Mara Brock Akil’s New Novel About Betrayal, Shame & Redemption with Oprah

0:00Mara Brock Akil is bringing her gift of storytelling to the world of fiction in her debut novel. I like when you say it. The debut novel, The Revelation of Dion Daphne. This young woman is on the train. She's on the train headed outside the city of New York because she's ashamed that she has to take an HIV test. Because two nights prior, her ex of five years tells her, I have HIV and you need to go get tested. She has to write down all the names of her lovers. And at the top of the list is her stepfather. Is her stepfather. I was as shocked as she was, if not more. What is so interesting for me having been a victim of sexual abuse from a very young age, nine years old, many of you.

0:48Nine for me too. Nine years old, being raped at nine and then continuously sexually molested over the years by various boyfriends of my mother's and my cousins, these older men. And, you know, you just said the story is for everybody, but was a story also for you. Oh, absolutely. So you have written about it in the book through Dion Daphne. Do you mind sharing what actually happened to you? I would share this. Hi there, everybody. Thanks for hanging out with us here on The Oprah Podcast today. Television luminary and creator Mara Brockakill. She has written, she has produced, she has directed over 400 episodes.

1:32Did you even know that yourself? You know, not until I had to count for the bio. I was like, really? Over 400 episodes. That's a lot of work. Of some of the most celebrated shows, Girlfriends, which is having its own resurgence. I know, 25 years. 25 years. And being on Netflix for five years has just garnered a whole new audience. That's right. The 16-year-olds love me, Oprah.

1:59It's like Girlfriends is like, you know, the forever of their time, I guess. Absolutely. Okay, so there's Girlfriends and there's Being Mary Jane and there's The Game, y 'all, and her latest smash hit series for Netflix, Forever, Forever, Forever, Forever, which now is, we're going to have a season two. We're going to have a season two. We start rolling cameras tomorrow. Yes. That is so exciting to hear. Okay, so you were just sharing with me. share with the audience, you're walking down the street. Forever has been up on Netflix now for... I think it was about day three or day four, and we were number one.

2:36And you know, when you think about it, you're like, number one, you're like, oh, wait a minute, we're number one in the world. And there's all these people on the street, you know how New York is. And I was thinking, they don't know it's me. They don't know that me right now for... They don't know you. I'm the number one. Number one, yes. And my little girl just was happy. I was so happy. I was walking down the street smiling in New York. And then I think the next day got the call, the official call. That they were picking it up. That they were picking it up for season two. That's so wonderful.

3:07Yeah, it was wonderful. It was so wonderful. I celebrated so much I broke my toe. You broke your toe. Yeah, I just was dancing around my apartment and just in glee. You know, those private moments that are yours. Nothing like a broken toe memory. I have a broken toe moment. And so now Mara Brock Akil is bringing her gift of storytelling to the world of fiction in her debut novel. I like when you say it. The debut novel, The Revelation of Dion Daphne. Welcome to the Tea House, Mara Brock Akil. Thank you for having me. I'm so overjoyed to be here. The fact that you are now diving into this whole new world of writing, or is it a new world of writing going into the novel form?

3:56It's funny. I like to say, as Maya would say, I'm an authoress now. But it's, you know, my process is the same in terms of what I latch on to. And sometimes it comes through visions. It comes through visions. I'll see scenes. And those are puzzle pieces. And I just put a puzzle piece here and a puzzle piece here. What was so refreshing about the book was how much I got to explore the interiority. One of the challenges that I have in screenwriting is how do I not say it, not say exactly what the character or the plot or the theme is in dialogue. How, because a lot of my experience, certainly for myself and my experiencing and witnessing of others, we don't really say what we really mean.

4:50We are just really, I think that's what was fun about writing Being Mary Jane, because she said what she meant. Right. And why we love that character so much. Yes, but I don't believe a lot of us do sometimes. And so how the book gave me just a great bandwidth to explore interiority, which in my work in general, that's what I want. That's the legacy I want to leave is that I have painted portraits of full humanity. And having a new canvas, a book, was just, it was extraordinary. Had you been thinking about it for a while? Well, I mean, I think it's a totally different art form. People think it's the same thing, but a lot of novelists cannot write screenplays.

