Jamilah Lemieux on the complicated beauty of being a ‘Black. Single. Mother.’

Baby Mama is a phrase that can diminish a woman,

“reduce her to a relationship that didn't work out.”

And in the United States, no one has carried that label more than black single mothers. In 1965, the U.S. Department of Labor commissioned a report from Futur Senator Daniel Patrick Moynehan that looked at the rising number of black households led by single mothers and called it the root of a tangle of poverty and dysfunction, a finding that shaped decades of public policy and cemented a cultural stigma.

President Ronald Reagan gave that stigma a face. The so-called welfare queen. By the time welfare reform passed in the 90s, it had hardened into policy. Black single mothers weren't just stereotype, they were punished and blamed. I grew up with a single mother during those years. Our home was full of love and care, but I know how that shame impacts both single mothers

and their children. My guest today, Jamila Lemue, a writer and cultural critic, has lived that story too. She said she once thought single motherhood was a fate just slightly worse than death. And worried that writing about it could mean wearing that label forever. Eventually, over the last decade,

she has given a first-hand account of single motherhood and columns essays and on social media.

In her new book, Black single mother, Lemue details the history of that stigma, including the cultural significance of the Moynihan report, and blends her personal story with those of 21 other single mothers, about love and co-parenting, ambition and the complicated ordinary beauty of raising a child on your own. Jamila Lemue's work has appeared in the Washington Post, the New York Times,

Vanity Fair, Essence and Slate, where she currently writes the care and feeding parenting column. Jamila Lemue, welcome to Fresh Air. Thank you for having me. Okay, the title, Black single mother. It's provocative, it's simple, but as I said in the intro,

there is so much weight to it and it can be triggering. It was actually triggering to you.

For a long time, you kind of hesitated on this being the focus of your book. Absolutely. I worked with my literary agent, Tanya McKinnon, for about five years before we sold this book. Wow. And we come up with an idea. I'd work on it for a little while in the night's say, I don't like this. I don't believe in this. This isn't the right book. And on a number of occasions, Tanya said,

“you should write about single motherhood. You should write about Black single mothers.”

And I was afraid that if I wrote that book, I was going to be a Black single mother for the rest of my life. Oh, that's interesting. Yeah, I thought that by writing it, putting this down, this is who I will be forever. And, you know, one, obviously I decided, okay, I'm going to do this. This is a book that needs to exist in the world. This is a book that could have been helpful to me in the early days of my motherhood. But also, as I wrote this book, I realized,

there's nothing wrong. They buy on a Black single mother for life. I've lived a great life. As a Black single mother, I had a great Black single mother. It may not be my preference, but it's not a death sentence. It's not dome. Tell us just a little bit about the circumstances of your single motherhood because you were in a relationship. Yeah. Then you weren't. I was in a relationship for just under two years. And we had decided at my suggestion to see other people,

you know, we were having some problems. We weren't super happy. I thought maybe we'll find our way back to each other. And during that time, I fall more deeply in love than ever before. And we can see if a baby. Not too long after that, he tells me that he wants to break up for good. And a few weeks later, I find out that I am pregnant. So we've been co-pairing seeing my daughter's entire life.

“Do you remember the first time you were called baby mama as a way to cut you down?”

I don't. You know, I'd be willing to bet it probably happened before I actually had a child. Baby mama is a phrase that's used or single mother. These are phrases that are used online to insult women. So if a man and a woman have disagreement about something, typically something related to gender, you know, how many baby daddy's do you have? You might you sound like a single mother. So I'd probably heard it before it actually applied to me. And I will say this. It has not been

weaponized against me as much online as I had expected it to be. And it certainly has been. You know, there have been time, you know, you're just a baby mama. You're just a single mother. Without anything else to substantiate that being a bad thing. You know, or that there was anything wrong with me like you're a baby mama. Period. You're a single mother. Period. You know, you're deficient.

