1 00:00:01,400 --> 00:00:03,100 AMNA NAWAZ: The National Book Award-winning author James 2 00:00:03,100 --> 00:00:07,533 McBride has a new novel out today, "The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store." 3 00:00:07,533 --> 00:00:12,333 Like much of McBride's work, it's rooted in race, religion and personal history. 4 00:00:12,333 --> 00:00:16,966 Jeffrey Brown turns the page for our arts and culture series, Canvas. 5 00:00:16,966 --> 00:00:21,966 JEFFREY BROWN: Rehearsal for a musical called "Bobos." 6 00:00:24,700 --> 00:00:27,766 Make that a would-be musical. 7 00:00:27,766 --> 00:00:32,566 Novelist and musician James McBride actually wrote it 35 years ago, 8 00:00:32,566 --> 00:00:37,566 and it's since done nothing, no productions, zero success. But McBride is unfazed. 9 00:00:40,233 --> 00:00:41,700 JAMES MCBRIDE, Author, "The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store": 10 00:00:41,700 --> 00:00:44,233 I just can't let it go, in part because I think it's good. 11 00:00:44,233 --> 00:00:49,200 And, also, I don't mind failing. Writers, most of what we do fails. And that's the lesson 12 00:00:51,433 --> 00:00:56,366 that writing teaches you. I tell young writing students all the time, fail, and fail better. 13 00:00:56,366 --> 00:01:01,333 JEFFREY BROWN: By that and pretty much any standard, the 65-year-old McBride, 14 00:01:03,200 --> 00:01:05,633 who lives in Lambertville, New Jersey, has been failing quite well. 15 00:01:05,633 --> 00:01:07,966 He's author of five novels, 16 00:01:07,966 --> 00:01:12,966 including "Miracle at St. Anna," made into a film by Spike Lee, and "The Good Lord Bird." 17 00:01:15,366 --> 00:01:18,966 ETHAN HAWKE, Actor: My name is Captain John Brown. And I'm here in the name of the great redeemer. 18 00:01:23,233 --> 00:01:26,800 JEFFREY BROWN: The irreverent Take on the abolitionist John Brown that 19 00:01:26,800 --> 00:01:31,666 won the 2013 National Book Award and was later made into a Showtime series. 20 00:01:34,166 --> 00:01:38,933 He's also written a biography of singer James Brown and the bestselling 1996 memoir "The Color 21 00:01:40,966 --> 00:01:45,600 of Water: A Black Man's Tribute to His White Mother," the story of his white Jewish mother, 22 00:01:47,633 --> 00:01:51,300 Ruth. Ostracized by her family for marrying a Black man, she converted to Christianity 23 00:01:53,333 --> 00:01:57,000 and raised her 12 Black children in New York, much of the time on her own. 24 00:01:58,933 --> 00:02:02,533 McBride's new novel, "The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store," began with the story of 25 00:02:05,100 --> 00:02:07,733 another family member, but one he never knew, and only learned about later in life, his grandmother. 26 00:02:09,633 --> 00:02:11,933 JAMES MCBRIDE: My grandmother was Jewish. And my mother was Jewish, 27 00:02:11,933 --> 00:02:15,833 of course, but my grandmother, I never met. She died in 1942. 28 00:02:15,833 --> 00:02:20,833 But I wanted -- and she died. And she was an immigrant from Poland. And she had a very unhappy 29 00:02:23,400 --> 00:02:26,533 marriage. And I wanted my grandmother to be -- to have a wonderful life. I wanted her to be loved. 30 00:02:27,966 --> 00:02:32,366 So I wrote a book in which she was loved, and I made her loved. 31 00:02:32,366 --> 00:02:35,800 JEFFREY BROWN: So this became a kind of alternate life of a 32 00:02:35,800 --> 00:02:37,833 grandmother that -- who you didn't really know? 33 00:02:37,833 --> 00:02:39,166 JAMES MCBRIDE: That I never knew, yes. 34 00:02:39,166 --> 00:02:41,400 JEFFREY BROWN: Through fiction. 35 00:02:41,400 --> 00:02:43,066 JAMES MCBRIDE: Through fiction, yes, yes. 36 00:02:43,066 --> 00:02:46,333 Fiction is magical that way. Fiction allows your dreams to come true. 37 00:02:46,333 --> 00:02:50,733 JEFFREY BROWN: Like his own grandmother, McBride's main character runs a grocery 38 00:02:50,733 --> 00:02:55,700 store in a predominantly Black neighborhood. He's grounded his fiction in a real place and time, 39 00:02:57,433 --> 00:03:01,033 Pottstown, Pennsylvania in the 1930s and '40s. 40 00:03:01,033 --> 00:03:04,600 JAMES MCBRIDE: This is the notebook that I -- that I keep notes in, 41 00:03:04,600 --> 00:03:09,266 that I have all kinds of Jewish faith, Friday night, can't touch money. 42 00:03:09,266 --> 00:03:13,366 JEFFREY BROWN: Combing through archives and local histories, he took notes about 43 00:03:13,366 --> 00:03:18,366 the largely Black community of Chicken Hill, with a mix of Jews and other immigrant groups, 44 00:03:20,233 --> 00:03:23,633 all facing levels of discrimination and antipathy by the surrounding white majority. 