Jason Blitman: 0:00

Welcome to a special bonus book club, episode of gaze reading. I'm Jason Blitman and this summer author, Amy Jo burns. And I did a group read along of Abraham. Verghese's the covenant of water. The book is 10 parts and we covered a part a week throughout the summer with a group of listeners. And we had a fantastic group thread going on on Instagram, in the chat. And this is the culminating conversation from that read along where Amy Jo and I talked to Abraham, Bergey's all about the book has processed and so much more. It is important to note that there will be spoilers. So if you're planning on reading the book, I recommend reading the book and then coming back to check out this conversation. And if you're listening to this as a podcast, the video of this conversation can be found at the gays reading YouTube channel, which you could subscribe to over at youtube.com/@gaysreading. Uh, and you could follow us on Instagram@gaysreading and you can listen to all of our previous episodes, wherever you get your podcasts and you could subscribe and like, and share. And if you subscribe, you'll be the first to know when something new comes along. And if you haven't read Amy Jo Burns's book mercury, I highly recommend it. Check it out wherever you get your books. Um, and he could also find it in the gaze reading bookshop.org page, which is linked to in our show notes. Here's a bit about Abraham or geese for those of you who do not know. Uh, Abraham Verghese. Lisa is a graduate of the Iowa writer's workshop and the author of the NBCC award finalist, my own country and the New York times notable book, the tennis partner. His most recent book cutting for stone spent 107 weeks on the New York times bestseller list and sold more than 1.5 million copies in the U S alone. It was translated into more than 20 languages and is being adapted for film by anonymous content. For geese was awarded the national humanities medal in 2016 and has received five honorary degrees and as an elected member of the national academy of medicine and the American academy of arts and sciences. He's the vice chair of the department of medicine at the Stanford university school of medicine. A decade in the making. The covenant of water is his first book since cutting first down. Incredibly accomplished, man. He's amazing. And I'm so excited for you to check this out and now enjoy this. Bonus book club read along episode of gays reading. This could be very casual as much, as, as much as I would like to be. I am unfortunately not Oprah.

Abraham Verghese: 2:59

I'm sure that you're your own legend.

Amy Jo Burns: 3:03

That's true. One Oprah, one Jason Blitman.

Jason Blitman: 3:07

That's true. Abraham, I'm Jason. That's Amy Jo.

Abraham Verghese: 3:12

Pleasure.

Amy Jo Burns: 3:13

Nice to meet

Jason Blitman: 3:14

How's your day so far?

Abraham Verghese: 3:16

My, uh, my day has been pretty good. Kind of busy, but I'm at home for, for a change, so not too bad.

Jason Blitman: 3:22

That must be nice.

Abraham Verghese: 3:24

It is nice. Yes,

Jason Blitman: 3:25

How, you've been touring for the book for, it feels like, ages.

Abraham Verghese: 3:31

It must seem like that, but actually, the book tour ended fairly soon, but there have been a lot of one off events, you know, book festivals and lectures. It's all been great, but it's kind of winding down.

Jason Blitman: 3:45

Yeah. Are you, are you tired of talking about it yet?

Abraham Verghese: 3:48

No, not really. I mean, I'm just intrigued. You know, you write in such solitude and you're always imagining the moment when a reader picks up the novel. And so I never get tired of hearing what people have to say. I'm tired of hearing myself, I suppose, but I love hearing other people's thoughts. There's always something fresh that comes up.

Jason Blitman: 4:09

Yeah, that's good. Because I know sometimes authors Amy Jo, I'm sure you feel this way, too, because Amy's also an author,

Abraham Verghese: 4:17

I know.

Jason Blitman: 4:18

so helpful. Uh, to give you a little bit of background of how this came to be, Covenant of Water has been on my list to read for so long. Amy Jo's book, Mercury, that came out earlier this year was among my favorites, and I connected with her, saw that she was, was tackling big books throughout the year. And I was like, girl, let's read this big one together.

Abraham Verghese: 4:44

Lovely.

Jason Blitman: 4:44

And so I host the podcast Gaze Reading and, and I put it out to all of our listeners, whoever would like to join along, come on, come on down. So we've had this really lovely Instagram chat throughout the whole the process of reading. We've read it over the course of, you know, nine and a half weeks. And, and so it's been this little pocket of people talking about the book this whole time. So that's been really fun.

Abraham Verghese: 5:11

That's wonderful.

Jason Blitman: 5:13

Um, we were talking about you being on tour and you talking about the book so much and me asking if you're tired of talking about it. Is there anything in all of this time that you haven't addressed about the book?

Abraham Verghese: 5:30

I'm sure there is. I mean, there are some fairly standard things that people do ask about, but it's interesting what, what intrigues people the most. It varies a lot. I think the thing that I wind up talking about the most perhaps is the fact that I began with a, I think, a very daring opening of a 12 year old girl and her on her um, wedding day, which is, which can be very off putting to the Western reader. And yet, for that era, for that time, this is kind of how it was. It's actually the true story of my grandma, my great grandmother. But even my grandmothers were married at 12 they just became children and many other Children. And one of the annoying boys happened to be their future husband, and I'm not sure they even quite registered that. And their mother in laws became strangely closer to them than their own mothers. Because, you know, when you leave the house and you get married, it's a a profoundly sad moment. Even to this day, I've been to engagements or weddings, actually. And when the bride is leaving her house, everybody's in tears because you no longer belong to that house. You, you are now part of a new family. You can't make any claims there. And so that's what we wind up talking about. Quite a bit, I suspect.

Jason Blitman: 6:57

Yeah. Um, backwards for a second, I completely forgot to tell you why this book in particular was so special for Amy Jo to read. Amy Jo, tell them

Amy Jo Burns: 7:08

So, uh, my in laws are from Kerala. So my husband's Malayali and, um, yes. And I talked to my mother in law yesterday morning. She wanted you to know that she's from Cochin Cherry and that's, I guess, an area. Yeah. So, um,

Abraham Verghese: 7:25

to where my grandparents live, yeah. Yeah,

Amy Jo Burns: 7:27

said, ask him if he knows Abraham Chaco, because he's an utch in there. And I said, I'll ask.

Abraham Verghese: 7:34

that's about a hundred Abraham

Amy Jo Burns: 7:36

That's what I said. That's what I told her. So funnily enough, there's one of my husband's uncles, his name is Abraham Bergis as well. So that's kind of funny. But when I was reading the book, I mean, first of all, I have always loved listening to my own mother in law stories about growing up in India. And so reading this book really felt like I was spending time with her. So And she calls me mole. So seeing that at the beginning of the book, it was just so special. It was one of those amazing things where you don't ever, you don't quite realize how amazing it is to see something like that reflected in a book until it is. And then you realize, Oh my goodness, I've never seen this. So, um, not only, you know, does my whole in laws, that whole side of the family love the book, but my side of the family loved it as well. My sister was super excited talking to you today. So it feels like this is a, a joint family thing that everybody just loved the book. So getting to, um, see. A life that my in laws would recognize so beautifully put on the page has been just the best one of my favorite reading experiences of the year.

