I Know This Much Is True (Part 2)

They have a joint Instagram account. The nice thing about this book being so comprehensive is that there's so much. This is part two of our discussions, So if you haven't listened to part one yet, I promised things will make a lot more sense if you start there. Cool, okay, let's jump in. Hi there, I'm Danishwartz and welcome to Popcorn Book Club. I'm joined as always by my beautiful

co hosts Jennifer Right, Tan Tran Cramadogua and Melissa Hunter. Everyone. Uh, this was This is a lot of content to get through. I just want to remind you that at the end of last time we were like, oh, he's talking to Dr Ptel Domina actually feels like he's on the upswing. This feels like progress. Noe. So I feel like I feel like there's like a few major events to go through that I want to talk to. Um. Does at

even have very strong feelings about a thing to start with? Well, I mean so many atrocities, yes, and that doesn't even feel like the worst part of it was just like offhand oopsie. Yeah. I felt like when I was reading I forgot about horrible things, and then in the drip chat when we were like talk about them and like, oh right, that also happened. It feels like we've reached like human atrocity bingo of like this covered every atrocity that can happen to a person or groups of people

in this book. We have rape, molestation, UM, pedophilia, pedophil under the bus, to the police, suicide. Yeah, yeah, I forget, infant sudden infant death. Sorry, but I know we covered that infest and we say incest, no, no, incest and incest to You're so right, Melissa, It does feel like human atrocity bingo. It felt like Wally was like, how do we make this even more fucked up? Let me keep adding more and more. I mean, we talked about it in the chat, but it feels like a soap

opera at this point, this little fucking grin picture. I don't like seeing the picture the authors because every time something bad HAPs, I just see him going, what do we what do we think the prize is? What do we think the prizes for human atrocity? Bingo nap? I

think a long daytime nap. Yeah. I kept thinking about how if this had been a female author, people would talk about how she hated men, How the men and this people are so consistently vileed, just vile beyond any imagination, and the women are all pretty good people like the wodn't have done anything too terrible. Yet Joy not actively bad Joy, but I feel is a victim. Joy is a Yeah, you know, she makes mistakes, but I don't feel like she's actively bad. Yeah. I feel like Joy

was raped at thirteen and she's tried to deal. There's no woman that's like a cartoon villain twirling their mustache or anything. Yeah, she's been under the like the abuse of her uncle since age twelve, like over her thirteen years. So it's a danger of grooming, isn't it. You know? Yeah? Um, well, let's start, because we have been discussing who the good guys were, like, are there any good guys? And we were like, yeah, her her gay friend dad, and that

that backfired in her face. Ever wrong about that? I only imagined, like after the last section of like Joy should just go live with that and his husband and lived like a very happy life. And little did we know that was exactly what was happening. And it was the worst thing that could ever happen to Joy. So she stuck with him forever. She has a baby, So let's talk about Joy. What we learned in these chapters is that Joy is pregnant. Joy the twenty three Remember

she's twenty three. She worked to Jim uh Dominic does not seem to like her at all or I think she's pretty. She like acknowledges that other people think she's pretty, but he does not care about that. Everyone comments on how hot she is yeah, and he's like, I'm talking about and he gets jealous and he's like, oh, what do you mean you know? Joy? So it's like, yeah, you can't have it both ways, my dude. You cannot be that people think she's hot but also not think

she's hot. And then also just and also he doesn't be obvious, but he's like twice her age. Shouldn't he feel at least somewhat lucky to have a very beautiful, much younger girlfriend. No, not like he has a lot going on for him. I feel like it's one of those things where he just wants to have her, to have her where he doesn't like her as a person or who she is. He just likes having a young, pretty, living girlfriend for the things that that kind of takes well.

And it's like he went from his mother Todessa to joy. He's never been about a woman in his life, and I'm curious to see how long that lasts. As we move on to the next section, that that should be our advice to Dominic. Dominic, you gotta be single, you gotta find you gotta find yourself. You gotta sit with your singleness. Don't just jump from woman to woman. He needs to go to Greece like Desa and have an experience, or Italy. He can go to Sicily and he can

go see where Domenico is from. Oh god, he could do in five days a week. It is my only plan for Dominic to whatever from Anna think going on in his life. So, in terms of plot, what we figure out with Joy just a brief recap, is that she tells Dominic she's pregnant. Dominic had gotten a vasectomy back when he was married to Tessa. Doesn't tell Joy this immediately. Surprise confront Surprise confronts her when she comes to visit him in the hospital after his second of

two major accidents um and then she leaves him. She brings him a recording in which she confesses that that does my apologies. That thinks with the recording, isn't I think it's bad. I always thought it was bad. I thought I knew with that once. So I'm just assuming that this guy is like that guy. There's a there's an age in there. I don't know, an asshole. We don't have to get his name right now. But so

he spoiler alert, was not gay. He was bisexual. And he was the uncle that had been molesting her since she was twelve, had sort of stayed in touch, kept grooming her in a really, really troubling way, ruined her first two marriages. I don't even think we got to this manipulated Joy into letting him watch them have sex. That's why, that's why I was like, Joy is not great because like, even though she is under duressed, I'm not saying that she's just like, oh yeah, hunky Dorry,

sure watch us. But still I feel like there's a violation at that point of dominant consent that I'm like sual situation across that across the board she gaslet him, you know, like he he channeled his jealousy into angry homophobia, which was not correct, but he was he didn't like their relationship. There was something I feel like underlying that that he was just missing as him being hating gay people.

