“I Dreamed of Falling” – In Conversation with Julia Dahl (Part 2 of 2)

Interview continued from Part 1…

DeCanniere: Right. She can definitely go forward in a better, more intelligent way, but she can’t go back. I also thought the dynamic between Roman and Ashley’s is interesting.

Dahl: Yeah. I really wanted to tell the story of two people who really loved each other. Who fell in love when they were young teenagers, and who were best friends who really cared about each other — but who also had a very non-traditional relationship. Ashley is bisexual, and Roman embraces that. He loves Ashley for who she is, and part of who she is happens to be bisexual, which means she’s going to want to explore with women — especially as a teenager, when so much of what you’re doing is exploring. I think that people around them really scoffed at their relationship, and thought that “These people think they know better than everybody else. They think they can have an open relationship. They think Ashley can be with women.” It actually does work for them. I really wanted to show a relationship where other people being involved didn’t change the core love that Roman and Ashley had for each other. The book’s tragedy, as you find out immediately, is that Ashley dies. So, much of the book is the sadness of the last couple years of their relationship had been difficult, in part because they had a child they weren’t prepared for, but also because of COVID and the way that changed their family dynamic. You get a sense that, even so, they loved each other. I really wanted to create a picture of a non-traditional relationship that was sturdy and loving. 

DeCanniere: Absolutely. Another thing I found interesting was this look we get at Roman working for this local paper.

Dahl: Yes. That’s another theme. I do love writing about reporters. One of the real tragedies of the internet era is that, for many different reasons, local news is dying. News has become sort of consolidated into many national publications. I live — in a town of about 12,000 people, in a county of many more — and there are not even a handful of reporters who are covering multiple school boards, multiple city councils, and planning departments and building departments, and so on. 

There’s all kinds of stuff going on behind-the-scenes. Lots of decisions about how peoples’ lives are going to go, and how the money is going to be spent, and nobody is watching. That is a big problem. That was definitely something I wanted to write about with Roman as the only reporter at this local paper, where even as somebody who initially had ambition to dig into things, he just gets sort of beaten down by the everyday. What he thinks of as unimportant things — bench dedications, kids races and stuff — those things are fine, but he wanted to be a “real journalist.” He wanted to write about the people in power, and he wanted to write about systems and he’s not allowed to do that in his work. By the time we meet him — four years into this job — he has almost lost the desire to do that. Almost.

DeCanniere: Right. It seems to be an issue in many communities nationwide. I will say that where I live, there does seem to be local coverage. However, the local papers are often covering multiple communities, which is not uncommon — especially these days, as you said. So, the same people are covering the area as a whole — this collection of communities — rather than a particular community. You have local editions, but you have the same group of people who are tasked with covering a whole bunch of goings on in a whole bunch of communities. 

Dahl: And there are just far fewer. I was listening to my larger local public radio station. I’m a huge NPR and public media junkie. My station is WNYC, and I was listening to one of the local reporters talking about covering City Hall. They said that 10 years ago, there were dozens of reporters covering City Hall, and now it’s down to just barely a handful. It’s not just the small towns. It’s everywhere. I know this intimately, because I teach journalism and help students find work. There are just fewer and fewer and fewer jobs for real reporting. There are many more content jobs, and jobs working for brands and that kind of thing. Daily newspaper — daily news story, investigative journalism jobs — are dwindling. It is, in my opinion, not a coincidence that our democracy is crumbling just as our news media is crumbling. Those two things are very connected. That’s something that, in a way, I wanted to address with this book — in a small way. It’s a small town, where the people in power get to do stuff that, if the community knew about it, they would not be happy about it — but they don’t know about it, because nobody is watching. That is the job of the press, to be that watchdog, and the press has become so anemic for many different — mostly financial — reasons that they can’t do that job anymore and, thus, the population is not informed and can’t make informed decisions. No wonder we’re having problems keeping our democracy. 

DeCanniere: I’m sure it’s no surprise, but I think that you’re absolutely right. 

Dahl: If you don’t have enough people — if you have one guy who is covering the city council and the school board and the planning department, and the mayor’s office, and the school district, and you’re paying them $45,000 a year, it’s just not going to happen. 

DeCanniere: I will say that who the paper is owned by can also determine a lot as well, in terms of coverage and the like. In your book, the paper seems to be controlled by this one family who it seems is all-too-comfortable having editorial control over the paper — at least to some extent.

Dahl: Absolutely, and who owns the papers is very important. I mean, a hedge fund bought a bunch of what used to be strong regional papers. Whatever you think of the New York Times, their mission is to report the news. Hedge funds and other similar firms do not have the same mission. Their mission is to make money. You’re going to make different decisions about how you cover the news, who you employ, and what you pay them, if your mission is to make money instead of informing populace to better our democracy. Jeff Bezos bought The Washington Post. Ownership matters.

DeCanniere: Fortunately, I do think that some papers, such as the Chicago Sun-Times,have been able to stop the sale of their paper to such firms, and they became a part of Chicago Public Media instead, which does seem like a much better solution.

Dahl: Right. Sometimes there’s a happy ending.

DeCanniere: It’s definitely so much better than what could have happened, and what likely would have happened, if they’d been acquired by someone else.

Dahl: Right. I think non-profit news has really helped. There are things like MLK50, which is a Memphis-based news organization. There are groups like The 19th News, a non-profit news organization really focused on gender and news that affects women. Then there is Capital B News, which is an amazing non-profit focused on the Black community. The Marshall Project, which is focused on covering crime, justice and public safety. The Trace, which is focused on gun violence and gun safety.  However, just having that local reporter going to the school board meetings is something that is still missing, and I think that is a real tragedy. 