Abraham Verghese: 8:41

That's wonderful. Well, you know, I don't have to tell you that. Maybe your mother in law is not like this, but Malayalees, that is to say people from Kerala, can be very critical. You know, the typical story is your mother is there as you're being inaugurated president of the country. Yeah. Yeah. And someone turns to her and says, you must be so proud of your son. And they'll say, yeah, but he could have been a doctor. So what I was going to say is it's been, I was very nervous about, about how people from Kerala would receive this book because I'm guessing unlike your husband, but maybe not. I wasn't born in Kerala. I was born in Africa. fluent in Malayalam. And so I could just see them say, Oh, this, this foreign born kid thinks he can write about Kerala. And, uh, what has been most gratifying is that many, many people from Kerala have just embraced the book because it's telling their story, revealing their intricacies of their culture to, to their friends. And, uh, that's been unexpected and quite a delight.

Amy Jo Burns: 9:50

I love that. My husband has a very similar experience. He was born in the States. He can understand Malayalam, but he can't speak it all that well. And so this is a special thing, I think for him to listen to. I'm so excited. Our kids are young and I can't wait for them to read it when they're older. Cause it's just going to be, This be able to say, this is, this is part of who you are.

Abraham Verghese: 10:08

Well, it's very exciting. I knew about you, but I had no idea about your Kerala connection. Great.

Jason Blitman: 10:13

Isn't that cool? I, that was, it was such an exciting, happy

Amy Jo Burns: 10:17

Yeah.

Jason Blitman: 10:20

Um, speaking of exciting, happy accidents, I was telling Amy Jo before you got on, uh, this is now a week for me of having COVID and it's the best my symptoms have been. And I said, it's because Abraham is a doctor because when, when you go to the doctor, that's when your symptoms are, are at least apparent. And so I feel like it's because you're a doctor. I'm feeling my best today. So thank you for that.

Abraham Verghese: 10:45

I'm glad, I'm glad that it's having some remote effect.

Jason Blitman: 10:50

So before we do a deep dive on the book, because you know, Amy Jo and I and this group have finished the book and so there's plenty to talk about, but you have spoken so much about books in general, how books led you to medicine, how novels have changed you. There's, there's themes of books in the book. What are some of those novels that changed you when you were young?

Abraham Verghese: 11:17

Well, I mean, I just think fundamentally books are such a magical, they're magical entities. I mean, I don't know of anything in our world that can stop time the way that a book can. You know, you pick up a, A novel, preferably a big one. And you enter this world and, you know, centuries pass and people live and die and you put it down and it's Tuesday.

Amy Jo Burns: 11:45

hmm. Hmm.

Abraham Verghese: 11:49

one that, uh, I really enjoy. And I regret that many. Many people don't seem to have that, you know, as a good, especially men in my profession. Oh, I'm a serious kind of guy. I only read nonfiction and I often hear them say, and I think what a loss, because, um, to me, fiction conveys a kind of truth when it works. It's a feel is that it's, as Camus said, the great lie that tells the truth about how the world lives. And so I think for many of us, maybe for you guys too, there were seminal novels that helped steer. The ship of our life, you know, that helps turn the prow this way or turn it that way. And it was a kind of wisdom you could never live long enough to, to experience. So, so you had to get it from books. And yeah, I think that that will always remain magical for me.

Jason Blitman: 12:42

What you said there were some seminal ones. What were some of those for you?

Abraham Verghese: 12:46

Well, I think it's just by happy accident. I, I, uh, I was, uh, um, my older brother who was two years older than me is a math whiz. He's a professor at MIT now and his genius was apparent very early on. But, and by comparison to him, I was, I was kind of not a dunce, but I was certainly not an overachiever. I had no, yeah, I had

Jason Blitman: 13:12

sure. Definitely not an overachiever.

Abraham Verghese: 13:15

I had no particular aptitude in the school curriculum.

Jason Blitman: 13:18

got,

Abraham Verghese: 13:19

I remember my brother announced to my parents that he was going to be an engineer. You know, If you're an Indian child, your options are a doctor, lawyer, engineer or failure. This is your choice. And so when he said that their joy was immense, and I remember feeling like I had to come up with something as well. So I said, Well, I want to be a doctor. And it sounded as hollow as as it was. And then, uh, but I was a precocious reader. I always read and I think I stumbled onto Lady Chatterley's lover when I was nine or something

Amy Jo Burns: 13:55

Mm hmm.

Abraham Verghese: 13:58

television days. You know, you really had to work for your entertainment

Amy Jo Burns: 14:02

Hmm.

Abraham Verghese: 14:04

off human bondage because for the wrong reasons, the title to me held great promise and

Jason Blitman: 14:11

Hmm.

Abraham Verghese: 14:12

it turned out to be, you know, this wonderful story. The medical element is minor, but The character in the book was really, has a lot of bad breaks all along. Clubfoot, he's orphaned. But there's a moment when he arrives on the wards and Somerset Maugham describes it as something like this, Philip saw humanity there in the rough. The artist's canvas and he said to himself, This is something I can do. This is something I can be good at. And those words just, you know, struck me. It was almost like, you know, just felt surreal, you know, like listening to a voice that was just for you. And so, and I took away from that the sense that not everybody can be a brilliant. Mathematician like my brother or, you know, brilliant, whatever artists or something, but anybody with a curiosity about the human condition and a willingness to work hard could, could turn out to be a good physician. And, uh, so I just, I just felt like I found my place, you know, in a world where. All around me where these super achievers, uh, I found something that I could do that, that would be satisfying and credible. And yeah, so that was the first kind of steering of the ship, but there were many more along the way. For example, I trained, I began to train in infectious diseases. In Boston in 19, um, 84, 85, and there was a lot of HIV around. It was just starting. And I read Randy Shills book and the band played on, and I, I mean, I'd already known this and I was already spending most of my time in that area, but I suddenly felt that this is the defining moment of our, our generation, both as physicians and as human beings. And, um, and I, I sort of pivoted my, my entire clinical activity towards that. So, I mean, there have been many examples like that, some of them more minor, but some significant. It

Jason Blitman: 16:22

I mean, what you just did, quoting a book, maybe perhaps slightly, uh, not an exact quote, but unless it was an exact quote, I don't know. I didn't Google it. Um, but there's somebody out there, whether it's right now or 10 years from now or 40 years from now, who will do the same thing with your words. They will have read a book that changed their life of yours, that propelled them to do something different, whether it's become a writer or become a physician or who knows what, and quote, a piece of you. How does that feel?

Abraham Verghese: 16:57

feels, it feels, I mean, it's hard to imagine, but it feels great. I will say that, uh, a generation of physicians my age would describe their call to medicine. The calling to medicine came from a book and it was often the same book. In America, the book was Aerosmith by Sinclair Lewis. Or it was, uh, my, or it was microbe hunting by Paul decree, but in, in the Commonwealth, it was the Citadel by AJ Cronin,

Jason Blitman: 17:31

Huh.

