Podcast appearances and mentions of matthew specktor

I'm joined by Matthew Specktor, author of The Golden Hour: A Story of Family and Power in Hollywood. Part novel, part memoir, and entirely entertaining, Matthew's book is a revealing look at life in Hollywood when you're not on the A-list but occasionally adjacent to it. In addition to relating the drama that makes any family intriguing, Matthew's book is a keen look at Hollywood in a time of flux, as the rise of the super agencies and the internationalization of the Hollywood studios radically altered the American cinematic landscape. If you enjoyed the episode, I hope you check out his book. And please, share this with a friend!

MATTHEW SPECKTOR, son of high-powered agent Fred Specktor is the author of THE GOLDEN HOUR: A Story of Family and Power in HollywoodMatthew talks:-Hollywood's disappearing middle-class -The celebrities stopping by the house as he was growing up -The transactional nature of Hollywood relationships-What was Fred Specktor's relationship with CAA Founder Michael Ovitz-Morgan Freeman's rise to lead instead of supporting-  To subscribe to The Pete McMurray Show Podcast just click here

Writer and critic Matthew Specktor, author of the new novel The Golden Hour, joins hosts Harry and Daniel to discuss Joseph Losey's haunting 1976 film Mr. Klein. Set in Nazi-occupied France during the lead-up to the infamous Vel d'Hiv roundup of Jews, the film follows Alain Delon as an art dealer who becomes ensnared in a chilling case of mistaken identity with another man who may be Jewish—and may not even exist.Together, they first talk about real life cases of mistaken identities of their lives. Then the trio move on to explore the film's Kafkaesque tone, its eerie resonance with contemporary concerns about identity and complicity, and how Mr. Klein confronts France's legacy of antisemitism and historical erasure.With the episode's release coinciding with Yom Hashoah, or Holocaust Remembrance Day, we hope you'll find added connection to the day and think of those lost.Purchase Matthew's new book, The Golden HourFollow Matthew Specktor on InstagramMr Klein Movie TrailerMr Klein on IMDbConnect with Jews on Film online:Jews on Film Merch - https://jews-on-film.printify.me/productsInstagram - https://www.instagram.com/jewsonfilm/Twitter - https://twitter.com/jewsonfilmpodYouTube - https://www.youtube.com/@jewsonfilmTikTok - https://www.tiktok.com/@jewsonfilmpodRead less

A personal and cultural exploration of the struggles between art and business at the heart of modern Hollywood, through the eyes of the talent that shaped it Matthew Specktor grew up in the film industry: the son of legendary CAA superagent Fred Specktor, his childhood was one where Beau Bridges came over for dinner, Martin Sheen's daughter was his close friend, and Marlon Brando left long messages on the family answering machine. He would eventually spend time working in Hollywood himself, first as a reluctant studio executive and later as a screenwriter. Now, with The Golden Hour, Specktor blends memoir, cultural criticism, and narrative history to tell the story of the modern motion picture industry-illuminating the conflict between art and business that has played out over the last seventy-five years in Hollywood. Braiding his own story with that of his father, mother (a talented screenwriter whose career was cut short), and figures ranging from Jack Nicholson to CAA's Michael Ovitz, Specktor reveals how Hollywood became a laboratory for the eternal struggle between art, labor, and capital. Beginning with the rise of Music Corporation of America in the 1950s, The Golden Hour lays out a series of clashes between fathers and sons, talent agents and studio heads, artists, activists, unions, and corporations. With vivid prose and immersive scenes, Specktor shows how Hollywood grew from the epicenter of American cultural life to a full-fledged multinational concern-and what this shift has meant for the nation's place in the world. At once a book about the movie business and an intimate family drama, The Golden Hour is a sweeping portrait of the American Century. Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/arroe-collins-like-it-s-live--4113802/support.

