Otherppl with Brad Listi | Books & Culture
Alle afleveringen
1.363 afleveringen, van nieuw naar oud
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Episode 408 — Jim Krusoe
6 april 2016 · 1 uur 18 min
Jim Krusoe is the guest. His new novel, The Sleep Garden, is available now from Tin House.
Can't believe it's taken me this long to meet Jim Krusoe. I've been hearing about him forever. He's a pillar of the LA lit community and was even my colleague for a time at Santa Monica College, where he has taught for years and where I taught for a spell. (How did we not meet then?) Anyway. He came over and sat down and we talked for an hour and could've talked for another hour. He's been in Los Angeles for a long time, transplanted, just like me, from the Midwest, and has seen the city through a few evolutions. Fun to ask him about his early years here, and how the city has changed and so on.
In today's monologue, I read some mail from listeners.
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Episode 407 — Leigh Stein & Lux Alptraum
30 maart 2016 · 1 uur 18 min
Leigh Stein and Lux Alptraum are the guests. They are co-directors, with Jenny Lumet, of a non-profit organization called Out of the Binders. It is devoted to advancing the careers of women and gender non-conforming writers.
Had a great time with Leigh and Lux. It's very impressive what they've built. We sat down in the wake of BinderCon LA and talked about gender politics and community-building and how much work it takes to run a grassroots organization. It's one thing to know about social injustices; it's another thing to do something about them. These guys are doers. And they're helping an awful lot of people.
In today's monologue, I talk about AWP and the LA Times Festival of Books. And I plug my upcoming appearances at Literary Death Match and the Lit/Comedy Roundtable.
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Episode 406 — Juan F. Thompson
23 maart 2016 · 1 uur 33 min
Juan F. Thompson is the guest. His new memoir, Stories I Tell Myself: Growing Up with Hunter S. Thompson, is now available from Knopf.
I tore through Juan's book. Read it in like 24 hours. I'm a huge fan of Hunter. He's in my top 5 all-time. I think he's among the funniest writers America has ever produced. I've read most everything he wrote, and I've read about him at length, but up until a few days ago, I knew little about his son, whom I've always wondered about. What was it like to be him?
It can be easy to think that the child of Hunter Thompson would automatically be some kind of savage hell-raiser, but in fact Juan comes off as the opposite. In reading about him lately, the word "monkish" keeps coming up. I wouldn't go that far, but I will say we didn't snort any cocaine during the interview. Nor did we detonate any homemade explosives, which kind of bums me out.
In the monologue, I talk about Hunter. And I read an excerpt of a review of one of his books.
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Episode 405 — Michelle Adelman
16 maart 2016 · 1 uur 16 min
Michelle Adelman is the guest. Her debut novel, Piece of Mind, is available now from W.W. Norton & Company.
Michelle and I have the same birthday (August 1), which we discovered before we started recording. That put us on a good footing right away. I feel predisposed to liking someone who shares my birthday, which probably makes little sense, and yet I suspect it's a common impulse. I should also admit that I may have mispronounced Michelle's last name in this episode. I pronounced it Add-uhl-man. But then at the tail end of the show, in my closing remarks, I pronounced it Aid-uhl-man and spiraled into a rambling crisis of confidence. You have to understand how much I fear this kind of mistake. Fucking something up that is so elemental, mispronouncing a guest's name...it feels egregious to me. Inexcusable. And yet here I am, racing against the clock to get this episode posted, unable to spend the time to verify and, if need be, fix it. I'm out of time. So all I can do is stand before you and admit my failing, assuming that I've failed, which I'm not sure if I have, but if I did: I feel awful about it.
Michelle, please forgive me. Assuming that I need to be forgiven. And if don't need to be forgiven, then please don't forgive me. We share a birthday, for godsake. Doesn't that mean anything?
In today's monologue, I read some mail from listeners. And then respond to it.
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Episode 404 — Melissa Broder
13 maart 2016 · 1 uur 27 min
Melissa Broder is the guest. Her debut essay collection, So Sad Today, is available now from Grand Central Publishing. She has also written a new poetry collection called Last Sext, due out from Tin House in June.
So much to say about my friend Melissa. I've known her for years. We met back when she was still in New York. Then she and her husband moved to LA, and not long after that she "came out" to me as her Twitter alter-ego, @sosadtoday. You'll hear all about this in the podcast. And you'll hear about how, for the past two years, Melissa and I have been working together as writing partners for film and TV stuff. It's been an experience. It's been fun. It has involved many meetings. Endless meetings. Many studio lots. Many bottles of water. Many coffee shop writing sessions. Many pieces of Nicorette. (Melissa loves Nicorette and has tried to get me addicted. We chew it together after meetings.) And...what else can I say? She's a dear friend and collaborator, and I'm thrilled to see her having such great success.
In today's monologue, a special guest! I talk with Heidi Pitlor, whose novel The Daylight Marriage is now out in trade paperback from Algonquin. The Daylight Marriage is the official March selection of The TNB Book Club.
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Episode 403 — Adrian Todd Zuniga
9 maart 2016 · 1 uur 24 min
Adrian Todd Zuniga is the guest. He's the creator and host of Literary Death Match, an international reading series, comedy show, and all-around entertainment.
Note: I will be appearing with Melissa Broder at the April 1st edition at Ace Hotel Theater in Los Angeles during AWP. For tickets, click here.
Nice to finally have Adrian on the show. When I first met him, he was Todd. I've always called him Todd, which he still allows on the basis of a grandfather clause. I've known him for a number of years but didn't know a ton about his life until he came over the other day and sat down across from me. We discussed "Adrian." We discussed "Todd." We discussed "Adrian Todd." He had a hell of a childhood, which I'm not sure he fully realizes. Or maybe it seems less dramatic to him because it's his childhood and he lived it. For me, in hearing about it, I thought: Jesus, that's a lot. It's also interesting. And it makes Literary Death Match make more sense somehow. It makes it seem more unlikely, which then makes it seem more impressive. I have a soft spot for people who conduct cultural experiments and have weird ideas and try to actualize them—and then do. Having pursued a few weird ideas in my day, I have a feel for how much work it is to put on a Death Match. (Hint: it's a fuck-ton.) Todd—sorry, Adrian Todd—has been doing this thing for a decade, largely on his own. Yes, he's had help. But he's the prime mover. It's takes a Herculean amount of effort, and he deserves some credit for that. A tip of the cap as LDM turns 10.