Abraham Verghese: 17:31

which was a huge bestseller here too, but the reason people don't remember, remember him, uh, they don't invoke his name much, but you know, that book, the Citadel was responsible for, for the creation of the national health service, you know, because it's so captured the imagination and, and cause outrage about. The fictional portrayal of medical conditions in a small Welsh mining town. And nevertheless, it was the lie that tells the truth. It was, you know, it was real enough. And so the NHS was born. And so my goal with my first, very first novel, not my first book, but my first novel, Cutting for Stone, was to write something that, you know, a young reader, not, not young in age, but a, A reader might say, you know what, I don't care how much, how hard medicine is. I don't care how much money I'm going to make. I can't imagine something more adventurous and romantic than a life in medicine. And so that was the ambition to write that kind of book. And to this day, the best kind of praise I get for the one that I value the most for both Cutting for Stone and Covenant is someone telling me that I decided to go to medical school. Or, you know, I went to medical school and they're, you know, now they have gray hair even, but it was because of my book. And to me, that's more valuable than any prize or riches really. It's really something very special.

Jason Blitman: 19:01

That's very cool. And in turn, you're not only changing their lives, but you're changing the lives of the people that they're affecting as well. Which is,

Abraham Verghese: 19:10

It's funny. You should say that.

Jason Blitman: 19:12

effect is big.

Abraham Verghese: 19:13

I've, um, you know, I've been a long time teacher of medicine, which doesn't say that I teach at the bedside. I don't do many lectures and so on, but it's a remarkably inefficient way to teach. You're seeing patients with three or four. interns or residents around. And however, if you, if you do your job well, and you impart and model a kind of way of being in medicine, you know, I always think it's just when I'm getting tired of having said the same thing again to, you know, over 40 years to the same young student in front of me, I remind myself that they're going to go on to a lifetime of seeing patients and if I do this one thing well with them and they carry a piece of it forward just as I carry in me all the aphorisms of my professors. I mean, I'm literally parroting things my professors said to me. I'm parroting to my students. They don't necessarily know it, but it's part of that chain that you, you pass on. So I think what you just said echoed that sense of, you know, it may not be very efficient, but it's terribly important.

Amy Jo Burns: 20:21

You know, that makes me think of when I finished the book, what I was really struck by was how patient the book itself is. I think the storytelling is very patient and your patience as a writer comes through as well, because I, you know, from what I've read, this took quite a bit of time for you to write. And I can only imagine the kind of endurance that it took to pull off a book that is this epic. And, So many times when I'm writing, I don't know if you get this, you get so far into it and you just think I need to back out, this isn't going to go well, you know, and, and it's sometimes hard to know when to continue. So I'm wondering, what was it that sustained you as you were writing this book? Was there something that kept you going as you were working?

Abraham Verghese: 21:07

Yeah. I mean, there were moments of great despair. And I think I just Moments when I thought this would never happen. Um, and part of it was, I just got into the story and I tend to write long, I

Amy Jo Burns: 21:18

Mm hmm. Mm

Abraham Verghese: 21:21

I needed three generations to, to, uh, especially to echo something that I love about medicine. In my years of practicing medicine, it's been remarkable to see things that, for which we had a name, but no understanding, evolved to where we had a better sort of cellular understanding of what was going on. Then a, um, a molecular understanding and, you know, finally, even a treatment, a small molecule or RNA treatment, you know, that kind of evolution is, requires three generations for you to see it. And I wanted to make that happen in the book. And so, I was committed to three generations and I, I feel like I can't make a character come alive in a one or two page sketch of them, you know, I mean, I can try, but it's, it's not easy. And so it wound up being much longer than I intended. And, you know, there was an issue. I actually changed publishers because my first publisher, you know, was just focused entirely on the length. And a wonderful thing when I met Peter Blackstock at Grove Publishers was he said. A book needs to be as long as it needs to be, you know, wow. So I don't think that I'm particularly patient. I'm not sure I would have even embarked on this if I thought it would be such an ordeal. You know, you, you, you look back and everything seems to link up and people project on you this master plan you had, but I had no wish to go through this quite the way it happened. It was 10 years in the making

Jason Blitman: 22:59

Oh.

Abraham Verghese: 22:59

and a lot of,

Jason Blitman: 23:01

I also appreciate that you have said multiple times now, a lot of, some, a lot of things people will ask you about is what's next. And so many authors who I've talked to, I'm just like, I couldn't imagine writing another book after Covenant of Water. Like, so I'm, I appreciated that you have sort of put out into the world, you put your all of your heart and soul into that. And if something comes, something comes, but you're not, the goal is not necessarily to write another book. So just sharing that appreciation.

Abraham Verghese: 23:31

oh, thank you. Yeah, I mean, I think I also can't get my head around the idea of another book, especially if it's going to be, you know, that much of an effort. I'm getting out in years and another. I'm not sure. On the other hand, you know, I think, um, gradually that, that argument is fading and I'm, you know, I'm kicking around that. So we'll see, I would like to make it shorter. I wouldn't want to

Jason Blitman: 23:56

A little novella, perhaps. Yeah.

Amy Jo Burns: 24:02

have a piece of advice for any writers that is kind of stuck in the middle because I think every writer, like you said, you hit that moment of despair and you just wonder, I don't know if I'm ever going to finish, I don't know if anyone will ever read it. Do you have any words of wisdom?

Abraham Verghese: 24:19

Yeah. I think one thing is to not give up too soon. And I think I take that lesson from startups. You know, we have a ton of startups around here and I've probably sunk money that I didn't need to, into my students, startups, just. You never know if they're going to be the next Google or the next something, you know, but, uh, there is a very common graph that I've seen on several people use where, you know, there's a time when you invest in the company and then it's sort of. Is going down and then there's a point where it goes up again, but you don't, when you're going down and you're at the same level as the place where you're going up, you don't know whether you're going up or down, you see. And so you have to sort of weather that, that little trough, not knowing if you're actually on the downslope heading for the pit or if you're on the comeback, because they look the same, nothing is. And so I think there's a similar phenomenon in writing a novel, I think, where. Despair is expected. You know, you're like the startup and sales aren't good right away. You have to push through and have, have a finished manuscript, put it aside for a while perhaps. And then come back to it and make it make a judgment. I

Jason Blitman: 25:41

That's scary to think about not even being able to see if you're going up or going down, but it's having that patience to work through.

Abraham Verghese: 25:50

mean, I think that's where a good editor comes in because you quickly lose objectivity about the story. And, uh, you know, I had, believe it or not, I had many, many more pages that didn't make it into the book. Uh, and it's not all bad writing, but it's just that they weren't. serving the arc of the book and the main characters. So we eliminated characters to, to me were pretty fascinating, but I had to agree with Peter that they didn't really, um, they, they added to the story, but not in a way that was necessary. And so,

Jason Blitman: 26:24

Is there a character or a plot point in particular that, uh, is meaningful to you that's worth sharing?