In this episode, I talk with author and novelist about his recent hybrid memoir and cultural exploration, Always Crashing in the Same Car. We discuss his fascination with figures who faced creative crises in Hollywood, from F. Scott Fitzgerald, filmmaker Hal Ashby or musician Warren Zevon to more overlooked but similarly brilliant figures like Carole Eastman, the screenwriter of the 1970s classic Five Easy Pieces.We also explore the realities of growing up in LA, including being “celebrity-adjacent.” That's perhaps best illustrated by the time Marlon Brando left an incredible monologue in the form of a voicemail. We do a deep dive into the attraction of hybrid memoir for fiction writer, Matthew's approach to research, and whether it's possible any longer to be a middle-class creative in Hollywood.--------------------------“All of those kind of impulses fused in me, and eventually, and I sort of realized, like, oh, this is what I want to write. I want to write a book that's a memoir that isn't about me, or a memoir that's only kind of, you know, partly about me.”--------------------------Key Takeaways* Always Crashing In the Same Car pays homage to figures who've faced both genius and marginalization in Hollywood, including Thomas McGuane, Renata Adler, Carole Eastman, Eleanor Perry, Hal Ashby, Michael Cimino, Warren Zevon & more. The book is about “those who failed, faltered, and whose triumphs are punctuated by flops...”* Matthew shares his fascination with Carol Eastman, best known for Five Easy Pieces. He was deeply touched by her prose writings, comparing her to poets like Hart Crane and Wallace Stevens.* The book and the interview also delves more deeply into women's contributions to Hollywood, focusing on other overlooked talents like Eleanor Perry and Elaine May. Matthew reflects on his mother, a one-time screenwriter, and how her generation had less opportunity to develop their skills.* Why a hybrid memoir? Matthew was reading, and inspired by, writers like Hilton Als, Heidi Julavits, and Olivia Laing. He wanted to create a narrative that wasn't limited to—or rather moved beyond—the self, weaving together cultural criticism about Hollywood and creative crises.* We talk a lot about voice, which Matthew says is crucial for him to discover early on. “Once I can locate the voice for any piece of writing... I have it in the pocket,” he says. The narrator of this book blends personal reflections with a noir quality, he says.* Matthew sees himself as a novelist at heart. He considers the narrative tools of a novelist indispensable, even when writing memoirs and cultural critiques: “I am fundamentally a novelist….I think that's part of being a fiction writer or novelist is, you know, anything that you write is a kind of criticism in code. You're always responding to other texts.”* Matthew begins by explaining his unique research style: "I'm kind of ravenous and a little deranged about it…” His research process involves intuitive dives, like a two-day blitz through Carol Eastman's archives.* The discussion also touched on Matthew's upbringing with a mom who was a one-time screenwriter and who crossed the picket line during one writer's strike, and his father, who had modest beginnings but went on to become a famous Hollywood “superagent” representing Marlon Brando, Morgan Freeman, Helen Mirren & many others.* At the same time, Matthew explores misconceptions around Hollywood glitz, addressing the middle-class reality of many involved in the film industry. For a long-time, Hollywood could support such middle-class creatives, Matthew contends, something that is no longer really possible.* Addressing the evolution of the entertainment industry, Matthew notes the shift towards debt servicing, influenced by corporate acquisitions. This financial pragmatism often overrides the creative impulse, squeezing the middle class out.* Another takeaway? The creative world, especially in Hollywood, is fraught with periods of drift and struggle. In one sense, Always Crashing In the Same Car is a love letter to that state of things.--------------------------"I still kind of think of [Always Crashing…] as being secretly a novel. Not because it's full of made up s**t…but because I think sometimes our idea of what a novel is is pretty limited. You know, there's no reason why a novel can't be, like, 98% fact."--------------------------About Matthew SpecktorMatthew Specktor's books include the novels That Summertime Sound and American Dream Machine, which was long-listed for the Folio Prize; the memoir-in-criticism Always Crashing in The Same Car: On Art, Crisis, and Los Angeles, California, and The Golden Hour, forthcoming from Ecco Press. Born in Los Angeles, he received his MFA in Creative Writing from Warren Wilson College in 2009. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, GQ, The Paris Review, Tin House, Black Clock, and numerous other periodicals and anthologies. He is a founding editor of the Los Angles Review of Books.Resources:Books by Matthew Specktor:* Always Crashing in the Same Car: On Art, Crisis, and Los Angeles, California* American Dream Machine* That Summertime Sound* Slow Days, Fast Company by Eve Babitz, introduction by Matthew SpecktorReferenced on this episode:* The Women, by Hilton Als* Low, by David Bowie* The Great Gatsby, This Side of Paradise, The Last Tycoon, The Pat Hobby Stories, and The Crack-Up, by F. Scott Fitzgerald* F. Scott Fitzgerald on Writing, edited by Larry W. Phillips* The Folded Clock: A Diary, by Heidi Julavits* The Lonely City, by Olivia Laing* 300 Arguments, by Sarah Manguso* “Bombast: Carole Eastman,” by Nick Pinkerton* “The Life and Death of Hollywood,” by Daniel Bessner, Harper's, May 2024.CreditsThis episode was produced by Magpie Audio Productions. Theme music  is "The Stone Mansion" by BlueDot Productions. Get full access to The Book I Want to Write at bookiwanttowrite.substack.com/subscribe

F. Scott Fitzgerald died a few steps below Sunset as a broken man and cautionary symbol of what Hollywood can do to your talent and soul. But how true is that fable? Matthew Specktor -- author of Always Crashing in the Same Car: On Art, Crisis & Los Angeles, California and founding editor of the L.A. Review of Books -- joins me on a journey from Fitzgerald's Hayward Ave. apartment to the Westmount Drive home of mercurial screenwriter Carol Eastman, in search of secrets to the shadow stars who aren't so easy to step on.   For twice as many adventures, please support the show by becoming a patron at patreon.com/filthyarmenian   Come to LA for our next live adventure and festivity on January 6 at a historic shrine to adventure hidden in the heart of the gold pole. FAA presents WHITE CHRISTMAS Tickets here.   If you like what you hear, please rate and review on your podcast app and spread the word to people you like.   Follow us on X/insta @filthyarmenian

PCP is taking you inside a reality of Hollywood that people are afraid to discuss! Special guest Matthew Specktor is a native LA writer and the scion of a legendary Tinseltown power broker. The author of 2021's “Always Crashing in the Same Car,” he's also a contributor to Los Angeles Magazine, The Atlantic, and The New York Times. We're looking at the side of the entertainment industry that chews you up and spits you out. In this town synonymous with fame and fortune, the streets are littered with stories of dreams that never came true. 