5:37A lot of screenplay writers cannot write a novel. No. You know, I want to honor Chelsea Johns who called me. What's interesting is during COVID, when everybody got a chance to slow down and think, she reached out to me and said, I believe your voice, she's my editor, I believe your voice would translate to the page beautifully. and it's funny enough, I had a story that I wanted to tell for a long time, and I had it in script notes for a while. I had, you know, when I build anything, I have a lot of research, a lot of notes, a lot that you never will see that informs what makes the page, and so I was taking notes on this idea, and I knew it got shelved because who's going to buy this?

6:24I knew this industry was not going to buy this story. Even as prolific as I am, this was going to be a tough sell to sort of like pitch this story as a film. Oh, this is a film. But it is because I think I got to prove it in the book. Okay. But as I'm reading this book, I'm like, who's going to play and who's going to play? Who do you think? I'll discuss that with you later. Okay. Okay. And you said you wrote this novel with the intention of taking the reader through a story that may be familiar. Yep. One of isolation, shame. Yep. Resilience and the redemptive power of love. So who are you writing the book for?

7:06You know, I don't want to be cliche and say everyone, but anybody who wants to unload their shame. Yeah. Anybody who wants to talk about it, think about it, let go of it. that's who the book is for. What I'm excited, though, is as universal as that story is, the specificity of letting Dion, a young black woman in the 90s who didn't think she had a problem in the world, take us on that journey to be at the tip of the arrow, to talk about shame and her to be very brave and vulnerable, to share her story. Hopefully we'll give permission to anyone who carries any level of shame. Okay, so we don't want to give away too many spoilers to you all, but I want you to tell us about the characters and the plot, what they're facing.

7:56No spoilers, but I think the reason why it reads like a film is because I think a lot of stories, you want to drop them in. So I drop you in the book where this young woman is... On the train. On the train. Yeah. And you know... You can do that. That's first page. Yeah, that's first page. Okay, I can do that? Yeah. Guide me through this over. She's on the train. Okay, yeah. She's on the train. She's got her look together. And she's headed outside the city of New York because she's ashamed that she has to take an HIV test. Because two nights prior, after having finally gotten over her man of five years and feeling like he's not coming back, it's the first night, six months after they broke up, that she's bringing home a man.

8:42and on the same night that she is having sexual relations with him for the first time after being in this long-term relationship exactly there's a knock at the door yep and it's her ex of five years and he tells her you know i have hiv and you need to go get tested and so the book takes place within the two weeks of that test and she's on that train and one of the homeworks the book So the book takes place within two weeks because when she goes for the test, they say, we can't get the results for two weeks. And I'm like, wow, I remember. That was the 90s. That was the 90s. That was the longest two weeks of anyone's life is to wait for that result.

9:24And I took the test back in the day. I was a journalist. I was covering a story on World AIDS Day for the Grand Rapids Press. And, you know, this is a time when AIDS was a gay man's disease. I'm having a, I'm as a reporter. And I remember this woman walking past me in the hall. And I thought, gosh, she's gorgeous. I shopped her. I always shopped, like I shopped you. I was like, oh, that's cute. That's cute. Let me get to the press conference on time. Cause I'm the, you know, I'm a reporter. So I'm in the back of the room and she is the woman who is telling us that she has, she's HIV positive. My jaw hit the floor, hit the floor.

10:07And that's what - What year was this? What was this? This is 1990 or 1991. If they're 90 or 91. Yeah. And I think 91 because - It was a time. Because it was a time. And I was floored. I mean, literally, I, it's funny. I was at Northwestern at the time. And when I got back to school, I took an HIV test. And one of the homeworks you have is that you have to write down all of your sexual relations because in case you have it, in case you have it, you have to go contact them. That's how we were stopping the disease at that time. Kind of like COVID, kind of reminds you of that. And so Dion, I thought I'd give that to Dion where she has to go back her homework and she has to write down all the names of her lovers.

10:52And so, and at the top of the list is her stepfather. Is her stepfather. Whoa. Yes. And when that, okay, so we're going to stop there in the book and then the rest of it is unveiled. But that moment, it was her, so her ex, Darren, is in the book, and we discover why and how he got to that place. There's her new lover. He's in the book, and she has to figure out how to tell him. Tell the new lover. And then there's a witness. Yeah. There's, you know, one fun fact is I don't know we get to experience this anymore, that your paper used to be dropped off in front of your house every day at 3 a.m., 4 a.m., and somebody had to do that.