Abraham Verghese: 26:32

well, for example, uplift master had a much bigger story,

Amy Jo Burns: 26:36

He's my favorite.

Jason Blitman: 26:37

Jo's favorite. character!

Abraham Verghese: 26:40

the much bigger story. And, um, you know, it was, to me, it was interesting. Uh, you know, we put, we wind up putting all our little pet peeves and interests into these characters and. I think he was full of them. And I think I only show a fraction of his whole self, but he really is an ancillary character and I had to accept that for that to work.

Amy Jo Burns: 27:04

Well, if you ever wanted to write a novella about Uplift Master, I would read it. I just thought, especially at the Merrimon Convention, and part of that is because my mother in law has told me stories about going to this convention. So I just, I loved that section and I, I loved his ambition for the town and, um, I love it. When ambition really takes on something that doesn't necessarily have to do with money, but it's like for the good of the village, the good of the people. So he was, he was just really fun to read. Do you have a favorite character?

Abraham Verghese: 27:40

I'm sorry. I do have a favorite. No, you know, I think I, the character I feel closest to is Philippos for some reason. I think he has more of me, but you know, there was an interesting. A review of the book by the New York Times, um, by Andrew Solomon, he reviewed my, my novel and, you know, it was generally a very positive review, but at one place he says that I don't have any bad characters in my book. They're all good. They're all, you know, and I suppose in a way that's, that's kind of true, but it also fits my worldview. I feel like. Most of us are, you know, we don't wake up and say I'm evil, so I'm gonna go out and fulfill my evil agenda. Even the most willingness people we know, some of whom are very prominent right now in the media, certainly don't think of themselves as evil. They, they, you know, everybody feels very justified in what they're doing. And I,

Jason Blitman: 28:40

where the scariest villain comes in.

Abraham Verghese: 28:42

yeah. So, you know, there's the true of it in there. There are very few of those. And in my novel, I tried to populate it with people who are trying to do good. They'd often made terrible mistakes and they were looking for redemption. And I think, again, that echoes with most of the people I know in the world who are, you know, on that spectrum. So, but Philippus was someone I was very, uh, identified with closely some of his confusion. Uh, you know, and similarly, I think I was very close to all the characters and when they died, every time I was revising, it didn't matter if it was the. The hundredth time I would be in tears, uh, at that

Jason Blitman: 29:26

You should have seen me in this Instagram chat. Every, every week, I'm typing in, Another one! How did he kill off another person? I was very upset every week, Abraham. But I get it. It's a part of life. It's a part of life.

Abraham Verghese: 29:43

The thing is that I think we are so unused to, to death, uh, in modern society and we're in denial. We're in major denial. We know it's happening, but in the era I was describing, it's, it was actually commonplace. I had one of my grandmothers lost her only son to typhoid at 12, my mother's favorite brother, and my other grandmother lost her oldest son who was 16. to rabies when he fended off a dog who wandered into the compound. And my dad remembers as a child that he got bit and a month later he had this. Raging encephalitis and died, you know, and they took him to the hospital and they sent him right back. So this kind of death was, you know, not something I'm making up in some ghoulish way, I think it was true to the times

Jason Blitman: 30:32

I know, I didn't, I didn't blame you. You were, you were doing justice to the storytelling, I understand. I had to blame you. You were the person I had to blame. To get sort of nitty gritty into pieces of the story, Robbie tells Digby, small things make a big difference, Digby. God is in the small things. What are some small things in your life?

Abraham Verghese: 31:02

in my life that make a difference.

Jason Blitman: 31:04

Mm hmm.

Abraham Verghese: 31:06

Yeah, I mean, you know, I think for me, it's enduring patient care, I think. For me, the thing that gets glossed over, but I think it's very important, is listening to the story. The story will often have the clues to what's going on if it's not evident. So similarly, the, you know, you can jump straight to the CAT scan, but I like, I like to really use the information, the phenotypic data that the patient's body is giving you. You have to learn to read the body. And for many in medicine, it's like, well, I'll just get a CAT scan. But if you take information from the body plus the CAT scan, you are reaching a sort of a higher level of understanding. Or you're asking better questions of the tests you order, or you're avoiding tests you don't need because, you know, you're an idiot and you have missed what's written on the body. You're sort of medically illiterate. So, to me, when I think of the small things, It's that kind of thing, but it also could extend to things like, you know, courtesy, listening, you know, it's a small thing, but I think the, the real art of conversation is. to listen. And there are far too many people who are busy talking. So they're never listening. And you really can't have a fruitful conversation. I've had people say to me, it was so nice chatting with you. And I realized I didn't get a word in, but it didn't matter to them because they're busy going on and I'm a good listener. So I listen,

Jason Blitman: 32:41

It was so nice talking at you.

Abraham Verghese: 32:46

no pressure, no pressure.

Jason Blitman: 32:50

Those are great. Great answers.

Amy Jo Burns: 32:52

I was just going to say, you know, something else I noticed, and even in chatting with you throughout the book, you know, each death that happens, we just feel it. Right in the chest. But I, I think you also approach tragedy from a very soul settled place. It almost feels like there's this bird's eye view of it. But at the same time, we are really in it with the characters and we feel them holding their breath and everything. And the characters to me, they all really know how to lament very well, which is, I think something we don't do well in this country and they don't pity themselves. Um, but they also really know how to access humor and joy. Right in the same moment and I'm wondering how you find that balance as a writer because I those are my favorite books the ones That you feel the sadness, but you also feel the joy and I think not all as it's hard in life It's also hard in writing. So I'm curious what that journey is like for you Mm

Abraham Verghese: 33:50

You know, I'm sure very much like you is a lot of trial and error, many iterations. And Sometimes you're overdoing it and it's melodramatic and it's full of, you know, pathos or worse. It's, it's become tawdry. Um, I always loved this image that I first learned in Iowa, I believe. Yeah, it was in Iowa from Frank Conroy, who is the program director. He said, you know, where does a book exist? You know, it's not, where does the covenant of water exist? It doesn't exist in those pages in front of me here, but it exists as a collaborative venture between the writer and the reader. So the writer provides the words, the reader provides their imagination. And in middle space, this, you know, fictional dream, this, this movie version evolves, and it's very much the creation of the reader. And the reader is going to be really upset if you give them too much information, because then you rob them of the ability to imagine. Conversely, if you give them too little, then it's mysterious. They don't know what the hell you're talking about. And so I think especially in the emotional scenes. It's important to, you know, as best you can trust the reader to fill in the spaces and imagine parts of the scene that you're not describing and experience the emotions that you've only given a shorthand for. And, uh, again, as I said, I think editors should have their names on the cover because it really takes. Someone like that to say, this is too much. This is too little. Uh, I have a hard time seeing that in my own work unless I put it aside, completely aside for a long time. You know, I mean, that's something I wrote two years ago and be much more objective about it. I can't do that. But something I put away two weeks

Amy Jo Burns: 35:47

Yeah.