In this interview, George and I discuss The Kingdoms of Savannah, his stunning book cover and how it came into being, the 25th anniversary of The Moth, his writing process, the number one thing he likes to hear from readers, his ties to Savannah, the unique inspiration for Morgana, and much more. George's recommended read is: Always Crashing in the Same Car by Matthew Specktor. Support the podcast by becoming a Page Turner on Patreon.  Other ways to support the podcast can be found here.     Check out my Summer 2022 Reading List list. If you enjoyed this episode and want to listen to more episodes, try Sarah Pearse, Lisa Gardner, Katherine St. John, Clare Mackintosh, and Jane Harper. The Kingdoms of Savannah can be purchased at my Bookshop storefront.        Connect with me on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Interview:Matthew Specktor grew up in Los Angeles, the son of a talent agent and screenwriter. One of his childhood heroes was the doomed writer F. Scott Fitzgerald, who arrived in Hollywood in the late 1930s to eke out a living as a screenwriter while he labored on what ended up being his fourth and final novel, The Love of the Last Tycoon. A few months shy of his 40th birthday, Specktor moved back to L.A. and into a crumbling building across the street from where Fitzgerald lived out his last years. Flailing professionally and reeling from his mother's cancer diagnosis, he became "unmoored." Instead of cracking up, as Fitz had after the Roaring Twenties ended and he struggled to complete his post-Gatsby masterpiece Tender is the Night, Specktor embarked on a journey of self-discovery, re-evaluating ideas of success and failure in general but especially in Los Angeles, his home town. What followed is part cultural memoir, part cultural history, and part portrait of a place, as the dust jacket declares in Always Crashing in the Same Car: On Art, Crisis & Los Angeles, California (Tin House Books, 2021). Specktor tells his own narrative alongside some known and lesser-known players of the New Hollywood era of his youth: you meet Carole Eastman, Eleanor Perry, Warren Zevon, Tuesday Weld, Hal Ashby, and Michael Cimino. The result is a masterwork of genre-bending nonfiction, an unvarnished view of Tinseltown and its demons, but also its undeniable magic and charm. In the end, after much loss, optimism wins. And that is when you know you have a good book on your hands: When it helps us navigate through the "beautiful ruins that await us all." J.C. Gabel spoke with Skecktor, earlier this fall, about his latest book and the creative process. The Reading: Matthew Specktor reads from his latest book, Always Crashing in the Same Car: On Art, Crisis & Los Angeles, California.Music by David Bowie.

Poet Kaveh Akbar joins Eric and Medaya to talk about his latest collection, Pilgrim Bell. Whereas Akbar's previous collection, Calling a Wolf a Wolf, meditated on addiction and the challenges of recovery, Pilgrim Bell offers a sort of post-script turn to the spiritual as a site for thinking about reparability refracted in multiple images: the damaged self, the abuses of empire, the unrecalcitrant penitent, the failures of the faithful, the untamable's efforts at submission and devotion. Because the work of faith and thus the work of the faithful, is never complete—indeed, as Kaveh's best lines suggest to us, is always inchoate, compromised, confused—the spiritual is an experience of cycling makings, unmakings, and remakings. As such, his poems leave the reader suspended between action and futility, the generosity of love and the pain of loss. Like the pilgrim of the collection's title, we listen for the words that will ring out to us and we wait, in the interim between the bell's tolls, to determine how we will respond to its call. Kaveh opens the interview with a reading from the collection. Also, Matthew Specktor, author of Always Crashing in the Same Car: On Art, Crisis, and Los Angeles, California, returns to recommend Emily Segal's novel Mercury Retrograde.

Poet Kaveh Akbar joins Eric and Medaya to talk about his latest collection, Pilgrim Bell. Whereas Akbar's previous collection, Calling a Wolf a Wolf, meditated on addiction and the challenges of recovery, Pilgrim Bell offers a sort of post-script turn to the spiritual as a site for thinking about reparability refracted in multiple images: the damaged self, the abuses of empire, the unrecalcitrant penitent, the failures of the faithful, the untamable's efforts at submission and devotion. Because the work of faith and thus the work of the faithful, is never complete—indeed, as Kaveh's best lines suggest to us, is always inchoate, compromised, confused—the spiritual is an experience of cycling makings, unmakings, and remakings. As such, his poems leave the reader suspended between action and futility, the generosity of love and the pain of loss. Like the pilgrim of the collection's title, we listen for the words that will ring out to us and we wait, in the interim between the bell's tolls, to determine how we will respond to its call. Kaveh opens the interview with a reading from the collection. Also, Matthew Specktor, author of Always Crashing in the Same Car: On Art, Crisis, and Los Angeles, California, returns to recommend Emily Segal's novel Mercury Retrograde.

Matthew Specktor, one of the founding editors of the Los Angeles Review of Books, joins Kate Wolf and Medaya Ocher to discuss his newest book, Always Crashing in the Same Car: On Art, Crisis, and Los Angeles, California. A memoir and cultural history, Always Crashing explores the work and lives of writers, actors, directors, and musicians who straddle the line between success and anonymity, and whose careers, though majestic, still leave questions about what might have been had circumstances or, in many cases, their temperaments, been different. These include the screenwriters Eleanor Perry and Carole Eastman, the novelist Thomas McGuane, the actress Tuesday Weld, and the filmmaker Hal Ashby. The book questions notions of both success and failure, especially as filtered through the distorted prism of Hollywood. It also touches on Matthew's own experiences growing up and later working in the film industry, his mother's brief turn as a screenwriter, and his father's more abiding success as a talent agent. A native of Los Angeles, Matthew draws a vivid portrait of the city, with both love and disdain. Also, Jeanetta Rich, whose first collection of poems, Black Venus Fly Trap, was released in June, drops by to recommend Federico Garcia Lorca's play Blood Wedding.