with shame and disappointment and confusion and, you know, I don't want this forever. This is not

what I want. How am I life to be? I still never take it personally when people have used those phrases

towards me as an insult. You didn't see someone calling you a baby mama or a single black mother as an insult. But there was an internalizing. And maybe was there also a morning that you were going to be carrying this baby alone? Yes. It's funny because when I was in the relationship, I had doubts. I had questions about whether we were meant to actually be together. You know, there were things that didn't work for me. I wasn't always very kind to him. Like, it just wasn't

“great. You know, there were things about it that were great and he's a great person. I think I'm a”

great person. We had a lot in common, but looking back on it, I feel like we would have been

so much better as friends. You know, I can't say we should have never dated because if we hadn't

dated, we wouldn't have our daughter. But I was grieving this image of family that I'd built up for myself from childhood, you know, largely due to television and books. You know, it was the huxtables. It was the banks. Every children's book I read, it's a married couple. You know, in the few times that you did come across a single parent and entertainment, they were usually a widow. You know, or the father was completely absent, which I also couldn't relate to. You know, so nothing

looked like me. But what I did see was, you know, particularly, I think about the huxtables and

“the banks, black upper middle class families, enjoying prosperity together. You know, so I think”

I was able to name that I was thinking about family. You know, I'm thinking about marriage, I'm thinking about partnership, thinking of multiple children. But I think a big thing that I felt like I was missing was class privilege. You know, it was money, right? I wonder, have my mother been a high earnings single mom? Would I have more and agreed? What was missing from my life? Let's do another way that I did. Yeah, you growing up, so you were born and raised in Chicago,

not far from where the Obama's what later call home. And your mom was a single mom herself. Your dad was in the picture, but he didn't live with you. And it was sort of a different type of relationship. You would see him. But what's he as much of a co-parent as your daughter's father is?

“Absolutely not. No, um, was my father a co-parent? Yes, particularly in the terms, by which we”

would have understood co-parent saying which wasn't even a phrase when I was born, you know, or commonly used phrase. So he visited the house a lot. He would take me to brunch or to visit my grandmother on the weekends. You know, there was like one year, he picks me up from after school every day. You know, so like he was very present. You know, he called every day, right? So in the context of the 90s and the dialogues about absentee black dads and how many kids I knew who didn't

have fathers at all or have fathers that were in and out of their lives, you couldn't tell me nothing about my dad. My dad was great, you know. And then some things happened, you know, throughout my childhood in teenage years and things start to be revealed to me that kind of, you know, not shattered that picture of him, but complicated it a bit. But he was always, you know, very present, but not, you know, raising me in the way that my daughter's father who has her 50% of the time is raising our daughter.

Tell me about your mom, what kind of mother wish her mother? My mother was an amazing mother,

is an amazing mother. She's just a fabulous lady. She's very wriggle, you know, I always wear nails

and that's kind of like a tribute to her, you know, always has full glam look. She was very loving, you know, very kind when people talk about like, oh, my mama would have killed me or, you know, I would have got a woman for that. Like, I can't relate, you know, my mom was doing gentle parenting before it was a thing. You mentioned the reaction to you being a single mother online and you bring up online because you have a prolific presence online. You are back in the

day when Twitter really became a thing. You really gained really what can be called fame from Twitter and from your social media, talking about social commentary and feminism. And there is a passage where you write about the tension between performing motherhood publicly on Twitter,

have you read it? This public performance of motherhood stood in contrast with the shame I

failed over the circumstances under which I was doing it. Trolls would still reliably remind me that I was alone, of course, that my baby daddy had left me. Some of them would claim that David had broken out during my fifth month of pregnancy, a lie that it somehow got enough traction to be thrown in my face numerous times. Privately, I felt like a failure for becoming a single mom. And at times, the feeling turned into guilt when I shared otherwise cute or funny stories with my audience.

