John Vaillant is a freelance writer whose work has appeared in The New Yorker, The Atlantic, National Geographic, and Outside, among others. His first book, The Golden Spruce (Norton, 2005), was a bestseller and won several awards, including the Governor General's Award for Non-Fiction (Canada). His second nonfiction book, The Tiger (Knopf, 2010), is also an award-winning bestseller. His latest book, a novel, is The Jaguar's Children.
Reflection
In the penultimate event of the APEX season, author and journalist John Vaillant talked to the SUU community about his trip to the Russian far-east. The lecture in Thorley Recital Hall covered his book, “The Tiger: A True Story of Vengeance and Survival,” in addition to his process of discovering and crafting a story.
Quite often, books are turned into films, but the adaptation is rarely reversed. Vaillant, however, was so intrigued by a documentary about a Russian tiger that he felt compelled to create a book about it. This movie, which he saw at a Canadian film festival, told the story of a wounded tiger who tracked the hunter who shot him, and after successfully killing the man, went on to attack others.
Vaillant spent quite a bit of time with Yuri, a warden who was tasked with capturing and executing the tiger once it started attacking people. During their conversations, Yuri explained that while hunting tigers was illegal, it became necessary for those in remote areas, because following the collapse of communism, they had no way to receive help when circumstances became dire.
It wasn’t long until Vaillant realized that this story was deeper than it first appeared.
Even though it happened decades ago, Russia is still damaged from its governmental collapse, and one of the consequences showed up in an interview. Yuri told Vaillant that he could adjust his quotes to make the story more interesting, which seemed to be a common request during interviews. This showed him that lines are still blurred when it comes to facts in the country, which is understandable due to long-term corruption and propaganda.
Although he allowed those he interviewed to become his teachers, Vaillant rigorously fact-checked statements from interviews to ensure he had an accurate story. One of those he interviewed, a seemingly-unimportant man in the history of this event, was surprised that anyone would want to talk to him about it, and throughout the six-hour continuous interview, the man was finally able to share his story after years of ignoring the trauma of it.
Throughout the process of researching and writing his book, Vaillant’s goal was to create empathy and to truly understand what motivates individuals. In his closing remarks to the audience, Vaillant said that in polarized times, learning how to activate empathy is an individual's strongest tool because it allows them to find common humanity.
“The Tiger: A True Story of Vengeance and Survival” can be purchased online through Amazon or other retailers.
The spring 2019 season of A.P.E.X. Events will conclude on Tuesday, April 2, with Paul Zak giving the Festival of Excellence Keynote. The lecture will take place from 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. in the Gilbert Great Hall of the Hunter Conference Center.
John Vaillant Podcast Transcript
[00:00:01] Hey everyone this is Lynn Vartan and you are listening to the A.P.E.X Hour on KSUU Thunder 91.1. In this show you get more personal time with the guests who visit Southern Utah University from all over. Learning more about their stories and opinions beyond their presentations on stage. We will also give you some new music to listen to and hope to turn you on the them and new genres.
[00:00:26] You can find this here every Thursday at 3pm or on the Web at suu.edu/apex but for now welcome to this week's show here on Thunder 91.1.
[00:00:45] All Right. Well welcome to this week's show everyone how are you doing. This is Lynn Vartan You're listening to the A.P.E.X Hour are you listening KSUU Thunder 91.1. Today we have been talking about Russia and what some people think of as the Siberian tiger. But we'll hear more about what that Tiger actually is. I have the author of The Tiger here in the studio with me. Welcome John Valiant.
[00:01:10] Thank you Lynn. So good to be here.
[00:01:12] Well it's been great to have you on campus these few days and I understand that you're doing some traveling in southern Utah. So welcome to southern Utah.
[00:01:20] It's been awesome.
[00:01:22] Well I'd love to get into talking about the book but first can you tell us a little bit about who you are. For people who might not know as a writer and some of them. Of course, the tiger but your other two books as well and kind of where you're living now and how you came to be from there to here.
[00:01:39] Yeah. I'm a journalist and author based now in Vancouver British Columbia but born and raised in Cambridge Massachusetts and I think that's where I learned my love of good writing and grew up with the New Yorker in the House and reading Boston Globe The New York Times and always wanted to do that kind of writing. And I was lucky enough to get into the New Yorker a couple of times early on in my career and I was always interested in adventure stories and particularly in color stories about collisions between human ambition and the natural world and where human plans didn't always go according to the human plan.