Abraham Verghese: 35:48

which is why it infuriates me when someone from time to time will send me something saying, I just wrote this this morning, what do you think of it? I want to say, I'm thinking I want to come over there and smack you. I'm not going to draw for you. You know, there is no writing to me that works like that. What you wrote it this morning. It needs mature, like fine wine, I suppose. You

Amy Jo Burns: 36:15

true. Mm hmm. Mm hmm. Mm hmm. Mm

Jason Blitman: 36:19

Alright, I have another very specific personal question related to the book for you. Tangama talks about how if there was ever a fire in her house, and she had to choose between her husband and her clay pot where she cooks everything, she would choose her clay pot. What is your clay pot?

Abraham Verghese: 36:45

know, these days, everything's in the clouds. So I wouldn't have to grab it.

Jason Blitman: 36:49

Right?

Abraham Verghese: 36:50

I think it would be my, my Gibson Les Paul studio, the middle one of those three there.

Jason Blitman: 36:57

Oh, wow.

Abraham Verghese: 36:58

grab that and be out of here.

Jason Blitman: 37:02

Do you write music?

Abraham Verghese: 37:04

No, no, not at all. I don't even play music. Well, I just, uh, I just pretend and have illusions of being on a stage and being great, which will never happen. No,

Jason Blitman: 37:16

dare you? You, this, you just put it out into the universe. The next thing we know you're going to be playing some concert

Abraham Verghese: 37:25

no, trust me. It's never going to happen. I just like noodling around. And the amazing thing is when I picked up guitar when I was young and I played bass guitar in a band for a while, but. It was so hard to learn, especially in Africa. And then, and nowadays with YouTube and this and that, you know, it's easy to learn and I'm enjoying learning some music theory and understanding why these things work and, but nobody ever gets to hear it and nobody ever will. I wouldn't

Jason Blitman: 37:54

I, I played bass guitar in a band once. He

Abraham Verghese: 37:57

Did you?

Jason Blitman: 37:59

No, you! You said that!

Abraham Verghese: 38:01

Yeah. It wasn't like a major band of any kind of thing. It was just a small band, you know?

Jason Blitman: 38:06

It's more than the band I

Amy Jo Burns: 38:07

hmm. Mm hmm.

Jason Blitman: 38:08

which was not, I wasn't in a band.

Amy Jo Burns: 38:11

There is something nice about, I think when you're writing a long project and you're kind of in it, there's something nice about having a. fellow creative project, whether it's guitar or sewing or even cooking dinner where you can sort of you, there's markers about, okay, the song starts here and it ends here. I can hit sound. It sounds a little bit better than it did yesterday. I cooked this meal and I ate it to just remind yourself that there I'm in the middle of an arc here. There is a cycle here and to sort of see a smaller one can. I think be very encouraging, especially if your brain is trying to work something out. It's nice to have that other creative outlet available.

Abraham Verghese: 38:48

Yes. Well said. I agree.

Jason Blitman: 38:51

Do you mind if I ask why the guitar specifically?

Abraham Verghese: 38:55

Uh, there's nothing really much of much value other than that in the house right now. I don't think I

Jason Blitman: 39:03

have to be, like, it could be sentimental. Like, the, the clay pot, I'm sure Tangaman could have gotten, and, you know, it just was that one specifically was important to her.

Abraham Verghese: 39:11

haven't shared this with very many people, but I walk out of this house, uh, one night, 15 years ago, uh, it was very painful parting from my then wife. My son was in tears, couldn't understand what was happening. It all had happened fairly precipitously. And I, I called a taxi and I I grabbed this guitar and the other thing I did grab was some papers, you know, valuable papers. If she, if for whatever reason I didn't have access again. And you know, the house at the time was full of, you know, all kinds of things that we must have spent money on. Um, there wasn't a single one that I missed, you know, and when I moved eventually for complicated reasons, I got the house, I moved back into the house and I'm sitting in the living room, which to me was the most useless room in the house because it had this expensive furniture covered with the lace dollies or whatever, and nobody ever sat there. And so I made this my writing space, there's a big whiteboard on this wall, great windows And, um, yeah, so I mean, I've accumulated a lot of crap here, but there's nothing that I, including the guitar that I couldn't walk away from,

Jason Blitman: 40:31

Thank you for sharing that.

Abraham Verghese: 40:32

not at all.

Jason Blitman: 40:34

Every once in a while, I'll ask a question like that, and then the author will turn it back around on me, and I am glad that you didn't do that, because I have no idea. I don't know what I would grab. My passport? Right? Like, I have no idea.

Abraham Verghese: 40:49

That would be a smart thing. I should have said passport. I have some strong relations

Jason Blitman: 40:53

That's okay. Um, Amy Jo, do you have something that you would have grabbed? Like, I have no idea.

Amy Jo Burns: 40:58

You know,

Abraham Verghese: 41:00

And so I think that that's why it would be hard to replace, you know. I would probably walk out with that. Sorry, you were going to say it.

Amy Jo Burns: 41:09

I, I think, and this is sort of silly, but there's drawn, not silly, but I'm, my children have drawn pictures of me that I have up on the wall that there's, that's something that feels like, you know, I might just, Take with me if the house is burning down or something like that, but, um, yeah, it's interesting when you're kind of up against it's like, well, I'm not, I'm not sure what I, if I need any really, other than the people in it, you know, yeah.

Jason Blitman: 41:39

assuming that the people, the pets, and the cloud are all with you.

Amy Jo Burns: 41:43

Mm hmm.

Jason Blitman: 41:44

Um, you know, though, now that I'm thinking about it, in my closet, I have my childhood blanket. It was the blanket that I was wrapped in as a newborn. My very first photo of me is it wrapped in this blanket. Um, I used to sleep with it every day as a child. And now it's like folded up in my closet somewhere. I'd probably grab that now that I think about it,

Amy Jo Burns: 42:08

Yeah.

Jason Blitman: 42:09

just sentimentally, right? Like, it's like a thing that you just can never, ever replace

Amy Jo Burns: 42:14

You know, the other thing I'm thinking now that what would I really grab is I have on my bookshelf galleys of, of each of my books there. And it's not even the galley that I want, but I have written notes to myself that are in the book that are kind of reminders to myself about how I want to be when I'm talking about that book. Because, you know, I, I think when you're with readers or whoever, you always want to Bring your most honest self. So in each one of those books, depending on whatever I was going through at the time or whatever the book meant to me, I just have this, this list of things that remind me, like, this is why I wrote this book. This is why I feel it's important and it kind of the snapshot of maybe who I was 10 years ago, five years ago, but it's just a, those sorts of days, like a letter to myself that I will reread every once in a while when I feel like I need to get my head on straight a little bit. So I'd probably grab that too. Okay. Mm

Abraham Verghese: 43:11

That's lovely. I think ultimately, I'm, I'm, I'm very conscious that you can't take anything with you.