Who was I to have an audience at all? I was just another baby mama. And David is your child's father. Can you talk about that gap between what people saw online and what you were carrying? Because obviously intellectually you understand at all. But there is that

“internalizing, that feeling. Yeah, I think it was less about having failed in the eyes of these other”

people, because I've never really been big about adhering to other folks' rules and standards.

But like, it was me grieving what I lost, what I felt like I lost. Like I had this vision of family. I wanted to be the Bohemian Huxbos in Brooklyn and in a Brownstone. I love how you put Bohemian on to front of that. Yes, I didn't want to be just like them. You know, I wanted to be like me with their good fortune and less children. Growing up on the south side of Chicago, you mentioned that coming from a single mother wasn't something that was rare or unique,

how did it play out and what did it look like in your childhood? It was interesting. I grew up in a mixed race mixed class neighborhood called Hype Park, which is essentially the campus of the University of Chicago. I went to a top flight elementary school, Beesley Academic Center, which was in the heart of the Robert Taylor Holmes projects. So it was the opposite of what often happens, which is kids are buss from a struggling neighborhood to a quote unquote nicer one for school,

and it was the other way around. Kids were buss in two Beesley, even though it was in this challenged area, and you know, most of my friends had single moms, and there was a range of classic experiences. There were working class moms, there were middle class moms, and you know, back then, I wasn't hearing negativity about single mothers the way I drew now in the air of the internet.

“You know, there was, I think of when the term baby mama becomes popularized in 1997 with the song,”

that's just my baby daddy by being rocked in the bed. You know, we start hearing baby mama and baby daddy commonly, and like hearing rappers, you know, in the early 2000s, make derogatory references to my baby mama, you know, stressed out by the baby mama, can't say at the baby mama. But in terms of the community and the people around me, I wasn't in church, so I didn't witness the judgment that single mothers often experience.

So it's interesting, you felt you, you have come to believe or just see that maybe those who were in church had an extra, like set of like rules that they were abiding by. Absolutely. Candace Benbow, black feminists, theologian, talked about this in her book, Red Lip, Theology, she's also the child of a single mother and her mom, the church asked her mom to get up in front of the congregation and apologize for having a child out of wedlock,

and she refused to do it. You know, but it was made very clear to Candace by people adults around her that there was something wrong with the circumstances of her birth. You know, I didn't experience that. And as I grew older and, you know, her things, you know, there may have been people in my family that were judgmental of my mother for, you know, the way I came into the world, but it wasn't something I experienced, you know, I didn't watch it happening. What was it like hanging out with

friends who did have parents who were married? I remember the Davises for me and it wasn't

“until high school and I thought, okay, this is for real, like the thugs, the bulls, you know?”

Yeah, there are two families in particular that kind of stood out like that for me and I talked about them a little bit in the book. My friend Raven, who's my oldest friend, we went to every school together from kindergarten to college, you know, a successful Mary Parents, two cars, big house, vacations, you know, and then my friend Lilla, who I met in high school, you know, successful parents

on the home, you know, and I never, I never felt uncomfortable or judge or anything around them,

I want to actually play a clip from the Cosby Show. It's of Claire Huxtable and it happens in season two and Claire, who's played by Felicia Rashad, meets Elvin, her daughter's boyfriend, who's just walking into their home and Claire educates Elvin about marriage equality and the problem without dated gender roles because if those who used to watch her, remember, Elvin had some pretty antiquated thoughts about women and women's place. This episode aired in 1986. Let's listen.

Hi, Mrs. Huxtable. Hello, Elvin. Is Sandra ready? Well, not yet, but should be down a little

“while. Would you and Dr. Huxtable like some coffee? Coffee? Yeah, coffee. You mean, you're going to get it?”

