Podcast appearances and mentions of Patricia Lockwood

In her second novel Will There Ever Be Another You (Bloomsbury), LRB contributing editor Patricia Lockwood, one of our most original, inventive and prodigiously funny writers, conducts a phosphorescent, wild and profound investigation into what keeps us alive in unprecedented times, centring on the life of a young woman whose internal disarray echoes that of the world at large. Lockwood was in conversation with writer and poet Joe Dunthorne, whose books include O Positive, Submarine and Children of Radium.

• Join our OGWN vs Origin Story Tenth Birthday Podclash on Zoom on Thur 30 April.  What happens if Reform actually wins? We dive into a darkly plausible near-future where Nigel Farage becomes PM and everything goes… about as well as you'd expect. It's all gamed out in a new fact-based “non-fiction thriller”, What If Reform Wins? by our special guest, Times reporter Peter Chappell – from how Reform would tackle an ICE-style crackdown to the end of Net Zero and the return of Dominic Cummings. This could be the future, so how do we stop it? Plus: Is the UK ready for a politics that does God? The IMF warns Britain could take the biggest hit from the Iran War's economic shock. Should we get behind Samantha Niblett MP's Summer of Sex? And in the Extra Bit… after the smooth dancefloor moves of victorious Hungarian MP Zsolt Hegedűs “broke the internet” we ask – should politicians be less embarrassed about dancing? • Pre-order What If Reform Wins: A Scenario  by Peter Chappell – it's out 30 April.  • Questions for But Your Emails? Thoughts? Comments? Email us at ogwn@podmasters.co.uk ESCAPE ROUTES • Marie read and loved The Door by Magda Szabó. • Jonn recommends No One Is Talking About This by Patricia Lockwood. • Peter went ceilidh dancing at Cecil Sharp House in Camden, north London.  • Matt is watching Steve Carrel's new series Rooster on HBO Max, Now and Sky.  www.patreon.com/ohgodwhatnow • When you buy books through our affiliate bookshop and you'll help fund the podcast by earning us a small commission for every sale. Bookshop.org's fees help support independent bookshops too. Presented by Matt Green with Marie Le Conte and Jonn Elledge. Audio Production by Tom Taylor. Art direction: James Parrett. Theme tune by Tom Taylor and Simon Williams. Managing Editor: Jacob Jarvis. Group Editor: Andrew Harrison. OH GOD, WHAT NOW? is a Podmasters production. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Becky, Holly, Jakob, and Austin talk about books of the 2020s, trends in reading and publishing, our hopes for the future, and a couple of predictions for the next big thing. This reading data: https://www.arts.gov/stories/blog/2024/federal-data-reading-pleasure-all-signs-show-slump Books mentioned include: Spillover by David Quammen, The Great Influenza by John M. Barry, The Plague by Albert Camus, The Decameron by Giovanni Boccaccio, Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez,  These Precious Days and Tom Lake by Ann Patchett, The Vulnerables by Sigrid Nunez, The Sentence by Louise Erdrich, There is a Door in This Darkness by Kristin Cash ore, All Fours by Miranda July, Book Lovers by Emily Henry, Caste by Isabel Wilkerson, What Were We Thinking by Carlos Lozada, Surviving Autocracy by Masha Gessen, Just Us by Claudia Rankine, The Trees by Percival Everett, Agatha of Little Neon by Claire Luchette, Intimacies and A Separation by Katie Kitamura, Empire of Pain by Patrick Radden Keefe, Ducks by Kate Beaton, The Rabbit Hutch by Tess Gunty, The Ministry for the Future by Kim Stanley Robinson, Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver, The Most by Jessica Anthony, The God of the Woods by Liz Moore, Autocracy Inc by Anne Applebaum, Eastbound by Maylis de Kerangal, Doppleganger by Naomi Klein, Detransition, Baby by Torry Peters, Woodworking by Emily St. James, Disappoint Me by Nicola Dinan, Diary of a Misfit by Casey Parks, Jesus Wept by Philip Shenon, Romney by McKay Coppins, Motherland by Julia Ioffe, The Gales of November by John U. Bacon, Murderland by Caroline Fraser, King of Kings by Scott Anderson, All the Way to the River by Elizabeth Gilberty, Challenger by Adam Higginbotham, More Everything Forever by Adam Becker, Red White and Whole by Rajani LaRocca, The Midnight Children by Dan Gemeinhart, The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue by V.E. Schwab, Wanderhome by Jay Dragon, Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin, Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros, The House in the Cerulean sea by TJ Klune, Remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby Van Pelt, The Women by Kristin Hannah, Dog Man series by Dav Pilkey,  The Let Them Theory by Mel Robbins, Alchemised by SenLinYu, Convent Wisdom by Ana Garriga and Carment Urbita, The Familiar by Leigh Bardugo, We Are Water Protectors by Carole Lindstrom, Berry Song by Michaela Goade, Legendary Frybread Drive-In edited by Cynthia Leitich Smith, Firekeeper's Daughter by Angeline Boulley, The Tragedy of True Crime by John J. Lennon, The Friday Afternoon Club by Griffin Dunne,  We Tell Ourselves Stories by Alissa Wilkinson, Didion and Babitz by Lili Anolik, Enshittification by Cory Doctorow, The Correspondent by Virginia Evans, Back After This by Linda Holmes, The Caretaker by Ron Rash And authors Patricia Lockwood,  Claire Keegan, Rachel Kushner, Timothy Snyder, Helen Garner, Casey Plett, Mr Beast/James Patterson, Stephen Graham Jones, Silvia Moreno Garcia, and more!

In which we discuss the hangout novel/non-novel (should be a memoir? a collection of lyric essays?), and the intense fall-off from her masterpiece, "No one is talking about this."

Patricia Lockwood joins Kevin Young to read “In the Waiting Room,” by Elizabeth Bishop, and her own poem “Love Poem Like We Used to Write It.” Lockwood is the author of the novels “No One Is Talking About This” and “Will There Ever Be Another You,” along with two poetry collections and a memoir. She has won the Thurber Prize for American Humor and the Dylan Thomas Prize, and she's a contributing editor at the London Review of Books. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Emily Brontë died on 19 December 1848. As Patricia Lockwood said in an episode of Close Readings, there is evidence that Brontë was writing a second novel to follow ‘Wuthering Heights', but if she was, it has been lost, and it has been suggested, though never proved, that her sister Charlotte might have destroyed it. But what could possibly be in that lost novel, Lockwood wondered, that was worse, more unacceptable, than what we find in ‘Wuthering Heights'? To mark the anniversary, we're releasing the full version of this episode from the Close Readings series ‘Novel Approaches'. David Trotter and Patricia Lockwood join Thomas Jones to discuss Brontë's only surviving novel, one Trotter describes as ‘completely amoral'. Readings by Alex Colley Give a gift subscription to Close Readings for Christmas: https://lrb.me/audiogifts From the LRB Subscribe to the LRB: ⁠⁠https://lrb.me/subslrbpod Close Readings podcast: ⁠https://lrb.me/crlrbpod⁠ LRB Audiobooks: ⁠https://lrb.me/audiobookslrbpod⁠ Bags, binders and more at the LRB Store: ⁠https://lrb.me/storelrbpod⁠ Get in touch: podcasts@lrb.co.uk

When writer Patricia Lockwood fell ill with Covid in March 2020, she says she felt insane for months, experiencing  “Brian fog” (not brain fog) and what she called “The Refrains,” where a single song lyric would play over and over in her mind. So she decided to make sense of it all by writing “a masterpiece about being confused.” We talk to Lockwood about what it was like to write while “insane” and edit while in full health, and how she found humor in the absurdity of illness. Her new novel is “Will There Ever Be Another You.” Guests: Patricia Lockwood, novelist and poet Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey EICrackers, merry Friday...get ready for a magical, festive &... fatigued, episode!First up, Wicked For Good. We all went down the yellow brick road to the cinema to see the sequel. The story picks up after Elphaba (Cynthia Erivo) has fled the Emerald City and been branded the "Wicked Witch of the West" by the Wizard (Jeff Goldblum) and Madame Morrible (Michelle Yeoh). Glinda (Ariana Grande), now "Glinda the Good," struggles with her public role as the Wizard's associate while her friendship with Elphaba is tested. The film focuses on their final journey to see each other with empathy and change Oz "for good". We get into it.Next! We don't know if you've heard, but Christmas is coming. How do we know this? Because the annual supermarket/high street Christmas adverts have dropped in the UK. High street festive ads have become peak Christmas culture in the UK. For our non-UK listeners, Lena Dunham did a fairly good poke at this in Too Much with the John Lewis Rita Ora playing Santa ad. So this year, we're going to take a look at some of the big ones that have dropped.And finally... from Christmas Ads to CHRIST, not another ad. In a piece on Substack, Hannah Glenn explores her own fatigue with advertising, in a world where everything and everyone seems to be trying to sell her something. We hope you enjoy as always please do leave a review on your podcast player app, LY, O,R,B xxxThank you so much to Cue for editing this podcast!Beth's been loving: No One Is Talking About This, Patricia Lockwood, Oenone's Substack Ruchira's been loving: Wuthering Heights,BroadchurchOenone's been loving: Pluribus, Mother Mary TrailerWicked For Good - box office smash“Wicked: For Good” Is Very, Very BadCrisis At Christmas AppealTop 10 UK Christmas AdsJoel Goldby's Gift GuideNothing Feels Authentic Anymore Because Everything is an Ad, Hannah Glenn Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Suri is back up in the studio for Loose Reads! Today she's talking with Rosetta and Milly about the latest book from Patricia Lockwood, Will There Ever Be Another You. Whakarongo mai nei! Thanks to Timeout Bookstore!

In Patricia Lockwood's latest novel, the protagonist is an author named Patricia. Will There Ever Be Another You documents a four-year period of disorientation, disassociation and confusion after Patricia becomes severely ill. The story is based on Lockwood's own experience with brain fog and other symptoms after becoming sick with Covid-19 in March 2020. In today's episode, the real-life author talks with NPR's Ari Shapiro about embodying confusion as she wrote about it.To listen to Book of the Day sponsor-free and support NPR's book coverage, sign up for Book of the Day+ at plus.npr.org/bookofthedayLearn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

When Patricia Lockwood contracted COVID-19 in the spring of 2020, she lost touch with reality. For months, she floated through her days, dealing with constant migraines and visions of gorillas lurking in the trees. Ironically, she was mostly aware that she was cut loose from humanity. She kept notebooks filled with her wonderings and ramblings. And when she got better, she gathered her shattered experiences into a sharp new novel, “Will There Ever Be Another You.” Talking Volumes: Patricia Lockwood Not exactly a memoir, because Lockwood wanted to be freed from the structure of facts, she describes the wild and often psychedelic experience of a long illness “stealing people from themselves.” “You might look the same to others,” she writes, “but you had been replaced.”Lockwood joined Kerri Miller at the Fitzgerald Theater for Talking Volumes on Sept. 25 for a funny, unpredictable and profound conversation about how any long illness can take you apart and put you back together. Minneapolis-based singer-songwriter Sarah Morris provided music for the evening.