But she was like, oh, you're so homophobic, when it's really like he was angry about it, and she was trying to make him be like it's because he's gay, that's why you're mad about him, Like because he's all of the duchess, Like I'm saying he's homophobic. However, I feel like what I looking back on the chapters, Joy used that as like, this is why you're upset with him. It's just because you're afraid of gay people, not because you see that there's something else going on between us.

You know. We'd also love to flag that Wally's depiction of the only queer people in this book are are It's like intertwined with pedophilia. So good job the architects at least we think the architect is Okay, you're right, Yes, the architect is the one married to Thad. I don't know. I feel like he'd complicit. He kicks out when he finds out, he kicks him out. When was that? I might miss that. There was a lot happening. I'm surprised

you got literally anything. But actually I wanted to talk about said and the negative depictions of queer people because there's also a moment that's like a blank if you miss it moment where in this section where Dominic talks about the fact that he was a molest sit by a guy while he was hitch hiking. Yes, and he was using his brother as like, well this happened to my brother. Yeah, and uh there was the Leo's teacher was like, so it's all these like and and yes,

that's the worst part. All of every queer character in a book are predators. Yes, yeah, I believe that Dr Patel is a wise lesbian. I just oh, yeah, she showed up. She showed up in overalls. I mean, come on, yeah, Yeah, she's lesbian. Yeah, awesome social. She's definitely the Christie of that babysitters club. I mean, yeah, so many predators you could fill out a bingo. We're getting five in a row right there. I guess we could try to rank these people from worst to best, but that feels I

don't even know how to begin doing that. The thing that I do want to talk about Ralph in a in a in a way that I feel like in this section we get a lot of Ralph in different ways, and I think it's important to sort of trace that we start uh talking about. It's interesting because we're getting the story from Dominic. Dominic thinks it's thinks he's telling

Thomas's story. So he's telling about the summer that they worked at the public works, you know, campsites, and that was the summer that Thomas sort of had his break. But that's also the summer that you know, they spent a long time with Ralph. Jennifer, do you want to sort of recap how we knew Ralph up to this point? Oh? Yeah, they were all working together at the public Works. Um Raw was their co worker. They were friendly, um, they

had a very racist boss. Whom treated Ralph terribly. That was del I'm gonna yeah, his name was del Um, and Ralph provided them with marijuana at one point. Um. But it was nicely, it was friendly that he was sharing with him. It wasn't It took him them a while to open up to him. He was very isolated from them, and then like you know, he played baseball with them and he was really good at it, and then he's just slowly he opened up and began to

trust him. Yeah. Um, so it felt like a positive experience until Dell said that he could sell Dominic his old car that belonged to his life, and they went over to Dell's house. Um, they found um homosexual magazines and they also found out that Ralph was living there, which they didn't no. Um, so do we want to

talk about that? Well? I think it was interesting that revealed that Ralph was living there because there had been sort of sprinkled hints at it because they I thought that they were hinting at Ralph maybe being homeless because he was always wearing the same clothes. He was like, you can't come pick me up where I live And I was like, oh, if that makes me sad, that one of the only characters of color is homeless. But

then I got sadder. So yeah, and you know, I felt it coming because they were driving to go fishing. I remember it very distinctly. They were driving to go fishing. Leo and Dominic and Dell had said call before you come over about seeing the car, and obviously this takes place in nineteen nine and there are no cell phones, so he just hops in the car. He's like, oh, right, I was supposed to go see Dell. Let me just pop over without calling, like I promised, because it's too

late to call now. And then Ralph opens the door, and I was like, I knew something was going to be bad because he said, called before you come over. We don't know where Ralph lives. And they had just talked about buying a bunch of marijuana from Ralph to go then sell in college. So Ralph has been generously sharing his marijuana with them all summer, and the situation, yeah, it was Leo's idea. Probably did not even know they are planning to become drug dealers. He's like, what if

we buy a lot? And he's like, does does Ralph even have a lot? And he's like he'll figure it out. Like of course Ralph did not offer, he's not involved. Um. And then uh, and I want to just recap briefly from last time. Ralph's sister was murdered at the Falls when she was in elementary school. So his sister was was violently like raped and murdered, uh in their childhood, right after Dominic lied to the teacher about her stealing even though she sometimes sometimes always two sisters spoils for

