Host: Emily Couch

Emily Couch: [00:00:03] Welcome to The Moth Podcast. I'm Emily Couch, producer of special projects and radio at The Moth, and your host for this episode. My first love was reading. This is perhaps not a shock, given that I worked for a storytelling organization. In fact, I'm guessing there are some book nerds among you as well. 

I learned to read at a young age thanks to my mom. She brought me to the Brooklyn Library all the time when I was a little kid. I remember the children's section had this huge rug with the alphabet on it. She'd call out a letter, and I would have to go run and stand on that letter. After we exhausted this activity, she'd take me to the cafeteria, where we'd share some French fries, which were an excellent motivator to learn my ABCs and to visit the library. I've been a pretty big fan of reading ever since. 

One thing, I've noticed, is that often the older you get, the more solitary reading becomes. No more spelling challenges with my mom on the ABC carpet. No more French fries in the library, unless I smuggle them in. While storytelling is, in its nature, interpersonal, books are often enjoyed alone. But they certainly don't have to be. 

Today's episode is all about how reading brings people together. Because a good book might be all the companion a person needs, but there's something special about sharing them with the ones you love. 

First up is Kashyap Raja. He told this at a London StorySLAM in 2022, where theme of the night was Appropriately, Books. Here's Kashyap, live at The Moth. 

[cheers and applause]

Kashyap: [00:01:28] So, every Sunday, me and my father, we have a phone call. After talking about politics, weather and cricket, [audience laughter] my dad asked me a very important question. “Why don't you want to have children?” I said, dad, I'm single, so that's not important. [audience laughter] “Why don't you want to have children?” I said, why did you want to have children? He said, “Because children makes us happy.” Do I make you happy? “Not much.” [audience laughter] “You will make me happy though when you will have children.” I said, nice one. I'm not falling for that. Do you realize that how many of us are we in this world? The best thing we can do for the planet, dad, is not to have children. I'm a climate activist. “I'm not. [audience laughter] I drink coffee from paper cup. I eat red meat. I am far from a climate activist.” 

But I don't know what to say when people ask me this question. Why don't you want to have children? I said, I don't know. I don't know. Some time ago, friends invited me to have dinner at their home. They have a three-year-old daughter named Tania. I saw that this friend of mine, they were trying to feed Tania an orange, but she was not interested in orange. She was throwing squishy toys and then she jumped on a scooter and she came riding towards me and applied the brakes right next to my feet and looked up at me and said, “Would you like to read me a story, cash uncle?” I said, yeah, I can do that. I can read your story. And she brings a picture book story of Gruffalo. 

I sit next to her and pick up an orange from a fruit basket. Now, Gruffalo is a picture storybook which has four rhyming lines in each passage. And each passage ends with the word, Gruffalo. So, I began, the well is dry. It is so shallow. What should I do, thought the poor old Gruffalo. Every time, Tania opened her mouth to say the word Gruffalo, I would very intelligently put an orange slice in her mouth. [audience laughter] She would chew on the slice and look at me and say, “Next page please.” It took me six pages and 12 Gruffalos to feed an entire orange to Tania. I was a nanny. I had fed a child and told her a story. [audience laughter] 

Whilst I was throwing this orange skin into the garbage, I started feeling the tangents of orange in my mouth. I started feeling that I have eaten that orange, that I am full. Even though Tania was the one who had eaten the entire thing. Then why I'm not hungry and why I'm full? That's when I realized why people have children. I don't think I'm still ready to be a parent or I don't know if I ever will be. But now, when a friend or a family member comes to me and said, “We are expecting a child.” I feel the same happiness, because I can understand how it feels like. And it's because of the drug, Gruffalo. Thank you. 

[cheers and applause]

Emily Couch: [00:05:11] That was Kashyap Raja. Kashyap is a playwright, storyteller and theater maker from India. For the past seven years, he has been writing and producing plays in various venues of London. His last play, Earth, was performed in Bridewell Theatre in February. He is currently working on a novel that explores theme of lucid dreaming. 

Kashyap's story reminded me of what a gift it was to be read to as a child. Even after I learned to read, thanks to my mom and French fries, my dad read to me all the time when I was growing up, my Favorite was Nancy Drew. He put his own spin on everything he read to me. He did all of the characters voices in this hilarious falsetto. He refused to call Nancy's boyfriend by just his first name, Ned. Dad always had to say the full thing, Ned Nickerson, because he thought it was funny and so did I. 

Given the dated nature of many Nancy Drew books, he'd have frank conversations with me about some of the bigoted attitudes or language that was present in the pages. It was educational, fun and it really bonded us. It all started with a book. 

Up next is a story from Errol McLendon. Errol told this at a 2022 Chicago StorySLAM. Here's Errol, live at The Moth. 