In today's monologue, I talk about LDM Los Angeles on April 1st, and how I'm going to interview someone in public (Melissa Broder) for the second time in my life.
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Episode 402 — Mark de Silva
2 maart 2016 · 1 uur 12 min
Mark de Silva is the guest. His debut novel, Square Wave, is available now from Two Dollar Radio.
If I recall correctly, Mark's parents dropped him off at my house, which, if true, would make him the first guest in the history of the program to be dropped off by his parents, which is hopefully the start of a trend. (Maybe I should do a series of interviews called "Writers and Their Parents" wherein writers come over with their parents, and we all sit down and talk.) Mark went to Cambridge and got a Ph.D. in Philosophy. I feel like I should tell you that. He grew up in the Inland Empire here in Southern California, the child of psychotherapists. I think I'm remembering that correctly. This conversation took place two or three weeks ago. My life has been crazy since then. My brain is completely shot. I can't remember much. But I do remember laughing a lot during this interview, and feeling like it went really well. So there's that. I hope you guys enjoy it.
In today's monologue, I think I talk about caffeine. And I talk about my barista, a gentle man with a ponytail.
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Episode 401 — Hanya Yanagihara
24 februari 2016 · 1 uur 18 min
Hanya Yanagihara is the guest. Her novel A Little Life was a finalist for the Man Booker Prize and the National Book Award, and it is now available in trade paperback from Anchor Books. I feel like A Little Life is having the kind of existence that pretty much all writers hope their books will have. It seems to provoke passionate responses. The people who love it really fucking love it and the people who hate it are incensed by it and there are way more people who love it than hate it. You can't ask for much more than that. Hanya was only in town for a day and pretty solidly booked but she found an hour to come over and talk with me, and for that I'm grateful. I learned a lot from her. She knows her shit, and she really fought hard for her novel. She fought hard to see her vision of this book realized, and she's protective of it in a way that seems both smart and endearing. Also: it paid off huge. Few works of literary fiction strike a nerve the way this book has struck a nerve. Also: it's 700 pages long and she wrote it in 18 months. Also: she doesn't own a cell phone. In today's monologue, I give a quick update on the health of my son and share news about some appearances I'll be making during AWP here in Los Angeles in April.
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Episode 400 — Alexander Chee
16 februari 2016 · 1 uur 29 min
Alexander Chee is the guest. His new novel, The Queen of the Night, is available now from Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. It is the official February pick of The Nervous Breakdown Book Club.
Years ago Alex was out in LA and we had a drink and he told me he was working on this novel. It's amazing to see it all come to fruition, to see him on Late Night with Seth Meyers, to see the book reviewed all over the place, to see everybody chattering about it online. Just happy for him. It was a long road from start to finish, but he got there, and we talk about that. We also talk about his late, beloved father, and what an incredible polymath he was, and what it was like to be a mixed race kid growing up in Portland, Maine. We talk about the Iowa Writers Workshop and AIDS activism and what it was like to be in the green room getting ready to appear before a national television audience. And of course we talk opera and historical fiction and The Queen of the Night.
In today's monologue I talk about 400 episodes and what, if anything, that means. I also give an update on the health of my son.
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Episode 399 — Jarett Kobek
3 februari 2016 · 1 uur 58 min
Jarett Kobek is the guest. His new novel is called I Hate the Internet, available now from We Heard You Like Books.
This one was fun. I didn't know what to expect. Or I guess I sort of knew what to expect: Jarett and I would talk about the internet and what it feels like to hate it. But I didn't know quite what to expect from Jarett himself. Jonathan Lethem called him "the American Houellebecq," so I guess I was imagining that he would be drunk and smoking cigarettes and difficult to talk to, and so on. I imagined him as preemptively hating me, thinking of me as "the media," annoyed that he had agreed to do the podcast. Then he showed up and it was easy. More than that, it was interesting. This is a guy who really thinks about the world that we live in and the information we consume and the products we buy and how the powers that be make these things come to pass. He thinks about a lot more than that, but those are some of his main preoccupations. He's a good conversationalist, a curious person, a skeptic, and, I think it's safe to say, a man who has a very well-developed problem with authority. The interview runs longer than normal. Hope that's okay. On this one, I just let the tape run.
In today's monologue, I talk about some scary health stuff that we're going through with our son, and how that has been all-consuming lately, and how unhealthy (but unavoidable) it is to start Googling when confronted with medical troubles. Lees meerLearn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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Episode 398 — Elizabeth Bruenig
27 januari 2016 · 1 uur 48 min
Elizabeth Bruenig is the guest. She is a staff writer for The New Republic. Her work focuses on politics and religion.
Really excited to have Elizabeth on the program. I've been a big fan for a while now and feel like she is already, at the ripe old age of 25, an indispensable voice in our political discourse, and on the topic of religion. She first came to my attention (and you'll hear me mention this in the monologue) when she submitted an essay to The Nervous Breakdown several years ago. She must have been twenty or twenty-one at the time. Something like that. The quality of the writing blew me away. To see her have the success that she's having now is really wonderful, and not at all surprising. In our conversation we discuss her personal history, growing up in Texas, her religious upbringing and her conversion, in college, to Catholicism. We talk about God, Augustine, the nature of belief. And of course we talk about politics. Hillary Clinton vs. Bernie Sanders. Donald Trump and Ted Cruz and the GOP shit-show. All of it.
In the monologue, I talk, as I said, about the history of my Elizabeth Bruenig fandom and then I get into Election 2016 and start rambling and don't stop rambling for roughly fifteen minutes. You're welcome, America.
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Episode 397 — Ruth Wariner
20 januari 2016 · 1 uur 22 min
Ruth Wariner is the guest. Her new memoir, The Sound of Gravel, is available now from Flatiron Books. It is the official January selection of The Nervous Breakdown Book Club.
