 Good morning and welcome to Moments with Melinda. My guest today is Steven Kiernan. Hi, Steven. How are you? I'm great. How are you? I'm fine. I'm so glad that you took some time to talk with me and my viewers because I know you've been so busy. Let me tell my viewers a little bit about you. Steven Kiernan is a journalist, novelist and musician who has won over 40 awards for his life's work. His latest novel, The Glass Chateau, is receiving rave reviews. And today we are going to talk to Steven about his new book. And if we are lucky, he might strum on his 12-string guitar. Right? Okay. All right. I'm ready. So before I get into The Glass Chateau, which Rick and I listened to on Audible, the gentleman who read your book was phenomenal. I'm glad to hear it because I can't really bear listening to it, so I have to trust other people's opinions on it. I'm glad. So I just curious, why can't you listen to it? Is there a reason? It feels really awkward. And I think about how I imagine the sentence is being read. This particular reader, because he was so good at French and German, we chose him, but he's a Brit. And so there's my language in a British voice. And I think, like, am I putting on airs? I don't know. It feels awkward. And his ability to change his voice to sound like the characters. I do a lot of Audible because I don't have very strong eyes. And so I just listen to books a lot. And this was phenomenal. But anyway, so before we get to The Glass Chateau, I want to ask you if your book, Universe of Two, which I absolutely adored, is getting some attention now that Oppenheimer has come out. You know, it has been a little bit. And there are people who loved that book, who've been very kind to promote it. I would have made a lot more noise about it, particularly right when the film came out. But I was on tour for The Glass Chateau and I just could really only devote time to one book that filled my days enough. Because I think the film is excellent. And there's a lot that's really good about it. And I think it is way too much about one guy. And so, so they lost sight of some things. And so, for example, we are supposed to be very upset when Harry Truman calls Oppenheimer a crybaby. Right, we're supposed to be very hurt by that. But I weigh that on the scale of hundreds of thousands of people who died from bombs and the fallout. And there's not a single image of that or mention of that. And I think like, well, maybe it's maybe crybaby is something that he can take. No kidding. Yeah. Okay, well, I just want to recommend your book for anybody who. Thank you. Universe of Two was phenomenal. So I also wanted to ask you if your book, The Curiosity, because I had heard some rumblings might be made into a film anytime soon. So that that book has been under option for, I think, 11 years. Now, it was actually, I had a film deal before I had a book deal for that story. And with 20th century Fox for a while and then entertainment one. And, you know, in the in the wisdom and ways of Hollywood, you know, there's still interest, but I have very low expectation. They got a lot of rebuilding to do in that industry. I'd love it if they made it. Again, The Curiosity to my viewers is a phenomenal book. And I would love to see it made into a film. So, but one of my most I'm just running through your books really quickly with my viewers now because I want to acknowledge them. But one of my most favorite books of yours is the Baker secret. And it's about the young French girl Baker and Normandy fighting to keep her people alive during the Nazi occupation. One of I just loved her character. I just thought she was phenomenal and so strong and beautiful. And so I love that book. Thank you. You know, if I may say, when I usually when I finish a book, I feel like I'm pretty done with it. And Emma, the main character of that book is still with me and I miss her. You know, I loved being in her in her heart and in her life. And so I miss her. She had a stronghold on me. You know, she for a man who didn't have any daughters there you have it, you know, when you. So you also wrote two nonfiction books you wrote the last rights about our medical system and the end of life and authentic patriotism covering the unsung heroes of today, helping to solve the world's most difficult problems. And so that was just that was sort of a bridge between my life, you know, decades and newspapers, and getting into the book business and, you know, last rights is just about how we should stop torturing people to get to death and we should love them up to their death. I miss if I didn't say, you know, that Vermont lost one of its champions of dignified end of life care last week with the passing of Holly Miller, who was incredibly generous in and building the respite house in Colchester and in supporting hospice care all over a real a real ally and an angel to this state in a lot of ways. Oh, and the waters family to the I mean they were incredible they I mean, well, yes, well, you know and I actually was going to get in I'm going to get into that a little bit more in our talk a little bit about that because I really want to get in deep with you on that. But for now. I want to return to the glass Chateau. Because it's getting tremendous attention and the reviews have been outstanding. And as I said I did listen to it on audible and fell in love with it. Share with our viewers because you spent a lot of time in France and working on this book and I just loved following you on that trip in your social media posts but what inspired