Matthew Specktor, one of the founding editors of the Los Angeles Review of Books, joins Kate Wolf and Medaya Ocher to discuss his newest book, Always Crashing in the Same Car: On Art, Crisis, and Los Angeles, California. A memoir and cultural history, Always Crashing explores the work and lives of writers, actors, directors, and musicians who straddle the line between success and anonymity, and whose careers, though majestic, still leave questions about what might have been had circumstances or, in many cases, their temperaments, been different. These include the screenwriters Eleanor Perry and Carole Eastman, the novelist Thomas McGuane, the actress Tuesday Weld, and the filmmaker Hal Ashby. The book questions notions of both success and failure, especially as filtered through the distorted prism of Hollywood. It also touches on Matthew's own experiences growing up and later working in the film industry, his mother's brief turn as a screenwriter, and his father's more abiding success as a talent agent. A native of Los Angeles, Matthew draws a vivid portrait of the city, with both love and disdain. Also, Jeanetta Rich, whose first collection of poems, Black Venus Fly Trap, was released in June, drops by to recommend Federico Garcia Lorca's play Blood Wedding.

Matthew Specktor is the author of the novels American Dream Machine and That Summertime Sound; a nonfiction book, The Sting; and the forthcoming memoir The Golden Hour (Ecco/HarperCollins). He is a founding editor of the Los Angeles Review of Books. In the intro David and I discuss Michelangelo Antonioni's haunting film The Passenger starring Jack Nicholson and Maria Schneider. In the interview with Matthew we get into the essence of noir, the dream beyond impact, and the vampiric Lost Highway-esque energy of Los Angeles. We also delve into the psychic undercurrents of LA, the nature of portals, Michael Mann's Heat, Chinatown, and the complex, conflicting drives that compel us to create art. "A novelist and critic with a sharp eye for Hollywood blends memoir and cultural critique in this study of classic American failure narratives." ― The New York Times Book Review “The sweeping American Dream Machine by Matthew Specktor is . . . one of the best novels about Los Angeles I have ever read." — Bret Easton Ellis "A haunting memoir-in-criticism exploring a very certain kind of failure―the Hollywood story. Specktor intricately knits his own losses and nostalgias into a larger cultural narrative of writers and filmmakers whose failures left behind a ghostly glamour. I can't get it out of my mind." ― Janet Fitch, author of White Oleander --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/wake-island/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/wake-island/support

Matthew Specktor is the author of Always Crashing in the Same Car: On Art, Crisis, & Los Angeles, CA. We chat about screenwriting, Tom Cruise, divorce, and the meaning of […]

Matthew Specktor is the author of Always Crashing in the Same Car: On Art, Crisis, and Los Angeles, California, available from Tin House. Specktor's other books include the novels That Summertime Sound and American Dream Machine, which was long-listed for the Folio Prize. Born in Los Angeles, he received his BA from Hampshire College in 1988, and his MFA in Creative Writing from Warren Wilson College in 2009. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, GQ, The Paris Review, Tin House, Black Clock, and numerous other periodicals and anthologies. He is a founding editor of the Los Angles Review of Books. *** Otherppl with Brad Listi is a weekly literary podcast featuring in-depth interviews with today's leading writers. Launched in 2011. Books. Literature. Writing. Publishing. Authors. Screenwriters. Life. Death. Etc. Support the show on Patreon Merch www.otherppl.com @otherppl Instagram  YouTube Email the show: letters [at] otherppl [dot] com The podcast is a proud affiliate partner of Bookshop, working to support local, independent bookstores. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Matthew Specktor is the author of That Summertime Sound and American Dream Machine. He’s a founding editor at Los Angeles Review of Books and just a damn good person. Enjoy […]

