April 12, 2022

Connor Coyne novel "Urbantasm" Set in Deindustrialized Flint

In this interview, Connor discusses his newest novel, the 4th in the series "Urbantasm." The series is set in deindustrialized Flint, Michigan.

Connor Coyne is a writer living and working in rust belt Flint, Michigan, a town devastated by deindustrialization. Connor spent his teenage years in Flushing, Michigan. Connor represented Flint's 7th Ward as its artist-in-residence for the National Endowment for the Arts, Our Town grant. In this grant, artists engaged ward residents to produce creative work for the 2013 City of Flint Master Plan. Connor's work has appeared in Vox.com, Belt Magazine, and Santa Clara Review. He lives with his wife, two daughters, and an adopted rabbit in Flint's College Cultural Neighborhood (East Village).

Coyne's novel describes a fantastical plot founded upon a mythical city where the main characters grew up. The story revolves around parts of a dying industrial rust belt town. In the interview, the author, Connor Coyne, acknowledges that this factory town is Flint, Michigan.

The book sets out the good, bad, and ugly way of life in middle America, where the characters navigate the vices and demons of urban life in a blue-collar America that struggles to survive.

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You can learn more about Connor Coyne and his books by visiting his author's website.

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The music for the outro, Flint River Blues, about the Flint Water Crisis, was written and performed by Colton Ort and used with his permission.

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Transcript

WEBVTT

00:00:20.480 --> 00:00:22.079
All right, this is Arthur Bush.

00:00:22.160 --> 00:00:27.199
You're listening to Radio Free Flint today's episode, and its guest is Connor Coyne.

00:00:27.280 --> 00:00:28.079
He's an author.

00:00:28.239 --> 00:00:30.800
Uh, welcome to Radio Free Flint, Connor.

00:00:31.039 --> 00:00:32.079
Thanks for having me.

00:00:32.320 --> 00:00:39.439
I invited you on Radio Free Flint to talk about your books, especially the one that's coming out, Urban TASM.

00:00:39.679 --> 00:00:40.159
Is that it?

00:00:40.399 --> 00:00:41.200
That's it.

00:00:41.840 --> 00:00:42.159
Okay.

00:00:42.560 --> 00:00:44.240
Your background is quite interesting.

00:00:44.479 --> 00:01:02.159
You have published several books actually, and your publishing experience also includes some blog articles and so forth, including some well-known national publications, such as at fox.com, uh Belt Magazine, which is a magazine dedicated to the working class.

00:01:02.399 --> 00:01:06.640
Your book, Urban Tasm, is part of a four-part series.

00:01:07.439 --> 00:01:09.760
Tell us the trailer version of this book.

00:01:10.079 --> 00:01:10.319
Sure.

00:01:10.480 --> 00:01:14.959
Well, it's a serial novel, so they have to be read in order in order to make sense.

00:01:15.120 --> 00:01:24.239
So kicking off the first one, uh, you have a 13-year-old boy named John Bridge, and he's about to start junior high, and he's really excited.

00:01:24.400 --> 00:01:36.000
He wants, he's got a plan to become one of the most popular kids in uh seventh grade uh in his uh new junior high school in uh Kaway, Michigan, which is based on Flint.

00:01:36.319 --> 00:01:41.359
But on the first day of school, he steals a pair of strange sunglasses from a homeless person.

00:01:41.519 --> 00:01:58.959
And this kind of plunges him into this conflict involving uh involving, you know, different different gangs and feuding families across the city, and a magical drug that has the ability to distort space and basically just sort of the floor falls out from beneath him.

00:01:59.120 --> 00:02:02.000
So that's sort of how the story launches.

00:02:02.319 --> 00:02:03.840
And then how does it end?

00:02:04.079 --> 00:02:10.560
No, you don't have to tell me that this series of books is set in Flint, Michigan.

00:02:11.360 --> 00:02:13.919
And it's set in the town that you grew up.

00:02:14.319 --> 00:02:17.039
Yes, yes, it takes place during the 1990s.

00:02:17.280 --> 00:02:18.400
Were you born in Flint?

00:02:18.719 --> 00:02:25.199
I lived in the city until I was 11 years old, over by uh kind of like the Franklin Longway area.

00:02:25.360 --> 00:02:33.840
About when I was 12, my parents moved out to flushing, where my grandma lived, and I went to flushing schools from there until uh you know, through the rest of high school.