Dominic and Thomas because they're the only other twins in town. Yeah, and then the only time that we see Ralph later is him confronting a racist teacher and being like cool as hell, and the teacher is absolutely racist and Ralph is absolutely right, but you're like, this system is not

working for him. M m. And then Leo exploits it again by like when they get pulled over by the cops for smoking weed, Leo and Dominic throw Ralph under the bus, knowing that they can do that, that they can like and you see the insidiousness of like cops, which is like what we're talking about what's going on right now that they actually just like push Dominic to make this lie, like they're like you can leave if you tell us that, yes, Ralph is going to sell

you drugs to deal. Yeah, and if you say no, then we'll keep you here. And he kept trying, in his like cowardly way to just be like, well, maybe I'll say like, well maybe it happened without me, instead of just saying like no, Leo's a liar. And that wasn't even good enough for the cops. It was like, no, I need you to say you heard it too, because they wanted even though they know like that it's all

a lie, it's just a lot easier for them. It's like that Central Park lady who knows that the system is biased in favor of white people, Yes, Amy Cooper, where it's like both Leo knew it more consciously, I feel like, and then you know Dominic Shark picks up on it, where it's like, no, the cops just want to find an excuse to arrest the one person of color in this town. Yeah, but Dominic weaponized that as a kid, and then seeing it being used again and

we're seeing Dominic be just a shitty person. He just sucked over that entire family. Yeah, just destroyed the drink waters. Yeah, who do you guys think in this instance of the police station is worse Leo, who is actively bullshitting and coming up with stuff like he implicated his own cousin who lived in New Rochelle in the whole situation. He's like, oh, I just threw in that to set him on the

wrong trail. Or do we think that Dominic, who then realizes what Leo has done and has the opportunity to reverse it, to take responsibility for the thing that he did do. It's not like he got innocently No, I don't want to say, it's not like he was asking for it or anything like that, but he was caught red handed with an a legal substance in his vehicle, and he had an opportunity to say, yeah, man, I did that, and not throw Ralph under the bus like

he threw his sister penny An under the bus. And it's like he did he learn Like which one of them is worse in that instance? I honestly don't know. I think the cops are worse, but I do think I do think that's interesting, Like I think Dominic because he's smarter and knows exactly what's happened, Like I think Leo is a bad person. Like we know he's a bad person, but he's a bad person just erratically, you know, Like he's like, all right, i'm gonna do this, I'm

gonna say this. I'm gonna say this. But Dominic, like he knows what happened before, he knows exactly what will happen if he corroborates the story and knows what would happen to him if he doesn't, and he chooses to save himself of a slap on the wrist versus Ralph, who could likely be killed. Yeah, Like he's still a white guy who got arrested for marijuana. Like he's gonna be signed, he can be president, Like it's five. He

got arrested for smoking marijuan in nineteen nine. It's uh, it's not going to be that shocking to anyone down the road. What that affect the draft. I don't know a ton about the draft, but I am curious if that was also a factor. It didn't seem like it was in his head. It seemed like his main factor was Ray. He was scared of getting in trouble with Red. I think what's interesting about these chapters, and I know

we're going to get to the rape scene. Um, but it's like you're in this man's shoes who is a bad person, and like, I've never like read a rape scene from the point of view of a rapist before this was that was at least in my memory. And it was so shocking because you're like you're with him on this ride, You're you're you're not for him, but you you see his reasoning and like that is so scary to like he read, like be reading and be with that person as much as you don't want to be.

It's like, you know exactly why he sold out Ralph because he was afraid of his father. He wanted to go back to school. He like he wanted he decided he was for to protect his brother. He found his rationales just like you found his rationales to rape Dasa, and it's it's really it was just really jarring to be in that perspective of a person that is doing

such egregious wrong over and over again. To build on that, Melissa too, it's like it's so interesting that he has issues with anger and then in moments where he feels like he can't control the fact that he has to like speak up and speak out and get angry. In every instance that he should speak up, he doesn't. So it's like this bizarre, not bizarre, but upsetting shitty person who like can't keep a lid on it when he feels like righteously wronged and like it is so angry

and is so fucked up. But then when he should speak up, he just he got his huge He can't. He can't say anything. Mark Gruffalo, that's your secret. You're always angry. That is the reason that he was casting this role. He's always angry. He said that in that movie. You're listening to Popcorn book Club for My Heart Radio and we'll be back right after the break. Okay, we're

back with Popcorn book Club. Melissa Awker point that it is from uh Tom Dominic's perspective is so fascinating that like we have to read between the lines to get the real story sometimes where it's like ms of Ralph, Ralph drink water. When we find out later Um that Wall the police were staking out the home that he was living in, that they found that he had been a victim of like child pornography since he was at ten by Dell and Del's wife, Um that he was

living there and he was being exploited. They're just like Dominic Uh and Leo are just like, wow, we're sort of heroes. That's crazy. But there's not the adequate level of like empathy and understanding of this trauma, because like Dominic is fundamentally narcissistic in his own tragedy, Like he has such a tragic life that he has like horse

blinders on. The same could be said for that moment when he finds out about joy and sad, like he kind of just glosses over that reveal as well that that's not an upsetting thing that like her uncle has groomed her, and he's just like, oh, well, that's one problem out of my life right now. Right She was like, he does don't want to have that baby, so it's super convenient. I know, it's unfortunately it kind of worked

out for him. He doesn't have to have this baby with this woman who he has made it very clear he doesn't even really seem to like very much now um, and she just disappeared and he doesn't have to worry about it. He doesn't even have to, Like, basically, I don't think that Dominic has like any kind of handle on what it means for a woman to consent. Um. I I do not think that is something that really factors into his understanding of the female experience. UM. It