Yes, you're surprised. I'm sorry, Mrs. Huxtable. I didn't think you did that kind of thing. What kind of thing? You know, serves. Sorry, home. Serve him. Oh, serve him. That's in serve your man. Well, yeah. Let me tell you something, Mel. You see, I am not serving Dr. Huxtable. Okay. That's the kind of thing that goes on in a restaurant. Now, I'm going to bring him a cup of coffee, just like he brought me a cup of coffee this morning and that

young man is what marriage is made of. It is give and take 50/50 and if you don't get it together

and drop these macho attitudes, you'll never go heavy. Anybody bringing you anything anywhere,

any place, any time ever. What would you like in your coffee? Maybe I could get you some coffee.

“That was the Cosby Show from 1986. What do you hear when you listen back to that clip?”

Well, first, I want to paraphrase, dream Hampton, the great dream Hampton, something she said about our Kelly wants. I'll paraphrase it to depth of the situation. I hate Bill Cosby for making me hate Bill Cosby. Oh, yes, because I mean, talking about the Cosby Show in today's context, we can't help but think about you can. Yeah, yeah, you can. But yeah, like I, that show isn't, I was very little when that episode aired, but the show was on syndication for so many years, so I'm certainly familiar with that

scene. I'm certain it made an impression upon me. You know, the first feminist essay I ever wrote,

I was about 12, and it was called "Fix Your Own Damn Dinner." And it was, part of it was, I'd seen a craft commercials, like a craft macaroni and cheese commercial. And Gladys Knight was singing about macaroni and cheese. Yeah. And there's this woman cooking and doing all the things for the family.

“And for some reason, that just bothered me. You know, I think that was when I started to realize”

that women were expected to do everything because even when I thought about the marry mothers, I know everybody worked, but usually the child care and the cooking and stuff fell on them. Yeah. You know, like, I'm just, it hit me. And I think, you know, I was also thinking about my own mom, even though I didn't know the answers to how do we fix that because there's no other adult in the house. You know, but like the idea of a mother doing everything didn't sit right with me.

And I think that that was one of my biggest oppositions to single motherhood, you know, but the irony is, as a single mother, I don't do everything. I do have time to myself. I have help. I have support. You know, there's some study that suggests that like single mothers do like seven hours less housework per week compared to married mothers because they're not taking care of a man. So then wait a minute, just so I could get this straight. So they work less in the home because

they have less people to care for in the house. Yeah. Yeah. So, you know, ultimately, like,

I think that when I think about partnership and what I was kind of wanting for as a kid that I couldn't quite articulate was for somebody to carry the load in a way I didn't see somebody carrying the load from my mother. I knew my father was supportive of my mother. I knew he did things for her, ran errands, pick things up, dropped us off places, sure. But the labor, the work of parenting fell on her. Let me take a short break. If you're just joining us, our guest today is writer and cultural

critic, Jimiola Lemue, we'll be right back after a break. I'm Tonya Mosley, and this is fresh air. This message comes from wise. The app for international people using money around the globe.

get wise, download the wise app today or visit wise.com, tease and seize apply. There's something very important that you're doing in this work and this book that you have written your desire to be a married mother and have a partner, but not in the traditional sense that we have been taught that we want that. That conflict was there ever a fear for you, though, that you may not have that. That that just might not be possible in the face as well of you being a

“single mother yourself. Absolutely. I think that fear hit me as soon as I knew that I would be a”

single mother. Will I ever have the family that I wanted? And I was certainly really grappling with that question. Is this going to happen? Will I still be able to have another baby if I made somebody? I feel confident that everything is going to work out for me very well, no matter what the size of my family may be. That's an important point to make because one of the other things you came to understand and discover as a single mother is that there's another richer experience

in what and defining family. And defining family, what did it look like for you? What does it look

like for you? It's interesting. I would say for maybe the first five or six years of my daughter's life,

I would still say things like I want to settle down someday and start a family. I might not

“have said it publicly in those words, but that's how I felt. You know, as if we weren't a family.”