I Hate the Internet (We Heard You Like Books) What if you told the truth and the whole world heard you? What if you lived in a country swamped with Internet outrage? What if you were a woman in a society that hated women? Set in the San Francisco of 2013, I Hate the Internet offers a hilarious and obscene portrayal of life amongst the victims of the digital boom. As billions of tweets fuel the city’s gentrification and the human wreckage piles up, a group of friends suffers the consequences of being useless in a new world that despises the pointless and unprofitable. In this, his first full-length novel, Jarett Kobek tackles the pressing questions of our moment. Why do we applaud the enrichment of CEOs at the expense of the weak and the powerless? Why are we giving away our intellectual property? Why is activism in the 21st Century nothing more than a series of morality lectures typed into devices built by slaves? Here, at last, comes an explanation of the Internet in the crudest possible terms." Praise for I Hate the Internet "Could we have an American Houellebecq? Jarett Kobek might come close, in the fervor of his assault on sacred cows of our own secretly-Victorian era, even if some of his implicit politics may be the exact reverse of the Frenchman's. I just got an early copy of his newest, I Hate The Internet and devoured it - he's as riotous as Houellebecq, and you don't need a translator, only fireproof gloves for turning the pages." -- Jonathan Lethem, The Scofield "A riproaring, form-follows-function burlesque of the digital age that click-meanders its way like the ADHD freaks we're all becoming, while offering up compelling narrative lines that kept me clicking faster and faster. Read this book. Now." -- Dodie Bellamy "I Hate the Internet is thought provoking—and so funny! I can’t remember the last book I read that made me laugh this much. Kobek has a gift for seeing things from a different angle and for uncovering lies and invisible structures of society, and he does it in a playful, anarchistic and quirky way. The rows of association in this book—Kobek’s deconstructing voice—will keep you entertained and baffled throughout the reading." -- Dorthe Nors Jarett Kobek is a Turkish-American writer living in California. His novella ATTA was called “highly interesting,” by the Times Literary Supplement, has appeared in Spanish translation, been the subject of much academic writing, and was a recent and unexplained bestseller in parts of Canada. Presently, he's working on a book about the Ol' Dirty Bastard's first album for Bloomsbury's 33 1/3 series.  Matthew Specktor is the author of two novels, American Dream Machine and That Summertime Sound, as well as a nonfiction book about the motion picture The Sting. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, GQ, Harper’s, The Paris Review, and numerous other periodicals and anthologies. He is a founding editor of the Los Angeles Review of Books.

 One of the most talked-about books of last year (nominated for the Man Booker Prize and The National Book Award), A Little Life is a profoundly bold epic about love and friendship in the twenty-first century. Yanagihara follows the tragic and transcendent lives of four men—an architect, painter, actor and lawyer—who meet as college roommates and move to New York to spend the next three decades adrift, buoyed only by their friendship and ambition. Join Yanagihara for an intimate look at this masterful depiction of heartbreak and brotherly love.**Click here for photos from the program. 

The Sting is the king of con artist movies and the godfather of every twist happy heist movie from Ocean’s 11 to Matchstick Men. This week on the podcast writer Matthew Specktor talks about the incredible legacy of The Sting, a film that swept the 1973 Academy Award, reteamed Robert Redford and Paul Newman and changed film forever. http://www.mammothaudio.com.au/scamapalooza/