Enrol: [00:06:21] My father passed away two days after Christmas, one day before my 14th birthday. He had gone into the hospital a week before Christmas with a massive heart attack and had a second one, December 27th, and that was it. Now, I know the belief is that if you have a birthday soon after Christmas, you don't have much of a birthday. But that's not true if you're a spoiled only child. [audience laughter] 

Now, I didn't have a lot of guests at my birthday party. But my parents and my grandparents were there. We always had a lot of packages. We had a beautiful chocolate sheet cake and ice cream. It was neat, because if I didn't get what I wanted for Christmas, I knew three days later, I would get those packages. [audience laughter] But this particular year, because of my father's funeral, my mother wasn't able to do my usual birthday. 

My father had a huge funeral. He was a college administrator, and everybody knew him throughout the state and beyond, so it was massive. So, all my mother did was give me money to go downtown in Cleveland, Mississippi with my friends and buy what I wanted. And for a 14-year-old, this was like hitting the lottery. I took my friends, I bought them lunch, I bought them some records, I bought my stuff and I came home that night and sitting in my room, I was showing my mother all of the stuff that I had purchased. And then, it hit me and I started crying. I said, there were no books. There weren't any books.

My father had started a tradition on my first birthday by giving me one book, The Poky Little Puppy. The second birthday I got two, The Little Engine That Could and The Little Red Hen. This continued, adding books every year. By the time sixth, seventh, eighth birthday, I was getting this one box with a tag on it. It said, “To Speed.” That was my father's nickname for me from dad. My mother Left the room and she came back with a box with a tag on it, “To Speed from dad”. I opened it up and there were 14 books. She didn't know how I would handle getting a present from my father after he was gone. 

Now, I usually read those books in two or three months. I was an avid reader. But this year, I rationed them out. I read one or two a month, so they will last for the whole year. It was the last box. On my 15th birthday, I came downstairs. There were the presents, there was the sheet cake, there was the ice cream and there was a box with a tag on it, “To Speed from dad.” I opened it up and there were 15 books. 

When we moved to Cleveland to Delta State University in the second grade, my father had gone to the library with the head of the Children and Young Adult Literature division and prepaid for over 150 books, so I would have books all the way through my 18th birthday. So, for the next three years, 16, 17, 18, there was always a box with a tag, “To Speed from dad,” that I would open. 

The 18th year knowing that was the last box, I really did ration those books. And I held onto one for the day of my 19th birthday, The scarlet Pimpernel. I came downstairs. There were the gifts, there was the cake, there was the ice cream, there was no box. And then, I took The Scarlet Pimpernel, and I went upstairs and I read it straight through the afternoon, through the evening, into the next morning. When I finished it, I cried myself to sleep holding it to my chest. Five years later, that's when I said goodbye to my father. Thank you. 

[cheers and applause]

Emily Couch: [00:10:46] That was Errol McLendon. Errol is a two-time Moth StorySLAM winner and was chosen to compete at the International Storytelling Festival in Jonesboro, Tennessee. His solo show, Inter State Stories, premiered this past January and will be part of both the Atlanta and Indianapolis Fringe Festivals this year. 

I asked Errol which was his favorite of the books his father gifted him. He said that the last book he read from his father was Crime and Punishment by Dostoevsky. After he told this story, he reread it and found that the last line of the book hit him as a prophetic message, one he hadn't recognized back when he first read it. That might be the subject of a new story, but our present story is ended. 

There are so many ways to connect through reading. Whether it's through gifting a book, a recommendation or reading to one another. Books, like stories, are meant to be shared. On that note, here's a shameless plug for The Moth's book, How to Tell a Story. It comes out in paperback on April 25th and includes an official book club guide for maximum shareability. I leave you now with this clip of my father reading Nancy Drew to me and to all of you. 

Emily’s Father: [00:11:46] Nancy Drew, an attractive girl of 18, was driving home along a country road in her new dark blue convertible. It was sweet of dad to give me this car for my birthday, she thought, and it's fun to help him in his work. 

Emily Couch: [00:12:01] That was the beginning of The Secret of the Old Clock, the first ever Nancy Drew mystery. Thanks, Daddo. 

That's all for this episode. Whether you're reading a book or listening to a tale told live from everyone here at The Moth, we hope you have a story filled week. 

Marc Sollinger: [00:12:15] Emily Couch is a producer on The Moth's artistic team, offering logistical support on creative projects and The Moth Radio Hour. She loves to work behind the scenes to spread the beauty of true personal stories to listeners around the world. 

This episode of The Moth podcast was produced by Sarah Austin Jenness, Sarah Jane Johnson and me, Marc Sollinger. The rest of The Moth’s leadership team include Sarah Haberman, Catherine Burns, Jenifer Hixson, Meg Bowles, Jennifer Birmingham, Kate Tellers, Marina Klutse, Suzanne Rust, Brandon Grant, Lee Ann Gullie and Aldi Kaza. All Moth stories are true, as remembered by their storytellers.

For more about our podcast, information on pitching your own story and everything else, go to our website, themoth.org. The Moth podcast is presented by PRX, the Public Radio Exchange, helping make public radio more public at prx.org.