[00:02:21] Right.
[00:02:22] So I started out doing that and then got into deeper longer projects and my first book which is called The Golden Spruce about a unique tree that was cut down by some people say he was a crazy man and other people say he was a visionary. That first showed up in the New Yorker and The New Yorkers you know great platform for launching a book. And that's really how it started for me.
[00:02:48] Great. Well the tiger has been the book that we've been reading on campus and several of our classes have been reading it and I know that you've told the synopsis tale a few times but in your own words would you tell our audiences for anybody who might not know what the tiger is about.
[00:03:05] Sure. The tiger in the title is a Siberian tiger. The that the big furry tiger that lives in Russia that you know lives in the snow. Locally they're called Amor Tigers after the river that flows through that region of far eastern Russia which is on the Pacific coast a long way from Moscow and it's the only place where those tigers live. Now there's about maybe 500 of them left on they used to live all over eastern Russia and down into China. But they've been killed off. And this story takes place in 1997 a few years after the Berlin Wall came down and Communism collapsed across Eastern Europe and Russia and that led to total economic and social chaos. And one of the results was a lot of people became unemployed in Russia literally had to live off the forest. So, these are people who might have been loggers or miners. You know imagine that happening in Utah and people basically being forced to hunt and fish simply to feed their family. And the Chinese border is right there and there's always been for centuries now a market for tiger parts for traditional Chinese medicine in China. And so, Russians started killing their own tigers and selling them to the Chinese. And in this particular case this particular Tiger was wounded by a poacher and the tiger identified the man who shot him and hunt him down and killed him and that's really just the beginning of the story and then it turns into this. Basically, this really brutal cat and mouse game between hunters and the tiger as the tiger converts to man eating. And this all really happened in the winter of 1997.
[00:04:51] One of the parts in the book and you just mentioned it was this this trade for tigers and tiger parts and I was I think a bleakly aware of that. But to read some of the details about it in your book and even the tiger farms or parks could you talk about that aspect of it.
[00:05:10] Yeah, I mean that for the tiger is an Asian animal they don't live in Africa they live only in Asia. And for almost every Asian whether it's a tribal group you know from hundreds or thousands of years ago or even in contemporary culture the tiger is a very potent animal. And in Asia that reverence is expressed and often a desire for parts of the Tiger some people like to have the clauses and amulets some people believe the whiskers will give them wisdom or insight or special hours some people make soup or wine out of the bones to heal their rheumatism. People like the skins as a status symbol. So, this has been in place and been the case for a long time. But the tiger population needless to say has plummeted over the past century. Now are across all of Asia a huge place. There may be 3000 tigers left in the wild. And so, with every tiger that's killed it really impacts the gene pool and the potential you know the they get they grow closer to extinction. So. So this market now is much more problematic and people are working hard to change attitudes toward tigers and in Asia and the Russians were actually because they're really culturally different. They were the first to declare the tiger a protected species in the 1940s and so which was a really long time ago for Tiger protection. People know still hunt wolves and all kinds of predators. And that was happening all across North America. So, Russia was actually quite ahead of its time in that regard.
[00:06:50] That's really interesting and I keep going back to that point where Russia was one of the was the first to protect it. And now the relationship is so much more complex and it's just fascinating in that way. Can you describe I mean you do such a beautiful job in the book but can you describe the enormity of this animal and just give us paint us a little bit of a picture of a maybe not this tiger but of these tigers these types of tigers.
[00:07:21] Sure are they. To give you an idea how different Amor or Siberian tigers are an early Russian researcher from the 1990s are actually no 1920s. He thought that the Russian Tiger was a throwback to the Pleistocene to the era of the Cave Bear and the woolly mammoth. Wow they were so big and so furry and so different. You know when we think of tigers we think of India and jungles and these sleek animals that laze around in the heat. And in Russia where Amor tigers live it's 50 below zero in the winter and they know they're not like bears they can't hibernate. They are hunting all winter long and they don't hunt in packs or groups. So, a single Tiger has to look out for itself if it's a female. She might have four cubs to feed. So, she has to be an incredible Hunter and keep her and her cubs alive through minus 40 minus 50 temperatures. And so, they're really in another class from all other tigers or really other big cats and they can also grow to be five or six hundred pounds now and they can jump 20 or 30 feet you know and they will eat anything if they have to. You know they live on typically boar or deer but they will eat anything with protein and you know they'll eat ducks’ smelly termites. And if they are forced to they'll eat people. And so, they're an extraordinary presence in the forest and a lot of hunters and people who are who live in that part of the world to talk about Tiger energy and not in a mystical New Agey way but just the woods vibrate with it when they're nearby.