The Mark and the Void (Farrar, Straus, Giroux)Presented in partnership with The Los Angeles Review of Books, The Mark and the Void is Murray's newest and funniest novel yet.What links the Investment Bank of Torabundo, www.myhotswaitress.com (yes, with an "s," don't ask), an art heist, a novel called For the Love of a Clown, a six-year-old boy with the unfortunate name of Remington Steele, a lonely French banker, a tiny Pacific island, and a pest control business run by an ex-KGB agent?The Mark and the Void is Paul Murray's madcap new novel of institutional folly, following the success of his wildly original breakout hit, Skippy Dies. While marooned at his banking job in the bewilderingly damp and insular realm known as Ireland, Claude Martingale is approached by a down-on-his-luck author, Paul, looking for his next great subject. Claude finds that his life gets steadily more exciting under Paul's fictionalizing influence; he even falls in love with a beautiful waitress. But Paul's plan is not what it seems--and neither is Claude's employer, the Investment Bank of Torabundo, which swells through dodgy takeovers and derivatives trading until--well, you can probably guess how that shakes out.The Mark and the Void is the funniest novel ever written about the recent financial crisis, and a stirring examination of the deceptions carried out in the names of art and commerce.Praise for Paul Murray“Darkly comic . . . thoughtful and entertaining. [Murray’s] creative energy sends the book in many directions . . . but the same may be said of Dickens, with whom [he] also shares wit, sympathy, and a purposeful sense of mischief.”—Kirkus Review (starred review) “Murray’s 2010 novel Skippy Dies earned the Irishman worldwide acclaim as a writer enviably adept at both raucous humor and bittersweet truth. His new novel, perhaps the funniest thing to come out of the Irish economic collapse, follows Claude, a low-level bank employee who, while his employers drive the country steadily towards ruin, falls in with a struggling novelist intent on making Claude’s life worthy of telling.”—The Millions, “Most Anticipated” Fall 2015 book preview “Murray’s latest quickly takes off. . . The author displays much of the quick wit of his popular previous novel, but this effort also boasts a more modernist slant, with ever-blurring lines between art imitating life and life imitating art for the characters. The result is another page-turner with smarts, an absurdist riff on our economic follies, one that leaves the impression that it’s not all so far-fetched, after all.”—Publishers Weekly “Brilliant.”—Ben Paynter, Los Angeles Review of Books “[Murray] is brilliant at creating a cast of banking types at once hilarious and awful. For long periods, The Mark and the Voidis a boisterous office sitcom, just as Skippy Dies was a knockabout school comedy. But, as with Skippy Dies, his ambitions go well beyond slapstick. There’s no disguising his anger at the banks and politicians who have brought Ireland to this position. But neither is this a simple diatribe. Murray refuses to excuse the Irish people for letting this happen to themselves . . . In Murray’s complicated narrative, not all bankers are bad, just as not all artists are virtuous . . . From the opening page [Murray] advertises a plot that, for all its real-world relevance, is impossible to take seriously. And yet, such is his panache that through the chaos emerges a tale of complex truths and authentic humanity.”—Neil O’Sullivan, The Financial Times “This is it, at last: a fine work of fiction set in the present day that kicks all those asses that so urgently need to be kicked. Twenty pages in and I wanted to tour the nation’s nine remaining bookshops with Murray and shout from the back: ‘That’s what I’m talking about, people; this is what a real novel should be. Fuck all that ersatz pap you’ve been sold; read this! …The Mark and the Void is the best novel I have reviewed by someone of my own generation writing on this side of the Atlantic. It’s unabashedly intelligent, it’s ingeniously inventive, it’s richly alive in language, thought and character; it’s read-the-whole-page-again funny, and hugely entertaining and philosophically engaged with the great questions and circumstances of our times. It is the answer to the question of what a serious and seriously talented contemporary novelist should be writing.”—Edward Docx, The Guardian, Observer “Serious and impressive. Fans of Skippy Dies and Murray’s first novel, An Evening of Long Goodbyes, will not be surprised to hear that it is very funny, its author’s fluency spooling out in joke after joke . . . There is profundity beyond the laughter, not least in the book’s depiction of the bleak emptying-out of a country. . . Murray does an excellent job of exposing the Ponzi schemes and endless recapitalisations of failing institutions as the simple confidence tricks gussied up by gobbledegook that they really are.”—Alex Clark, The Guardian “It was a tall order for Paul Murray to come up with a follow-up to 2010’s Skippy Dies, a novel which I declared in my review to be the funniest book I had read all year. . . I should not have worried about Murray maintaining form.  The Mark and the Void is a hilarious, blade-sharp satire on the banking system featuring vividly drawn characters, and it is, once again, the funniest book I’ve read so far this year. . . A joy from start to finish.”—Leyla Sanai, The Independent “Murray is masterful at capturing the cynicism of the banking world, the way its staffers, who keep landlines “for when I need to find my mobile”, indulge in vacuous bar-room chat like debates on “whether a boom or a bust is a better time to be rich”. His prose is peppered with enlightened digressions on art, anthropology, geometry, philosophy and the origins of the corporation in Europe’s Middle Ages. There are moments while reading The Mark and the Void that are almost dizzying, as Murray careers down the side-street of another subplot. In the hands of a novelist with a heavier touch, they could be confounding, but not in Murray’s. He’s written a notable satirical novel. Few can nail the mystifying ways of the Irish as precisely.”—Richard Fitzpatrick, The Irish Examiner “Murray masterfully builds the tale into an extravagant and rewarding whole, with genuine hilarity floating atop the sobering currents of social commentary. This is a gamble that more than pays off.”—Laurie Grassi, The Toronto Star “With The Mark and the Void, Paul Murray has done the impossible: he’s written a novel about international finance that not only isn’t dense, boring, or annoyingly didactic, but is, in fact, a hilarious page-turner with a beating human heart that nonetheless provides real insight into the ongoing economic crisis. To put all of these elements in a pot and alchemically produce something so brilliant and cohesively constructed, one might assume Paul Murray is a witch. I think he’s simply a great writer.”—Adam Wilson, author of Flatscreen and What’s Important Is Feeling “People always tell me, ‘If you love Paul Murray so much, why don't you marry him?’ Now thanks to recent legislation in his native Ireland, I finally can. And so should you, reader. The Mark and the Void not only monetizes the death of the novel, but makes us believe in its resurrection. Praise the Lord for Paul Murray's big brain and tender heart.”—Gary Shteyngart, author of Little Failure “The Mark and the Void is Murray’s best book yet—a wildly ambitious, state-of-the-nation novel, and a scabrously funny yet deeply humane satire on the continuing fall-out of the biggest financial crisis in 75 years.”—The BooksellerPaul Murray was born in 1975. He studied English literature at Trinity College in Dublin and creative writing at the University of East Anglia. His first novel, An Evening of Long Goodbyes, was short-listed for the Whitbread Prize in 2003 and was nominated for the Kerry Irish Fiction Award. Skippy Dies, his second novel, was long-listed for the Booker prize and was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award.Matthew Specktor is the author of the novels American Dream Machine and That Summertime Sound. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, GQ, the Paris Review, Tin House, The Believer, and numerous other periodicals and anthologies. He is a founding editor of the Los Angeles Review of Books.

In this episode we once again cover a wide variety of topics with our books, ranging from what to do (and not do) when pregnant, a look at Hollywood through the eyes of a contemporary novelist, and finally the end of WWI and the creation of the modern middle east. First up is comedian and recent mother Laura Mannino, who brings us the fascinating and controversial pregnancy guide ‘Expecting Better’, by Emily Oster, which attempts to make sense of the mountains of conflicting and often confusing advice heaped on soon-to-be mothers. Next up, comedian and podcaster Scott Boxenbaum brings us a terrific new addition to one of my favorite sub-genres, the “Hollywood Novel”, with his recommendation of ‘American Dream Machine’ by Matthew Specktor. To top it off, Steve Benaquist brings us the incredibly informative and fascinating ‘A Peace To End All Peace’ by David Fromkin, which sheds new light on a centuries old problem that still haunts us today. At once a history book and a story of contemporary politics, this book is simply a must-read for anyone interested in how the modern political world works and how it got that way. It’s heady stuff, but as usual, we make it fun! Give it a listen! Steve Benaquist "A Peace to End All Peace: The Fall of the Ottoman Empire and the creation of the Modern Middle East” by David Fromkin. - Holt Publishing - ISBN - 10: 0-8050-8809-1 Scott Boxenbaum American Dream Machine - Novel - Matthew Specktor - Tin House Books - ISBN - 978-1-935639-44-2 Laura Mannino "Expecting Better” - By Emily Oster - Penguin 2013 - ISBN - 978-1-59420-475-3