does not married him after he raped her. I think, UM, at the very least, if if your boyfriend rates you, you should break up with him. At the very least least. I had texted Karama about this, but I found it very upsetting that rape of doesn't happened, and Dominic is only upset insofar as he's like, oh no, I've ruined that relation, and yeah, he does not feel guilty at all. And then the next chapter, in like two two sentences, they're like, yeah, doesn't I made up and we went

for a drive. We talked about what already that just destroyed me about that was Jessa talks about how safety feels with them, how she felt really safe with and I clearly they gone over it in a mysterious car ride, but that must have just sattered that for her. Yeah, because up until that moment to the description of their

relationship when they first started dating. First started dating is like my ideal high school college dream, which is like the person that you're dating is home alone in their beautiful house and you're just like going over to sleep with them and like swim in their pool. I was like, this is oh my god, Yes, Dominic, I can have related to this, like dream dating sequence. Yeah, it felt like the first third of a romantic comedy like wonderful.

And then they had been me cute at the bar. Yeah, that was very that was really annoyingly sweet, like and and then he fell in love with her there on the um lifeguard station. It did feel like Wally did

a good job. I think of dropping hints though quickly, of how possessive and dangerous he was going to be in that relationship, of like being mad that she wanted a job and refusing to understand that because all he wanted was time with her and not wanting other men to look at her like immediately wanted to own her,

and that, you know, I got. Really that scene leading up to the rape made me really anxious because it was him driving down to her work to disrupt her work, and that's like a really abusive tactic of like trying to ruin her life and anything outside of her life that isn't him, And and just this build up of like feeling angry with her for not welcoming him into this into her work, that he was disrupting and sitting in the car and waiting it just like it was.

It made me so tense and anxious, and then it was like, of course that's what happened, Like it was all it was all leading up to this really terrible experience for Deessa. But it all tracked as like this very very afraid that he's going to end up with Jessa. Doesn't that's going to be like the happy ending for Dominic And I really don't want that to happen to Jessa. Oh no, I never really do this in my life,

but if that happens, I will burn this book. I will burn it, and just out of principle, just because I don't want those words to exist, just one fewer time, just the time I want to take it out of the life with her. Ceramicist has gone through so much, the fact that like she you know, was in love with this man and then eventually, through like work and the death of their child, was able to realize that she was happier without him and was able to leave him.

That is a huge I thought it was so touching that Dessa wrote a letter for Thomas talking about how he was a good person, how he didn't need to be in hatch, like she's clearly worked so hard to be so kindly broken people. One thing, uh before a move like with the death is rape and everything. I highlighted something early I used my kindle and early on when she's talking to Dr Prittell and he gets really angry and rants at her, like screams at her for

a long time. It said, that's the one thing I understood about Ray, that sometimes rage could feel as good as sex could be a welcome release. And I highlighted that in my note just says yikes, um, and it is like it is sort of foreshadowing of the rape, because rape is not about sex. It's about power and

control and anger and rage. And he was angry at her, and that's like that duality for him is so tied together in the same thing with a vasectomy, Like he was angry with her and therefore cut off this ability to have sex with her in a way that to reproduce, which is what she wanted. Yeah, looks like something. Oh no, now I'm just sad and they can't remember. Oh wait, no, I do remember. To bring things down. No, no, it's fine.

I think that it's really important. I wanted to say, back to Jen's point about writing the letter and writing the letter for Thomas, it is also incredibly magnanimous that she did that after If you'll recall, he tried to kiss her in the parking lot when she went to go visit Thomas after he cut his hand off, which was just a mere two weeks ago. So he used this tragedy as an opportunity to try to reconnect with her when he has a girlfriend, she has a boyfriend,

and they're super divorced, like very very divorced. And I think that we need to give Tessa a lot of credit for being a really good person in spite of the Birdses really being well just also would be a person like that. That seems like a very valid reaction to that as well. She's just it's just very kind

of her to be doing. She's like a saint. It also, I'm really I hope I would love to hear, and I think it will be hard because it will be through Dominic's perspective, but I bet in the history of it, Dessa and Thomas do have a special relationship that, like I he she is a person that kind of can get through to him, because I don't think you would do that unless it was someone that really meant something to you. And obviously, like Joy, she has her reasons

why she can't connect with Thomas. She's got a lot going on. Um, But it does feel like they are

hinting at that Thomas and Tessa like had a special connection. Yeah, I think while he does a really good job of peppering that through the narrative, even though it is from Dominic's perspective, and he is constantly blinded by rage because she always goes on the Sunday excursions to go see him, and she went to go visit him in the hospital, and he thought to put her on the list to visit him at the hospital, whereas he I think he didn't think to put Leo on the list. Yeah, absolute

Lyo on the list. And then she writes this letter. And even the very first time that Deessa communicates with Thomas, she thinks that he is Dominic. That she calls him on the phone after the rape incident and she has a leveling conversation with him, and she says that she's

excited to meet him. Yeah, yeah, so sweet. Yeah, Um, and that's also I don't know how much experience people have with people who are suffering from um severe mental issues, but it's hard to connect with those people, Like it can be a very hard and frustrating experience to be with someone and just not be able to maintain a

lucid conversation with a lot and patient. The fact that she did that every single week and she was patient enough to make that a part of her life is she's a saint, like Dominic is right about is a saint.