11:37That's right. And so I've always been fascinated by that person who drops your paper. Gets up in the middle of the night to go drop off of the papers. Just Mara's fascination with who these people are, and I decided to make him her witness. This young man who has been dropping the paper at her door every night was there at the time. Yeah. And so he is the one that helps her usher through this two weeks as she turns around and faces. And the book is the two week. It's the countdown, waiting on the results. Our listeners tell us that the podcast is resonating with you and is serving as a bright spot in your day.

12:13That means a lot to me. So here's the thing. I would really appreciate it if you like and subscribe to the Oprah podcast on YouTube or wherever you podcast. it's just a quick tap of the subscribe button and that way you won't miss an episode in your queue you don't have to pay anything I know subscribe usually means you're paying something but this time it means you just are notified when there's something new there are many more to come that we're excited about so thank you for watching and listening thanks for listening it's time for a quick break next Mara Brock Akil shares how her own childhood trauma taught her to compartmentalize parts of herself It's also a major theme in her new novel.

12:55That's next. Welcome back to The Oprah Podcast. I'm with award-winning writer, producer, and now debut novelist, Mara Brock-Akiel. Her page-turning new book is called The Revelation of Dion Daphne. Let's get back to it. So you shared this on Instagram. You said, through the process of writing, I unearthed a truth that became a fictional tale. The revelation of Dion Daphne and witnessing my own healing. I experienced a revelation. And my hope is that this story offers a revelation for you too. That's what you wrote. I did. So when I saw that, I said, how were you telling this story? You know, you just said the story is for everybody, but was a story also for you, Mara, Brock, Akil?

13:40I think we're responsible for our own healing. And I have used the power of the pen to not only tell stories and entertain, but also to heal myself. I've put myself in a lot of my characters. A part of my ethos is I tell the truth through fiction. So there's going to be some level of real truth that I'm drawing from. And I'm grateful that I have the ability to learn how to craft it in a way that really becomes this micro story of mine becomes a macro of what's impacting a lot of us. and I can find it through the workshopping of the story about who this book is for, why this book now. And there's just a lot of shame, I think, because even with the onset of the camera and the social media, we're hiding parts of ourselves.

14:27Absolutely. We're just hiding so much of ourselves. And actually, I think it's the thing that frees us the most. And so the writing the book was an opportunity for me to free myself. Well, this is, you know, what is so interesting for me having been a victim of sexual abuse from a very young age, nine years old. Many of you. Nine for me too. Yeah. Nine years old and being raped at nine and then continuously sexually molested, sexually molested over the years by various boyfriends of my mother's and my cousins, these older men. And this is what I think most people don't realize is that when you see these young girls, you know, being very promiscuous at a young age, it is usually because the sexual stimulation, the sexual whatever has been turned on in such a way that they're now, you know, alert to what that means.

15:24So you have written about it in the book through Dion Daphne. Do you mind sharing what actually happened to you? I would share this, that it was a time in my life, It was from 9 to 12 that I was molested. And what was interesting to me at that time, and this is where the book comes into play, is how well I managed. And I managed by one of the greatest gifts I've ever had was that's where my relationship with God truly began. That my relationship is rooted in that. And sometimes I even think about if that had never happened, where would my relationship with God be? And so thus and such, well, it happened to me.

16:17And God loves me. So I'm supposed to do something with it. And now all these years later, I believe this is my something to do with it. The second thing that I realized is how much you can repurpose energy. I didn't have that language at that time. Yes. But I channeled at that point my escape of my mother's choices. Like I was in the care of this person because of her. And I know she did it out of love. She was clueless too. But at that time, I knew that I had to escape. And the best way I knew how to escape is through what my family believes in is education. so I became this amazing student so I also became that much more undetected yeah yeah I came further no one could kind of see and then I put the good girl image up yeah I I hid around the I hid around the corners I you know people can project onto you and so you can allow that story to be true if they think good of you and whether you however you feel about yourself in those quiet moments you can then adopt that ideas of yourself to get you through.

17:32So I think my relationship with God, my ability to understand how to alchemize that pain and energy and focus it in my grades and keep graduation and getting to the best school as my escape plan. As so many of us have done. Yes. But here's the interesting thing about the character Dionne in the book, when she has to go to the clinic, the AIDS clinic, and take the test, as you were saying, you have to, I didn't know if this was real or not, but that she had to list all of the people she'd ever slept with in her life, beginning with the very first person, which I thought was interesting because I thought it would be like the person you most recently slept with.