And I do think that part of that wasn't just that I didn't have a partner, but also that I only had one child. Because I do feel like if there were two children, I think my brain would have made the connection, "Hey, this is a family. We are a family." You know, there's three of us. Two people can two people be a family? You know, like I've heard that same debate over a couple

of no kids. Are they a family? And the answer is absolutely yes. So my family, my primary core family is

Nama, extended from that. Her father, her stepmother, her younger brother, her grandmother, her husband, you know, her daughter's on and cousin, they're part of my family. There's my mother and father and my siblings and their spouses and my nephew, you know. And then there are these great friends that I've made throughout my journey who are just as much family to me in many ways as anyone else. So my family is sufficient, my family is, I don't know if complete is the right word,

but my family is enough. You and your, your child's father have a great whole parenting relationship, but it took some time to get there. Can you talk a little bit about that for me? Because there was a moment, there was a time right after you had Nama that you would show the world through Twitter, pictures of her and share her daily life, but you didn't share it with him. You were feeling really angry and hurt. Yes, but we were co-pairing saying the whole time. So from when Nama was born,

her father was in the delivery room, he would come by generally after work for a few hours every night and spend time with the baby until, you know, I was comfortable with her leaving with him. We were in each other's lives. He was very present, but I was angry and hurt. So I was not very cordial. You know, really that first year, sometimes that comes to the door and just hand him the baby and close the door. I cursed him out one good time for bringing her back late and not answering

the phone. That's the last time I ever yelled at him, but it was, you know, a memorable one. When did it flip? When did the relationship shift? Just, you know, my wounds had time to heal,

“and it's difficult to say this, but I think David getting married when he did when Nama was”

four months old forced me to rip the bandade off and grieve the relationship in a kind of abbreviated time frame as opposed to hoping that he comes around and we work things out and we get back together.

You know, I knew that was not a possibility. So I had to deal with what was before me. And I never

wanted my hurt feelings to impact Nama's relationships are hurt at. I did not feel like I need to punish him through our child. I was hurt, but this was Nama's dad. So he was going to be a part of my life, you know, and he was going to be a part of her life. And I knew that he would be a great father. Nama wouldn't be here if I'd had any doubts about that. And so it was a little tense for quite a while. I didn't meet Nama stepmother for like the first maybe three years. I wasn't ready.

he and I and I was able to, you know, we could have a brief conversation about the weather, you know, I still wasn't ready for her. And then one day I was and she and I have had a great

“relationship since then. What's been the secret you think? Putting the aim of first, I think”

that that is the secret. You know, that nothing was more important than I am. And not my pride, not my ego, not my feelings, not my comfort, you know, but I was able to put her first without throwing myself away. So I did prioritize my comfort to a certain extent when I wasn't ready to meet her stepmother. I did that on my time. And there were people, you know, friends of mine who didn't have children who were saying you need to meet this woman. She's in your

child's life. And I'm like, look, he has married her. I can't remove her. I can't say, oh, I don't like her. So Nama can't be around her anymore. So all I could do was trust that her father would not have someone around her who did not love her, who did not treat her well, who did not have her best interest at heart. And even though I may have been upset and disagreed with the timing of their marriage, I did not think that David would ever bring somebody around his child who was

not going to treat her well. Let's take a short break. If you're just joining us, my guest is Jamil Alamu. Her new book is Black Single Mother. This is fresh air. This message comes from wise. The app for international people using money around the globe. You can send, spend, and receive an up to 40 currencies with only a few simple taps. Be smart, get wise, download the wise app today or visit wise.com to ease and seize apply.

To be a mother can sometimes be all encompassing. And if you're the only mother in the household, oftentimes your identity is completely tied to your child. You're almost, you're not a sexual being. You're not a person with hopes and dreams. That's just not something that's at the forefront. You write about all of this stuff. You write about wanting to feel sexy and have a partner and have dreams and hopes in your career. And your daughter is there and a part of all of that.

