Joyce Carol Oates Reads Eudora Welty

This is the New Yorker Fiction Podcast from the New Yorker magazine. I'm Debra Treesman, Fiction Editor at the New Yorker. Each month we invite a writer to choose a story from the magazine's archives to read and discuss. This month we're going to hear a story by Udora Welty called Where Is The Voice Coming From? I says, "Rola, there was one way left for me to be ahead of you and stay ahead of you, and I just taken it. Now I'm alive and you ain't." Where Is The Voice Coming From was chosen by Joyce Carol Oats, whose book reviews, Fiction and Poetry have been appearing in the magazine since 1994. Joyce Carol Oats is the author of many novels and short story collections. Her latest novel is called My Sister My Love, The Intimate Story of Skylar Rampike, and it's published by Echo Press. She joins me from a studio in Princeton, New Jersey. Hi, Joyce. Hi. So is Udora Welty someone who's meant a lot to you as a fellow writer? Absolutely. I began reading Udora Welty when I was in high school, and I was just mesmerized by her ability to write so beautifully, so lyrically, and at the same time as in this story so powerfully. And what was it that most struck you? Was it the subject matter or the style? I've read a number of Udora Welty's stories in which she uses voices. It's a way of writing and I like very much myself. The voice in this story is her most extreme, masculine, percussive, mean, vicious, thug voice. She has many voices that are quite lyric and rather feminine, in the best sense of that word, poetic and using metaphor. But in this story all that's really completely pushed to the side and a very different kind of voice comes forward. And the story, where is the voice coming from? It was inspired by the murder of civil rights activist, Medgar Evers. Evers was killed on June 12, 1963, and the story was published less than a month later in the July 6th issue. Do you remember reading it when it came out? I may have read it when it first came out. That's quite possible. I think the story is that Udora Welty wrote it immediately. She wrote it overnight. She wrote it the night of the killing. And that the idea, where is the voice coming from, may also apply to the author. The author is experiencing one of these wonderful experiences that we all year into a herb where a voice seems to come to us. This story is told from the point of view of the murderer. So as we listen, we need to imagine you as this very thug-ish Southern white man. Is there anything else that we should be listening for? There is a subtext of metaphor. He starts talking about how hard everything is, and then he can't touch anything. And so we sort of feel that his life is entering a phase of a kind of hell. He has committed an irrevocable act. He thinks on the surface that it's a good act because he's a white racist. But on another level, he's being dragged down a hell. All right, we'll talk more after the story. Now here's Joyce Carol Oates, reading "Where is the voice coming from?" by Udora Welty. "I says to my wife, you can reach and turn it off. You don't have to set and look at a black nigger face no longer than you want to. Or listen to what you don't want to hear. It's still a free country." I reckon that's how I give myself the idea. I says I could find right exactly where in the mappily that nigger's living that's asking for equal time, and without a bit of trouble to me. And I ain't saying it might not be because it's pretty close to where I live. The other hand, there could be reasons you might have yourself for knowing how to get there in the dark. It's where you all go for the thing you want when you want it the most. Isn't that right? The branch bank sign tells you in lights all night long even what time it is and how hot. When it was quarter of the four and ninety two that was me going by in my brother-in-law's truck, he don't deliver nothing at that hour in the morning. So he leave four corners and head west on Nathan B. Forest Road, past the surplus and salvage, not much beyond the comeback drive-in and trailer camp. Not as far as where the signs start saying, "Live bait, use parts, fireworks, peaches, and sister pebbles, reader and advisor." Turned before you hit the city limits and ducked back toward the icy tracks and his streets been paved. And there was his light on waiting for me in his garage if you please. His car is gone. His out planning still some other ways to do what we tell them they can't. I thought I'd beat him home. All I had to do was pick my tree and walk in close behind it. I didn't come expecting not to wait, but it was so hot all I did was hope and pray one or the other of us wouldn't melt before it was over. Now it wasn't no bargain I'd struck. I've heard what you've heard about goat Dyckman and Mississippi. Sure everybody knows about goat Dyckman. Goat he got word to the governor's mansion. He'd go up yonder and shoot that nigger merideth clean out of school if he's let out of the pen to do it. Old Ross turned that over in his mind before saying him nay it stands to reason. I ate no goat Dyckman, I ate no pen, and I had asked no governor Barnett to give me one thing, unless he wants to give me a pet in the back for the trouble I took this morning. But he don't have to if he don't want to. I