All About Malik Books

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Welcome, Welcome, Welcome to Malik's Bookshow, bringing a world together with books, culture and community.

Hot.

My name is Malik, your host of Malik's Bookshelf. You know I love my intro. You know I'm introducing Malik. I'm introducing you what I do. That's right. I'm coming to you with a podcast full of interviews, full of book reviews, full of community information, because that's what I do. Well, let me tell you something. Last week, I had took a break. You know, I had a lot going on, but I took a break, vacation little morning because of my mom passed away and I had to get mind right,

I'm glad you asked leak.

So the cultural significance of the book is that Friday Foster was the first nationally syndicated newspaper comic strip with a black female lead character. When I say nationally syndicated, it was syndicated by Chicago Tribune from nineteen seventy to seventy four, and they did about twenty five papers coast to coast.

They even did the La Times, Chicago.

Tribune, Houston Chronicle, New York it was the New York News. So that was a big deal nineteen seventy to have a comic strip with a black female lead. And it inspired a lot of different spin offs. There's a movie if you're a Pam Grill fan. There was a movie with Pam Greer came out in nineteen seventy five, blaxploitation flick, very entertaining if you like blaxploitation. They actually did a comic book, a one off, actual comic book, just the one from Dell. I think the comic book came out

Eight actually, so not too long ago.

And the dolls you can't even find them now, but if you do, you buy them on an applemarket and you go and run, you know, run at least a grand one thousand dollars for a Friday bost.

The dollar if you can find one.

So again for a black paper comic strip to have that kind of effect and spin off is very very rare. Very few black comic strips have gotten their own book, and this is one of the very very few. Like OUTI the Bloom Dogs. So I'm the editor. I came up with the idea for the book. I'm just a huge fan of the strip. I actually started collecting the original newsprint maybe like seven eight years ago, fell in love with the artwork and the stories, and I was like, Man,

So it's been a great experience.

Now I really appreciate the time and you carry in the book too.

Have you done some book signings at some of.

The no book signings at the cons?

But I just didn't event in Denver literally two weeks ago, I was at Denver. There's a museum called History of Colorado and they had an event called Black Explanation where they were talking about blaxploitation movies and they had a screening of Friday Foster the movie, and I came out and talked about the book and we did some signings of the book literally two.

Weeks ago in Denver.

It was a great event, you know, my first time in Denver as an adult, but awesome experience.

That's wonderful, wonderfulks any upcoming plans. I mean, Comic's been around a long time and showed their other comics out there that maybe you could put the other a collection and put it in the book.

I mean, are you you collected Friday Foster?

Yes?

Did you collect? Have you collected other types of strips?

It's funny you asked is one more that I'm looking at doing right now.

There's another black comic strip that ran from like nineteen sixty eight to about seventy five. It's called Datesline Danger, and the whole premise of that was basically, there were two spies. It was a black spy and a white spy, and they would go around, you know, for them these plots to you know, overtake the government. And the funny part is the strip, the newspaper comic strip was inspired

Wonderful one.

Well, Christopher, thank you for taking the time to share your journey here with Friday Foster and this is wonderful.

We got to hear autograph at Malik Books right now.

Signing up again.

I thank you Malik, I thank you April Man and I love supporting black business and I thank you guys a million, thank you.

Thank you. My book review for this episode is about a book that an iconic comedian and actor, a game shaped host has a Hollywood star. That's right, the original Kings of comedy Centric the entertainer has written an aspiring book called Flipping Box Call. Now that's his debut book, and let me tell you, it's about a character named Baby whom takes you on a world wind of swag, of height, of hustle, of gambling, of street smarts, of

Cards, he's celebrating Floyd Baby Boyce, his grandfather, and he used his imagination to explode the character to write this creative book.

So hey, the person who can tell you the best about the book is the Cedric or to read the book. So I'm just hyping up this book because we got him doing a book signing. He's coming to Malik's September thirtieth. He's going to be doing a book signing at three pm that Saturday, September thirtieth. And I had to do a book review because this is an excited it's a cozy book, it's a flipping novel and is written by

Well, I guess we're gonna get started with conversation if we have Anita Gail Jones here, she's the author of their amazing book The pc.

As the pleasure of being a part of her trailer.