Jason Blitman: 43:18

right. right.

Abraham Verghese: 43:19

I think we live in this illusion that we're somehow going to keep it all and take it with us. You know, in all likelihood, our kids are going to walk in and cuss us for having accumulated so much junk and the number of trucks they have to hold to the, to the dumpster, you know? And so I'm consciously trying to accumulate less, not that I have accumulated much, but you know,

Jason Blitman: 43:44

But as authors, the two of you, you, you do leave things behind. You do leave a legacy while you don't take it with you. There is a piece of you that will be a part of the written word as long as humans are existing. Um, and that's a really cool and special thing and something not, uh, something worth acknowledging.

Abraham Verghese: 44:07

yeah, I don't, I don't know about you, but you, I don't think about that a lot. Do you think about

Amy Jo Burns: 44:12

No, I don't.

Abraham Verghese: 44:15

It's a nice thought when, when it comes up, but it's certainly not, not giving me any consolation about dying. I'll tell you that.

Jason Blitman: 44:23

No, well,

Amy Jo Burns: 44:23

You know, you said earlier that when you read a book, it's like stopping time. And that when I write is exactly why I write is that I feel like that's the closest I'll ever get to stopping time. So it kind of helps me sort of really grant, put myself in the present of whatever's happening in the book.

Jason Blitman: 44:47

I guess what I really meant is like, you might have a lot of crap, but you're also, there is legacy that you get to leave behind as well. Not that that will help you sleep at night, but.

Abraham Verghese: 44:58

No, I think it's true. I think, uh, part of our sense of purpose is fulfilled when we feel like we did something that last, but

Jason Blitman: 45:07

Yeah. Speaking of dying. All right, because we could talk about all the spoilers we want, because everyone has read the book. Why? Why slash did you know slash the fact that Big Amici and Baby Maul died the same night? Why did you do that? Did you know that was gonna happen? Can you talk a bit about the fact that it happened together?

Abraham Verghese: 45:40

You know, I wish I could explain the why or the how, but I think that, you know, to me, writing is pretty mysterious. You know, you sit down, you have to apply your ass to the chair, and then at some point, it's not very often, from some place that you don't know, call it the right brain or the muse or God, something tells you to do this, you know, and it's hard to even Remember the exact moment when you thought that, but somehow it came up. I mean, like the ending of the book, which I won't tell, I won't say what that is until you tell me to, but that came six, seven years into the book. I didn't quite. And once you see that, then you can go back and, you know, so there was a profound insight and, um, Big Amishi and Baby Mole dying together was, I must have been trying to write one of their deaths. And then I thought, you know, this would be

Jason Blitman: 46:42

Mm,

Abraham Verghese: 46:43

big moment if they, if they went together, which is actually quite uncommon for that to really happen.

Jason Blitman: 46:48

I mean, it's literally what happened with, uh, Oh, this is my COVID brain. Um, Carrie Fisher and, what's her face? Debbie Reynolds. Debbie Reynolds died the day after Carrie Fisher.

Abraham Verghese: 47:03

Were they,

Jason Blitman: 47:04

from, I'm sorry,

Abraham Verghese: 47:06

were they best friends or something?

Amy Jo Burns: 47:08

Debbie Reynolds is, yeah, it's Carrie Fisher's

Jason Blitman: 47:12

I'll let you take this one. Debbie, yes. It was a, it was mother. daughter.

Abraham Verghese: 47:17

Oh, sorry. Forgive me. Yes.

Jason Blitman: 47:19

That's okay.

Abraham Verghese: 47:20

Mother daughter. Yes.

Jason Blitman: 47:21

Debbie Reynolds died two days after her daughter. And, and I think for lack of a, you're the doctor in the room, but I think heartbreak was a major piece of

Abraham Verghese: 47:32

I forgot that Debbie Reynolds was her mother. Yeah.

Jason Blitman: 47:35

right? I know,

Abraham Verghese: 47:38

Interesting.

Jason Blitman: 47:38

but that it's sort of, I'm not, I'm only thinking about this now. I wasn't in the moment thinking, Oh, this, this reminds me of Debbie Reynolds, Carrie Fisher, but now it's like, Oh, it, it doesn't actually seem as, as crazy as an idea.

Abraham Verghese: 47:55

You know, and maybe, maybe it wasn't a good example of the new speaking. It might've just been a very Conscious decision, like, you know, if this is this person is going to die and this person is going to die, maybe you can create something by them dying at the same moment. And then once I did that, then I, it just felt very rich and better example of, to me, the new speaking is when you're, you know, you think you have an outline for the book. So this whiteboard has. What I thought was the outline for the book. And, uh, but very often I would begin writing and then you would

Jason Blitman: 48:33

Oh my God.

Abraham Verghese: 48:34

discover that, uh,

Amy Jo Burns: 48:35

That's beautiful.

Jason Blitman: 48:36

Wow.

Abraham Verghese: 48:37

I tend to think visually, so it helps me, but it didn't help me. So, I mean, I would plot

Amy Jo Burns: 48:42

Mm hmm. Mm

Abraham Verghese: 48:44

to find that,

Amy Jo Burns: 48:45

Mm

Abraham Verghese: 48:47

to this moment. So you, you know, there's a aphorism in writing that character is determined by. Decisions taken under pressure. So, you know, you can describe a character, give them dialogue, or you do whatever you want. But ultimately what defines a character is what they might do in a certain critical moment. And um, so I would be putting my characters under certain kinds of pressures and with the intention of going this way, but they would reveal a new aspect of character to me. By saying they're not going that way, they're going here, you know, and so where does that come from? I had, I had planned something else and they were, they seem to be revealing to me they're not going there, they're going here. And to me, those, those examples are rare, but they, to me, they are the muse speaking and you, and you find very striking parallel examples in, in science, you know, uh, Mendeleev and the periodic table. He was struggling with how do you arrange these elements? And he had a dream where he saw these cards stacked in rows. And, um, the guy who invented PCR technology was either on an asset trip or a post asset trip, and he could. See the snake chasing its tail. And, you know, so I'm a big believer that we're, we're just scratching the surface and all our, our conscious action is so much happening at a deeper level and it comes up from time to time. And writing, I think is a great way to allow it to come out.

Jason Blitman: 50:24

What do you do with that whiteboard? You can't erase it. Are you gonna erase

Abraham Verghese: 50:29

Well, this is like the seventh or eighth iteration of it. So when the character departed from this, I would just take a photograph, erase it, and then, or, or, or redraw parts of it. But at a certain point, I just, it's decoration is what it is.

Jason Blitman: 50:46

Yeah. I mean, I feel, you should like get, get like glass screwed onto it or something and hang it up like art.

Abraham Verghese: 50:53

Yeah. I'm actually debating on how do I preserve this? Because maybe one of your listeners will know, but it's basically, you know, a whiteboard with markers and the slightest touch and it wipes right off. So

Jason Blitman: 51:05

I feel like you need to take like a fiberglass and drill it in over the top of it. So then it could be preserved.

