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East of Eden · Syllabus

• ashby: Steinbeck clearly comes out as saying decriminalize sex work. So Coco the soul destroyer: Well Kings, John Steinbeck. ashby: Whoa King, John Steinbeck. Coco: Welcome to Syllabus, the podcast hosted by two recovering straight-A millennials, Ashby and Coco, who live to overanalyze the media and culture we encounter while shedding the gold star culture that made us, Ashby: and occasionally getting lost in a tangent. If you too can't help but think a little too deeply about books movies and more you come across you're in the right place. Coco: We are so glad you're here. Ashby: Let's get into it. Coco the soul destroyer: All right. Well, hello, Ashby. We are back with the second in our accidental adaptation series. ashby: Yeah. Coco the soul destroyer: if you haven't listened to our sense of sensibility episode, that one was so fun to record. we just had to keep the party going by taking what are thought of as classics. and how they're being brought to life on the screen. And today we're going to be diving into East of Eden, the novel by John Steinbeck, published in 1952. and as you have all seen, I'm sure, adapted into the 2026 Netflix series or mini-series, written and directed and kind of spearheaded by Zoe Kazan and starring Florence Pugh. and I think what we're really excited to dig into today is The ways in which the adaptation brings to life these characters, brings the story to life, in a way that, balances humanity of all of the characters included in the series, in ways that are going to be very different from the novel, which is, yes, short, ref, you know, maybe a a a piece from its from its time, but ashby: Mm-hmm. Coco the soul destroyer: also includes a lot of, you know, racism and misogyny. this adaptation wrestles with that. I think what we were, you know, just talking about is what Zoe seems to have been interested in, is also kind of what we're very interested in, which is this figure of Kathy slash Kate, kind of at the heart of the novel. how Steinbeck had written her and described her, and then how she's portrayed in the series and what we as modern audiences can kind of make of of this character or or not make of her. ashby: primarily I what I always like is for what we talk about to be of interest to us just organically, but also to have some like zeitgeisty quality. And Coco the soul destroyer: Ha ha ha. ashby: the real, you know, the the miniseries that launched A Thousand Think Pieces, the kind Coco the soul destroyer: Yeah. ashby: of like the quote unquote debate happening around this is whether or not Zoe Kazan's portrayal of Kathy has made her too sympathetic, or if Her entire adaptation of the novel is a softened or I think a disingenuous argument, an overly woke version of Coco the soul destroyer: Mm-hmm. ashby: Steinbeck, a flawed humans flawed novel about flawed humanity, like whether she has adjusted it too much for a modern audience when it should have been allowed to to be sort of warts and all, you know. So there's there's various things that sum this up. I think The slate piece that's like, what have they done to East of Eden? And then the New Yorker that says let Kathy Ames be evil. And then various takes that essentially whittle Zoe Kazan's adaptation down to I can't believe you made the incarnation of evil Kathy Ames into a misguided girl boss. I think that's that's their real like debate I want to get into since we have both Coco the soul destroyer: Yeah. ashby: watched this show and read the book. Coco the soul destroyer: Yeah. And so I I we're coming at this from different angles, right? So we did we approach this shall we call it a project in different ways, which was that I read the book first, I read slash listened to on audiobook and then watched the show. And I think that really did shape my experience of the show, but by the way that I approach that, I didn't give myself a ton of time to consume the discourse because I didn't want to consume the discourse before watching the show. and so Ashby, you have, as you always do, done your homework and you've read the the discourse. And so I'm really excited, to maybe learn what this debate is from you a little bit. And I'm a fountain of opinion. So ashby: And I did it backwards. So I watched, I just binged the entire show as soon as it was Coco the soul destroyer: Yeah. ashby: out in a weekend. fascinating. And then I read the audiobook on like 1.3 times speed. And just a caveat that I got most of the way through the audiobook. I got to about like chapter 29 or so, which is most of the way through part four, but I did not finish like the the end part of the book, but I Coco the soul destroyer: Mm-hmm. ashby: read chapter summaries for each one to get the main plot beats. And I have a pr since I did these pretty close together, yeah. What's different between the show and the book. So while Coco the soul destroyer: To to know what's different from the show is in the book. Yeah. Yeah. ashby: I don't have like the prose exactly how it's conveyed for that portion of the book, I do feel like I get the main idea. And it's worth pointing out now that so much of the book is cut from the show that it It would have taken s much longer for me to finish the book than to just absorb the parts that are analogous to the show, if that makes sense. Yeah. Coco the soul destroyer: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah, this is an epic, in terms ashby: Yeah. Coco the soul destroyer: of a book. It's six hundred some pages. audiobook, I think it's like twenty-five or twenty-six hours if you're listening to it at the regular speed. Really great narrator. I do forget what his name is, but yeah. ashby: One of my favorites. Yeah. This is I love this narrator for the audiobook. Coco the soul destroyer: suffering through such a long book. ashby: Yeah. Coco the soul destroyer: I'm maybe giving away my opinion of the book a little in the way I'm describing this. you know, you do need a good audiobook narrator to get you through or reader. Richard Poe, wonderful. Yeah. ashby: So this is this is Richard Poe. Yeah. yeah. Coco the soul destroyer: He does a great job of, I mean, he has kind of a classic like reading voice. ashby: Mm-hmm. Coco the soul destroyer: So shout out to Richard Poe. What a great job. before we maybe dive too deeply into the into the show itself, I did just want to mention that I really love Zoe Kazan. as an actress, had seen her in things like, What If or The Big Sick, which is, you know, a kind of a personal favorite, or even as one of the ch children in it's complicated. but what made me really think about kind of my feelings about her as, you know, a screenwriter was the film Wildlife, which she I think co-wrote and partially co-edited with her husband Paul Dano. And this is what I would consider like an original beautiful and devastating film. Like it is the story of a family in, the mid-century but also kind of a story about like a family falling apart and the mother leaving. and there's a real kind of feminist angle and like heartbreak at the center of wildlife while also having so much empathy for all of the characters involved. So I was really excited to see what Zoe brought to this story. And she, has talked a lot about in the press her relationship to the material of East of Eden. But very famously her grandfather Elia Kazan had directed an adaptation of East of Eden. It's a it just takes a chunk of the novel. but she wrestles with his legacy within Hollywood as someone who gave quote unquote friendly testimony to the House Un American Activities Committee. So kind of involved in the Hollywood blacklists, putting that little bit of that stain on a family legacy, which, connects back to the story in terms of, you know, the legacies of the the people that came before you and what marks you or doesn't mark you. ashby: Yeah, and I think some of the think pieces that I pulled that we'll link in the show notes, this is the this is the syllabus of the syllabus, is that we like to take a topic and then find all the associated reading on it that will Coco the soul destroyer: Ha ha ha. ashby: help, give you the full picture. But some of the like think pieces really go into that. And I remember one of the ones saying that she's very careful about how much of that legacy she takes on in in what she says about The work that she does, but at the same time, she does make a point that especially in adapting this, she wrestles with it and she really sees that as a sort of mimetic device between herself and her own intergenerational sort of mistakes and trauma, and how she approaches her life and her work, and also the characters in the book exploring kind of intergenerational, you know, mistakes and things that have been handed down. Coco the soul destroyer: Yeah. All right. should we s try to tackle this beast? ashby: All right. Let's do it. And yeah, I think, we are just gonna go through the mini-series and Coco the soul destroyer: Mm-hmm. ashby: episode by episode or beat by beat and talk about it that way and then our thoughts on how that compares to the book and see what's different between a person who watches the show first and a person who reads the book first. Because I do think it's important for the discourse that a lot of the let's say sour grapes. Coco the soul destroyer: They are sour grapes, I agree. Yeah. ashby: Sour grapes of Wrath, even, Coco the soul destroyer: Get out of here. ashby: is because people have read the book and I gotta just say, like my sense from people who are irritated about this adaptation who had read the book first is that they read the book. The book is a behemoth. And so if you've read it, and if you've even read it multiple times and sat with the themes, I think you might think of yourself as a pretty highly intellectual person who can handle stories that don't necessarily have happy endings. I think people have come away with it really with an attachment to themselves as Coco the soul destroyer: Mm-hmm. ashby: the kind of person that can wrestle with uncomfortable and complicated characters. And then when they watch the adaptation, I mean look, it's a Netflix, you know, miniseries with the world's most beautiful woman, Florence Pugh. And so Coco the soul destroyer: budget, budget, budget too. Yeah. Uhhuh. ashby: Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I think they see that and they're just like, This but this is like almost enjoyable, which betrays the attachment that they have to this Coco the soul destroyer: Ooh Yeah. ashby: complex slog of work that they have sat with. Yeah. Coco the soul destroyer: Yeah, and we were we were just joking, you know, about the fact that we read this in eleventh grade and kind of this memory of liking the book from eleventh grade. ashby: Mm-hmm. Coco the soul destroyer: And I was thinking about that, and I think it's because it's one of it was a good teacher, it was a good class. Like there was exciting, interesting conversations that happened alongside the experience of reading this book. It's a book that maybe when you are engaging with literature in an academic setting, maybe for the first time or with the the right teacher you start to see the symbolism and you're excited about it. And ashby: Mm-hmm. Coco the soul destroyer: that's a different experience. That's nostalgic on my part. ashby: Yeah. Coco the soul destroyer: But also I'm thinking this is a This is such a this is a high school book in the sense that Americans have read this book. Like ashby: Mm-hmm. Coco the soul destroyer: it is widespread. So a lot of people have a relationship to it, which makes it up an appealing Netflix property, I would guess. ashby: Yes. Coco the soul destroyer: but now the experience of you know reading it as an adult, to me, some of those things that probably were exciting when I was 16, 17 now feel so heavy-handed. there's a I a real weakness. to the novel itself that I think is maybe you thought you were so smart, but actually like there was something that was kind of bad. Yeah. ashby: That's exactly it. That's exactly it is I think people who've read it, it's like maybe one of the few like anti-heroes or you know, John Steinbeck has a particular way of writing. He refers to himself as writing this book with sparse plain prose. And spar I I Coco the soul destroyer: Sorry, that's ashby: sorry, I wouldn't call six hundred-ish pages. sparse prose exactly. But you Coco the soul destroyer: Well. ashby: know, anyway, he thinks of himself as sort of like just the facts ma'am. but no, not really. Coco the soul destroyer: John Steinbeck is much more of a tell-don't show type ashby: Yeah. Coco the soul destroyer: of writer. my criticism of it is that he just tells you this character is good, this character ashby: Mm-hmm. Coco the soul destroyer: is bad, this is about the Bible, this is ashby: Yeah. Coco the soul destroyer: about Cain and Abel. Like it's very like overt. and there's a difference between saying you write in like sparse or plain prose versus ashby: Mm-hmm. Coco the soul destroyer: being like Just heavy handed. I there's a lack of poetry that isn't about the mysteries of humanity. Yeah. ashby: Right, right, right. Coco the soul destroyer: I'm I'm trying to like hold myself back. I've got my own sour grapes of wrath. About going through this. Yes. Here's the show. Let's Yes. Okay. ashby: I know. Same, same. But okay. Without further ado, let's start with the top of the show. Yeah, let's go. Coco the soul destroyer: the show stars Florence Pugh as Kathy Ames. Christopher Abbott as Adam Trask, Mike Feist as Charles Trask, Hoon Lee as Lee, and then Kieran Hines as Samuel Hamilton. Always happy to see Kieran Hines anytime ashby: Me too. Coco the soul destroyer: that he shows up. I'm turning to my good friend Wikipedia because Wikipedia is better than AI, and this is the tool ashby: Yeah. Coco the soul destroyer: at our disposal. I'm just gonna read the description for the first episode, which is titled Brothers. In 1899, a barely alive Kathy Ames crawls to a farmhouse. Half brothers Adam and Charles Trask find her. While Adam is compassionate, Charles is wary. The brothers' backstory reveals their abusive military father, Cyrus, rigorously raised them as soldiers. Despite the brothers' mutual reliance, resentment grew as Cyrus favored Adam. In 1884, Cyrus ordered Adam to join the army and Charles to manage their their farm while Cyrus worked in DC. It opposed the brothers' wishes. Cyrus later claimed the army would have unleashed Charles' suppressed brutal nature. Charles had beat up Adam, believing he intentionally thwarted him. In 1889, Adam reenlisted to defy Cyrus, who wanted him to pursue a government career. In 1899, following Cyrus's death, Adam returns home and reconnects with Charles. Among Cyrus's documents is a military medical discharge issued a few months after enlisting. His Civil War stories were lies. Cyrus leaves a small fortune that he could not legitimately have earned. Adam is indifferent, but Charles is conflicted. Their argument is interrupted by the beaten and bloody Kathy outside. Yep. so I would be so curious, Ashby, to hear kind of what you made of this first, you know, episode. to me, I think I right away was like, man, I'm so glad to have the show bring some of the almost like the abuse to kind of ashby: Mm-hmm. Coco the soul destroyer: the the abusive nature that set these two children opposed to each other to life and right away felt like the poetry of the show in a way that felt a little bit different from my experience of reading slash listening to the novel. ashby: I I was totally captivated immediately. it's just it's an engrossing show and it's partly to do with the casting. the cast is just incredible. Coco the soul destroyer: Yeah. They're so good. ashby: this first couple episodes, you really see the characters of Charles and Adam as children, then you see them as like young men, and then you see them you know, in their final like adult form. And what I was like, kind of struck by, like what really caught me when I was just watching the show before I had read the book was the the clear sort of softness that Adam has. Then when Adam does become a soldier, although he's been very clear that he doesn't want to, that he has no natural affinity or ability for it, what what there is to do for men at this time in America is to kill Native Americans. And the show, I think Zoe does a great job of showing Coco the soul destroyer: You've done? ashby: how awful that is. And that for a person who is already not inclined to be there, how just gut-wrenching and mentally bifurcating that must be for him. and it's tragic. Like it is so sad and tragic. So at least I felt that some of that came through. Whereas Coco the soul destroyer: Mm-hmm. ashby: when I was reading the book, sorry, but John Steinbeck is high-key racist and Coco the soul destroyer: He's like they were a worse like they're not they're below human basically. Yeah. Uhhuh. ashby: They're an inferior people, that the the the frontier had to be cleared of them so that superior farming could be done because they were like a lazy people. Like these are some of his like worst writing and it's in the first few, you know, chapters of the book. Some of the worst things that he says. Yeah. Coco the soul destroyer: I think it's on page six, it's like a doozy of a sentence. And I was like, right off the bat, here we are. and John Steinbeck is writing from the voice of John Steinbeck. The narrator ashby: Correct. Coco the soul destroyer: of the book is John Steinbeck. So how are we supposed? ashby: Yes, in the fifties. Coco the soul destroyer: We can't give any grace to say these aren't your opinions. ashby: Exactly. He's not yeah, this is meant to be like his magnum opus. he cares about this book the most. And he is writing his thoughts and opinions on the American West and the settling of it. And he's like starting with a starting place of his family in the book, and then kind of widening the lens a little bit to this other family as this Bible allegory. But, you know, in the process, he's covering like what's called the settling of the American West, what we would now call a genocide of Native Americans. And I think, the criticism that Zoe's being woke is just like is is just unfair, I think, because I I was just really struck by the horrors of the needlessness of this. And and that really came through in just one episode, you know. Coco the soul destroyer: And and it's it's brief and the way that it's done lets you fill it in too. It's it's e yeah. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. ashby: Yeah. It's show it to me it was show not tell, and I and and it again it's down to the casting, like who they got to play the young man version of Adam. I could just read I could just read it all over his face. And they pick Coco the soul destroyer: Mm. He was great. He was a good actor. I don't know his name, but ashby: these little vignettes. she says in an interview, Zoe says in an interview that they only get, I think, seven episodes and that yeah, she had wanted more. Coco the soul destroyer: Mm. Budget wise, that's what was available. Uhhuh. ashby: but I could see how if she'd had a little bit more time, other things that she could have included. but there's a scene that's not necessarily in the book, but it's where he and his brother are hunting and Adam is intentionally missing the deer because he just it's just not in his nature to want to do killing, like for sport. And Charles is teasing him about it and eventually he put he does put the deer down. But it's just meant to show that Charles and Adam have really different sensibilities and that their father for some reason has really trained all his focus on Adam, but that while he is calling that favoring him, what he's really doing is trying to change his nature somehow by making him more brutal, knowing that he is like a a kinder, softer person. And with Charles, he's largely elected to neglect him, knowing that he's already brutal. And it's such a strange choice as a parent, I think. It's not unfaithful to the book at all, but it just it's just something that doesn't make sense to me, I'm just not sure. Coco the soul destroyer: I think it makes perfect sense for this character of Cyrus, who's ashby: You think? Coco the soul destroyer: played by Tracy Lutz in the show. And Tracy Lutz is just one of the best actors that's out there. Yeah. ashby: Yeah. he's he's really good. And and when I went to read the book, I really could envision this guy as him. Yeah. Coco the soul destroyer: Yeah. And he I think, because he's a father who is only about himself and his worldview. ashby: Yes. Coco the soul destroyer: And so it's about his control over these two ashby: Yes. Coco the soul destroyer: children and the way that he can wield love and withhold love and manipulate and like force into, you know, something that's not your nature. Like it's more powerful to push someone who doesn't want to kill to kill. Like ashby: Yes, Coco the soul destroyer: I think that to me it's ashby: you're right. You're so right. Coco the soul destroyer: it's not about love at all. there's no love in this family, really. there's the the the book version does have some other interesting things about like their childhood that's that's ashby: Yeah. Coco the soul destroyer: interesting, like that they didn't have the same mother. And so, you know, Adam kind of loves the mother of Charles, his stepmother ashby: The step the s his stepmother, yes. Coco the soul destroyer: who you get the impression that woman didn't take Adam as her own child. it's ashby: Mm-hmm. Coco the soul destroyer: very much like you're somewhat, you're like a person that lives in this house and this is my ashby: Mm-hmm. Coco the soul destroyer: son. just a interesting story. but regarding the like, you know, the quote unquote campaigns, like the ethnic cleansing and genocide, you know, the book does do an interesting, element of like PTSD that's involved ashby: Yes. Coco the soul destroyer: that you really get a picture of. And I would say John Steinbeck's interest in that is only that it has stained our poor character of Adam with PTSD. And it's about Adam's ashby: Yes. Coco the soul destroyer: sense sensitivity. And it's not at all about the terrible crimes against humanity that he's been a part of. Mm-hmm. ashby: That's what I'm saying. And that's exactly right. That you're so right. That's exactly what I'm trying to say, which is that the point of view of the book is that sure, the Indian campaigns happen. And sure, Adam still went to the military, did what was expected of him, and actually left the military distinguished. but that he never enjoyed any part of it. So that he was somehow like absolved in a way of whatever his actions are, because He was forced into it and he didn't want to kill anyone and he never left with a taste for killing. Coco the soul destroyer: He even had a wife that's not given real humanity in the book. but ashby: Yeah, yeah. No. But it but it's it's something that he talks about with great sadness and sorrow and not Coco the soul destroyer: Mm-hmm. ashby: with a crassness that other people do that Charles is goading him about it and he's Coco the soul destroyer: Yeah. ashby: just it's actually she was really sweet and we had a great relationship and yeah, very sad she died of smallpox and he has these terrible flashbacks to it. And but again This is all just there to show that Adam didn't relish killing Native Americans. It's not to say that he didn't. It's just or that he wasn't rewarded for it. It's just to say that he didn't enjoy it. And like so I don't know. I Coco the soul destroyer: it's such a like again, like there's like a heavy-handed allegorical element to the novel. ashby: Mm-hmm. Coco the soul destroyer: So it's like just to prove to us, the reader, that Adam is good and goodness is Adam. Like it's very literal. ashby: Yeah. Yes. Yeah. And I think and so what I think Zoe kind of like rightly shows is that these are big forces that are happening that are outside Coco the soul destroyer: Yeah. ashby: of any one person's goodness or badness. These are all things that are sort of about just like the tragic essential nature of this country, which is part of what I understand to be her pitch for the show, is that in addition to Coco the soul destroyer: Yeah. ashby: each of us carrying like generational mistakes and trauma in our own families. We are all of us carrying the mistakes and generational traumas of our entire country, of our history here. Coco the soul destroyer: Yeah. ashby: So I actually think if anyone calls this episode woke, I would say this is a correction to the lack of humanity that Coco the soul destroyer: Yes, yes. ashby: John Steinbeck puts because we now have the benefit of being able to reflect on these things with I think actually more humanity. So I had no issue with this retelling of it. Coco the soul destroyer: And I just don't have the brain cells to explain, ashby: Ha ha Coco the soul destroyer: but the fundamental discussion about what is wokeness. it's like, well, the truth is more expansive than what ashby: Mm-hmm. Coco the soul destroyer: these male authors have often written or included. And to say what was real does include more. ashby: Yeah, it's not untrue to the story. What it does is it adds a layer of humanity for the actual Coco the soul destroyer: Yeah. ashby: victims in this narrative. It gives Coco the soul destroyer: Yeah. ashby: them a minute and just points out that the tr the nature of the country at this time was not some heroic story that you could choose to get a piece of that glory from or not. It was actually a really tragic and horrible thing that happened that affected a lot of people. And the least Adam can do is feel bad about it. To be honest. Coco the soul destroyer: I mean, and So okay, moving from episode one into episode ashby: Mm-hmm. Coco the soul destroyer: two, I think, you know, we are introduced to Kathy. In episode one we meet Kathy. Partially I think this is like it's because it's an exciting narrative device. We see this bloodied woman show up, it's kinda spooky Kathy's backstory is revealed in a flashback detailing her learning to manipulate men, including a love-struck school teacher driven to suicide. Her harsh father believing Kathy enticed the teacher whipped her to escape her parents. Teenage Kathy murdered them in a house fire, staged fake her own death. We need to really condense it down. That's true. ashby: Mm-hmm. Coco the soul destroyer: using a different name, she worked as a prostitute in Boston. Whore Master, again, Wikipedia. ashby: This is the term, mm-hmm. Coco the soul destroyer: Horemaster Mr. Edwards made Kathy his mistress. Suspecting she was stealing his money and secretly servicing other clients, he savagely beat Kathy, leaving her for dead in the Connecticut countryside. When Kathy arrives severely beaten and bloodied at the Trask farm, Adam immediately takes her in against Charles's reluctance. Adam falls deeply in love as Kathy recovers, building tension with Charles, who recognizes that Kathy's inner