You got to spend some time with her to learn so much about the amazing creative mind that she has. I think it's just amazing, and uh, she deserves all the flowers that she's beginning. If you wanna, you can have a few words to say before we get into the conversation.

Wojump right on in.

I'd just like to start by thanking Malie books together and think and you counting her being in a conversation with me this it's really wonderful.

I also wanna start by being mindful.

I want to be mindful of oppressed and disfranchised people's and stolen lands.

All over the world.

And I am also mindful of those places where their struggles and their triumphs and joys intermingling with those Black Americans.

That's not like to do the stuff beautiful. That's beautiful, and I I feel that in the pizzing, which kind of leads me to my first question for you, what was that.

Moment of inspiration that led you to creating a PC?

It was a question actually a question I had for my father, mister Silas Jones.

He was born in Almony, chr. When he was born in Putney, Georgia.

Which is a little smaller than Almny, Georgia, in nineteen twenty one. So you know, a black man born in the Deep South in nineteen twenty one saw some stuff and was a part of a part of his life. So I wanted to know how did he and other black men of his generation, that's what's known as the Greatest Generation, although because of the color of their skin, they were not able to realize the promises made to

So that was a question in my mind.

When I started the book, and the journey of writing the book is my answer is an answer to that question. However, when I started, right after I put the question out there, I read James Baldwin's.

Book No Name in the Streets.

It's nineteen seventy two, I think, and you can always count involved when you He's got the answer to the question you didn't even know you were asking, so he said, and I put it in the front of the book. He said, that The gist of what he said is that the only way you can describe what was happening with black men in the South during that time, the fifties, forties, sixties, is that they were heroes, and there were heroes more in small ways than large ones, and more.

In private than apartment. So I said, thank you Ball for that answer, and.

I I folded that that idea into what I was already thinking and feeling and knowing about the black.

Men who raised me, and that was the inspiration.

Awesome.

Okay, that kind of leads me to my next question, uh, which is something that I noticed.

And you even mentioned it too.

As a female author, what was that process like writing from a all male perspective? I know in the book there are uh a couple of points of view when all of them are uh men within.

The dudes's family. What was that process like for you?

It was not a problem at all. Yeah, I don't. I don't think it was a challenge or.

Problem because these men are so much a part of me. I hear their voices in my hand anyway, because.

They helped ahmaise me. My father, My father was the last of twenty one children.

His father had his first wife passed away and he married my grandmother.

First wife had thirteen kids.

The second wife, my grandmother had seven, and my dad was the last of those.

So he was known as the baby uncle cause he had all these nieces and nephews that were older than he. So I had a lot.

There were a lot of people in my family, and composites of their spirit and their personalities is what I used to construct the characters.

So I was always listening to the voices.

Of of my people, and they were in my head, and so I I felt like I was taking notes and just taking dictation really and listening to them. And that's their voices are so crisp and clear that and I'm grateful for that.

I think it's the real gift of the process. And that's how I did it.

I just paid attention to how they were sounding and what how how they made me feel as a child growing up, because I felt very, very held and and protected from the racist stuff that was going on all around. And so that's what I did. I just kind of I listened to the voices of my people.

I loved that.

I love that it sounds like it was a combination of like your experience coupled with like your observation and uh, empathy for those around you.

I think that's really beautiful. Like I said before, you could feel that within the book itself.

Yeah, so if that's a good A good word for empathy and you have to have that as as when you're writing what I do with these I think having I know I haven't really thought of it that way, but having empathy for the character, even the ones that.

Are not not your favorite.

But in order to walk them out of their shoes, you have to have some dipathy for that character.

So think it's something it's something that we learned and acting right where we have to step outside of ourselves and even if we don't like align with a person, we have to try our best to walk into their shoes.

Yeah, and it sounds like that's exactly what you did in this book.

I tried to do.

We'll say there is a specific character that I did not align with at all. Okay, sure you know exactly who I'm talking about.

Oh no, I'm not gonna assume I know.

No, Yeah, yeah.

No, same same?

What is.

Yeah? Serious?

You know he endears himself to you, though, I will say he's he's strugg but I've heard from a lot of people that they were just really rooting for him. Yeah, because he was trying. He was trying very hard and messing up, of course. But what's the story without trouble exactly?

Okay, Well, speaking of characters, if you had a character within the book that you most align with, who would that be and why?