Will There Ever Be Another You by Patricia Lockwood is a gripping and disconcerting story of one woman's unraveling during a global pandemic. Patricia joins us to talk about writing about the internet, nostalgia, language, genre, reading classics and more with host Miwa Messer. This episode of Poured Over was hosted by Miwa Messer and mixed by Harry Liang.                     New episodes land Tuesdays and Thursdays (with occasional Saturdays) here and on your favorite podcast app. Featured Books (Episode): Will There Ever Be Another You by Patricia Lockwood Priest Daddy by Patricia Lockwood No One Is Talking About This by Patricia Lockwood Audition by Katie Kitamura Mrs. Caliban by Rachel Ingalls Binstead's Safari by Rachel Ingalls Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen  

How well does the law serve women? That's a question Nuala puts to Brenda Marjorie Hale, The Rt. Hon. The Baroness Hale of Richmond, DBE a former judge who served as the first female President of the Supreme Court. She was the first woman and the youngest person to be appointed to the Law Commission, where she led the work on what became the 1989 Children Act. In 2019 she announced the Supreme Court's judgement that the prorogation of Parliament was ‘unlawful, void and of no effect'. She discusses her new book, With the Law on Our Side – How the law works for everyone and how we can make it work better.BBC Celebrity Race Across the World will soon be back on our screens as four celebs pair up with a friend or family member and travel from a starting point anywhere in the world to another BUT with no phones or flights allowed and only the cost of the flight as money for the entire trip. Woman's Hour had the privilege of revealing one of the pairings: none other than Woman's Hour presenter Anita Rani and her father Balvinder Singh Nazran.To so many women the symptoms of pregnancy are instant, intense and unmistakeable; however some make it the full nine months without having any idea they're even pregnant. This phenomenon is known as cryptic pregnancy, and the British Medical Journal suggests it's more common than triplets. Nuala was joined by two women who have experienced this first-hand, plus Professor of Midwifery, Helen Cheyne to discuss.Patricia Lockwood is a poet, memoirist and novelist whose work straddles the literary world and the wilds of the internet. Patricia first went viral with her traumatic poem Rape Joke, while her memoir Priestdaddy, about being the daughter of a Catholic priest, has been called a modern classic. She talked to Nuala McGovern about her new book, Will There Ever Be Another You, which explores the surreal disorientation of illness, memory and recovery in the wake of Covid.Sudanese women and girls are bearing the brunt of a civil war that is entering its third year. The relentless conflict has triggered the world's worst humanitarian crisis for 6 million displaced women and girls. Cases of conflict-related sexual violence remain hugely under-reported, but evidence points to its systematic use as a weapon of war. Yousra Elbagir, Sky News' Africa Correspondent talked to Anita about the impact on women and also the role women play in providing support to the displaced.Are you a fan of words, their meanings and origins? The lexicographer Susie Dent, best known as the queen of Dictionary Corner on C4's Countdown, has created a whole year's worth of words, most of which you most probably never knew existed, in a freshly published almanac. It is called Words for Life and each day you can read an entry, digest its meaning and maybe laugh at its sound. Susie gives Anita some examples and explains her interest in words.Presenter: Anita Rani Producer: Annette Wells Editor: Andrea Kidd

Patricia Lockwood is an American poet, novelist, and essayist (AKA the poet laureate of X, previously known as Twitter). 

Patricia Lockwood is a poet, memoirist and novelist whose work straddles the literary world and the wilds of the internet. Patricia first went viral with her traumatic poem Rape Joke, while her memoir Priestdaddy, about being the daughter of a Catholic priest, has been called a modern classic. Patricia talks to Nuala McGovern about her new book, Will There Ever Be Another You, which explores the surreal disorientation of illness, memory and recovery in the wake of Covid. The list of hospital trusts that will be looked at as part of a rapid review of maternity care in England have just been announced. This is part of an independent, national, investigation into harm to hundreds of babies, that might have been prevented with better maternity care. However some of the families, whose cases will be part of it, have expressed concerns about its scope. Nuala is joined by BBC Social Affairs Correspondent Michael Buchanan to find out more about this review. Parents of children with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) are heading to Westminster today. They are taking part in what they are calling a ‘Day of Action,' organised by parent support groups, which includes a rally at Parliament Square, MP drop-ins and a Parliamentary debate on SEND children's rights. 18-year-old Katie Nellist, who has autism and struggled to attend school, will be giving a speech at the rally. Katie and her mother Ruth tell Nuala why they are taking part in this 'Day of Action'. The BBC Eye documentary and podcast called Death in Dubai has identified a former London bus driver running a sex ring exploiting young vulnerable Ugandan women. The programme has been told that hundreds of women are going to Dubai from Uganda, seeking their fortunes and ending up in sex work. Two of the women have died falling from tower blocks in Dubai. Nuala talks to the BBC Eye producer and reporter Runako Celina, who has spent two and a half years investigating this story. Kathrine Switzer was the first female to officially run the Boston marathon back in 1967, at that time considered a men's-only race. However a race official tried to stop her mid-event when they discovered she was a woman. She went on to complete the course and she's dedicated her life to enabling women to participate in the sport. Now in her late 70s, she's run 42 marathons and is the co-founder of 261 Fearless, that aims to empower women through running. Presenter: Nuala McGovern Producer: Andrea Kidd

The Fitzgerald Theater was filled to the rafters Wednesday night for the season launch of Talking Volumes. Activist and novelist Stacey Abrams joined Kerri Miller on stage and began the evening with a moment of silence to mark the political assassination of Charlie Kirk, who had been shot and killed only hours earlier. Abrams, herself a national political figure, said dark moments such as these need to be met with determined unity — to stand for and with one another. She got those values from her parents, she said, who always emphasized the need to be in church, in school and in service to others. She also reflected on how failure has worked in her life as a catalyst for growth and how books have led her to develop a deep moral consciousness. It's no surprise to readers who love her novels — including “Coded Justice,” the latest thriller in the Avery Keene series, which finds Avery relying on her friends to investigate the morally murky world of AI-powered medicine. Abram's books are filled with memorable characters who exhibit the same kind of determination and hope that Abram's embodies. Don't miss Abram's warm and inspiring conversation with Kerri Miller, rounded out by the musical styles of Minneapolis' own Lady Midnight, as the 2025 Talking Volumes season begins.And get your tickets for future shows, which include Patricia Lockwood on Sept. 25, Misty Copeland on Sept. 28, John Grisham on Oct. 23 and Kate Baer on Nov. 17. Guest: Stacey Abrams is an activist, an entrepreneur, a political leader and a bestselling author. Her new novel, the third in the Avery Keene series, is “Coded Justice.” Subscribe to the Thread newsletter for the latest book and author news and must-read recommendations.Subscribe to Big Books and Bold Ideas with Kerri Miller on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, RSS or anywhere you get your podcasts.

Patricia Lockwood reads her story “Fairy Pools,” from the May 26, 2025, issue of the magazine. Lockwood is a poet, essayist, and novelist. Her memoir “Priestdaddy,” which came out in 2017, won the Thurber Prize, and her first novel, “No One Is Talking About This,” won the Dylan Thomas Prize in 2022. A new novel, “Will There Ever Be Another You,” from which this story was adapted, will come out later this year. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

We’re reading our way out of a ruined time with the model reader, Patricia Lockwood. She’s the poet laureate of the internet, for starters. She’s a big-league literary critic, master of social media and the ...

When Wuthering Heights was published in December 1847, many readers didn't know what to make of it: one reviewer called it ‘a compound of vulgar depravity and unnatural horrors'. In this extended extract from episode three of ‘Novel Approaches', Patricia Lockwood and David Trotter join Thomas Jones to explore Emily Brontë's ‘completely amoral' novel. As well as questions of Heathcliff's mysterious origins and ‘obscene' wealth, of Cathy's ghost, bad weather, gnarled trees, even gnarlier characters and savage dogs, they discuss the book's intricate structure, Brontë's inventive use of language and the extraordinary hold that her story continues to exert over the imaginations of readers and non-readers alike.To listen to the full episode, and all our other Close Readings series, subscribe:Directly in Apple Podcasts: https://lrb.me/applecrnaIn other podcast apps: https://lrb.me/closereadingsna Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

When Wuthering Heights was published in December 1847, many readers didn't know what to make of it: one reviewer called it ‘a compound of vulgar depravity and unnatural horrors'. In this episode of ‘Novel Approaches', Patricia Lockwood and David Trotter join Thomas Jones to explore Emily Brontë's ‘completely amoral' novel. As well as questions of Heathcliff's mysterious origins and ‘obscene' wealth, of Cathy's ghost, bad weather, gnarled trees, even gnarlier characters and savage dogs, they discuss the book's intricate structure, Brontë's inventive use of language and the extraordinary hold that her story continues to exert over the imaginations of readers and non-readers alike.Non-subscribers will only hear an extract from this episode. To listen to the full episode, and all our other Close Readings series, subscribe:Directly in Apple Podcasts: https://lrb.me/applecrnaIn other podcast apps: https://lrb.me/closereadingsnaRead more in the LRB:David Trotter: Heathcliff Redoundinghttps://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v46/n09/david-trotter/heathcliff-redoundingJohn Bayley: Kitchen Devilhttps://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v12/n24/john-bayley/kitchen-devilAlice Spawls: If It Weren't for Charlottehttps://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v39/n22/alice-spawls/if-it-weren-t-for-charlottePatricia Lockwood: What a Bear Wantshttps://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v43/n16/patricia-lockwood/pull-off-my-headGet the books: https://lrb.me/crbooklist Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Last year, Timothee Chalamet played the role of Bob Dylan in a major motion picture. It was all a little pointless, though, seeing as Robert Zimmerman has been playing the role of Bob Dylan in the movies for 60 years now. This week, we watched America's Onery Boy in 'Don't Look Back," D.A. Pennebaker's Cinéma vérité classic about Dylan's 1965 tour of England, where our hero spins Donnovan around, gets in fights with journalists, and meets the high sherrif's wife, and talked about it with Corbin's fellow Dylan sicko Ryder Canepa.  Corbin reccomends Skyrim, which you probably already own. Matt reccomends an appliance. Ryder reccomends 'The Creature' and 'Zeiram,' two weird little movies. Corbin also reccomends this essay by Patricia Lockwood.  For reasons too tedious to get into here, next week's episode is NOT about Unrest. It will, instead, be about The Brutalist, which is currently in theaters. Ryder will be joining us again for the episode, which is pretty funny. 