dark nature is similar to his own. Despite Charles' protests, Adam marries Kathy and intends to move to California. After drugging Adam on their wedding night, Kathy seduces Charles. ashby: Mm-hmm. So I gotta say, Kathy is the heart of the show. she just is. And it's like it's not the same in the novel. Yeah. Coco the soul destroyer: Yes. It in not the same in the novel, but she is taken as the heart of the show in yeah. ashby: But as a a modern woman reading the novel, Coco the soul destroyer: Mm-hmm. ashby: Kathy's the only thing I'm interested in. Everything else is so high key boring. I mean, she's not the only thing. There are some other things that we get to that are like fascinating dynamics, but for for the beginning of the book, it's so much about just like fathers and sons and masculinity and like the jealousy and the resentments and the arguing and the just men unable to express and understand their own emotions and just fighting to be important in the world rather than actually understand themselves or get better at communicating or invest in their relationships. it's hard for me to connect with any of these characters early on there's just a way that these characters are reported on that it it just seems like a struggle of greatness within men and they're like, Yeah. Coco the soul destroyer: that you're using the word reported on because that's how the novel is written. And it it ashby: That is how it feels, yeah. Coco the soul destroyer: does remind me of old movies I've seen where that ashby: Mm-hmm. Coco the soul destroyer: it's this style of talking that doesn't feel like real. And I do think the ashby: Yes. Coco the soul destroyer: show gives you the broken just in the the actors portrayals ashby: Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. Coco the soul destroyer: and the way that it's written, like you get the broken woundedness of these men in a way that does make you more invested in them. Mm-hmm. ashby: Yes, exactly. So so as you're reading the book, it's like it's once you get to Kathy, it's like shit is going down. Okay. Coco the soul destroyer: Yeah. ashby: it is fascinating. The monologues that are sort of within her but about her. I think the way that Zoe does them in the show, where actually Florence is voicing these thoughts, is Coco the soul destroyer: Mm-hmm. Who has the best voice? ashby: the best voice is incredible. I think it's so interesting, having actually, read those parts of the books, that the book describes Florence Pugh pretty perfectly. I think her facial Coco the soul destroyer: Yeah. ashby: features, I I can't see anyone else's Kathy. And in that interview with Zoe Kazan, she says the same thing. She saw her in Midsummer and was like, this is the only person that can play Kathy Ames because it's a book she'd Coco the soul destroyer: Yeah. Mm-hmm. ashby: sat with for a long time. And it's just another thing I have h read or seen about the book is that it's quite pulpy, is that unlike these Coco the soul destroyer: Mm-hmm. ashby: Their big intergenerational Western, American classics. Coco the soul destroyer: Mm-hmm. ashby: this one has a lot of pulpy drama and intrigue and like sex and mystery and murder. And all of it essentially revolves around Kathy, she's an incredibly enigmatic and interesting character. Coco the soul destroyer: Mm-hmm. ashby: I saw one thing that said that episode two is like. strong contender for a best episode of television this year. And Coco the soul destroyer: Mm-hmm. ashby: yes, it's a genius narrative device to start with this cold open of her crawling her way toward the farmhouse and then go back to the boring stu the boring Coco the soul destroyer: Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. ashby: backstory of the boys and how they ended up here. Coco the soul destroyer: I think the show d is not boring. ashby: Yeah. The show is not boring, is the thing. But it does, it's like it that's the central mystery is what is the deal with this woman? And so then Coco the soul destroyer: Well we do need to s yeah. ashby: episode two is just this incredible payoff of her fascinating backstory. so but what I was really interested in is that I actually didn't see a major difference between her portrayal in the book and the show. I think they were pretty spot on. They hit all the major beats. Like I could see Coco the soul destroyer: Yeah. ashby: I I think it was pretty well I don't think there was anything there that's like unfaithful. I just think it's when you tell that story as a woman on the screen Coco the soul destroyer: Mm-hmm. ashby: about this character, I think it just hits people different than the way that it's reported with a sort of suspiciousness that John Steinbeck gives. But the actual content itself is the same. Yeah, yeah. Coco the soul destroyer: mean John Steinbeck is saying she's a monster, right? And the the show allows you to come up with your own conclusions, I think, ashby: Yeah. Coco the soul destroyer: about her. trigger warning. There's a lot of stuff ashby: Uh-huh. Coco the soul destroyer: that happens to women in this show and in the book. ashby: Mm-hmm. Coco the soul destroyer: But there's a, childhood sexual assault by ashby: Mm-hmm. Coco the soul destroyer: boys in the book. And in the book, they John Steinbeck is really asking you to believe that she's the architect of this. ashby: Mm-hmm. Coco the soul destroyer: that this young girl has architected her own, you know, assault or whatever we want to say. ashby: Assault. Yeah. And that the boys that were punished for it may have been unfairly punished for it. Coco the soul destroyer: Yeah. ashby: Yeah. And so, look, if true, that is a diabolical thing to believe of a 10-year-old girl, even if she is, let's say, like with modern with a modern eye, a thing that gets thrown around a lot, and I'll include a link about it in the sub stack, is whether or not Kathy represents a sociopath or a psychopath. And so if Where this is not necessarily something John Steinbeck would have really had in his lexicon as he's envisioning this character. So, but let's say, if true, if she is orchestrating this type of thing, truly would be some pretty advanced psychopathic behavior from a 10-year-old in the late 1800s. Coco the soul destroyer: Mm-hmm. ashby: In the book, when John Steinbeck is covering all of this, something that gave me the high-key ick is that he's basically excusing what he calls sex play among children. He says that it's a normal thing that occurs, it's like developmentally appropriate, and he basically says something to the effect of who hasn't snuck away under a tree with a younger girl Coco the soul destroyer: Everyone does. Yeah. ashby: and fooled around as a child? And that basically parents overreact to it. Now, Coco the soul destroyer: Yeah. ashby: so When we're like looking at Kathy's backstory and it's like told through his lens, I think Zoe does a good job of walking an extremely middle path there, which is that it could be the case that she is a person that's born without a conscience. And it can also be the case that she's born a woman in a world that women and girls are taken advantage of and that that could still have an effect on her. It doesn't excuse anything she does later, but it certainly Coco the soul destroyer: Yeah. Mm-hmm. ashby: is part of her story. you can imagine if a person is born without a conscience and has a different set of world experiences, they end up having a different life. And one of the ways I think the book and the show shows you that is Charles, is that they really Coco the soul destroyer: Mm-hmm. ashby: make a point that Charles and Kathy are of a kind. They never come Coco the soul destroyer: Mm-hmm. ashby: out and say Charles is evil, but they do say that he he similarly. Has a brutality and a selfishness and a lack of regard for other people, lack of empathy, and that he recognizes this in Kathy. while Charles does experience trauma, that he doesn't experience the same kind of trauma. Okay. He doesn't experience Coco the soul destroyer: His dad didn't like the gifting on him. ashby: that's literally it, is that he doesn't feel like he's the favorite son, But he's not assaulted he's not targeted because of his gender is the thing. And so what does happen to a person that you know, even if they are quote unquote evil, that lives in a world that is evil to them? Like what what does that make a person? Like how do they Coco the soul destroyer: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. ashby: respond to that information? Now, what Zoe does in this show is that she shows the backstory in a sort of like allegory that an older Coco the soul destroyer: Mm-hmm. ashby: boy is shown. handing her candy and of it's implied you don't see anything which Coco the soul destroyer: It's it's implied. You don't have to see anything that's which is great, yeah. ashby: is good. I don't think there was any way to describe this horrible scene that John Steinbeck puts in the book. Coco the soul destroyer: No no no no no no no no no no no ashby: But I think it gives you the idea that she immediately was sexualized at an early age and understood that there was a dynamic there in the world. And And I think that's the appropriate takeaway there. I don't think there's anything woke about that. And I don't necessarily think that it excuses any of Kathy's behavior or is some type of villain origin story. I don't think it's too simplistic. I think it's just Coco the soul destroyer: No. ashby: a fact, Coco the soul destroyer: Well, then what she does is she burns her parents to death in her own childhood home. Like that ashby: Yeah. Coco the soul destroyer: hap that the character does that. So I think, you know, as the viewer aren't excusing that, ashby: No. Coco the soul destroyer: you know, I think what is wonderful about the adaptation of the show is it just like kind of shows you what happens and when you're watching it and not hearing this man's account of it, you ashby: Mm-hmm. It's true. Coco the soul destroyer: are have to sit with the stuff that's way more fucked up. Like Her father whips her for, you ashby: Mm-hmm. Coco the soul destroyer: know. ashby: His suspicion, his suspicion Coco the soul destroyer: Yeah. ashby: that she is being manipulative to men. And so so that's another thing is that Coco the soul destroyer: Of her teacher. ashby: the next scene that we get that is in Kathy's backstory is that she's so smart that she's sent to school, which is not really done for girls, and that she wants to be a Coco the soul destroyer: Yeah. ashby: teacher, and that that's a very honorable direction, and that the young man who is sent to be their school teacher. Has an inappropriate relationship with her. And then he eventually kind of like goes crazy from it because she cuts him off and he kills himself. And her father suspects that Kathy like had a relationship with him and that it wasn't super innocent. But we now know that that's inappropriate. Like she's 14. whatever this man did, he did of his own volition. But it's so fascinating that, yeah, when you see it sort of just Happening on the screen, you're you don't excuse anything that Kathy does later, but it is I also don't blame her for necessarily like what this man does to himself, but it is seen as a bullet point in the John Steinbeck book of look how evil she is, look how manipulative. Coco the soul destroyer: Yeah. ashby: but that I think robs all of the men of their agency. You know, it's Coco the soul destroyer: Do you think and you're you will get into the discourse more, but I do think this becomes this question of woke not woke, or ashby: Mm-hmm. Coco the soul destroyer: is Kathy like a feminist icon or not? And it's like it doesn't have to be yeah, ashby: Yeah. It doesn't even really matter. Coco the soul destroyer: one or other of these things. It's like I really see like I know that there's like the questions around like sociopath, psychopath, ashby: Mm-hmm. Coco the soul destroyer: but my conception of her is really like as a survivor. she ashby: Mm-hmm. Coco the soul destroyer: would do anything to survive. I think the show also less you feel, okay. ashby: Mm-hmm. Coco the soul destroyer: What happens to young girls is they are told who they are. They are told they're good. They're told that they're the way that they look is who they are. And so she's this very pretty blonde girl, right? And so she's told you're so good. And she's not at all. It has nothing to do with her interiority or who she is. Right. and it lets you kind of like feel how that would be a prison and why someone would want to break out of it. Now burning your parents to death in your child to a home is maybe not the way to go about that. But you kind ashby: Mm-hmm. Coco the soul destroyer: of get the sense of needing to escape. ashby: Yeah, I think I just want to like Okay, I I'll just put it here because otherwise I'll just keep coming back to it over and over again. But basically, Coco the soul destroyer: Yeah yeah yeah. ashby: John Steinbeck has said he wanted to write Kathy as an evil monstrous character. there's plenty of documentation that that was his goal, okay? Here is what we have so far in the backstory to tell Coco the soul destroyer: Lay it out. ashby: us whether or not Kathy is a monster. Okay. Kathy is involved in we'll just say involved. How whether or not she was a willing participant in it or not, I think we can agree that there was inappropriate sexual contact with her when she was far, far, far too young. Okay. Coco the soul destroyer: And she was younger than the people doing it to her. whatever ashby: Yes, okay. Coco the soul destroyer: level of her own curiosity or interest or things that she was a part of, yes. ashby: And in any case, she's a child that should be protected from this by just the attention of adults. in any case, she is a child. this is what we're seeing from as from just watching the show, right? But the layer that he adds to it is that he's like, no, she actually somehow brought this on herself. She engendered this in some way as a s as a child. And then the next thing that happens is she goes to school, she gets attention from what appears to me to be an unstable older man. And then he takes his own life. Then her father, suspecting that she had something to do with it, beats her, tells her that that she's his property and that Coco the soul destroyer: Yeah. ashby: he will have some control over her. We also get some picture in the book that she has she has a habit of finding things and that she has a habit of collecting money and that it's basically implied that she's somehow manipulating men and boys out of their pocket money and gifts. Coco the soul destroyer: Yeah. I will there is one thing that is in the book that's different. She I think I and I'm getting it some of it mixed up, but she like runs away from home. And I ashby: yes. Coco the soul destroyer: think that's what causes her to be beaten in the book. But either ashby: That's true, yeah. Coco the soul destroyer: way, it's like the father is like in the book, the father's really treated as correct. Like the father is treated as this was the only path way to deal with girls is to beat them. ashby: Yeah, the father's the father is seen as is that his suspicion that his daughter is an evil and manipulating Ho at be younger Coco the soul destroyer: Yeah. ashby: than the age of fourteen was correct all along. That's how John Steinbeck treats it. Now, I just think from any thinking person and especially anyone who's had a lived experience as a woman, like it's kind of hard. To see it that way. That's the only thing. Coco the soul destroyer: Yeah. ashby: It's just hard to see it that way. Now, one of the criticisms I've read is that or or one of the differences I've seen is that something about how the father maybe wasn't as harsh in the book as shown on the show. And I don't think that's true. When I had just read the book, he does say those things about how she is his property and that he is bestowed with the state and God to determine her life path or whatever. So that is a thing that that happens. So look, for whether or not Kathy has malintentions. The things that are happening to her are the result of patriarchal abuse. The things that are happening to her are wrong. Whether or not she has a conscience, whether or not she is remorseful, whether or not she's having some type of participation in it, whether or not she's thinking evil thoughts while her dad is whipping her, which John Steinbeck seems to take as further evidence, right? Coco the soul destroyer: John Steinbeck, the scene of the whipping in the book is John ashby: Yeah. Coco the soul destroyer: Steinbeck is like, she's being beaten and she doesn't care, but she just realizes if she pretends to whine and cry, then the beating will stop. What? ashby: Yeah. So look so that's the thing, is he has said he's trying to write an evil character and this is the way he's going about it, right? It's Coco the soul destroyer: Yeah. ashby: just it it's incredulous if you've just lived as a woman. Coco the soul destroyer: It it's like it's I'm gonna write this monster and it's every stereotype about women. Like ashby: Yeah, that that bad that while bad things are happening to them, they're not having nice thoughts. This is how he is describing her childhood. Coco the soul destroyer: And while bad things are happening to them, they're like, let me manipulate my way out of this. ashby: Exactly, which is you and I will consider being a survivor. That is what a survivor is, a person for whom bad things happen Coco the soul destroyer: Yeah. ashby: to them, and they look for ways to understand human nature enough to manipulate themselves out of it. So up until this point, I understand what he's saying, and it is still defying credulity to me. Now, once Kathy stages her murder and kills her parents, I'm willing to say Kathy has like crossed a line, okay? That's the thing. Coco the soul destroyer: I do wanna I think John Steinbeck has created a very interesting character, maybe despite himself or something. ashby: Mm-hmm. Yes. Coco the soul destroyer: But there is a part of it maybe this is me being too too woke or something, where it's like John Steinbeck has to have her kill her parents because nothing else that she does actually is ashby: Is that bad? Coco the soul destroyer: evil. Like it's not given the context of her life. So part of me is like, well, if she didn't kill her parents. ashby: Mm-hmm. There's nothing else. And and can I just Coco the soul destroyer: We've added a whole whole new layer of complexity to the story. ashby: I I'm willing to say that that was a bad act. I don't think that as a sum total of things altogether. That I see her backstory as equals this person is a monster. Do you know? Now, Coco the soul destroyer: Mm-hmm. ashby: it's more interesting to me that in the show, Kathy perceives herself as a monster. So sh Coco the soul destroyer: Yes, huh. ashby: her experience of these things is like what you get from this character through the whole arc of the show is she learns early on that the world is full of people who act nice but are actually bad to you. Her teacher, these older boys in her community. to some extent her experience Coco the soul destroyer: Her father ashby: of her father. Yeah. So I, I think it's more interesting that sh this is either a reaction to that or it's just that alchemy of a person's type of personality and the world they live in that's happening. Where her takeaway from that is just, if you are not the most cunning and the most evil one, then bad things will happen to you. so it's just something to consider. Coco the soul destroyer: Yeah. I'm really curious to hear about what you think about the Kathy and Charles of it all. Like in this first we're only on episode two. no. ashby: Mm-hmm mm mm. Coco the soul destroyer: But I'm really curious to hear what you think about it because I think in the book it there's a way of understanding that she seduces Charles because Charles is a threat. Like Charles ashby: Mm-hmm. Coco the soul destroyer: is I gotta kick you out of the house. How I read the book anyway. It was like Charles is like What are you doing? She's gonna destroy you, get her out of the house, like let's ashby: Mm-hmm. Coco the soul destroyer: kick her out. And they get married. She drugs Adam pretty intentionally and then and then seduces Charles. And I saw that as like, she's like, she is a woman who understands that her sexuality is a tool that she can wield ashby: Mm-hmm. Coco the soul destroyer: to get by in this cold, cold world, right? And if she sleeps with this guy, he's implicated. he's gonna ashby: Mm-hmm. Coco the soul destroyer: he she's got something on him, because he cheated with her ashby: Uh-huh. Coco the soul destroyer: but in the show they give you some other maybe there's like a different angle there that I it's kinda like she is sexually attracted to Charles. I don't know. What did you make of it? ashby: Yeah, I do think that they have a really interesting dynamic. Like even after he kind of exits the picture, I think Charles represents to me like the opportunity for Kathy to really actually let someone know her, like Wartz and all. A person that she Coco the soul destroyer: Yeah. ashby: recognizes and recognizes her. They have the same, you know, maybe like a dark sense of humor, you know, where Coco the soul destroyer: They see they see each other, yeah. ashby: you notice that you have something in common or that your ways of thinking are similar to theirs. Like I think there is an opportunity for intimacy there. Coco the soul destroyer: Mm-hmm. ashby: and I think they both recognize it in each other. And partly because I think they both recognize how able they each are to manipulate Adam, that this becomes Coco the soul destroyer: Mm-hmm. ashby: the central thing. So it's really a power Coco the soul destroyer: Wow. ashby: struggle over Adam, which is that Charles recognizes that the one person that he loved, because he doesn't seem to have the ability, I think similar to Kathy, to develop relationships with other people, the one person that he loves, but that doesn't mean that he's not guilty of manipulating is Adam. And here comes a person who is a threat to the one, you know, relationship that he is safe in. he doesn't have many friends and He's not ever been able to maintain a romantic relationship and Coco the soul destroyer: Yeah, he goes to I'm gonna say the word like whore and whorehouse because we're talking about the book. Yeah, obviously sex workers, ashby: Yeah. Or a brothel. Yeah. Yeah. He frequents the brothels. He likes it. He likes a transactional relationship with people except for his brother. And it's kind of implied in the book, and I think in the show too, that it's Adam's sort of naivety and his like quote unquote goodness that makes it possible for these people to have some type of relationship with him. Because he's never trying to outsmart them. There's never really a power struggle. He sees what he wants to see in them. Charles's whole thing is just that Kathy is taking Adam away. and they have that in common. Like they notice in each other, like, what up? You you like to manipulate people? Coco the soul destroyer: Yeah. Because the show really lets you feel that Charles is devastated when she leaves. That it was like, that was that one thing in life where it's like we did have a connection and now it's gone. ashby: But I think he was obviously more devastated about Adam leaving. Coco the soul destroyer: Yeah. ashby: yeah, I think he he I think he despite himself had a true affection for his brother in the book and in the show, Coco the soul destroyer: yeah. Almost more so than Adam has for him. Because Adam ashby: Yes. Coco the soul destroyer: in the book, I mean, you really get the sense. Adam goes to the military for five years and then re-enlists for another five years and then is kind of like I'm use again, old timey term, like a kind of like a hobo, like like ashby: Yeah, yeah. Coco the soul destroyer: a traveler a drifter and then like, you ashby: Mm-hmm. Coco the soul destroyer: know, gets stuck sucked into a chain gang just for being a drifter, not for really ashby: Mm-hmm. Coco the soul destroyer: real crime and uses labor by the state. ashby: Mm-hmm. Coco the soul destroyer: Adam will think of Charles occasionally, but really is not that actively like thinking of him. And Charles is kind of left alone in on this farm a little bit like tormented by the love ashby: That's the thing is that Coco the soul destroyer: and and the the this relationship that's kind of been blown apart. ashby: The only person he can have a relationship with, though, is Adam, because Coco the soul destroyer: Yeah. ashby: other people would require a level of vulnerability that he's not going to give them. And they have a shared backstory, so it's not necessary to explain. And other people are not as soft and forgiving as Adam. So anyone he tries to treat and talk to the way he talks to Adam is probably not going to put up with that. So the only person Charles can have any kind of human relationship with is Adam because Charles has something missing in his brain. Because Charles is unwell. Charles also has it like some psychopathic behaviors, a lack of conscience, and he's been incredibly violent to Adam before. So I just I just see I Coco the soul destroyer: Yeah, he kinda almost killed him, like by beating him up. Mm-hmm. ashby: just see Charles and Kathy as like two sides of the same coin of like Coco the soul destroyer: Mm-hmm. Yeah. ashby: look look at us, we both don't have relationship true relationships with other people, but we have each of us found a mark in a way in this person that cares for us. Coco the soul destroyer: Yeah. Now a critique of the show I will say is they kinda tease you that you're gonna have a lot more Mike Vice than you do. ashby: I know. I know have seen that too. And also that because of that it it you're anxious to have more of him. And so they sort of bring him in more toward the later part of it Coco the soul destroyer: Yeah. ashby: in a way that doesn't work for everybody. But I was again, I was just glad he was there, so I didn't really care that it was silly that it Coco the soul destroyer: I was glad he was back. Yeah. Mm-hmm. ashby: but but yes, they do kind of tease you that it's gonna be a lot more like challengers than it is. Coco the soul destroyer: I do la I did love that Zoe Kazan said that she like cast people almost opposite of what you ashby: Yes. Coco the soul destroyer: think of them as. So I thought that was great because Christopher Abbott is such an incredible actor and I like ashby: Mm-hmm. Coco the soul destroyer: love him. And again, credit to Lena Dunham for bringing so ashby: Mm-hmm. Coco the soul destroyer: many people into our ecosystem. But yeah, he has been known to play kind of these really dark characters. And so it's kind of cool to see him in in the the Adam role as Mike Feist. angelic face that he has ashby: Mm-hmm. Coco the soul destroyer: in the, Charles role. All right. Episode three, in the valley. So Adam and Kathy