Valley Fever (Farrar Strauss Giroux)  A razor-sharp, cross-generational tragicomedy set in California's wine-soaked Central Valley.  Ingrid Palamede never returns to places she's lived in the past. For her, "whole neighborhoods, whole cities, can be ruined by the reasons you left." But when a breakup leaves her heartbroken and homeless, she's forced to return to her childhood home of Fresno, California. Back in the "real" wine country, where grapes are grown for mass producers like Gallo and Kendall-Jackson, Ingrid must confront her aging parents and their financial woes, soured friendships, and blissfully bad decisions. But along the way, she rediscovers her love for the land, her talent for harvesting grapes, and a deep fondness and forgiveness for the very first place she ever left. With all the sharp-tongued wit of her first novel, Rules for Saying Goodbye, Katherine Taylor examines high-class, small-town life among the grapes--on the vine or soaked in vodka--in Valley Fever, a blisteringly funny, ferociously intelligent, and deeply moving novel of self-discovery. Praise for Valley Fever: “Valley Fever goes straight to the heart of it: How are we supposed to live? How to jump through those hoops of fire known as love and work and family, and hopefully emerge with body and soul more or less intact. Or even--dare I say it?--to come through with some measure of peace in ourselves. Katherine Taylor's unflinching novel takes on the big stuff, and does so with an empathy and insight that reward the closest reading. This superb book succeeds on every level." – Ben Fountain, author of Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk “In Katherine Taylor's stirring and sneakily capacious novel, what begins as a family romance widens out to be nothing less than a portrait of the knotty, complicated relationship between land and the people who make it their life's work to nurture and sometimes exploit it. Heartbreak comes in the form of relentless heat, ravaging dust, and a perfect grape left to wither on the vine, and the undoing of a once proud family vineyard becomes as potent a tale of love and betrayal as any I've recently read. Taylor's prose is sharp, rueful, hilarious and crackling with life. Her characters' raw, unsentimental affairs with one another and with the earth they till will stay with you long after you've left the book's pages behind.” – Marisa Silver, author of Mary Coin Katherine Taylor is the author of the novels Valley Fever and Rules for Saying Goodbye. Her stories and essays have appeared in The New York Times, Elle, Town & Country, ZYZZYVA, The Southwest Review and Ploughshares, among other publications. She has won a Pushcart Prize and the McGinnis Ritchie Award for Fiction. She has a B.A. from University of Southern California and a master's degree from Columbia University, where she was a Graduate Writing Fellow. Katherine lives in Los Angeles. Matthew Specktor is the author of the novels American Dream Machine and That Summertime Sound. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, GQ, the Paris Review, Tin House, The Believer, and numerous other periodicals and anthologies. He is a founding editor of the Los Angeles Review of Books.

Guernica Annual Print Edition (Guerinca + Haymarket Press) Join us for the Los Angeles launch of the Guernica Annual at Skylight Books. This year Guernica celebrates ten years of award-winning, free online content. Guernica's first-ever print edition (published in partnership with Haymarket Books) contains fearless reportage, memoir, compelling interviews, and emerging and established poets and fiction writers. This special evening consists of readings from the Annual by local writers and a conversation with the staff and editors of Guernica. Readings from: Matthew Specktor (American Dream Machine, That Summertime Sound), Katherine Taylor (Rules for Saying Goodbye) Michael Archer (editor-in-chief and co-founder of Guernica), Lisa Lucas (publisher of Guernica) and Kima Jones (NPR, Pank, The Rumpus). This event is free and open to the public. All proceeds from the Guernica Annual will go towards compensating writers and editors, and maintaining Guernica's free online access. Matthew Specktor is the author of the novels American Dream Machine and That Summertime Sound, as well as a nonfiction book about the motion picture The Sting. His writing has appeared or is forthcoming in The Paris Review, The Believer, Tin House, Black Clock, and Salon, among other publications. He is a senior editor and founding member of the Los Angeles Review of Books. Katherine Taylor is the author of the novel Valley Fever, a cross-generational tragicomedy set in California's wine-soaked Central Valley, to be published June 2015 by Farrar, Straus, and Giroux.  She is also the author ofRules for Saying Goodbye, a novel of a young woman's disassembling and reassembling herself, published by Farrar, Straus, and Giroux in 2007. Katherine's stories and essays have appeared in The New York Times, Elle, Town & Country, and Ploughshares, among other publications. She has won a Pushcart Prize and the McGinnis Ritchie Award for Fiction. She has a B.A. from University of Southern California and an MFA from Columbia University, where she was a Graduate Writing Fellow. Katherine lives in Los Angeles. Michael Archer is the Editor-in-Chief and Co-founder of Guernica. His work has appeared in The Huffington Post, Publishers Weekly ,Biography, Daily Variety, The Hollywood Reporter, Woman's Day, Men's Edge, and The New Yorker, among many others. His fiction has appeared in various journals. He has taught in the Czech Republic (Charles University), Costa Rica, and China. He currently teaches English and speech at the City University of New York. Lisa Lucas is the Publisher of Guernica. Previously, she served as the Director of Education at Tribeca Film Institute and consulted for various non-profit arts and cultural organizations, including Sundance Film Festival, San Francisco Film Society and the Scholastic Art & Writing Awards. Lucas is also co-chair of the non-fiction committee for the Brooklyn Book Festival. Kima Jones has received fellowships from PEN Center USA Emerging Voices, Kimbilio Center for African American Fiction and The MacDowell Colony. She has been published at NPR, PANK and The Rumpus among others. Kima lives in Los Angeles and is writing her first poetry collection, The Anatomy of Forgiveness.