you to write the story about damaged souls coming together to create stained glass that helps them heal and recover from their grief and their trauma. It's a great description of it, Linda and the answer is that you know I started this book very first days of 2021 and, and I really wanted to write a rebuilding story. I think our society needs it I think our hearts needed a rebuilding story. And I looked in American history and I didn't see a good example certainly not in, you know, in the reconstruction after the Civil War. And so I started looking around and when I've been researching the Baker secret in France I'd seen all these pictures of destroyed cathedrals. And when I visited France. All the cathedrals were rebuilt and I thought that's a great metaphor. And so that got me into looking into the stained glass of these, these cathedrals and, and how many different skills it takes to start with sand and finish with art. And, and that was fascinating to me, and I was fortunate to get two fellowships to an artist colony in France so I got to spend months there and see a lot of great glass and see where was made and see the places where the people lived. And, and I thought there is a rebuilding story there and all these men, every character in this book is damaged only one has a physical injury, all the others are emotional and psychological wounds, but they're very deep. They're always carrying concealed weapons they're ready to fight at a moment's notice, all that sort of thing. And yet, when they start making something together, they stop fighting. And they begin to acknowledge that each person has skills that they can contribute. And there's one point where two men are about to fight and a woman says to them before you kill each other. Just take a second to reflect on what you have built already, and what you might build. And I want to say that like 100,000 times over to have people in America, just think of what you have built and imagine what you could build if you could stop fighting with each other. And so, it's not a Pollyanna story, but it is definitely an optimistic way of looking at the difficulties of our times. That's where it came from, kind of big concept first. Did you discover that when you were in France while you were in France did you discover to do this story on stained glass or was it prior to going to France. Well, it's a little of both when I had already started the book and was writing it almost like a fable. And in fact some of the language in the book is very much like a fable. And I happened to be in this cathedral and rest, which is a small city in eastern France and I was there to see the windows that Mark Shagall had made in that cathedral and it was quite an endeavor to get there. And a lot of travel difficulties and all of that and when I walked into the cathedral, you know, it's as long as two football fields and the roof is 150 feet overhead, and the cornerstone says that they started work on this place in the year 818. It was a classic European cathedral. And I knew that those windows with the back, and I could have just run up the middle, but there was such a build up to getting there that I decided to go around the side. And as it went along the side, there was a history that was posted on the wall there. And it was that this was the place where after the war, the first place where the officials and military of France met with the officials and military of Germany. And in that day, short version of the story, the German delegation said this used to be the greatest cathedral in the world and where these amazing windows were that's all boarded up and we invite the people of France to go find the best stained glass window makers on earth to replace the boards with beautiful windows and the cost will be borne by the people of Germany. And it was the first step in what they call reprochement. And I thought this is not a fable. If France and Germany can rebuild this exquisite cathedral and the windows they put in first were Mark Chagall's fantastic fabulous revolutionary windows at the back. If they could do that, then we certainly could. Yeah, let's hope so. So I fell in love with your main character Asher. What a what a what an interesting human being he is, but in some ways he reminded me of you. Did you see, did you see yourself in the character of Asher. I, you know, I wish I were, I wish I had all of his integrity. No, I saw myself in the character of a 10, who started out with a much bigger role, and then a tennis French for Stephen, you know, and I thought like, and he was this great, you know, character in the first drafts and the more every wrote the book the smaller and smaller his role got but that was where I was trying to put myself in. You know, a man who saw his family killed in the war, and as a result became an assassin for the resistance and, and it's not like shot with a rifle from 200 yards away it's very retail it's arms around the person's throat kind of thing and so he is full of guilt, and he is full of grief, and I thought this is what that nation was like. And, and he has a sense of responsibility and culpability. And so I wanted his recovery to be the first and most important and a 10. He's still up by himself thinking sitting up on the wall and playing with the prism and what it does with light. That's kind of me spacing out and being in my imagination land. I love it. I love it Stephen thank you for that. So, I'm going to want you to read from your book but before I do that I want to ask you this question. Three