But was that something that you had to break through yourself and finding your own identity or

was that something that had always just been clear to you? And if so, how? And why? No, I always knew

that this was the type of, you know, even before I, I might not have been participating being a single mother. But I always knew that when I was a mother, I was going to have a life

“of my own outside of mothering. And I think that's because my mother's life from what I could see.”

And now that I'm older, I see things, you know, somewhat differently. There was more there than I could recognize, you know. But from my vantage point, everything revolved around me. She didn't go out with her friends. My mom had me at 36, which was considered geriatric back then. And most of her friends had older children. You know, so they were getting great, they were going out and doing things that she wasn't able to do. You know, she's the only adult in the house. She did not trust

people watching me. You know, I did not have many, you know, I had very few baby sitters and that was

always during the day. I don't think anyone ever babysat me a night, maybe very few occasions.

Other than that, my mom really didn't spend any nice away from me. And that's just not what I wanted for myself. And I honor her sacrifice. You know, my mother had me a bit older than I was when I had my daughter. You know, we both chose to have babies under complicated circumstances. And we'd also both been told that we would have difficulty having children. You know, my mother had very bad fibroids. It was fully under the belief that she would not be able to have a child.

I was told in my early 20s that I had polycystic ovary syndrome and that I was going to have to get pregnant on purpose. That was going to have to be very intentional. You know, so I felt like a sign. But I told my name is that the very beginning, like, you're not going to be a weekend

it. You know, and he said, I don't want to be. And he, he never has been. I know. I wonder about

your parenting style. Because I was reading, as I'm reading this book, I'm thinking about wow, she's really laying it all out. She's telling us stories about dating, stories about her

“feelings, about being a mother. Do you also share that with your daughter in life?”

And she, yeah, gone along this journey with you. Yes, my daughter knows me very well. She knows me. The real me. She doesn't know as sanitized mommy version of me. I've been very intentional about making sure that my daughter sees me as a fool human being. You know, not just a mom. She knows that I cry. She knows I get disappointed. I don't let her into everything. I generally want to tell her things that will scare her or cause her great worry. But I've let her into a lot of

at all. Neither of my parents really toss, you know, very, my mother had taught to me about HIV.

And my dad taught to me a little bit about chivalry. And that was kind of the extent. And, you know, one day, I was in total of the 90s, baby. Yes. Yes, because those were the two things to talk about back then. Those were the things. Yeah. You know, it's interesting. This book coming out at this time because there's also a movement where a lot of women, a growing number of women,

“are choosing to be single mothers. Absolutely. I think this is going, this moment in time is”

going to be a renaissance for single moms, you know, and black women absolutely belong to the forefront

of that. What do you, yeah, what do you credit that to? I think just, you know, an increasing number

of women are choosing single motherhood, you know, many of them white women. And because they're making that choice, this is going to be a public conversation. And I'm curious to know how will black women factor into that because we've been doing this so long. There's been so much, you know, push back towards us. What do you want people to take away from this book? I want people to reimagine black single moms. I want people to question, you know, what sort of biases or, you know,

“negative ideas they may have about black single moms. And I want them to recognize us as an important”

force in the black community that has been an important force in the black community since our days on the plantation and to recognize and salute our efforts in raising black children and to be supportive of us. There's this song you talk about in the book that um, for a long time triggered you, it's Fantasia's song, Baby Mama. And um, I want to play a little bit and then talk about it on the other side because it is become an anthem, but it also is kind of a polarizing song.

Seems like people either love it or they really hate it. Let's listen. [Music] That was Fantasia singing her song, Baby Mama. And um, she described it as a tribute song. She was 17 years old when she had her daughter and she's gone through a lot. You said for a long time, you couldn't listen to this song and now it brings tears to you.