DeCanniere: And I think Larry’s view, too — the man who runs the paper in your book — his view of what the paper should be about seems to be very different than Roman’s view. 

Dahl: Larry is a funny character, because I think what has happened with Larry is that he may, like Roman, have started off with high journalistic intentions. However, after years of being underpaid and overworked, he has just lost that mission.

DeCanniere: Right. It seems like he has become jaded.

Dahl: Absolutely. Journalists become jaded. We do. Which is one of the reasons I love being a journalism teacher. Young journalists are still really passionate, and we need them so badly to want to make this country and the world a better place, and they do. That’s one of the things I’ve loved about teaching. 

DeCanniere: Absolutely. I’m so thankful there are people who continue to be attracted to the field, who want to go into it for the right reasons.

Dahl: Thank God. I know, right?

DeCanniere: Another thing you touch on in the book is the drug crisis — particularly the whole issue with fentanyl, and how it seems to be in everything and everywhere in that community, as in far too many communities. 

Dahl: Almost exactly two years ago, my very first best friend — my closest friend from childhood accidentally overdosed on fentanyl. She was the first person I knew well who had fallen victim to that. She was such a beautiful, talented person. Something like 100,000 Americans die from overdoses every year. That’s shocking. When I found out what happened to my friend, that was the first time the crisis felt real. I was in touch with her family, and thought a lot about what they went through. I’ve heard all the news about how common fentanyl is. 

I have a student who wrote an article for New York Magazine about how people in New York City’s club scene, who I guess do cocaine and other kinds of drugs, were carrying around test strips to make sure that their cocaine didn’t have fentanyl in it. The ubiquity of this drug, and its unbelievable danger, wasn’t really something that I felt connected to until that death. Yet, when you start asking around and paying attention, you realize that almost everybody you know has known somebody — or had somebody in their family — die from an accidental fentanyl overdose. So, I did want to talk a little bit about the culture of addiction. Especially with something like fentanyl and heroin, it’s just so addictive. Once you are addicted, it is just so hard. My friend had struggled with addiction for almost two decades. She made a lot of strides, and she just slipped back, and it happened to have fentanyl in it. Our country just simply does not support people who want to get clean from addiction. It is so hard to find a bed in a treatment center, and to find care that is ongoing — because you need constant help. We just don’t make that possible, when you start thinking about whether insurance covers it, and whether a doctor is in or out-of-network, and what is the co-pay. It’s just impossible, especially if you are someone in the throes of addiction. You can’t manage that. So, we don’t make it easy. Then, the impact addiction has on families is so terrible and dramatic. Talk about generational trauma, right? So, I did want to talk about that and how, in some ways, I feel like a lot of communities and families have — I don’t know. I almost feel like, as a society, we have thrown up our hands and said we’re just going to allow a certain number of people to die every year. It’s a tragedy.

DeCanniere: First, I’m just so sorry to hear that happened. Obviously, it really is tragic, both for the person who passed away, but also for you and for all of their family and friends who cared about her. It’s just incredibly sad, and I do think that you are right. While I don’t have firsthand experience with this, it does seem to me that you are right. Many people who are addicted just do not seem to have access to the help that they very obviously need.

I will say that your book does highlight another problem. Namely, that when police conclude that someone has likely died as the result of an overdose, they may rush to conclusions or not prioritize that case. 

Dahl: That’s exactly the thing. I think that the police and first responders can be jaded, which I can understand. You see overdose after overdose after overdose. In a way, that’s been a theme of my work. First responders — police — looking at a death and making assumptions. You know, “This death looks like this, and so I’m not going to investigate further.” In a way, that’s a theme that I’ve had since my very first book, Invisible City, which is in some ways about not taking the work you do seriously. In Invisible City, Rebekah was in many ways a very sloppy reporter. I’d like to think that, over the course of the three books, she learned to be a better reporter. If you’re in a job like being a reporter, or a police officer, being careless or sloppy in your work has real consequences. So, looking at a death and saying “Oh, it looks like drugs,” and not looking further has real consequences. 

DeCanniere: Obviously, I think that the vast majority of officers are diligent and really are trying to do their jobs properly — and I certainly think that most reporters are trying to do their jobs properly, as well. However, as you say, this is an issue that comes up in Invisible City, and it also reminds me of the conversation we had when Conviction came out. There can sometimes be this desire to clear cases, and that desire can sometimes overwhelm other things. 

Dahl: Exactly.

DeCanniere: Last, but not least, are there any books you’ve read lately that you’d recommend?

Dahl: I’m loving The God of the Woods by Liz Moore. I just devoured two other books as well. I’ve been trying to sort of branch out and not just read crime fiction — because normally that’s what I’m attracted to — but I’ve been trying to read different kinds of books. So, I just finished and loved Lies and Weddings by Kevin Kwan. It’s absolutely fantastic, and this year I’ve become obsessed with Chris Bohjalian. So, I loved The Princess of Las Vegas, which really is kind of crime fiction, but he’s so good. I don’t think I’ve ever read a male author write women better than he does. One more book that I loved is Long Island Compromise by Taffy Brodesser-Akner. I think everybody should read it.

Julia Dahl is the author of The Missing Hours, Conviction, Run You Down, and Invisible City, which was a finalist for the Edgar Award for Best First Novel, one of the Boston Globe’s Best Books of 2014, and has been translated into eight languages. A former reporter for CBS News and the New York Post, she now teaches journalism at NYU. For more information visit her website. You can also find her on Twitter, Facebook and Goodreads.

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