00:02:34.080 --> 00:02:35.840
You're from a the Flint area.

00:02:36.000 --> 00:02:38.719
The book informs life in the city itself.

00:02:38.960 --> 00:02:39.280
Yes.

00:02:39.439 --> 00:02:42.400
Yeah, you're not writing about flushing or some other place.

00:02:42.639 --> 00:02:44.479
It's a flint book for sure.

00:02:44.639 --> 00:02:52.719
Although, you know, you do have a few scattered chapters that take place in the suburbs here and there, and their characters were based based in the suburbs.

00:02:52.879 --> 00:02:55.680
Yeah, it's it's definitely it's a it's a flint book.

00:02:56.240 --> 00:02:57.759
Who is your intended audience?

00:02:58.080 --> 00:03:00.960
That's where things get gnarly with the fine print.

00:03:01.120 --> 00:03:15.919
So we have marketed this in part to young adults because these days the way the publishing industry is structured is if you've got protagonists who are uh young adults who are teenagers, uh, the assumption is that that is the audience for it.

00:03:16.159 --> 00:03:21.919
And I do think that, you know, this is this is a book that that young people have read and have enjoyed.

00:03:22.080 --> 00:03:36.000
But from a genre perspective, I would also just say it would be described as magical realism, which is basically like a story where supernatural or extraordinary events happen that are incidental to the setting.

00:03:36.159 --> 00:03:43.360
So they're not seen as being uh completely bizarre and fantastical, they're just part of the reality where the books take place.

00:03:43.520 --> 00:03:50.240
When I wrote these books, I did not have an age in mind for them.

00:03:50.560 --> 00:03:58.400
I wanted to tell a story that was romantic and compelling, dynamic and complex.

00:03:58.719 --> 00:04:03.919
And my goal is that anybody who would enjoy it would pick it up and read it.

00:04:04.159 --> 00:04:14.400
The Arson Ring in Flint in uh, you know, I think it was uh 2009, 2010, uh, when you had the serial stabber, when you had the Flint Water Crisis.

00:04:14.560 --> 00:04:20.959
Um, I was working on this book as all of those contemporary events were happening, and I wanted to incorporate them.

00:04:21.120 --> 00:04:24.000
And because it's a fictional setting, I was able to do that.

00:04:24.160 --> 00:04:30.319
So that's despite its temporal setting, there are a lot of references that are much more contemporary.

00:04:30.560 --> 00:04:44.160
But I also think that people have an expectation when they read historical fiction for a certain amount of um either like um nostalgia or an emphasis upon the trappings of the time.

00:04:44.480 --> 00:04:48.560
And I don't think these books really have that emphasis.

00:04:48.720 --> 00:04:59.360
Like there are reasons that it's clear they're in the 1990s, you know, payphones keep popping up and nobody can just like, you know, hop on their computer and and look up anything.

00:04:59.600 --> 00:05:12.000
But at the same time, I think that the questions and the conflicts are much more universal and not not anything that would need to be sp rooted in a particular decade.

00:05:12.160 --> 00:05:18.160
I think people that picked it up looking for 1990s nostalgia would would probably come away disappointed.

00:05:18.240 --> 00:05:20.879
That's just not really something it offers a lot of.

00:05:21.199 --> 00:05:22.560
What makes your book unique?

00:05:22.800 --> 00:05:27.680
Well, I think the problem I had when I went to try to get it published is that it's a little bit too unique.

00:05:27.839 --> 00:05:31.920
And I'm not saying that to boast that's that's just uh a double-edged sword.

00:05:32.160 --> 00:05:34.720
Taken together, it's 2,000 pages.

00:05:34.959 --> 00:05:40.639
It's got a uh a you know, Victor Hugo sort of romantic sweep to it.

00:05:40.800 --> 00:05:52.319
There are these junior high kids who are trying to figure out their romantic lives and try to figure out their desires for the future while this city is essentially like imploding around them.

00:05:52.639 --> 00:06:01.839
It makes use of like a lot of history, uh a lot of like magical, almost hallucinogenic dream sequences.

00:06:02.000 --> 00:06:08.319
You know, whether people like it or dislike it, nobody I think has ever read anything like it.

00:06:08.639 --> 00:06:12.079
Drugs are very significant in the plot of the story.