This is one of the most devastating reading experiences I've had in recent memory. Ruth Wariner's childhood in LeBaron, a fundamentalist Mormon colony in Mexico, is almost beyond belief. That she was able to survive seems miraculous, and the fact that she has now transmuted the horrors of her youth into a book is, I feel, an act of real heroism. When she showed up at my door, I was a little rattled. I had just finished the book and was still processing it. Ruth and her husband pulled up in front of the house and got out of their rental car and...the word that comes to mind is "sunny." They are sunny people. I feel like Ruth has the right to be ultra-goth and cynical—after what she's been through, it seems like she should be allowed to chain-smoke everywhere she goes, including in hospitals and on airplanes—but that wasn't the sense that I got when I met her—not at all. She sat down in the garage and we talked for an hour about all of it—Mormonism, polygamy, child abuse, the prison of belief, the deep pain of loss, the love of family, time, healing, catharsis, you name it. It was a good hour. I hope you guys enjoy it as much as I did.
In today's monologue, I recall how I raced to read Ruth's memoir and wound up listening to the audiobook version at double-speed, and what it did to my head. I also pay a little homage to Glenn Frey of The Eagles, yet another Baby Boomer rock icon, gone, it seems, too soon.
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Episode 396 — Margaret Malone
13 januari 2016 · 1 uur 21 min
Margaret Malone is the guest. Her debut story collection, People Like You, is available now from Atelier 26 Books.
Really enjoyed meeting Margaret. She showed up at my door and I almost felt like I knew her already. There was something familiar about her. We have a friend in common. Maybe that was it. She used to live in LA. Maybe that was it. We're roughly the same age. Maybe that was it. Or maybe it was a combination of all of these things. Anyway, she seemed familiar and it was easy talking with her. We've been through some similar stuff as parents, too. Trying to have kids. How harrowing that can be. And then she and I talked about some difficult health issues that her husband faced, and what that was like. We talked about Portland, too. She lives in Oregon now, and is involved in the literary community, and so on. We talked about other stuff, too. Margaret is a gem.
In today's monologue I talk about the Powerball lottery and the death of David Bowie. And social media grief.
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Episode 395 — Chiwan Choi
6 januari 2016 · 1 uur 19 min
Chiwan Choi is the guest. His latest poetry collection is called Abductions, available now from Writ Large Press.
First episode of 2016. Here we go. Though technically Chiwan and I spoke in late 2015. He came over. It was cold. He was in a t-shirt. I offered him a coat. He said he was fine. I couldn't believe it. I felt like a sissy. He sat for the hour and seemed unaffected. Maybe something's wrong with me. Anyway it was really fun talking with him. We've met on a handful of occasions at literary events around Los Angeles. He grew up in LA, is very active in the literary community here. He was born in Korea. He lived in South America on his way to living in Los Angeles. He's an immigrant. His family immigrated. A sense of dislocation has been with him to a degree for all of his life. Or for most of his life. I think that's true. I hope I said that right. He can obviously say it better than I can. We talk about those parts of his life, among other things. I found his stories about being a child and moving around really touching. Listen to it. You'll see.
In today's monologue I talk about the holidays. And Star Wars. I talk about Christmas trees. And the shame I feel over how few books I read last year compared to some people. Lees meerLearn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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Episode 394 — Holiday Spectacular
23 december 2015 · 1 uur 24 min
For this, the 2015 Holiday Spectacular episode, I was happy to be joined in-studio by my friends Mira Gonzalez, Tyler Madsen, and Gene Morgan. They arrived at my house to help me execute a simple plan: we would drink alcohol together and call people and record it. And that's what we did.
Happy holidays, everybody. This is the final show of 2015. Thanks for all of your continued support. I appreciate it very much and will talk to you in the new year.
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Episode 393 — Brandi Wells
16 december 2015 · 1 uur 20 min
Brandi Wells is the guest. Her latest novel, This Boring Apocalypse, is available now from Civil Coping Mechanisms.
Brandi moved to LA recently to get her PhD. She's going to be a doctor of literature. She's a shy Southern girl originally from Georgia and spent time in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, which she loved, and which she misses, and we talk about that. She is also very much into body dismemberment—I don't mean to say that she wants to dismember anyone, or be dismembered herself. She's just fascinated with the body and with the alteration and desecration of the body, and with the body generally. We talk about that, too. What else? She used to hula hoop a lot. Not in a hippie way. In a circus way. And she grew up going to a Pentecostal church where people spoke in tongues and writhed on the ground, electrified by the power of The Lord. All of this and more in today's episode.
In the monologue, I talk about the shutting down of LAUSD schools due to an unspecific terrorism threat, and about the fear in the air, and my outrage over all of the recent violence and America's stupid gun laws, and the chaos and horrors of the Middle East, and so on, and so on. All of it. I attempt to get it off my chest.
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Episode 392 — Alexandra Kleeman
9 december 2015 · 1 uur 28 min
Alexandra Kleeman is the guest. Her debut novel, You Too Can Have a Body Like Mine, is available now from Harper.
Alexandra is from Boulder, so we have that in common. Not that I'm "from" Boulder, but I did live there for eight years, went to college there, and so on. The feeling I came away with after talking to her is that she's an unusually kind person. She's one of those people who emanates goodness. Just sweet as could be. And behind that sweetness is a really fierce intelligence. Her book has been getting all kinds of raves, and Ben Marcus called it "the fiction of the future" or something along those lines, and he tends to be right about those kinds of things, so...a very promising start to a literary career. And I'm happy I got to talk with Alexandra just as things are getting under way.
In today's monologue I talk about the holidays. And jury duty. And then at the tail end of the show I talk about some movies I've seen recently.
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Episode 391 — Nic Kelman
2 december 2015 · 1 uur 8 min
Nic Kelman is the guest. His new novel, How to Pass As Human, is now available from Dark Horse Comics. Nic is also an accomplished screenwriter—he sold a script to Stephen Spielberg a few years back and has since made other sales for other projects.
Funny story: Nic and I are neighbors and didn't know it. He walked over, sat down, we talked. Very pleased to have a guest on the show who works in film and television in addition to writing books. It's a no-brainer for a podcast based in LA and something I need to do more often. It's on my list for 2016. Nic is a smart guy with a deep interest in artificial intelligence. He studied brain and cognitive science at MIT, with a minor in film and media studies. How's that for a combination? I did my best to keep up.
In today's monologue, I discuss Thanksgiving and the perils of holiday travel and the fact that I haven't gone anywhere in way too long. I also discuss a text message that my wife sent me in the middle of the monologue which underscored this very point and made me feel like a negligent parent.
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Episode 390 — Amina Cain
25 november 2015 · 1 uur 23 min
Amina Cain is the guest. Her latest story collection, Creature, is available now from Dorothy Books.