Lauren Oyler's “Revenge Plot”, a literary diary of her trip to this year's Republican convention in Milwaukee, is the cover story of this month's Harper's. So when I talked today with the Berlin based writer, we discussed both the revengefulness of the Republican party and what she calls the “risk aversion” of the Democrats. While Oyler cares a lot about the outcome of today's election, she is wary of what she calls the “constant catastrophizing” both on the left and right of American politics. While this probably won't be the final election in the history of American democracy, she suggests, it might be the first 21st century Presidential contest not dramatically shaped by the internet. LAUREN OYLER's essays on books and culture appear regularly in The New Yorker, The New York Times Magazine, London Review of Books, Harper's Magazine, Bookforum, and other publications. Born and raised in West Virginia, she now divides her time between New York and Berlin.Named as one of the "100 most connected men" by GQ magazine, Andrew Keen is amongst the world's best known broadcasters and commentators. In addition to presenting KEEN ON, he is the host of the long-running How To Fix Democracy show. He is also the author of four prescient books about digital technology: CULT OF THE AMATEUR, DIGITAL VERTIGO, THE INTERNET IS NOT THE ANSWER and HOW TO FIX THE FUTURE. Andrew lives in San Francisco, is married to Cassandra Knight, Google's VP of Litigation & Discovery, and has two grown children.Keen On is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.TRANSCRIPTAndrew Keen: Hello, everybody. The day has come, it's Tuesday, November the 5th. Election Day. We don't know who's won, but many people are going to the polls. One person who won't be going to the polls is my guest today, Lauren Oyler. She's a distinguished American writer, bestselling writer, essayist, critic. But she happens to be, as I joked before, we went live in exile in Berlin. She lives there in Germany, but she's also the author of an excellent piece, it's the cover story of Harper's this week: "Reunion or Revenge: The GOP Identity Crisis." According to Lauren, they're on the brink. I'm not sure of what. Lauren is joining us from Berlin in Germany. Lauren, what's the view from there? Americans looking as crazy as ever?Lauren Oyler: We're looking for a bar to go to. To be honest, we've been we've been we've been caucusing, trying to figure out where we can watch the the results. And we just found there's one place. But, you know, it doesn't the results aren't really start coming in until midnight here. So the debate is about whether we will stay up--or, people have some bad memories of doing that in 2016. I personally have a bad memory of doing that in 2016 as well. So the view is we're looking at our phones.Keen: So I assume the bad memory was not that you drank too much or ate too much.Oyler: No, I did. I certainly did. I'm just I was with my boyfriend at the time and we had gotten in a fight earlier that day about Hillary Clinton. And I, I just remember being like, I just don't care. I just don't care. And then we went to the bar with our friends and got quite drunk. And and then we were walking home and I didn't live here at the time, so I didn't have we didn't have cell phone service. So we walked home at like three in the morning. We were really drunk and we were like, Well, we won't know anything. And then we got home and we like, laid in bed in the dark and and looked at our phones and we were like, no, this is terrible. So and then just laid in bed again, really drunk looking at our phones.Keen: It's something that could have occurred in one of your books or maybe in a in a DeLillo book. So are the Germans shocked? I mean, they they they've made a culture out of being a shock to other people that they particularly shocked this time around?Oyler: No, I don't think so. I remember right before I went to report this story, I was in a restaurant down the street from my house and I listened to--I was overhearing a conversation with this German guy, was talking to these people and he was like, he was he was like, Yeah, have you heard they have the plague in Colorado now? He's like, Yeah, this is crazy. Imagine if we had the plague in Berlin. Like, it was really like, I don't really think they sort of like, Yeah, this is crazy, but it's, you know, it's not it's not the first time. And I think to and in Europe, it used to be that you were reviled as an American. Certainly when I first moved here in 2012, there was still that kind of anti-American sentiment. But now far right populism has spread across the West and everybody is sort of commiserating with with you and just kind of like, you know, it could happen. It could happen to us at any time. It basically is the idea.Keen: The plague has come home to Germany from Colorado. So let's get to the piece, Lauren, you went to Milwaukee to cover the GOP's identity crisis. And it's a long essay. Very...to use the word Oyler-ish in the sense that it's it's a very creative piece of work, creative nonfiction, although some people might say there's a fictional element there. What was your overall take on this odd convention and why was it that it's almost five months ago now?Oyler: Yeah. Well, I think the big the the big concern that I had going into it was that, you know, you're right, it would be coming out it came out in the middle of October, and I would be reporting on something that had happened in July, which, of course, in the past would have been perfectly normal for this kind of piece of this kind of like literary new journalism type thing. Many, many great pieces about political conventions that I'm sure your listeners, listeners will be familiar with, things like Norman Mailer, they come out late. But, you know, now--Keen: It's timeless as well in their own way. I mean--Oyler: It's supposed to be timeless, but now everybody's sort of attitude towards the news is like, I need to hear it right now. And then it the cycle, the cycle, the cycle and it goes away. So you sort of forget about it. So I kind of was grateful for the assignment because the assignment was basically like write something of lasting literary value about about the circus and spectacle, which was very interesting. And, you know, it was sort of you're following the news as it's happening and you're like, well, I can't really like you just have to be aware of the general narrative as time has gone on, you can't really be too obsessed with anyone's story because as I learned when former President Trump was almost assassinated while I was on the plane there, like something can just completely derail the whole plan. But I had never been to a political convention before. I was surprised at how much I enjoyed doing that kind of reporting. And I was surprised at how at the dissonance between what was being reported by these live up to the minute coverage, like blogs or social media or things like this. The difference between the analysis that those those journalists would generally produce and what I was interested in or even like what I thought the mood was, frankly, as, as the title of the piece and the sort of the tag line suggests, like it was a bit fraught, I think, for the Republicans. I think I think the liberal media generally tends to want to keep to the storyline that they are evil masterminds of the chaos that they saw. But I what I saw there at least, was kind of a fracturing basically.Keen: Right? I mean, I think that the more I watch or listen to liberal media or mainstream media, they behave as if they're the grownups and. And perhaps some of these photos actually underline the fact that it's the Republicans who were the children. For better or worse, they're out of control. They need to be sent to their room and perhaps spanked, although I'm guessing most liberal media people don't believe in spanking anymore. I'm curious, Lauren. I had lunch with Rick MacArthur, the publisher of Harper's few months ago in New York. And like all publishers of traditional magazines, he claims poverty, not enough money to go around. Couldn't you find someone a bit closer? I mean, I assume he paid for you to fly from Berlin to Milwaukee. That's quite a long way. Why didn't he find a local person, or do you think he chose you, or they chose you, the editor chose you because you bring a slightly foreign perspective?Oyler: Do you don't think I'm such a good writer that it's worth flying me over there?Keen: Did they pay for first class?Oyler: No, it was was economy, which was good, actually, because I got I had some interesting conversations with my senior and they did say, you know, we won't pay for paper business, but I did buy the expensive internet in the end. But and I think I was staying in a Hampton Inn. Do you know how do you know how the--Keen: My God. So they put you up in a Hampton Inn?Oyler: Do you know how it works? So when you go to a convention, there's like the convention as the press, the press corps or the convention, if you like, a place to stay. And so many of the delegates were staying like in Madison, Wisconsin, or in Illinois, and I was in the same hotel as the USA Today people. So that speaks to me being like the, you know, the national and the the government's like belief in the value of Harper's magazine in comparison to other other places. So it was maybe like 20 minute drive away anyway. Non sequitur. So why do you think they asked me to go? Maybe because I do have a little bit of foreign perspective, I think to it is not you know, it is nice to have a literary writer juice politics coverage. You know, there's a long history of this. Norman Mailer is a wonderful introduction to this book that I have about ranting about journalists and reporters and why it's important to bring a novelistic eye to things. Joan Didion, obviously famously, and all sorts of other examples. George Saunders did a did a Trump rally in 2016. I think Patricia Lockwood did one as well. So I think there's that kind of tradition that that Harper's is a part of and wants to sort of continue in the face of maybe people saying that literary writing has no place in society anymore. But also, I assume that my being from Appalachia has something to do with it because, yes, as you say, I live in Berlin, but I was born and grew up in West Virginia, and although we did not know J.D. Vance was going to be selected as the VP when they assigned me this piece, it wasn't always a strong possibility. And I think the region sort of exerts a pull on the national media at least every four years. So I would assume that that also has something to do with it.Keen: That's interesting that, you know, the the other side of the Appalachian coin from J.D. Vance. You mentioned earlier, Lauren, that the the media reported on this differently from bloggers and some of the online crowd. What are the differences? Can you generalize about how the USA Today crowd covered it verses bloggers who perhaps weren't there or watching online?Oyler: Yeah, well, I think there is a certain kind of convention story that is just like we're here, there's someone on TV, they're doing a stand up. They have someone shooting them and they're just like, I'm here live at the convention. Like, here's how crazy it is. But the thing that I talk about in the piece especially is this Ezra Klein sort of blog about the convention. And I believe the headline that he wrote was for his podcast about it was I watched the Republican National Convention. Here's whatever, and that kind of dramatic headline style that that has been honed on the Internet--Keen: And this was a New York Times piece--Oyler: Well, the New York Times Piece...I watched the Republican National Convention on television. Why does that...anyone can watch the Republican National Convention on television. And they want it to be like a dramatic sort of...a little bit dangerous feeling that it did have at points. But but the thing that was surprising to me was how unenthusiastic many of the people there were or who were just there because, you know, they go every been ten times or whatever.Keen: I mean, you have some great photos in the piece of people looking pretty miserable, which of course probably makes most of us feel better about it. And I mean this one in particular for people watching a couple of white middle class people with cheese hats, one with a "Make America Great Again" sign, the other, "bring back common sense." They look most uncommon and most miserable.Oyler: And it's not to say that there wasn't, there were many sort of disturbing moments of enthusiasm, I think. But they weren't always the people on stage that you would--the biggest applause that I remember was not for Trump or for J.D. Vance. Of course, those went on forever. But this sort of passion, like the sort of scary passion that the media wants to find it in the Republicans. I noticed it most with Peter Navarro, who had just gotten out of prison that day and offering to give a trial, which was so bizarre and people were just screaming their heads off for him.Keen: And he's a China hater.Oyler: Yes, I can never remember what the sort of White House department of something that they invented that he was the head of. It was some kind of trade council.Keen: Like Go to War with China Department.Oyler: Yes. Yes. And he had just been let out of prison and he was missing a tooth. Which was really bizarre. And then Tucker Carlson, everybody was going crazy for it because he's like a celebrity. But there was not this kind of excitement for, say, Kid Rock or something like this. Or even Hulk Hogan.Keen: Yeah. So here's the question for you. Lauren, I think you're as well-positioned in every sense to to answer this question, which is the question I struggle with and I've talked to I've talked about endlessly on this show and I haven't resolved I'm sure I've bored most of my viewers and listeners. You mentioned Hulk Hogan, of course, the ultimate wrestler. In fact, I had Peter Osnos on the show last week. It was the original editor of Art of the Deal, and he said when he was editing out of the deal, he went with Trump to a wrestling contest, and Trump was enormously popular there back then, 30 or 40 years ago. To what extent is this whole--and I use this word carefully--spectacle, just wrestling. To what extent is it just another version of reality television and everyone understands in an odd kind of way that they're participating in this weird narrative. You've done a lot of thinking and writing on this in terms of the Internet, although some of the people participating in this are pre-Internet people. I mean, Trump is Mr. Reality television. So this goes back before the Internet. But to what extent is this, I don't know, reality, hyper reality, beyond reality, and how does it connect with--there is a reality of America on November the 5th, 2024. I hope that's a--I'm not sure it's a particularly clear question, but gives you an opportunity to talk about how you perceive this whole spectacle or circus.Oyler: Well, I think it's I think that the Republican Party and I think the American society in general, certainly American media, has been in a kind of transitional phase since 2020. Don't quote me on that, but like generally, like since Trump's term was a very crystal clear political moment in the country, I think. And it did make a lot of people sort of immediately think back and say what, what did I miss about the last ten, 15 years that led to this? Like, why didn't I see this coming? Why didn't I expect Donald Trump to be elected president in 2016? And that led to all this kind of--the things that you're referencing, which are, you know, reality, the effects of reality television and the effects of social media, you know, the sort of the the sense that--the desire for kind of like a more immediate relationship to our media that develops--all these things kind of developed in tandem, which is to say that, you know, someone who's watching the Hills on MTV, which is sort of my demographic, is not going to be the same kind of person who's watching wrestling per say. But there are many things that those two kinds of programing have in common, right? And it is kind of the ironic presentation of reality and scare quotes, right? And I think that Donald Trump, obviously a reality television host himself and and and certainly involved in professional wrestling can like sort of tap into could tap into that. But I don't think we're in that period anymore. I don't you know nobody is we aren't I hope we don't have graduate students writing dissertations on the on the Kardashians anymore which is what, you know that was such a prominent force in the media and in the sort of 2010s during Obama's administration. And I don't know exactly like what is next, right? The conversations we're having now are all about AI. They're all about Elon Musk. But it's certainly not this like pro-wrestling spectacle thing anymore. And I think you can see that because it's not as if that was that was not new, part of part of the spectacle that was created by the by the Hulk Hogan stuff was like that it was so surprising. But you can't keep bringing Hulk Hogan out every for, you know, you can't have them every four years. I'm sorry.Keen: An immortal Hulk Hogan or for that matter, Trump.Oyler: Yeah, yeah. And I do think that--picking J.D. Vance as the vice presidential nominee does indicate that they are trying to sort of move forward and kind of set the path for Trumpism after Trump. As many...that's not my phrase. It's a phrase everybody everybody uses, because also Trumpism is the most successful kind of Republican movement in a long time. You might remember the Tea Party didn't arrive. But there's a lot of dissent about that, I think. I think a lot of older people in the party that I talked to when I was at the convention were dissatisfied with Trump. And they would say, you know, I actually never liked him. I didn't vote for him in the primary in 2016. I would prefer he not do this. I overheard a man giving an interview to some some wire service and he, he really sounded like he was having an identity crisis. Like he was like, I don't know. This is not the party I grew up with. This is not the party I joined. What am I going to do? So there are lots of these older guys who feel that way. And then on the other side, there are lots of these young guys who I talked to who are kind of young Republicans in their early 20s, and they also don't really care. It's not like they're excited about Donald Trump. They're like excited by the kind of meme-ified free market capitalism opportunities that the Republicans sort of scoop up, right? Like they like crypto. They like, you know, they're like they have some really confused ideas about tariffs, which if you if you press them on it a little bit, you would say maybe you actually should vote for a Democrat because Trump is just putting more tariffs on things, just all sorts of things.Keen: By the way, it's the first time in this conversation, Lauren, I've heard the the West Virginian twang when you when you said tariffs. Say it again.Oyler: Tariffs? I mean, I can do it all day if you want. I was anticipating you asking me to perform the accent. Maybe when we talk about a little bit more about J.D. Vance.Keen: Yeah.Oyler: But but, yeah--Keen: Tariffs, and what about China? Could you do China?Oyler: Well, you know, I lived in Beijing for about two months.Keen: I mean, JD, is he the fool here or is he the one who's being made to look like a fool, do you think?Oyler: I think he's allowing himself to be made to look like a fool. I don't think that...Keen: Does he know what he's doing here?Oyler: Yeah. I mean, does he know what he's doing entirely? No. Does he know what he's doing? More than, like, Donald Trump's kids? Yes.Keen: It isn't hard, especially the boys. The girls disappeared, right? I think our girls have disappeared.Oyler: And yeah, good for them. I think I saw on Twitter that it's Ivanka's 43rd birthday today.Keen: Maybe a happy birthday, Ivanka, if you're well, I'm sure you've got better things to do. Although, she does seem to be participating. I'm sure she's severely embarrassed now by the whole thing.Oyler: Yeah, I think that that's a big issue for, you know, they're just they're struggling to have like a base for Trump anymore. And there is like a base for Republican, like a Republican Party base. But it doesn't seem like there's that many.Keen: Yeah, and your essay is entitled "The GOP's Identity Crisis." Maybe it should be "The Trump Family's Identity Crisis."Oyler: Yeah. I mean, he's he's not going to be around for that much longer.Keen: Yeah. I mean, what you said was interesting about talking to a lot of older people who suggested they don't like Trump. I mean, if he loses today, who knows what's going to happen? But if he does indeed lose and relatively decisively in the sense that it's clear that he lost. Do you think the knives are going to be out in your experience in Milwaukee? Yeah, there are enough people in the Republican Party will say enough is enough. This guy's a loser and we need to move on.Oyler: I mean, I think you can't lose two times in a row. You know, I mean, I think that there is enough...It's it's hard to say, well, what are the billionaires going to do? Like, what's Elon Musk going to do? What? Like, where's the money going to go? I don't know. I think they are trying to set up...to me at the convention, it seemed to me that, like J.D. Vance and Vivek Ramaswamy are the are the people that are sort of creating the most enthusiasm. But at the same time, you do have this kind of thing which the Democrats start with in 2016 and in 2020, which is that the younger members of the party have sort of radically different kind of Internet inflected ideas about what they want from the party. And the older guard is sort of scandalized a little bit by that. And it's kind of like a power struggle that will be interesting to watch if if Trump loses. And even if he wins, frankly.Keen: The narrative, the traditional narrative in mainstream media over the last few days has been mostly about men. Men, male and female voters, black and white voters, which is always a feature. And young and old voters. What wisdom did you derive on those fronts from from Milwaukee? Were there any young people there or any black people there? Were there any women there?Oyler: Were there any young people, black people or women there? Yes, there were there. It does skew older. It's very white. And, you know, the women who are there generally wives, even if they're also delegates, like they're not the main event. They don't have a Sarah Palin at this point right? There was...many of the women who spoke on stage were given a pink backdrop. They're very welcoming to women and minorities and young people. The rhetoric is all very much, we're not racist. America is not racist country. This is not a racist party. Over and over again, Tim Scott gave a big speech about how the Republicans aren't racist. Amber Rose Kanye West's ex-girlfriend, gave a big speech about how Republicans aren't racist. There was all this kind of state saying how not racist they were. And, you know, on the ground, obviously most people are white, most people are old, and most people are men. So, it was not super convincing, but it is kind of interesting to watch them say that because, of course, even ten years ago, they would have never cared about any of that, any of those kinds of points.Keen: Early on in the piece, you mentioned DeLillo. To what extent did he, especially in White Noise, did he predict all this? I mean, not just him, but that school of American writing.Oyler: But do you think they're predicting it or they're just observing their own time, and actually, it hasn't changed?Keen: I guess, yeah. I remember a review, I think it was Andrew Hagan's review in the New York Review of Books after 9/11, in which they were reviewing one of one of DeLillo's books about terrorism. I know Hagan wrote about DeLillo in the sense that reality kind of overtaking, maybe, his prediction or his his kind of work. It must be, again, to use a word, surreal here to to see this world that DeLillo already imagined in practice.Oyler: Well, I think he's probably talking about Underworld. But I think it's maybe our idea of of history being kind of flawed rather than DeLillo's being overtaken. I do think DeLillo has some struggles writing about the Internet, but that's fine. But I think, too, because I was reading so much of these convention pieces from the 60s and 70s, the conversation is the same. And that's nonfiction, right? And so I actually think this kind of like apocalyptic rhetoric and and ever greater spectacle, it does sort of get ever greater, but it has always been getting ever greater. And so I don't know that DeLillo has been like overtaken, because also people can read. People read, you know, Libra now, which is all about in the wake of the failed assassination attempt on Trump. Everybody was talking about Libra, which is about the assassination of John F. Kennedy, and the kind of, let's say, deep state apparatus surrounding that event. And also, you know, White Noise is a satirical novel. But but I think there was sort of some airborne toxic events in the United States.Keen: Yeah. I mean, he actually did write that in the book. I think about that. In a small town.Oyler: Exactly. But I believe White Noise is based on also a real incident. And DeLillo tends to work with actual news stories. Underworld is also sort of heavily researched and based on on on real, real events. So I think actually, maybe we we have to sort of admit that like as as as writers, as pundits, as journalists, as as whatever, it's in our best interest to say now is totally different. Right now, more than ever, everything's totally different. We're in a new paradigm. We're in a new era. This is especially bad. You know, you keep hearing this is the most important election of our lives. And we've been hearing that for every single election. And it's always been that kind of story. I can't really remember what your question was, but my my feeling about DeLillo is, like, amazing author. One of the best we have.Keen: Yeah, I know. I agree. And this idea of it being the most important election and of course, until the next one. This idea of an identity crisis. Lauren, what is an identity crisis? You noted that America is in a transitional stage. I mean, countries are always in transitional stages. They're always changing. Gramsci I think wrote that these kind of periods are a time for monsters. So we imagine the worst. What, to you, is an identity crisis, and why is the GOP going through it and not the Democrats? Might one argue that it's actually much healthier to face up to this crisis than to basically ignore it as the as the Democrats seem to be doing?Oyler: Yeah. Well, I think the Democrats, for all their faults, sort of dealt with this in the last two elections. And actually, you could say too the election of Barack Obama in 2008 was also a kind of identity crisis moment for them because the party didn't really want him, right? And Hillary's people, I believe, in 2008 were really critical of anyone who would go work for Obama, and it was it was actually like quite a big conflict. So you could say that basically the Democrats have been going through it as well. And now they've kind of they lost so humiliatingly in 2016 that they kind of had to do something about it, and they basically strong armed the left wing of the party in 2020, which for people of my generation, it was quite upsetting or like, galvanizing in some way, but you just don't really see so much...for someone who was really paying attention in 2020, the dissent against Kamala Harris is so much less than the dissent against Joe Biden in 2020. Does that sound right to you?Keen: Yeah, but I'm not sure you...I mean, if America is indeed in what you call this transitional stage where things the nature of the country, perhaps what we might think of as its kind of operating system is changing so dramatically. The Republicans are trying to face up to it and perhaps making fools of themselves, but at least they're addressing it. Why? Why the Republicans? Why the Democrats? So maybe America really isn't...I mean, this idea of a transitional stage is always true. So it's no more transitional in 2024 than it was in 2020 or 1920.Oyler: Yeah. Well, I think the Democrats have proven themselves to be quite denialists, right? Like they're very centrist. So the radical wing of the Republican Party. You could argue that J.D. Vance is part of part of the radical wing of the Republican Party. So I just think that the the Democrats are risk averse. They're very risk averse. And the things that they want are a return to normalcy when Republicans want like a radical reshaping of the government and society. They want...I went to some Moms for Liberty event where, you know, they weren't talking about this on the convention floor, but the Republicans give hearing to people who want to abolish the Department of Education. I can't remember what Trump's specific view on that is, but that's an incredibly radical proposal.Keen: I mean, Michael Lewis wrote a whole book on that: The Fifth Risk.Oyler: Yeah. But, it's not inconceivable that they would do that.Keen: Well, they did it. I mean, they did it in in 2016. I don't know if you're with the Department of Education, but some of these departments, they essentially shut down or appointed people with so hostile to the bureaucratic state that they by definition were going to ruin it.Oyler: Yeah. And then there was the the acronym R.A.G.E, Retire All Government Employees, and this kind of stuff. So but my point is that they you know, they see themselves as a revolution--the Republicans see themselves as a revolutionary party, and the Democrats are emphatically not. They're defining themselves against Republicans. So they're like, of course we're not America is not in an identity crisis. We just need to, like, get back to normal. But to go back to the phrase identity crisis, I think, too, is a reference also to J.D. Vance, whose whole career is, I argue, based on a sort of perversion of liberal identity politics, or an appeal to a kind of liberal identity politics. And the Republican Party's use of him or his use of them, is also based on this kind of Appalachian identity he has has created for himself in the media.Keen: Lauren, whatever happens today, the country's still profoundly divided. One side's going to win, one side is going to lose, but not by much. Lots of people have written about America in a process of divorce. You've presented the Democrats as denialists and the Republicans as so aggressively trying to figure themselves out in a slightly absurd way. Is this like a kind of traditional divorce where one partner denies there's any problems and the other exaggerates them? I don't know what the outcome of that kind of divorce usually is.Oyler: I don't know. Are you divorced?Keen: Yeah, but I'm not a denialist.Oyler: So you're so you're like--Keen: I mean, I was divorced.Oyler: What?Keen: I mean, I was. So...I've married and divorced.Oyler: Okay. But you have been through that. You've experienced--Keen: Yeah, I've done a divorce. Have you?Oyler: No. Never been married.Keen: But you've written about maybe not marriage, but you've written about...split ups, shall we say? I mean, you book Fake Accounts, which was a big hit, is about individuals and how they relate to one another. Is this like, maybe not a divorce, but a breakup in a in a weird kind of way, which, you know, you can't really breakup because you can't split the country in two?Oyler: Well, I don't think so, because I think it's probably...the thing about a romantic relationship is generally you are choosing in some way at least, to be in it and you're sort of declaring your your desire to be in it at some point in time. So if you're breaking it up, you're kind of it's seen as a failure, right? Whereas if you're an American citizen and you were just born in the country, you can't really control where you were born and you can't really, you know, there are only so many things you can do about that, and about your stake in the American political system and whether it breaks out. But are you asking for going is if this sort of south is going to secede or something like that--Keen: No, I'm saying, does this all tie into perhaps our therapeutic culture? I mean, is it coincidental that the kind of language that's being used both by the participants and observers like yourself is the same kind of language used by therapists, people addressing marriage breakups, relationship breakups, denialism, risk aversity, revenge plots, all this sort of thing?Oyler: Well, I think all the political parties are just made up of individual people, and as an individual person, the metaphors that we have at hand are our personal interpersonal metaphors. But I believe I'm a little rusty on this, but I believe Civilization and Its Discontents by Freud makes a similar kind of argument, right? Which is that there's a interpersonal metaphor that can be expanded to encompass the society. And you can read society psychoanalytically. I'm not a Freudian or even pro psychoanalysis per say, but it's not like it's actually not a new tendency that we we want to speak in these terms, especially in politics, which is different from government, right? Like in politics, all of the rhetoric, all of the language that politicians use and that they construct in order to make their case is incredibly personal and incredibly designed to incite emotion. That may remind you of things that happen in in private life, say. But I mean, are we getting a divorce? Like, we can't get a divorce. The Democrats or Republicans can't get a divorce. Maybe they need to grow up rather rather than split up.Keen: Finally, Lauren, I think your latest collection of essays is, No Judgment, I'm being critical...one of your strengths as a writer, thinker, or broadcaster, is your distance. I saw you had two interviews recently, one with GQ that says you don't take your work too seriously and then one with Vanity Fair, which suggests you care a lot. I wonder, and that's probably true of most of us, that we both hopefully don't take ourselves too seriously, but we also, in our own way, care a lot. Is this something that we should care about? I mean, so much hysteria. You noted earlier, every election is the most important election in American history. 2028 will no doubt be the same. You write without judgment, I think, that the piece also is written, in a sense, without judgment. But are you concerned with America? I mean, is this something to really worry about, or is it just one more scene and in the surreal history of the United States of America?Oyler: Well, I think, of course, it's something to care about. The idea I don't really care about things is obviously not totally true. But I think you can't care about the horse race aspect of of politics and you can't...the constant catastrophizing in the media hasn't worked. It's not accurate and it doesn't work. But of course it would be...I would prefer Donald Trump not win. Like, that will have many effects on even the country where I live, which is Germany. But to that point, I don't live in the United States and I don't live in the United States kind of for political reasons. And, of course, it shouldn't be a horrible catastrophe there the way that it is. Should care about it? Yeah. I think that if people don't care about it, or especially if young people don't care about it, it is a sense of that nothing that you do really matters, and like throwing stuff at the wall to see if it sticks politically. And that moment where everyone thought that they could do sort of political activism on social media has thankfully gone away. But there's been nothing to replace it to produce the kind of political subject for young people. So, I don't you know, I don't know what to do.Keen: Yeah,  it's interesting. I mean, I want to end this now because you've been very generous with your time. But I think your point, which hasn't really been made before...2024 is the first post-Internet election. Before, everyone was always obsessed with the Internet, always talking about how important it is. And now, you just don't read much about it. It's either it's the electric system, so it's just sort of ingrained into the system, or we've gone beyond the Internet, God knows where. But the Internet doesn't really feature in the discussion anymore.Oyler: No, I think that that's true. And I think that that's good because people are sort of accepting that it's a part of life now. I think the reason we focused on it so much in the previous two decades was because it felt like things were really radically changing. And maybe this sense that I have that we're transitioning into a new era and we don't really know what is the important thing to focus on is because it was so clear, I think, for many people that things were changing in a particular way with social media and social media was having these kind of drastic facts. And some people were in denial about that, and they would say, social media does matter. It's not real. Now, you can't really say that. But I think I noticed just before we got on the call that there was a New Yorker news, a breaking news story that The New Yorker published that that Russia was sort of inserting like kind of really bizarre election interference propaganda that was so bad. And it's not even going to be a big news story, right? Whereas that was such a huge news story in 2016 and 2020. And now we just sort of accept, yes, the foreign governments are going to attempt to use the Internet to interfere in our elections and we will almost certainly do the same. So, to relate this back to your question, should we all care? I think it's good to be realistic about these things, but it's hard to know where to put the emphasis at this point.Keen: Well, Lauren, Lauren Oyler, the author of Revenge--Revenge Plot, Not Revenge Post.Oyler: I thought you were going to say "romantic movie," which is cool.Keen: You've given me the title of this piece. 2024 is the first post-Internet election. I think that's very profound of you. Thank you so much, Lauren. And I hope I hope you're happy, because I think you and I probably agree on the kind of outcome of the election. But it's not the end of the plot, the revenge plot, whatever other kind of plot you want. We have to get you back on the show, Lauren, once the fog has cleared and we have a better idea of America post-2024. Thank you so much. And keep well and safe in Berlin. Really, I really appreciate it.Oyler: Thanks. Have a good night. This is a public episode. 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Anne Enright, writer, critic, Booker winner, kindly made time back in 2023 for Irish literature maven Paige Reynolds and for John Plotz in his role as host for our sister podcast, Novel Dialogue. In this conversation, she reads from The Wren, The Wren and says we don't yet know if the web has become a space of exposure or of authority. We can be sure that the state of diffusion we all exist in is “pixilated”–though perhaps we can take comfort from the fact that “Jeff Bezos…is not as interested in your period as you might think.” Anne speaks of “a moment of doom” when a writer simply commits to a character, unlovely as they may or must turn out to be. (Although The Wren The Wren harbors one exception: “Terry is lovely.”) She also corrects one reviewer: her characters aren't working class, they're “just Irish.” Asked about teaching, Anne emphasizes giving students permission to write absolutely anything they want–while simultaneously “mortifying them…condemning them to absolute hell” by pointing out the need to engage in contemporary conversation. Students should aim for writing that mixes authority with carelessness. However, “to get to that state of carefree expression is very hard.” Although tempted by Lewis Carroll and Kenneth Grahame, Anne has a clear winner when it comes to Novel Dialogue's traditional "signature question": A. A. Milne's Now We Are Six. Mentioned in this Episode: By Anne Enright: The Gathering (2007; Booker Prize) The Forgotten Waltz (2011) The Green Road (2015) The Portable Virgin Taking Pictures Yesterday's Weather Granta Book of the Irish Short Story Making Babies: Stumbling into Motherhood No Authority Also mentioned: Patricia Lockwood, No One is Talking about This Sally Rooney on the social life of the young on the internet, e.g. Conversations with Friends Christopher Hitchens, “Booze and Fags:” Transcript. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network