00:06:12.240 --> 00:06:16.480
And, you know, part of the reason is because I drafted this as a 17-year-old.

00:06:16.560 --> 00:06:21.199
And at the time, you know, a lot of my friends, their lives were very defined by drugs.

00:06:21.360 --> 00:06:30.720
Either they were developing addictions of their own, or their parents were on drugs, or there were people in their in their neighborhoods or in their families that were selling drugs.

00:06:30.959 --> 00:06:36.079
So drugs were everywhere, and drugs are definitely a visible presence in this.

00:06:36.319 --> 00:06:52.399
I also think, you know, when I talked about hallucinogenic passages, what I also meant, this is kind of like modeled on a strain of romantic literature going all the way back to Frankenstein and before.

00:06:52.639 --> 00:07:02.160
And part of part of what part of that is the idea that these sensory experiences can be uh can be really, really intense.

00:07:02.399 --> 00:07:21.040
For example, in the second book, you know, there's a scene where the main character uh gets very sick, he's got the flu, and he starts kind of imagining the history of the city all the way back, you know, from going back to when, you know, it was an Ojibwa settlement, and then back even before that.

00:07:21.199 --> 00:07:26.560
You know, that whole sequence is very trippy, even though you know there really aren't any drugs involved at all.

00:07:26.720 --> 00:07:32.399
He's just awake and sick in the middle of the night and imagining what this place was like before he was there.

00:07:32.639 --> 00:07:34.959
What is it about this book that makes it work?

00:07:35.279 --> 00:07:44.560
I think the thing that makes it work to stand out to me compared to other things that I've written is the really real depth of like characterization.

00:07:44.800 --> 00:07:51.279
I think that these are very fully realized characters, different writers of different strong suits.

00:07:51.439 --> 00:07:56.079
Uh, I'm a rhythm guy, I can I can like write great sentences, I think.

00:07:56.240 --> 00:08:06.000
And you know, I'm usually pretty good at coming up with like nuanced themes and settings, but uh I would not say I'm generally like a great character writer.

00:08:06.079 --> 00:08:30.240
And yet, uh, because this one is so personal and it comes from experiences that I had and that my friends had at a very intense time in our lives, I feel like all the characters in this, even you know, those that just have like a few lines here or there, have really uh rich inner lives, and readers come to care about these characters and truly believe that they know them.

00:08:30.480 --> 00:08:36.159
That is what I think makes this book work more than than anything else.

00:08:36.399 --> 00:08:41.519
I think that's what makes the more esoteric choices have meaning.

00:08:41.679 --> 00:08:45.919
Otherwise, it seems like you're just showing off because you can.

00:08:46.159 --> 00:08:58.080
But if you are able to use those choices to reveal a character or a relationship that somebody will care about, then those creative choices have some have to Flint a great place to find these characters.

00:08:58.320 --> 00:09:00.960
Oh, it's it's completely unparalleled.

00:09:01.120 --> 00:09:04.080
In my life, I've I've lived in Chicago for many years.

00:09:04.240 --> 00:09:06.639
I went to grad school in New York, you know.

00:09:06.720 --> 00:09:11.360
I I spent those years in flushing and uh spent a summer in Romania.

00:09:11.519 --> 00:09:16.960
All really, really great places, but I've never seen a place with like characters like Flint Scott characters.

00:09:17.279 --> 00:09:21.519
Having the book set in Flint, even the cover of your books feature Flint.

00:09:21.840 --> 00:09:23.759
They're uh they're illustrations.

00:09:23.919 --> 00:09:28.320
There's uh one feature in all four covers that's actually from Flint.

00:09:28.639 --> 00:09:37.039
This radio tower right here is is sort of a replication of a tower uh on the south side, it's just south of 69.

00:09:37.360 --> 00:09:41.440
Uh, I want to say, like between Grand Traver Street and Fenton Road.

00:09:41.519 --> 00:09:44.240
Uh so that's an actual actual radio tower.

00:09:44.320 --> 00:09:45.679
I think it's been decommissioned.

00:09:45.759 --> 00:09:51.759
But my cover designer, Sam Perkins Harbin, uh, he's a Flint Central alum.

00:09:51.919 --> 00:10:00.000
So when we were designing the covers together, you know, when we were talking about the different images, uh, we both had a strong picture of Flint in our mind.