[00:08:55] That energy that has been talked about a lot in the book but not just the supernatural energy but also energy from people who actually had contact with the Tigers some of the characters and Yuri Trosch in the book who actually had direct contact then was sort of marked in a way or almost felt marked where he anytime he was around and a tiger from then on had a very drastic reaction to him. Can you talk a little bit about that that aspect of it which would get into little more than the mental energy and this idea of how the Tigers think are a sure thing?
[00:09:35] Yeah. So, I mean to begin with tigers are higher mammals you know so they can you know they don't have speech but they have memories and they have strategy. And you have to be smart to be a good hunter it's very different than being a deer where you just eat leaves of grass. I mean hunters have to create successful situations or else they starve to death. So, they have to read the landscape they have to understand prey and the hunters the human hunters who are doing exactly the same thing in the same forest pursuing the same game will offer wouldn't we'll often encounter tigers and they really speak of them as colleagues. No not as enemies or competitors but as fellow hunters. And I had the rare privilege of speaking to a number of people who had been attacked by tigers and lived and you know it's just one of the most intense experience as you can imagine you know. And I was trying to describe it in the book and it's you know it's like being jumped on by a piano. Piano has a mouth full of you know three-inch fangs and gigantic claws and you know there's all different reasons you might be an act but you're never the same afterwards and not just from the injuries but from being that close to that kind of sentient but annihilating energy you know it's different than being hit by a car. And so, in the case of Yuri Trosch who was a warden who was charged with tracking down this injured Tiger. He was he was attacked by that tiger and he was also then leapt out by another tiger that was behind a fence. But he's just saying to me that was like the tiger singled me out from a group of other people and threw itself full force at the fence. And even though there is no way it could have gotten through the fence he was just knocked down by the energy and Yuri Trosch is a tough man and he has fought off armed men armed poachers. He's about 6 4. He is one of the toughest and most principled men I've ever met and so to hear him talk that way about Tiger energy really made me pay attention.
[00:11:41] Wow Tiger energy that's amazing. I would love to. I think we'll take our first musical break but that that sort of leads me into my next sort of topic that I wanted to get into which will we'll do when we come back and that's about the relationship between the humans and the and the tiger in this in this area and the things that you discovered about that but we'll do that when we come back. I mean its now time for me to play a song for you. I've got a few songs to play for you today. I've been listening to a lot of the South by Southwest artists since that festival happened fairly recently and there's a new release from apparat and this is a song called Brandenburg. And so yeah come right back and listen to us after this break of Brandenburg from apparat here on KSUU Thunder 91.1SUU.
[00:15:39] OK well welcome back to the A.P.E.X Hour That song was Brandenburg. And the band is called apparat a p p a r a t. This is the A.P.E.X Hour I'm joined in the studio with author John Valiant. Welcome back.
[00:15:53] Good to be with you.
[00:15:55] Well we were talking over the break about a topic that I know you would like to talk about and that I find fascinating and that is the you mentioned collisions and how your writing deals with some of these collisions between humans and animals. But there are other collisions and other different relationships that are taking place in the book. Namely there are all different populations that are taking place in in Russia during the time of this story. You know there are the poachers there are the farmers there that the village people but there's also a native population as well who lived and has lived quite peacefully among the Tigers for years and then this incident happened. I wonder if you could get into that a little bit.
[00:16:38] Yeah. So, where this all took place was in a very rural area really in the forest and the towns were very small. You know maybe a couple of hundred people in each town and there were native villages and also European Russian villages and the European Russian attitude toward Tigers was quite different than the native attitude and that you know that the native population. Needless to say, had been there much longer and had literally grown up even culturally with tigers. And unlike in China the tribal groups in the Russian Far East again anigh and Orochi the tiger was a sacred animal to them and how they express their reverence was. You don't kill them and they just as many native groups are here in North America. They had animal ancestors. So, for them the tiger was a relative right. And Sharman's might turn into a tiger. Their ancient ancestors might have been tigers and so they felt a kinship and they shared the forest with the tiger. I spoke to a lot of native people they might have encounters with the tiger when they would meet them they would talk to them.
[00:17:49] Wow.
