2022-04-18 LIVE from NYPL Margo with Jefferson Doreen St. Felix: Constructing a Nervous System >> Aidan Flax-Clark: Hello, and thank you for watching wherever and whenever you happen to be doing it. My name is Aidan Flax-Clark and I'm coming to you from the New York Public Library where I put together Live from NYPL, and I'm just so grateful you're all watching. And I'm also grateful that I get to introduce this conversation between two incredible writers -- Margo Jefferson, the Pulitzer Prize-winning critic and memoirist, and Doreen St. Felix, a staff writer and television critic at the New Yorker. They're here to talk about Margo's new book, Constructing a Nervous System. It's a companion to her previous book, Negroland, and if you're familiar with Margo's work, you won't be surprised to learn that Constructing a Nervous System is another singular, inspired, and electric piece of writing. Like with so much of Margo's work, encountering this book is a truly singular reading experience. And I think you're in for a truly singular conversational experience tonight, too. We're so honored that she's here with us to speak about it, and we're equally honored that Doreen has taken the time to speak with her. Now, in case you haven't had the chance to put the book in your hands yet, hopefully you're watching this on our website at NPYL.org/Live because if you're at the event page there you will find a link on that page to both buy the book or check it out. And I encourage you to do whichever one best suits your life. The link to purchase the book, which we're also sharing in the chat, will point you toward buying it from our own Library Shop which means the proceeds from your purchase go to benefit the New York Public Library. And if you'd rather borrow it from us with a valid New York Public Library card, we'd love that. And obviously everyone who's watching right now and who lives in the New York area has a library card but, just in case, there's a link for how to get a library card on the event page as well. Coming up in the weeks ahead, Live from NYPL has a non-stop series of fantastic conversations that we're presenting online and in person at the New York Public Library, and we'd love to see you at all of them, frankly. Just next week, you can hear conversations and readings featuring Brewster Kahle, Bernadine Evaristo, Cixin Liu, Yascha Mounk and Latinx in Publishing. And there's so much more past that, so to see everything that's happening and most importantly to register, go to NYPL.org/Live. Live from NYPL is made possible by the continuing generosity of Celeste Bartos, Mahnaz Ispahani Bartos, and Adam Bartos and, of course, by all of you, our wonderful supporters near and far. So thank you so much for that support. And thank you, again, for watching tonight. Okay. So let's get to this conversation. If you have questions for Margo, she will be very glad to take some of them at the end, and you can send them anytime during the conversation by using the chat or by emailing publicprograms@nypl.org. Also, if you're looking for real-time captions for tonight's program, you can click on the closed caption button, or use the streamtext link that we shared in the reminder email. And we also just put that in the chat, too. Okay. Thanks again for watching and let's bring on Doreen St. Felix and Margo Jefferson. [ Silence ] >> Doreen St. Felix: Hello! Margo, how are you? >> Margo Jefferson: Hello. I'm well, Doreen. How are you? >> Doreen St. Felix: I'm doing so much better now that I am going to be speaking to you for an hour. >> Margo Jefferson: Okay. Very nice! >> Doreen St. Felix: Here's the wonderful book that we will be discussing. Margo Jefferson is a simply unparalleled critic/observer of the world, an idol of mine. I remember being maybe twenty-four years old and asking her to answer a few questions for me for a story I was writing for Vogue and she invited me over for wine and we had an incredible time. So I have to say it's very meaningful to be speaking with you tonight at home. >> Margo Jefferson: Well, you know, these things go both ways. You were so smart and funny and I [inaudible] "Whoa! All right!" And then there you were, everywhere. Yes. And there I am reading it. So -- >> Doreen St. Felix: Ditto! >> Margo Jefferson: -- here we go! >> Doreen St. Felix: Here we go. Let's start. So -- because at my heart I can be, you know, a fan, I guess I have to start with a very cliched question and that's about titles. In the opening pages of Constructing a Nervous System, you tell us in declarative address why this is the [inaudible] that you've chosen. But I want to know -- because the title is also both the structure in many ways, when did you know? Was it before the process of writing or during the process of writing that the only way to represent this constellation of influences, as it were, would be through this structure that we know from biology -- this idea of the nervous system. >> Margo Jefferson: No. It was not -- not at the beginning. I was making my way. I was, you know, collaging and magpieing and juxtaposing and taking apart and putting back together. I knew the structure had to be a sense of things being constructed, put together, taken apart, reassembled. That I knew. But it wasn't until I was about halfway through when I was having dinner with a friend, the writer Wendy Walters, and I was bemoaning my difficulty in writing this. It's always so hard! And she said, yeah, it is -- it is hard. And I said, well, I know that. You know, but you're a friend but you're not me. Why is it so hard? Tell me. And she said it's like a constructing a nervous system. And I thought, well, I can hold onto that. You know, it was like a -- a spine. It gave me a certain -- I felt -- I felt upright. I thought, okay, that's orderly and it -- it -- it helps me. It helps me go forward. It's -- it's -- it's a system. You know how something just comes -- comes alive for you and -- and helps guide you. It was like my trail of breadcrumbs except it was constructing a nervous system. Yeah. >> Doreen St. Felix: And then, I guess, I think so much of you as the person who has united what me might see as disparate figures -- that of the critic, who