I was unusually tired on the day that Amina came over to do the show. I'm almost always tired these days because of the newborn, but on this particular day it was especially so. The comparison I often make is drunk driving. It can feel like you're driving drunk, talking into a microphone on three hours of sleep. That's probably not the best comparison but you know what I mean. Anyway, my point is that, as tired as I was, talking to Amina was easy and it gave me energy and made me feel better. She has that kind of effect. I imagine I'm not the only person who feels this way. Just a very thoughtful, kind, sincere person, and a very good writer. Hers is a point of view that feels valuable to me, and I'm glad she's writing books and making art.
In today's monologue, I read some mail and then talk about money and class anxiety and having low-level panic attacks at parties and try to make sense of what seems to be a growing caste system in America. And so on.
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Episode 389 — Andrea Kleine
18 november 2015 · 1 uur 19 min
Andrea Kleine is the guest. Her debut novel, Calf, is available now from Counterpoint Press.
This is a novel rooted in history, both personal and cultural. I lived through the cultural part of it. Anyone alive and aware in 1981 can say that. Andrea, however, lived through both parts of it, and now has a book to show for it, a book that grapples with these darknesses head on. She was in town on book tour and stopped by and sat down and gave very thoughtful responses to my questions, sometimes pausing to think things over before speaking. This is not the easiest subject matter to talk about, but she was game, and I appreciate that.
Speaking of subject matter that's not easy to talk about, in today's monologue I talk about Paris and Beirut and the Russian airliner that got bombed, and terrorism, and the sorry state of the world, and so on. I try to stay coherent. I think I was mostly coherent.
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Episode 388 — Myriam Gurba
11 november 2015 · 1 uur 18 min
Myriam Gurba is the guest. Her new story collection is called Painting Their Portraits in Winter, available now from Manic D Press.
Myriam showed up in a pair of new shoes. She went shopping before the podcast. Bought some shoes. Wore them out of the store. I found that charming. It reminded me of being a kid and getting new shoes and insisting on wearing them out of the store because I felt like they would make me run faster or something. Another thing about Myriam: she's an easy talker. I love it when I get a guest like this. Makes it easy on me. Good sense of humor. Opinions. Plenty to say. Also very direct about not wanting to talk about certain things, which is always fine. She's a California girl, born and raised. Grew up in Santa Maria, not far from Santa Barbara. Land of the saints. Wine country, farmland, ocean air, strawberries. We talk about it all.
In today's monologue, I discuss my recent crisis of confidence regarding monologues and read from a Twitter exchange I had with listeners regarding the continued existence of the monologue at the top of the show.
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Episode 387 — Eileen Myles
4 november 2015 · 1 uur 15 min
Eileen Myles is the guest. She has two books out from Ecco, the first of which is a collection of poetry called I Must Be Living Twice: New and Selected Poems 1975-2014, and the second of which is a reissue of her novel Chelsea Girls.
Such a pleasure to have Eileen on the show. I've been wanting to talk with her for a long time and finally it all worked out. I should add that the interview almost didn't happen, because my computer died. But I managed to get that rectified just in the nick of time. You'll hear me talk about this in the monologue. And if you follow me on Twitter, then you know that in the aftermath of my computer's death I had what can only be described as an epic customer service experience with Apple.
So anyway. Eileen Myles was here at my house. She sat down across from me, and we talked. She's having a moment, as they say. And it's the kind of moment that feels rare and very well-deserved. I feel lucky to have had the chance to talk with her as all of this is happening, and grateful that she gave me an hour of her time.
In the monologue, as I just mentioned, you'll hear me talk about the death of my computer. And you'll also hear Eileen read a poem. Which is way better than hearing me talk about the death of my computer.
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Episode 386 — Alex Mar
28 oktober 2015 · 1 uur 36 min
Alex Mar is the guest. Her new memoir, Witches of America, is available now from Farrar, Straus, & Giroux.
Alex showed up in the car of a journalist. She was, I think, fresh from the airport, and a journalist had picked her up and interviewed her on the way to my house. Busy author. She got out of the journalist's car and walked back to my garage and sat down and talked to me for an hour about witches and Paganism and magic and religion and the occult. I often worry, when an author is on an extended tour, doing a ton of media, that I'll catch her in a state of fatigue, that she'll be "all talked out" by the time she gets to me. (This can happen.) Fortunately, this wasn't the case with Alex, who was totally game and has a truly incredible story to tell. I hold journalists, and particularly those who work deep in the field, in the very highest regard. It's a noble line of work. Alex has spent much of the past five years doing just that, and Witches in America is the very fine result.
Today's monologue is (spoiler alert) pretty long. The podcast got a mention in the New York Times this past Sunday, and it meant something to me. I talk about that, and about the origins of this show and the people who inspired me to create it, and so on.
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Episode 385 — Matt Bell
21 oktober 2015 · 1 uur 10 min
Matt Bell is the guest. His new novel, Scrapper, is now available from Soho Press. It is the official October selection of The Nervous Breakdown Book Club.
This is Matt's second time on the show. Last we spoke, he was living up in northern Michigan, in Marquette. Since then he's moved to Tempe, Arizona. A big change in all sorts of ways. We start off talking about that, and then we get into Detroit, the setting of Scrapper, and try to wrap our heads around what's happened there and why and what might happen in the future. Detroit, like post-Katrina New Orleans, is something that from a distance can be hard to believe. Not until you're on the ground and looking at it with your own eyes does the scale of it even begin to come into focus. So Matt, with his good brain, has done us all a service by writing this book and imagining this world in such richness and depth. Seems hard to believe, as I've known (or "internet known") him for a long time, but this was the first time Matt and I have ever met in person (our previous interview was conducted over the phone). He was passing through Los Angeles on book tour and was kind enough to stop by to do the show.
In today's monologue I talk about going out to dinner and my failure to do the kinds of cultural things that I should probably be doing. And I talk about Starbucks.
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Episode 384 — Chris Tarry
14 oktober 2015 · 1 uur 22 min
Chris Tarry is the guest. His debut story collection, How to Carry Bigfoot Home, is available now from Red Hen Press.