[00:17:50] They if they knew the forest well enough that they knew where the animal herds were and if they saw that a tiger was after a particular boar herd they would give way to the Tiger say you know you know that you’re the cause they were like flashed and bird gods right.
[00:18:06] right.
[00:18:07] But the result was they were never attacked whereas European Russians you know were came out of a Judeo-Christian heritage and their sense was you know man is the lord of his domain and nature is there to serve the needs of human beings. And you know I think people are familiar with that attitude here in Utah and but that would lead to conflict with tigers because tigers they're the ones who think they're masters of their domain. And so, it was really a collision between two would be kings and queens if you will the Tigers have already staked this place out for millennia and then these European Russians come in and say No we're actually going to run the place now. And they were more prone to attack attacks and conflicts with tigers. And the best integrated European Russians were the ones who had learned from (inaudible) and Onamia to defer to the tiger and there was very rarely a problem. But if you were to attack a tiger confronted Tiger actively compete with a tiger the tiger wasn't going to take that lying down.
[00:19:22] And there was more than just one death. And I think in the book I remember you mentioning that perhaps if the initial one hadn't had a gun with him I mean the smells these things that are associated with hunting that it be it tobacco and gunpowder and all the things that that those smells means something completely different. And there was very systematic After then after Markoff was killed. The other deaths were all the same type of person. Can you talk a little bit more about that?
[00:19:55] That was a really interesting aspect of this whole case. It took about two weeks for it to come to its you know ultimate resolution. And during this time the tiger was hunting could no longer hunt game began hunting people. There were a lot of people in the forest people are hunting for pine cones because there are seeds in them that they need they're hunting for food. There were men women and children in the forest. There were European Russians in the forest and also native people. This tiger for you know I don't know no one knows if it's coincidence or not. But every encounter this tiger had with a human being was with a European Russian armed Hunter and all of those men had loaded weapons and the tiger confronted each one which was also unusual because and you know of any of us who has a housecat we know that cats tend to ambush their prey. They'll lie in wait and jump on it from behind and tigers are no different. So, for it to want to confront its prey. In other words, have its prey see it first especially armed with guns is very unusual. And this animal had been shot before it knew what guns could do. It's impossible to know if it made the association between the physical object of the gun and the bullet but the smell would have been there the smell of the bullet in its flesh and the smell of the gunpowder on the man and on the weapon. You know they're all about smell they would have put that together. And so, it was quite significant and of great interest to the warden to Yuri Trosch who was hunting this animal and to the other hunters the choice of prey if you will.
[00:21:34] Yes.
[00:21:35] Tiger made when it had a whole menu of people to choose from. And so many of whom were unarmed and would have been easier to subdue.
[00:21:42] One of the things that goes hand in hand with this is the state of that particular area in Russia at this time and I feel that that's also a very important part of it. I mean Russia itself in this particular area in Russia is another character in the story is that the everything that happened there that state of being of the people there. The way that they interact with their environment. I wonder if you could talk about that aspect of it about the people and about their interaction with the world around them specifically with that those people in those areas.
[00:22:20] So under communism which lasted until 1991 or 1992 everything was centralized and controlled so any job you had you were ultimately working for the government and a lot of the European Russians in that region worked either as professional hunters trapping for furs or as professional loggers. When communism collapsed in 1991 all of those jobs simply went away. And so, you had people who were sort of used to a job and stability suddenly they had none and they were thrown kind of on the mercy of the forest and because they were already forced people they knew how to hunt. They knew how to provide for themselves. But it there was this sense of being abandoned and alcoholism is already an epidemic problem in Russian culture and we've all heard about the vodka and all this and a lot of that is real and then to have your government betray you like that and then to have the most powerful people in the government steal all the money and leave and go to London and other places. It was very demoralizing so there was terrible despair. There's a very high suicide rate there. And so, people were really struggling and you know this fellow Markoff who shot the tiger and was killed. He had four kids and he was you know trying to keep it together. And he had been living off the forest for five years already. And that's got to wear on a person especially when your you know he was a soldier he was a veteran. He had had a good job you know he'd been a truck driver and a logger and you know he'd lived a life that a lot of us would recognize. And all of a sudden to have that pulled out from under you everything becomes very precarious. And you would have grief and anger and despair and also real fear. You know I'm on my own for the rest of my life. You know it's just me and the forest. You know there are tigers here there are bears here. That region of the forest is the only place on earth that part of Russia where pieces of the jungle tigers and leopards overlap with grizzly bears wolves caribou and Wolverine. It's really an unusual place but makes it very dynamic.