done what I'd done for my own pure d satisfaction. As soon as I heard wheels I known who was coming that was him and bound to be him. It was a right nigger headed in a new white car of his driveway towards his garage with a light shining. But stopping before he got there maybe not to wake him. That was him. I know that when he cut off the car lights and put his foot out and I know him standing dark against the light. I know him then like I know me now. I know him even by his still listening back. Never seen him before, never seen him since, never seen anything of his black face for his picture, never seen his face alive any time and all or anywhere and didn't want to, need to, never hope to see that face and never will. As long as there was no question in my mind. He had to be the one. He stood right still and waited against the light. His back was fixed fixed on me like a preacher's eyeballs when he's yelling, "Are you saved?" He's the one. I'd already brought at my rifle, I've already taken my sights and I already got him because it was too late then for him or me to turn by one hair. Something darker than him like the wings of a bird spread on his back and pulled him down. He climbed up once like a man on the bad claws and like just blood could weigh a ton he walked with it on his back to better light, then to get no further than his door and fell to stay. He was down. He was down and a ton load of bricks on his back wouldn't have laid any heavier. They're on his paved driveway, yes sir. And it wasn't till the minute before that the mockingbird had quit singing. He'd been up singing up my sassafresh tree. Either he was up early or he hadn't never gone to bed. He was like me. And the maca he'd stayed right with me filling the air to come to crack till I turn loose in my load. I was like him. I was on top of the world myself for once. I stepped to the edge of his light there where he's laying flat. I said, "Rolan, there was one way left for me to be ahead of you and stay ahead of you by dead and I just taken it. Now I'm alive and you ain't." "Wait, never now. Never going to be equals and you know why? One of us is dead. What about that Rolan?" I said, "Well, you seem to it, didn't you?" I stood a minute just to see what somebody inside come out long enough to pick him up and there she comes the woman. I doubt she'd been to sleep because it seemed to me she'd been in there keeping awake all along. It was my degree in where I skinted over the yard getting back that nigger wife of his she wanted nice grass. I bet my wife would hate to pay her water bill and for burning her electricity. And there's my brother-in-law's truck still waiting with the door open. No riders. That didn't mean me. There wasn't a thing I've been able to think of since would have made it going nicer. It's up a chair to my back while I was putting in my waiting. But going home, I seen what little time it takes after all to get a thing done like you really wanted. It was 4.34 and while I was looking at move the 35 and the temperature stuck where it was all that night I guarantee you it had stoop without dropping a good 92. My wife says what didn't the skaters bite you. She said well they've been asking that why somebody didn't trouble the Lord of Rife when get somebody to agitate is out of the mappily. Then the fella keep drumming it in what a good idea the one that writes a column every day. I says to my wife find some way I don't get the credit. He says do it for a thymapal. She says don't you ever skim the paper. I says thymapal never done nothing for me and I don't own nothing to thymapal didn't do it for you hell anymore I do something or other for them can't it is I done it for my own pure dissatisfaction. It's going to get him right back on TV says my wife you watch for the funeral. I says you didn't even leave a light burning when you went to bed so how is I supposed to even get me home or pull buddies truck up safe in our front yard. Well here another good joke I knew my wife says next that you hear the news the NWACP is fixing to send somebody to thymapal. Why couldn't you wait it you might have got you somebody better listen and hear him say song. I ain't but one I reckon you have to tell somebody. Where is the gun then my wife says what did you do with our protection I says it was scorching it was scorching I told it's laying out in the ground and ranked weeds trying to cool off that's what it's doing now you dropped it she said back there. And I told her because I'm so tired of everything in the world being just that hot to the touch the keys to the truck the door not the bed sheet everything it's all like a stove that just ain't much going that's worth holding on to it no more I says when it's a hundred and two in the shade by day and by night not too much difference I wish you laid your finger to that gun. Trust you to come off and leave it my wife says is that how no count I am she makes me ask you want to go back and get it you're the one they'll catch I say it's so hot that even if you get to sleep you wake up feeling like you cried all night says my wife. Cheer up here's one more joke before time to get up heard what Carolyn said Carolyn said daddy I just can't wait to go up big so I can marry James Meredith I heard that where I work one rich bitch