Abraham Verghese: 51:13

a clear

Amy Jo Burns: 51:13

Mm hmm. Mm hmm.

Jason Blitman: 51:14

Yeah. Oh, plexiglass, not fiberglass. Yeah.

Abraham Verghese: 51:17

falls into the category of, you know, if there was a fire, I'd leave this behind, you know, it

Jason Blitman: 51:23

But it's good decor. At least in the meantime, it won't get, you know, smudged or erased.

Amy Jo Burns: 51:29

when you look at that, what do you feel when you look at your whiteboard?

Abraham Verghese: 51:35

feels the kind of nostalgia because it's been, you in this form for almost, uh, you know, the book has been out over a year and it's been maybe three or four years before that when I finally gave up trying to keep track of it. But at the very least, I think it was a way of organizing my thoughts. Some of the ways that I see the characters in my head, which would probably be very different from the way the reader sees them. I think we all, make our own mental images. It's part of those two arcs of writer and reader meeting. But to me, because this was a whiteboard and I could just literally erase a mark, I could keep fiddling with the face until it approached whatever it was I had in my head.

Jason Blitman: 52:21

Hmm.

Abraham Verghese: 52:22

Uh, so it was useful in that sense. It's a good, uh, discussion point when people come to the house. They're not. I

Jason Blitman: 52:32

though, too. It could be a good cleanse if you wanted to, like, have a, light some candles, get some sage, and, like, have an erasing ceremony when you need to,

Abraham Verghese: 52:45

think I like that better than plexiglass.

Amy Jo Burns: 52:48

hmm. Mm

Jason Blitman: 52:51

Invite Oprah, you'll all do the little, you could do like a beautiful prayer and see it off into the world. I feel like there are so many things that we could keep talking to you about. There's something that comes up a lot in the book, in your conversations that you've had with Oprah, and other, uh, podcasts that you've been on. I listen to a lot of Abraham Verghese content. Um, but something that comes up a lot is the difference between being cured and being healed. How, as, as a doctor, as, a literary author. How would you say we should be thinking about these concepts?.

Abraham Verghese: 53:42

Yeah, I mean, I think, um, you know, life is a terminal condition, you know, where none of us is going to survive. So in that sense, you know, you begin there, by the way, that line is from John Irving from the world, according to Garp, life is a terminal condition, but, um, I lost my train of thought there, but, you know,

Jason Blitman: 54:07

about being cured and being

Abraham Verghese: 54:09

so. I think that it's a fact of life that we, we don't always just erase a disease. Some of them we do, we just completely cure people. But I like the analogy of, uh, when pneumonia was treated by Western physicians in the old days before antibiotics, you, you examine the patient by, you know, percussing their lungs and listening to their lungs. And then you, prescribed poultices and inhalations and whatnot. And if the native American physician or medicine man saw the patient, they also had their own way of examination. They had their own, you know, heuristic to come up with pneumonia or the equivalent, and then they would. begin their chants and potions and incantations. And when penicillin came along, it was like a magical drug. You know, you didn't need any poultices or this and that. He just gave penicillin and the bacterium pneumococcus is exquisitely sensitive to it. And so effectively what Western medicine did is give the penicillin step away. Whereas a Native American physician, this is like an analogy I'm using, got the penicillin, but continued with the chants and the potions and incantations, recognizing that there's more to this than just, you know, oh, it's a pneumococcus, left lung, pneumonia, okay, got it. That you've been violated in some way. And the example that I have used often, and you probably have heard, that I give to my students is If you go home after this, after rounds today, and you find that your apartment door is open even though you locked it, and you find that the lock is in shambles on the floor, and then you go inside and everything is strewn around, and all your valuables are gone, at that point you'll feel violated. You'll feel a sense of loss, not just of physical stuff, that was, or material stuff that was precious to you, But you also have a sense of spiritual violation. Someone came into your sacred space and violated it. And if the police come by in an hour and say, we caught the person who did this, here's your stuff back. Uh, that moment you're cured, but you're not healed. You know, your sense of violation will be so strong. You might choose to leave that apartment and be somewhere else. Um, so I think All illness has those components, you know, uh, you, you hurt your knee and you have to have a big swelling and then you're told you need a knee replacement or something in your Your reaction is why me, why now? Um, that's sort of the spiritual thing you feel, whereas objectively it's, you know, you have chronic osteoarthritis of your knee, this is your third arthroscopy, and there's not much cartilage left. But, you know, I think there's always these two dimensions, and with diseases like cancer or HIV, the sense of spiritual violation is huge. for some of them, there may not be or there aren't enough treatment options. So there are many occasions when you have to. It doesn't mean you just walk away and say, sorry, but I can't do anything for you. I think our presence, our willingness to share the journey as best we can, it matters. It's a kind of healing, which to me is a coming to terms with whatever is in store. We can do that alone, but it's better to do it together. It's better to have someone, you know, if you're sick in the medical profession who's going to make that journey with you because we have a lot of fears and uncertainties.

Jason Blitman: 57:56

uh, with the condition in the book, the fact that Uh, a cure is learned later in the book doesn't mean that the history has been healed.

Abraham Verghese: 58:09

Exactly. Yeah. To this day, people who live with that condition, I mean, yes, technically there's a cure, but it's comes with a price. It's either radiation and, you know, and so there's all kinds of agonizing decisions before after you're not, you're never free of the, of the violation, so to speak.

Jason Blitman: 58:29

yeah. I, unrelated, but I, we'll talk about the ending in one second. I, when Oprah was shocked that Philippos wasn't Mariama's father, I was like, girl, were you close reading? Come on! Abraham did a beautiful job making sure that was very clear. So I just wanted to say that the second thing, when You you said the ending came to you six years into writing the book, can you share what you felt when you realized Elsie was alive?

Abraham Verghese: 59:05

Well, I felt, uh, I felt a normal, I mean, I knew that she was alive. I wasn't quite sure what form she'd come back, but I,

Jason Blitman: 59:15

Hmm.

Abraham Verghese: 59:15

I felt enormous relief because then I could, once I knew exactly what had happened to her and how all these, you know, all these balls that thrown in the air would now come down in an organized fashion and all the threads tied together, it was a relief. I felt like now I can go back from the ending and. Make sure everything is lining up towards, towards that. You can't really have more than one or two dramatic endings. You can have, you can have one. It's part of the reason why Upliftmaster, big chunks of him were sacrificed, because that wasn't the, the ending was this one. So we didn't need his mini drama to take that many pages. Yeah. Yes, it's profound when it happens, and as I embark on another book, if I do, I guess I'm never going to be someone who has the whole thing outlined and knows where it's going to go. I'm going to trust this unconscious process, whatever it is, this process of, Having a vague idea and pushing on. But I worry, what if the news doesn't speak? What if you don't get the insight that you need? Well, you'll have a pretty dull book, I would imagine.