we associate with authority, with omniscience as you write, and that of the memoirist who we think of as being vulnerable, pliable, fragile even. And so I have to ask -- maybe even, you know, going back a few decades ago when you decided to leave the Weekly critic position, did you know that memoir was going to be next for you? What is it about that genre, that form, that way of thinking that appealed to you and made sense as the next phase in your [inaudible]? >> Margo Jefferson: Right. Well, I had -- I left the Times just as I had finished Michael Jackson, so -- >> Doreen St. Felix: Right. >> Margo Jefferson: -- it was facing me. And I did know that I didn't want -- which people would often ask for very good reason -- who's the next, you know, compelling show business, theatrical figure you're going to write about. And I said -- memoir had always been something I assumed I would keep my distance from. So it -- it did surprise me that I began working with somewhat constricted, tight, little autobiographical scenes. Maybe you'd call them vignettes if they were -- if they were fictional. I think what really pulled me and pushed me was the fact that, you know, right before my eyes the -- the world that I had always known in some way I wanted to write about, this -- this complicated, very self-conscious world of various -- they called -- Black elite, negro aristocracy, etc., etc. It was mortality. It was reaching it. It was disappearing before my eyes. Grandparents had mostly died. My father had died. My mother was much older and I thought, you know, every gesture, every -- every way of -- every word, every way of speaking, every expression, it matters. You know? I have to take it in. So that -- that really drove me. I -- I thought of myself as a combination maybe of -- of a reporter and maybe a playwright. You know, just taking it down, getting -- getting the matters -- manners and modes. And that helped me be a little less self-conscious. Where I really stumbled writing it and it took a long time -- I'm thinking of Negroland now -- was with the part of me that is a critic. I kept thinking, well, because memoir involves confession and that kind of fragility and revelation, I thought -- what am I going to do with this critic, this stern, severe critic? And when I finally realized, you know, it needn't -- she, it, they needn't be cast aside, this is as much a part of you, you know, as all these other little temperamental qualities that we describe and discuss so intimately about ourselves. So you have to find a way to dramatize and use it. And that really made it possible for me. And it made possible my desire not to work with -- with a kind of traditional, say -- let's say, chronological arc. You know? I -- I did want to keep juxtaposing. I was also very interested in the fact that this world I'd grown up in was always asking you to perform in various ways. You know? The good daughter, the little prodigy, the hip little high school girl. You know? I thought, all right! You know, the critic is also a character. Again, if I'm going to compare it to theater, a bit like the -- the director, you know, or the -- the [inaudible] giving notes after each scene. And that -- that really helped. I also realized that you can -- this is a fairly simple revelation, but you can tell the same story in many different ways. And that gave me the courage to start constructing a nervous system, and then, of course, I realized because by that time much in one's life had changed. There were deaths. There were new experiences. I thought -- all right! You will add new stories to this old story. You have so many things. And I think you would agree with me -- so many experiences, obsessions, whatever. I think you'd agree with me. As a journalist, you write about them. Sometimes they're manufactured because that's your assignment that week but, you know, often they're intensely felt. And then you move on. You know? So all of this material gets kind of stored away and you sometimes don't go back to it for years -- or think about it. So I started consciously, you know, examining myself and questioning myself and going back over notes and articles to -- to re -- reconnect with things that had mattered terribly to me that I was taking for granted in some way. I decided -- I worked not to be, you know, embarrassed about those -- those old fixations and -- and obsessions that just stay with you and you think I'm too clever for that. But -- but you're not, so you find -- you find -- find a way. Yeah. I think -- does that help? >> Doreen St. Felix: Absolutely. And thinking about your last -- I have to say, I think a quality that doesn't often get ascribed to you that I think about all the time is that you're very funny. >> Margo Jefferson: You fill my heart! Thank you! >> Doreen St. Felix: And that, you know, that humor is often quite morbid and there's the section in Constructing where you're discussing Nina Simone, and so much of what makes this book really fascinating is that the art that we love, in some sense, is frozen in time, but we change along with it. We age -- and our relationships, in some ways, change the art and that's something that you do in the book. You'll re -- reframe quotations or imagine conversations between figures that you were obsessed with. And there's a moment where you make a little quip about Nina Simone in the '50s. And you say something along the lines of -- the Margo, you know, in her pre-teen years, you would have wanted her to be lighter skinned. >> Doreen St. Felix: Exactly. >> Margo Jefferson: And that, to me, was such a -- it was an example of, I think, of your larger posture, of identifying the taboos that do still exist amongst Black women thinkers and the public, which is to say -- to talk about the parts of our desires that are unbecoming, that are a bit ugly, that, you know, might show us to be, in some ways, in an antagonistic relationship with what is supposed to be our loves of ourselves. >> Margo Jefferson: Absolutely. >> Doreen St. Felix: I think, so often, there's this narrative that the only way to interact with the self is to affirm it. >> Margo Jefferson: Yes! The, ah, kind of -- kind of psychic triumphalis and cultural