00:10:00.159 --> 00:10:02.399
But these are also meant to be suggestive.

00:10:02.559 --> 00:10:19.679
Like, you know, I would like to think that, you know, somebody picks up this book and, you know, their city that they're familiar with is, I don't know, maybe it's maybe it's Toledo, maybe it's even Richmond, California, or, you know, some other place with an industrial history, and there would be points of recognition.

00:10:19.840 --> 00:10:22.879
And the covers are kind of kind of also meant to suggest that.

00:10:23.200 --> 00:10:31.360
You seem to focus in some of your interviews from previous works on deindustrialization, and that makes its way into this book.

00:10:31.519 --> 00:10:33.120
How does that how does that fit?

00:10:33.360 --> 00:10:48.320
I'd like to take a bird's eye view of it, and of course, I I guess I'm somewhat limited by it my own experience, but I was born in 1978 and you know, was was in the in Flint or the Flint area, you know, all the way basically through 2000 practically.

00:10:48.480 --> 00:10:52.720
So I think that was an era when Flint was de-industrializing.

00:10:52.879 --> 00:11:00.000
You know, I moved back in 2010, well, 2011, Flint is de-industrialized now.

00:11:00.399 --> 00:11:14.480
You know, you still have an industrial presence here, but I think, you know, the largest sectors of the economy are just about as much like uh the municipal government, education, and healthcare, you know, are almost almost up there with industry.

00:11:14.639 --> 00:11:17.519
And if you go back before my time, Flint was an industrial city.

00:11:17.600 --> 00:11:24.320
I mean, I think, I think actually, like GM employment maxed out in 1978, the year I was born, it was about 80,000.

00:11:24.559 --> 00:11:33.840
My experience growing up in a in a city, it was a city that still had factories, but was constantly in a in a process of shedding them.

00:11:34.000 --> 00:11:37.679
I think that, you know, that question about what's next, where is this going?

00:11:37.840 --> 00:11:38.960
Where are these jobs going?

00:11:39.120 --> 00:11:40.559
Where is this revenue going?

00:11:40.799 --> 00:11:47.759
I do think that that, you know, comes into my writing a lot because that was, you know, the city when I was coming of age.

00:11:48.000 --> 00:11:49.840
That was the soundtrack of your life.

00:11:50.000 --> 00:11:50.320
Yeah.

00:11:50.639 --> 00:12:00.159
I listened to something you told another reporter about your family explaining to you the rules of the road when it could be getting a job in a General Motors factory.

00:12:00.320 --> 00:12:02.399
Could I get you to repeat that story?

00:12:02.639 --> 00:12:03.120
Oh wow.

00:12:03.279 --> 00:12:08.559
I think it was uh not to count on one because uh it it wasn't it wasn't going to be there.

00:12:08.799 --> 00:12:11.200
At least that that's the conversation I mostly remember.

00:12:11.519 --> 00:12:13.360
What did they have to say about that?

00:12:13.519 --> 00:12:15.519
That your future with General Motors.

00:12:15.679 --> 00:12:19.679
Yeah, I think there was one week where I was aspiring to go into the shop.

00:12:19.840 --> 00:12:21.519
They put the lid on that pretty tight.

00:12:21.679 --> 00:12:23.600
It was not the future they wanted for me.

00:12:23.759 --> 00:12:31.200
I think they uh hoped that by getting uh getting my brother and sister and me a good education, we'd have, you know, lots of options available to us.

00:12:31.360 --> 00:12:40.480
But I mean, also I think they were aware that those jobs were going away, that they simply were not going to be there in the numbers, uh, which was completely correct.

00:12:40.720 --> 00:12:43.519
Well, you know, we've had a couple guys come out of Flint.

00:12:43.759 --> 00:12:50.559
One, Ben Hamper, who wrote The Rivet Head, which is actually a nonfiction book, although it reads like fiction at times.

00:12:50.799 --> 00:13:07.039
We had uh Christopher Paul Curtis, one of the world's uh top children's books authors, one of the most sold authors on the on the planet, who grew up in the south end of and actually worked at Fisher Body Plant Number One, and said he couldn't take it anymore.

00:13:07.279 --> 00:13:08.879
He left, and there he is.

00:13:09.120 --> 00:13:11.440
He became unbelievably successful.