Jason Blitman: 1:00:28

Yeah, the relief that probably washed over you too was, okay, I can end the book now.

Abraham Verghese: 1:00:34

Yes, indeed.

Jason Blitman: 1:00:37

It's all coming together. Um, man, I mean, the book is beautiful and talks about so many things. And I think, you know, hearing you share again, what you share with your students about being cured and being healed with the relation to the breaking into your home is like the tip of the iceberg in terms of what. This has made me think about, I mean, you could see the, the tabs and the lines and I've written myself questions inside and all of, you know, so many, so many things have come out of this book. Um, I'm sure everyone has said to you, they could sit and talk to you for hours and hours and you are, uh, both a great speaker and a great listener. So for that.

Abraham Verghese: 1:01:25

You're very kind. I hope your other participants in the discussion Uh, have all their questions answered too. Are you the conduit for their questions?

Jason Blitman: 1:01:37

Yes, I am the conduit. Let's see, is there anything that we didn't really get to ask? Those were a few. One in particular, oh, back to the books at the beginning that we were talking about, um, someone asked, in the book you weave references to Moby Dick and Great Expectations, and I will add Alice in Wonderland, uh, and to Koshy Star's teaching, Philippos, could you discuss how you chose those books to include in particular, and if you wanted to include more than that but needed to edit them out?

Abraham Verghese: 1:02:05

Yeah, I mean, those are books that I've liked and I think, um, Moby Dick especially was a tribute to, to my friend John Irving, who, who really has, uh, loves the book and has had several references, allusions to it in his novels and In a funny way, this was an illusion to him, uh, indirectly only he would know. Um, but I could have picked, you know, many other books, I suppose, but in terms of what was available and popular in India and, know, what I read as a child, those would be the books.

Jason Blitman: 1:02:41

Yeah. I love that. And I love that you've also talked about your mentors having read fiction and how important fiction is and how much of a champion of books you are, obviously, but just on behalf of authors, I thank you for championing the work that you all do. And thank you for your time.

Abraham Verghese: 1:03:04

No, not at all.

Jason Blitman: 1:03:06

wonderful. Thank you all. for being here.

Abraham Verghese: 1:03:08

Pleasure to meet both of you truly. And, uh, this is the most relaxed interview I think I've ever had, which is great.

Jason Blitman: 1:03:14

Perfect. Can I put that on a blurb somewhere?

Abraham Verghese: 1:03:18

What is that?

Jason Blitman: 1:03:21

And also, you know, just to say, I think so many people feel very, um, Pigeonholed into one thing, you know, as you said early on, culturally, if you weren't a doctor or a lawyer, you were a failure. And I think that, um, for me, I'm not a journalist. I was barely a reader three years ago, and now I'm hosting and producing a book podcast, which was shocking to me. My background is in theater. When COVID hit, theater disappeared forever in my mind. And, uh, A lot of pivoting happened, and I think the idea of starting something new, doing something different, getting inspired by new and different things, and allowing yourself to be a doctor, and be a writer, and be a musician, and be a parent, um, is really inspiring. So just, I want to thank you for that as well, and, and, and being an example of, uh, there's more to us than we realize, and we can embark on those

Amy Jo Burns: 1:04:20

Well said.

Abraham Verghese: 1:04:22

It was fun. Good luck to you both and I'll be looking for your next books.

Amy Jo Burns: 1:04:26

Ah. Right back

Jason Blitman: 1:04:28

Have a great rest of your day.

Amy Jo Burns: 1:04:31

He's amazing. I, it's the feeling I had reading the book where it feels like this honest, welcome, open space that really looks at tragedy, but yet also has this lightness about it is exactly what I felt talking to him. I think that's such a special thing when you. Meet a writer and you can see the connections. I feel, I don't know what it was about this book in particular, but it just felt like as I was reading, it felt like it was written by somebody who's really walked through something difficult or many difficult things. And it was from that, that this story came out. So getting to talk to him was a real once in a lifetime thing. So I'm grateful to you for that.

Jason Blitman: 1:05:14

I'm grateful to you. Thank you for joining me on this journey. Um, I know that was so special. And I like got, I like could have talked to him all day

Amy Jo Burns: 1:05:24

know. I know. You feel like you could tell him your life story. And that's another thing too, is that you feel like he, you can tell he's a good listener and it's this act of listening. I think that makes him a good writer and probably an excellent physician as well. So all those things, and, and the musician, all those things kind of coming together.

Jason Blitman: 1:05:42

I know. The best. I have health anxiety and when I go to a doctor and I feel listened to and not condescended to and not infantilized and like they just hear me and are and agree that we're sort of on a journey together, which sounds like that's the kind of doctor he would

Amy Jo Burns: 1:06:03

said that, he said, oh my gosh. Yeah. Yeah.

Jason Blitman: 1:06:07

Um, Was there anything that you wanted to, uh, publicly say about the book?

Amy Jo Burns: 1:06:15

Just that I, I feel so lucky that it came to me at this point and I appreciate it Also what he said about not giving up too soon because you can tell when you read a book like this That just the ambition for taking on something like that It's not gonna come without moments of doubt and times when you know, even hearing Him say, he had to switch publishers and stuff. I mean, that sort of thing is just devastating for a writer and you think you think the best is behind me. I'm never going to work again. I was foolish for starting this and it can be so hard to dig yourself out of that hole. But I think what he proved was that there's something about digging out of that hole that kind of ends up making the book what it is. So I don't know, I just, as a writer and as a human, I appreciate that. And I feel like I, Needed that and I didn't know I needed it. How about you?

Jason Blitman: 1:07:05

And he, he also didn't sacrifice the book. He wasn't like, okay, let me cut it in

Amy Jo Burns: 1:07:12

And that that pressure can feel real sometimes when you have people and you think well They they must know more than I do about you know, um, that pressure is very real for sure. So Um, sounds like he found an amazing editor, which is also the best feeling when you have somebody that can put their finger on something and just let, let you fly. That's the best feeling in the world. So I'm glad he found that.

Jason Blitman: 1:07:34

Yeah. No. Amazing. Uh, and no, for me, I think. It's funny because reading the book and listening to the audiobook, I guess, and listening to so much content of his, I feel like

Amy Jo Burns: 1:07:45

Yeah. Mm hmm. Mm

Jason Blitman: 1:07:47

I think, again, it was like, uh, I could sit and talk to him about anything. So his warmth was very palpable and I was grateful for that. Um, but thank you for being on this journey with me. This was so

Amy Jo Burns: 1:07:58

I think we should do it again sometime. I loved it. It was, it was, I just, the, probably the best thing about my reading project this year with big books is realizing. How fun it is to read it with a friend. So thank you for being part of that. And thank you to all the other people who were your listeners who joined in. It was really fun.

Jason Blitman: 1:08:18

So fun.

Amy Jo Burns: 1:08:19

Goodbye, my friend until

Jason Blitman: 1:08:21

Goodbye! Until next time!