She was a wonderful woman. One thing that that struck me, one like tiny phrase that Dominic wrote in comparison in comparing Joy and Tessa, was like, during Dominic's like no good, very bad forty eight hours, he's talking about coming home and his lawn is a mess, and he was like, why couldn't you know Joy just handled this long wire? And I do listen, He's like, if I had been married to Dessa, I would have taken care of this lawn.

But like, now, who cares in that way? That's like you're actively sabotaging your life because it's not in the place you wanted to. And I feel like we haven't seen the ways that he resents Joy actively for not being Dessa. But doubt to me was a hint at it where it's like the same way sometimes I'm like, you know, if I'm in a bad mood in my house is a mess, or my I haven't like shorted my clothes, and like I'll just wait until I move and then i'll and then I'll clean my closet. You know.

It's like that's like an active act of self sabotage. And they were like, oh, he is he sabotages his life with Joy because she's not Dessa. You know who does notice that that Dominic hates the fact that Joy is not Desta. That really broke my heart in the tape because she says that in the tape, she's like, I know that you don't think I'm very smart, or like I think I can't remember the exact wording of it, but basically she was like, I know that you hate.

She also talks about seeing Dessa in the grocery store and seeing Dessa's shopping with her sister and just thinking about how nice it would be to have female friends and just be laughing and talking with them. Oh my god, I just want Joy to become Cinderella and be okay. She talks about how she just wants to be Cinderella at Disneyland, and I just really hope somehow that happens. For it's not going to, but that would be nice.

She is in my heart, she is Cinderella at Disneyland, and she raised that child on her own with some help from her parents, and she lives a very lovely life and like her Vine. Now she marries. She marries the actor who plays Prince Charming. They're cute. They have a joint Instagram accap. The nice thing about this book being so comprehensive is that there's so much possible. But to that point about the book being comprehensive, I know, I want to just make it very clear. I'm really

enjoying this book. I think it's a really well written book, and nothing is written by accident, Like there are things where I was just like, four hundred pages later, I was like, oh snap, because we've read like literally six hundred pages so far. It's a really good book. Well, because, like the draft, we haven't talked about the fact that the reason they end up starting to seek treatment for Thomas is because he actually ends up getting drafted and

he fails the psyche val. But the reason he gets drafted is because they were born on different dates, which was such like, oh, this is a quirky detail at the beginning, and I actually looked it up because I'm not a Vietnam War scholar, But the numbers that he used for the draft and everything, it was all very well planned out. And like, I think that the only good man in this as an architect, because Wally is

an architect of sort. Let's talk about Thomas and sort of the tracking of his mental illness through these chapters. We start with that summer I'm trying to think of chronologically, No, it's before the first time we sort of get a hint that Dominic does kind of want to ignore because he kept repeating that it started that summer was the freshman year of college when when Dominic started acting erratically,

he started like running through the halls. He can't concentrate in his classes, and they shared the typewriter and one day, uh, Thomas couldn't find his key, so he just, uh like tried to beat the case of the typewriter open. Uh. That's the first time we sort of get that sense

of Thomas, right, Yeah. And then I think this second sort of other sign where we start to learn that he's starting to hear voices is when he leaves that note for Dominic in the back room, right, yeah, like very cryptic note about how he can't sleep because like God is speaking to him or like I should have marked that. But I think that was this like the first other sign that like he's starting to hear voices the summer, right, yeah, it was when they when he

felt betrayed by by Dominic. What happened? Was it after the pants incident? It was after the pants It was also after he found out that Leo would be Dominic's roommate next year. I think it was something about like do you know what it's like to not be able to sleep because you can hear wings or something like that. Yes,

it was. It was like something wing focused, which made me think of like doves, which are there's a lot of birds in the Bible and in Christian mythology, which we don't need to get into now, but paralleled the Great Grandmother with schizophrenia, it can be genetic. Yeah, yeah, does someone want to walk through what happens with Dell and the pants I'll do it. I'm not going to

do it, but I'll do it. So, as has been previously mentioned, Uh, Dominic, Thomas, Leo, Ralph, We're all on a work crew together for the Department of Public Works in the summer of nineteen nine, which is the summer after their freshman year at yukon Um. So Dominic and Leo and Ralph end up forming this sort of like click together, and Ralph actually does a lovely thing and says, which must be extremely difficult given his relationship with del and his difficulty and the fact that he too was

groomed much like Joy. He says to Dominic, hey, can you just like tell your brother to look out for Del, like just tell him to kind of back away from him. And Dell spends the entire summer calling Thomas names. He's like, oh, hey, dick less, and it's a lot of like baiting about sexuality, which we later learned Thomas kind of has questions about it, and he is like, I want to know what it feels like to be with a woman, but that's not

on the table right now. He has a lot of confidence issues and honestly spends most of his time with his mom, So that's probably not on the agenda at any point. Um So on this one day, Dell has starts to call him dick less, and Thomas finally stands up for himself, which Dominic told him to do, but it's Dominic is like, no, you're doing it wrong. And Dominic's whole thing throughout this book is that Thomas never knows when and how to speak up properly. And their nineteen.

He knows this about Tom miss now, he said it multiple times before, and he I guess he kind of I mean, I know he resents Thomas and the fact that Thomas doesn't understand how to be a person in the same way the Dominic does, and he doesn't know why at this point, so he kind of just stands primarily silently by when Thomas says, stop calling me dick Las and then threatens to report him to the supervisor, and Dell is like, well, I'm gonna tattle on all

you guys because you've been getting high all the time. Like I like, there's no you have no leverage here, and you know what, I will stop calling you dicklas if you can prove to me you have a dick So why don't you pull down your pants and show me you have a dick, and then we have a deal.

I'll stop calling you dick Las. And Thomas does not want to do that, and he starts crying and eventually does do it, which ahead I was just gonna saying, embarrasses That's what that was literally my next point he was. I think he's simply said his shame was my shame or something. And it again gets to the fact that they are identical twins, so he feels unable to distance

himself from Thomas in any way. So also, what's what's crazy is that Dell is sort of respected the same way that Ray quote unquote respects Dominic more because Dominic is more athletic and more you know, socially adept, where it's like a Dominic never once thought to be like, hey, assholes,

stop calling my brother dick Las. Yeah. I think that's the most like, not not the most upsetting thing, but the most frustrating thing about Dominic saying that like Thomas can't defend himself, or that like he has that whole thing of like play defense, play defense, play defense, he doesn't. It doesn't compute to him the privilege that he has as a like he as like a like you know, someone who is more mentally stable than his brother, who is seen as this like athletic, white, straight dude that

he can like defend other people. Instead he just lets foe that are you know, society looks down on just gets to be the ones that get thrown under the bus all the time. And instead of like stepping up and helping, he chooses to be like you deserve it, because that's what that's how the dominoes fall. Because he's always trying to separate himself from from Thomas, and it's

like his shame was my shame. I feel like it's all wrapped up in shame right, like he is a projection of everything he's afraid that he is Thomas is, and he can see it right in front of him. And I feel like that shame is so correlated with cowardice, because you push inward when you feel ashamed, and then you just don't. You freeze up. And I feel like cowardice is one of Dominic's biggest and worst traits that

you see over and over and over again. Um. I think one of the reasons that some of these other men who are bad men like del or Ray, respect him is because Thomas seems to sorry Dominic seems to have the capacity for violence. I mean, we know he's capable of rape, Like we we know he has the capacity for violence. It's just he never uses it against anyone who it would be appropriate to use um and

grew or even a violent response against. And he's the type of guy that doesn't call them on their bullshit. You know, like if someone makes a very racist joke, hey, they like him and accept him because like laugh along and think, oh that's terrible, but without saying anything. It's like, well, I'm a good person because I thought that it was bad,

and I acknowledge that he's bad. But it's like he he thinks he's he's Thomas's protector, when really he only ever is looking out for his own status, like in terms of Ray, in terms of Ralph, in terms of Thomas, Like all these people who um attack people more vulnerable than the metaphor is getting mixed up. But all these people who whenever someone more vulnerable than him is in a position of violence, he's always like I'm just going

to be quiet and maybe it will come from me. Yeah, And Thomas is um I mean, he does have a capacity for violence, but only when it's turned against himself. Um. I think in that way, he's so obviously helpless. They're so shocked that he accidentally I think HiT's poor Dr Jeffer in the face because he's confused or flailing when he hears that Dominic has been hurt. But he's he's

not somebody feels been hurt too, and nobody. Yeah, yeah, you know, he's somebody who clearly doesn't have the kind of anger that can be outward directed in the way that Dominic has anger that can be directed outwards. All of his anger seems like it's directed towards himself and a desire to hurt himself. You're listening to Popcorn Book Cliff for my Heart Radio. We'll be right back after this quick break, all right, So let's get back into it.

We were talking about the letter that he leaves for for Dominant, that Thomas leaves for Dominant, and I was going to read it. Um, So this is after uh, the rape of Deessa, when Dominic is feeling when Dominic is feeling really like confused and weird, and after he uh decides that he's going to run with Leo instead of Thomas. Thomas writes to Dominic Birdsie Trader Berdsie wings Birds, do you think it's easy having your sleep soul in every night? Do you think it's fun to feel the

wings of the Holy ghost fluttery against your throat? Sincerely one who knows? Which is like a really ominous, uh schizophrenic seeming. Yeah, I feel like that's right in line with like the DSM would be like, oh, yeah, that dude is schizophrenic if they yeah, well that yeah. That

was another example of the cowardice. Like he'd waited until Thomas got the letter in the mail he was he kept on pushing off telling him this bad news, and and it like it's always worse to let someone else find out something shitty that you did than to face up to it. But he never faces up to anything, he really does. He got the desectimy secretly. Yeah, Like

everything he does is cowardly and self protective. It's really interesting because for you to bring up the vasectomy, because there are a lot of active steps that had to go into the vasectomy, and there were a lot of active steps that had to go into switching his room. And then after all of the active steps that benefit dominic are finished. There's a very passive like I'll wait until it blows up in my face. So with Deessa, it was when she was like, oh, I'm so happy

we're here together, and then she broke down. She was like, I'm so scared, and he's like, oh, she's scared of having a kid. Now I can tell her and um. And then with Thomas, it was he got this letter in the mail. He's like, well, I was gonna tell you. I just like, it's not a big deal. I did this for you. Like that I did this for you was just truly the nail and the coffin For me.