00:13:11.600 --> 00:13:12.639
So it is possible.

00:13:12.720 --> 00:13:13.919
So there's hope, right?

00:13:14.000 --> 00:13:15.600
There's hope for your books.

00:13:15.840 --> 00:13:17.759
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:13:18.080 --> 00:13:18.799
I hope so.

00:13:19.039 --> 00:13:28.559
Have you tried any other mediums like film or broadcasting or you know, some of the other things like poetry, or uh, or is this just your game?

00:13:28.720 --> 00:13:30.000
Just writing is your game?

00:13:30.240 --> 00:13:36.960
I'd say fiction and essays are the two forms I do the most, the two that I'm I'm most comfortable in.

00:13:37.200 --> 00:13:42.559
I'm a bit of a perfectionist, at least, you know, where writing is concerned.

00:13:42.720 --> 00:13:44.559
I don't like doing things poorly.

00:13:44.720 --> 00:13:50.399
And part of the problem is that all of those mediums are extremely challenging to do well.

00:13:50.799 --> 00:14:00.399
It's it's I guess easy to do some of those things poorly, but I think with my passion is for fiction, I enjoy writing essays and sort of like that personal nonfiction.

00:14:00.720 --> 00:14:01.600
You tried poetry?

00:14:01.759 --> 00:14:03.279
Oh, yeah, I've I've tried poetry.

00:14:03.440 --> 00:14:06.240
I was never particularly impressed with the poetry I could write.

00:14:06.320 --> 00:14:08.159
I thought it was pretty pedestrian.

00:14:08.320 --> 00:14:16.879
I've uh done journalism here and there, and I feel like that's one of the most rigorous and demanding forms of writing there is out there.

00:14:17.120 --> 00:14:23.120
So um I have so much respect for anybody that can like sit down and and write an article.

00:14:23.279 --> 00:14:25.519
Um, but I don't think it's for me.

00:14:25.679 --> 00:14:28.000
Now, this book took you a long time to write.

00:14:28.320 --> 00:14:28.799
27.

00:14:29.279 --> 00:14:30.720
27 years to write.

00:14:30.799 --> 00:14:33.600
Now, in 27 years, a lot of life can go by.

00:14:33.759 --> 00:14:34.000
Yeah.

00:14:34.159 --> 00:14:50.240
And so there's a lot of changes in Akaway, such as uh crime, crack cocaine epidemic, kids getting shot and killed in schools, uh, guns on the street, bad water, and factories closing seemingly one year after the next.

00:14:50.480 --> 00:14:52.000
How did that affect your book?

00:14:52.240 --> 00:14:58.000
Do these historical events that occurred in the community actually make their way into the book?

00:14:58.080 --> 00:14:59.279
Or do they it's hard?

00:15:00.000 --> 00:15:00.559
They do.

00:15:00.720 --> 00:15:13.919
I'd say most of the major events that I'm aware of in Flint from the mid-1980s until the last several years have made it in in some form or another.

00:15:14.159 --> 00:15:23.679
So in the very first book, there's a reference to a failed theme park, you know, downtown, and you know, the land that was cleared for that and its ultimate fate.

00:15:23.759 --> 00:15:25.919
And that's obviously Ottawa World.

00:15:26.080 --> 00:15:40.080
And, you know, the characters are are talking about it and kind of like noticing, you know, this huge grassy field where you'd expect to see uh, you know, uh infrastructure and buildings and commerce that close to the heart of a city.

00:15:40.240 --> 00:15:57.360
And then, you know, going forward to the third book, you know, there is a water crisis in that book, and it takes place with the situations and the deterioration of the schools and the city being under receivership by the state and other things surrounding that.

00:15:57.600 --> 00:16:12.080
But I think, other than the fact that they're included, it's almost like I had to approach each of them differently because this is a story about these characters trying to kind of survive in their own situations.

00:16:12.399 --> 00:16:23.600
So the way that they're going to engage each of those different things is going to be more personal in some cases and less personal in others.

00:16:23.679 --> 00:16:26.159
Um they're shaped, they're shaped by history.

00:16:26.320 --> 00:16:26.720
Yeah.

00:16:26.960 --> 00:16:30.399
You've kind of broke a rule that is sort of an old axiom.

00:16:30.559 --> 00:16:34.240
And that old axiom is once you've left, you can't go home.