18:13Yeah, you do. You start from, it's funny, yes, and that's what she does. She starts from, you know, the last one she had is the guy, the one night stand she just had. Yeah. Well, she knows it's going to be a one-eyed stand. And then her boyfriend. Yeah. And then you get to see all the other ones up there. And then at the top of the list was her stepfather. Was her stepfather. And in the book, on page 201, the character Dion says, I knew how to compartmentalize our nights from our days the same way I learned to separate myself from my body. Ooh. Yeah. I didn't know I was doing that all those years.

18:53You know, when you're performing, I don't know if I'm always performing, how disconnected I have been from my own body. I was so, I'm so compartmentalized. I just recently in my adult life let my food touch. I didn't realize how psychologically separate I am. You mean on your plate? Yeah, on my plate. My food never touched. Never. Oh, you're one of those people. I am. Okay. And I didn't even know why I was doing that. these examinations of this thing, I'm like, oh my God, Mar, are you going to let your food touch? And so after you were sexually molested, did you do this too? You learned to compartmentalize.

19:31Yes, you learned how to be the different parts of yourself, fragmented, puzzle yourself out to hide this thing, to hide this. I was told that if I told anyone, I gave this to Dion, if I told anyone that I would be taken away from my mother, You know, it's just like, you know, you're a child. You don't know. You don't know what's true or not. And so, but the compartmentalization of self is in one way the victory of me. Because just like I talked about the grades, I understood how to keep my focus around my escape plan, if that makes sense. You can hold on to the straight A student. meanwhile you know prepare yourself sometimes for the night you mentally physically and it's funny about the about when I say the the food on my plate I started to notice my behavior the other thing that's really interesting about compartmentalization just how I keep things separate sometimes even friends sometimes even like how much I try to control every environment so I can survive it.

20:50So you're doing that because you couldn't control being molested by somebody who is so much older than you. You're looking for control in so many different ways. How much older was the person than you? Oh, they were a full-grown man. Yeah, full-grown man. I know when you think... Not a teenager, not a 20-something. When I look back at my nine-year-old self, you see your nine-year-old self and your little skinny brown legs and your knobby knees. And your teeth that don't, it's going every different direction. They're not even fully in. You just think, what a pervert. How could they even see? Yes, you know, even when my own children became of that age, you know, I took the time to cry those moments out because I thought the same thing.

21:36How could anybody touch a child at that age? And of course, we know it happens all the time. All the time and earlier. Much earlier. Much earlier. And for longer periods of time. But the one other thing I'd like to say about compartmentalization is memory. It's funny, in my work now, we're working, I don't even like to call it flashbacks. I'm trying to articulate memory. And memory can also be very dangerous. But one of the things that is trying to get your memory back. So in the book, you'll see that Dion is trying to get her memory back because a lot of times when you compartmentalize, you got to keep things sorted.

22:14But one of the things I love about this book too, is that one of the things that the reason is called the revelation of Dion Daphne is that once she goes to get the AIDS test, it starts to reveal a lot of the why of the why of the why she's behaved the way she has. Why has she had so many lovers? Why does she, you know, behave the way that she does? And also reveals, you know, all these things about family and family connections and why every time My mother's on the phone. Oh, your father wants to say, wants to say hello. And why she never wanted to get on the phone and all of that. Yeah. You just start to, and it looks just like, oh, I'm busy.

22:52I'm, you know, I'm booked and busy and I've got a promotion in my life. Because she had to compartmentalize that. Yes. We have to take a break. Up next, readers join the conversation and share how Mara's book mirrored their own lives and struck a chord. Maybe for you too. That's next. Hey, it's Christy from Lululemon. I'm here at the office and we just dropped some really fun new summer colors in the Flow Y styles. If you're like me, you've loved the Flow Y tank and bra for years. And as of this year, it also comes in a dress and a crop tank. These are made in our buttery soft Nulu fabric. And my favorite part is the built-in bra.