triumphalis narrative. Yes. >> Doreen St. Felix: Absolutely. And Constructing, interestingly, with that initial word is actually kind of annihilation and it, in some ways, makes me think of the writing on suicide in Negroland. So I wanted to ask you about how you got to be so free. How you go to be able to write these things that, you know, the freest, rudest of us still have a hangup about making public. >> Margo Jefferson: Well, you know, the words "so free" applied to me make me go, oh! And what -- former Margo doing now? [ Laughter ] Here are a couple of things. You know, first of all, you -- one is always borrowing pieces of bravery from other writers, other artists, whatever. But one thing I -- that forced me to be free and maybe to -- to be freer about these kinds of confessions and concessions and, you know, self-admonitions that you really wish were, you know, declarations of rapture and self-love, I really wanted to do the -- the just. Be fair and be truthful about what each generation, what my generation went through -- the ways in which, you know, you are shaped by the culture, you want innocence to be shaped by the culture. And you're -- you know, you're flawed. You're -- you -- you are damaged. You're limited. So I really wanted to get at, in terms of class, for example, you know, really documenting all those snobberies. And those go into looks. But also -- would that I could have presented myself or lived as the constant rebel. I -- I wasn't. You know? And so the way I could -- if not exonerate myself, at least live with that was to turn a -- a quite ruthlessly exact eye on it. Often, if you start with -- you mentioned a certain morbid or mordant comedy, often if you -- I find, for me, if I start with that, that's a way to break through my decorum, my anxiety. That can lead you to other topics. You know, maybe to acknowledging a sort of grief, a kind of self-abnegation that humor can protect you from, but it can absolutely, you know, dig and let you -- let you find that way to those other -- those other voices. So I -- I can't say I think of myself as free. But I -- it has been a -- a long, arduous -- I don't want to say struggle. I don't want to say journey. Can you help me find another word, Doreen? >> Doreen St. Felix: Oh, gosh. >> Margo Jefferson: A long -- you know -- >> Doreen St. Felix: A movement? >> Margo Jefferson: A movement! It has been sometimes very slow and steady. Sometimes shuffling along like Sissle and Blake said. Sometimes fighting. But to -- to -- I -- I became more ashamed of the things I was hiding, you know, as I grew older. As I wanted, had more ambitions for my writing, I became more bothered by, ashamed by -- of those things than anything, you know, any of the content that I'd been so -- so -- so careful to hide. >> Doreen St. Felix: Wow. I'm curious about your relationship to anger because there are two passages in Constructing. The first is you discussing being a professor and working with a lot of white female students and, in some ways, reacting to their presence by deciding to not be emotional in that way when [inaudible] -- >> Margo Jefferson: I was going to be the -- ah, the uber omniscient narrator. >> Doreen St. Felix: Right! You'll be [inaudible] -- >> Margo Jefferson: [Inaudible] of the -- of the rebels. Yeah. >> Doreen St. Felix: Exactly! Even the ironist at times. >> Margo Jefferson: Yes. >> Doreen St. Felix: And then -- >> Margo Jefferson: By teaching them a white woman's text, Willa Cather. Yes. >> Doreen St. Felix: Exactly. But then, later, I think there's just such a -- there's a really meaningful progression after we get to your, just, realization of how your feelings about Willa Cather change once you realize her obsession with white rapture. And then, towards the end of the book, you start to write about how you want to be able to, like, claim a deeper relationship to anger. And so I was wondering -- how has that played out, not only in your writing but in your life, being more comfortable with showing that emotion which obviously, for women like us, is so charged, especially in our writing? No one wants to be the one writing the manifesto. No one wants to be the one making people think that she's a hysteric. That sort of thing. >> Margo Jefferson: Yes. Exactly. Yes, there is a figure of the Black female hysteric as there is the White female. That's right. All right. So -- wait. What was the -- what was the question? You drew that figure of the Black female hysteric so compellingly that I -- I froze. I froze. >> Doreen St. Felix: I guess I'm curious about -- >> Margo Jefferson: Oh, anger -- relationships to anger. >> Doreen St. Felix: Right. How -- how have you -- what's the work that you've done -- I hate to sound like a therapist, but -- >> Margo Jefferson: You know, let's say -- you were saying the work that one has done, both -- you know, in life but to get it to the page because that's what we're talking about. I think -- you know, once my mother and father had both died and, you know, yes, I adored them but they were -- they firmly shaped me. And -- and righteous anger was appropriate but no other kind. And it still had to be modulated. They were gone. I was also -- they'd -- I was in this world of writing books, not writing to -- to order, in a sense, for, you know, the creation that was the intelligent, thoughtful [laughing] critic, Margo Jefferson, who could be angry. But a critic's -- a formal critic's anger is always mediated and shaped by a kind of rational discourse. You're arguing, you're explaining, you're justifying yourself, but seeming to be too good to justify yourself. So there I was alone, you know, with -- what books am I going to write? If you're going to start writing books, you're going to have to start not only looking to stories and -- and material that you haven't looked to before. You're going to have to look to modes of expression. That means modes of emotion as well as thinking. And I just started to have fun with it. You know? It -- it -- it -- it was a -- it was a way of expressing that I, you know, had dabbled in, but hadn't -- I hadn't fully. I thought of it as, okay, I'm acquiring -- you know, this is a -- this is a new repertoire. I'm