Anne Enright, writer, critic, Booker winner, kindly made time back in 2023 for Irish literature maven Paige Reynolds and for John Plotz in his role as host for our sister podcast, Novel Dialogue. In this conversation, she reads from The Wren, The Wren and says we don't yet know if the web has become a space of exposure or of authority. We can be sure that the state of diffusion we all exist in is “pixilated”–though perhaps we can take comfort from the fact that “Jeff Bezos…is not as interested in your period as you might think.” Anne speaks of “a moment of doom” when a writer simply commits to a character, unlovely as they may or must turn out to be. (Although The Wren The Wren harbors one exception: “Terry is lovely.”) She also corrects one reviewer: her characters aren't working class, they're “just Irish.” Asked about teaching, Anne emphasizes giving students permission to write absolutely anything they want–while simultaneously “mortifying them…condemning them to absolute hell” by pointing out the need to engage in contemporary conversation. Students should aim for writing that mixes authority with carelessness. However, “to get to that state of carefree expression is very hard.” Although tempted by Lewis Carroll and Kenneth Grahame, Anne has a clear winner when it comes to Novel Dialogue's traditional "signature question": A. A. Milne's Now We Are Six. Mentioned in this Episode: By Anne Enright: The Gathering (2007; Booker Prize) The Forgotten Waltz (2011) The Green Road (2015) The Portable Virgin Taking Pictures Yesterday's Weather Granta Book of the Irish Short Story Making Babies: Stumbling into Motherhood No Authority Also mentioned: Patricia Lockwood, No One is Talking about This Sally Rooney on the social life of the young on the internet, e.g. Conversations with Friends Christopher Hitchens, “Booze and Fags:” Transcript. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Anne Enright, writer, critic, Booker winner, kindly made time back in 2023 for Irish literature maven Paige Reynolds and for John Plotz in his role as host for our sister podcast, Novel Dialogue. In this conversation, she reads from The Wren, The Wren and says we don't yet know if the web has become a space of exposure or of authority. We can be sure that the state of diffusion we all exist in is “pixilated”–though perhaps we can take comfort from the fact that “Jeff Bezos…is not as interested in your period as you might think.” Anne speaks of “a moment of doom” when a writer simply commits to a character, unlovely as they may or must turn out to be. (Although The Wren The Wren harbors one exception: “Terry is lovely.”) She also corrects one reviewer: her characters aren't working class, they're “just Irish.” Asked about teaching, Anne emphasizes giving students permission to write absolutely anything they want–while simultaneously “mortifying them…condemning them to absolute hell” by pointing out the need to engage in contemporary conversation. Students should aim for writing that mixes authority with carelessness. However, “to get to that state of carefree expression is very hard.” Although tempted by Lewis Carroll and Kenneth Grahame, Anne has a clear winner when it comes to Novel Dialogue's traditional "signature question": A. A. Milne's Now We Are Six. Mentioned in this Episode: By Anne Enright: The Gathering (2007; Booker Prize) The Forgotten Waltz (2011) The Green Road (2015) The Portable Virgin Taking Pictures Yesterday's Weather Granta Book of the Irish Short Story Making Babies: Stumbling into Motherhood No Authority Also mentioned: Patricia Lockwood, No One is Talking about This Sally Rooney on the social life of the young on the internet, e.g. Conversations with Friends Christopher Hitchens, “Booze and Fags:” Transcript. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/literary-studies