23:27It makes it super easy to wear for yoga or honestly, as an everyday basic. You can find Flow Y styles in store or online at lululemon.com. Welcome back to the Oprah podcast. I'm with groundbreaking storyteller Mara Brock Akil. We're talking about her debut novel, The Revelation of Dion Daphne, and hearing from readers who share stories on how they overcame shame in their own lives. Now we're back to our conversation. So I love to read books at the same time as my daughter, girl, Tondo does. And I gave Tondo a copy of this book, and she would not shut up. Hi, Tondo. I'm so happy. I love that. Having a conversation over the course.

24:08Yeah, being able to have a conversation about it. And we were like into like, can you believe Dominic? Can you believe what he's... Okay. Hi, Tondo. Hi. Hi, Mara. Hi. How are you? So tell us why you like this book so much. Why was it a page turner for you? Page turner. I literally... I finished it in 24 hours. Oh, my God. Okay. Let me pause on that one for a second. Okay. I love that. Thank you. I'm not kidding. Mama, am I joking? You're not joking. I said to you, I said, I'm going to send it to you. Just read to page 105. And then you called me and said, I finished it. Oh, that page you were on 105?

24:45Yeah, yeah, yeah. I said, just read to page 105. Let me know. Catch up with me. And then I'll continue reading with you. And then she goes, I finished it. I go, well, what? Thank you so much. Because how could you not? How could you not? I want to know what happens after the 12 days. I got to a point where I was like, oh, I'm desperate. I need to know. And if this causes her to lose her whole, you know what? First of all, such important themes because we almost have forgotten that HIV was a thing. It was such a stigma. It was almost a death sentence. I was born in South Africa where there was an era where we lost so many people in our family.

25:28every single week there was somebody who has been lost to this illness because of the fear, of the shame, of the stigma that it was to... In your own family. In your own family. In my own family. Yeah. In my own family. Because of the stigma that it was to even go to the clinic to get those results. Exactly. To even have the courage, the courage she had to write down the list, go back to each person. You know, some people would rather live in absolute silence and die in the quiet night because it just takes so much to go to the place where you're revealing to anybody else that you're living with this, even when it's not your fault.

26:10This is the thing about Dion, the fact that everything was great by all the measures and metrics of success and the way where she was headed. Everything was great. You look at her life and the trajectory of it and you think, oh, she's above shame. She's above an experience like this. She's above the words, I am HIV positive, you know? And so, yeah, that overarching theme, super brilliant. Bravo for me. Oh my goodness. I've enjoyed just, thank you for that. The generosity of the reflection of it. what's interesting to me about my children play video games. There's the main character. We always talk about main character energy.

26:57But there are all these non-player characters. I'm always interested in those people. You think that they're just moving along. I'm just successful. Nothing's wrong with me. I'm above shame. Let's pluck them out and let's put them, let's look at them. Let's open them up. Let's reveal them. Let's understand them. Let's understand their why. And so that was a journey, not only for me, but it was fun to then incorporate what is happening around us today. And it's interesting about HIV. You did. That gas station, you did. Yep. You did. You did. Anyway, I'm like, Dominic, oh, no. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay, what's your question?

27:40What's your question? Tondo. Okay. The thing about this book centers around trust. A lot. And trust that revolves around her long-term relationship. Parents. These are people you give trust in the grandest measure. Her and her partner were doing things like going house shopping. We're talking about rings. We're talking about... So at this point, you know they're so far in their relationship that it is solid. She trusts him without a doubt, without a question. Now, I want to know what it is that we misunderstand about trust, because how? With the person that you think you know absolutely everything about, at this point, they're planning on getting married.

28:27You're like, I know him. I know this man, you know? And for him to pull out that kind of surprise on her, I was as shocked as she was, if not more, the way she was avoiding even having the question. I said, girl, I know. Don't even sit in. Don't look at him. He has betrayed all of us. You know, it's interesting, trust. I don't think we're really going to get to that level of idyllic trust in others if we're not that to ourselves. And as much as she did all the right things, I don't believe Dion never took stock of what happened. She never faced the storm of her life. I thought he was giving her signals all along.

29:11Oh, he. I thought he was telling her all along. He was, but we don't want to. It were red flags. I don't feel that she should have been putting all of that trust in him because he was signaling to her that he was not the one. But you see what you want to see. But you see what you want to see, and this is what you and I were discussing. She had this ideal of who he was, and she saw herself in the picket fence in the house. Yes, she was trusting the picture in her head, not the person in front of her. That's right. So many women do. They're living to the possibility. Oh, day one. They're living to the possibility.