acquiring these skills. And I liked the idea of trying to find ways, styles, of expressing, demonstrating, acting out anger that seemed to me to be countering the expectations that I, as a -- certainly as a -- as a -- as a Black woman felt, at least, were being imposed on me. And you seem to feel they -- they're -- they are still imposed on -- on woman of your generation. Yeah. >> Doreen St. Felix: Absolutely. >> Margo Jefferson: Yeah. Even modes of anger -- society can find certain modes of -- of anger in, you know, whether it's women, minorities. There are other people, of course. They can -- they can -- they can accommodate certain kinds. So, you know, we have to stay -- stay on our toes, you know, about how to invent modes and styles of anger that aren't so easy to accommodate, or that at least last and hold. >> Doreen St. Felix: Right. I think about the way in which you are a character in Negroland, and the way that you are a character in Constructing, and there aspects of your life that we learned in Negroland. For example, your experience as an actor in theater as a young girl and dancing, that are much more slight, at least on the text level in Constructing, but of course are actually sometimes more present in natural form. And so I wanted to ask you about how, I'd say, three mediums -- jazz, dance, and theater, changed your voice on the page. Because there are just moments in the book where I was, like, I feel like I'm reading Funnyhouse of a Negro, I feel like I'm reading -- >> Margo Jefferson: Big influence! Adrienne Kennedy -- yes! >> Doreen St. Felix: Or, you know, when you interact with jazz lyrics, for example, made me wonder about all the other Margos that could have been. Margo the actor, Margo the blues singer. >> Margo Jefferson: Oh, don't I wish! Margo the jazz singer! Yeah! Margo the jazz singer, but no accident that I start playing with Ethel Waters, you know, right away -- >> Doreen St. Felix: Right. >> Margo Jefferson: -- stealing her lyrics. You know, when I was young and, you know, doing all these things and, you know, the Jefferson girls got dance lessons and music lessons. They're not -- you know, these girls -- girls got this. I was -- I was a good pianist and then later I got interested in acting. My sister cleaved onto dance. But I was always dreadfully afraid that I was a dilettante because I never -- you know, college came and I kind of let piano go and I still dabbled a little in acting. I really, for years, even when I got to journalism school because, of course, journalism can make you feel like a dilettante, too, if you just -- you know, if you feel I'm not getting deeper. I'm not reaching further. So that was really a kind of terror of mine that -- muted itself somewhat and became anxiety, you know, a slight -- a kind of wearing -- watch out. You know? Don't spread yourself too thin. Don't be too glib. But I think with, particularly, Constructing a Nervous System, but also in -- I think with Negroland, that being able to work -- have different voices in counterpoint, in dialogue, and opposition, sometimes just indicated by pronouns. I'd switch from an 'I' to a 'you' to an 'a.' That made me feel, okay, there's -- there's a way to bring intense plays with rhythms and tones and registers, which is musical, but also with, you know, moments of dramatic tension, of emotional text and subtext, diction -- a way to do that. I really wanted to do much more than that with Constructing a Nervous System. There was that and then, as I wrote, it turned out, yee, God, I'm really, really obsessed with some of these, you know, musicians, singers, performers. But I'm -- you know, I'm not -- I'm not an ongoing -- there, I guess, my -- my fear of being a little bit of a dilettante came back in. I thought, okay, but I'm -- I'm not an actress so I, you know, I know theater well. I know a lot about music but I'm not a music critic. So how do I find my particular way as -- as a fan, the critic, the -- the immersed, enraptured, and sometimes repelled person? How do I find my own style of engaging? And it tended to be dialogic as we say. And also theatrical as well as -- as a form of -- maybe of musical theater. >> Doreen St. Felix: Incredible. I had a question about your fears. There -- I think a conversation that I have with my friends often because our sense of audience -- writers who are writing, you know, exactly to the internet -- it's so augmented and distended. >> Margo Jefferson: Yes. >> Doreen St. Felix: And as I was reading your book, I kept thinking that there were certain passages that, if they had been extracted and dropped online, people would have, like, lost their minds over. [laughter] For example, your discussion of topsy or even -- I mean, I know you know this. Your analysis of Ike Turner and your choice even to put him in the book -- which I think is beyond justified. But obviously, I think, one of the arguments of your writing life has been -- >> Margo Jefferson: One friend wrote to me, you know, it's duh duh duh duh dum and there was a series of compliments. And then she said -- and I was going to add reckless. [ Laughter ] Okay! >> Doreen St. Felix: [inaudible] >> Margo Jefferson: That is really true. >> Doreen St. Felix: Yeah. And I guess I just -- I do think that I have a fear that, amongst writers that I know, that we -- we are not willing to be that reckless. Or we are not willing to say what it is that we actually do believe in. And I think when we read that Ike Turner analysis, it's like -- it just rings so true. It feels so real. And so I wanted to know did you have a moment -- >> Margo Jefferson: Let me ask you this. Are you -- you -- you -- quote, women of your generation, or writers of your generation, are you talking about the fear that comes with being online, on Twitter, Facebook? Are you talking about, well, Twitter, and all those other platforms. You've left Facebook behind. Or are you talking about, you know, the books you're writing or the -- or the essays, the reviews you write. Does -- does it permeate every form of writing, or is it -- >> Doreen St. Felix: I think it does. >> Margo Jefferson: -- distended internet. >> Doreen St. Felix: I think it permeates every form