Is that something that we can talk about.

As long as the characters don't mind.

It's Olga?

Okay, yes, it's Olga for me is.

The character that I I just love her.

She and she took on such a person out they all did once.

Once you get to a certain point with the writing, at least, this is the experience I had, they start to talk to you.

The characters start to talk to you, and I actually interview our characters.

Now you know, I'm just talking to myself, but you know that's it works for me. Olda because she was so grounded and such a central force in the family and ended up being at in the book. And I've been getting a course from friends who've been reading and they say they really like her because she's the the rock and the glue.

And wholes family together.

And of course she has all those sayings that she likes to say all the time, like that too, so old.

It would be my choice.

I think Oga's my favorite time. She reminds me of my aunt and you teld much so too. When I was when I was reading the book, I'm like, oh, this is Auntie Oga.

I kept following her even though that wasn't her name in the book.

But yeah, she's all right.

I love her too, that's good. But yeah, So, like I said, I got the opportunity.

To uh work with Anita on uh the trailer, and during that time got a chance to see just how phenomenally creative this woman is UH oral traditional storyteller being uh a visual artist. Amazing creative. How did that impact your writing of the book.

There is relentless cross pollination going on between those three artists that I am, the oral tradition, the visual artists, and the writer. It's hard to separate really because they're constantly in conversation with each other. And the work ends up anything because I visualize the scenes as if they're movies, the scenes in the book. And then whenever i'm stopped, well, even when i'm not stock, even when I'm just working.

On a section.

I will read it out loud, I'll read it n T I'll record myself reading it or telling it, cause there's a difference between reading and telling, and then listen to it.

And find where I need to change things. So I feel very gratefully.

To have these three meetings and these three ways of expression that can help each other, and that I can end up do me a long time because I as a child, I had all these interests, and as I grew older and people were deciding what they want to be when they grow up, I was just kind of, well, I have a lot of interests, and how can I endpoint just one thing?

How does anybody do that?

And we have lots of interest So for a long time I looked at it as a.

Detriment that I didn't have one solid, you know, passion that I could follow. And now this book has.

Given me the opportunity to just combine all those things, and I I'm so grateful really to have the opportunity to do that and to help them have things be effect seemingly be effective.

I'm not assuming that everything's effective, but yeah, and I have a uh an installation of our installation.

It goes along with the book. It's called Sunday Dinner Easter Sunday Dinner at Florida's House, And it's literally a table set for dinner, and on each there's six places at the table, and on each plate.

There's a snippet of dialog from that scene.

So I did this for an installation at Headlin Center for the Arts where I was there was an affiliate, and I didn't have much room.

I can only do three places, and it's a little skinny table.

But now I've taken it and expanded it to a s u a sixth place table setting, and I've done fused glass plates, so the conversations are on fuse glass plates. In the other iteration, it was uh, some dollar store plates and some sharps, and so then that called good being able to take it to.

The next level. So it's just it's a lot of fun to to look at.

All these other ways of expressing the same ideas and people were It seemed to resonate with folks to be able to walk into a scene from the book.

In my reading of the book, I, which is very different from me I, I I loved how you almost like layered the wording and and the stories where you were jumping from perspective to spective, perspective to perspective as well as.

Across time timelines. That was a very different shift for me.

Because uh, I had to lie in the beginning, I.

Wasn't quite sure where it was going.

But in the very end it came around full circle in such a beautiful way, and it was something that I noticed and I wanted I had to ask you about that. Was that intentional to to add these different layers of UH time and character and unravel it in such a way.

Yes, definitely intentional.

And I would take each storyline, each each the four characters you set their own storylines, their own arts, each timeline had at that, and so a lot of the editing and the rewriting is really about dismantling everything and making sure each timeline, each storyline is consistent within each character and those places where they intersect aren't consistent and makes sense.

So doing that was very helpful and.

Scary, you know, going there and just kind of take everything apart and then put it back together. But it's a wonderful feeling when you see it like a big puzzle, when you see it starting to work and come together in a way.

And this is where I really do believe that the characters.

Start to talk, and the story itself and the peach monkey in the story start to inform you. If you're listening and if you stay with the work, you can't be taking.

These long, long breaks.