00:16:34.399 --> 00:16:36.559
You've kind of followed that path.

00:16:36.720 --> 00:16:38.960
You left Flint, you came back to Flint.

00:16:39.200 --> 00:16:44.559
What you discovered when you came back to Flint was a much different city than when you left.

00:16:44.720 --> 00:16:46.639
I think you made reference to that earlier.

00:16:46.879 --> 00:16:47.679
How does that work?

00:16:47.840 --> 00:16:48.639
How does that work?

00:16:48.720 --> 00:16:51.279
And how does that how does that get into this book?

00:16:51.519 --> 00:16:55.039
I think that part of it has to do with the age of the characters.

00:16:55.200 --> 00:16:57.440
Going back to what you just said, yeah, I I agree.

00:16:57.519 --> 00:17:01.039
Like, you know, I came home, I came back to Flint, Michigan.

00:17:01.120 --> 00:17:04.160
Uh, you know, I didn't stay in Chicago or go to some other place.

00:17:04.240 --> 00:17:11.119
And in that sense, you know, you do have the opportunity to connect with what's familiar, but the city is is a is a fundamentally different place.

00:17:11.200 --> 00:17:13.200
It it changes, every city changes.

00:17:13.359 --> 00:17:16.240
That's just in the nature of what a city is.

00:17:16.559 --> 00:17:23.359
In terms of the book, the main character starts it when he's 13 years old, and he's 16 when he leaves.

00:17:23.519 --> 00:17:29.039
I don't know of any 13-year-old who is the same exact person when they're 16.

00:17:29.279 --> 00:17:33.599
Like those are years, three years of incredible growth and transformation.

00:17:33.759 --> 00:17:36.480
So, in a way, it was kind of uh appropriate.

00:17:36.559 --> 00:17:49.839
Like, I don't know that I plan it out this way exactly, but as the city is changing very rapidly throughout these four books, the characters are also growing and maturing at a very quick rate, too.

00:17:50.079 --> 00:18:00.000
And I think, yeah, that people who get to the end of the fourth book go back and like reread the first 10 pages of the first book would think, wow, this city is very different.

00:18:00.079 --> 00:18:02.720
And wow, these characters are very different.

00:18:03.039 --> 00:18:04.000
Back to the real world.

00:18:04.079 --> 00:18:08.160
Do you think people understand that their city has changed once they've left?

00:18:08.400 --> 00:18:11.359
I don't think people are really great at recognizing that.

00:18:11.519 --> 00:18:16.640
At least it's taken me like four decades to feel like I recognize that.

00:18:16.799 --> 00:18:25.920
I think that we have memories and experiences that we think is being fundamental to our sense not only of ourselves, but of a place.

00:18:26.079 --> 00:18:36.799
If you walk up to me and just say the words Flint, Michigan, I'm probably going to imagine the Atlas Coney Island on Corona Road, circa like 1997 or 1998.

00:18:37.039 --> 00:18:38.960
At about two o'clock in the morning.

00:18:39.279 --> 00:18:39.839
Exactly.

00:18:39.920 --> 00:18:40.240
Yes.

00:18:40.480 --> 00:18:43.200
Two o'clock in the morning, the best time to be there then.

00:18:43.359 --> 00:18:45.359
Yeah, well, that's 25 years ago.

00:18:45.599 --> 00:18:52.720
Anyone who is less than 25 years old living in Flint, that Flint does not exist anymore.

00:18:52.880 --> 00:18:56.240
Like it has never existed for those people.

00:18:56.480 --> 00:19:07.920
I think that, you know, however good our intentions are, we have a tendency to view places as being more fixed as we encountered them than they actually are.

00:19:08.160 --> 00:19:13.279
And they're always going to be different from person to person, and they're always going to be different from time to time.

00:19:13.680 --> 00:19:15.839
The city really is not a static entity.

00:19:16.000 --> 00:19:19.839
In fact, the older I get, the better my old neighborhood looks.

00:19:20.400 --> 00:19:29.759
You know, I don't remember the smoke going across the the Pengali Road and Browning Street and Milton of Black smoke for your bodies.

00:19:29.920 --> 00:19:30.240
Yeah.

00:19:30.480 --> 00:19:32.240
I don't remember the traffic amps.

00:19:32.400 --> 00:19:32.880
I don't remember.