and I think there is a collapse, you know, even within the social spaces of our world where the writer is supposed to be a good person and is supposed to even be able to be synonymous with an activist figure with the uplift of the race. >> Margo Jefferson: Yes, that is -- that is true. God, you know, that -- that shows up in every single generation. Every single generation going back a couple of centuries for Black writers. It just mutates -- you know, gets a different mise en scene, a different medium but they -- but the same demands. I -- I'm not much on Twitter or other platforms and I've always told myself, well, you know, I follow people. But, you know, it's too much time. It takes too much effort. I think, probably, you know, I don't do it, in part -- I hadn't realized this until you said it because that's -- that's one more fear I don't want to have to -- to entertain. Of course, someone can take and -- and, you know, people did that with Negroland. They take portions, you know, of it and put it online and criticize. You know, the other day a friend of mine who was teaching it had a student who wrote a very angry email saying, you know, how -- you know, this title! How dare she use it and how dare she use -- have used the 'n' word, which I did. And it's -- so I'm aware and I keep -- I keep my distance. I think a lot of the anxiety you're describing affected me when I was a beat writer at Newsweek and also at the Times. And sometimes for other places that you freelance for. I -- I felt very much the sense of almost a pull between how I wanted to engage with the material, you know, in a sort of idealized Margo the critic form. And, you know, the -- the cultural politics, the gender politics. The fact that I was often the only Black woman in the -- in a certain critical space. So that's where I experienced and that is generational. It's not as -- it's not as ubiquitous in that older form. It's not as instantaneous. And, in that way, it probably -- it wasn't -- probably wasn't as lethal in terms of it [sound effect] paralyzing you in advance. It all -- it sets off all those -- in both -- in all these mediums, we're talking about self-censorship. You know, the feelings. >> Doreen St. Felix: Yeah. >> Margo Jefferson: Right? And one's notion -- always absorbed, you know, by everything from one's friends to one's enemies to, you know, whatever. To the -- to the dominating ideology of what you should be thinking and doing. And who are you betraying if you don't? >> Doreen St. Felix: Absolutely. >> Margo Jefferson: But is it worth it to you? You know, at that moment? Yeah. >> Doreen St. Felix: It's me -- I've always wanted to ask you, after you started, you know, writing about the Black bourgeoisie in the way that you do, being this paradox of the Black bourgeois rebel, would you have friends or former compatriots who would kind of come up to you and say, Margo, what are you doing? Like, why are you telling our secrets? >> Margo Jefferson: Um, not -- not that much. I certainly knew people. One old compatriot said to another old compatriot -- do I have to buy this new book? I guess I do. Does she talk about suicide again? [laughing] But I also got people coming up to me and saying -- okay. You know, not forgiven. I remembered very well how girls like you acted towards me, you know, on the bus or [inaudible]. So I -- I, you know, would get that in -- in various directions. Some people thought I was still being a little bit of a bourgeois self-indulgent creature with -- with the suicide think -- you know, thinking. So -- there it is. God knows what will emerge this time. >> Doreen St. Felix: Gosh. I mean, I think -- >> Margo Jefferson: I will -- I will tell you I was relieved that, you know, that more of my parents' friends -- again, many of whom I just adored -- that most of them were gone when Negroland came out because I remember one friend, in particular, whom I was very fond of, she -- she would say, ah, at last you're going to tell that story. And I would think [sound effect]. You may [inaudible]. >> Doreen St. Felix: Not what you're expecting. >> Margo Jefferson: I'm not telling it the way you want me to do it. And, you know, my mother would give me all this information and then she'd say, you know, I'm a very private person. You know? So these -- these messages were mixed. So, in a way, you know, being -- being a survivor and in a sense an orphan of that world helped give me freedom. >> Doreen St. Felix: Absolutely. And I think adult orphanage is a theme that comes up in Constructing, often -- >> Margo Jefferson: Yeah! >> Doreen St. Felix: -- with respect to your family. But also I think of it in terms of, even I -- as -- I realize that I'm becoming part of a generation that's no longer the youngest writing. I'm starting to feel like orphaned between -- >> Margo Jefferson: Yes! Yes! Yes! I remember that! Yes! >> Doreen St. Felix: But it made me curious about -- how you deal with the process of looking back on idols and realizing certain --you know, the snobbery that you had towards Ella Fitzgerald as a girl who didn't know what to make of this [inaudible]. >> Margo Jefferson: The sweat! >> Doreen St. Felix: Right. >> Margo Jefferson: These -- these -- you spoke about it yesterday. The -- the -- the whole appearance that, in some ways, seemed embarrassing -- >> Doreen St. Felix: Exactly. >> Margo Jefferson: -- to negro girls. >> Doreen St. Felix: Right. And so when I read these passages, I keep thinking about, gosh, how do you -- I guess I keep asking the same question over and over again, but how are you honest about realizing the way that you thought in the past? And how do you identify the -- the right muse, the muse that's going to allow you to show yourself at angles that are not necessarily only becoming -- the unbecoming angles. >> Margo Jefferson: You know -- therapy. Years -- you know, years of very good -- mostly very good therapy. It is, you know, a rich and complicated and dense and layered tool for helping to find ways to do exactly what -- what you just said -- to examine, to turn in the light, and to try it, you know, at another angle, another light. To confess and concede things that are shameful and not -- and to