This one was fun. Chris had flown in the day before from New York and then was up late working—he's a professional bass guitarist—and this, he told me, led to a few drinks, and well, you get the picture. It was nothing too dramatic, but he was dragging a little when he showed up, hadn't slept much, and it's how we got started with the conversation. And from there things just sort of rolled. Easy guy to talk to. And it was nice to meet a writer who is also an honest-to-God professional musician who makes his living playing music. They do exist. But just a few. Almost as rare as Bigfoot. And another thing: Chris is Canadian. Nice to have another Canadian on the program.
In the monologue, I talk about the difficulties inherent in talking about music, and my disdain for the words "jam" and "gig." I've probably talked about this before.
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Episode 383 — Catie Disabato
7 oktober 2015 · 1 uur 18 min
Catie Disabato is the guest. Her debut novel, The Ghost Network, is available now from Melville House.
Catie came over here and sat down in the middle of her workday and talked to me. I always appreciate it when someone with a serious day job makes time to do the show. As you'll hear, she's a Midwestern girl. We have that in common. The Midwest. I feel like I have a certain shorthand with people who were raised in the Midwest. And I feel something similar with people who were raised in the South, as my extended family is from the South and I grew up going down South and so there's a certain comfort level there, a Southern comfort level. What else? Catie went to Oberlin at the same time as Lena Dunham. We talk about that a little. And we talk about bisexuality and bullying, and so on. We had a good conversation. Catie was game. She was delightful. I think you guys are gonna really like hearing from her.
In the monologue today I talk about manic happiness and this woman in my neighborhood who is always, without fail, insanely happy, and how this morning when she saw me she did a karate kick.
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Episode 382 — Jonathan Evison
30 september 2015 · 1 uur 15 min
Jonathan Evison is the guest. His new novel, This is Your Life, Harriet Chance!, is now available from Algonquin Books. It was the official August pick of The Nervous Breakdown Book Club.
A little late getting to this one, considering that Harriet was the August pick for the book club, but as most of you know, my new policy is to only do in-person interviews, so I waited for Johnny to get down here on tour, and then he came over and sat down and we talked. Always great to see Mr. Evison. Known him for a long time. We met on Myspace years ago. True story. And we've been buddies ever since. Johnny is one of those writers who can really do the work. He's prolific and yet the quality is so high. Every time I look up, I feel like he's got another novel coming out. (And here I should mention that his last one, Revised Fundamentals of Caregiving, has been adapted for the silver screen, starring Paul Rudd and Selena Gomez, and should be out in theaters before too long. Stay tuned.) And what else? I think you're gonna like this one. I know I always say that, but with this one I really mean it. I had a good time talking with Johnny Evison. We haven't seen each other in a while and this was our chance to catch up and there's just an essential goodness to him that always comes through, both in art and in life.
In today's monologue I somehow start talking about Janis Joplin and how a certain Janis Joplin moment encapsulates my inner world when I'm deep in the throes of sleep deprivation. I also talk briefly about the recent blood moon.
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Episode 381 — Bill Clegg
23 september 2015 · 1 uur 19 min
Bill Clegg is the guest. His debut novel, Did You Ever Have a Family?, is available now from Scout Press. It has been long-listed for both the Man Booker Award and National Book Award.
Bill and I talked on the hottest day of the year in LA, or one of the hottest days of the year. It was sweltering in the garage and it had rained the night before (odd), which made it humid, which made the heat worse. Plus, we did the interview at four in the afternoon, the hottest time of the day. So it was hot. And Bill, bless him, arrived at my door after a day of media and travel and was, despite the heat and fatigue, completely game and willing to sit there and field my questions for an hour. We had a great conversation in spite of it all.
Not much of a monologue today. I just get to the main event. I do, however, get more expansive than usual at the tail end of the show. Stay tuned.
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Episode 380 — Carmiel Banasky
16 september 2015 · 1 uur 16 min
Carmiel Banasky is the guest. Her debut novel, The Suicide of Claire Bishop, is now available from Dzanc Books. It is the official September selection of The Nervous Breakdown Book Club.
Carmiel and I talked about Los Angeles and New York and Judaism and her dad. We also talked about Portland; she grew up in Portland (Oregon). Of particular interest to me was the fact that she lived on the road, housesitting and working odd jobs for (if I recall correctly) four years. She wrote much of Claire Bishop during this time. A very admirable resourcefulness. And quiet tenacity. I think writers have to be tenacious. And disciplined. Carmiel is also a meditator. She does TM. We talked about that, too. A regular writing practice and a regular meditation practice: they seem of a piece. You have to be willing to sit down and sit still and be quiet and watch your thoughts. You have to be disciplined. You have to be quietly tenacious.
Quietly tenacious.
In the monologue, I talk about being up all night with my eight-week-old son, and how recently, after a 2 a.m. feeding, rather than fall back asleep, he stayed awake and stared at me for two solid hours. My point, if there is one, is that it's weird to have someone, anyone, even your own infant child, stare at you for that long in the middle of the night. Especially when conversation isn't possible. Lees meerLearn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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Episode 379 — Jennifer Pashley
9 september 2015 · 1 uur 18 min
Jennifer Pashley is the guest. Her debut novel The Scamp is available now from Tin House Books.
Jennifer and I had a mix-up on time. She thought we were scheduled for a different day. She also had a migraine headache. She got into an Uber with a migraine and raced across Los Angeles to be here. Shanna Mahin (my guest in Episode 365) was with her. I had to be somewhere in an hour. We were up against the clock but we got it done. Jennifer is from New York state and is one of the rare people I've met who has lived in the same place for her entire life. Maybe it's not that rare. It seems rare to me. I live in Los Angeles and most people in Los Angeles seem to have come here from somewhere else, or else they left at some point and then came back. I do know a few Los Angelenos who never left. I'm not denigrating that choice, by the way. I envy it. I envy people who have a real sense of place. But I'm sure there are downsides to it, too. The grass is always greener, and so on. Anyway, it was great fun talking with Jennifer, migraine headache and all.
My monologue is about time and sleep-deprivation, the two main themes of my life right now, and maybe always. I feel like I have a lot to do and lack the time and/or brain power to do it. But of course this is temporary, I think it's temporary. Everything is temporary. It had better be temporary. It's temporary.