Matthew Specktor is the guest. His novel, American Dream Machine, is now available from Tin House. Mona Simpson says "Joan Didion prophesied this novel. In an essay called 'Los Angeles Days,' published in 1992 in After Henry, she wrote that 'Californians until recently spoke of the United States beyond Colorado as 'back east'. If they went to New York, they went 'back' to New York, a way of speaking that carried with it the suggestion of living on a distant frontier. Calfiornians of my daughter's generation speak of going 'Out' to New York, a meaningful shift in the perception of one's place in the world.' Specktor's American Dream Machine may be first literature I've read in which Los Angeles is assumed as London is assumed by Dickens and Paris by Proust and New York by a host of twentieth century American writers. There is nothing ironic, ambivalent, or apologetic about Specktor's relationship to Los Angeles—as it is and was, as myth and as a thriving capitol city. Los Angeles provides an animate pulse under the lives of these men and boys, a source of permanence that lends their struggles gravity and monument." And David Shields raves "American Dream Machine is the definitive new Hollywood novel. The tone, the pace, the details—everything is just amazingly right. The whole book is charged with the kind of necessity I almost never see in novels anymore. Thrilling." Monologue topics: being boring, doing things, my neighborhood, my neighbors, Jamon, listener voicemail. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Yes Is the Answer: And Other Prog Rock Tales (Barnacle Books/Rare Bird Books) Progressive rock is maligned and misunderstood. Critics hate it, hipsters scoff at it. Yes Is The Answer is a pointed rebuke to the prog-haters, the first literary anthology devoted to the sub genre. Featuring acclaimed novelists, Rick Moody, Wesley Stace, Seth Greenland, Charles Bock, and Joe Meno, as well as musicians Matthew Sweet, Nathan Larson, and Peter Case, Yes Is The Answer is the first book that dares to thoughtfully reclaim prog-rock as a subject worthy of serious consideration. So take a Topographic Journey into a 21st Century Schizoid land of Prog-Lit! Marc Weingarten is the author of The Gang That Wouldn't Write Straight and Station to Station. He is producer of the 2011 documentary God Bless Ozzy Osbourne, as well as television's The Bachelor and The Bachelorette. He lives in Malibu, CA. Tyson Cornell is the founder of Rare Bird Lit, a Los Angeles and New York-based literary PR and marketing company specializing in book promotion for authors, publishers, and organizations in North America and Europe. He lives with his wife and two children in downtown Los Angeles. Joining the editors of Yes is the Answer in lively discussion will be the following contributors:  John Albert cofounded the semilegendary cross-dressing band Christian Death and also enjoyed a stint as the drummer in Bad Religion. He lives in Los Angeles and has contributed to LA Weekly, Hustler, and BlackBook, among others. He won the Best of the West Journalism Best Sports Writing Award in 2000, for the LA Weekly article from which his first book, Wrecking Crew, derived. Margaret Wappler has written for LA Weekly, Rolling Stone and The Believer. She loves ginger tea, F. Scott Fitzgerald and the judicious use of the drum solo. Matthew Specktor is the author of That Summertime Sound and The Sting, his writing has appeared in Harper's Magazine,Salon, and Open City, and is forthcoming in Tin House, The Believer, and The Paris Review. He is presently collaborating with James Franco on a film adaptation of Steve Erickson's novel Zeroville. A MacDowell Colony fellow and a founding editor of theLos Angeles Review of Books, he lives in Los Angeles. THIS EVENT WAS RECORDED LIVE AT SKYLIGHT BOOKS JUNE 13, 2013. COPIES OF THE BOOK FROM THIS EVENT CAN BE PURCHASED HERE:  http://www.skylightbooks.com/book/9780985490201

Wherever we live, we all, to some extent live in Hollywood. We are shaped and influenced by its messages, its ideas and by connection, to it’s people. Perhaps by having a better understanding of the people that populate and drive that community, we might better understand our culture. A good place to start that process is a new novel by Matthew Specktor entitled American Dream MachineMy conversation with Matthew Specktor: var gaJsHost = (("https:" == document.location.protocol) ? "https://ssl." : "http://www."); document.write(unescape("%3Cscript src='" + gaJsHost + "google-analytics.com/ga.js' type='text/javascript'%3E%3C/script%3E")); try { var pageTracker = _gat._getTracker("UA-6296941-2"); pageTracker._trackPageview(); } catch(err) {}

Colin Marshall sits down with LARB founding editor Matthew Specktor to discuss his book American Dream Machine.