Anne Enright, writer, critic, Booker winner, kindly made time back in 2023 for Irish literature maven Paige Reynolds and for John Plotz in his role as host for our sister podcast, Novel Dialogue. In this conversation, she reads from The Wren, The Wren and says we don't yet know if the web has become a space of exposure or of authority. We can be sure that the state of diffusion we all exist in is “pixilated”–though perhaps we can take comfort from the fact that “Jeff Bezos…is not as interested in your period as you might think.” Anne speaks of “a moment of doom” when a writer simply commits to a character, unlovely as they may or must turn out to be. (Although The Wren The Wren harbors one exception: “Terry is lovely.”) She also corrects one reviewer: her characters aren't working class, they're “just Irish.” Asked about teaching, Anne emphasizes giving students permission to write absolutely anything they want–while simultaneously “mortifying them…condemning them to absolute hell” by pointing out the need to engage in contemporary conversation. Students should aim for writing that mixes authority with carelessness. However, “to get to that state of carefree expression is very hard.” Although tempted by Lewis Carroll and Kenneth Grahame, Anne has a clear winner when it comes to Novel Dialogue's traditional "signature question": A. A. Milne's Now We Are Six. Mentioned in this Episode: By Anne Enright: The Gathering (2007; Booker Prize) The Forgotten Waltz (2011) The Green Road (2015) The Portable Virgin Taking Pictures Yesterday's Weather Granta Book of the Irish Short Story Making Babies: Stumbling into Motherhood No Authority Also mentioned: Patricia Lockwood, No One is Talking about This Sally Rooney on the social life of the young on the internet, e.g. Conversations with Friends Christopher Hitchens, “Booze and Fags:” Transcript. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/literature