[00:24:34] The characters Markov the other villagers the people who go on to look for the tiger are all so wonderfully drawn. I mean from your accounts there and one character that certainly stands out is Yuri. And I wondered if you could talk a little bit about him and his personality and composite character and because he seems to me to be so unique just in his personal makeup but also in his position in the story.
[00:25:06] Yuri Trosch was a warden he's still alive as far as I know and he was because the poaching had grown so rampant post collapse with the trade into China special squads of former soldiers you know armed with heavy weapons were inserted into the forest to stop tiger poaching. And Yuri Trosch a former veteran a veteran of the Afghan wars and others. Was the leader of one of these squads and what were you got to realize is the ordinary citizens citizenry is poaching. And then you have policemen and politicians who are also poaching and here's Yuri who's charged with upholding the law in a society that is broken and which has gone basically almost feral. You know it's just like dogs running deer and so he would there he would stop people in the forest driving these tank-like vehicles. And there'd be the chief of police in there they knew who he was they knew where his wife lived where his kids lived where he lived. And these are people who will kill you. And he had to make some very difficult decisions in these very remote forest encounters and way the people were more dangerous than the Tigers and so I saw him like you know those compasses on a ship that swivel back and forth always trying to stay level when everything around them is tossing and turning and that was the chaos that Yuri Trosch had to negotiate. And then you throw a man-eating tiger into the mix and you know he had a lot to deal with and how he kept his center and his integrity in the midst of this chaos when it would have been probably easier for him to poach tigers. He could have probably done it too. He knew where they were and yet he didn't. And so that that honor that he had and dignity and tremendous both moral and physical courage really really impressed me. And you know there you know Russian wages are nothing. So, he did it out of some kind of personal code. And I found nothing and no one to dispute that or diminish that. So, it's really as really a privilege to spend time with him.
[00:27:33] I was really touched by his story and the integrity of how he handled it really came through. It seems that he and many others contributed to some of the that the takeaways for you the lessons that you've taken from this story and I know you mentioned a little bit about in your talk today that things like empathy and sensitivity. I wonder if you could talk about some of the lasting lessons that you have gathered from this time that have stayed with you.
[00:28:02] Yeah I mean I distilled some of those into a Ted x talk that I get called Ten Lessons from a tiger and you know one of the things I learned was just simply from speaking to these hunters and speaking to so many Tiger biologists really how much we share with tigers and other apex predators in terms of the sense of territory the sense of kind of indignation when people crowd our space. You know a competitive nature and but also you know an ability to adapt and strategize and the human beings as well you know some of these folks you know coming from the United States you think of tiger poachers. You know what could be more loathsome except maybe you know white slave traffickers or something like that you know and yet speaking to these people and realizing well they actually had legitimate jobs before their entire society fell apart and they were betrayed and they're trying to figure out how to make a living and I think it's similar to how some people find their way into drug dealing in North America. You know this is not there. This is not what they want to be doing it's not what they would want their children to be doing but they are trying to keep it together during a time of total chaos and breakdown and. And so, it gave me a lot more compassion and it made me think about a lot of the judgments that I bring to a situation. And it made you know I've sort of tried to hold onto that lesson of you know withholding judgment and really trying to figure out where a person is and you know one of the privileges and rewards of being a writer is you know you really get to spend time a kind of intimate time listening to people talk about things that really matter to them and it's a way to really get to know people and especially in a place as different as Russia and speaking to you know the native people there you know who speak completely different language have a completely different history and you know they talk to Tigers you know it's very far out. But the more you learn about the way they live it makes total sense. And you know we have we talked to our dogs and cats all the time even though we might not admit it you know talk to any dairy farmer and or rancher you know and they know their animals. We know how they feel they care how they feel their animals know them. You know there is a bond there and it's quite ancient.
[00:30:28] Well it's a great message. I'm always and it's particularly poignant now I think. Well that's wonderful. Is it time for another song and John Valiant author of The Tiger is in the studio with me today. And if you like this interview and want to hear more you might want to check out our archive. For another show that dealt with some animals and that was with author Susan Casey who has written about dolphins and sharks and also has an incredible environmental writer she has a great article on plastic. We've been talking about that here on campus and in the studio. So, if you're interested in what you're hearing today with John Valiant talking about the tiger definitely check out our archive. suu.edu/apex and check out the podcast with Susan Casey I think you'll like it. The next song that I have for you is a song by Tamino and its w o t h or W.O.T.H. You're listening to the A.P.E.X Hour KSUU Thunder 91.1
[00:35:14] Alright welcome back to the A.P.E.X Hour This is Lynn Vartan that song that you're hearing was by Tamino t a m i n o and the song title is W.O.T.H. w o t h all separated by periods. I am in the studio with John Valiant. Welcome back. We're talking about his book The Tiger which you can find anywhere you find books and in fact there is also an audio book with his incredible voice reading. You probably get told all the time that you have a great speaking voice.