00:19:32.960 --> 00:19:35.039
Do you have some of those moments in your book?

00:19:35.119 --> 00:19:53.519
Although you're you're really a generation or two generations apart from um do you have moments like that today where you look at your city and you say, Wow my god, what's that um do you mean like where where I'm like nostalgic for the past, or yeah, where you look at it and you're kind of startled by what you see.

00:19:53.839 --> 00:19:56.799
There are specific things that I definitely miss.

00:19:57.200 --> 00:20:00.960
You know, we we talked about going to the atlas at At two in the morning.

00:20:01.039 --> 00:20:03.119
And actually, that's like a very specific one.

00:20:03.680 --> 00:20:08.319
I'm not as interested in hearing the answer to that story because we can find that on Facebook.

00:20:08.720 --> 00:20:11.920
What we can't find on Facebook is what we see today.

00:20:12.160 --> 00:20:18.640
And for those expatriates like myself, we can't there are things that are happening there today that we don't see.

00:20:18.880 --> 00:20:24.640
And that's a lot more interesting than you know the US 23 drive-in in the 1970s.

00:20:24.960 --> 00:20:31.039
Tell me a couple things that you see today that might not have existed even in the 90s.

00:20:32.000 --> 00:20:35.359
I'm not asking you to put shade on plant.

00:20:35.599 --> 00:20:38.640
I just want to see what whatever the reality is.

00:20:38.799 --> 00:20:50.720
I think at one point you describe this confusing picture where you see people who live this life where they have to navigate some unimaginable things.

00:20:51.039 --> 00:20:56.799
And at the same time, they navigate a city as if it wouldn't be any different any other place, perhaps.

00:20:57.200 --> 00:21:01.359
I think uh a a couple things that I've seen in the last few years.

00:21:01.599 --> 00:21:10.000
One of them actually I feel like it began back in '95 when Rhonda Sanders came out with her book, Bronze Pillars.

00:21:10.319 --> 00:21:20.880
Now that book has been out for a while, but I see people going back to it over and over again to the point where, you know, it's it's in it's in reading groups today.

00:21:21.359 --> 00:21:26.400
Some of the, I think the Flint Public Library had a reading group that was reading uh Rhonda Sanders' book.

00:21:26.480 --> 00:21:29.119
And then you know, the Flint Color Lines project came out.

00:21:29.519 --> 00:21:54.720
I think that one thing that is happening now is especially in the last couple years with uh, you know, the rise of Black Lives Matter and the George Floyd protests, is there the uh civil rights era of Flint from the 1960s going forward, you know, has gotten a refreshing second look and is being taught and understood in a deeper way, you know, than perhaps it has been in the past.

00:21:54.799 --> 00:22:03.039
So that is something that I would say I think has has changed in the city, you know, since the 1990s, that I think is a is a very positive development.

00:22:03.359 --> 00:22:19.359
Another weird thing that I think is it's difficult to pin down, but those years that I was in flushing, there were maybe like flushing high school at 1,300 students, there were maybe like a couple dozen non-white students in um in all of Flushing High School.

00:22:19.599 --> 00:22:24.799
And that would have been, you know, a similar experience throughout most of Flint's mid-suburbs.

00:22:25.200 --> 00:22:37.440
Part of what has happened is that as uh Flint has continued to contract by about 2,000 people a year for the last 30 years, is uh most families stay within Genesee County.

00:22:37.759 --> 00:22:43.519
They leave Flint, but they've moved out to Flint Township, to Burton, to Flushing, Davison, Stuart Street.

00:22:43.759 --> 00:22:53.200
And as a result, these suburbs uh, you know, which were all white, you know, not that long ago, are now much more integrated and diverse than they've been in the past.

00:22:53.359 --> 00:23:08.160
And I think that paradoxically, even as that has you know resulted from Flint contracting, I think that there are closer connections between city residents and some suburbanites than there have ever been in the past.

00:23:08.319 --> 00:23:20.960
And I'd say that that is also something which was not which was not the case, you know, when I lived in flushing, all my friends lived in Flint, I drove into Flint for my social life, you know, they didn't come out and visit me.

00:23:21.279 --> 00:23:24.000
I I think that the ground is shifting a bit on that.

00:23:24.319 --> 00:23:30.319
So those would be those would be two things that I think are are new and at least from my perspective, unanticipated.

