Claudia Rankine on Seeking Shared Realities

At Lit Hub, Claudia Rankine discusses her newest book, Just Us: An American Conversation, with Catherine Barnett, explaining how it does not seek out easy answers. “Just Us might be a desperately seeking conversation,” Rankine says. “I don’t want to suggest these interactions are conversations seeking answers but rather something more like conversations in search of a shared place for understanding, a shared reality, shared recognitions. The desperation has to do with a kind of historical misalignment before the conversation begins. The question becomes: Can we get aligned so we can actually have the conversation? Just Us, for me, often feels like the conversation to the conversation.”