[00:35:41] Oh thanks that's so kind of you.
[00:35:44] When I heard that you do the audio book of when you're reading I thought wow I bet that's a really incredible experience. So, if any of you are out there into the audio book round definitely check it out. Anyway, welcome back, John. We've been talking about the tiger but also, I'd love to spend a little bit of time on your other two bucks. One is much earlier and one is a little later. So, let's start with the Golden Spruce which is the earlier one. What an amazing story about a tree. And as one of the audience members today talked about she said she wasn't quite sure about reading a story about a tree but that she was completely transfixed. Tell us about the Golden Spruce.
[00:36:24] Yeah, it's a tough one. There are not many books written about a single tree.
[00:36:30] Indeed.
[00:36:31] The Tree was you know was it. It no longer stands because it was cut down. It was killed if you will. It was a goal a unique tree on the west coast of Canada. It was a Sitka spruce which is a huge species you know Redwood sized you know they can have 20-foot trunks and they grow to you know 300 feet tall. They're gigantic trees. And this one happened to be golden. And when we think of trees you know they're green. And of course, they are. And that's where the chlorophyll is and that's where the photosynthesis takes place. This tree was a freak of nature. And you could fly the entire coast of North America West Coast of North America. And there was only one golden tree and that was it. And it lived in Hajduk Y which is a remote island archipelago off the northern coast of British Columbia right near Alaska. And this tree was sacred to the Haida people and Indian nation that lives out there. It was actually beloved by the loggers who were logging the island for the other big trees. But that one was so strange and beautiful they didn't mess with it. And then it was cut down by an angry logger who had become really disgusted with the rapacious clearcutting of the industry and he knew that tree had been protected by the logging company that was mowing down the rest of the island and he decided to cut it down as kind of a punishment to the company and he didn't know that it was sacred to the Haida people he didn't know that it was beloved by botanists who are trying to solve the puzzle of why it was golden and not green and how it could live how it could be 165 feet tall with this disability and then he disappeared under suspicious circumstances and some people think he was murdered some people think he drowned some people think he's still alive because he was an incredibly tough man. He had been a timber surveyor and was able to survive and you know really rugged mountain conditions all by himself for weeks at a time. So, it's you know another cross-species murder mystery if you will not that different from the tiger just different beings.
[00:38:43] Yes, I heard you say earlier that the Golden spruce is sort of like the or the tiger is like the Golden Spruce with stripes there is this blend the similarities in the story I wonder if that did that hit you after the fact or did you sort of see that as soon as you started the tiger.
[00:39:01] Well I think all of us you know have our own particular interests and there are just certain things that twang are you know enthusiasm if you will and as a writer you know I'm looking for stories and so there are certain kinds of stories but you know the Golden Spruce is my first book it was my first big magazine story and I never thought I'd find another one like it it's so strange and unique and then to find the tiger right after that two years after you know I was I feel very fortunate to have had you know two what for me are truly stories of a lifetime you know and they really made my career and they were fascinating to research and really a privilege to tell.
[00:39:39] Now and then your most recent book is fiction and I wonder if you could talk about that and that one is another incredible story told in an incredible way.
[00:39:52] Well you know the novel you know a novel for is a work of fiction. Those first two books were works of nonfiction. So that was you know reportage you know all the facts are verifiable fiction of course is kind of a different animal if you will that this book is called the Jaguars children the Jaguars is a cat. Big Cat that is sacred to many Latin American peoples. And I lived in Oaxaca Mexico with my family for a year and 2009 2010 and many Oaquinos emigrate into the United States to work. Some of them legally some of them illegally and I met a lot of people who had been smuggled across the border and sometimes it went bad and sometimes it didn't. And I the story came to me about a young man who wanted a young Walk-In young man who was being smuggled into the United States from northern Mexico and inside the belly of a water truck and the truck breaks down in the desert in Arizona and there. And everyone who is inside there they're welded inside there are left to die by the coyotes and the smugglers. And so, this story is told in the first person through a cell phones a voice memo feature. And so, the story is a narration and it was actually that was made into an audio book too by a wonderful a Mexican narrator. And so, it's called the Jaguars children and it's about this guy's experience in that truck. But it's also about what brought him there. So, he's telling this story to his injured friend who's in a coma. And you know it's well to talk to people even when they're unconscious because you don't know what they might be hearing so he's telling it to his friend but he's also telling it to reinforce to reassure himself. It's so bleak in there and through the course of the story we learn all about Oaxaca where he's from all about his relatives you know because he's trying to reconnect with his family through storytelling which is kind of what we do anyway. But it's just in this really condensed intense dire circumstance.