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Episode 378 — Joshua Mohr
2 september 2015 · 1 uur 15 min
Joshua Mohr is the guest. His new novel, All This Life, is available now from Soft Skull Press. This is, I think, the third time I've talked to Josh on the program. The first time we did a full hour and the second time we did a few minutes at the top of a show and now we've done another hour. Always great talking with him. Some writers are good writers and bad talkers and some writers are bad writers and good talkers and other writers are good writers and good talkers. Joshua Mohr is a good writer and a good talker. Actually, I think a lot of writers are good talkers. I think communication is communication, and if a person has a facility for the written word they're often good to talk with as well. But not always. Which is fine. I'm just saying. Anyway. Great talking with Joshua Mohr and great to see his new novel get the kind of glowing reviews that it's been getting. Well-deserved and then some. Mr. Mohr fights the good fight. In the monologue, I read some more mail. One letter comes from an angry listener stepping up to defend me, and another comes from a listener who just saw the new movie The End of the Tour about the late-great David Foster Wallace.
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Episode 377 — Karolina Waclawiak
26 augustus 2015 · 1 uur 21 min
Karolina Waclawiak is the guest. Her new novel is called The Invaders, available now from Regan Arts.
This is my second time talking with Karolina. The first time, it was over the phone. She was living in Brooklyn. Things were different for her then. Then she moved to Los Angeles and is now a neighbor of mine, more or less. She took a long lunch break from her day job and drove over and sat down across from me, and we had a great conversation. When I do repeat interviews I'm always worried that it's going to be a retread, but I don't think that's the case here. Karolina and I covered a lot of new ground. We even talked about crystals. I was really tired but didn't feel it during the conversation. The conversation brought me to life. Hopefully it does the same for you. (Note: You can hear my first interview with Karolina Waclawiak via Otherppl Premium.)
In the monologue today, I read some more mail. A listener wrote in accusing me of glorifying recreational drug use and denigrating antidepressant use and also accused me of behaving selfishly by trying to "crowdsource" positive thoughts for myself via the podcast. I respond.
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Episode 376 — J. Ryan Stradal
19 augustus 2015 · 1 uur 24 min
J. Ryan Stradal is the guest. His bestselling debut novel, Kitchens of the Great Midwest, is available now from Viking.
Really happy for J. Ryan. He lives here in Los Angeles and I've known him for a while and he's one of those guys who really deserves the success he's having. Not only has he worked hard and written well, he's been showing up at literary events all over town for years, he hosts his own reading series, he volunteers at 826LA, and is generally just an all-around mensch in the LA writing community and beyond. I know I'm not alone in being thrilled for him.
In the monologue today, I bitterly assess the state of my novel while in a state of epic sleep-deprivation. Hopefully some humor shines through.
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Episode 375 — Meg Howrey
12 augustus 2015 · 1 uur 22 min
Meg Howrey is the guest. Her two novels, Blind Sight and The Cranes Dance, are both available from Vintage Contemporaries.
This is the first interview I conducted after the birth of my son, which is to say "in the throes of acute sleep deprivation." I was pretty caffeinated, and Meg was great to talk with, which helped a lot. I hope I did an okay job. Meg seems like one of those people whom you might call an old soul. It's hard for me to imagine her as a child. An accomplished dancer, she went off to study ballet in New York City at age 15. And now she's the author of two critically acclaimed novels. A gifted person who has lived an interesting life, or lives, in a short amount of time. Also: she wants to go to Mars.
In the monologue, I catch up on more mail. Thanks again for all the letters. If you want to email me, you can do so at letters [at] otherppl [dot] com.
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Episode 374 — Matt Sumell
5 augustus 2015 · 1 uur 36 min
Matt Sumell is the guest. His novel-in-stories, Making Nice, is available now from Henry Holt.
Note: Our conversation was recorded earlier in July, days before my son was born, so you'll hear us talking about the impending birth a little bit. I logged a bunch of interviews in the weeks leading up to delivery, anticipating a busy late summer, so if you hear things that seem chronologically lagging, baby-wise, that's why.
And so. Matt Sumell. There are people in the world who are naturally funny, I feel, and by that I mean this: they're the ones who don't even have to tell a joke, and they're still funny. They barely have to say a word. It's like their essence is funny. They walk into the room, and things get funnier automatically. It's just who they are, it's the charge they give off. Matt Sumell is like this. He's a character. You'll get it almost right away when you listen to him talk. And he's a hell of a writer.
In the monologue, I read and respond to some mail from listeners. I've been getting a lot of great email lately. So much. Many of you have taken the time to send good wishes re: the arrival of my son, and I want you to know how much I appreciate that. Thank you. (I'm not gonna overdo it reading such emails, as I feel like that would be overkill.) That said, the mail runs the gamut, subject-matter-wise, and I'll be reading more of it in episodes to come; I want to try to get to as much of it as possible on-air.
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Episode 373 — Bud Smith
29 juli 2015 · 1 uur 43 min
Bud Smith is the guest. His new novel, F 250, is available now from Piscataway House.
I did a reading with Bud here in Los Angeles earlier this summer. He was kind enough to invite me. Ben Loory, Mira Gonzalez, and xTx also read. The next day Bud came over and we sat down and talked. What strikes me about him is that his path to writing is different from most everyone I know in literature. Different and the same, I guess. The word "refreshing" comes to mind. By day he works as a boilermaker. He writes his novels on his iPhone, typing with his thumbs, during his lunchbreaks and whanot. He doesn't get too neurotic about it. We discuss all of this in the interview, and more. Bud is a good one. He has the right attitude.
In today's monologue, I talk about the birth of my son, River, who arrived on July 21st, a few hours after I recorded my last episode. Hard to put it into words, especially since I'm so sleep-deprived, but I give it a shot. Let's just say it's been a great week for my family, and I want to thank those of you who wrote/tweeted/Facebooked your good wishes. Really appreciate it, you guys. Means a lot to me.
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Episode 372 — Jim Gavin
22 juli 2015 · 1 uur 23 min
Jim Gavin is the guest. His story collection, Middle Men, is available now from Simon & Schuster.
Jim is another in a long line of Catholic (and recovering Catholic) authors who have appeared on this program, a completely accidental trend that was pointed out to me by listener Nick Ripatrazone, who wrote about it in an essay over at The Millions. Jim and I talk Catholicism—as a child he wanted to be a priest—and we get into other stuff as well, including how he managed to get one of his stories published in The New Yorker.
The monologue today is short and sweet. It looks like my wife is beginning to go into labor. I talk about it. That doesn't mean the baby is hours from being born—though this could be the case. It's up in the air. I might have over-shared. I'm not sure. It's debatable. Let me know.