realize that nothing is to be gained by just giving in to them. You find a way. But also not -- that when you first start therapy, [sound effect]. You know, it's like -- it's like being bipolar. You're feeling good and you think I'll never be depressed again. Once I have this insight, I am on the road. The royal road! And, you know, again, really good therapy or, you know, analysis -- how -- whatever mode you pick. It keeps that process complicated and -- and varied and it keeps you interested in finding ways through and around. And if you are, you know, a writer or some other kind of -- of thinker, artist, whatever, then you want to turn -- you want to turn those tools into the tools of your -- of your work, of your trade. That's -- that's what, you know, helps. That's what -- more than help. I would say it's basically saved me from absolute thwarted status. >> Doreen St. Felix: I think often about how you both address yourself in the text. You know, there will be, maybe in bold, a moment of you calling yourself Professor Jefferson and saying, wait! Should we go down this road or should we double back? You question yourself and you also address the reader, which puts me in the mind, obviously, of George Elliott, having done that in her fiction, but in theater as well. And so I wanted to ask you about the development of that. I don't even know what to call it, but it's completely Jeffersonian, I'd say. Willingness to touch the audience in a way that was certainly not associated with the role of the weekly critic and also maybe not associated with, like, the more removed American way of writing memoir. >> Margo Jefferson: Oh, but there are so many people, I -- I would -- I love everything that sounds complimentary, but there were so many other writers who -- you know, don't do the American way. I -- but I thank you for that one. But to me, once I began to work with these, you know, modes of address, dissent, self-dissent -- here's -- hello, audience! They felt like -- like tools that -- tools of -- of -- of -- of power. Maybe conquest is a -- is a -- is a strong word, but if, again, you are doing -- criticism always involves, however arrogant or high-handed you are, you are always, in some way I think, at least I was, you're negotiating with the audience. Often you're negotiating -- certainly I was -- with audiences that are in dissent. You know, I -- I -- my -- generationally, racially, gender wise, you know -- so I was always grappling, if that. And, you know, we spoke a little of self-censorship. I'm always trying to guide myself so I can get this message there and that that, and then still have it be calmly and orderly monitoring myself professionally. These -- all these tactics and devices felt like, you know, just wonderful tools of -- of play and of impersonation and of being a moving target, really. You know? Always on the landscape, on the move, on the lam, you know, like the confidence woman. You know -- here I am! [Inaudible]. >> Doreen St. Felix: Bing Crosby [inaudible]. >> Margo Jefferson: Here we go. >> Doreen St. Felix: Yeah. I mean, I would actually love to talk about the Bing Crosby [inaudible] and this -- >> Margo Jefferson: You know, that started as a tiny little performance that I did. I think it was at Symphony Space, a group of people -- >> Doreen St. Felix: Oh! >> Margo Jefferson: -- Suzzy and Maggie Roche, the folk singers that organized the whole evening. And I had been at Anna DeBeer Smith's Institute on the arts and civic dialogue with them. It was really like a variety show they staged one night and I just -- I'd been kind of obsessed with Bing Crosby as you could see from the book -- for some time. I just thought -- I'm going to write a monologue. I'm going to do this. So I got a friend to take little sections from his singing. I found little white buck shoes and a jacket and a little cap, and I went on stage and did this. And then I put it away. You know, we talked a little about that earlier. Okay. We've done that. And then as, you know, this -- this -- this train of thought really coming out of topsy and minstrelsy and, again, that desire to turn the tables on -- on a form -- on a practice that you are thrilled by in some way, but which punishes you. So you turn the tables and you invert the power dynamics. So I went back to it when, you know, these -- this topsy stuff started emerging, or something led me back to it. But I found it and I thought, well, okay. And then Condi Rice and George Bush and -- >> Doreen St. Felix: Incredible. Oprah and Dr. Phil. >> Margo Jefferson: Oprah and Dr. Phil! That's right! That's right! >> Doreen St. Felix: So this idea for the audience -- if you haven't read the memoir yet, but Margo has this really, really funny -- in my mind -- section of talking about Black women who had certain minstrels by their side. Oprah -- >> Margo Jefferson: Yeah. Oprah and Dr. Phil. Condoleezza Rice was a particular -- in particular a quote of hers where she said, you know, I -- I'm internalizing his world. And I thought, is [inaudible] cheerleader, you know, from Yale. Cheerleader who managed to become President. You're internalizing his world. But something about -- you know, I think I say about Bing Crosby at the end in his voice, you know, I can do anything and I'm entitled to everything. And I do think that's part of the fascination. Of course, if you're Oprah, you also control Dr. Phil. You know? I could, for that amount of time, control Bing Crosby. >> Doreen St. Felix: And I think about the -- we -- we think of power dynamics being -- as being so [inaudible], but the thing about power and privilege is that it can just as easily be taken away as it can be given. And I was really interested in your meditation on why you have such an attraction to Black male performers. Because there's a moment where you kind of, you know, speculate that your attraction might be the thing that we sort of apply to White women in the ways they look towards Black men -- >> Margo Jefferson: And -- and white men, too, frequently, [inaudible] rock and roll. >> Doreen St. Felix: Absolutely. I really -- like, a bell went off in my head because I'm so used to thinking of myself as being in -- not subservient