They've gotten married. They go into California. so they settle on isolated farm in Salinas Valley. Wealthy Adam. has inherited all this money. Adam spends much money improving the house but never farms the land. He's content there, but Kathy detests it and only wants to leave. She didn't want to come to California. she's pregnant and she attempts a self-induced abortion but fails. Adam befriends Samuel Hamilton, an Irish emigrant from a nearby farm, and hires Lee, a Chinese American domestic worker who code switches around white people. Kathy gives birth to fraternal twin brothers, twin boys, but shuns them and withdraws from family life. Lee becomes the children's sole caretaker. When Adam attempts to stop Kathy from leaving the farm, she shoots and wounds him. He's left bleeding on the floor. After Kathy's departure, a heartbroken Adam sinks into depression and neglects his sons. A few months later, Samuel prods Adam to be an attentive father and name the infants. Using the Bible for inspiration, Adam calls them Caleb and Aaron. What a doozy. ashby: Yeah. What a doozy. yeah. So one Coco the soul destroyer: Yeah. ashby: thing that's interesting is that I got a better picture from the book about this decision from Kathy. Because at Coco the soul destroyer: Yeah huh. ashby: first it kind of just like doesn't make sense. It seems like she would want to get well and get the hell out of there. But in the book it I got a little bit more of a picture that she's on the run from this from her Former pimp, her former employer, who had beat her senselessly with the intent to kill her on the road, and that she is now sort of, yeah. Coco the soul destroyer: He left her for dead. that was what yeah. ashby: And she has no money because he had taken it from her. And she has no other out. And so she is just, she is seriously just playing the cards in front of her. And she's basically like, I have no money and I have no protection. I'm a woman that whose story I can't share. She also is concerned about. somehow it being found out that she had killed her parents yes Coco the soul destroyer: Cause the law shows up while she's at house recovering with Adam and Charles and they're like, Who beat this woman all near to death? ashby: And she Coco the soul destroyer: And she pretends she has amnesia, basically. Because she doesn't want anyone to know who she is. She doesn't want anyone digging ashby: Right, and that she doesn't know. Right. Coco the soul destroyer: into her life. She wants to be free is like the way that I see her, good or ashby: Yes. Me too. Coco the soul destroyer: evil. Like I see her as a survivor who wants to get free. ashby: Same, totally same. So her motivations make more sense to me with the book, because she's Coco the soul destroyer: Mm-hmm. ashby: basically like, Well, I don't have any other cards to play. I need protection. I need to be able to heal fully before I can go back to my line of work. And I can pretty much control this man. And he is going like he can provide her with money and stability and protection. And she's pretty sure that she can like get out of it. She says as much to Charles where he's like, I don't really see you as the marrying kind. And she's like, Well, maybe I can slip out of it. It's yeah. Coco the soul destroyer: She du Yeah, I think that's kinda in the book too. ashby: I think it's partially Adam's quote unquote innocence. He apparently he's never taken much interest in the brothel life and his willingness yeah, he really well gross, he really Coco the soul destroyer: He's more of a wife guy. ashby: is. my god, that should be that should be Coco the soul destroyer: Yeah. ashby: every description of this. It should just be like wife guy and fuck boy brothers. Yeah. but Charles, I think, while he he doesn't put all the pieces together. He has already described to us that there is this system in which the brothel in town has girls come through every two weeks that no one's ever known. And this is a small town in Connecticut. It's like nobody really comes through here that doesn't have some reason to be there. The only people that ever come through that are not known to people or relatives or whatever are the girls from the brothel who come and stay for two week periods before moving on. So I think he doesn't have it totally figured out, but he immediately is like, a woman on her own probably not like ensconced in a respectable family life, right? Coco the soul destroyer: It is it is weird both in the book and in the show ashby: Yeah. Coco the soul destroyer: that Charles is so opposed to this woman entering the house right from the jump. Like before ashby: Yeah. Coco the soul destroyer: he could even realistically see, like, she's w of a kind, you know, like ashby: Mm-hmm. Coco the soul destroyer: me. and it's very like we we're two men with a woman in our house. Like there's a politics that I like are a s societal norms that I didn't totally understand. I think what you're saying is ashby: Yeah. Coco the soul destroyer: the best rationale. that it's like but there's a part of me that's reads it and I say like, Well this is some other man's property that he's beaten up and I don't wanna get involved with this other guy is yeah. ashby: Yes, that's what I'm saying. That's exactly right. It it's basically someone if they lived in a an area controlled by gangs, someone getting dropped off on their property that they take care of, it's like, well, you Coco the soul destroyer: yeah. ashby: may have just waded into something. he understands Coco the soul destroyer: Uh-huh. ashby: that a woman who's just shows up randomly with no backstory creates a problem that someone will be looking for her. And And I think John Steinbeck, like he he covers this more later when he talks about like how they go about choosing women for brothels, is that it's actually Coco the soul destroyer: That stuff's all really interesting. ashby: so interesting. Is basically like any woman that would be missed is a problem. Okay. And I think Charles correctly he doesn't ever like form it in a in like an actual case that he makes to Adam about it, but I think he has enough of the pieces there to know that this signifies a problem, that she must have Coco the soul destroyer: Yeah. ashby: some kind of Backstory that brings that is gonna bring this back on them. Coco the soul destroyer: It's it's in the show, but I think in the book you do get such a better point of view ashby: Yeah. Coco the soul destroyer: on how how the the brothel rotation system works, ashby: Yes. Coco the soul destroyer: as well as who makes a good whore again, you know what I mean. But ashby: Yeah, yeah. Coco the soul destroyer: and it's like sh every ever over and over again, they're like, Kathy's too pretty. Like, why ashby: Yes, but Coco the soul destroyer: would Kathy be this? Because Kathy could just go be a wife. And I think ashby: Yes. Coco the soul destroyer: the interesting thing for women reading it is like, why would she not be a wife because she wants this freedom and can't. ashby: Right. Coco the soul destroyer: get it within the institution of marriage. And once ashby: Yes. Coco the soul destroyer: she's locked into this relationship, you see that she is she's she's she's depressed because she's ashby: chafing against it. Mm-hmm. Coco the soul destroyer: so trapped and she's trapped in the in in being pregnant too. ashby: Yes. So Kathy never wanted this life. And to be fair to her character, she made this very clear to Adam. She did not want to move. She said it many, many times. And, Coco the soul destroyer: Mm-hmm. ashby: you know, the book and I think the show too. They love to just make the constant, constant point of what a sort of like good to the point of naive person Adam is. But all he literally has to do is listen and pay attention to anyone around him throughout the entire book, and most of his problems would be solved. Coco the soul destroyer: Yeah. ashby: But I think you can be a quote unquote good person, meaning that you never act out of malice and also not necessarily be a force for good. You yourself are just sort of acted upon. Plenty of people mention that about him. I don't see him as like a true avatar for goodness. yeah, it does nothing. Coco the soul destroyer: It's an indictment of the liberal who does nothing to stop the horrors around them. Yeah. ashby: Yeah, but that is not to say he never acts out of selfishness. his whole thing about Kathy is he's mapping everything about her onto her, is that he sees a whole person that is not there, and that every other person, even people who've only met her for two seconds, can see that she is not what he says she is. And that really comes through in the show, too. No! Coco the soul destroyer: Right. So he's not good. I'm comf I'm like, that's actually terrible. That's bad. That's like kind of borderline abusive behavior is to say this this woman is my doll and not ashby: That's bad. Yes, he is refusing to see this person. Mm-hmm. Coco the soul destroyer: a real person. Yeah. So fuck you, Adam. ashby: Yeah. I really feel that way. Like I have so much like frustration with the concept of Adam as an avatar of goodness because I don't see it at all. I see him as a deeply selfish and myopic person who only thinks about himself. And while he seems to not like enjoy killing or hurting people, I hardly think that that should be our bar. Coco the soul destroyer: He basically knows this woman for nine months and then she leaves him. ashby: Yeah. Mm-hmm. Coco the soul destroyer: and she only shoots him after he locks her in a room. she leaves him, and then he just like doesn't raise or name his sons for like a ashby: Exactly. Coco the soul destroyer: really long time. Like the the description makes it sound like he gets more involved. The book is like, ashby: No. Coco the soul destroyer: borderline 10 years, he kind of just ignores these kids and has his quote unquote servant raise them, ashby: Yes. Mm-hmm. Coco the soul destroyer: who Lee is the real like. hero of the the show very much so, but and the book, but ashby: Yeah. And the book. I I think in the book. I don't know. I understand Steinbeck is trying to tell this story about, you know, this basically good man who is just like pulled along in this sort of river of events bigger than him. But no, absolutely not. I'm not buying it. Like I think I think Kathy, you know, for all her faults, has been very clear about what she is. And That's something that you do see over the course of the book and with the different characters is like she doesn't struggle with what she is or what she wants. She just accepts that she doesn't want these things and she does want these other things. Coco the soul destroyer: Yeah. ashby: And she actually just doesn't care if other people get hurt in that process. And Adam, I find his motivations a lot more confusing because he just is kind of like he's a drifter through life. He's a drifter in his own consciousness. He examines nothing in himself and I think that that is its own kind of evil. I think that his neglectfulness to every person around him, I would include Charles in that. There's long periods of time where he's drifting and he doesn't like check in at all, just expects him to be there for him. I would and I Yes, not Coco the soul destroyer: Mm-hmm. He just moves home and he's like, half of this is mine. And I'm like, I maybe legally, but not really. Charles has farmed that land and worked hard and taken care of this property and expanded it and like the whole time. ashby: Yeah. Refusal to actually get to know Kathy. No interest in Kathy. He's so averse to any amount of conflict that he's just willing to go along with whatever is said. And then yeah, when she shoots him and basically takes away his dream of this perfect doll wife that he's going to impress and make happy with this beautiful plantation that they're gonna have. he takes that so personally that he withdraws from life completely and allows like a servant who he also never sees, he also never really listens to, he's Coco the soul destroyer: Mm-hmm. ashby: has no real like human regard for, just sort of abdicates raising his children and taking care of this land to this person and just ignores his children totally. Like I think a neglectfulness and a solipsism and a selfishness and an and inability to let go of stuff that you can't control and look into what you can control, I think that there's a type of evil there. I think there's a the same kind of thing that the Bible talks about idle hands. I I Coco the soul destroyer: It's not really in the they reference it in the in the show, but in the book, the big thing is about the land. A big thing is like ashby: Yeah. Coco the soul destroyer: we're in this valley. You have this portrait of the Hamilton, Samuel Hamilton has this terrible piece of land and a beautiful, ashby: Mm-hmm. Coco the soul destroyer: lively family, right? but like, and then Adam has the best piece of land because he was ashby: Mm-hmm. Coco the soul destroyer: rich and he was rich by no effort of his own. ashby: Mm-hmm. Coco the soul destroyer: and he comes and he buys the best piece of land and then he just lets it sh sit there. And you're ashby: Yeah, yeah. Coco the soul destroyer: just like, the arrogance of it is kind of disgusting. ashby: It's arrogance. Coco the soul destroyer: Like you know, these pe people are hungry. people are ashby: it's true. Coco the soul destroyer: trying to get by. ashby: That's really what it is. It's the arrogance. It's that if things are not handed to him, or made easy for him, he sulks. And there's just nothing I find like more despicable than like not even trying a little bit and just sulking and refusing to see how your lack of action is an action. Not doing is is a doing. You are choose making a choice by not doing something. And Coco the soul destroyer: Yeah. ashby: it is hurting the people around you. But yeah, actually I do think at this point in the show, the show a bit suffers from this as well. Coco the soul destroyer: I agree. The show does not hold Adam accountable kind of, you know. ashby: But it's also not that interesting. it's a waste of Christopher Abbott to just have him sit on a porch for so long. But that really is what happens in the book. And I was thinking about my whole impression of the series. And there is a lot of stuff that happens that just takes him out where he just gets more and more removed and he just becomes like further and further away from taking any agency or action on his life. And it's honestly he maybe spends the bulk of the series sitting in a rocking chair looking off with vacant eyes. And it sucks. Coco the soul destroyer: And it's it's a little bit hard because Christopher Abbott is a very he's got a such a compelling face. one thing I'll credit Steinbeck with is that you get to a clear point though that this quote unquote goodness is not sexy at all. And we we ashby: It's not. It's definitely not. Coco the soul destroyer: definitely understand that it's kind of repulsive. and this ashby: It is Coco the soul destroyer: the show helps you really see that Kathy's like, I'm repulsed by this man. And I think women relate to that feeling of like ashby: Yes. Coco the soul destroyer: being adored but has nothing to do with you, what ashby: Mm-hmm. Coco the soul destroyer: men wanting to touch your body. it be because they've projected all this off on you is is repulsive. It's disgusting. And so only when you are seen by somebody else is when like it's actually like sexual or like exciting or interesting. ashby: So that's what I mean about why she has so much chemistry with Charles is like here Coco the soul destroyer: Mm-hmm. ashby: here's the maybe only person that she's ever met that isn't trying to map something onto her. And I can act Coco the soul destroyer: Mm-hmm. This true. ashby: like every other person has like either been taken in because she's willfully manipulating them or because they have chosen to see to see that she's not capable of anything bad or evil. But Charles just pretty plainly recognizes that. Something about all of this doesn't add up and that's enough for him to be like, You're probably a person like me if you have no one that cares about you. Do you know? And so I do think there was an opportunity there for her, for sure. Coco the soul destroyer: Alright, we we didn't talk about getting shot. We didn't talk about the abortion scene. ashby: okay, about the abortion. Yeah. The abortion scene was really fascinating. And it pretty closely Coco the soul destroyer: Yeah. ashby: hues to what's there in the book, too. So there's not a ton different. It's Coco the soul destroyer: Yeah. It's ashby: actually pretty spot on. and you know, it yeah. But it does Coco the soul destroyer: But it's how you take it that feels different. Mm-hmm. ashby: feel different because I think because a woman is telling the story and it is now 2026, like you see this and you're like Well, yeah, she's gonna be even further entrenched in this life that she doesn't want. further trapped, basically, when she discovers that she's pregnant. Coco the soul destroyer: Yep. Mm-hmm. ashby: It does to me, it just further reifies that like you should never try to make people have kids that don't wanna have kids. Coco the soul destroyer: Mm-hmm. ashby: So I have a lot of empathy for her in that scene, but I do think that Steinbeck writes it to be like, look at this other thing about her that makes her evil. Yes. Coco the soul destroyer: This is the this is she's monstr she's monstrous because she's trying to abort her good husband's children. ashby: Right. Coco the soul destroyer: And the doctor tells her basically this and and says if you j if you try it again, I'm gonna have you arrested. ashby: Yeah, yeah. I I think it's worth here just pausing to be like, in the book there's some pretty fucked up, like ableist shit that might also be a sort of an artifact the time. But even when even as Kathy, even as the narrator is describing Coco the soul destroyer: yeah. ashby: Kathy's quote unquote monstrousness, they compare it to people who are born with deformities. And and Coco the soul destroyer: I forgot about that part. Mm-hmm. ashby: as how that those people are monstrous in some way, it talks about Coco the soul destroyer: That's so true. ashby: Talks about people that don't have the use of some of their limbs and how they're seen as punishments upon some wickedness in their families, things like that. I think that's pretty despicable and gross. and then even in this scene, it's seen as like her saying, I don't want to taint my husband's bloodline because she lies to the doctor and says that epilepsy is something that runs in her family. And the doctor appropriately acts shocked and is like, no. he's like, Don't worry, it's very likely your child will not have it. It's fine. But that is almost seen as a reasonable reason to to go about this is because you don't want Coco the soul destroyer: Yeah. It's her her lie relies upon the ableism of the society. Not that she would not that she's even thinking she doesn't give a fuck about any of this kind of stuff. But yeah. ashby: Of the time. Exactly. Not that she even thinks about that. But I I just want to say this is a place where I think the idea of Kathy seeing through people's quote unquote goodness is maybe accidentally shown, that Coco the soul destroyer: Mm-hmm. ashby: as long as there's a chance that it's a healthy baby, no matter what it does to her, which very high likelihood of death or dismemberment to her, she's supposed to want to like give this to her good husband or whatever. But if there's a chance that this person will be born with some type of, you know, different abilities, then it's sort of like, well, we can understand, you know. So I do think she sometimes accidentally hits upon what she says is the sort of pretended goodness of the world, even in ways that Seinbeck doesn't realize that he's doing. Coco the soul destroyer: And she yeah, I think that that's partially what I'm saying too, that he's really created a very interesting character. Sometimes does it's like despite ashby: Despite himself, yeah. Coco the soul destroyer: himself, it's like he's imagined this thing. Does he understand the thing he imagined? I don't know. Yeah, yeah. ashby: Definitely not. No. It's but that's that's what we always say about once you put something on a page and once you make the art, it's bigger than you. It's how people actually interpret it. And so, he puts the raw materials there, but we are able to take from that some things he probably wouldn't even see. Kathy's really clear she doesn't want to be a mother, but people don't listen to her. Okay. And it's frustrating. She's clear she doesn't want to be a wife. She's clear she doesn't want to be a mother. She's clear well, she's not clear about the wife part. She does sign up for that, but only because there's so few options. Yeah. Coco the soul destroyer: But she's almost murdered. ashby: But she's clear to herself, you know? And she's not Coco the soul destroyer: Yeah, she she's not entering in it with any intention of staying. ashby: No, absolutely not. And if anyone had been even halfway paying attention, they would notice that. Do you know what I mean? Coco the soul destroyer: She kinda says it. Yeah. ashby: She says it many times. The other thing that I got here is then when it reaches the part where Kathy has the babies, the twins, she's not into it. She just does not take to motherhood. And I again, I think this is one of those things that Steinbeck puts down as one of the the things that makes her evil is that he's like, How Coco the soul destroyer: Yeah. ashby: can she shoot her husband and abandon her babies? Coco the soul destroyer: Mm-hmm. ashby: I'm sorry, but it doesn't compute for me. she is in a situation that she didn't want. She tried to avert this possibility and it didn't work out. I don't see the fact that she doesn't want to be a mother as something that makes her evil. Problem over. Yeah. So Coco the soul destroyer: If the doctor had given her an abortion, we would it yeah, exactly. and I think the show does a really good job of there's this very weird scene in the book where she bites Samuel Hamilton's hand and ashby: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Coco the soul destroyer: it's strange, it's all like she's a bitch, like like a dog. Like, you know, it's it's ri she's called like bitch, whore, evil, like all these words that are like, again, if you're a woman reading this, you're like, I'm sorry, some alarm bells are going off in my head. ashby: Yeah. Yeah. A quite literal parallel. Mm-hmm. Eee. Mm-hmm. Coco the soul destroyer: And but all these men are like, she'll be fine, she'll fall in love with these babies, she'll be okay, she's just tired. ashby: Mm-hmm. Coco the soul destroyer: And it's like, no, she has said she does not want this life. I actually think the show lets you feel the horror of being forced to have children ashby: Mm-hmm. Yes. Coco the soul destroyer: when you don't want them and they're crying. It's like she has to get away because sh she did not want to do this. Yeah. ashby: She can't handle it. Yeah. No, I agree. I do not see that as part of the evidence that she's evil. No. And there Coco the soul destroyer: She's not a psychopath or any that's not that no. ashby: it's really and truly the case that she is her husband's property, that he could have shot her upon leaving, and it would have been a very different story. and that That really might have been the only way that she could leave. he's locked her in a room. She's told him many times she doesn't want to be there. And she abandons him. She leaves him and the kids. And he has the like legal right to go after her if he wants to. this is a major imbalance. I don't think anyone who doesn't want to be a parent should have to be a parent. And it's truly miraculous that she survived. Giving birth to the twins and that everyone lived and it was healthy, to be honest. That's Coco the soul destroyer: Mm-hmm. ashby: a true, a true miracle. yeah, the scene of Samuel Hamilton and giving birth and everything, the thing I kept coming back to in the show and in the book is how incredibly isolated she is. What this man has done is taken her away from all of society, isolated her on a ranch surrounded with only men. I can see an animal terror there when you're about to give birth and there's a strange man here who's like, Don't worry, I'm gonna just lock your husband out and deliver twins for you. Any Coco the soul destroyer: He's just reaches upper skirt without any warning, there's no yeah. ashby: So again, it's like Steinbeck is glossing over this stuff and just being like, just take it my word for it that she's evil. But any human, I think, in this circumstance is gonna act in ways that aren't quote unquote civil, but that's because they're in a a pretty uncivil situation. I think all Coco the soul destroyer: Yeah. ashby: I can think about in all of these scenes is just how awful and trapped and depressed she must feel in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by no one. there's just no there's no way to account for how unbelievably vulnerable she is in this situation. Coco the soul destroyer: Yeah. I l I think expression you use a lot is like Steinbeck's telling on himself with a lot of ashby: He really is. Coco the soul destroyer: these things about what he thinks is an evil woman. Yeah. Mm-hmm. ashby: Yeah, yeah, yeah. So anyway, it's a it's a fascinating scene. But I I had two immediate thoughts when I saw it on the screen before I read that in the book, which is that the first thought I had was that that's so interesting and foreign to me, but I didn't feel judgy of it because I just Coco the soul destroyer: Mm-hmm. ashby: know in myself I could never abandon a baby. I just never could. I just couldn't do it. It's such an interesting thing to think about. But I didn't really blame her. I feel like I have a much closer read on it than a John Steinbeck would. And I didn't blame her at all. I was like, this is not for the faint of heart, you know? So and at the same time, yeah. Coco the soul destroyer: Yeah. I think the show portrays it really well. it's you're not ashby: Yeah. Coco the soul destroyer: rooting for her to to abandon her children. You actually feel the crying of the kids and you feel the lack of ca parental care and Adam is genuinely neglecting the children. ashby: And you feel and I felt tr cenuinely neglecting Coco the soul destroyer: Steinbeck isn't holding him accountable really I mean a little bit, but not so much. ashby: I really felt the weight of that too. The big thing that I felt in that scene is well, without without Lee Coco the soul destroyer: Lee. ashby: there, who had already left, these kids have no one. Because even with Kathy there and Adam there, it was clear from the r other character's perspective that the only thing he really can focus on is her and his like conception of her and how he needs her to sort of be a certain way to motivate him to live a certain kind of life. Like It they really go into detail in the book that he felt depressed until he finds Kathy and that Kathy is who his entire person revolves around. And that's codependence, my friend. yeah, just to just to sum it up, it's like so much so much here, Kathy is enacting into the world a type of violence to fight for her own freedom from this situation. And people read that, and because she is a woman, they see her abandoning her role as a wife and mother as incredibly evil or even sort of like just goes against biology, right? Like that there's something Coco the soul destroyer: She's like e evil in an inhuman way. It's like how ashby: Yes. Coco the soul destroyer: we she is a monster. She's an alien. She's something other. ashby: Yes. I don't see the the fact that she has to enact violence in order to get out of this system which is imposed upon her. that seems to be an artifact of the time. I don't see her neglect of her children as any worse than Adam's neglect of the children. It's only because she is a woman that people put this in the category of making her evil. Coco the soul destroyer: Mm, mm-hmm. Agree. ashby: But Adam's Coco the soul destroyer: Mm-hmm. ashby: neglect, I think, is almost worse. and Samuel points that out. He's just like, yeah, because they left, are you just gonna leave them too? I I Coco the soul destroyer: No ashby: think it's almost worse to be there and just refuse to grapple with it. I think that's d Beliza's selfishness. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Coco the soul destroyer: to the children. I just think that the horror, the horror that she's gone through. I I think it it's easy to even if you yourself are like this is foreign to me, it's easy to empathize with when it's put in front of you. yeah, it's ashby: Mm-hmm. It is. But I did really feel truly like true, true fear for the babies. I didn't know where the story was gonna go because I'd never read it. So I really Coco the soul destroyer: Me too. c yeah, mm-hmm. ashby: was like, well, they have a lot of little needs and they could die of just exposure, just with no one in the house. Coco the soul destroyer: just being thirsty ashby: But I just Coco the soul destroyer: Lee Lee is more you. Lee is like, the crying kid, I can't resist it. It's like that's what drives Lee is like just being needed essentially. in a in a really ashby: Yeah. I can't I can't no. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. Coco the soul destroyer: interesting way. ashby: I'm really excited to get into the character of Lee because I think he is like Coco the soul destroyer: Mm-hmm. ashby: the revelation of the show, Coco the soul destroyer: So episode four, Kate in nineteen one, Kathy calling herself Kate Alby, works as a prostitute in a Selena's brothel. Kathy becomes a favorite with clients, the other girls, and also Faye, the kindly house madam. She persuades Faye to allow her to help manage the house's business activities, improving its efficiency, saving money, and increasing revenue. Kathy also, again, a lot in the book about like what goes into management of a brothel? ashby: Mm-hmm. Coco the soul destroyer: Kathy eventually becomes Faye's most trusted worker and companion. Faye initially asks Sheriff Quinn to vet Kathy's background. Quinn discovered who Kathy is and that she shot Adam, but agreed not to arrest her or reveal her true identity to Faye on the condition that Kathy avoids her sons, believing she would cause harm. Kathy manipulates Faye into naming her as a sole beneficiary, then gradually poisons her to death. Kathy, now controlling the brothel, has it enlarged and painted black, making it more risque. Yeah. ashby: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Coco the soul destroyer: And I I really love I th I do think that there's maybe Steinbeck just did his research and that stuff is interesting. I ashby: Mm-hmm. Coco the soul destroyer: do like the here's how if you really wanted to run a better brothel, here's what you would do. It's fascinating. And I do ashby: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Coco the soul destroyer: get the the idea. I know people joked about like the girl bossing, but do you get the idea that like cat Kathy slash Kate gets something out of being like successful and like kind of understanding how to like run stuff. and I love the I think the twist of the sheriff knowing who she is and being like, actually the law has a relationship with crime, ashby: Yeah. Coco the soul destroyer: with brothels, with whatever it might be, and saying, like, let's keep stability and let and let's keep these people where I know they are actually makes sense and kind of really works and kind of is pretty clever. ashby: Yeah, it's almost like we had a better understanding of the role of sex work at a prior point in history, which may be Coco the soul destroyer: We I agree. Uh-huh. ashby: one of the only things we ever, you know, didn't need this much evolution to arrive at, you know, because I actually think it's much more restrictive and exploitative now than and than it clearly was then. Yeah, with the w the the relationship with the law and criminalizing it. So yeah, I would Coco the soul destroyer: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. ashby: say Steinbeck clearly comes out as saying decriminalize sex work. So Coco the soul destroyer: Well Kings, John Steinbeck. ashby: Whoa King, John Steinbeck. Yeah. I I like this section, but I I want to just go back again to like the way that Steinbeck is writing women, which is like Coco the soul destroyer: Yeah, yeah, yeah. ashby: part of the specialness that he creates in Kathy is like an uncommon like intelligence. And he very often is shading it as like a woman this intelligent, this self interested, is manipulative and dark and evil in a way. But I think now we would understand that just like a woman who's enterprising and wants to be in control of her destiny and has like a real facility with business something that exactly, but it's Coco the soul destroyer: She's not gonna be happy being the doll on some ranch. Yeah. ashby: also not like that uncommon. it's not uncommon because a woman has this set of ambitions, but he treats it as like an anomaly because a pretty affluent girl has this cutthroat business minded sensibility. personally, I'm just like, yeah, it sounds like she's a real person. I don't know. I mean, I understand that the criticism level that it is that they've just made her a misunderstood, abused girl boss, but this is but I don't see that. Coco the soul destroyer: think the show has though, but yes, I understand people read that, but I don't think that's what we see on the screen. ashby: I don't think it's what we see on the screen. And this is all depicted in the book that she like has an interest in how the books are run. in like if they're being taken advantage of in these other ways. there is like a a little bit of a Venn diagram between people who are a little bit sociopaths or psychopaths and people who are very good at business. Because it it's a it's a facility that you have with wanting to get the better of someone in a transaction. Do you know what I mean? another Coco the soul destroyer: psychopathy is also correlated to executives who have to ashby: Yeah. Coco the soul destroyer: lay masses of people off, who have to make these decisions that are awful. people who are even like surgeons, ashby: Well, it's not just that. I'm honestly thinking of tech CEOs. when other people do this in other contexts, Coco the soul destroyer: Mm-hmm. ashby: it's not seen as monstrous behavior. But it's and sometimes and it maybe it should be, But Coco the soul destroyer: And sometimes it is. Mm-hmm. ashby: there are there are ways to go about this type of thing that are lionized in society, but then when she does it, it's like further evidence of what a manipulative, you know, psychopath she is. Coco the soul destroyer: C U N T or ashby: and I don't have a problem with this. it sounds like actually a rising tide lifts all boats kind of thing. Like by creating a better run brothel, there's actually better conditions for everyone. There's like fewer diseases. the girls are that work there, she's Coco the soul destroyer: She's like, we're gonna have the men shower or clean like bathe before. ashby: so Zoe Kazan has said, and I agree, that I don't think the character of Kathy is a feminist, but it doesn't mean that her actions can't have some type of like feminist approach. I don't think she's motivated by that, but I don't think that it's a bad thing that she wants the place that she's employed to like be run better. You know, I think that can have a feminist effect in a way. Coco the soul destroyer: And it I think that it's true to the character that she's ashby: Yes. Coco the soul destroyer: like, I just see a problem before me and I like am a I will s I will solve the problem. Yeah. ashby: I must solve it. Yeah. Coco the soul destroyer: and I think I things could just be better. ashby: it's a further manifestation of how important it is to Kate slash Kathy to have control over every aspect of her life. Because as long as, Coco the soul destroyer: Mm-hmm. ashby: say, the laundry person is, you know, skimming a little off the top and charging them a little bit too much, these are all that's all her money. That's all work that that's all labor that she is doing that is like being taken advantage of because the madam is like a little softer on these kinds of transactions. ever by not wanting to introduce any amount of conflict and stuff, these things all roll downhill and have a effect on her working conditions. Yeah. Coco the soul destroyer: She's a she's basically she's like Tony Soprano to some extent, too. but she's a gangster. Kate a little bit. it's just like it's like run shit around you is what she is doing. Mm-hmm. ashby: Yeah, she's a gangster. She is a gangster. Absolutely. She runs the shit around her. And she looks around and sees that this is these are all places that her labor is not being the most efficiently used. And I don't I Coco the soul destroyer: Yeah. ashby: just think that that's really true to her character, that she wants control, and she wants freedom. And sh and one criticism has been that she doesn't seem to have any long term goals, that she yeah. Coco the soul destroyer: I do I do have this question like what does Kate ultimately want or Kathy? You know, kind of Kate now. ashby: But I think that she is like Charles in that way, that she isn't like a Coco the soul destroyer: Mm-hmm. ashby: long term thinker. She's a short term obstacle remover. And that people who are trying to dominate her in some way, she just sees as that is the present problem to be fixed. And in every part of a business that's being run, there are things there that are like a problem to be solved. it's just whatever's in front of her, she wants to just have a little bit more control over it, So I don't think she needs to necessarily have a big grand plan. It's just her driving motivation is always how much little more freedom can I be getting? Coco the soul destroyer: Yeah, and she she kills Faye. And I would say Faye, ashby: but she does Kilfe. Coco the soul destroyer: Faye, like Adam, gives me the ick. Faye wants to possess. Faye wants to project ashby: Yeah. Yes. Coco the soul destroyer: onto her. And I think that there's there's maybe John Steinbeck's conception of women, which is that it's like evil of them for I don't know, manipulating people in ashby: Mm-hmm. Coco the soul destroyer: this way. But I also think it's like it's their fault for being manipulated. I don't know how ashby: Mm-hmm. Coco the soul destroyer: else to put it. Like If Faye wants to have a daughter, Faye also wants to live in a fantasy world where this is all sweet and butterflies, what she's like running a brothel. And she's ashby: Mm-hmm. Coco the soul destroyer: like, certain kinds of sex work are okay. Other kinds are ashby: Mm-hmm. Coco the soul destroyer: bad. she's moralistic in some extent. and there's a whole thing about Kathy drinking that we haven't gotten into. But Kathy kind of anytime she gets drunk, reveals who she is. And so Faye forces Kathy to drink, basically. And then Kathy reveals herself as being kind of, you know. maybe sociopathic or whatever. She ashby: Mm-hmm. Coco the soul destroyer: reveals all of her inner dark evil thoughts, And since Faye has seen this, now Faye is a threat. And so it's not like Kathy set out to be like, I'm gonna g inherit this, brothel. It's like ashby: Yeah. Coco the soul destroyer: she's gotten herself into a pickle, and so now she's gotta eliminate this bitch. ashby: Yeah, I think it's the alchemy of people's personalities when they come together. Like Coco the soul destroyer: Mm-hmm. ashby: they go out of their way to describe in the book of Faye as a matronly person and that she's just bound to see people in this way, right? And so by Kate's own motivations are unconnected to Faye. She just is an enterprising person and wants that little bit more control. over her conditions. So the act of Kate just being herself, right? Which is to step up and take on a little bit more responsibility to f and to earn more money. Yes. Coco the soul destroyer: And to earn more money because she's also like, I'm gonna be creative in my s sex work and I'm gonna get these guys hooked. ashby: Yes, the she's just living her life in a way. But because she has come into contact with Faye, who is a person who is prone to seeing things as in this maternal view, she takes that as like this girl is like a help to me. She is she sees herself in her. And part of what Kate has to do to gain this control is really create like pleasant relationships with the people around her. Coco the soul destroyer: She she can play the role. She can see this is what somebody wants to wants from me. ashby: She can do it. Yes. Coco the soul destroyer: I'm a survivor. I will play into to to for ashby: play that role for that person. Coco the soul destroyer: maximum safety, maximum freedom, like ashby: Mm-hmm. Coco the soul destroyer: opportunity, all of those things. ashby: But again, no one's ever actually asking Kate what she wants. nowhere is Faye actually trying to see Kate for what she is, other than to just she has a little prickling in the back of her mind that something about her backstory might be, you know, not line up and that's why she has the sheriff come. But she's very willing to let Kate be what she wants her to be, just Coco the soul destroyer: Mm-hmm. ashby: like Adam. So I agree. It's like I also have the ick because it's like. No, I know Faye doesn't want to be, you know, solely poisoned over time, but she she is happily being led down the garden path is the point, because Coco the soul destroyer: Yeah. ashby: she does not want to actually engage with the person in front of her. She wants to live in a fantasy land. Yeah. And yeah. Coco the soul destroyer: Mm-hmm. Yeah, I think Steinbeck's has when he's just being pulpy about it, it's more fun. It's when he ashby: It is, yeah. Coco the soul destroyer: gets a little too like this part's fun in the book too. and you don't really s ashby: It is fun. It's a caper. Coco the soul destroyer: you don't really feel bad for Faye while it's happening in the book either. You're like it is evidence of Kathy being evil according to him, but it's also ashby: Mm-hmm. Coco the soul destroyer: like kinda like, yeah, she we we don't like her, ew. ashby: Yeah, but yeah, it the thing is, for all for all what Steinbeck says are Kathy's faults, she is she is better at running this house than Faye is. But anyway, yes, she pretty clearly clocks that Faye wants to like see her as a daughter and she leans into it. I don't think she necessarily had to poison her to get what she wanted out of it. It seemed like Faye wasn't long for this world anyway. so you know Coco the soul destroyer: think it's that she has that outburst and so ashby: Yes. Coco the soul destroyer: then so she because Kathy's like if I drink I like I all my inhibition all this control ashby: I'm unable, yeah. Coco the soul destroyer: I have over who I am is gone and I will ashby: Mm-hmm. Coco the soul destroyer: reveal my inner thoughts which are not complimentary of the people around me. ashby: Mm-hmm. Coco the soul destroyer: and she she does that with Faye and Faye is kind of grotesque in her like affection towards this quote unquote girl. ashby: Yeah. And she also she does try to throw her out. She says to her, I want you out of this house because she sees because basically what happens is when someone ever actually interacts with the real Kathy, she will display her true disgust for you. And she's like, Coco the soul destroyer: Mm-hmm. ashby: I'm disgusted by all of these ways that you pander for attention or that you're weak. And because Kathy she believes that everyone is just pretending at goodness. So when, yeah, without her inhibition, she's unable to play along is the thing. She calls people out on their weaknesses. And yeah. Coco the soul destroyer: She she doesn't think people are she thinks people are fools. She yeah. Mm-hmm. ashby: Yeah. That they either want Faye and Adam, are fools who want to be fooled, or they're people like, Charles who just are aware that they are bad actors at a bad time, or they're the kind of like the ministers and the people about town that she's interacted with who are pretending at goodness but actually behind the scenes are are faking it. And she said that that's what she believed of her parents and the people in her town as well. so yeah. Coco the soul destroyer: Yeah. Yeah. to be fair, if her dad beat her and her mom just let it happen, I don't so I'm not saying ashby: Well, or if Coco the soul destroyer: kill your parents, but I just mean ashby: but also the school teacher that everyone was so sad Coco the soul destroyer: Mm-hmm. ashby: about him shooting himself and she's just like, Yeah, well he was a sex Coco the soul destroyer: He was a sex puss. ashby: per he was a predator I was fourteen and he just Coco the soul destroyer: Uh-huh. ashby: wanted to sleep with me, but everyone is saying what a great person he is. So I do think that she has had experiences in the world that have hit her particular brain chemistry and she's come away with this as her worldview, you know? So But I did I did find this as a particularly interesting, part of the book. It's a caper. It's she's diabolical. She really is. Coco the soul destroyer: It is fun to be reading, even to go through these ashby: Mm-hmm. Coco the soul destroyer: sections the way that the show has kind of isolated them is is fun because they are these like different chapters. It is strange that it's all in one novel. It's a lot of different things kind of all mixed together. ashby: And I do I do think there's something interesting about Kathy slash Kate. Like it it does feel a little bit like this goes on for a while. Like I do kind of almost feel like she expends more effort than she has to. So in a sort of like dexter kind of way, like I could it's like Coco the soul destroyer: I know. ashby: it feels kind of like, okay, if if Simek is trying to make the point that she's enjoying the kind of long game of Really getting this woman attached to her, a kind of Munchausen's by proxy situation going on, and then the the big performance of how she cared for this woman through her long illness that she was causing all along. And then that she's getting some kind of psychological pleasure out of it. but just in terms of expediency, it doesn't make like a ton of sense because she already had the will. Do you know what I mean? Coco the soul destroyer: read it as like J Steinbeck is like, Look how clever I am, I can think of the perfect murder ashby: Yeah, yeah. There's probably some of that. And there's there's even a part in the book where she basically is like there's a part where Faye is wailing on and on and that th Kathy has a thought that's essentially, this is getting on my nerves. I should just finish her off, you know. But that she Coco the soul destroyer: Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. ashby: wants to get away with the crime and that this is all part of her ability to just very methodically plot this trajectory so Coco the soul destroyer: Mm. ashby: that she gets away with it. so I don't know. In in that sense, I guess if I'm looking at it from a if I'm watching a a Dateline Women Who Kill episode or something, it's like, yeah, I can see this as part of the evidence that she's evil, but I also don't think it's I don't think it's like out of character that this person Coco the soul destroyer: I think. ashby: with this history wants more control of their life. Coco the soul destroyer: Read. And I just think that the book is so concerned with good and evil, right? The book is ashby: Yeah, yeah. Coco the soul destroyer: b biblical, good and evil, Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel. it's all ashby: Mm-hmm. Yeah, yeah. Coco the soul destroyer: of this stuff. And it's just, I think when you're thinking about it, it's like, I'm not condoning murdering your boss slowly over time. I'm ashby: No. Coco the soul destroyer: but I I think it's like, well, can you understand this drive that this character has and the circumstances she encounters and like why she acts the way she does? It's like evil's too simple of a word. ashby: Yeah. And it's also not interesting, a person that is Coco the soul destroyer: Yeah yeah. ashby: just flatly evil all the time, that doesn't that doesn't make for something that anyone can connect with, you know. So Coco the soul destroyer: Mm-hmm. Yeah. ashby: I will say in the show, the Madame is played by Martha Plimpton, incredible performance. And I did Coco the soul destroyer: so good. ashby: feel for her in the show. I was really like I also got this incredible sense Coco the soul destroyer: Yeah. ashby: because she's such a good actor that's not in the book, that Faye is starting to suspect what's going on. Coco the soul destroyer: And allowing herself to be fucked with. It's really ashby: And yeah, and it's just it's really it becomes a much more interesting, like I said, Munchausen psychodrama between these two. And that's just down to those two actors. Like they're able to bring Coco the soul destroyer: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Uh-huh. Yeah. ashby: some like subconscious complexity to their strange relationship. One thing Coco the soul destroyer: Mm-hmm. ashby: I think is interesting is that in the book, Steinbeck really puts all of Kathy's like, you know, ability to get along with the girls, the fact that she defends the girls. The fact that she wants this to be a better place to work, the fact that she whether, like I said, whether her long term motivations were pure or not, that there is long sections of the book where she is actually a great comfort and help to Faye. he puts all of that down to her connivingness, that it's all part of an act. But I Coco the soul destroyer: He does. Yeah. ashby: actually had the thought, you know, in and watching the show that like, yeah, maybe she's just happier in this arrangement. She seems happier here. Coco the soul destroyer: I think she I agree. Yeah. I think it's like she's a functional person here. it is the right environment for her. She's ashby: Yeah. This is the right environment for her. Coco the soul destroyer: around people, but without the need to be so emotionally close to them. She's kind of competent, you know. ashby: Yes. Mm-hmm. Coco the soul destroyer: I think the show does a good job of where there's this instance where, you know, one of the you know, one of her colleagues is like truly abused by a client ashby: Mm-hmm. Coco the soul destroyer: and then you see she's like, Let me take, let me handle that one. And you kinda think it's gonna be some like vengeance, justice. And it's ashby: Mm-hmm. Coco the soul destroyer: not. She's just like, you don't want her, you want me. And I can ashby: Mm-hmm. Coco the soul destroyer: handle you. And it's about being more of a Dom. ashby: Mm-hmm. Coco the soul destroyer: and it's it's smart. the show doesn't let you think, this is like this really empathetic heroic character. You're just like, this is a person who knows, can see people and understand what they want and then like solve the problem. ashby: And to be fair, the brothel, it does seem that this is her environment because relationships here are transactional. Even the relationships, yeah. Charles Coco the soul destroyer: Yeah. Char like Charles liked a brothel, uhhuh. ashby: liked a brothel. And when Charles did try to have women as girlfriends on the farm, they would eventually get into it and they would have a big fight. And so it's like there are just some people that a transactional situation Where they can work really hard and apply all of their mental energy. That's just the better situation for them. And and I think there's something about the brothel and her whole speeches throughout about how most people are dishonest, that there is something more honest about it. Coco the soul destroyer: D yeah, yeah, yeah. ashby: Being a wife and mother is not not transactional. A lot of the women in the book that Steinbeck describes, the the w the long-suffering wives of these hard men, have the worst lives imaginable. Okay. Coco the soul destroyer: Yeah. ashby: And they suck. And like I so I don't understand so so this idea that there's some savior from the brothel life Coco the soul destroyer: Mm-hmm. ashby: to get to be some man's ignored. wife who is gonna in one example get syphilis from the husband running around, lose their mind and then kill themselves, or is going to be like treated as a live-in servant who's never once spoken to like a human being, like Charles's mother. And or Coco the soul destroyer: That's true. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. ashby: even the way that he describes Liza as this who is Sam Hamilton's wife, the Irish woman in the book, as this like really hard and hard working but yeah. This Coco the soul destroyer: Protestant essentialist, yeah. ashby: very just resigned to a life of hard labor and hard morals woman this is no alternative. Coco the soul destroyer: And all along Sam Hamilton is like, I actually have affairs in my mind with a previous girlfriend. it's ashby: Yes. Coco the soul destroyer: like you're not even appreciated for the things that you do. ashby: The description that he gives of women's lives who do not live in a brothel and as if those women are the opposite of Kathy, as if they are what is what can sit is considered to be good. I have such a problem with this because the gap there is massive. And it's like he doesn't even realize it. It's like he is saying that this Coco the soul destroyer: No, he doesn't realize it. ashby: other life you could have is somehow better but but again, feminist theorists will tell you, in the brothel, you are making your own money. Okay. And sure, you can absolutely be like abused by your pimp or whatever, but you can be abused by your husband. who protects you from your protector is the question. These women's lives are not so different, that he really chalks it up to to be a good woman. You basically like suffer and have no self is what that that's what the opposite is. Coco the soul destroyer: Yeah. And especially in the the landscapes at least in this novel and this novel is like about America. It's like you're also isolated. You're ashby: Yeah. Coco the soul destroyer: like, yeah, so at least in the brothel you can have a little kiki, With your friends. Yeah. You can you can have a freaking ashby: You have friends, you have like or a semblance of friends. Coco the soul destroyer: drink if you feel like it. ashby: yeah, he's trying to like paint this picture but the cost, the cost of being a good woman in Steinbeck's eyes is to be completely devoid of self and to work yourself to death and to put the interests and the egos of all the men and people in your family above your own until you die. Now that hardly feels like much of a trade. So like if that's if that's what we're talking about in terms of the dynamic of being the Madonna or the whore, like it's hard to not empathize with Kathy is the problem. Coco the soul destroyer: Yeah, I think and sh she's found the life that works for her. Mm-hmm. But this ashby: It works for her. yeah. Okay. Coco the soul destroyer: thing about her murdering Faye is important because it comes back to maybe bite her or not. ashby: Mm-hmm. Coco the soul destroyer: Okay. Episode five, Departure. Ten ashby: Yeah. Coco the soul destroyer: years on, Caleb, Cal, and Aaron, now teenagers, the two sons, the twins, have primarily been raised by Lee while Adam remained emotionally distant. Yeah. For 10 years. He we're supposed to be like, this bitch is her evil. He had neglects within his own house his children for 10 years. ashby: want to say he also neglects Lee. Lee is his Coco the soul destroyer: yeah, yeah, yeah. ashby: faithful servant who raises these boys and is very much a part of this family and runs everything in his like mental absence. And I just want to say that like watching the show because of Hoon Lee's like incredible performance Coco the soul destroyer: Mm-hmm. ashby: I in these sections of the book felt a real sadness for the way that Adam Coco the soul destroyer: Yeah. ashby: was taking for granted Lee and like neglecting him as just another person. Because similar to what we're saying, the plight of like a woman isolated in these situations are, Lee is incredibly isolated in this situation. I mean, he's technically compensated, but his options are quite limited because of the time. so it's not like it's not exactly the same as a as like A wife who is not compensated for this yeah. Coco the soul destroyer: he's forced to use like a you know pigden or like an an accent ashby: Yeah. Coco the soul destroyer: because the that's the only way that white people will tolerate him and understand ashby: Yeah. Coco the soul destroyer: him. Only Sam Hamilton up until like, you know, later has like really clocked, like, wait, you're putting on this isn't really who you are, like there's something else there. And they have a real friendship. You know, that's the kind of person that Lee can befriend. But yes, Adam, you know, lives with this person, leaves. the entire running of his family to this person and doesn't really acknowledge him or treat him as an intellectual equal or just just a a person, yeah. ashby: Or even as just another human being. so I just had some real empathy for the same way that I read accounts of women who are left alone with the children and have no real partner in their husband. I felt a Coco the soul destroyer: Uhhuh, yeah. ashby: real sadness for his loneliness in this place and his isolation and his lack of choices as well. That I just want to say that Adam is guilty of inflicting. That fuck you, Adam, becomes the the thesis of this episode. Yeah. Coco the soul destroyer: Yep. Fuck you, Adam. This is fuck you, Adam. Yeah. so okay. The the boys have believed that their mother died, and shortly before his death, Samuel Hamilton confirms rumors that Kathy runs a brothel, hoping the truth emotionally frees Adam. I like this scene in the book and ashby: Mm-hmm. Coco the soul destroyer: in the movie. Adam confronts her, he Adam goes to the brothel and confronts her. Kathy taunts him and implies that Charles may have fathered their sons. Finally, understanding Kathy's true nature, Adam achieves closure. He becomes he becomes a more attentive father and moves the family to Selena's for a fuller social life. Lee, I'm eye rolling so hard at Adam. ashby: Yeah. Mm-hmm. Coco the soul destroyer: Lee wants to realize his long-term dream of opening a bookstore in San Francisco's Chinatown. Before leaving, Lee wants Adam to tell his sons about Kathy. though Adam resists. Lee's saying, like, tell tell your sons about Kathy because like you have this big potential bomb that could go off that will make them not trust you forever and like don't keep secrets because it will like long term not go well. Cal overhears them, so Cal now knows, arguing but says nothing to Aaron about their mother. Adam, who wrote Charles hoping to mend their differences, receives notification that his brother died and left $100,000 to him and Kathy. Adam mourning Charles's death sends Kathy the wedding day photograph of himself. Kathy and Charles. As Kathy stares at it, she imagines talking to Charles's specter or ghost. ashby: Mm-hmm. Coco the soul destroyer: this is just, I just think there's something very weird. This is not the most important thing from the show or from the book, but something that I'm preoccupied by, which is that Steinbeck just like over and over, just like gives Adam these windfalls of money. And I'm always just like, why? Why so many women the money is crazy. I calculated it the original hundred K that they get from their dad back in 1900 or whatever would have been four million dollars. ashby: Holy shit. Coco the soul destroyer: No, it's an amount of money that like you like once I understood that, I was like, yeah, he doesn't have to work anymore. So it's like, does Adam just like just sleep and eat and like stare off into the distance the entire time? Like, ashby: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Coco the soul destroyer: what is he doing with his time? ashby: Steinbeck's life history is like it's like very complicated, but he does have like a real kind of he is allegedly a sort of champion of the working man in some ways. Coco the soul destroyer: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's that's fair. Mm-hmm. ashby: and so I I suspect that he is saying something about like wealth that people don't have to work for, and he does draw he does draw Coco the soul destroyer: Fair enough. ashby: like a big comparison between other families and how much they are how hard they're working with, how little they have. And there is like a pretty, I think, fair discussion here at this section of the book about how the only people that can truly be lazy or ignorant are the poor, no matter how hard they try. That is how they're seen in the book. Yeah. And that when someone Coco the soul destroyer: that's true. Yeah. Mm-hmm. ashby: is lazy, as Adam's actions are, and like neglectful and That these gifts are wasted on a person like this who's just sitting and staring into space because a woman didn't provide him with enough ego and personality. So he's just depressed about it. but there is something that's like very tragic about that. The one like the one like Bible allegory I can see is like when someone is so like lucky and favored to the point of their detriment. Do you know what I mean? Coco the soul destroyer: Mm-hmm. ashby: It's like they're like, he's the favored son, like by God, like by fate. he continues to catch these windfalls that he's he's been he's been almost marked as good. Coco the soul destroyer: Yeah, I that makes sense. I take back ashby: It's like how he's always like these people get marked as evil, but he's like Coco the soul destroyer: Yeah, yeah, yeah. ashby: he's been marked as good and treated as and like rewarded by the universe as good in a way that he's undeserving of. And I think that that's interesting. Coco the soul destroyer: Yeah. I love that. Okay. I'm I'm on board. There is some Harry Potter ass nonsense about scars getting darker when someone has a different emotion. That's pretty crazy. ashby: the other thing is that one interesting like analysis I had read is that he uses inheritance as a vehicle Coco the soul destroyer: Mm. ashby: for like intergenerational trauma. So that, Coco the soul destroyer: Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. ashby: you know, later in the book when it comes out to Lee, Lee like scoffs at the irony that a person that he considers moral to a fault, Adam, And hurt by the evils of the world, Adam is lived his whole fortune on ill-gotten gains from his charlatan father, who probably Coco the soul destroyer: Mm-hmm. ashby: stole them all from war veterans. And then then in what we learn in the book that's not in the show is that the other windfall of money that he gets is because he writes to Charles, learns that Charles has died, and Charles has left his fortune to Adam. But he has also left a portion of it to Kathy. It is not made clear in the show, yeah. Coco the soul destroyer: It's not as clear in the show. They don't really get into that. And I think that's a really interesting part of the book because it's like it's like Charles is giving it's a weird fuck you somehow. this money ashby: Yeah, it's somehow. Coco the soul destroyer: is a way of saying something that's like, You made your bed now lie in it. Like I don't know. It's this ashby: I also think it's interesting because for Charles to do that, he has to almost assume that they've split up by now. To because if he were to just Coco the soul destroyer: He said he's poor bastard right from the beginning. Yeah. ashby: I know, but that but that's the thing is is that is that for him to he they've had no contact in any of this time. He doesn't Coco the soul destroyer: Mm-hmm. ashby: know that she's left him. But when Charles dies, he leaves the money separately. Because if he had just left it to Kathy, she and they were still married, you know, and well I guess they technically are, but if they were still together, then all that money just goes to Adam. There'd be almost no need to. But he he in his wisdom knows that by now she's bounced. And Well, a and at the very least if they can't find her, that he won't get that money. Do you know what I mean? So he holds some of it back for Kathy. It's really interesting and I do almost kinda wish they had put it in the show because it makes it makes that complicated thing a little more interesting. Coco the soul destroyer: Yeah. And the book that part is in it's like don't be an idiot and give this fifty K to Kate. They're or Kat you know, to Kate. Like there's like they're like she can't ashby: Yeah. Yeah, they're like, You could just keep it. She w there's no reason she needs to know. Coco the soul destroyer: claim it. She'd have to reveal who she is. You know, she'd have to ashby: Exactly. Coco the soul destroyer: reveal she's your wife. You can just keep it. Like I think it is kinda like implying like pretend say she's dead or whatever. And Adam is like such a goody two shoes ashby: Mm-hmm. Coco the soul destroyer: is like, no, I'm gonna go follow the rules and I'm gonna give it to her. But it's also you're he's like being pathetic by needing to go there. Yeah. ashby: That's the thing. He's being a path he's being pathetic. It's like he is so quote unquote good, like to a fault. to the point where it starts to inverse on itself and it's not even really a Coco the soul destroyer: Uh-huh. ashby: good action anymore. It's just like you're just Coco the soul destroyer: Cause they're like, don't give it to this evil woman, this mistress of the they they really do make a big deal about the fact that her sex work is ashby: Mm-hmm. Coco the soul destroyer: like the kinkier kind. It's more BDSM stuff. And they're like, it's the mark of being truly evil. And it's like very funny to read as a 2026 ashby: Mm-hmm. Coco the soul destroyer: person who has a much ashby: Yes. Coco the soul destroyer: better understanding of like sexuality and like maybe these kinks are a healthy thing to work out. ashby: Yes, exactly. Coco the soul destroyer: I'm sorry, John Steinbeck, missionary's not the only way you can do it. ashby: no, I think about that too. Another thing he puts down in the category of like all of the justifications for why he thinks Kathy is evil is the fact that she runs a brothel that caters to people with like sexual fetishes or or kinks. And now we're sort of just like decriminalized, Coco the soul destroyer: Turns out real successful business. ashby: very successful because she's good at figuring out what it is that people really want, what they really find as Coco the soul destroyer: Mm-hmm. ashby: transgressive, and that that's again maybe a service that she's doing, that she gives people a safe place to be themselves by letting them explore the dark side of themselves without visiting it on the rest of the world, who isn't consenting. She gives them a consenting place. And for that to Coco the soul destroyer: Mm. Yes, exactly. Mm-hmm. ashby: be a transaction, which in a lot of ways cleanses it of its ability to be something that could be harmful and exploitative to other people. But these people have no under the people in this time period have no understanding of that. They just continually refer to her establishment as a place of depravity and that what she does is she takes advantage and corrupts people. That she yeah. Coco the soul destroyer: Yeah, she's ruining these men in the in the in the world of the novel. ashby: Because she actually fulfills she gives them a safe space to like explore and fulfill their fantasies. And so they Coco the soul destroyer: Yeah. ashby: see that as like they see that as like a corrupting force in and of itself. That anyone who's Yeah, Coco the soul destroyer: It's very Puritan or something. ashby: anyone that's able to actually really go there is it's better to like live a c life of constant restraint or something like that. That Coco the soul destroyer: they create ashby: Yeah. Coco the soul destroyer: this world where it's like the different, brothels have different this one's for this type of guy, this one's for this type of guy. And like ashby: Specialties. This was for this type of guy, yeah. Coco the soul destroyer: I think it's it's okay if like character like, you know, it's okay if characters are like, that's like the that's like the really like bad one. But ashby: Yeah. Coco the soul destroyer: it's like I also think Steinbeck thinks that. Like d you yeah. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. ashby: No, no, he does. He makes it very clear he thinks that. Yeah. That I don't think it comes through so much in the show, although she does use like pretty much the exact dialogue, you know. She's explaining that one of her services that she offers when she has this unguarded moment of drinking with Faye is what we now know as edge play. But at the Coco the soul destroyer: Mm-hmm. ashby: time she's like, you know some of the men that I service, one of the things that they like has to do with razor blades and cuts and stuff like that. I just don't chalk it up to evilness that that Kathy runs a house that allows for people to explore these these kinks about themselves. But every other character has, you know, put this down to that she essentially runs some type of like dungeon, you know. But it's a consensual dungeon. Another thing that's interesting Coco the soul destroyer: It's amazing. ashby: this is not in the book, but it is a connection that's made on the show. I don't know if you Coco the soul destroyer: Mm-hmm. Yeah. ashby: noticed this, but around this part of the book, there's a visit to the farm by a respectable couple from town, the Bacons, who bring their ten-year-old daughter and Abra, who becomes important later in the book, to play with the boys Coco the soul destroyer: Yeah. Mm-hmm. ashby: while they while they chat. And Coco the soul destroyer: Yeah. ashby: Eventually the boys and Abra develop a love triangle later on. So she becomes this is an important introduction to this character while they're still living on the farm before they move to Salinas. Coco the soul destroyer: Mm-hmm. ashby: And you understand that Abra's father is like a wealthy, you know, social person in the town, Mr. Bacon. In the show, Mr. Bacon is the same one who abuses the girl from Faye's brothel. That yeah. Coco the soul destroyer: I missed it. Yeah. I just wasn't paying close enough attention to the actor. Yeah. ashby: And so the speech that Kathy gives him is like, you seem like a person who has a lot of power in town. And it's my experience that people who have a lot of power want to be relieved of it. and so she's like, Coco the soul destroyer: Yes, this is ashby: she creates a dom type of relationship with him. Coco the soul destroyer: Uh-huh. ashby: But this is a way of sort of bringing Kathy's worldview to the forefront, which is that people are always pretending like Coco the soul destroyer: Mm-hmm. ashby: goodness and that left unaddressed what their true natures are, they visit unconsensual harm on other people. Coco the soul destroyer: Mm-hmm. ashby: And then they just have Mr. Bacon play Mr. Bacon, Abra's dad, and he's like talked about like this just regular upstanding part of soci of society in the show. But that is not a connection in the book. Coco the soul destroyer: And in the book you do get in the book, you do get a sense that a Mr. Bacon is, he's a weasel. Like you kinda yeah, yeah. ashby: Yeah, y yeah. Coco the soul destroyer: He's he and that Abra does love hanging out at the Trask house way more than her own house. ashby: Mm-hmm. Coco the soul destroyer: not because her father's like abusive towards her, it's just that like he sucks and like ashby: Yeah, yeah. Coco the soul destroyer: kind of maybe a a a s like an embezzler type criminal. Mm-hmm. Yeah. ashby: Yes, that kind of guy. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So it's that's interesting. That's all. Coco the soul destroyer: so it's like Cal now knows that his mm mommy's ashby: Mm-hmm. Coco the soul destroyer: a whore and and Lee leaves. ashby: a couple things happened like out of order here. So they're living on the ranch, the impetus for Adam to go into town in the TV show and to actually create closure with Kate is that Samuel Hamilton has died, and he goes to the funeral of Samuel Hamilton, and while he's in town. He asks around, get some information from a bartender about Kate. This is what's happening in the show. And Coco the soul destroyer: Yes. Mm-hmm. ashby: goes to there and confronts her. And he, from that interaction, realizes that she's this is the only way she knows how to be, that she was never like a a golden doll who's caring, who wants to Coco the soul destroyer: my god, yeah. ashby: be a wife and mother. And he finds relief in that. That he wa it's a little bit what we talked about with sense and sensibility, that he He needed to understand the extent to which he was fooled, with the Willoughby character. And Coco the soul destroyer: Yes. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. ashby: that he gets some closure and he can let her go, in a way. It's like it's not like he's being deprived of this wonderful person that he that he thought she was, right? yeah. Coco the soul destroyer: Yeah, maybe you should have done this a decade ago. ashby: So then he cut he comes back from that relieved. He goes back home and he tells the boys, like, I think we should sell the house. He's also been influenced by this visit from the Bacons. Who are basically you should come to town, we have better schools. And I basically he makes a business proposition that he can help him rent his land or buy it or whatever. So in that chain of events, he's like, All right, boys, new chapter. We're gonna, we're gonna move to Salinas, we're gonna live in town, it's gonna be different. And he actually starts paying attention to his boys in a way that he hasn't for 10 years. And they are very moved by this change in his attitude Coco the soul destroyer: Mm-hmm. ashby: because they've long lived with feeling ignored by him. so whatever. And in that conversation where he's like, It's time to move to Salinas. I want to get over this, I want to have a you know, new chapter with the family. Lee is like, Well, okay, I would actually like to do something with my life now. And Lee Yeah. Coco the soul destroyer: Yeah, and I think the show does a really good job of of of letting you see that Lee is like, you just came home and like announced our whole life is changing ashby: Yes. Coco the soul destroyer: and like you didn't talk to me at all because you don't treat me like a person. Yeah. ashby: You don't see me. Yeah. Coco the soul destroyer: and then it's like, well then I'm gonna go do what I always wanted to do. ashby: And I think you get from a combination of the book in the show that Lee has a little bit of life is short because he and Sam Hamilton were true friends. And Coco the soul destroyer: Mm-hmm. ashby: for Sam Hamilton to die, like I think it really made it clear to him that now would be the time for him to try stuff if he's going to. And he wants to, you know, I think he also wanted to know that the boys would be okay and that this is signaling to him Adam is going to be a more present parent. If there was ever a time to go, this would be the time, right? And in the show Lee has his he goes to San Francisco, he makes a go of it. Okay, so we'll save that one. We'll save that. Coco the soul destroyer: Yeah. That's the next that's the next episode. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. ashby: Okay. Here's what's different about it, in the book apparently, is that Coco the soul destroyer: Mm-hmm. ashby: I th is that in the book there's two meetings with Kate. One, the first one is Sam Hamilton's death and he goes Coco the soul destroyer: Mm-hmm. ashby: to the funeral and meets with her, and then two, he goes to her to give her the money. Coco the soul destroyer: Yes, that's right. It's the two it's s it's separated. Which is just for efficiency, it makes sense to combine it. Yeah. ashby: is there's the two separate it's like for efficiency is fine. But it's just another example of even though he's met her, he quote unquote knows what she is. Coco the soul destroyer: The description in the book of him meeting her is one of the most I was like, my god, Steinbeck hates women moments because ashby: He hates women. Coco the soul destroyer: it's like her hands are brown and her ankles are swollen and she's re disgusting old hack ashby: Mm-hmm. Coco the soul destroyer: now and it's like she's like a good ten years younger minimum than Adam anyway, like maybe fifteen. A little bit ashby: But it's just she's aged a little and he's like, Yeah, now he can see her as this now she has no h power over him because she's this pathetic, falling apart old madam who's like, Coco the soul destroyer: She's like a little pudgy or something. it's just so ashby: It's just is so gross. Coco the soul destroyer: wild the description I was like. So he's not I I would say in the book, you know, it's the way that Steinbeck is writing about her. You get the sense, it's like it's not so much that he's free because he now sees, I actually didn't see you all along and I can finally see ashby: Mm-hmm. Coco the soul destroyer: you for a way. It's yes, it's there, but it's also like, I'm not like attracted to you anymore. ashby: I'm not missing out on anything because you're no longer like a Coco the soul destroyer: Yeah. ashby: twenty one year old girl that I can map my own thoughts and desires onto. Coco the soul destroyer: Yeah, you're you're not just like a victim that I found and I have a savior complex about it. ashby: Yeah. Now she's less attractive to him because she, she is a person who isn't dependent on him and that's less attractive. Yeah. She's not she's she's Coco the soul destroyer: be yeah, I mean sure, sure, sure. ashby: no longer something that he he feels like he's missing out on because now she's just another ig easy to ignore older middle-aged woman. And when we say older, in the show, she makes it clear that at this point in her life, she's 37. She says Coco the soul destroyer: Mm-hmm. ashby: to the mirror, I'm 37. I still have a little left in me. Okay. So she's she's our age. And he's like, real fall from grace here. meanwhile, he's been, I'm sure, he's nothing to like, you know, cha Coco the soul destroyer: Right home about. ashby: write home about. He's been sitting on a porch in the dust for years looking off into the distance. So in a way, Kathy wins. Because Coco the soul destroyer: and I will say obviously they couldn't go with that plot line in ashby: Yeah. Coco the soul destroyer: in the show because we have Florence Pew and the the worst they can do to her is give her some bad eyebrows. Like it's ashby: That's literally the worst they can do. Coco the soul destroyer: you know, it's just she's too stunning to even attempt. ashby: This is another observation we had, which is that the show has proven wrong a main thesis of this podcast, which is that as women get older, they get better at doing their hair and eyebrows. And in the show, in order to show that she is you know, fading a little bit, they just make it where her makeup gets more and more garish and her eyebrows in particular. Yeah. Coco the soul destroyer: Yeah, it's like she's like overdoing the makeup. It's like it's a and I I was like, you know, maybe it's just like the times. Like the you ashby: It's hard to know, because now Coco the soul destroyer: know, do you ever see people from the nineteen twenties? They wore s their makeup was weird. Little tiny lips? What was that? ashby: Yeah. But also there's so much more I would also just say we ha we have a Coco the soul destroyer: Her black outfits though and the bold lip is so hot and cool. ashby: It makes it really clear what she's about. She's like, I run a I run a sex dungeon. I run a Coco the soul destroyer: Mm-hmm. ashby: but it's a consensual sex dungeon. Coco the soul destroyer: Yeah, it's good marketing, walk around town like that. yes, anyway. ashby: Yeah, I think I think she's being very, She looks great. Yeah, but it's like that's the worst that they could do to Florence Pew is just have her her makeup be a little garish. Maybe we'll pause here. We'll get to we'll we'll cover more of Lee's story when we get there in the show because it's not here. but he basically in the show he tells he tells Adam that he would like to go to San Francisco and try to open a bookstore. And Coco the soul destroyer: Mm-hmm. ashby: Adam convinces him to stay on just long enough to move them to Selinas. So, okay, Coco the soul destroyer: Mm-hmm. ashby: now we'll we can move from there. Coco the soul destroyer: And I just I do want to just say shout out to Zoe because she did cut out just infinite scenes of men sitting around a table talking about the Bible and