of your books have been focused on the Second World War University to University of to the baker's secret and now the glass chateau so what is it about this period in history that draws you to it Stephen. I yeah I actually wonder I want to shift that a little bit because my book The Hummingbird was about the Pacific Theater in World War two, a little bit and right, and what I thought is I wrote I wrote three books about the war Pacific theater European theater and Homefront, and then, and then I consider this book starts a month after the end of the war so it's still echoing in people, but I think it's an important time period. Here's why. Let me contrast it with Hollywood. Since 911, Hollywood has had one essential narrative, some super person with incredible moral fiber and incredible powers is going to rescue us from all the evils of the world. And while that has happened there's been a whole literature of World War two. I didn't realize when I started writing this, but there are now many many books about World War two, and there's no great hero there's no great general or president or champion. It's very much the common man caught up in events that are way out or in the case of the baker secret common woman, you know, she's just a 24 year old baker, right, except that she saves her whole community. And I feel like I wanted to tell that story. And so you don't see any generals. And there's mention of a president vaguely in the University, I mean in the glass shuttle, but I want to be a ordinary folk, because I think that's the real response to 911. It's not that some hero is going to deliver us including a president, regardless of which president it is. It's going to be ordinary folk, and the work that they do together. You're here. Well your books do focus on the ordinary people. Have you have you seen band of brothers or the Pacific. I have seen band of brothers and loved it. Yeah, it's fantastic. You should watch Pacific it's done by Spielberg and Hanks, and it's now believe it's on Netflix and it's, I think it's like nine, nine episodes and it's deeply intense and fabulous. Would, would you thank you for that explanation it's really important so would you read for my viewers a little bit from your beautiful book the glass shadow. I'd love to and I want to give it a tense that it's going to be a short reading I promise like two paragraphs, but I want to give a little context. So my, my stained glass windows builders had to revolutionize stained glass window really. And I didn't know how, and then I found out that after the war Mark Shagall did that. And by the way, the as my main character asher conceal the fact that he's Jewish until World War two. The person we think it was Mark Shagall was Moisheh Segel from Belarus, and he lived in Hasidic community. And so he can sit concealed into his Jewishness as well. And there were analogies, and sometimes I had like the windows that they made were actually windows that Shagall made that kind of thing. But, but then his great imagination started to creep in to to my thinking, and I let it. I let his imagination because he's such a genius right. So here's a drawing that he did when he was 14 I believe we don't have exact date on it but so you can see, it's a very simple house. There's a man on the roof of the house, and you can see the woman's expression what she thinks about the man being up on the house. Okay, you see that all right. So here's here that came up in a scene where asher has just told a woman that he loves her. And she says don't don't tell me that because I don't because of the war. I don't know anyone who today has what they loved yesterday. So she changed the subject she says tell me a story. And he's the guy that people say tell me a story he can't help but he always does. So she changes the subject. And this is the story that he tells her two paragraphs. His, so his name is Asher her name is Marie. It's one of my first memories. Remember it as if in dim light when I was four or at most five years old. It was a sweltering day, the house stifling everyone complaining. He took a bowl of carrots onto the roof to eat in the shade. Normally he was a serious as a funeral dressed all in black strict about rules and religion. I was frightened of him, though I believe I loved him to in the manner of a child. We heard his shoes overhead. He was having fun up there. I could hear him calling out to anyone passing by. I went outside and peered up at him from the walk. He waved and hallowed as if I were half a mile off. I can still see the old man's immense beard, pure white against his traditional garb. Asher was surprised at how amused he felt what lightness there was in telling this memory to Marie. When he came back down. There were bits of orange in his beard. It was funny to me side splitting really tiny bits of carrot in the white. Of course, I tried to hide it holding both hands over my mouth. I was afraid to say anything because it might consider be considered criticism when it only meant to be helpful. So I held back behind the door but my grandmother also had noticed. She went right over stood in his way and picked those bits out without comment every one of them. Then she took the ball and brushed him along on his way. Asher did not tell Marie was that this was the love he wanted for his life, where affection was as ordinary as the air. Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful stories. This is a beautiful book. Really beautiful story. Thank you for that. So would you would you like to entertain us with a with a little strumming of your 12 string guitar because you're such a beautiful music. Well, let me try it. I don't know how I'll work with the camera and stuff. So give me a second. Okay. I didn't grab the 12 string because I was hurrying because I've been on the phone with one of my sons right before this. So what I have is actually more interesting maybe. This is a different kind of guitar. First of all, it's a baritone. So like a regular E chord on a regular guitar tuning is this. But in this it is because it's tuned a fifth lower. Okay, this is the lowest string. It's like a piano string. It's like a bass string so it's a lot of work for the left hand. And then the middle strings are paired. So this is an eight string baritone guitar. Okay, I'll play a nice little pretty short piece. It's not Steven. I can't hear it. There's something going on. Okay. I think it's working. Okay. Well, you know, I think about the guitar anyway, sound suppression on I've got to figure this out. I don't know if it's you or me but anyway, I'm so sorry but I'm going to tell folks that they should go to YouTube and find your music. Steven Kiernan on YouTube and listen to you. Thank you. You know, one of my one of my albums is on Spotify to Man of Blast. So you can hear it. You can hear my stuff. I've downloaded it on my Spotify playlist and I hear you all the time and I love it. And thank you. Thank you. I love your sons and it's beautiful music so I'm sorry we couldn't listen to that off to figure that out. Now Steven, I want to move into to talk to you a little bit about the state of our world. You have been deeply involved in trying to create a template for Vermont to sustain its way of life. Can you talk about this Steven and what are the core tenants of a healthy democratic society. Well it's interesting because I just this morning finished a piece I'm writing for Boston Globe about book banning in America and the tour that Lieutenant Governor Dave Zuckerman is doing around the state, engaging people in these issues. And it's been very interesting because you know I went to one of them and you know everyone opposed book banning and believes that you know you should be able to choose what your kids read, but I should be able to choose what my kids read you shouldn't choose for me. And that seems to be universal consensus. And yet, in at the Middlebury event, there was one that people were saying there shouldn't even be challenges to books because that that has its own kind of censoring effect people don't buy books or put them on the wall because they want to avoid controversy. And one woman spoke up and she had a very thick accent and she said, it is very important to have the power to challenge. I lived in a place where you were not permitted to challenge and this is a very important thing. And I spoke with her afterwards and she's a Russian professor at Middlebury College who grew up in the Soviet Union. One of the things I believe is healthy in a democracy is challenging and some friction. And one of the things that the book banning brings to mind is how we were not complacent about reproductive rights, but certainly not militant about them, and look they've gone away. And so I think it takes a generation to restore them, maybe longer. And so I think about like the book banning as a conversation about who decides what our culture is, you know, and the fact that it's at libraries. I mean, compare a library with the real source of most of the filth that is out there right now, and what kids can access without an adult curating what they read and see, and, and they are seeing it. So I think that some of that friction is a healthy thing, especially if it keeps us awake. You know, I think we can predict how this presidential election is going to shape up. And I think that the outcome is going to really depend on how much people are paying attention and not feeling and seeing the friction and being part of the friction. And the other thing is, you know, we really need in in Congress, including the Vermont delegation. We need people who have been in positions of power for a long time to move on. Look at the love that has been poured on Patrick Leahy completely deserved. Right. And I can understand him, wanting to stay as the majority leader or the, the appropriations leader during a Trump presidency I understand it. But there is, there was a great line and JFK is inauguration address where he said the torch has been passed to a new generation. That needs to happen. It needs to happen because you can't have a Senate Commerce Committee holding a hearing with Mark Zuckerman and say to him, That is a Facebook. You can't have that. You can't have people who are too old and infeable to do the job. And I say that not out of disrespect for elderly people. But I think like it will be a healthier thing for our country when we have a different kind of energy, a different sensibility. And I'm eager for it. And as I say, God bless the people who serve Vermont and Washington but it includes our delegation. I hear you. I hear you big time and I think I say it all the time when I'm doing my lecturing that we have to step aside and let young people take over. It's their world. It's not ours. We're moving on. And thank you. Thank you for that wisdom. I had one other thing Melinda drive to two seconds. I want to think you have all the world. Okay, well, I think that you look at the life that you have had and the influence that you have had without being elected. I like now I don't work for it. If