but always, like, under Black men in a certain hierarchy. But it's not necessarily how that plays out in the real -- in real life. And I've -- I felt very -- 'liberated' feels a little maudlin, but once I read that it allowed me to feel like I was more of an agent in my attraction to Black men. >> Margo Jefferson: You know, well, you just said something that, you know, it's -- it's so crucial. This business of how we find ways to be more of an agent in this wild world. Which starts when we're children, you know, overwhelmed by impressions and images and, you know, orders and dictates. You know, and wanting to disobey but being thrilled to obey in certain ways. It's how you find that, you know, growing up, growing into yourself and your culture and your -- your temperament is, as you just put it, finding a way to be the agent of these desires and needs. And some of them are even afflictions. Right? >> Doreen St. Felix: Well, [inaudible]. >> Margo Jefferson: Yeah. Yeah. And in that way, you know, with this -- oh, my God. I love -- you know, I'm fascinated by these Black male performers. I wanted -- I wanted the power they had. You know, even when it was constricted or constrained, it still was more than I had. I wanted it, you know? That -- that theatrical longing -- yeah! That made me the agent. And then, again, I could -- I could use -- I could work to find the words that gave -- you know, that gave me access to them and it made them mine temporarily. >> Doreen St. Felix: Mm-hmm. But also permanently through the writing. >> Margo Jefferson: Oh, very -- that's true. Yeah. That's -- yeah. Okay. It's in a book now. That's right. >> Doreen St. Felix: Right. So we just have a couple more minutes before Q&A. I want to remind everyone to get your questions in. I will ask them. But I wanted to just -- while we wrap up our portion of the conversation to ask you about family. Because in Negroland, your family is the lens through which you write about this society -- the Black elite. Whereas, in Constructing, you're writing about yourself -- your autobiography is helmed by your relationship to certain artworks. However, you do talk about your family and these ways that -- gosh, it's almost like you're reading Negroland again, but from a different angle that's partially obscured, which I thought was very fascinating. And I just wanted to know how confession changes when you're writing through loss. You know? In these past ten years, you are now your family. You are the one who represents them all, and so -- >> Margo Jefferson: I have, thank God, a niece and grandniece. But I am -- as you know, I -- I'm the senior member. The aunt matriarch. >> Doreen St. Felix: Yeah. The matriarch. >> Margo Jefferson: And I never expected -- particularly with, you know, an all but omnipotent sister who was only three years older. I never expected [inaudible]. >> Doreen St. Felix: Right. Right. So much of your life, you know, has been about -- I'm not just going to get married because I'm supposed to get married. And, yeah, I guess I just wanted to hear about how -- not even necessarily as a writer but as a person -- how you're negotiating this change. >> Margo Jefferson: Ah -- Doreen, some -- you never get over the loss. You absolutely never get over the loss. That does not mean that there aren't also, and certainly weren't -- I felt it more acutely with my parents. Oh, I am free of certain -- of certain things. I -- I really am. I'm -- I'm -- in this, I'm the adult now here. So they're -- they are my -- in that way, they're -- they're inside me. They're my [laughing] they're inner life, part of my inner life. They're also my material, you know, to be crafted. They marked me so thoroughly that it's -- you know, you -- you want to keep finding ways to -- to be a self that isn't wholly determined by that. So that is part of what I write about, the parts that I feel have been very determined by them, and the parts that aren't. With my sister, she became and still is -- you know, a dazzling character whom I measure, play my own temperament against and -- and with. You know, she was very, very strong-willed. I was much more duplicitous. You know, she was very forceful and very -- you know, very Betty Davis. You know? And here I am with, you know, Beth and Deborah Kerr and [laughing]. We met on Nina Simone. So, you know, she -- she, in a funny way, is almost the platonic ideal of the -- or the ideal, not platonic, of the -- of -- of -- of the Black girl I grew up with in this world. Whose persona and whose ways and, yeah, will always, you know, be material for me -- a kind of measure of -- of -- of that world -- of the -- of the truth of it. I don't mean, you know, the truth of everything she said or did, but just the stuff of it. Yeah. Yeah. The choreography of it. >> Doreen St. Felix: Margo, thank you so much. >> Margo Jefferson: Oh, thank you. >> Doreen St. Felix: I really had a ball talking with you. >> Margo Jefferson: It was great! Yeah! >> Doreen St. Felix: Yeah! >> Margo Jefferson: How did so much time go by? >> Doreen St. Felix: And so I think we have a couple of questions which I will read aloud. So this person says -- I've read some of your writing on Mrs. Dalloway and, like you, she played with perspective, chronology, and form. What is the appeal of Dalloway and/or Woolf to you? And did Woolf's writing inspire you at all? >> Margo Jefferson: Mm -- um -- Woolf, I have really intensely admired and -- and loved Woolf since -- probably the late '60s. The criticism as well as -- as well as the novels. And the -- her -- her breaking through these -- working constantly through these -- these -- I mean, she would go mad. She was also, you know, a lady. She had the teatime, you know, manner, but she also had this -- this wildness. Also the curiosity. So I -- I felt that, despite all her entitlement, there were, in a sense, almost handicaps that she had that she kept having to work with. Any writer that has some kind of what I might identify as a handicap, a weakness, that appeals to me and I want to study any artist how they -- how they get past what seems maybe almost unbearable to them in their lives. Mrs. Dalloway appeals to me because of the -- you know, just