[00:41:56] How was the process of writing fiction. Did you find it enjoyable more difficult? I mean did it have to talk to me about how that differed for you personally.
[00:42:07] A totally different experience. Because while there's a lot of research you know to make that jaguars children feel real. You know I had to know a lot about Mexico and Mexican culture. The voice of Hector the narrator you know and a lot of fiction writers will tell you this. You know they'll say a voice came into my head and started talking and that's how it happened to me. And you know I'm a nonfiction guy I'm super detail oriented I'm very fact based. You know everything. You know the magazines I wrote for were very picky about their fact checking and sort of write fiction was like being sort of let off the leash. And it was very disorienting in a way. But this voice of Hector was so strong I can't really explain where it came from.
[00:42:48] WoW.
[00:42:49] But I know I was interviewed and reviewed by Mexican nationals and authors and they said wow you know you really know a lot about the Mexican psyche. How did you learn that? And some of it. Hector taught me and I can't really explain why that is some of it may add the fact to do with the fact that earlier generations of my family lived in Mexico and made their lives there and I don't know if some of that is sort of carried through. We always had a lot of Mexican stuff around the house and people spoke some Spanish my Spanish isn't that good but it was a very strange and very different experience.
[00:43:25] That sounds like magic. Do you remember the moment that you heard his voice for the first time?
[00:43:29] Absolutely yeah. I was sitting in my office. I was at a little house and Oaxaca. I was still writing the tiger then I didn't finish the tiger. So, I'm dealing with all the editing details in the in the you know the final clerical stuff and this voice came into my head which is the first line first lines of the novel which is you know hello I'm sorry to bother you but I need your assistance. And it's just it's Hector trying to make a cell phone call.
[00:44:00] That was the first that yet. Wow.
[00:44:02] Sorry to bother you but I need your assistance.
[00:44:05] Did you find yourself asking him questions or did the conversation just. I mean I'm just sort of curious.
[00:44:10] Yeah, I know it's real excuse me. It really is kind of a magical experience but I think a lot of novelists will have shared it and you just open yourself up to them and you know you'll make these sorts of at the beginning it's very tenuous because you don't know each other very well and but I know he's stuck in this truck. I know he's trying to get out. I'm trying to figure out who is in there with him and he's with his buddy Cesar and I learn more about him. And then I learned you know his dad was encouraging him to go north because he was so in despair. The situation in. So, I learned a bit about that and I learned more about his mom. And so slowly this happened but I actually wrote the whole first draft basically in about six weeks.
[00:44:57] Wow.
[00:44:58] And it's a little bit like being in a trance.
[00:45:00] Wow.
[00:45:01] its A really weird experience and it's a real adventure.
[00:45:05] Wow. Well thank you for sharing that. That was really that special moment to hear about your next project so we can if you can share. I know you have a great article that I recently read from the Guardian about Hellfire entitled Hellfire and I don't know if that's an ongoing issue for you and if that's something you are thinking about now or if you have plans to go back to fiction will help fire was about that terrible Carr fire.
[00:45:36] It's called CA R R it's called the Carr fire the fire in Redding California that that killed a number of people and no one among the half dozen hideous fires that hit California. British Columbia also burned really badly. Alberta burned two years earlier. And so, I'm writing now work on a nonfiction book about these huge urban fires that are becoming more and more common and just the dynamics of that kind of energy coming out of the forest into urban areas people's experience with it the Carr fire was unique in that it produced an actual tornado made of fire. So, it was an E3 class tornado that was filled with flame. And that's as far as I know really never happened on Earth before.
[00:46:27] In the article you talk about how this is something that's never happened before but is we're coming up with new terminology for it because it's going to keep it is continuing to happen and is going to keep happening more. Can you talk about that about the future about the direness about what you're seeing in the trends that that is leading this to be such an important issue right now?
