas 58:52

yeah, no, no, you're right. You're right to hide it. No, nobody will know. There's nobody.

Alexis Madrigal 58:57

Yeah, no, just be my, just, just my, me, you and all the stacks, listeners,

Traci Thomas 59:02

yeah, the stacks packing us. That's it. Okay, if you were a high school teacher of any subject you want, what is the book you would assign to your students?

Alexis Madrigal 59:12

I'm really torn. I'm torn between doing Leaves of Grass. But people already know that book so, but I actually went back to it recently after not having look, you know, I Walt Whitman. I was like, you know, and I went back to it, and I was like, I was struck by new things in it now, but I won't do that one. I'm gonna do this book by a neuroscientist called searching for memory, the brain, the mind and the past. It's by a guy named Daniel Schacter, who's a cognitive neuroscientist, and here's why, I think people have weird ideas about what memories are like. I think people think of memory, like computer memory, like it's something perfectly stored, as opposed to something that's kind of generated, you know, like our memories use all of our sort of brain systems we use. To create the world around us, and they use that to recreate what happened to us in the past, so that we can learn from it and use it. I mean, I think that's its evolutionary purpose, at least. And I think particularly at that age where times are burning so bright and so many things are kind of getting fixed, and you're starting to believe that you know certain things about yourself. I think that destabilizing, that sense you know that we are some fixed person you know, because at least in my experience, the worst people are those who stopped changing when they were in high school because they think it's cringe to be different at 40 than 18 and and so I think that that would be my, that would be my, like, if I, let's pretend I'm a high school biology teacher, I would go back and I would use that book to, sort of like, destabilize the idea of memory and self. I

Traci Thomas 1:00:52

love this. Okay, I have two more for you, really quick. One is, and I only ask this question of journalists because they're the only people I actually care about this for is there, are there any books, or is there a book that you feel like influenced your professional career or inspired you to want to be a journalist,

Alexis Madrigal 1:01:14

for better or worse? Evicted by Matthew Desmond, what a book.

Traci Thomas 1:01:22

I mean, I feel like everybody says that book, who it does, like any narrative nonfiction, and I just feel like, sure I get it.

Alexis Madrigal 1:01:28

I mean, it's, you know why it's perfect, that's why. I mean, it's, it is a perfect nonfiction book. It is, there's, there's almost no perfect nonfiction book. I mean, that's one thing that I really believe, having read many, of them for my job now, but that one was the the the reporting, the content, the actual writing, that lady in the trailer park eating lobster with her last food stamp dollars, like just every, every, every part of it, I thought it was, was perfect. And was at a point where I was considering doing this, this book, the book the book that ended up writing Pacific circuit, and I think, for better or worse,

Traci Thomas 1:02:06

how I did it. Have you ever talked to him?

Alexis Madrigal 1:02:09

Yeah, have, yeah, I've been out to I've been out drinking with Matthew Desmond.

Traci Thomas 1:02:13

People really like him. He seems like a really everybody who has met him thinks he's very cool.

Alexis Madrigal 1:02:17

He's very cool. He's like, you know, I think he was somewhat, you know, you're an academic writing a book about eviction. You do not think that's gonna happen. And I think he's always kept that front and center, you know, like the American lottery, like, he's never been like, I don't think he's someone who believes I wrote the perfect book, and that's why it hit the lottery like this, you know, I think he knows it's good, but not, and it's not like false humility. I just think, you know, he's like, Listen, man, I could have written that book and 20 people could have read it, you know. Yeah,

Traci Thomas 1:02:48

totally. That makes sense when I read the second book, the poverty by America. I think in my review, I said this book really smacks of someone who is using their previous book success to say the thing they actually wanted to say in the first book, but maybe couldn't, or shouldn't have said, Here's what I've learned, Fuck you and your capital gains tax and you can suck it. Okay, like he was, like, I already have the Pulitzer. I don't fucking care. Does he have the Pulitzer? I think he won the poultry I think so, or a National Book Award, or both. Matthew Desmond now, like, capital M here. Now you're gonna get 200 pages from me directly, yeah, which

Alexis Madrigal 1:03:29

I and I didn't even like the second book that much like, but in part, it was because, you know, when you've written the other book, yeah, this was sort of like, it's a policy. We

Traci Thomas 1:03:37

knew people were gonna go out and buy this book no matter what was in it. And so he put in that book what he really wanted to make sure that everybody took out of evicted. He's like, I wrote this other book. That's great. You might have missed the point. Here's the point. Yes, the system is bad. Okay. Last question, I stole this from the New York Times. Buy the book if you could require the President of the United States to read one book this current president. What would it

Alexis Madrigal 1:04:03

be? Oh boy,

Alexis Madrigal 1:04:12

all about love by bell hooks. Take that Trump.

Traci Thomas 1:04:15

That's a good one. That's a great one. Okay, party, people, we're out of here today. We went long. I'm sorry, but Hello, we had to talk about nerd, nerd clusters. You Alexis magical will be back on August 27 for our discussion of braiding sweetgrass by Robin wall Kimmerer, neither of us have read the book, or you did read

Alexis Madrigal 1:04:36

it? No, no, I haven't. I've read. I have read gathering moss also

Traci Thomas 1:04:40

bye. Okay, not that one. So this is our first time the episodes the 27th of August. People who have not yet read the Pacific circuit, you should definitely read it. I also am going to do a huge plug for the audio book, because Alexis reads it. And as you've heard, he's got a great voice. High energy really brings. Lot to it. I had a great time with it. So if you wanted to know, yes, both options, right? Though, the physical book has some pictures, so there's a map, blah, blah, blah, I'm sure you can get the digital stuff, but, you know, got to let you know. Alexis, thank you so much for being here.

Alexis Madrigal 1:05:13

This was awesome. Thank you. This is the most fun. Thank you so much.

Traci Thomas 1:05:17

I always want to be the most something everybody else, we will see you in the stacks. Thank

Traci Thomas 1:05:28

you all so much for listening, and thank you again to Alexis madrigal for being my guest. Alexis will be back on Wednesday, August 27 to discuss our book club, pick braiding, sweet grass by Robin wall Kimmerer. If you love this show, if you want inside access to it, head to patreon.com/thestacks to join the Stacks Pack and check out my newsletter at tracithomas.substack.com, make sure you're subscribed to the stacks. Wherever you listen to your podcasts, and if you're listening through Apple podcasts or Spotify, please leave us a rating and a review for more from the Stacks. Follow us on social media at the stacks pod on Instagram, Threads and Tiktok, and check out our website at thestackspodcast.com. Today's episode of the stacks was edited by Christian Duenas with production assistance from Wy'Kia Frelot. Our graphic designer is Robin McCreight, and our theme music is from Tagirijus The Stacks is created and produced by me, Traci Thomas.

Wy'Kia Frelot
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Ep. 382 God Help the Child by Toni Morrison — The Stacks Book Club (Dana A. Williams)