our newspapers anymore so I'm allowed to be on boards and get involved in things. Nobody's voted for me, I just participate I'm very, very proud to be part of the Nature Conservancy chapter in Vermont, where our forests are sequestering about 550 million tons of carbon a year. You know, that's real carbon that's taken out of the air. And, and, and I think people are now more than ever sort of worrying about who's president and I remember when it was sort of mattered who the president was but what the people were doing was much more important. And I think that volunteerism and philanthropy in Vermont could be much, much stronger particularly philanthropy. We give much less than the national average per capita to philanthropies even though we have this great nonprofit community. I think it's a big fan of people taking matters into their own hands and solving problems without waiting for the government to do it. Bravo here here. Passing the torch. I'm not running for office. Yeah, right. So I can feel it from you and I've known you many years and so I know that you're deeply concerned about the trajectory of our country. So, so give me a vision of what you think the future will look like for our democracy in the next 1050 years. Well, I think that we're going to be fighting over the Supreme Court for a long time. And it's too bad because I always felt that I was a very reliable branch and I don't any longer. I think that we're going to see ever more hotly contested and more expensive presidential races. The scrutiny of Kennedy candidates is so much on personality rather than policy that I'm not sure what kind of people we're going to see running for office because you have to be some kind of saint. And most of us are most of us are fallible human beings. So I'm not sure. And I think, you know, there's there's a struggle that's happening as we speak about whether or not the Congress is going to continue to be an effective organization or whether it's in the process. So in terms of the government side of things, I'm not super optimistic. There are going to be some challenges, you know, we are we saw this summer all over the country and in Vermont that the climate crisis is underway, and we are not an island that is not going to be touched. You know I was on the book tour and I came home one Sunday, and not only could I not breathe the air. I have a condition where I can't be exercising the bad air, but all the beaches on the Vermont side of Lake Champlain were closed. And you know, and a week later we had floods that did so much damage. And, and you know so we have to be awakened to that too. And I think there are going to be things like that and people moving to Vermont to avoid the worst of climate and I think that's a huge macro challenge that we have not begun to reckon with. There's a lot of challenges. And the question is whether or not individuals will turn off the TV and join something and become part of it and all the data. This is my second book, Authentic Patriotism, all the data says over and over and over. People who are involved in any kind of philanthropic or nonprofit effort are the most optimistic, even if they're fighting the toughest, toughest problems. They're part of the solution. And that's what I hope that's what I hope we have a wave of that. Thank you, Stephen. I want to talk to you about, I mean you were a newspaper man, and you garnered many awards for your work. Are you concerned about the future of a free press in this country. Yes. Long email on Saturday. I'm a subscriber to the Bronson Free Press and have been since 1990. And I got a long email from the executive editor saying that they were reorganizing the cartoons. And it was going to be all these different cartoons and they listed all the ones and you had to be paying attention to realize that they are no longer running Doonesbury. The free press is no longer running it because Gannett is no longer running the only comic in the newspaper that has won the Pulitzer Prize. That's the one they're going to stop. And I think that there's a kind of editorial cowardice behind it. And I've been making a nuisance of myself with Gannett people who are willing to answer my emails. And I know that there are community newspapers where people are doing heroic work for almost no money, and they ought to get more support. I think we're seeing the kind of very well funded and powerful media organizations in my view, insufficiently acting with their mandate. You know, the Vermont public has got like $65 million in the bank, and I want to see it, and I want to hear it. I don't want to sit in the bank. And that's easy for me to say, but if I was on that board, I'd be a pain in the neck, because there's so many. What can we not come up with the money to keep people out of the kid provided people look at me I'm stuttering about it. You kick people out of hotels, and guess what, you're going to have a lot of people who are homeless, walking on church street and gathering in City Hall Park, because they are unhoused. If you give these people a decent place to live, then then some of the problems begin of continuity of security begin to resolve themselves, just because they're placed to live are we incapable of that. Can we not have a media that will shine a light on that like once a week until it's fixed. You know, I like being in newspapers because I got to be a pain in the neck a lot. And I wish that we had a media that was a little less comfortable, a little less careful with its finances, a little more ambition, ambitious