Yeah, I was tearing up just in. Um, yeah, when it came out, you know, I was young and very not anti single mother, anti me being a single mother. You know, and so I just kind of like,

why is this something to celebrate? And I probably never sat and listened to the song all the way

through and it came out to be honest. You know, I heard the chorus and it was kind of like,

“okay, I know thank you. I don't want this around me. And when I hear now, I think it's so revolutionary”

and so significant in Fantasia should really be credited for having the courage very early in her career. To publicly surround single motherhood in love and pride. You talked to 21 single mothers in this book and they tell you about the joys, the sorrows, the pitfalls, the enrichment of their lives. What was that process like for you? And did you learn something, maybe, that you didn't know from talking to them?

The book I turned in was not the book I sold. I was going to speak to all these experts. I was not intending to weave as much memoir and theirs I did at a personal storytelling. And when I looked at my story, it's not that I see it as so singular, but I realized that I am a light-skinned, college-trained, middle-class presenting, um, you know, woman who had both of her parents and who is a single mother with a co-parent, you know, an active co-parent who divides her time with me

evenly at this point. That is not the most common black single mother experience. There are a host of them, you know, there's no one definitive experience, but, you know, I knew so many other

and then five or six turned into 10 and, you know, next time I know there was 21 of them, but I,

“you know, what they all haven't common and this didn't surprise me, but the common thread is, you know,”

this undying commitment to their children, you know, it's that regardless of their class that is or where they came from, that they have created great lives for their children, you know, regardless of how difficult their circumstances may have been. Jamila, let me thank you so much for writing this book and thank you for the conversation. Thank you for having me. Writer and cultural critic Jamila Lemue, her new book is Black Single Mother.

Coming up, TV critic David B. and Kooley reviews the new series, American Classic,

now streaming on MGM+. This is fresh air. This message comes from wise, the app for international

people using money around the globe. You can send, spend, and receive an up to 40 currencies with only a few simple taps, be smart, get wise, download the wise app today, or visit wise.com,

“tease and seize apply. Kevin Klein stars in a new series now streaming on MGM+.”

called American Classic. He plays a New York actor returning to the small town and theater where he got his start. TV critic David B. and Kooley has this review. American Classic is a hidden gem in more ways than one. It's hidden because it's on MGM+. Which is a standalone streaming service which lets face it most people don't have and who wants one more streaming service.

But MGM+ is available without subscription for a seven-day free trial on its website or through

prime video in Roku. But do find and watch American Classic because it's an absolutely charming and wonderful TV jewel. Charming in the way it brings small towns and ordinary people to life as in northern exposure. Wonderful in the way it reflects the joys of local theater productions as in slings and arrows and the American Playhouse production of Kurt Vonnegut's Who Am I This Time.

“The creators of American Classic are Michael Hoffman and Bob Martin. Martin wrote and created”

slings and arrows so that comparison comes easily. But back in the early 1980s, who am I this time was about people who transformed on stage from ordinary citizens into extraordinary performers. It's a conceit that works only if you have brilliant actors to bring it to life convincingly. That American Playhouse production had two young actors named Christopher Walken and Susan Sarandon, so yes, it worked. And American Classic with its mix of veteran and young actors works too.

American Classic begins with Kevin Klein, a Shakespearean actor Richard Bean, confronting a New York Times drama critic about his negative opening night review of Richard's King Lear. The next day, Richard's agent, played by Tony Shalub, calls Richard in to tell him his tantrum was captured by cell phone and went viral, and that he has to lay low for a while. As Richard processes that news, his own cell phone vibrates. When he takes the call,

he learns more bad news, and we learn just how self-obsessed Richard can be. "I'm going to need a month to clear this up maybe two in the meantime, leave, leave, as in ghost somewhere else and I don't mean Brooklyn." I mean like a remote island, another country, another state, at the very least. "So I'm being banished from Broadway for entertaining people."

"That's what I do!" "Okay." "Hello?" "Mom's dead." "Who's this?" "John?" "John, who?" "Your brother." "Oh, hi, John, this is my brother. Did you say mom's dead?" "Yes."