Anne Enright, writer, critic, Booker winner, kindly made time back in 2023 for Irish literature maven Paige Reynolds and for John Plotz in his role as host for our sister podcast, Novel Dialogue. In this conversation, she reads from The Wren, The Wren and says we don't yet know if the web has become a space of exposure or of authority. We can be sure that the state of diffusion we all exist in is “pixilated”–though perhaps we can take comfort from the fact that “Jeff Bezos…is not as interested in your period as you might think.” Anne speaks of “a moment of doom” when a writer simply commits to a character, unlovely as they may or must turn out to be. (Although The Wren The Wren harbors one exception: “Terry is lovely.”) She also corrects one reviewer: her characters aren't working class, they're “just Irish.” Asked about teaching, Anne emphasizes giving students permission to write absolutely anything they want–while simultaneously “mortifying them…condemning them to absolute hell” by pointing out the need to engage in contemporary conversation. Students should aim for writing that mixes authority with carelessness. However, “to get to that state of carefree expression is very hard.” Although tempted by Lewis Carroll and Kenneth Grahame, Anne has a clear winner when it comes to Novel Dialogue's traditional "signature question": A. A. Milne's Now We Are Six. Mentioned in this Episode: By Anne Enright: The Gathering (2007; Booker Prize) The Forgotten Waltz (2011) The Green Road (2015) The Portable Virgin Taking Pictures Yesterday's Weather Granta Book of the Irish Short Story Making Babies: Stumbling into Motherhood No Authority Also mentioned: Patricia Lockwood, No One is Talking about This Sally Rooney on the social life of the young on the internet, e.g. Conversations with Friends Christopher Hitchens, “Booze and Fags:” Transcript. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In Episode 114, Heather and Bennett discuss the novel NO ONE IS TALKING ABOUT THIS by Patricia Lockwood, as well as a bunch of random shows and movies.

Subscribe to Know Your Enemy on Patreon to listen to this premium episode, and all of our bonus content: https://www.patreon.com/knowyourenemy Matt and Sam return to René Girard via Pope Francis—whom Matt personally met at a recent general audience at the Vatican, and whose homily at that audience addressed the problem of envy, and what Christianity might have to teach us about it. Topics include: how to think about Girard's Christianity, in terms both of how it informs his work and his own attachment to it; the politics of Jesus, and whether or not any of the preceding can actually help us avoid the apocalyptic violence Girard thought was building as we hurtle toward "the end times."Read:René Girard, I See Satan Fall Like Lightning (1999)Scott Cowdell, René Girard and Secular Modernity: Christ, Culture, and Crisis (2015)Pope Francis, "Envy and Vainglory," Full text of general audience remarks, Feb 28, 2024John Ganz's Unpopular Front series on Girard: part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4Herbert McCabe, "Class Struggle and Christian Love" in God Matters (2012)James Alison, The Joy of Being Wrong: Original Sin Through Easter Eyes (1998)James Allison, "Girard's Breakthrough," The Tablet, June 29, 1996.Patricia Lockwood, "When I Met the Pope," LRB, Nov 30, 2023.Listen: Know Your Enemy, "René Girard and the Right" (w/ John Ganz), Feb 26, 2024View:Pericle Fazzini, "The Resurrection" (statue in the Paul VI Audience Hall in Vatican City)r

What is a poem worth? What does beauty do to the person who wants it, or to the person who makes it? Michelle A. Taylor joins the pod to talk about Patricia Lockwood's poem "The Ode on a Grecian Urn," a wild and funny and ultimately quite moving poem (which is also, obviously, a riff on Keats's "Ode on a Grecian Urn").Michelle A. Taylor is a Postdoctoral Fellow at Emory University's Fox Center for Humanistic Inquiry. Michelle is a scholar of 20th century literature, and more specifically, literary modernism. She is currently finishing her first book, tentatively titled Clique Lit: Coterie Culture and the Making of Modernism. Her academic essays have appeared in, or are forthcoming from, Modernist Cultures, College Literature, Modernism/ modernity Print+, Literary Imagination, and Modernist Archives: A Handbook, and she has also written essays and reviews for The Point, Post45 Contemporaries, The Fence, Poetry Foundation, the Financial Times Magazine, and The New Yorker. She received her PhD in English from Harvard in 2021, and from 2021 to 2023, she was the Joanna Randall-MacIver Junior Research Fellow at St Hilda's College, Oxford.If you like what you hear, please follow the podcast and leave a rating and review. Share an episode with a friend! And subscribe to my Substack, where you'll get the occasional update on the pod and on my other work.