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371. Tao Lin & Mira Gonzalez
19 juli 2015 · 1 uur 21 min
Tao Lin and Mira Gonzalez are the guests. Their new book, Selected Tweets, is available now from Short Flight / Long Drive. Selected Tweets, as its title suggests, is a collection of Tao and Mira's tweets. It's not all of their tweets; it's an edited selection, published in a little black bible-like volume. For those of you who might be doubting the literary value of the book, I would suggest considering it as a work of poetry, though it feels like more than a work of poetry. In the aggregate, I suppose it reads like a kind of memoir-poetry hybrid or something. Maybe it's its own thing. It's kind of a jokebook, too. Both Mira and Tao are funny writers. In the monologue, I talk about Tao and Mira's arrival at my house and the shopping bag that Tao brought, and a conversation that he and I had about a tree in my backyard. I also talk about Twitter.
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Episode 370 — Lidia Yuknavitch
15 juli 2015 · 1 uur 14 min
Lidia Yuknavitch is the guest. Her new novel, The Small Backs of Children, is available now from Harper. It's the official July selection of The Nervous Breakdown Book Club.
Had such a fun time talking with Lidia. It was one of those conversations that could've easily gone longer. She's just a great person to have a conversation with, especially when you're talking about things like books and art and life and death and writing, and so on. She's been through some stuff. She's written her way through some stuff. She's very generous in sharing what's on her mind and in her heart. I think you guys will really enjoy hearing from her. I always do.
In the monologue I talk about my daughter, a recent hike we took, and a question that she asked me out of the blue. It involves incarceration.
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Episode 369 — Chet Weise
12 juli 2015 · 1 uur 16 min
Chet Weise is the guest. He is the editor and co-founder of Third Man Books, based in Nashville, TN.
Third Man is a young indie press, and if you've listened to this podcast for any amount of time, you probably know that I'm a fan of the indies and feel like a lot of our best and most interesting literature is produced on the periphery. Third Man is unique, an offshoot of what started as a record label founded by a major rock star. What are these guys doing out in Nashville? I wanted to know. Chet was kind enough to talk with me.
The monologue involves listener mail and is, to a degree, an extension of the monologue from Episode 366. I read a letter from a listener named Keegan, who has a question involving David Foster Wallace, and then I read a letter from a listener named Clay, who survived a terrible car accident, was severely injured, almost died, and then had what he describes as "a flash of liberating brilliance."
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Episode 368 — David L. Ulin
8 juli 2015 · 1 uur 12 min
David L. Ulin is the guest. He is the book critic for the Los Angeles Times, a Guggenheim fellow, and the author of Sidewalking: Coming to Terms with Los Angeles, due out from the University of California Press in October. You can pre-order it now.
I've been reading David for years in the LA Times and had the pleasure of meeting him this past winter during a residency in Palm Desert. His new book deals with a subject we have in common: the city of Los Angeles, a city notoriously difficult to wrap one's head around. David, though, does it masterfully, shining a light on LA's strange beauty, little idiosyncrasies, and big contradictions.
In the monologue, I talk about my complete lack of imagination and tendency toward very thinly veiled autobiographical work, and I ponder my decision to read a sex scene in front of people at a local bookstore.
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Episode 367 — Maggie Shipstead
1 juli 2015 · 1 uur 20 min
Maggie Shipstead is the guest. She is the author of the novels Astonish Me and Seating Arrangements, both of which are available from Vintage Contemporaries.
Maggie is one of those people who seems to be doing everything right. Harvard. Iowa Writers Workshop. Stegner Fellow. Her first novel was a critically acclaimed national bestseller. Her second novel, many say, is even better. We talk about all of this. I try to get answers out of her. How did she do it? How was she raised? Is it nature? Is it nurture? How does a person turn out to be so accomplished, and at such a young age?
In the monologue, I talk about an episode from last night at around 2 a.m. I woke up and my wife was doing some Lamaze breathing. She had some sort of abdominal contraction, some sort of cramping, and the pain was so bad it woke her up from a dead sleep. And so then there I am, in the dark, trying to process this, trying to decide whether or not I should call the gynecologist (or 911). Fun stuff. Late stage pregnancy. We're getting down to the wire over here. (All is well, by the way. The cramping went away. No home births...yet...) Lees meerLearn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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Episode 366 — Ryan O'Connell
24 juni 2015 · 1 uur 23 min
Ryan O'Connell is the guest. His new memoir, I'm Special, is available now from Simon & Schuster.
This one was easy. It's always great when a guest is funny and forthcoming, and Ryan is both of these things in spades. His new book deals with, among other things, his experiences with cerebral palsy, homosexuality, addiction, and more—all or most of it delivered with dark humor.
In addition to book stuff, Ryan has written for Awkward and is also working on getting I'm Special adapted for television with executive producer Jim Parsons. He's got a lot going on and has achieved an unusual amount of success for someone so young. Fun to catch him now, as his star is on the rise.
In the monologue I talk about existential stuff related to the impending birth of my second child. I also talk about death, which came up recently in an impromptu question-and-answer session with my 4-year-old daughter. She's starting to wrap her head around some stuff, namely the reality of having a baby brother and what it means to get older and, well, eventually die. I fielded her questions, or tried to.
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Episode 365 — Shanna Mahin
17 juni 2015 · 1 uur 24 min
Shanna Mahin is the guest. Her debut novel Oh! You Pretty Things is available now from Dutton.
Shanna has lived quite a life. Been through a lot. And has managed to emerge from very tough circumstances with her sense of humor intact. And now she's written a novel. I'm always heartened by this kind of alchemy. It's heroic, I think, when people are able to make art from life, particularly when the life in question has been difficult.
In the monologue I talk about my day. In addition to producing Shanna's episode, I also recorded an interview (forthcoming) with an author who shall remain unnamed (just to keep you in suspense). Shortly before the interview started, my wife, Kari, informed me that she was going to the doctor because she was having contractions—probably Braxton Hicks contractions (which are sorta like "false alarm" contractions that don't signify labor)—but she wanted to be sure. So I conducted the interview with my phone on silent, looking down every five minutes, checking to see if Kari was texting me to tell me she was going into labor, and also there was a wasp in the garage that was buzzing around, threatening both me and my guest.