00:23:30.880 --> 00:23:39.440
You're a young father, uh you're educated, you live in the college and cultural area, and you've decided to put your stake down in Flint.

00:23:39.680 --> 00:23:40.240
Is that right?

00:23:40.480 --> 00:23:40.799
Yep.

00:23:41.200 --> 00:23:43.759
What is it about Flint that makes you hopeful?

00:23:44.160 --> 00:23:45.599
It's it's the people, really.

00:23:45.839 --> 00:23:52.720
And I mean, I I don't know that I could have said answered that question with any confidence, you know, even like five years ago.

00:23:52.960 --> 00:24:04.799
Um I think I was still like kind of guilty of like magical thinking, looking for the next downtown redevelopment to get us over, or you know, the next U of M expansion to get us over.

00:24:04.960 --> 00:24:07.839
Um and partly like those always feel like miragas.

00:24:07.920 --> 00:24:12.160
They they are always like further away you you approach them and they recede before you.

00:24:12.480 --> 00:24:20.799
But I mean, really what it comes down to is you know, this is a community I know intimately well because I have involved so much of my life here.

00:24:20.960 --> 00:24:28.319
And so I know the people here and I care about them and I see what they have to offer, and hopefully, you know, they see what I have to offer.

00:24:28.559 --> 00:24:31.359
It could sound cynical to say, why flint?

00:24:31.680 --> 00:24:34.720
And my answer would be like, well, why not?

00:24:34.960 --> 00:24:37.359
But that's kind of what it comes down to.

00:24:37.440 --> 00:24:49.039
You know, I care about this place, so why would I go someplace that I don't have that intimacy and that familiarity when I can help out here and where I can be part of this community?

00:24:49.359 --> 00:24:52.240
Honor Coyne, thank you for appearing on Radio Free Clint.

00:24:52.319 --> 00:24:56.160
I really enjoyed talking to you, and I wish you every success on your book.

00:24:56.319 --> 00:24:59.440
Please show the book again one last time if you put this up on YouTube.

00:24:59.759 --> 00:25:00.160
There we go.

00:25:00.720 --> 00:25:01.920
Urbantism.

00:25:02.160 --> 00:25:04.480
It's the third in the series of four.

00:25:04.960 --> 00:25:08.480
Yep, actually, it's the last one, and it'll be published on May 1st.

00:25:08.799 --> 00:25:09.759
Okay, very good.

00:25:09.839 --> 00:25:15.839
And you'll be around town with it, and we'll put a link to Connor's website by the end of this podcast.

00:25:16.079 --> 00:25:17.759
Thank you for joining us, everybody out there.

00:25:18.160 --> 00:25:19.759
We'll see you down next time.

00:25:20.079 --> 00:25:20.960
Goodbye.

00:25:22.000 --> 00:25:26.559
Well, the water was brown, smelled like chlorine.

00:25:26.799 --> 00:25:31.039
Still, the city officials said the water was clean.

00:25:31.279 --> 00:25:35.200
People broke out in rashes, somewhere losing their hair.

00:25:35.359 --> 00:25:39.279
They complained to the mare, but he just didn't care.

00:25:39.519 --> 00:25:42.000
He said river water.

00:25:42.640 --> 00:25:53.519
Well, it's yeah, he said don't you worry, people I drink it all the time.

00:25:56.880 --> 00:26:01.359
Doctor Mona knew that the water was bad.

00:26:01.680 --> 00:26:05.599
She gathered all the research that she had.

00:26:06.000 --> 00:26:07.920
She released a study.

00:26:08.319 --> 00:26:14.240
That study said, All your little children have been poisoned with lead.

00:26:17.200 --> 00:26:19.200
Tast like turpentine tie.

00:26:25.759 --> 00:26:27.680
Tast like turpentine.

00:27:07.200 --> 00:27:10.720
That just knows what the system will do.

00:27:11.359 --> 00:27:14.880
It'll poison your children and lie to you.

00:27:15.759 --> 00:27:19.519
You can tell them the facts, they'll still say they're right.

00:27:20.000 --> 00:27:21.839
They deny a truth.

00:27:22.000 --> 00:27:24.319
Well, it's in flame type.

00:27:41.359 --> 00:27:44.240
Oh and out about the water.

00:27:44.960 --> 00:27:47.920
Now people are shaking down.