the technical range of it. But the -- the juxtaposition of these two worlds. There is Clarissa. There is -- there is Septimus. And there is time and there is fate. And it is a serious, serious -- amidst all that, there is this, you know, critique of patriarchy, of war, of -- in certain ways -- even empire. >> Doreen St. Felix: We have another question. Could Ms. Jefferson please talk about the dance between therapy and the creative process. How does one inform and direct the other? >> Margo Jefferson: Well, they are both -- they're both ways, method -- methods of -- of examining closely, without trying to justify your -- yourself, but also, to me -- and I would say this is true of therapy, too -- yourself in the world. You know? I think of -- I often think of memoir are the ones that I like to write as cultural memoir. I think of therapy as cultural [laughing] -- cultural self-investigation, meaning whatever you're finding out about yourself has to be also lived out in -- in this larger world. And you are committed also to finding out things about that world. That pretty much describes -- my writing process, particularly -- I'm a non-fiction writer, you know, so that's what I have to do. That's why I'm always coming up with -- I'm always looking for a different word for criticism because it feels a little -- a little stuck. You know? A little polite and stuck -- almost passive, weirdly enough. But that's why I'm always calling, you know -- using phrases like temperamental autobiography, or cultural memoir, just to keep that sense of -- of -- of openness, of multiplicity, of -- yeah, that's enough [laughing]. >> Doreen St. Felix: We still have a couple minutes, so I think I'm going to ask another question. >> Margo Jefferson: Okay. >> Doreen St. Felix: So there's a moment in the book where you are talking about Nina Simone, who is who you and Denise [inaudible] -- >> Margo Jefferson: Yes, and that wonderful first album of hers. Yeah. >> Doreen St. Felix: -- right, with the cover of her sitting on the bench, twenty-six or twenty-five -- >> Margo Jefferson: Looking so contemplative. >> Doreen St. Felix: -- right. And you talk about -- it was so striking to me how you identify that her face, in some ways, was Michaela Cole's face. And, (a) I was, like, that's completely correct. Michaela should play her in a film. But then, also, I was wondering -- I was, like, oh, that's one of the few more modern examples of art that you let sneak into this book, because -- >> Margo Jefferson: No, no -- that's absolute -- that's absolutely true. Yeah. >> Doreen St. Felix: -- right. And I guess my question is two pronged. Are there other artists or writers working now in film, music that you feel like are activating that same part -- any of those activated -- as when you were younger? And also -- why did Michaela slip by? >> Margo Jefferson: There are -- I think a few years ago for the Times I wrote about Cecile McLorin Salvant and I am still following her. But, you know, I -- I'm -- there are lots of things I'm really interested in and starting to watch, and letting myselves be -- myself be galvanized by myself. [laughing] But, you know, I've been living so much in that old that I'm just, right now, a common reader in this interview. And we will see what really -- many, many things interest me, but we'll see what really, really claims me. The nice thing about -- about -- one nice thing about the contemporary and that Michaela Cole is suddenly it -- it gives you -- it gave me access because Michaela Cole -- she didn't exist, you know, when I was coming along. She couldn't possibly. I mean Nina Simone was the closest, but she was in little jazz clubs and then she was in, you know, the kind of Black music world. She could never have existed as Cole does. And that's just extraordinary. So -- so that gives one access to looking back at Nina Simone that I wouldn't have had otherwise. And it also -- it helps break free of that shame because every time you write about some goal, shame, or fear -- whatever -- you are reliving it. So when you get data, not just, you know, your own wisdom or hard thought. When you get data from the real world, it pushes you past it. That's fabulous. >> Doreen St. Felix: Absolutely. Well, Margo, again, it has been so wonderful talking with you tonight about Constructing a Nervous System. I feel like Vanna White. >> Margo Jefferson: Oh, you know what? >> Doreen St. Felix: [laughing] Let's do it together. >> Margo Jefferson: Definitely together. That's right. >> Doreen St. Felix: You are truly, I think, a north star for so many viewers, writers, lovers, haters. You're just incredibly important and this is an amazing book. And -- >> Margo Jefferson: Thank you, Doreen. Of course, you were wonderful. I also have to tell you something you wrote that amused me so much -- >> Doreen St. Felix: Oh, gosh. >> Margo Jefferson: -- speaking of being naughty. I hope no one got angry at you. You were writing about the -- the Bell documentary about Bill Cosby. And I think he says we have to have a conversation about Cosby. And you said, I think I'm going to write -- why do we have to have another conversation about that? And I thought -- I understand!! >> Doreen St. Felix: Well, you have also always been -- this idea that Cosby had always been sanctified by everyone is not true because I remember knowing that you were never a Cosby fan, really. >> Margo Jefferson: I didn't realize how much there was not to be a fan of -- horror -- horror story. But, no, he became absolutely insufferable and obnoxious, even before we knew he was a monster. >> Doreen St. Felix: Yeah. I -- the fact that you caught that means the world to me. Thank you. I don't know why we need to have a conversation that has been had thousands of times. >> Margo Jefferson: I'm a little impatient, people. I'm writing [inaudible] now -- a little impatient. >> Doreen St. Felix: Well, let everyone continue to be naughty. >> Margo Jefferson: That's right! >> Doreen St. Felix: That's right. Think your best thoughts and thank the world for Margo Jefferson. >> Margo Jefferson: Oh, thank you! >> Doreen St. Felix: All right. >> Margo Jefferson: Bye! >> Doreen St. Felix: Bye! [ Silence ]