[00:46:51] Yeah, I know that the 21st century you know is going to be an age of fire. Among other things and you know the atmosphere is changing that the heat of the Earth is changing the dryness in the forest is changing and all of it points toward bigger more powerful faster moving fires. And you know there is a human component to this. The amount of greenhouse gases that humans generate is now big enough to actually affect the chemistry and behavior of our climate. And you know what. It's hard to realize you know the earth seems so big the air seems infinite. But we live in a closed system and just as you can drive an Animal Extinct you can change your atmosphere and anyone who's been through an inversion in Salt Lake City knows you know if you weren't. If ever if no one was driving a car during that six weeks inversion you'd have very different air quality but it holds it in in our atmosphere does a version of the same thing and that is changing the way fire behaves on this planet. And it's an it's going to be a big part of the news cycle and a big part of ordinary citizens lives going forward especially people who live in what's called the wildland urban interface which is the place where forest and human communities meet. And that's you know lots of places like that in Utah of course but that's where a lot of people want to live now. You know we want to live closer to nature and that's where the fire is.
[00:48:22] Right. Well we will look forward to reading more about that. But if anybody is interested in reading the article now you can find it online. It's entitled hellfire and I believe it was in The Guardian. So, you can definitely check that out. And again, we're here with author John Valiant and on the books that we've been talking about are the tiger and the Golden Spruce and the Jaguars children. And then the hellfire article in The Guardian. So, check out all of those things. I'm going to play one more song and then we're going to come back with our are sort of fun every week. QUESTION The last song I have for you is a Japanese group called yahyal. And again, this is something that I heard on one of the South by Southwest sorts of recaps in learning about I didn't know the band but the song is called Tao. And again, this is the band yahyal y a h y a l you're listening to KSUU Thunder 91.1
[00:54:09] OK. Well welcome back everyone. This is the A.P.E.X Hour with our last few minutes here. I'm with author John Valiant. Welcome Back.
[00:54:18] Hey There.
[00:54:19] So I have my two very favorite questions that I always like to ask and the first one is it's just a really funny one. And that is if you met yourself or I should say if you met yourself from 15 years ago in a bar fight today who would win. So, if you're if you're person now met you 15 years ago who would win that fight.
[00:54:39] Well if it really came to that I'd like to think we might actually get along with each other. If we had to go at it. You know I think the older me might even stand a better chance I'm in really good shape right now. And I know a lot more than I did 15 years ago. So, I think I'd have a psychological advantage and I'm probably almost as strong as I was then. So, I think it would be it would be dangerously close.
[00:55:06] That's awesome. So, you're voting for your vote for current you. The wisdom the wisdom wins and you're in great shape. So that's awesome. Well thank you for you know being willing to answer that silly one. And then my last question is always a favorite and it is what's turning you on this week. And this can be anything it can be a song that you heard or a book or a movie or a podcast or an article it's just an opportunity for our listeners to just get a little bit about what you like to do in your free time and what's turning them on.
[00:55:37] So John Valiant what's turning you on this week.
[00:55:40] What's turning me on this week is Utah really and I've just spent 12 beautiful days between Alta and Escalante and Zion and have been learning about this You know really interesting and complicated cultural and spiritual situation in this state. The astounding beauty the tremendous kindness and generosity of people who have guided us and shared their secrets and jewels of this beautiful place with me and my family. I'm here with my wife and kids. And so, Utah is really turning me on right now and I really want to come back.
[00:56:19] All right. Well fantastic. Well we're so happy that you had a good time. We'd like to say thank you so much for all the time that you've spent here with us this week and we're glad that Utah is turning you on. So, there you heard it everyone. Utah is a turn on. We know that those of us who live here. But it's great to hear that from those from afar as well. you've been listening to the A.P.E.X Hour and this week we've had author John Valiant. We've been talking a lot about his book The Tiger which you can find anywhere you find your books or audio books and we love for you to check it out and some will sign off for today that's all the time we have. Thanks.
[00:56:57] Thanks so much for listening to the A.P.E.X Hour here on KSUU Thunder 91.1 Come find us again next Thursday at 3pm for more conversations with the visiting guests at Southern Utah University and new music to discover for your next playlist. And in the meantime, we would love to see you at our events on campus. Find out more check out suu.edu/apex Until next week. This Lynn Vartan saying goodbye from the A.P.E.X Hour here on Thunder 91.1