to another one to make a cackel. At least I kept some during teenager from North Thermopoli getting there and doing it first I says driving his own car. On TV and in the paper they don't know what half of it they know who rolled in summers was without knowing who I am his face was in front of the public before I got rid of him and after I got rid of him there it is again the same picture and not of me I never had one made not ever the best that newspaper could do for me was to offer 500 dollar reward for finding out who I am for as long as I don't know who that is whoever shot rolling is worth a good deal more right now than rolling is. But by the time I was moving around uptown it was harder still that pavement in the middle of mainstream was so hot that my feet I made them walk into bear on my gun if the whole world could have just felt mainstream this morning through the souls of my shoes maybe it would have helped them. And the first thing I heard him say was the end of the ACP done it themselves killed rolling summers and proved by saying the shooting was done by an expert I hope to tell you it was. And at just the right hour and minute to get the whites in trouble you can't win they'll never find him the old man trying to sell roasted peanuts tells me to my face. It's so hot it looks like the towns on fire already whichever ways you turn a street you strike because there's a trees hanging them poles of bloom like split watermelon and a thousand cops crowded everywhere you go half of them too young to start shaving but all streaming sweater like I'm getting tired of it. I was already tired of seeing a hundred cops getting us white people know where is back at the beginning I stood in the corner and I watched them do baby face cops loading nothing but nigger children to the patty wagon and they come marching out of a little parade into the patty wagon singing. And they got in and sat down without providing a speck of trouble and their hands held little new American flags. And all the cops could do is not them flags to lose from their hands and not let them pick them up that was all and give her free ride and the children can just get a more flags. Everybody it don't get you nowhere to take nothing from nobody unless you make sure it's for keeps for good and all for ever and I men. I won't be sorry to see them brick vets held down in us for a change pat bottles to they can come flying wherever they want to hundreds all to smash like Birmingham I'm waiting on them and bring out them switchblade knives like Harlem and Chicago watch TV long enough you see it all to happen on Deacon street and thermopoly what's holding it back that's all because it's in them. I'm ready myself for that funeral. Oh they may find me may catch me one day and sweat in themselves but I grew up in the country may try to railroad me into the electric chair and what that amounts to is something harder than yesterday and today put together. But I advise them to go careful in and about time us taxpayer starts to calling the moves starts to telling the teachers and the preachers and the judges about so called courts how far they can go. Even the president so far he can't walk in my house without being invited like is my daddy just to say whoa not yet. Once I run away from my home and there was an ad for me come to be printed in our county weekly my mother paid for it was from her it says son you are not being hunted for anything but to find you that time I come on back home. But people are dead now and it's so hot without even being honest yet. Anyways I seen him fall I was ever more than one. So I reached me down my old guitar off the nail and wall because I got my guitar what I held on to from way back when and I never dropped it never lost or forgot it never I was shocked but to get it again never give it away and I sat in my chair with nobody home but me and I start to play and sing a down and sing a down down down down down down down down. That was Joyce Carol Oats reading where is the voice coming from by Udora Welty. This story was first published in the New Yorker in 1963 and can be found in the collected stories of Udora Welty published in paperback by Harvest Books. I'm Alan and I'm Sean and together we host the Prancing Pony podcast every week I explore Middle Earth with Sean or with other co-host lately with in depth analysis and plenty of nerd humor. From the Hobbit to the Lord of the Rings and more it's a great way for first timers to experience J.R.R. Tolkien's captivating world. And for longtime fans it's a deep dive into their favorite stories so if you're ready to take the next step into the most beloved world in fantasy literature and become a part of a vibrant active community of listeners then look for the Prancing Pony podcast wherever you listen. Joyce why do you think Welty chose to imagine this killing from the perspective of the murderer? The victim is obviously much more sympathetic. Well that's a good question I think the murder is the one who has acted we don't really see at all this person whom she calls Roland Summers. It's the feeling maybe that of excitement or kind of transgressive elation then an author feels like when Shakespeare was creating a agon or Edmund and King Lear that these are precipitating agents who unleash evil