with this coverage. Thank you for that for speaking my mind. Wow. Amazing. Amazing. I just wrote a commentary for look at my hair it's just it's I'm seeing it's I think you did. I got my cut for you Melinda was already my head is exploding my God even. I wrote a commentary for Vermont here I hope they run it. It's about that it's about the shutdown and authoritarianism. And I together and it's it's some. So I'm hoping they're going to run it before the shutdown of our government which is looming. And I I'm not even going to get into this election with the with the two with our two candidates but I wanted to get into that because I'm so sort of nervous and sitting on the edge of my chair. I want to talk to you very quickly about hospice and palliative care. You were featured in the award winning documentary consider the conversation and your book last rights which was written in 2006 focuses on the suffering that people experience at the end of their lives. And so I you did mention death with dignity. And I think you that you wrote this because of the suffering that your mother went through. My father my father died in an ICU and yeah we tortured the poor guy for a month that incredibly expensive it was only after about 25 days that we realized he was never coming back. And four and a half years later five years later my mom died at home in her bed with her prayer book in her hand and her pain managed and some of her kids around and it was so much better costs one 10th as much. They all die fast generation ago. It was all heart attack and done stroke and done, and that's not how it is now it's Alzheimer's disease and it's cancer and it is these slow, slow chronic illnesses and it really requires a different approach that is much more supportive of the patients needs, which are not only medical. They're emotional their spiritual, all kinds of things. And so, you know, Vermont has taken some steps. And I mentioned earlier somebody who spent a hero of that and the giving people the option to end their lives when they choose. Legally, you know a lot of folks that's very important to them. You know, I'm not going to dictate to somebody else if that's what they choose to do. We have worked that we have worked to do though Melinda in terms of hospice use, we're low in national ranking, we could do better. And, and we'll see what happens now that the main vna of Vermont is part of the via medical center. Hopefully we'll see more people getting hospice care. And intensive care they can be home with her loved ones and the dog is barking and the smell of bacon is coming from the kitchen and there's music playing all those things that make up a life that they should have for as long as they're alive. Here here and I do know that hopefully next year we're going to pass on the legalization of psilocybin therapy which is being used at end of life. I don't think that death with dignity needs to needs to be made more accessible and easier to obtain. So I'm with you on that one. Um, so Stephen, what's next for you now that you've, you're out on the road. Beautiful book the glass shutto and I suggest that everyone pick up a copy. It's everywhere at every bookstore I go in it's like you it's yeah it's done very well so the. The first thing is the what's next most immediately is this weekend the Green Mountain Book Festival in his second year and I'm delighted to be part of that. And I'll be in a panel with some really people a lot smaller than me about this talking about book banning, and I'm going to do the talk about the glass shutto and then I've got another eight or 10 events around the country. And then the touring will be done. My next book. This is going to sound like madness and maybe this but my next book is already finished. And now my editor's desk, and I expect to hear back from her any minute. And what I can tell you is that it is not historical is set in the present. And it is set in Vermont, and it has it's like this kind of adventure story, and underneath the adventure story there's a thing that's happening in the culture that no one is talking about. And that is human trafficking. Who milks the cows in Vermont now, and how we all turn a blind eye to it. And so, we'll see how that goes I had a lot to learn about that one. And the adventure story kind of propels it along, but there's this subcurrent. And we'll see how it goes. It's just starting the editing process I think the goal is to have it out in February of 25, which tells you about how much work remains ahead, which is fine I love rewriting so that's all good with me. You're brilliant, you're brilliant at what you do Steven. I love my job. It's, and it's an isolated job it's I mean I write a lot to and it's very. You're alone, and you're with your mind and you're with your creativity and your imagination and it's not. You're not surrounded by people and it can be it can be lonely. Without question, sometimes it's it's the most fulfilling thing possible. And sometimes I get I get worked up about something and I find it's been three or four days since I saw another human being. It's not so good. But I guess it's the trade off. I don't know exactly. Well let's just always keep seeing each other now to my view out there this has been beautiful thank you Steven. You can learn more about Steven at his website, Steven Kiernan.com. It's beautiful. So thank you my dear wonderful brilliant friend for God bless you and I love you and I'm delighted to be with you. Thank you so much and to my viewers. I will see you soon. Goodbye.