You'll see what I mean. I explain it all, or try to. It's been a long day. It's hot here, and it's hot as hell in the garage when I record. I'm dehydrated.
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Episode 364 — Mat Johnson
14 juni 2015 · 1 uur 20 min
Mat Johnson is today's guest. His new novel Loving Day is available now from Spiegel & Grau.
Very happy to have had the chance to talk with Mat, particularly at this moment in his career, with Loving Day just featured on the cover of the New York Times Book Review and enthusiasm for his work seeming to reach new heights after the big success of his previous novel, Pym.
As I mentioned in a recent episode, I'm making the shift to in-person interviews only (better sound quality, etc) and was lucky enough to catch Mat as he swung through town. We talked about a variety of things, among them early failures, depression and humility, false summits and false nadirs, work ethic, liberation from expectation, how he deals with book reviews (good and bad and in between), police violence, race, identity, and more.
I also took a few minutes to interview my four-year-old daughter during today's monologue. As many of you know, I've checked in with her periodically over the past several months, as my wife has gotten increasingly pregnant and the arrival of our second child (a boy) has grown imminent. As we're now into mid-June and the official due date is August 2nd, shit is getting real, and preparations are starting to ramp up: crib assembly, closet organizing, and so on.
And I'll be honest, there's also a sense of dread when it comes to sleep. I'm not a great sleeper to begin with, but in the coming months it's gonna be particularly intense. Sorta girding myself for that. And in a way I feel fascinated about what it will mean for the podcast. Which is to say: it's one thing to put yourself on the microphone in your normal, disheveled state; it's another thing entirely to do it in a state of maximal newborn sleep deprivation. But of course I will try.
Stay tuned.
And thanks, as always, for listening.
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Episode 363 — Colin Winnette
10 juni 2015 · 1 uur 27 min
Colin Winnette is the guest. His new novel, Haints Stay, is available now from Two Dollar Radio.
Had a great time talking with Colin. He came over and sat down across from me and we got into all kinds of things, among them drugs, which seems to be a recurring topic of conversation on the podcast. I'm confused, I suppose, about drugs, which would explain the interest/recurrence, and in today's monologue I talk about that confusion. What to make of drugs, finally? Good? Bad? Useful? Therapeutic? Spiritual? All of the above? Hallucinogens in particular seem to present real value and possibility. But of course there are the downsides.
It's hard as a parent who wants to be an honest broker to know precisely how to feel and communicate about these things. So maybe the podcast is functioning as a kind of dress rehearsal. Eventually I'll figure out my lines, and then when my kids are, like, fifteen, I'll attempt to deliver them and my kids, in keeping with tradition, will ignore me.
Anyway. A good talk with Colin Winnette. His novel, Haints Stay, is out there now from Two Dollar Radio. Go get it.
Oh—I also read some mail in the monologue. Haven't done that in a bit. Thanks, as always, for the letters. If you wanna send word, the address is letters [at] otherppl [dot] com.
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Episode 362 — Kate Durbin
3 juni 2015 · 1 uur 18 min
Kate Durbin is the guest. She is a writer, curator, and performance artist whose books include The Ravenous Audience and E! Entertainment.
Kate also happens to be a huge fan of Disneyland. We talk about that. She grew up in Southern California. Loves it. Is unapologetic about loving it. We talk about that, too. What else? We talk about our shared love of Gwen Stefani. We talk about religion, family stuff, love, marriage, divorce. We get into things.
Monologue topics: airplanes. Mostly I talk about my trip to Louisiana and my return flight home and I try to build a morality tale out of something that happened in the lavatory. It's unnecessary.
Enjoy.
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Episode 361 — Amelia Gray
27 mei 2015 · 1 uur 14 min
Amelia Gray is the guest. Her short story collection Gutshot is available now from FSG Originals. Gutshot is the official May selection of The Nervous Breakdown Book Club.
What does it mean to be a working writer? What do you say when The New Yorker sends you an email? In this interview with Amelia Gray, we'll talk work, life, anxiety, and the strange worlds of Gray's short fiction.
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Episode 360 — Sean H. Doyle
24 mei 2015 · 1 uur 30 min
Sean H. Doyle is the guest. His new memoir is called This Must Be The Place, available now from Civil Coping Mechanisms.
The Chicago Tribune says
“Memoir depends on its teller for empathy and insight into its subject’s character. Angry, obliterated, yet, by turns, mournful and self-aware, Doyle lays himself bare. But he manages to do so without eliciting pity or scorn. In others’ hands, similar material — drug abuse, desperate sex, violence, suicidal thoughts — have often resulted in wallowing or descriptions of depravity for depravity’s sake. It is a testament to Doyle’s clear examination and probing of his past that when he drops us into one charged situation after another we neither sink nor are incredulous at the messes he finds himself in. His spare words rescue us from despair, while still communicating the profound pain of just being alive with pinprick precision.”
And Juliet Escoria says
“Reading This Must Be The Place is like getting mugged, and then once the mugger takes your wallet, they push you on the ground. And then once you’re on the ground, they kick you in the stomach, over and over and over again. And then when you think they’ve finally decided to leave you alone, they kick you once more in the teeth. The only difference is that when Sean H. Doyle is mugging you, the experience is cleansing, invigorating, something that tests your heart but also makes it glow, an experience you don’t want to ever stop. Otherwise, they’re basically identical.”
Monologue topics: pregnancy update, David Letterman, Indiana, canoes, my dorm room, the elevated couch, retirement, going out on your own terms Lees meerLearn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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Episode 359 — Sarah Tomlinson
20 mei 2015 · 1 uur 45 min
Sarah Tomlinson is the guest. Her new memoir, Good Girl, is available now from Gallery Books.
Jill Soloway says
"Good Girl is a father-daughter story unlike any other I’ve read before. Tomlinson’s prose is vivid and compelling, bringing you right along with her as she travels from her rural hometown to the big city in search of fulfillment, clarity, and—hopefully—a sense of peace in her relationship with the man who made her who she is."
And Edan Lepucki calls it
"A forthright, sensitive, and compelling memoir about one woman's often fraught relationship with her father. I read it in a day and felt mournful when it was over. Tomlinson is a clear-eyed yet compassionate writer, and the emotional rigor that she brings to this book is both rare and beautiful."
Monologue topics: Chicago, houseguests, broken bones, closed door paranoia. Lees meerLearn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices