'American Nightmare' with Kelly McWilliams

I would like to welcome to the show, Kelly McWilliams. Kelly, how are you? I'm wonderful. I'm so happy to be here. Thank you so much for taking the time to come on and chit chat. Now, before we dive into your wonderful book that I just finished yesterday, American Nightmare, tell us a little bit about who you are and what really sparked your interest into becoming a storyteller. Yes. So my name is Kelly McWilliams and I come from a writing family. My mother is a writer as well. And I always saw her working, saw her researching these difficult topics. And as I grew up, that sort of became what I naturally wanted to do. And particularly for American Nightmare, I was interested in reclaiming the story of Walter F. White, who was an investigator who worked for the NAACP in the 1900s and gave a lot to sort of our communities, fought for our communities. He investigated 41 lynchings and eight race massacres. And I remember hearing about him when I was a child, because I am also a very white presenting person. And my mother was interested in telling me that there's a historical precedent for that, and that we too can fight for this cause. So the book is loosely based on and inspired by the life of this man who gave me some solace as a child and some understanding of sort of how our, you know, mixed race and black communities, how truly expansive they are. and this kind of story that sort of fell out of history and that's my my favorite my favorite thing to do is to capture those stories and share them and you did a phenomenal job when it comes to tackling the real life issues that happen you know the Atlanta riot red summer but you also combine so much of what really happened with like a historical fictional horror aspect of it and so like you said it follows the real life um story of him but it goes to an author of Clark White and he's so light-skinned that he could pass for being somebody that's white so he was able to kind of use that in a very unique way because he used it for as a justice tool instead of trying to escape having a black life now what kind of made you want to go that route you know when it came to telling that story which like i said was absolutely phenomenal i love this question so much and there is a long history of white presenting characters in our fiction in black fiction and often they are passing for white in order to for safety in order to change their circumstances we have Nella Larson's passing which is about a woman who gets married um i have been writing about white presenting characters for a long time in my ya fiction career and i wanted to tell a story that was a little bit different in terms of that tradition that took that tradition and changed it and showed how someone used passing for white in order to be a spy in order to as you said fight for justice and that seemed like such a different way to to tell that story a different lens into this kind of social issue and I don't see it represented very much in fiction so I kind of wanted to show that for him for this character the the man that the story is based on he had blue blue eyes and blonde hair he truly and yet both of his parents culturally he was black they walked off the same plantation as children and he gave his life working for the NAACP and unfortunately at the end of his life his obituary said that he was a black by choice in the language of the time and I always felt that he would very much have rejected that and objected to that because of how much he he he loved the fight that he was in and how much work he really did and I love because I did the audiobook so I did immersive reading and I loved it because it was dual point of view so it was Clark and then it was also Sam who he did not like black people very much you know he was a part of the Ku Klux his parents you know were a part of it so it was kind of almost like it was passed down through blood through generational type of thing and I loved how it showed how clark was doing it you know using his whiteness essentially to kind of go behind the scenes when it came to getting the information of you know how they were doing these lynchings and then you also show sam's point of view which is showed the true hatred of how much they hated like you could be minding your own business but just because the color of your skin people didn't you know they didn't like you and in the book he even said you know lynching isn't you know a form of hate it's an act of love it's like wait a minute what like just the way their thought process was back in that time and it's just like why even that's the question now like why why exactly the question remains the same in so many ways and what's very interesting about that time period to me is that you had the rise of the NAACP trying to sort of protect us you know it was born in New York and then quickly spread throughout the country at the exact same time as the KKK was reinventing itself as this power. So you really had these two organizations going against each other, spreading sort of opposite ideologies. And what you see with my villain character is the way that a man can be radicalized into absolute insanity by this organization. And I think it was so interesting because that felt very present to me that we still see that radicalization process today. Yeah, and I loved how in the beginning, You know, you talked about, you know, like the Atlanta riot. That's how it started, you know, when Clark was young. And essentially in a lot of historical fiction books, when they're they're kind of talking about the topic, they kind of come through like a supernatural feel when it comes to, you know, like the violence that was put upon black people. And I loved in yours because you called it the nightmare. And without giving it away, there was a scene in the book down years down the line in Chicago. and just like after everything happened he was like you know Sam's eyes turned blue again it was almost like the nightmare was essentially like a spirit that kind of overtook the people that were in the Ku Klux just because their hatred was so strong and they wanted to provoke that violence on black people yes um you know and I think that that's the way that my character Clark sees it for many years the first um you know race riot that he lives through he's 13 years old And he's looking at this white boy who's attacking his family, trying to get his family murdered. He knows his skin. You know, he's a mirror of that boy in some ways. And so he's thinking, you know, what is the difference between us? How do I separate from this? And one of his conceits is he comes up with this idea of the nightmare. And the question is, is that a way that he's putting language to fear to the things that he felt? Or is it really a true supernatural force? and I would just want to promise readers that this book does not let our bad guys off the hook for the choices that they make and the decisions that they make because sometimes that can be a danger when you introduce the supernatural that you're saying oh it wasn't their fault no this was very much two men making very different choices about how their life was going to be and what they valued and out of this book what would you say is a lesson that you would love for readers to take away from this oh that's a fantastic question I think things move in cycles. You know, we are, we are facing a difficult time in our history. Now we face difficult times in our history before, but we have always organized. We've always worked together. We have never been simply the victims of history. The NAACP in that Red Summer of 1919, when they were in Chicago and through even, you know, Walter F. White was in Detroit in 1943. three. We have always been fighting back, strategizing at the highest levels, and we are still doing that even now. So the message of this book, I would like people to feel empowered that we have been in this fight a long time. We know how to continue it. We know how to face down these forces that are still in America today. Well, Kelly, like I said, I will send you my bill because this book I did not want to put down. I was like, is there more? I'm just flipping and through the pages and it was so well put together the story the character development you know the events that you told the story behind especially is very educational as well especially if anybody was not familiar with the riots and you know everything that took place and then the audiobook and the dual point of views and the southern act like he just really put you in that time and space when you were reading so well done well done i'm giving you your flowers it was absolutely amazing and kelly thank you again for what you're doing in the book community telling these stories, you know, making it very interesting, but also talking about some not so easily touched on, you know, topics and most importantly, for taking the time to come and chat with me and fellow book lovers. I greatly appreciate it. Thank you. Absolutely. Anytime. It was a pleasure.