When does a book transcend from contemporary literature to a classic? Does someone have to confirm its classic status? And can all Booker Prize novels be considered classics just by being part of the Booker canon? This, and more, is what Jo and James are trying to get to the heart of in this week's episode. Listen in as they discuss what makes a classic novel and chat about which Booker books should be known as classics. In this episode Jo and James: Consider what makes a classic Each pick three novels from the Booker Library that are – or should be – considered classics Discuss the plots of their chosen novels and why they are deserving of classic status Reading list: Something to Answer For by P.H. Newby: https://thebookerprizes.com/the-booker-library/books/something-to-answer-for A Month in the Country by J.L. Carr: https://thebookerprizes.com/the-booker-library/books/a-month-in-the-country How Late It Was, How Late by James Kelman: https://thebookerprizes.com/the-booker-library/books/how-late-it-was-how-late St. Urbain's Horseman by Mordecai Richler: https://thebookerprizes.com/the-booker-library/books/st-urbains-horseman Atonement by Ian McEwan: https://thebookerprizes.com/the-booker-library/books/atonement The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro: https://thebookerprizes.com/the-booker-library/books/the-remains-of-the-day The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood: https://thebookerprizes.com/the-booker-library/books/the-handmaids-tale Shuggie Bain by Douglas Stuart: https://thebookerprizes.com/the-booker-library/books/shuggie-bain Schindler's Ark by Thomas Keneally: https://thebookerprizes.com/the-booker-library/books/schindlers-ark The English Patient by Michael Ondaatje: https://thebookerprizes.com/the-booker-library/books/the-english-patient Autobiography by Morrisey The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie: https://thebookerprizes.com/the-booker-library/books/midnights-children The Siege of Krishnapur by J.G. Farrell: https://thebookerprizes.com/the-booker-library/books/the-siege-of-krishnapur The Conservationist by Nadine Gordimer: https://thebookerprizes.com/the-booker-library/books/the-conservationist Oscar and Lucinda by Peter Carey: https://thebookerprizes.com/the-booker-library/books/oscar-and-lucinda The Ghost Road by Pat Barker: https://thebookerprizes.com/the-booker-library/books/the-ghost-road Disgrace by J.M. Coetzee: https://thebookerprizes.com/the-booker-library/books/disgrace Staying On by Paul Scott: https://thebookerprizes.com/the-booker-library/books/staying-on The Famished Road by Ben Okri: https://thebookerprizes.com/the-booker-library/books/the-famished-road Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell: https://thebookerprizes.com/the-booker-library/books/cloud-atlas The Line of Beauty by Alan Hollinghurst: https://thebookerprizes.com/the-booker-library/books/the-line-of-beauty Autumn by Ali Smith: https://thebookerprizes.com/the-booker-library/books/autumn Crudo by Olivia Laing No One is Talking About This by Patricia Lockwood: https://thebookerprizes.com/the-booker-library/books/no-one-is-talking-about-this Waterland by Graham Swift: https://thebookerprizes.com/the-booker-library/books/waterland G. by John Berger: https://thebookerprizes.com/the-booker-library/books/g Read Alex Clark's piece, “Which novels in the Booker Prize archives should be considered classics?”: https://thebookerprizes.com/the-booker-library/features/which-booker-prize-novels-should-be-considered-classics A full transcript of the episode is available at our website: https://thebookerprizes.com/the-booker-library/features/the-booker-prize-podcast-episode-33-what-makes-a-classic-novel Follow The Booker Prize Podcast so you never miss an episode. Visit http://thebookerprizes.com/podcast to find out more about us, and follow us on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and Tiktok @thebookerprizes. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

For our first read of the February Bookstore Challenge Prompt (read a memoir written by a writer) Corinne chose Priestdaddy by Patricia Lockwood. It's a memoir about being a poet and having your dad literally be a Catholic priest. And we're of divided opinions for once. Next time we will read My Garden (Book): by Jamaica Kincaid. This is out of print, but can be found at the library or used. Or if you're patient, a new edition will be available from Picador in July 2024. In March we will be reading I, Tituba, Black Witch of Salem by Maryse Conde and Bless Me, Ultima by Rudolfo Anaya. Content Warnings: Sexual assault, religious trauma, infertility. Books mentioned: David Sedaris (general) No One is Talking About This by Patricia Lockwood How to Say Babylon by Safiya Sinclair _________ If you want to read along with The Bookstore Challenge 2024, you can join us on The StoryGraph to see what others are reading for each month and get ideas for your TBR: The Bookstore Challenge 2024. Get two audiobook credits for the price of one at Libro.fm when you sign up using the code BOOKSTOREPOD. Website | Patreon

Our second book for January's prompt to read a book set in a place where you're from is Jim Harrison's True North. True North is set mostly in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, and follows David Burkett, descendant of lumber barons as he struggles with his family's tarnished legacy.... hahaha jk it's really just a guy talking about his dick constantly. We do not recommend. Content warning: rape, sexual assault, violence, violence against women, violence against children, adult topics, sex, body anatomy, swearing Our next book discussion will be Priestdaddy by Patricia Lockwood, and following that will be My Garden (Book): by Jamaica Kincaid. You can find them at your local bookstore or library and read along with us.  If you want to read along with The Bookstore Challenge 2024, you can join us on The StoryGraph to see what others are reading for each month and get ideas for your TBR: The Bookstore Challenge 2024. Get two audiobook credits for the price of one at Libro.fm when you sign up using the code BOOKSTOREPOD. Website | Patreon

Tom Crewe, Patricia Lockwood, Deborah Friedell, John Lanchester, Rosemary Hill and Colm Tóibín talk to Tom about some of their favourite LRB pieces, including Terry Castle's 1995 essay on Jane Austen's letters, Hilary Mantel's account of how she became a writer, and Alan Bennett's uncompromising take on Philip Larkin.Read the pieces:Terry Castle on Jane AustenWendy Doniger: Calf and Other LovesHilary Mantel: Giving up the GhostAngela Carter: Noovs' hoovs in the troughPenelope Fitzgerald on Stevie SmithAlan Bennett on Philip LarkinSubscribe to the LRB: https://lrb.me/now Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In June, the pope invited dozens of artists to Rome for the 50th anniversary of the Vatican Museum's contemporary art collection. Patricia Lockwood, the author of Priestdaddy and a contributing editor at the LRB, was one of them. She tells Tom more about the surreal experience and why irony, in the words of Pope Francis, is ‘a marvellous virtue'.Find further reading on the episode page: lrb.me/popepodRead John Lanchester's pick from the archive: lrb.me/lanchesterpickSubscribe to the LRB here: lrb.me/nowFind out about the Colour Revolution exhibition at the Ashmolean Museum here:https://www.ashmolean.org/exhibition/colour-revolution-victorian-art-fashion-design Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

With this sharp and witty debut collection, author Kate Doyle captures precisely that time of life when so many young women are caught in between, pre-occupied by nostalgia for past relationships--with friends, roommates, siblings--while trying to move forward into an uncertain future. In "That Is Shocking," a college student relates a darkly funny story of romantic humiliation, one that skirts the parallel story of a friend she betrayed. In others, young women long for friends who have moved away, or moved on. In "Cinnamon Baseball Coyote" and other linked stories about siblings Helen, Evan, and Grace, their years of inside jokes and brutal tensions simmer over as the three spend a holiday season in an amusing whirl of rivalry and mutual attachment, and a generational gulf widens between them and their parents. Throughout, in stories both lyrical and haunting, young women search for ways to break free from the expectations of others and find a way to be in the world. Written with crystalline prose and sly humor, the stories in I Meant It Once (Algonquin Books, 2023) build to complete a profoundly recognizable portrait of early adulthood and the ways in which seemingly incidental moments can come to define the stories we tell ourselves. For fans of Elif Batuman, Ottessa Moshfegh, Patricia Lockwood, and Melissa Bank, these stories about being young and adrift in today's world go down easy and pack a big punch. A former bookseller at Buffalo Street Books in Ithaca, Kate Doyle has published her stories in No Tokens, Electric Literature, Split Lip, Wigleaf, and elsewhere. In 2021 she was selected from 1100 emerging writers as an A Public Space Writing Fellow, and she has received support for her work from Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, Hawthornden, the Adirondack Center for Writing, NYU Paris, and the Community Arts Partnership of Tompkins County. She currently lives in Amsterdam. Recommended Books: Cara Blue Adams, You Never Get It Back Alexandra Chang, Tomb Sweeping Stephanie Vaughn, Sweettalk  Chris Holmes is Chair of Literatures in English and Associate Professor at Ithaca College. He writes criticism on contemporary global literatures. His book, Kazuo Ishiguro as World Literature, is under contract with Bloomsbury Publishing. He is the co-director of The New Voices Festival, a celebration of work in poetry, prose, and playwriting by up-and-coming young writers. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

With this sharp and witty debut collection, author Kate Doyle captures precisely that time of life when so many young women are caught in between, pre-occupied by nostalgia for past relationships--with friends, roommates, siblings--while trying to move forward into an uncertain future. In "That Is Shocking," a college student relates a darkly funny story of romantic humiliation, one that skirts the parallel story of a friend she betrayed. In others, young women long for friends who have moved away, or moved on. In "Cinnamon Baseball Coyote" and other linked stories about siblings Helen, Evan, and Grace, their years of inside jokes and brutal tensions simmer over as the three spend a holiday season in an amusing whirl of rivalry and mutual attachment, and a generational gulf widens between them and their parents. Throughout, in stories both lyrical and haunting, young women search for ways to break free from the expectations of others and find a way to be in the world. Written with crystalline prose and sly humor, the stories in I Meant It Once (Algonquin Books, 2023) build to complete a profoundly recognizable portrait of early adulthood and the ways in which seemingly incidental moments can come to define the stories we tell ourselves. For fans of Elif Batuman, Ottessa Moshfegh, Patricia Lockwood, and Melissa Bank, these stories about being young and adrift in today's world go down easy and pack a big punch. A former bookseller at Buffalo Street Books in Ithaca, Kate Doyle has published her stories in No Tokens, Electric Literature, Split Lip, Wigleaf, and elsewhere. In 2021 she was selected from 1100 emerging writers as an A Public Space Writing Fellow, and she has received support for her work from Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, Hawthornden, the Adirondack Center for Writing, NYU Paris, and the Community Arts Partnership of Tompkins County. She currently lives in Amsterdam. Recommended Books: Cara Blue Adams, You Never Get It Back Alexandra Chang, Tomb Sweeping Stephanie Vaughn, Sweettalk  Chris Holmes is Chair of Literatures in English and Associate Professor at Ithaca College. He writes criticism on contemporary global literatures. His book, Kazuo Ishiguro as World Literature, is under contract with Bloomsbury Publishing. He is the co-director of The New Voices Festival, a celebration of work in poetry, prose, and playwriting by up-and-coming young writers. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network

