Iceland is a paradise for writers, with its highly literate population, generous government grants and total absence of cockroaches. Unfortunately there are only 330,000 Icelanders, so even if they all buy your book your horizons are limited. Fortunately that’s why the novelist (and print-maker, and translator and more) Hallgrímur Helgason visited America. A conversation at the … Continue reading »
Category Archives: Fiction
Episode 176: Joshua Ferris and Jim Shepard
If you want to write about the Arctic, must you visit the Arctic? The splendid writers Jim Shepard and Joshua Ferris think not. Are they asserting: write about what you don’t know? It’s complicated. And delightfully so. A conversation about actual landscapes and landscapes of the imagination, at the Center for Fiction, with music … Continue reading »
Episode 164: Gish Jen
Born in America, the daughter of immigrants, writer Gish Jen recalls that, “When we were growing up, people would often say: your father is very Chinese.” Not just a little Chinese – very Chinese. What did they mean by that? She answers astutely, with reference to her father’s unlikely memoir, the Tianamen Square tank … Continue reading »
Episode 132: Rick Moody and Fred Tomaselli
If we decline to buy an iPhone or a pair of sneakers made under miserable working conditions, how should we respond when a band leader brutalizes his musicians? Artist Fred Tomaselli and writer Rick Moody took up that question, praised the bleak arid landscapes of the Southwest and had some hard words for gulls when … Continue reading »
Episode 119: Joseph O’Neill
His novels include the much admired Netherland, and The Dog, long-listed for the Man Booker Prize. We spoke at the American Irish Historical Society, where we were joined by the splendid musicans Eamon O’Leary and Stephanie Coleman who put down their instruments during the conversational part of the program. People are so considerate. PERSON: Seamus Heaney … Continue reading »
Episode 108: Kurt Andersen
He came to public attention as a co-founder of Spy magazine and later as the editor-in-chief of New York magazine. The author of three novels, he is the host and co-creator of the public radio program Studio 360. Plus, music from Peter Gordon and Ned Sublette. Big doings at the Brooklyn Historical Society. PERSON: Gene Shallit … Continue reading »
Episode 107: Colm Tóibín
A journalist, playwright and essayist, he is perhaps best known in America for the novels The Master and Brooklyn. His 2012 novel, The Testament of Mary was short-listed for the Man Booker Prize and was adapted as a play, produced on Broadway with Fiona Shaw. His newest novel is Nora Webster. We were joined by … Continue reading »
Episode 101: Rivka Galchen
Having endured the rigors of med school and growing up Jewish in Oklahoma, she has written a collection of stories, American Innovations, and a splendid novel, Atmospheric Disturbances. She is conversant with both literature and science, the intellectual equivalent of jeans and formal wear, although I’m unsure which is akin to which. Plus music by … Continue reading »
Episode 96: Lev Grossman
Lev Grossman is a journalist, the book critic at Time Magazine, and a novelist, best known for the three books in The Magicians series which he decribes as, in part, Harry Potter for adults. We spoke at the Brooklyn Historical Society accompanied by Mamie Minch. PERSON: J.K. Rowling PLACE: Oxford University THING: his antidepressants … Continue reading »
Episode 85: Paul Muldoon and Jean Hanff Korelitz
The guests on this episode are spouses. He is one of Ireland’s leading poets, the winner of the Pulitzer prize, and has written lyrics for Warren Zevon. She is a novelist whose 2012 Admission was made into a movie starring Tina Fey. I’m the shallow guy who went right for the celebrity connections. We … Continue reading »
Episode 84: Jonathan Ames
He is the author of nine books including Wake Up, Sir and The Extra Man, and the creator of the HBO series Bored to Death. We spoke on stage at the Brooklyn Historical Society, joined by the delightful musician Walter Hawkes. Crowded? Not at all. Cozy. PERSON: his great aunt, Doris Klein PLACE: … Continue reading »
Featured Episode 65: Roddy Doyle
Like many people, I encountered Roddy Doyle through the Barrytown trilogy – The Commitments, The Snapper, and The Van—three terrific novels, and later movies, set in the same fictional working class neighborhood of Dublin, novels that do things with dialogue I hadn’t thought possible. His newest, The Guts, revisits Jimmy Rabbitte – founder of The … Continue reading »