having debates about words. And it is referenced it occasionally in the show. But I'm just like, the scenes went on and on and on in the book. And Lee you get a portrait of like Lee as an intellectual, through those conversations. So as a character, you understand that. But I think my god, it just So much in the book. ashby: Yeah, and I just wanna say that in the criticism of the book at the time or like Coco the soul destroyer: Mm-hmm. ashby: of John Steinbeck at when he was a contemporary, one of the things that I'll share in the in the substack is a person going through when Steinbeck later wins the Nobel Prize, is that there's a like a New York Times review that is something says something to the effect of Crazy that the Nobel Committee chose him when his work at its best is guilty of tenth-grade philosophizing. Coco the soul destroyer: Thank fucking God. Read his ass. Because that's what I'm like I'm like, this is not smart. ashby: It's like exhausting the way that they just constantly chew on this stuff. But I ha Coco the soul destroyer: And they're like, Lee, you went and studied Hebrew? Just fuck off. I don't it's just so stupid. I'm sorry. ashby: Yeah, it's like, whoa. It's stupid. And I wanna another thing I wanna say is like if you're reading the book and like some reasonable criticism of it is that it gets tiresome the way that he has crafted Lee as this Coco the soul destroyer: Yeah. ashby: as this mystical Coco the soul destroyer: yeah. ashby: you know, dispensing ancient wisdom from the East stereotype of a character. Although for the time that he's writing, he is giving Lee a lot more. color. Coco the soul destroyer: I know, but you can feel John Steinbeck giving himself patting himself on the back for being woke or whatever, you know what I mean? ashby: Tons of pat on the back for it. But he's exoticizing this person. He's not giving them any real humanity. And it's a real magical, yeah, it's a definite the spiritual oriental, that's really what he becomes Coco the soul destroyer: Yeah. It's a borderline like magical Negro parallel type of thing. Yeah. Or the the native yeah, huh. Uh-huh. ashby: this like s wise sage from the east, right? That anchors this show. Coco the soul destroyer: Who who purpose serves though our lead Adam, who is a blank empty pit. ashby: Yes. That he's this prophet that just waits to be called on to for Adam's Coco the soul destroyer: Mm-hmm. ashby: and the the children's self actualization. Coco the soul destroyer: Yeah. A there are moments in the book that you get like leads humanity, but the show ashby: Yeah. Coco the soul destroyer: does takes it really to another level. and it's incredible. And I know Alexander Chi played a role behind the scenes in helping shape that character. ashby: And I I just want to say that in Zoe's interview, she's like she is intentionally trying to take Coco the soul destroyer: Mm-hmm. ashby: away some of the tiresome, repetitive, over exoticizing of Lee and to make him more of a human character. So if you call that woke, I'm actually still fine with it. So is the only thing I'll say. What does it even mean? Yeah. Okay, moving on. Coco the soul destroyer: Just yeah, again, the word woke, what does it mean? It's like, yeah. Okay. Now let's get into Lee's story even more. So episode six, The Great Try. So Lee has left. In San Francisco, racism in Chinatown's crime syndicates quash Lee's business dream. His once principled adoptive father, Lau, Now runs a gambling den. Lee returns to the struggling Trask family who welcome him back, though Lee demands full autonomy in running the household. Cal, believing he was born bad, aimlessly wanders around town. He follows and eventually meets Kathy, who is aging and becoming paranoid. She wants Aaron to continue believing she is dead. Meanwhile, former prostitute Ethel returns to blackmail Kathy about Faye's suspicious death. Kathy pays Ethel $100 and then frames it as a theft before sending her assistant Joe after her. Adam invests in a risky venture to ship chilled produce to eastern markets by railroad. When it fails, nearly bankrupting Adam. Aaron worries that girlfriend Abra will not now marry him. Hoping to recoup Adam's loss, Cal borrows $5,000 from Lee and partners with Will Hamilton, Samuel's son, to buy a bean contract, speculating prices will skyrocket if the US US enters the war. Cal urges Aaron to apply for early entrance to Stanford University. School of Elizabeth Holmes. ashby: Yes. Or as they call it in the show and in the book, Leland Stanford University. And kind of make clear like what an absolute asshole he was and like all of the horrible things that he did to become the magnet that he is, which I think was a nice reminder of what Zoe is trying to convey with the show, which is like about the crimes of our country that we carry with us, and then later Coco the soul destroyer: Mm. ashby: launder into greatness. So that now going to Stanford is like this incredibly lauded thing. But if you know that the history of Leland Stanford is like a criminal in charlatan then in his own way, then it's like it's interesting. It's interesting how we do things. okay. Coco the soul destroyer: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. There's there's so much that's not in the book that's in this episode. And it's really ashby: Yes. Coco the soul destroyer: wonderful because it it helps you understand why this character of Lee leaves and then comes back. Like, you get to see this portrait of racism and the opportunities available, as well as this like agency that's kind of imparted to Lee by a character he's discussing with in San Francisco who's like, you can go build this as your life if you choose to make this your life, and things will opportunities will come to you. ashby: Mm-hmm. Coco the soul destroyer: so I I loved this was one of my favorite episodes of the whole thing. ashby: Me too. I I wanted to talk about the character of Lee more because I think he really is like the like he you know, Florence Pugh is like the pulpy drive to come to the show, but then Lee and she retains your interest as the like the most fascinating character, but Lee really becomes the heart of the show. And God, Hoon Lee is just so good. He can convey so much Coco the soul destroyer: Nicht so geil. Mm-hmm. ashby: with just like a look and You just you develop, you really see him. Like at you're not seeing it from John Steinbeck's point of view. You're not seeing Adam as the main character, but you really see Lee as like he is this like unappreciated but loving force that is driving the whole family forward. Coco the soul destroyer: They would be freaking lost without him. Also, I think the the book allows you to be like Lee is basically Adam's wife in this very ashby: Mm-hmm. Coco the soul destroyer: racist way of understanding, ashby: Yeah. Coco the soul destroyer: you know, Asian men in America, like stereotypes. And the the show l says it out loud, like kind of is like, Well, you've been acting it in this role, in this capacity, but like take like take your ownership here. It's it's just a it's an inverse some way that's really wonderful. ashby: Yeah, it has a lot in common with I think later, more empathetic depictions of the mammy figure, of Coco the soul destroyer: Mm-hmm. ashby: their own participation in this subjectivity, their own complicated feelings about the care that they and the love and the labor that they provide for these families, the relationships that they have, but then the places where their own community makes them aware of their own exploitation in this Coco the soul destroyer: Mm-hmm. ashby: in this situation, reflecting that back to them and like what they choose to do with that. It's it's a really it's a real like catch twenty two for these characters. You really feel he is the parent. Yeah. Yeah. It is Coco the soul destroyer: 'Cause Lee is a p is a parent to these boys. He yes, uhhuh. And he ta he gets to take that on then and not in in this episode. ashby: Yeah. And yeah, and really and really own it and and it not be like something that he has chosen because there were no other choices. But but then I think after this scene of him going to San Francisco, he comes back and like embraces it and he's like, Yes, but I want my humanity to be re-recognized in this process. And I I have seen plenty of takes that like Steinbeck is not interested in motherhood, but the most that he explores it is through this character of Lee. Coco the soul destroyer: Which is I'm sorry, the only way that you can have ashby: Which is problematic. Coco the soul destroyer: motherhood is if a man does it, is like, wild dude, what ashby: Yeah. Coco the soul destroyer: is your freaking d what happened to you? Who hurt you? It's so fucked up. ashby: It is so it is so problematic from both angles because it because it doesn't allow for it doesn't allow for like the masculinity of the Lee character. They don't consider him like a second father. They really do just say he's a surrogate mother. so that belies so much of Steinbeck's like d e emasculation of Asian men and feminization of them. But But yeah, but it also is like throws motherhood under the bus for women because it's like saying, like here's how it looks when a man does it, because he's like refuses to explore it from women's perspective. Coco the soul destroyer: Yeah, in the book you're like Lee does just is like so invested in like cooking meals every night. ashby: Yeah. Coco the soul destroyer: Like a they really do like characterize it in that role. ashby: Mm-hmm. Coco the soul destroyer: And then in the I just think in the show, because of his performance, because you get to see his face, it is this like I could leave, but I can't can't leave because I I love these kids and I'm I'm afraid ashby: It it is truly a labor of love, yeah. Coco the soul destroyer: of what will happen if I leave. Like you really understand that, the stakes. ashby: And nobody really thanks him, but it is true that Adam would have died, and also the twins would have died if he had not come back in time, and if he had not early on been clocking that something was up with Kathy. So the scene in which she shoots Coco the soul destroyer: Mm-hmm. ashby: Adam and leaves them, she contrived a reason to send Lee away, and he immediately is clocking the change in her and knows that something is up and is reluctant to go and tries very hard. within what he can do to try to stay because he does fear for Adam and the boys. And Coco the soul destroyer: Yeah. ashby: he sees her all along. and I think that comes through more in the show that he is like an observant character. Coco the soul destroyer: Different in the show and in the book. In the book, him and Samuel Ad Hamilton have ashby: Yes. Coco the soul destroyer: like a conversation basically be like, there's a monster in this house. It it's it's ashby: There's something going on here. Coco the soul destroyer: much more like in line with like Steinbeck's view of Kathy as just evil and they're clocking that she's evil and she's not of this world. In the show, it's some conversation around that, but they're kind of like, are you picking up that like something's off in this house? Which ashby: Something's off, yeah. Coco the soul destroyer: is like a totally humans would be like this ashby: Yeah. Coco the soul destroyer: dynamic is weird between this couple. And I don't think it's gonna go well. ashby: Yeah, but I In the book, they make him so magical and they also make they Coco the soul destroyer: Uh-huh. ashby: also make Sam Hamilton magical too. But the idea Coco the soul destroyer: I know. ashby: being that these men are so extraordinarily learned that they're able to pick up on this and not only pick up on it, but Coco the soul destroyer: So stupid. ashby: add it to their quiver of philosophy of human nature. So that yeah. Coco the soul destroyer: And they're like studying psychology and they're just it's so jack off motion. ashby: It really is so jack off motion. Yeah. But in the show, it really is more like, yeah, because Leah's a smart and perceptive human that he just picks up that like something isn't right here. And it isn't it isn't so self-aggrandizing, that's all. Yeah. Coco the soul destroyer: show I'm sorry. Yeah. No, no, I don't it's not self-aggrand. It's like actually I think in the show you're like, this is a person who is somewhat isolated and they ashby: Mm-hmm. Coco the soul destroyer: have like books and in they can read in their intellectual because it's like a world that they have. ashby: But I do want to say that in the show when they move to Salinas and he dis he it's a little bit out of order that he decides to go, he they move to Salinas first and then he goes to have his big try in San Francisco, right? And in the show it is absolutely like heartbreaking. He has this horrible like falling out with Adam. And when he leaves, he Adam like says nothing to him. He says not thank you. He's like he's packing up and leaving. And he doesn't say thank you. He doesn't say I'm gonna miss you. Adam is unbelievably like cold and Coco the soul destroyer: Mm. ashby: like a a horribly like inhuman, no real like. appreciation or affection for Lee as he's leaving. And it is just devastating. he's standing there with his suitcase and Christopher Abbott just like looking off and like ignoring him, folds up his forwarding address and just puts it aside, like dismissive. And it's so painful. Like, you know, indifference like that, I think, to someone that you owe so much of your life to, is like one of the more evil things that I think a person can express. I really do think that. And the boys are saying goodbye to Lee. And in this scene, Christopher Abbott just announces, hey boys, let's go buy an automobile. And it's Coco the soul destroyer: Mm-hmm. ashby: such an obvious like parental ploy to buy their affections. and like soften the blow of Lee leaving. Anyway. Coco the soul destroyer: book I think it's more can it's more like I'm gonna go start a bookstore and everyone's like cool go start your bookstore like it's a l it's a different ashby: Yeah. Coco the soul destroyer: tone. It they they've added that into the show I think to give you the depth of the dynamic that we've been watching play out. Yeah. ashby: Yeah. So it is it is really painful. And they have a really big falling out because Lee is telling him that before he goes, it's really important that he tells the boys the truth about their mother. And Coco the soul destroyer: Mm-hmm. ashby: this is the core of their falling out. In the book, it's a little different. It's a little they have this conversation earlier and it's like he's like, I'll think about it, but he's not very committal. In the show, he presses him. And he's like, Before I leave, I think this is a really important thing that you need to do. And they have just a massive fight. Coco the soul destroyer: because the book is written in this way that they people have these arguments, but they're just debates. There's no Yeah, they're just Yeah, ashby: They're just philosophical chewin' the fat, really. Coco the soul destroyer: so it's you don't feel the heat and then in the show you're like, these are these two like Lee's like I'm ashby: In the show Coco the soul destroyer: looking out for you and your relationship with your sons and you're fucking it all up. ashby: In the show, what you see is a massive disagreement between two parents about how they should parent their children. And one person is not acknowledging it as such. One person is still, Coco the soul destroyer: Yes, that's right. Uh-huh. Yeah. Mm-hmm. ashby: Adam is still trying to live in fantasy land. He's refusing to acknowledge Lee's role as like part of the moral guidance of these children growing up. Instead, he receives it all as criticism and just wields an enormous amount of disrespect and racism toward him as a way, as Coco the soul destroyer: Yeah. Mm-hmm. ashby: a and it just creates this painful breach that was honestly really hard for me to watch. I was like, I was in just deep pain. Just I can't believe how unseen this character is at this moment. how unappreciated. It was very, just very so Coco the soul destroyer: Yeah. ashby: again, again, I just want to say fuck Adam. And I think Zoe Kazan is on our side with this. I think with that scene in particular Coco the soul destroyer: I know, I know, I know. ashby: She is just showing an enormous thing. Coco the soul destroyer: Do you wanna say I again, I love that episode because it's so much that's not in the book, like it rounds things out in such a beautiful way. But I do think that there's like an element of like I'm envious of you for watching the show first and then like going ashby: Yeah. Coco the soul destroyer: through the book experience because like I was I was just left so dry by the book. I'm excited I was excited to watch this episode. and I'm excited about the actors' performances are incredible. the show is so well done. but there's a part of me that was like, like let's get let's get to it. So yeah. ashby: Let's can we please get this show on the road? I totally hear that. And yeah, I'm I'm really glad that I watched it in the order that I did because yeah, it mm-hmm. Coco the soul destroyer: Because if you're so sick of Adam, you're kinda like I'm inv I'm not invested in you ashby: Yeah, but I I did appreciate it because I think she found a way to quickly sum up a level of indifference and like a a poor treatment of Lee in like a couple of scenes there with them having a true fight that Coco the soul destroyer: Mm-hmm, mm-hmm, mm-hmm. ashby: is subtle and never comes to a head really in the book. And Coco the soul destroyer: Mm-hmm. ashby: I think that's unfortunate because it makes it another point for Adam that he just doesn't ever have any conflict. Coco the soul destroyer: Yeah. ashby: He never acknowledges this situation. He's never made Coco the soul destroyer: Yeah. ashby: to face it in a way. It Coco the soul destroyer: Steinbeck, I he's not really challenging the status quo ashby: Mm. Coco the soul destroyer: at all. So, you know, That's not gonna challenge ashby: Mm-hmm. Coco the soul destroyer: the the reader, you know, to to make them confront this character's humanity and that Adam is just still seen as good within the book. Even if ashby: Yeah, it's still Coco the soul destroyer: it's like a lack of action is Not good, it's still seen as good. ashby: So I like that his neglect and his indifference it sh it's shown how how much it hurts Lee and how much it is bad for this family Coco the soul destroyer: Mm-hmm. ashby: and his lack of action in the show. I actually think that was a better turn. Okay, so at this point in the show, and I'm watching the show without having read the book, one of the reasons that Lee shares that he thinks it's so important for him to tell the truth to the boys now that they're in Salinas is because Lee has a really terrible backstory about his own mother and his father. Coco the soul destroyer: Forgot yes. Uhhuh. That is in the book. Uhhuh. ashby: And so I'm watching it in the show, and when he gets Coco the soul destroyer: Yeah. ashby: to this part, this is just like an absolutely gut-wrenching. story that he tells. And he tells Adam that part of what's important to know about this character is that he's born in America. But that is extremely unusual because at this point in t at the point in time, I think there were Chinese women at the point that he's an adult, but at the point in time when he would have been born, like thirty plus years ago, no Chinese women came to America. Only Chinese men were brought to America. To work on the railroads for the express purpose that they did not want there to be Chinese families in America. So it was only temporary male laborers. So Lee's backstory, the way that he's born in America, is that hit in the show, it's a little bit different, but the the main beats are his the main core thing is is the Coco the soul destroyer: The the main core story is the same. Mm-hmm. ashby: same, which is that his mother disguise is pregnant with him, disguises herself as a man. and comes to America and works on the railroads alongside the men and nobody notices. She and his father try to hatch a plan Coco the soul destroyer: Yeah, it is it's a it's explicitly dangerous situation to be in because and it in the book as well as ashby: A s explicitly bad situation. Yeah. Coco the soul destroyer: in the show that it's a dangerous situation that the because Lee is asked ashby: Yeah. Coco the soul destroyer: well, why wouldn't she just say I'm a woman and I'm pregnant ashby: Mm-hmm. Coco the soul destroyer: like and then be safe? And they're like, No, they don't want a Chinese population, they don't want ashby: Right. Coco the soul destroyer: you know, immigration to this country, you know, this is dangerous because they'll kill you, basically. ashby: Yes. But he uses this in the book as a moment to have a little bit of philosophizing on how strong women actually are, and to say that a woman who is a mother and who is in love is basically indestructible. And Coco the soul destroyer: Mm-hmm. ashby: this is a little bit problematic because it leans into like racist stereotypes about the the opposite thing, which is that pregnant women of other races are able to work so much harder for some reason, versus pregnant white women are always so frail. So it's not, I don't love it, Anyways, The long and short of it is eventually it's discovered that they have a plan for them to run away and have the baby and try to sort of like disappear into society, right? As she gets more and more pregnant. but the father has his leg broken, they're not able to enact this plan for them to sneak away from the work camps that they're a part of. And she ends up going into labor in the camp full of men. And it's discovered that she's a woman because she's in the middle of labor. it's a horrible story. It's a like horribly brutal, awful story. And the point of it is that like this is the way that Lee has come into the it comes into the world, that his Coco the soul destroyer: Mm-hmm. ashby: father's not able to save his mother from the brutality of the men of the camp once they discover that she's a woman, and that he's he's basically barely brought into the world. by his father who delivers him in the camp from his mother's dying body because of the attacks of the men in the camp. And the point for Lee's backstory is that while it is a horrible story, what he says is that there's something dreadful, there's something beautiful about the truth, even if it's a dreadful beauty, that he's glad that throughout his life his father always told him the truth of this story Coco the soul destroyer: Mm-hmm. Yeah. ashby: because it was an important thing that bonded him to his father and they they were shared they were were bonded in this trauma together that he and h his father would in reliving it by telling him it was very painful for him, but that that was important to show to him that it was painful for him, that they were in it together, and for him to know the truth that his father wouldn't lie to him and that this is the not be lied to about the world, to know that this is the brutality of the world, that this is the way the world is. So he doesn't go into the world with this false idea of it was some fairy tale that I was born. It does something to a person's identity to be lied to by their parents, that the world is rosier than it is, and that their Coco the soul destroyer: Yeah. ashby: origin story is rosier than it is. So that is the like purpose, the driving motivator for Lee to insist that Adam gets over his own bullshit and actually tells. the boys, the truth about their mother is alive and that she did abandon them. What I was joking about when I said that imagine if the most evil thing that existed was a woman who was just diabolically hellbent on whoring is is like that is that that seems to be the central shame here. This whole back half, the whole back half of the book is that it keeps being Coco the soul destroyer: I know. Yeah. It doesn't quite hold if you have a modern feelings about sex work. Yeah. ashby: Sex work. It's exactly right. And that is that's why it's so strange. And so Zoe's adaptation is important because it puts the emphasis not on the fact that it's embarrassing for Adam that his wife is a whore, and that it's embarrassing for the boys to find out that their mom abandoned them for a life in the brothel. It puts the emphasis on it's damaging to a relationship between father and son to like lie and not. let people know the truth about what your life's what your life origin story is. You end up having a divergence of shared memories and shared motivations. The whole thing about the father being absent for a big chunk of their life mentally, that's something that could be healed in that conversation of when your mother left, I took it so hard that I'm sorry I wasn't a real father to you. Yeah. Coco the soul destroyer: I was d depressed for ten years or whatever. Yeah. ashby: it's important for their relationship that he tells the truth. But in the book, the whole emphasis is really on just horrible, shameful things happen. And it's important that like the boys know about it. so that they're armed with the embarrassment of their mother being this evil whore. It's just so gross. Coco the soul destroyer: It's just I'm just having a hard time because I'm just like the it just is a different conception of the novel ashby: Mm-hmm. Coco the soul destroyer: if you say, Really this woman did not consent to have children ashby: Mm-hmm. Coco the soul destroyer: Like it just changes everything. Like I know she did some murdering too, but ashby: But it's different. the thing is, you have to understand that this whole book centers around what it does to these boys for their mother to be evil, that they're half evil, that evil's in their blood, right? What Coco the soul destroyer: Mm-hmm. Yeah, that's what that's what it's about. Uhhuh. ashby: do they know about their mother? She abandoned them, she has no backstory to speak of, and she Coco the soul destroyer: She shot their dad. ashby: shot their dad, and that she's a whore. None of those things in and of itself seem that evil other than that she abandoned them, right? that would actually have a real psychological effect. But Coco the soul destroyer: Yeah, it yes, it would hurt, uhhuh. ashby: we are told as the reader that Kathy is evil because of all these things that she's done, including the two murders. They don't well yeah, yeah, yeah. But but Coco the soul destroyer: We're basically told she's evil because she was born evil. Mm-hmm. ashby: her her evil actions include Coco the soul destroyer: Yeah. Uh-huh. ashby: being an embarrassing whore. Abortions, attempted abortions, Coco the soul destroyer: and a kinky one at that. ashby: being kinky, and then the two murders are part they're all equal. The sins are equal, which which by Coco the soul destroyer: Uh-huh. They're all equal. ashby: the way is a component of the Bible, which is that all sins are equal. Coco the soul destroyer: Also, and it's also like the