"Did she read the review?" Richard returns home to the small town of Miller'sburg, where his parents ran a local theater. Almost everyone we meet is a treasure. His father, who has bouts of dementia, is played by Lin Kerriu, who starred on Broadway in Swini Todd. Richard's brother, John, is played by John Tanny of the Closer, and his wife, Kristen, is played by the great

Laura Linney from Ozark and John Adams. As soon as Richard arrives in Miller'sburg to attend his mother's funeral, his brother makes it complicated. "Don't tell that about the thing with

when he sees you in the coffin. "Just don't, he'll upset him, he won't know how to process it,

“and this is a longer conversation, just he'll up see you." "Okay, just enjoy each other."”

"Okay." "I'll see you later." Things get even more complicated because the old theater is now a dinner theater, filling its schedule with performances by touring regional companies. Its survival isn't risk, so Richard decides to save the theater by mounting a new production of Thornton Wilder's "Irtown." Casting the local small town residents to play, local small town residents. Miranda, Richard's college-bound niece, continues the family theatrical

tradition, and Nelver Lac, the young actress who plays her, has a breakout role here. She's

terrific, funny, touching, totally natural, and when she takes the stage as Emily in our town, she's heart-wrenching. The playwright Thornton Wilder is served magnificently here,

“and so is the playwright William Shakespeare, whose works and words Kevin Klein gets to tackle”

in more than one inspirational scene in this series. I don't want to reveal too much about the conflicts and surprises in American classic, but please trust me. The more episodes you watch, the better it gets. The characters evolve and going unexpected directions and pairings.

Klein's Richard starts out thinking only about himself, but ends up just the opposite.

And if, as Shakespeare wrote, the play is the thing, the thing here is, the plays we see, and the soliloquies we hear, are spellbinding. And there's plenty of fun to be had outside the classics in American classic. The table reads, or the most delightful since the ones in only murders in the building. The dinner table arguments are the most explosive since the ones in the bear. Some scenes are take your breath away dramatic, others are infectiously silly, as when Richard

worked with a cast member forced upon him by the angel of this new our town production. She's Nadia, the angel's Russian girlfriend, and Richard tries to loosen her up with an improv session. At least Kilbur plays Nadia, and for her too, this should be a breakout role. Let's now let's do an exercise. Forget about the lines. You're just Mrs. Gibbs, turn to the century wife of the town doctor, and we're just going to chat.

All right, so good morning. How are you, Mrs. Gibbs? How are you? Hello? Hi, you guy. Yeah, what did you do this morning? I, I wake up. You're now a member of your real person. You do real things, chores, any chores,

“be specific, details are important. I wash it, and iron the flag. You what?”

I'm washing the flag, and I'm ironing the stars and the stripes, so they're lying perfectly straight. I see. Okay. One last question. Would you say you're a happy person? Oh, yeah. Yeah, I'm a happy American woman, lady, girl, woman, and I'm wearing denim. Ging him. Yes. I've been working on that one. Take the effort to find and watch American classic. It'll remind you why when it's this good, it's easy to love the theater and television.

David B. and Cooley reviewed the new series of American classic now streaming on MGM+. On tomorrow's show, is there anyone who doesn't know Harrison Ford? Probably not. Now in his 80s, he's had a career that span decades. And in the last few years, he shot the final Indiana Jones film, the Yellowstone Prequel, 1923, and the series shrinking in which he plays a psychiatrist dealing with Parkinson's. I hope you can join us.

To keep up with what's on the show and get highlights of our interviews, follow us on Instagram at NPR Fresh Air. Fresh air's executive producer is Sam Bricker. Our technical director and engineer is Audrey Bentham. Our interviews and reviews are produced and edited by Phyllis Meyers and Marie Baldenado, Lauren Crimzel, Theresa Madden, Monique Nazareth, They a Challenger, Susan Yucundee, Anna Balman and Nico Gonzalez-Wisler. Our digital media producer