Molly C.V. Nusberg

Hi, this is Molly C.V. Nusberg, digital producer at Fresh Air. And this is Terry Gross, host of the show. One of the things I do is write the weekly newsletter. And I'm a newsletter fan. I read it every Saturday after breakfast. The newsletter includes all the week's shows, staff recommendations, and Molly picks timely highlights from the archive. It's a fun read.

It's also the only place where we tell you what's coming up next week, an exclusive. So subscribe at whyy.org slash fresh air and look for an email from Molly every Saturday morning.

Hi, this is Molly C.V. Nusberg, digital producer at Fresh Air. And this is Terry Gross, host of the show. One of the things I do is write the weekly newsletter. And I'm a newsletter fan. I read it every Saturday after breakfast. The newsletter includes all the week's shows, staff recommendations, and Molly picks timely highlights from the archive. It's a fun read.

It's also the only place where we tell you what's coming up next week, an exclusive. So subscribe at whyy.org slash fresh air and look for an email from Molly every Saturday morning.

Hi, this is Molly Sivinesper, digital producer at Fresh Air. And this is Terry Gross, host of the show. One of the things I do is write the weekly newsletter.

It's a fun read. It's also the only place where we tell you what's coming up next week, an exclusive.

Hi, this is Molly C.V. Nusberg, digital producer at Fresh Air. And this is Terry Gross, host of the show. One of the things I do is write the weekly newsletter.

It's a fun read. It's also the only place where we tell you what's coming up next week, an exclusive.

Hi, this is Molly C.V. Nusberg, digital producer at Fresh Air. And this is Terry Gross, host of the show. One of the things I do is write the weekly newsletter. And I'm a newsletter fan. I read it every Saturday after breakfast. The newsletter includes all the week's shows, staff recommendations, and Molly picks timely highlights from the archive. It's a fun read.

It's also the only place where we tell you what's coming up next week in exclusive. So subscribe at whyy.org slash fresh air and look for an email from Molly every Saturday morning.

Tachy at 120, pulse ox borderline at 90.

Hi, this is Molly Sivinesper, digital producer at Fresh Air. And this is Terry Gross, host of the show. One of the things I do is write the weekly newsletter. And I'm a newsletter fan. I read it every Saturday after breakfast. The newsletter includes all the week's shows, staff recommendations, and Molly picks timely highlights from the archive. It's a fun read.

It's also the only place where we tell you what's coming up next week, an exclusive. So subscribe at whyy.org slash fresh air and look for an email from Molly every Saturday morning.

Hi, this is Molly C.V. Nusberg, digital producer at Fresh Air. And this is Terry Gross, host of the show. One of the things I do is write the weekly newsletter.

It's a fun read. It's also the only place where we tell you what's coming up next week in exclusive.

Hi, this is Molly C.V. Nusberg, digital producer at Fresh Air. And this is Terry Gross, host of the show. One of the things I do is write the weekly newsletter. And I'm a newsletter fan. I read it every Saturday after breakfast. The newsletter includes all the week's shows, staff recommendations, and Molly picks timely highlights from the archive. It's a fun read.

It's also the only place where we tell you what's coming up next week, an exclusive. So subscribe at whyy.org slash fresh air and look for an email from Molly every Saturday morning.

You understand this fantasy of having people watch you and admire you as you're beaten but remain defiant? Yes.

Something that really upsets the girl in this story, she hates the beatings, she hates the incest, she hates her stepfather. But she's turned on by the stories she tells herself about the beatings. And she feels terribly guilty about this. Absolutely. And she thinks that maybe she's as guilty as her stepfather is. That's something you understand, too?

I think one of the reasons why someone might be reluctant to admit to a feeling like that is not only their own kind of fear of what they were feeling... But also the fear that somebody would say, well, see, that must have meant she enjoyed it.

Never goes away. When you hear about somebody having experienced sexual pleasure while they were being victimized... Well, what upsets me is that they're then ashamed of themselves for it.

And he was the man who abused you when you were growing up?

So you must have been very angry with your mother for staying with your stepfather after she knew for certain what was happening to you.

Dorothy, I'm going to ask you to read something from the preface to a collection of short stories that came out a few years ago. And the collection of short stories is called Trash. Would you read the opening of the preface for us? It's titled Deciding to Live.

Why do you think you went through a self-destructive period after having decided to live and getting away from home? Oh, dear.

You did something that it sounds like nobody else in your family had done before. You left home. You went someplace else. You tried to have a life different from the lives you had seen around you. How did you make that move?

Wow.

Something else that set you apart from your family and probably from a lot of people who you knew growing up is that you're a lesbian. Yes. How old were you when you figured that out?

Now, when you were young, things were much less in the open about homosexuality than now. And I think people who were gay and lesbian were really encouraged to think of themselves as sick and perverted. Coming from a kind of background where you were already really worried and really guilty about who you were and why your stepfather was abusing you,

thinking that you liked girls probably or might have brought on... It made it more complicated.

Well, I'm sure a lot of our listeners are thinking that right now, frankly.

Well, Dorothy Allison, I want to thank you very much for talking with us.