Hey, it's Empire's book of the day. I'm Andrew Limbaugh. I think there's a part in every

young kid's life when you start going to other people's houses and observing other families

and realizing, oh, huh, my family works kind of differently. Today's book is a memoir titled

The Manguitary, and its writer Annabelle Tomatich talks about growing up in a house filled with anger.

Her parents would fight constantly.

And in this interview with NPR Scott Simon, she describes that moment of realizing,

oh, other families don't fight like this.

We are the outlier here.

After the break, she discusses finding out the root causes of that anger and trying to

contextualize all of it now as an adult. That's ahead. In the U.S., national security news can

feel far away from daily life. Distant wars, murky conflicts, diplomacy behind closed doors.

On our new show, Sources and Methods, NPR reporters on the ground bring you stories of real people,

helping you understand why distant events matter here at home.

Listen to sources and methods on the NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts.

Annabelle Tomitich's memoir, The Mango Tree, begins with a sentence that is arresting in all ways.

Let's ask the author to read it.

Rows of orange people sit handcuffed in a beige room. One of them is my mother.

Josephina, her formidable mother, is at the heart of the mango tree.

She's been arrested in charge with shooting a BB gun at a man, she says, was stealing mangoes from her tree in the yard.

Her daughter recalls growing up in a mixed Filipino-American household in Florida, roiled by loss, regret, love, and sometimes frightening anger.

Annabel Tomitich was a longtime writer for the news press in Fort Myers, Florida, where she joins us.

Thanks so much for being with us.

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