but they also unleash a state of fear. What do you think she used the first person for this character she could have used the third person and somehow kept herself a little more distant. She has a number of stories on her first person and using the voice is very intimate and very raw. Virginia Wolf said that once you get the voice then you can write. It's hard to get the voice in this case you do a wealthy immediately had the voice so she wrote it very quickly and it was a thrilling experience I'm sure for her. Had she put it in the third person she might have had to labor at it for three weeks, six weeks, whatever. Flannier O'Connor's stories required months and months of labor when you read them that you wouldn't think so but she could spend six or eight months on a short story. She almost never maybe never but she almost never wrote the first person. As you mentioned earlier the title may actually be some kind of internal reference of wealthy asking where the story came from. I can't think of any other story where the title is is the author reflecting to herself rather than titling the actual piece. Well I think that also refers to the voice of the man like where is he coming from he's coming from your own town. He's coming from two streets away from yours maybe something like that. I have a passage here that wealthy wrote about the composition of the story I'll just read it to you. That hot August night when Medgar Evers the local civil rights leader was shot down from behind in Jackson. I thought with overwhelming directness whoever the murderer is I know him not his identity but his coming about in this time and place. That is I ought to have learned by now from here what such a man intent on such a deed had going on in his mind. About that character's point of view I felt through my shock and revolt I could make no mistake. The story pushed its way up on the same night the shooting had taken place. At the New Yorker where it was sent and where it was taken for the immediately forthcoming issue will you Maxwell edited it for me. By then an arrested but made in Jackson and the fiction's outward details had to be changed whereby chance they resembled too closely those of actuality. For the story must not be found prejudicial to the case of a person who might be on trial for his life. So the amazing thing is that she felt she knew this murderer and she was right. Just amazing. And she probably knew him very well. He probably was one of her her groundsman or when she takes her card to have it repaired and the auto repair it's one of the repair man. One thing that's interesting to me in the story is obviously there's racism at play there's racial bitterness. But also there's what seems perhaps slightly more important here is this class bitterness. The narrator seems so angry that he's driving his brother-in-law's truck and Roland has his own new car. Yes, a white car. A white car. And she gets so much sort of sociological complexity into two pages. Yes, I think in 1963 that was particularly powerful. Today we would say, "Well, yes, of course, it's a race thing or a class thing." But I think at that time maybe it was more bringing news to white America. A lot of your stories also seem to respond to current events or violent events. What's the appeal of pulling these very ugly things from the real world into your fiction? Well, I'm not sure they're always ugly. They seem exemplary in ways that maybe tragic and even ritualistic. Right as I'm drawn to drama, it's not a sense of political correctness or incorrectness or being nice or being nasty. But somehow illuminating the human experience which is often dramatic and sometimes very cruel. I mean most of Homer, the beauty of the Iliad and the Odyssey, is really quite qualified by the brutality that's going on simultaneously. In a way Homer is celebrating the courage and the masculine prowess of his characters. In another way he's being very critical. But I think for most writers the excitement of the ritualistic dramatic moment comes first and then a kind of ethical qualification comes second. Well, do you think there probably were a whole lot of subscribers to the New Yorker in Jackson at this time? But do you think someone who had this view of life could read this story and believe that wealthy was on his side? No, I don't think anyone who believed this view of life would subscribe to the New Yorker. I think we can just make a blanket statement that anybody who was reading in New Yorker in Jackson at that time they were not white racists. Well, the New Yorker published Shirley Jackson's famous story The Ladder in 1948 and that also had a kind of watershed effect. I think subscribers to the New Yorker wrote in Aime really and said they want to subscriptions discontinued. In both cases so interesting that women were writing about very ordinary people in small towns, one in New England and one in Mississippi and just sort of illustrating something exemplary and terrible and mythic and legendary, like a fairy tale about their contemporaries. Thanks, Joyce. It's great talking to you. You can read stories and articles by Joyce Carol Oates on our website, New Yorker.com. Her latest book of short stories, Dear Husband, comes out this spring. 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