45 00:03:25,633 --> 00:03:27,400 JAMES MCBRIDE: Everyone was just kind of trying to stay in their own lane, 46 00:03:27,400 --> 00:03:30,700 but it was impossible because of outside influences. 47 00:03:30,700 --> 00:03:35,700 And so, in that regard, Pottstown is a represent -- it's my Mayberry. Mayberry 48 00:03:37,733 --> 00:03:40,800 was where Andy Griffith was, and everyone was happy, and all the folks were white, 49 00:03:40,800 --> 00:03:45,000 and everything was good old America, which is just fiction. 50 00:03:47,033 --> 00:03:50,633 Pottstown, my Pottstown, my Mayberry, which is Pottstown, is real. It's much more real. 51 00:03:52,566 --> 00:03:56,400 It's much more, in my opinion, accurate in terms of its depiction of American life. 52 00:03:58,466 --> 00:04:01,633 JEFFREY BROWN: McBride has always grounded his life in music, often tying it to his writing, 53 00:04:03,600 --> 00:04:07,966 as when he toured the country with his Good Lord Bird Band, when that book came out. 54 00:04:17,133 --> 00:04:20,700 He's also taught music to children at New Brown Memorial, 55 00:04:20,700 --> 00:04:24,700 the Brooklyn church his parents founded in 1954. 56 00:04:24,700 --> 00:04:29,700 His art, he says, explores big themes in American life, including race, but always through 57 00:04:32,133 --> 00:04:37,133 characters he creates who live and survive on the margins, like the people he's known and loved. 58 00:04:39,033 --> 00:04:41,633 JAMES MCBRIDE: If you're a writer and you're writing about race, the best thing you can 59 00:04:41,633 --> 00:04:45,833 do is forget about it and deal with the humanity of characters. You know what the boundaries are. 60 00:04:45,833 --> 00:04:50,733 Now you have to see which characters can kick up against those boundaries or illuminate those 61 00:04:50,733 --> 00:04:55,733 boundaries, so -- to make your story go. So I look at it from that point of view 62 00:04:57,766 --> 00:05:00,866 and also from the point of view that cynicism is like -- cynicism in a story is toxic. You 63 00:05:04,800 --> 00:05:09,800 have to really have a desire to see the good in people, to them push past their boundaries. 64 00:05:12,100 --> 00:05:14,300 JEFFREY BROWN: An openness to who they are. 65 00:05:14,300 --> 00:05:16,433 JAMES MCBRIDE: An openness to who they are, because they will 66 00:05:16,433 --> 00:05:19,800 lead you into a story that shows you good stuff. 67 00:05:21,866 --> 00:05:25,400 And so I'm trying to get these characters to move to show readers, in a way that's not boring, 68 00:05:27,400 --> 00:05:32,400 that this history is important. Someone came here before you. And, believe me, 69 00:05:33,766 --> 00:05:35,800 it's going to be OK. Watch what he or she did. 70 00:05:35,800 --> 00:05:40,000 JEFFREY BROWN: That sense of hope amid adversity clearly comes from his mother, 71 00:05:40,000 --> 00:05:45,000 who died in 2010. And the story McBride told in his memoir has remained a touchstone for many, 72 00:05:46,533 --> 00:05:49,333 as mixed-race families have become more common. 73 00:05:49,333 --> 00:05:52,533 JAMES MCBRIDE: When my mother was - - married my father and had us, 74 00:05:52,533 --> 00:05:55,433 and we'd go on the subway and so forth, people would call her names. 75 00:05:55,433 --> 00:05:59,400 Like, I remember, one time in the subway, and somebody went at her calling her N-lover 76 00:05:59,400 --> 00:06:03,300 and all this crap. And we got off the train. And, later on I said -- I said: 77 00:06:03,300 --> 00:06:07,533 "Ma, why do you -- why do you -- you can't let people talk to you like that." 78 00:06:07,533 --> 00:06:10,000 She said: "Their names can't hurt me. 79 00:06:11,966 --> 00:06:14,800 I'm happy. I just -- what -- did you do your homework? Where is your homework?" 80 00:06:14,800 --> 00:06:19,800 She didn't care. She already -- her world was good. Self-definition is the first step 81 00:06:21,433 --> 00:06:26,233 towards self-control and peace. Now, that journey is difficult, I agree. 82 00:06:28,300 --> 00:06:30,700 And I have been through it. But, ultimately, 83 00:06:30,700 --> 00:06:35,700 the best way to be happy in that regard is to just appreciate everyone for who they are. 84 00:06:37,666 --> 00:06:41,133 JEFFREY BROWN: Read in that light, "The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store," weaving 85 00:06:43,133 --> 00:06:47,100 together characters from different backgrounds, is James McBride's latest 86 00:06:47,100 --> 00:06:52,100 appreciation of the lives lived just below the surface of American history. 87 00:06:54,033 --> 00:06:57,400 For the "PBS NewsHour," I'm Jeffrey Brown in Lambertville, New Jersey. 88 00:06:57,400 --> 00:07:02,400 AMNA NAWAZ: That's a great line. Fiction allows your dreams to come true. 89 00:07:04,600 --> 00:07:05,500 Thanks to Jeff Brown.