You got to stay close to the work so that you can you can hear what they're saying and what the story is telling you to do. And I saw an arc from the beginning to the end, from the present day which is twenty twelve, and the arc of the seventeen hundreds with Malique Malique.

Yeah, I just love Erican. This a story.

So we have Bodie in the current day and then we have Malique in the ancestral story. And I saw an absolute arc between those two characters. And as I was writing, because of the wall of history and what I call.

It, as black folks, we can only go so far a lot.

Of times in our own history, and even with DNA and all the rest, it was a part of a plan that we not be able.

To trace our ancestry. So for me, it was absolutely.

Exciting to invent this story for the Dukes that because what are you doing when you write a story. You're asking the question what if, and so what if this is what happened in northern Senegal and the result is what's happening in southwest Georgia in twenty twelve.

So I was very much in touch with that.

Arc, and as I wrote, I really wanted to be able to tell the.

Current day folks. I know where people are.

I mean I wrote them, so yeah, I know, I know where you come from. I know where this tradition started, and I wish I could tell you, but I can't. So that was my wish. Also for the reader. I'm hoping that when people read the book, they will say, oh, man, you guys don't know. I know everything. I know where this tradition started. I know who my league was and who his family was and what they did, but there's that wall wall of history that doesn't allow it.

So that is exactly what I experienced, particularly with assignment. I wanted to scream through through the pages, especially because I was in the trailer, so I'm like, this is I don't wanna give too much, but I'm like, please please. But I experienced that so that your intention definitely like came through in a beautiful way, and that ties into my final question with you saying that that is what

I truly believe that fiction, the novel in particular, because.

We're able to to go into.

The head of characters, know what motivates them, to know how they think about movies, that those are beautiful opportunities for change. And I'm just imagining someone the polar opposite of Fletcher Duke's, who was probably my brother in law, who loves the book. He wasn't expecting to, and he absolutely fell in love with the characters and said he wanted to meet them. And there's no greater compliment to

He's gonna be this earth shattering thing necessarily.

But you talked about empathy. That's what happens in those moments, and you can say, wow, I have never thought of that. I've never met and you may never sit down across the table from that person in real life, but here you've met them in this novel and they are real enough for you to empathize with and for you to say, Wow, I'm gonna open my heart and open my mind just a.

Little bit more, and things can change, things get shipped. I really believe that.

Okay, beautiful, beautiful, I have a question for you. Sure that's up.

So you were number one.

I haven't seen you since the trailer, since we shot the trailer.

To almost a year over a year ago, a year and everybody you need to go to my website and Nita gil Jones dot com and watched the trailer. Please do that because it's a beautiful expression of the seed of the book. And we have two people here today.

That were in the trailer.

I wanted to know, what was it that made you want to do the trailer, to take the job. What was it that interested you enough to come spend the day with us.

On the beach.

Yeah.

So Taylor, the casting director reached out and said, Hey, I have this.

Phenomenal project that we're working on.

In the same ways that I kind of guessed you up and I like spoke about you. That's how he presented the opportunity to me. I have this wonderfully creative woman, my friend Anita, who you know, she needs some help.

With her trailer. It's a great project.

He spoke a little bit about the book, and I think the synopsis of the story is what drew me in because that is something that I'm passionate about. I believe he framed it more about legacy and leaving behind legacy, and that's something because I didn't necessarily have that.

That's something that I wished to do, and hearing.

That decided like something in me, I don't know which was I'm like, I followed my gud followed my heart.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, something in me was like, you gotta do it. It's an opportunity you have to make happen. And we did and I had a great time.

I met a lot of great people, including yourself, a lot of great memories. I always think about the beach that was one of the most beautiful beaches I have ever been to.

Yeah, it was a great opportunity so I thank you for that. Thank you for peg.

Oh, it was meant to be.

We had a wonderful casting crew that day and amazing weather because that beach can be blowing and cold, and that day was just perfect. And I love the fact that we had a multicultural, bipop group of folks that it.

Just went very smoothly, the whole thing. So thank you for being a part of it.

I told you I was going to have two book reviews, and I'm doing just that because I'm going to do this book review on this young lady who wrote it a New York Times bestseller. Her name is Carol Roth. All Right, she's an entrepreneur, an investment banker. We might not know her in our arena, in our circles. I'm talking about Black America, but she's wrote a few books