Horan is the worst. that's that's the way the book frames it up, ashby: Yeah. But the but the book is framing it as the worst secret is that their mother abandoned them to be a whore and that she's a whore. And that that is the crux of the embarrassment here, that her evilness has to do with choosing whoring over being a wife and mother. That Coco the soul destroyer: Yeah. ashby: is all. That is all that Adam knows about her. And that is all that the boys know about her or the people in Salinas know about her, other than the sheriff. They don't know about the murdering part. They don't even, they don't even know about the abortion part. the only thing they know is that it's embarrassing to them. Coco the soul destroyer: I know, I know, I I know, I know, I know. That's such a good point. This is such a good point. ashby: That is the whole, that's the whole thing. It's one thing if he Coco the soul destroyer: Mm-hmm. ashby: knew or if he had found out in some way about her murdering her family. It would be one thing if they suspected or there was rumors about town that she had killed Faye. That's very different to be like, I want to withhold the depths of depravity of their mother from them because I don't want them to be thinking of themselves that they're capable of murder or patricide. But they don't even know that about her. The only thing is that they're embarrassed that she does sex work. Coco the soul destroyer: No, they're just like I'm bad. I have bad thoughts and it's like you got horny sometimes, like who cares? It's not bad. ashby: Yeah, I just it's not that's not what being bad that so even though Steinbeck has said that this Coco the soul destroyer: Yeah. I ashby: book is about the difference between like good and evil and the fatedness of your soul, whether or not you can be fated to do good deeds or bad deeds or whatever. And even Coco the soul destroyer: Thou mayest ashby: yeah, even though he said that that's what it's about, like the inheritance of evilness and goodness, what his conceptions and good of of good and evil are are just incorrect. They're just wrong. Coco the soul destroyer: Yeah. ashby: He's talking about something. else. I don't know what it is he's talking about, but it isn't actually good and evil. It's something else. So it Coco the soul destroyer: I know. Yeah. ashby: it it it's why it all kinds of falls apart. But yeah. Coco the soul destroyer: And what evil is, it's it's racism and brutality and killing in genocide and y y and sending children off to war. And these are the things that and that are evil. ashby: Thank you. This is the thing I can't get over is I feel like Steinbeck is talking about a freaking a a play version of good and evil. like talks a whole bunch in the book about the Hamilton family. It's not brought to the screen, so we haven't really brought it up. But a main component of his conception of a quote, good woman and mother is how much she is attached to the Bible. And Liza Hamilton is very into the Bible, but she is into a literal reading of the Bible. That what the Bible says is what it says. If it says this is good, then this is good. And if it says this is bad, then this is bad. Coco the soul destroyer: is making fun of her a little about it, but i it there's some ashby: Yeah, yeah. And he Coco the soul destroyer: nuance, but it's still it's so ashby: And it's and he considers Samuela a cut above because he's willing to struggle with Coco the soul destroyer: Mm. ashby: and engage with the actual text of the Bible and like really want to understand and philosophize about it. And Coco the soul destroyer: Yeah. ashby: he gives these lofty intellectual, you know, analysis of the Bible. He gives that to his male characters, Lee and Sam Hamilton, to to pick apart Coco the soul destroyer: Mm-hmm. ashby: because he thinks they're like capable of it and they are above it. But he gives to the simpler character, Liza Hamilton, that she can only have a flat understanding of what the Bible says and does. But it he doesn't even realize that he is guilty of a flat understanding of good and evil. He's not even aware that he is putting down he's so unself aware. Coco the soul destroyer: No, he's he's I just don't it's really hard. It's really hard again. It's really hard when you're like this male genius and then you're ashby: Mm-hmm. Coco the soul destroyer: just like, but I can see all the things that they can't see. So now I'm like, I'm sorry, I think you're kinda dumb. ashby: Mm-hmm. But also what the fuck? I think he's kinda dumb. So again, this whole Coco the soul destroyer: it's it's it's just so embarrassing to to pretend to this kind of intellect and then s for just so many decades people take it so seriously and then you engage with it again and ashby: To be a Nobel Prize winner. Coco the soul destroyer: then you're like, What the fuck? I'm glad that you called out though that some people at the time were like, excuse me, what the hell? ashby: Excuse me. So I this is a part of the book that I stopped reading for two reasons. One, this was a level of description of brutality that is the type of thing that I find gives me intrusive thoughts. And Coco the soul destroyer: Yeah. ashby: I was concerned when I watched the show that this would have been invented for Lee, because I saw that, you know, so much of the Lee scenes were really brought to life by Zoe and by Hoon Lee, that I wasn't sure that it was necessary to invent such a Difficult and brutal story, I don't know. But then when I read the book and it got there and it is something that he included, I'm just like, well, if this wasn't a real thing that happened, then I do have a problem with inventing a female character that horrors are visited upon for not many good reasons. it's just like to me, it illustrates Coco the soul destroyer: Hmm. Yeah, I think it's it's just ashby: a depth of a visiting of brutality that's like for a plot device that just bothers me. Coco the soul destroyer: Hmm. I think it's I don't know. I think that I think that it's important to include that this is what Chinese Americans have gone through. And I do think it's true. I think I think the movie Train Dreams also does a good job of ashby: Mm mm mm. Coco the soul destroyer: capturing the just the rampant violence and just disposability of, you know, ashby: Mm-hmm. Coco the soul destroyer: in immigrant workforce that you bring in. It whether it happens to this person or not, it happens ashby: Mm-hmm. Coco the soul destroyer: to people who are brought here. for this type of labor and if you're a woman in a bad circumstance so ashby: And I know that Steinbeck was like embedded in a lot of these places and he did want to bring more attention to the plight Coco the soul destroyer: Yeah. ashby: of workers and stuff like that. But at the same time, it was so brutal that I just am like, is this necessary? But then I read the book and it was in there and I was like, okay, I guess it was necessary to include. but it it just it hurts. And one of the reasons that it bothers me so much is that this whole tale is told. Again, in service of Adam. And he doesn't Coco the soul destroyer: Yeah. ashby: use it. He instead uses it, he walls himself off from the humanity that Lee is presenting to him. It doesn't bring them closer. It actually creates conflict with them. And it's just a refusal to acknowledge the legacy of horror and torture and pain that Lee himself has gone through, but just that that America is visiting upon people. And Adam just retreats further back into himself and his own righteousness. but in the book and in the show, they make a point of being like you have to understand that the way that the men in the camps were treated was so bad and so animalistic that they had become like strangers to themselves, that they did actually feel bad about the brutality that they visited on this woman when they discovered that she was a woman, and that as a result of that. The camp out of remorse raised Lee together as like a like a group child among them or whatever. Okay. It's rough though to again and again and again refer to Kathy as a monster when things like this are happening at the hands of men in this story. Coco the soul destroyer: Yeah, yeah, yeah. ashby: That things like this and the genocide of the Native Americans, like it's really difficult to keep going after this with his whole moralizing about good and evil when the very main thing that it seems like he's worried about is the embarrassment of their mom being a whore. Like, give me a fucking break. Evil, evil exists, Coco the soul destroyer: I know. I know. ashby: it exists in all of us, it can be brought out of all of us. remorse seems to be a key part of what he considers evil or not, but I don't. Whether or not a person feels bad about it later, doing some doing this like horrible, depraved act and killing this woman in such a brutal way, like to me that doesn't absolve them. I think there's a more interesting conversation there about the evilness that happens to people. And even if they feel bad about it, it doesn't undo the horrible things that they've done. So I like a bunch of other stuff is gonna happen in the book, but it's really a lot what what we get here is beat Coco the soul destroyer: No. Mm-hmm. ashby: after beat after beat of these horrible violent acts that happen in the book and they're not interrogated as evil in the same way that Seinbeck continues to come back to this core story of Kathy as this poisonous evil in this family. Coco the soul destroyer: And maybe I'm just like, I think that's partially where then it in did impact my viewing of the show because I'm like, I think the show just does a great job of of letting you see things, even ashby: Mm-hmm. Coco the soul destroyer: I don't think she's as much telling you what to think about it. It's just you ashby: Mm-hmm. Coco the soul destroyer: get to feel how you feel about it. And then sometimes if you feel uncomfortable, that's on you. That's not really quote unquote wokeness. But ashby: Yeah. Mm-hmm. Coco the soul destroyer: but it does also make me feel like, Well, this whole story, is this story even worthy of us hanging out with it? Like, you know, I mean, ashby: Yeah. Right. Coco the soul destroyer: we've had really interesting conversation about it. There's a lot of interesting stuff in it. But it's like it's not the Jane Austen stories, which ashby: Mm. Coco the soul destroyer: You can keep making them and they can stay alive and become alive in new ways. It's just sort of like, what is this moralizing, philosophizing kind of drivel that is anchored on the fact that women suck. I don't ashby: Yeah. Coco the soul destroyer: know. or like one bad woman can ruin everyone's life. I don't know. ashby: Yeah, or just that that thinks it's telling this big story about good and evil, but it has no facility or grasp with an entire half of the human population that even more so. That that's exactly Coco the soul destroyer: Even more so, because it's not just it's anyone who's a not a white guy. ashby: right. So it's like at the very least, he has a terrible flat dichotomy between women. And then beyond Coco the soul destroyer: Mm-hmm. ashby: that, a lack of humanity really for Coco the soul destroyer: Yeah. ashby: anyone who isn't white. So It's tr it's just obvious that this story got attention and cultural prominence, almost as Coco the soul destroyer: Uh-huh, huh. Yes. ashby: a result of some of its prejudices. And then we continue Coco the soul destroyer: Yes, thank you. ashby: to revisit it as if it is a quote unquote classic. And while we can critique it as a classic, you know, and say, like, here are the things, here are the failings of this time period and this author. It does start to beg the question of when do we stop paying attention to stuff like this? When do we stop saying that it has anything to say? Because we've Coco the soul destroyer: Yeah. ashby: now critiqued it to a place where it's like it the whole thing falls apart. Coco the soul destroyer: Can see through it. ashby: So I think of it as more of an artifact of this time. Coco the soul destroyer: and I think that's a good point. And I just I'm sorry, my one other critique is that he over and over again is like telling you who these characters are, but they don't feel consistent across the different chapters, across ashby: No. Coco the soul destroyer: the different eras of their life. Like they're all I don't think any of them have real. warmth or humor to them. Samuel Hamilton is the one that gets like the most like love. And it's like even he's a caricature of like what ashby: Mm-hmm. Coco the soul destroyer: an Irish person would be, but it's like because it's based off Steinbeck's grandpa or something that he kind of ashby: Mm-hmm. Coco the soul destroyer: like gives him a little more to him. I I just didn't I didn't find the the characters to be believable. And I also didn't like I I get a lot more out of the show because I can see the actors and they're bringing them to life. But even someone like Charles, it's like He just is like sitting around being like, Why didn't my daddy love me? I don't know. It just doesn't ashby: Yeah, yeah. It Coco the soul destroyer: really it doesn't it doesn't really feel true. ashby: It highly oversimplifies one aspect of each person as that being the Coco the soul destroyer: Thank you. Yeah. Yeah. ashby: core of their whole being and personality. And so Coco the soul destroyer: Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. ashby: yeah, they're like Charles' original wound is just that he felt neglected by his father and not loved as much as Adam. And he's just a unremorseful, selfish person. So he's jealous and that just Is his entire self, Charles just lives his entire life in this one, speck of land. He never wants to try anything, never wants to do anything new. His mind is absolutely blown by the existence of a telegram. no growth really happens. Even even in the encounter with Kathy and and Adam, you would think would be a sort of changing event for him or the death of his mother or whatever. So you're right. It's like. It doesn't feel consistent to how people actually are. It's like he tells you this person represents this emotion or this thing and they're gonna be that for forever. Coco the soul destroyer: Mm-hmm. And it doesn't even have the poetry of well, it's a fable. I don't know. There's just something like that's that lacks. Yeah, that yeah. okay, and end of the end ashby: Mm-hmm. That's missing. Yeah. All right, let's move to the end. Yeah. Coco the soul destroyer: of the story. Okay, so anyway, it's just Kathy. There's this last I don't even want to read the whole thing. It's like Kathy Is growing increasingly paranoid. She knows that there's this, this woman, Ethel, who used to work for Faye, who knows that Kathy killed Faye. And so it's just like there's this thread out there that's kind of threatening Kathy's safety. and so she's having her man, Joe, kind of the security guy, Joe, kind of go look for her. Joe's kind of scamming her out of money along the way. ashby: Mm-hmm. Coco the soul destroyer: and she's She's taking some drug. I it's I don't quite ashby: Morphine. Coco the soul destroyer: morphine is that it is. And so she's becoming increasingly paranoid and a little bit crazy and talking to herself, but talking to in the television show version, talking to Charles, not in the book, but you understand that she's becoming paranoid in the book as well. and kind of like ultimately kind of like decides to end her life. at the same time, it's like Adam has like ruined his fortune by investing in ice. I don't even want to get into the ice thing and loses a bunch of money. And Cal becomes fixated on like, I'm gonna give my dad a gift of a bunch of money, and that's gonna like make us whole again, and that's gonna like eliminate this family shame type of deal. And the brother, Aaron is like the more intellectual one, the quote unquote good one, because he has an A name and that's important. ashby: Mm-hmm. Coco the soul destroyer: and he's going to college. And so they're each doing the whole thing about giving their dad a gift of money versus being a good student and going to college. and obviously the way that he earns the money is through kind of capitalistic enterprising, that's kind of like war profiteering. and so Adam rejects this money and is like, I don't want this gift of yours, because I find it disgusting. You know, the way that these young men are going off to war. I feel icky about it. I don't feel comfortable taking this money. And it's like a rejection of the gift that really makes a lot of sense, but the way that he goes about it is a rejection of his son, which is wrong. and so because of all this stuff like unfolds, Cal is like tapped into his like dark thoughts and he shows his brother that mommy's a whore. And that makes Aaron kind of lose his grounding in in his own understanding and conception of himself and his family, and he joins the army in secret and goes off to war. And then Abra and Cal are like, actually, I want to fuck, do you want to fuck? And then they ashby: Mm-hmm. Coco the soul destroyer: get together, and then then this there's a sad part, which is that Adam ashby: Uh-huh. Coco the soul destroyer: suffers some strokes and he's not well, and then they learn that Aaron has died in war, and then Adam also has a a much more devastating stroke and it's a little bit of a push to be like, you have to forgive your son and like heal this generational trauma because you might die. And like you need to forgive Cal I f I probably missed some things because I went off the top of my head to do this and I could ashby: Uh-huh. Coco the soul destroyer: have read the description. But anything ashby: No. Coco the soul destroyer: I missed there. ashby: The only thing that you missed is that right around b right after Cal, because he was rejected Coco the soul destroyer: Mm-hmm. ashby: by his father when he gives him the gift to of money, he is angry, takes it out on Aaron by taking Aaron to the brothel to meet Kate. Aaron learns that Kate, this woman in front of him at the brothel, is in fact his mother. He puts all of it together and it like shatters his psyche and runs out of there, Coco the soul destroyer: sure. Mm-hmm. ashby: right? And then he he's not found for a couple days. He's like disappeared. And Kate apparently is also pretty transformed by this interaction that she had Coco the soul destroyer: Mm-hmm. ashby: Earlier when she had met Cal, she had basically been like, I don't want your brother to know that about me. Coco the soul destroyer: Mm-hmm. ashby: She had wanted to preserve him because in her mind, it seemed like Cal has more of her traits that she considers herself a monster and that she assumes Aaron is good. Coco the soul destroyer: That's right. ashby: I think she prefers Coco the soul destroyer: Mm-hmm. ashby: people who she can understand they have depraved motives. Coco the soul destroyer: right. There's this whole you there you're missing a piece and it's crazy. You feel really ashby: Yeah. Coco the soul destroyer: alarmed that other people have something you don't have and can't understand. ashby: She can't understand the motivations of people who are just good or kind or moral or whatever for no gain, no personal gain. And when she meets Aaron, she's like, she understands from what she's heard and everything that he is like innocent and like uncorrupted in this way. Coco the soul destroyer: Mm-hmm. ashby: And she wants him to remain that way. And I think because she is like moved that there was this side to Adam a little bit. and also I think she just doesn't understand it. she actually just doesn't Coco the soul destroyer: Mm-hmm. ashby: truck with that. She I think she prefers, yeah, somebody who Coco the soul destroyer: Mm-hmm. Someone you can negotiate with. Mm-hmm. ashby: gets it or whatever. everyone seems to agree that at this point in the book and in the show, the character of Aaron is insufferable. The characters seem to say that the character of Aaron is insufferable, including Lee, Coco the soul destroyer: Yeah, yeah, yeah. ashby: who has raised him from a baby, to be like, ugh, he's gotten a little Coco the soul destroyer: Uh-huh. ashby: bit like. Puritan in his black and white thinking. Coco the soul destroyer: Even Abra is like he's basically saying he wants to abstinent for life, and I'm like not about that in the book, which is wild, yeah. Mm-hmm. ashby: Yeah. Yeah, in the book. Yeah. And so so I don't know. I so what I have read is that Steinbeck was trying to create like a foil to Kathy, like someone who is so good, they don't struggle, but that they Coco the soul destroyer: Mm. ashby: are also kind of unreachable and ununderstandable Coco the soul destroyer: Mm-hmm. ashby: that you can you can get so far that direction. That it is impossible to connect with that person, and that he sees that part does work. And Coco the soul destroyer: Yeah. That's it is cool. It d it does work. Uh-huh. Mm-hmm. ashby: that you see that what he actually thinks is braver is a person like Cal who is struggling constantly. So with the character of Cal, what we see of Caleb is he wants to be good, but he finds himself tempted by like the desire to dominate, the desire to be liked, and the desire to, you know. be lauded or whatever, his ego. And so he's praying a lot to like, I want to be better like my brother. People seem to just like him more. And and when I see Coco the soul destroyer: Yeah. let me be good, let me be good. Yeah. Mm-hmm. ashby: that, I feel envious and want to hurt him. And he knows that that's wrong. But he doesn't he also doesn't see other people owning up to these types of impulses in themselves. So he thinks he's an anomaly, other than when he meets with his with his mother, who they have a kind of conversation where he's like, Do you ever feel like There's something missing from you, in terms of a conscience. And Coco the soul destroyer: Mm-hmm. ashby: she really sees herself in Cal in that way. so you know, the other thing that we see is so that when Kate dies, when she decides to take her own life because she's just driven to the edge of paranoia, she leaves all of her assets to Aaron, but not anything to Cal. And Coco the soul destroyer: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. ashby: again, the supposition there is that, She is saying that that she passes on something. that his inheritance of this, Puritan guy who wants to go into the church, that it would be interesting if his income is basically supplied from the sins of his mother, right? Coco the soul destroyer: Mm-hmm. ashby: That that would mirror the negative inheritance that Adam has gotten. So the the sheriff approaches Adam and explains that Kate has died and that she has left all her money to Aaron. Where's Aaron to give him the money? And he's like, Well, he's missing. we've had an altercation. And anyway, basically Adam is gonna get to keep this money or whatever, because the sheriff is like, Were you guys ever divorced? And he's No, we were still together. so That's also part of Adam's deterioration. Even though he'd had this contentious thing where he had more or less let her go. even when the sheriff tells him, he still says, my poor darling, he can't believe that she's killed herself or whatever. so anyway, I just wanted to point out that Kate also died and that she left her Coco the soul destroyer: She leaves the money to Aaron, yeah. ashby: In this time period she dies and leaves her money to Aaron and it's supposed to be some big symbol and I don't know. So Coco the soul destroyer: Yeah. I it's Abra's the I think that like Abra's the redeeming character somehow in the story ashby: Mm-hmm. Coco the soul destroyer: a little bit because it's like she's like, Cal, like I see you and like Aaron doesn't see me ashby: Mm-hmm. Coco the soul destroyer: and she she gets to be a more whole female character. You know, I'm not saying it's perfect, but she does get to be a more whole character in the in the story. and there's like a touch it it's very weird. weird and over dramatic in the book, but in the the show it's really well done about Lee and her and kind ashby: Mm-hmm. Coco the soul destroyer: of how she's kinda like he's like, I wish you were my daughter and he's kinda she's kinda like, I wish you were my dad. It's like very sweet. it's like kind of a found ashby: Yeah, they've developed a Coco the soul destroyer: family type of relationship that they have, ashby: Mm-hmm. Coco the soul destroyer: because she hangs out at their house all the time. I think the stuff when their children and like Aaron and Abra decide to be together is really weird. And like I think it's weird. ashby: Very weird. Coco the soul destroyer: I'm back right about it. Uhhuh. That's that's weird. ashby: I think it's weird too. I think it's weird. And I think that more people should say that it's weird because he talks about them playing games where she pretends to be Erin's mommy and he lays in her laps and cries. And we've Coco the soul destroyer: Mm-hmm. ashby: already heard him say that he thinks, quote, sex play among children is normal and fine. And it just it's icky, dude. It's icky. But he's clearly trying to draw this second. iteration of the way Kathy came between Charles and and Adam. But because he is so aggressive with his alliteration thing, he's like anyone with an A name is like baseline good. So you've got Aaron, Adam. It's over the top. Coco the soul destroyer: It's it's so stupid. ashby: Yeah. Abel, Aaron, that kind of thing, right? Like so they're all descendants of Abel, supposedly. Anyone with a C name is like bad. So what happens when you put a bad person in between a good and bad brother? You get the Kathy, you get the Kathy dynamic, right? What happens if you put a a re a relatively good person in between a good and bad brother? And then you get that actually the two good sides actually kind of repel each other. and Abra, you know, and Aaron sort of like they don't mix and she starts to lean more into. The relationship with Cal because she sees that he is constantly struggling with wanting to be good, but he isn't blind to the world. He understands that everyone has good and bad inside of them. He truly sees her as a person, Coco the soul destroyer: Mm-hmm. ashby: so sure, whatever. I know that like the big quote from this book has to do with Abra confessing that she doesn't think she's like as good as Aaron. She's like I think I'm good, but I'm not like that good. I'm not a goody two shoes. And that Lee saying to her, now that you don't have to be perfect, maybe you can be good, and that Lee becomes this character for all of these children that impresses upon them that it's their choices that makes them good or bad. And which is a wonderf Coco the soul destroyer: Yeah. This thou mayest Timshul type of concept that is through the book. Yeah. ashby: Yeah, is that that it's ultimately your choices. Now, one thing I liked in the it's a speech in the book, but it was more powerful in the show is Coco the soul destroyer: Mm-hmm. ashby: the conversation that Lee has with Cal after one of