I was like, I mean he definitely no integrity. Yeah, he does it with joy too, even like she's so even though she knows the truth, but she's like so excited about the baby in the hospital, and he chooses in that moment to be like, I've had a vessect to me, this is not my baby, Like this conversation could be could have been had at the beginning of the relationship, but instead he's just like, when I'm backed into a corner, I will finally say the thing that

I should have said, like months years ago and with Ralph like he like six the police on him and then shakes his hand right the next day. Yeah yeah, and then and then that interaction with Ralph made me so angry. It just when you know, when he comes in to fix the light and he's like so he just gets so indignant, like how this has been a long time since has happened. It's like you ruined his life, like my man multiple times, and even he still ruins

his multiple times. He like Ralph still takes the phone number from Dominic, Yeah, Ralph people, and then shows him where Tom people and and shows him where you can see Thomas, like said, tells him to look out the window. Yeah. So in this, in this just Tareka. Obviously, Ralph is now a custodian or janitor at the Hatch. He comes into Dr Shepherd's office to change a light bulb, but Dr Shepherd stepped out, so it's just Ralph and Dominic

having this weird moment. Like you said, he's sort of like resentful that Ralph still seems mad at him for turning him into the for a line to the police. And also you know, like Ralph who has gone through a lifetime of misery of like his sister being raped and it's twin sister being raped and murdered, of being homeless and violated by adults, just very understandably breaking down after her daughter. Like Ralph, who has had a lifetype

of Missouri dominic not for one second is empathetic. And then he's like, hey, hey, if anything, if anything happens to my brother had here, give me a call. And Ralph was like, no, I'm saying that, but like basically he's like, what you're asking me for a favor? And then in the end he still takes the phone number, like we said, because Ralph is a good person and

he does it for Thomas. I know that he doesn't Thomas and I thought it was really interesting, um, just to go back to Ralph and the police, the way that they weaponized the fact that he was reading this book sold on Ice, like that kept coming up and and the man who wrote sol on Ice later went on to be a black panther, so he was definitely

somebody more revolutionary. So it was like it was very clear the police were not even trying to hide the fact that they were like, oh, well, you know, the colored man did this, So let's just pin it all on him. You seem like a nice boy. Do you have any meth in your system? I feel like you probably don't have any meth in your system if you don't work cool. I mean, Leo of also weaponizes homophobia as well, and just like after that, it's like a

combination of racism and homophobia intersecting. You're like, fuck you, Leo, fuck you. Yeah, I mean, you were talking before a crama about who is worse. I think I take a fact that Leo is like a rat, like he knows. Leo knows exactly what he's doing, He just does it in a more manic, sort of aggressive way, whereas I feel like Dominic makes this intentional choice to go along with it. Um as like as the cowardly man that he is. Um. But God, Leo, he know, yeah, he

knew exactly what he was doing. Dominic is much worse than this situation, though, because he already inadvertently led to the death of Ralph's sister. He didn't he didn't lead to the death. Actually wondering that when I was reading, was a part of that um Certainly if he hadn't gotten her kicked out of school, I feel like he just hadn't been murdered, and then he decided to make it about himself by giving a elaborate speech to the

entire school. I mean, even if let's say she didn't get suspended, she had been frame for a crime she didn't commit. She's like ten, and she's already repeated a grade also and is in a separate grade from her twin brother. There's just a lot of stuff that led

to her being in this very vulnerable position. And if some grown up man was like, hey, I can take you to get ice cream, and like I had just been committed, I've just been framed for a crime I hadn't committed, I'd be like, you know what, ice cream sounds good. And let's not forget the reason that she was believed to have committed the crime of taking the oreos was because she did steal food because she was hungry. So we have clue. And Okay, so Dominic has already

done something very similar to this family. Maybe in this instance he could prove that he's grown it, become a better person, and not freedom for a crime they did not commit. Again, Yeah, absolutely, I think Leo is just a regular garbage person and Dominic is like one that no is better and still makes the wrong choice, which is arguably much worse. There's also this weird thing where if you're smart, if you have a certain level of intelligence,

you can justify bad decisions in a certain way. That's really troubling, and pody can justify bad decisions. Everybody is a hero of their own story. You don't have to be. But I hate to be able to do that. But I think the difference is I don't think Leo bothers. I think Leo is just like whatever I'm gonna they're gay. The police love that. The justification for somebody like Leo is about like, oh, like it's fine that I did this, but not about absolving guilt. It's more about explaining to

other people this is why I'm right. But with somebody like Dominic, he feels guilt and he feels bad, and you can tell that he is struggling and that he goes the wrong way in this struggle, in this battle against himself. He's like, well, what if I just throw it for this guy? I mean literally, at one point, I don't remember the quote, but at one point he's like, he tells himself, like all the reasons I'm not a rapist.

Uh huh, Like he knows intellectually that he raped does it, But he's like, I'm gonna convince myself that I'm not a rapist actively. Well, and he gets angry that she calls him a rapist or that or that she or that he raped her. He was like, how dare you like? That was the argument they get into after. That's why he gets mad. After he's like, how dare you say

the thing that just happened? Well, I mean, I think it's actually it's a kind of rape that you don't see written about very much, because this this is a rape by somebody that she's in love with, somebody she already has a relationship with. Um, she certainly probably doesn't want to every time UM, there is an instance of sexual assault or sexual harassment. I see people on line around Twitter saying like, why didn't you go to the

police immediately? Well, you know, maybe you have a relationship with that person, Maybe you don't want to turn that person into the police. Maybe there are more complicated feelings at play, And I think that's the case here. Maybe you know the police won't do anything. Yeah, they are not They are not Olivia Benson. I mean, Olivia Benson is not great either. A whole other thing, but she fells evidence all the time. Yeah, there's a lot of

interesting cop propaganda on the TV. But when what I was going to say, Um, is that about what you were saying? Jen, This is a type of rape that's not really talked about. The term or the phrase date rape wasn't even coined until the nineties when Katie Custner was on the cover of Time magazine and oh, Katie

cast spoke at my high school. It was a horrific experience. Um, because she, I mean, she goes on tours and talks about her experience with date rape, and um, she And the thing is I remember her story not just because she came to my high school, but because she also spoke to me when I was a freshman in college, so I had to listen to it twice and it really stuck with me. Um, and she went on a date with somebody, And the thing is, people were like, well,

how could he have raped you? You were on a date with him, and the idea that and that happened in the like mid nineties. I want to say, I think it was like ninety four. So even when Wally Lamb is writing this book, because he wrote this book in the nineties, if I remember correctly, or at least when Donald probably took a while. Yeah, and at least when Dominic is in this story in there's no there's

still no concept societally for what he did. So he's like, rape is something that happens to you in an ali what are you talking? I'm how to rape this? Yeah, I was. I was impressed by Jessa naming it as rape. In that moment, it felt like obviously a choice by Wally to you know, I feel like women, most women at that time would not have said you just raped me. They would have probably clammed up and been quiet and

you know who you know what I mean. It just it feels like, oh, that's an interesting part of her character, that there is strength in her, and that is what gave her the power to go to Greece and to leave him. Eventually, like she does have this, Dominic will not break her. Ultimately, she will be able to move forward.

It takes a tragically long amount of time. But another thing that I think Wally calls out explicitly that I like, um, we're talking back about the police and how they were just trying to get Dominic to to used to frame Ralph because he's not light um the way I mean, humble brag I've seen. I watched the documentary thirteen, but like the way that police use drug laws just to to target communities of color with such impunity and violence.

It's like, that is literally what they're doing here. Explicitly, they're like, yeah, you guys were smoking weed whatever, We don't care about you, but we're going to use those laws just to get Ralph drinkwater. Yeah. Yeah, it's like, yeah, that's like a social issue that the reader can see

that Dominic is too narcissistic to notice. And also while he's writing this in the wake of the crack epidemic, and it's that disproportionately affected communities of color, particularly black communities, and the crime statistics on that, and just the length of time for minimum sentences for crack versus minimum sentences for cocaine, which I respectively used more by black people and more by white people for cocaine are like exponentially

different amounts of time, like months versus years. So I mean, this is it's interesting to see how he's sort of retroactively applying some of the stuff that became even worse, and yeah, it's I The only thing that enabled me to get through reading that chapter was knowing that Ralph Drinkwater was okay and had a job, and knowing that despite everything that had happened to his family and that Dominic Birdsey had inflicted upon his family and that Dell

had inflicted upon him, he was okay and maybe not happy and maybe not as okay as he could have been, but he was not dead, he was no longer imprisoned, and he was okay. So I was like, I can keep reading this because I know that he's going to be okay. That's our show for the week. Thank you so much for listening. I'm Danish Schwartz and you can find me on Twitter at Danish Schwartz with three z's.

You can follow Jennifer Wright at Jen Ashley Right Garama, Donqua is at Garama Drama, Melissa Hunter is at Melissa f t W and Tan Tran is smart enough to have gotten off Twitter, but she is on Insta at Hank Tina. Our executive producer is Christopher Hasiotas, and we're produced and edited by Mike Johns Special thanks to David Wasserman. So, Ralph Drinkwater is going to be okay? But is literally anyone else? Are we going to be okay? Is anyone?

Next week we'll continue our discussion of the totally healthy and normal family dynamics to play. And I know this much is true. Oh my stupid wife, who I love, Oh my God, my soulmate never gave me any sons. So my line ends with me and my stupid daughter, who is annoying and is a burden upon me. Popcorn Book Club is a production of I Heart Radio