his, after he gets in trouble at some point, where he's like, whether or not, you know, whether you consider your father good and you wanna be worthy of him, and whether you consider your mother evil and you don't wanna be like her, no matter what you do in life, no matter what your parents have done, you will be the one that does it. And so Coco the soul destroyer: Mm-hmm. ashby: you can't absolve yourself by saying, I couldn't help it. It was just my Coco the soul destroyer: Mm-hmm. ashby: mother's bad blood. Or you can't like you can't insist to yourself that it's like somehow harder for you because it's still your choice no matter what. And I thought that that was really powerfully done in the show, that no matter what, it's you that's doing it. This is one Coco the soul destroyer: Yeah. Uh-huh. Yeah. ashby: of the only times that I feel like someone has brought up the idea of accountability, Coco the soul destroyer: Mm-hmm. ashby: that the rest of it is so fatalistic about whether you just are good or bad, and that that's actually what matters rather than your intent or what you actually do in the world, that it's gross and it makes me angry. But this is one of the few times where someone brings that concept in. Coco the soul destroyer: I I I do hope I I got angry. I've been angry. ashby: Yeah. Coco the soul destroyer: at one point we were talking before we started recording, like, well maybe there's some more reading I could do. And I was like, I need to get this out of my life. And I but it but I ashby: Yeah. Yes. Cause by the time you get here, you're worn out, dude. You're just worn out. Coco the soul destroyer: and I would just say like I think people should watch the show. I think the show is a is quite lovely and really interesting, and there's a lot of cool stuff, you know, in the show. But I do I a stand by the like, is this story like maybe we can set maybe we can say we can set the story aside from now on. ashby: True, true. That's just true. I think that we're not the only ones that think that. I think readers at reader no, no, no. Readers at Coco the soul destroyer: I can't imagine I why I'm alone. ashby: the time and people watching the show now and people reading the book now have all said that this back half just drags that you don't feel the same connection with Caleb and Aaron that you do with Charles and Adam, and that the sort of stakes feel different. It just isn't I think John Steinbeck is tired by the time he gets here. The other thing is I have learned a little bit about what John Steinbeck was going through in his life when he wrote this book. And he was in the middle of like his second or third divorce. So, surprise. I Coco the soul destroyer: Mm, surprising. ashby: he had at one point in in this process, he'd like one of his his ex wives had got a hundred thousand dollars from him. Like he's he's he's in the hole, right? Coco the soul destroyer: Mm-hmm. ashby: He remarries a 19-year-old singer who has his when he's Coco the soul destroyer: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. ashby: 45, who has his two boys, the second of which is named after him. and then their marriage falls apart, and he takes up with like a girl from the play, the playhouse that he goes to, who's like his long suffering wife after that, who does all the cleaning and stuff, but that he doesn't see as a person. And like, so I think his bitterness. About women comes through when you know that. Coco the soul destroyer: Mm-hmm. ashby: But critically, he has seen this as something he needs to write down is this family history and this Bible allegory for his two sons. And another thing that we've learned from his sons is that his he was a shitty dad. And one of the stories that's told as an example of this is that there is a part where the boys are young, they let their puppy in the house, the puppy, of course, relieves itself on the floor, and to punish the son for letting the dog in the house, John Steinbeck rubs his son's nose in the excrement. Yeah, this is who we're dealing with. Then in another example is that he would play a game with one of his sons where he the child would jump from the high chair into his arms. And then Coco the soul destroyer: That's really upsetting. Yeah. ashby: one day he decided to just let him fall to teach him the lesson that you can't trust people. And what his son has said later in life is: what he learned from that experience was just that his father was an asshole. So so I Coco the soul destroyer: Yeah Yep. Okay, honestly thank you. ashby: So I think what you get when you get here in the book is he's now sort of telling the modern story of parenting and and like he sucks at it. Like I think the reason that this part drags is that looking back at a different time and painting this different world and like you know, from this from looking back on your own childhood and like telling stuff in this retrospective way is really different than when he sort of I think is an analoguing Adam as himself. and trying to impart his experience of raising boys now. And I just think it falls flat because I don't think he's like that engaged in this process, Coco the soul destroyer: Mm mm. No. no wonder he thinks it's totally fine to say this character's good over and over again, even ashby: Yeah. Coco the soul destroyer: if he was a neglectful parent for a decade. ashby: And he he said that he wanted this to be something that he handed down to his sons and that it's supposed to be this whole Ken and Abel thing. But I think that that's why when you get to this part, it's like it falls apart a little bit because it has the same energy as when you ask a parent, like, hey, when you like confront them about things from your own childhood and they're just like they're just like, Well, you don't understand how it was when I was born. You know what I mean? It's just it's a lack of accountability by the time you get to the second part of the book. Coco the soul destroyer: Yeah, yeah. It's a it's just like too it's just too far too long too. And there's just like Yeah. Yeah. And ashby: And heavy and it's really heavy handed too. And we also don't have as much time with these characters, So it's hard to it's hard to Coco the soul destroyer: they're like kids, like it's just not and ashby: Yeah. Coco the soul destroyer: then suddenly they're teenagers and it's just like I don't ashby: Yeah. Coco the soul destroyer: sometimes I'm gonna be like Dude, if you could just be like, I'm gonna write stuff about murders at the brothel, I'd be like, fun. But you have to make it about so much. You have to make it so important. And then that's where I'm just like, now I'm over you, you know? ashby: To make it so heavy. Yeah. Well, and the thing we didn't get too much into is that this w started as a story about his own family. So his Coco the soul destroyer: Mm-hmm. ashby: his family is a descendant of the Hamiltons in the Salinas Valley in California. So Coco the soul destroyer: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. ashby: a lot of the story about Samuel Hamilton and Lisa and all there's so many so many stories in the book about the Hamilton children. Those are his relatives. And they're family Coco the soul destroyer: Yes, it is I see. Mm-hmm. ashby: friends of the Trasks. I truly Coco the soul destroyer: Mm-hmm. ashby: have no idea if the trasks are totally invented, if they're based on real people. who even knows, Coco the soul destroyer: I must assume they're invented. But you who knows, yeah. Mm-hmm. ashby: right? So, it's interesting that he wants to have this family saga that he passes down to his kids, but at the same time he has to invent this other family, or base on this other family that's the actual main characters of the book, Coco the soul destroyer: Mm-hmm. ashby: and wants to tell this weird Cain and Abel story. I just I I I can't quite mesh that in my mind. I understand why Zoe didn't put much of them in here because, it doesn't make sense. The the I they Coco the soul destroyer: And they don't matter, more ch there's some more fun parts of the book that are about them, but ashby: Yeah. Coco the soul destroyer: it's like they don't really matter to this story, yeah. ashby: The other thing I think is that everyone thinks that these stories are interesting to them and their family, but they're never interesting to other people. Coco the soul destroyer: Yeah, I would like actually hanging out in the Hamilton household and also ashby: Sure. Coco the soul destroyer: I the thing about Will only ultimately becoming a capitalist and being the only one ashby: Mm-hmm. Coco the soul destroyer: of them to make any money because of the rest of them kept like inventing and having schemes and like they're but they're all like full of life, like they're rich but not rich in wealth. Like, you know, there's like some good stuff there, not mixed with this story about like the the madam at the in the the kinkiest brothel ashby: Yeah, they just it doesn't go. Coco the soul destroyer: in town. Like I don't know why these things are put together. ashby: Yeah. So I know he tries Coco the soul destroyer: Yeah. ashby: to end on this note of like you can triumph over sin or whatever, but you're not ultimately left with a feeling of empowerment that you yourself can try you know, i it it doesn't actually feel like it adds up to anything. It's a lot of, you know, sound and fury signifying nothing at the end of the day. Coco the soul destroyer: Well, and I just mean like getting to the end of this book, I was like, Thank God I got to the end. I do not care that one of the sons dies in World War One. Yeah, and I'm saying that's a failure ashby: Yeah, I know. Coco the soul destroyer: of the author. If I no longer am invested, if I'm ashby: Yeah. Coco the soul destroyer: so over it, I do not care if you're killing off the kid. I don't care. Also, like a little bit weird to be like, my brother went off to war like two days ago and I'm just gonna like get with his girlfriend for life. ashby: Yeah, I think he's trying too hard to make everything symmetrical from the top end to the bottom end of the story. It has to be this repetitive generations thing. But it Coco the soul destroyer: It's fine. Yeah, yeah. It all has to be like it's too it's too yeah. ashby: I think it's interesting that where the book fails to like actually fill in anything that people care about, Zoe Kazan can't like she can't magic that out of thin air. She does a great job of bringing stuff to life that needed more humanity, but nobody Coco the soul destroyer: Yes, agreed. Mm-hmm. ashby: I don't think anybody would say that the like Aaron Ark or whatever was as affecting for them, So annoying. Like, Coco the soul destroyer: Yeah. ashby: Like I don't think any of us felt as invested in that second part of the story because it's that same problem where you watch a show and you're just like, this could be fixed with a conversation. I just can't, I Coco the soul destroyer: Yeah. ashby: can't be invested in this when all these people have every single tool that they could possibly need to overcome this, but they're Rigidity about the embarrassment of a woman doing sex work is like preventing this family from bonding. And I just don't feel bad for them. But it makes it hard to like. care because these characters have every luxury in life, They're Coco the soul destroyer: Yeah, they're just super rich. ashby: well educated. They have Lee there to talk to them about freaking Coco the soul destroyer: Mm-hmm. ashby: psychology and, you know, human nature. They have all the time in the world, it seems, to chew the fat about every topic under the sun. And they've contemplated the idea of s of agency. Coco the soul destroyer: They're kinda it's kinda like male podcaster t energy or something like that. ashby: But every one of them is so solipsistic Coco the soul destroyer: Yeah. ashby: and hung up on this that they it's their ultimate downfall. So I just don't know that we're left with anything. Do you know what I mean? Coco the soul destroyer: No, no, it's a it's like I'm left to kinda cold. Yeah. yeah. Mm-hmm. ashby: It's just like a cold ending there. So I I don't know if that's what he was going for. But yeah, Zoe can only do so much. Yeah. I the second part of the book just didn't really connect for me. Maybe has to do with the lack of Kathy, the Kathy paranoid thing. One thing I thought was kind of left on the table there was that it's entirely possible that she had an S T D and syphilis is one of those that kind of hurt the mind. Yeah. Coco the soul destroyer: Actually, make more sense. Cause it doesn't really, I think care Kathy doesn't quite hold as a character. Like it ashby: Yeah. Coco the soul destroyer: doesn't make sense. It is like, what is she, what does she want in life? We under ashby: Mm-hmm. Coco the soul destroyer: I think what we said earlier about like, well, she finds herself in this environment which is right and she's just suited for, but then she gets so paranoid about Ethel. It's just this whole thing, and it's like all Ethel has is like a couple of broken bottles from like a decade ago. ashby: A decade ago. Coco the soul destroyer: And you have blackmail on every important person in in the town. The sheriff is on your side. what are you afraid of? why would you be so paranoid? And why would you be so it it's like I don't think Steinbeck understands his own character necessarily because it's all like, I need to hide from the world. And she builds this little shelter inside of her room ashby: Mm-hmm. Coco the soul destroyer: in the book. And it's like it doesn't quite make sense. And it's almost like maybe you didn't know what to do. Yeah. ashby: I think he I it's really how it feels. It feels like the character of Kathy just peters out. It just feels like he's like, let's just say that, her mind just goes along with her body and then sh just wha the rantings of a crazy woman. Coco the soul destroyer: Yeah. Once her ankles got a little bit fat, we didn't need her anymore. ashby: Yeah, it's like well well honestly, once she stopped having such an effect on Adam, and she served her purpose in the story, which is Coco the soul destroyer: Mm-hmm. ashby: which is to tear this family apart because they're so embarrassed by her job, then I guess then Coco the soul destroyer: I think she just should've kept on whoring. I that's my version what would Kathy do in real life? She'd be like, I'll take out my enemies like a mob boss. I'm not gonna s sit here and be scared of them. And I'm just gonna run this brothel and I'm gonna just make a mountain of money and I'm gonna spend my money doing whatever the fuck I want. Like that's what I think actual Kathy ashby: And she says that. She says she's gonna Coco the soul destroyer: would have I don't this is my fantasy world where what happens to Kathy. ashby: Well, the one thing that did make sense is that they asked her at one point what she wanted. She was like, I'm saving up enough money to go take vengeance on the man that beat the shit out of me. And would Coco the soul destroyer: Makes sense. ashby: would read that sequel. Would read that. Sounds fascinating. What a mop boss would do. that makes sense to me. Coco the soul destroyer: And also, what a mob boss would do. Mm-hmm. You don't leave those open threads, you know, you you ashby: And so back to the idea of the beginning of the book is like the Cain and Abel story being the crux story of humanity, that the idea of rejection and then vengeance is like the dark parts of our soul that none of us can resist, right? I think a Kathy vengeance story is interesting. Do you know what Coco the soul destroyer: Mm-hmm. ashby: I mean? Like her being motivated by that. It's not a it's not a pure motivation by any means. Like her reaching a catharsis as a character and Creating some type of forgiveness for all the people in her life might have also been interesting. But that makes sense to me as a motivation that she'd want to do that. But then she just doesn't get to act it out because her mind fails her too soon. They also say that she has this morphine addiction. And here's the thing: earlier in the book, they give her morphine after she gets the shit beat out of her, right? And they make a big deal in the show and in the book that it's addictive and you have to be careful. The one moment early on in the book where she starts to worry that she's been exposed is she has a conversation with Charles who says when they give you the morphine, you talk in your sleep. And she believes Coco the soul destroyer: Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. ashby: that she may have accidentally exposed herself. And Coco the soul destroyer: Mm-hmm. ashby: then in the show, I don't know if this happens in the book, they make it seem like she's just nursed a morphine addiction for the better part of 30 years. But does that Coco the soul destroyer: yeah. ashby: make sense with a character who doesn't drink? Does that make Coco the soul destroyer: No, it doesn't make any sense. Because the whole character's the reason the character doesn't drink is to maintain control over and ashby: Exactly. And she's made it Coco the soul destroyer: also Trump doesn't drink, ashby: Yeah. Coco the soul destroyer: Joe Biden doesn't drink. There are people who are like, I don't drink because I don't lose control and that's not saying a good thing about them. ashby: Yes. Right. So it kinda doesn't make sense the idea that she has an addiction her whole life. I know she has pain from arthritis and stuff like that. Coco the soul destroyer: No, I I get I think that that's made more of a later on she has arthritis and this is what they're using it as an explanation. I it's just strange. It's just a strange ashby: Yeah. Or it's just a little Coco the soul destroyer: path for this character who kinda gets everything she wants. And I I think ashby: Yeah. Coco the soul destroyer: it would have been too uncomfortable for the novel to let her live. So they have to kill her. ashby: Yes. Or I think maybe what he was trying to get at is like her sins catch up with her, years and Coco the soul destroyer: Yeah, ashby: years of overwork and manipulating people, she's not able to keep the thread straight in her mind anymore. And that Coco the soul destroyer: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. ashby: and then she he does give the doctor. quite a few points in the book to say that whores live too hard of a life and that it starts to Coco the soul destroyer: Yeah, that's right. Mm-hmm. ashby: wear on them. So maybe the idea of the arthritis and stuff and then I think what's interesting that he doesn't say is that it's possible she's contracted an S T D that's started to deteriorate her mind. And that Coco the soul destroyer: Mm-hmm. ashby: so I that's what I'm taking away from it, even if that's not what's there, but it's just that she has grand plans of additional vengeance and evil that she'll get to wreck on the world, but that her mortal body has just failed her and all of her sins have caught up with her, basically. Coco the soul destroyer: Do in the book there's a whole thing about the the the cops basically find all her blackmail material ashby: Mm-hmm. Coco the soul destroyer: and then one guy's like, We'll bury it and thank God we've protected the men of this town. genuine and ashby: Yeah, gross. Coco the soul destroyer: and it's just so funny because I'm just like that hits differently in the Nepsteen world. Again, nothing ashby: It really does. Ugh yeah. Coco the soul destroyer: these men have maybe done consensual things in you know in a transaction. It's not the same, but still. ashby: So ultimately, unsatisfactory story. I guess the end of the the denouement or whatever is that Cal feels guilty about breaking his brother's brain to the point that he goes to war and gets himself killed and he has to get his father's blessing to move on in life and like overcome this mistake that he's made, right? Because he feels so guilty about it. And that's where we come back to the idea of guilt and remorse. He also in the book, there's a parallel drawn between the Hamilton's siblings who ap who accidental one of the siblings accidentally Coco the soul destroyer: Yeah. ashby: poisons his sister and then he kills himself because the guilt is so overwhelming. And this is supposed to be a kind of mirror to that where he feels so guilty that he could take he could overtake that on and then kill himself, which by the way, the Bible considers a sin. but with forgiveness and redemption, they're able to break that cycle. of revenge and guilt and all of and hatred and all of that, that he needs his father's redemptive love to continue on and actually continue to make good choices over sinful choices or whatever. Sure. My feeling about that was just sure. I I I Coco the soul destroyer: Sure. ashby: would have liked better to see some kind of happy ending for Lee, who's the only character I care about at this point in the story. But instead I got the very unfortunate sense that he's gonna end up like being a nursemaid to this man, and it being very sad. Yeah, God. It's like yeah, I'm not I'm not thrilled with any of those prospects. Coco the soul destroyer: no, yeah, then the Abra will have a child and then he'll have to raise Abra's child or whatever. I thought, Abra and Cal the actors, I like that was a good little spark. You did it. You did the little chemistry thing. Good job. Mm-hmm. ashby: Yeah, I thought she was interesting I thought she was interesting, just not we just didn't have enough time with her as a thinking adult to to see Coco the soul destroyer: No, and we're too if we read read the book, we're too creeped out by this whole childhood romance thing. Yeah. ashby: Yeah, by the whole situation. So Coco the soul destroyer: All right, Ashby. I know we have somehow gone longer than what we did for sensibility sensibility. Any final gripes that you wanna express about John Steinbeck? I don't know. I think, I know there's a lot of discourse, but I think throughout this conversation we've emphasized what we see, in this story. And even if we're ashby: Yes. I have one. Coco the soul destroyer: not in direct contention with the the pieces, yes. ashby: I have one gripe that I'm gonna leave to people to check out in the substack, which is Coco the soul destroyer: Yes, I'll huh. ashby: which is a lot of people don't know this, but grapes of wrath is like the big thing that he wrote. That's what I said, right? Grapes? I said crepes? Coco the soul destroyer: Gripes of wrath? I you said I know, but it sounded I think you said gripes of wrath or I just heard it that way. ashby: yes. Okay. So one of my gripes of wrath with Steinbeck is Coco the soul destroyer: Yeah. ashby: a lot of people consider grapes of wrath like this incredible masterpiece of his about the Dust Bowl and workers and stuff in America in in the Depression. I'm gonna include an Atlantic piece that I recommend everybody read that Coco the soul destroyer: Perfect. ashby: lays out that he very likely, at the let's say on the very least, giving him a ton of credit, ungenerously pulled from The field notes of a woman who was writing a very similar book at the time. Her name is Sonora Babb. Her story is fascinating. She later goes on to defy miscegenation laws and Coco the soul destroyer: Mm-hmm. ashby: marry a Chinese American director. And she has a really interesting life. Coco the soul destroyer: Wonderful. ashby: But it's something that has just bugged me for forever, is that he has. He basically rose to prominence after Grapes of Wrath. There was some Coco the soul destroyer: Mm. ashby: backlash to that book as well. But we wouldn't have even had East of Eden if he had properly credited her. So those are my those are my so that's my last. We could have been spared or Coco the soul destroyer: We could have been spared. my God. And I just another grapes of my wrath is that there's chapter 13 just opens with this weird essay about individualism, which then you have to like take a step back and be like, ashby: yeah. Meditate on communism. Coco the soul destroyer: it's the 1950s. He's talking about communism and he's ashby: Ble Coco the soul destroyer: like, and I will stand up for this. And I just want to like, again, Jack Off emoji. ashby: so I'll include some other stuff that I that I think is interesting, some analysis of psychopathy and some other some other thoughts about like Coco the soul destroyer: Yeah, you did so much homework. I'd love to include for for the peoples. ashby: things that I think are f are fascinating. I do think there could be an interesting chat in the comment section maybe about how our conceptions of someone like Kathy mirror the current conversation around someone like Elizabeth Holmes. I've been reading Coco the soul destroyer: A hundred percent yes. ashby: a lot about that. And so I don't know. So maybe we will maybe Coco the soul destroyer: I'd love to see those pieces. Yeah. Uhhuh. ashby: we'll do one on the Elizabeth Holmes documentary and talk about the way female criminals Coco the soul destroyer: You're gonna have to sit through it if you wanna do an episode about it. ashby: The way female criminals are portrayed now versus then and and then the last thing that I wanna say is just I don't know if you noticed this, but we're we are named Coco and Ashby. So would you say would you say that the allegory Coco the soul destroyer: And I am a Scorpio. ashby: holds? Coco the soul destroyer: I do also always say, Ashby, you're so boring because you're just so good and you're talking about God all the time and it's just like, my God. Yeah, and I'm out here s thinking my seedy thoughts, you know? ashby: I'm such a goody two shoes. That's what people are always saying about me. Coco the soul destroyer: Corrupting the men of the town. ashby: I I love that. Yeah. So Coco corrupting the men of the town, Coco the soul destroyer: Yeah. ashby: signing off, and then Coco the soul destroyer: I can't believe I never would have never thought about that. That's amazing. ashby: I'm gonna go back to sitting and doing nothing on the front porch. Staring into the distance. Yeah. And ignoring my children. AKA Salami. Coco the soul destroyer: distance. Ignoring your children, salami. Love ya. Bye, Ashley. ashby: Love ya, bye. Any final any final gripes or thoughts? Coco the soul destroyer: I I can't wait to put this book on the bookshelf and then be like, I'm gonna watch some I'm gonna watch Felicity. I'm gonna just ashby: Yeah. Coco the soul destroyer: go watch a bunch of episodes of Felicity, and I'm gonna be like, you know what? JJ Abrams, he is great at writing a complicated, realistic female character that you can root for that also is flawed. Felicity, Sidney Bristow, many of the characters from Lost. We can have our gripes about many male directors ashby: Mm-mm. Coco the soul destroyer: and I say that's not one that I have about JJ Abrams. I can't end on a note propping ashby: All right. Coco the soul destroyer: up a dude, right? It can't leave any other way. All right. Way to go, ashby: Absolutely not, no. okay. Coco the soul destroyer: Zoe Kazan.