With this sharp and witty debut collection, author Kate Doyle captures precisely that time of life when so many young women are caught in between, pre-occupied by nostalgia for past relationships--with friends, roommates, siblings--while trying to move forward into an uncertain future. In "That Is Shocking," a college student relates a darkly funny story of romantic humiliation, one that skirts the parallel story of a friend she betrayed. In others, young women long for friends who have moved away, or moved on. In "Cinnamon Baseball Coyote" and other linked stories about siblings Helen, Evan, and Grace, their years of inside jokes and brutal tensions simmer over as the three spend a holiday season in an amusing whirl of rivalry and mutual attachment, and a generational gulf widens between them and their parents. Throughout, in stories both lyrical and haunting, young women search for ways to break free from the expectations of others and find a way to be in the world. Written with crystalline prose and sly humor, the stories in I Meant It Once (Algonquin Books, 2023) build to complete a profoundly recognizable portrait of early adulthood and the ways in which seemingly incidental moments can come to define the stories we tell ourselves. For fans of Elif Batuman, Ottessa Moshfegh, Patricia Lockwood, and Melissa Bank, these stories about being young and adrift in today's world go down easy and pack a big punch. A former bookseller at Buffalo Street Books in Ithaca, Kate Doyle has published her stories in No Tokens, Electric Literature, Split Lip, Wigleaf, and elsewhere. In 2021 she was selected from 1100 emerging writers as an A Public Space Writing Fellow, and she has received support for her work from Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, Hawthornden, the Adirondack Center for Writing, NYU Paris, and the Community Arts Partnership of Tompkins County. She currently lives in Amsterdam. Recommended Books: Cara Blue Adams, You Never Get It Back Alexandra Chang, Tomb Sweeping Stephanie Vaughn, Sweettalk  Chris Holmes is Chair of Literatures in English and Associate Professor at Ithaca College. He writes criticism on contemporary global literatures. His book, Kazuo Ishiguro as World Literature, is under contract with Bloomsbury Publishing. He is the co-director of The New Voices Festival, a celebration of work in poetry, prose, and playwriting by up-and-coming young writers. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/literature

In her recent piece for the paper, Patricia Lockwood revisits David Foster Wallace's work in the light of posthumous publications and the shadow of #MeToo. Lockwood joined Joanne O'Leary, an editor at the paper, to discuss Wallace's troubled status as Saint Dave, where his writing was at its best and whether a novel can benefit from being left unfinished.Find further reading on the episode page: lrb.me/dfwpodSubscribe to Close Readings:Directly in Apple Podcasts here: https://apple.co/3pJoFPqIn other podcast apps here: lrb.me/closereadings Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Brea and Mallory recommend books on grief, test out sticky notes for annotating, and solve a polyamorous book display problem. Email us at readingglassespodcast at gmail dot com!Reading Glasses MerchRecommendations StoreSponsors -Ever tried Microdosing?Visit Microdose.com and use GLASSES for 30% off + Free ShippingDipseawww.dipseastories.com/GLASSES Links -Reading Glasses Facebook GroupReading Glasses Goodreads GroupAmazon Wish ListNewsletterLibro.fmSticky NotesTo join our Slack channel, email us proof of your Reading-Glasses-supporting Maximum Fun membership!Books Mentioned - A Deadly Education by Naomi NovikOur Hideous Progeny by C.E. McGillThe Year of Magical Thinking by Joan DidionGrief is the Thing With Feathers by Max PorterThe Grief Keeper by Alexandra VillasanteThe Removed by Brandon HobsonTranscendent Kingdom by Yaa GyasiGlory O'Brien's History of the Future by A.S. KingYou Made a Fool of Death With Your Beauty by Akwaeke EmeziNo One is Talking About This by Patricia Lockwood

Steff and Katherine discuss Lauren Oyler's Fake Accounts and Patricia Lockwood's No One Is Talking About This. Warning, Katherine struggles through a Harper's review. She got a little too big for her britches with the whole "reading quotes out loud" thing.

As part of the Rendez-vous littéraires rue Cambon [Literary Rendezvous at Rue Cambon], the podcast “les Rencontres” highlights the birth of a writer in a series imagined by CHANEL and House ambassador and spokesperson Charlotte Casiraghi. Listen to author and critic Erica Wagner in conversation with Patricia Lockwood, writer of “No One Is Talking About This”, her first novel published by Riverhead Books in 2021. Together, they discuss Patricia Lockwood's vocation as a writer and how her writing takes multiple forms, from poems published on Twitter, to fiction or memoirs.

Topics: care package from British Columbia, Bee's Knees Provisions, Central Park, running, Ray Rizzo with Bridget St. John and Michael Shannon at Rockwood Music Hall, The National at Capitol Theatre, Pet Shop Boys and New Order at Madison Square Garden, Pavement and Horesegirl at Kings Theatre, trip to Baltimore, Camden Yards, trip to Ontario, high school reunion, Autofiction by Suede, In These Times by Makaya McCraven, Midnight Scorchers by Horace Andy, Gamelatron Bidadari by Zemi17, Retail Gangster: The Insane, Real-Life Story of Crazy Eddie by Gary Weiss, No One Is Talking About This by Patricia Lockwood.

Douglas Adams passed away 21 years ago this week, so it seemed like a good time to revisit his amazing work. These are short, digestible books that are jam-packed full of jokes and mad-cap adventures. The first book in the series (the eponymous Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy) is especially full of non-stop zaniness - the chapters are only a few pages long, but every single one feels like it has something big happening in it, and every page has a joke. The books also raise big philosophical questions, but answers them in a truly unique way. Instead of trying to dispense wisdom or tell you how to live your life, the books poke fun at the entire notion of universal answers to life's big questions. Instead, Adams suggests we could all do with taking life a little less seriously and finding our own answers to those big questions.As always, we also recommend and discuss some similar books if you are looking for more great books to read. This week we recommend Good Omens by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman, No One is Talking About This by Patricia Lockwood, and A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson.Later on this week we'll also be giving away a complete set of all five HGTTG books, as well as Adam's final, posthumously published work, The Salmon of Doubt. Find us on twitter or instagram @hugonautspodcast to enter to win!If you'd prefer to watch the video version, you can find it at this link.

Today I'm thrilled to be joined by Stephen Pelton, artistic director of the Stephen Pelton Dance Studio in London, England. Stephen is, by his own admission, obsessed with Virgina Woolf, and today we talk about “Mrs. Dalloway” through the eyes of a dancer. He tells me how he uses literature in his choreography, and how Woolf is a surprisingly physical artist. I also got a tour of his Woolf-filled bookshelves!     Support the Best Book Ever Podcast on Patreon     Follow the Best Book Ever Podcast on Instagram or on the Best Book Ever Website   Do you have a book you want to tell me about? Go HERE to apply to be a guest on the Best Book Ever Podcast.   Host: Julie Strauss Website/Instagram     Guest: Stephen Pelton Facebook/Twitter Edinburgh Fringe Festival 2022     Discussed in this episode: Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf Comedian David Mills, who is a mutual friend of ours, appeared on Episode 005 of the podcast, talking about Five Star Billionaire by Tash Aw Eugene O'Neill The Waves by Virginia Woolf The Hours movie The Hours by Michael Cunningham Mrs. Dalloway map of London The Promise by Damon Galgut The Good Doctor by Damon Galgot In A Strange Room by Damon Galgot No One is Talking About This by Patricia Lockwood   Discussed in the Patreon Exclusive Clip Alan Bennett Vaughn Williams Johnathan Miller The Lady in the Van by Alan Bennett Boyfriend Material by Alexis Hall Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens 84, Charing Cross Road by Helene Hanff     (Note: Some of the above links are affiliate links, meaning I get a few bucks off your purchase at no extra expense to you. Anytime you shop for books, you can use my affiliate link on Bookshop, which also supports Indie Bookstores around the country. If you're shopping for everything else – clothes, office supplies, gluten-free pasta, couches – you can use my affiliate link for Amazon. Thank you for helping to keep the Best Book Ever Podcast in business!)

Today I'm thrilled to be joined by Stephen Pelton, artistic director of the Stephen Pelton Dance Studio in London, England. Stephen is, by his own admission, obsessed with Virgina Woolf, and today we talk about “Mrs. Dalloway” through the eyes of a dancer. He tells me how he uses literature in his choreography, and how Woolf is a surprisingly physical artist. I also got a tour of his Woolf-filled bookshelves!     Support the Best Book Ever Podcast on Patreon     Follow the Best Book Ever Podcast on Instagram or on the Best Book Ever Website   Do you have a book you want to tell me about? Go HERE to apply to be a guest on the Best Book Ever Podcast.   Host: Julie Strauss Website/Instagram     Guest: Stephen Pelton Facebook/Twitter Edinburgh Fringe Festival 2022     Discussed in this episode: Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf Comedian David Mills, who is a mutual friend of ours, appeared on Episode 005 of the podcast, talking about Five Star Billionaire by Tash Aw Eugene O'Neill The Waves by Virginia Woolf The Hours movie The Hours by Michael Cunningham Mrs. Dalloway map of London The Promise by Damon Galgut The Good Doctor by Damon Galgot In A Strange Room by Damon Galgot No One is Talking About This by Patricia Lockwood   Discussed in the Patreon Exclusive Clip Alan Bennett Vaughn Williams Johnathan Miller The Lady in the Van by Alan Bennett Boyfriend Material by Alexis Hall Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens 84, Charing Cross Road by Helene Hanff     (Note: Some of the above links are affiliate links, meaning I get a few bucks off your purchase at no extra expense to you. Anytime you shop for books, you can use my affiliate link on Bookshop, which also supports Indie Bookstores around the country. If you're shopping for everything else – clothes, office supplies, gluten-free pasta, couches – you can use my affiliate link for Amazon. Thank you for helping to keep the Best Book Ever Podcast in business!)

Our year-end survey. What the hell did we read in 2021???  Books mentioned:  Run, Don't Walk: The Listening House, Mabel Seeley; Hidden Valley Road, Robert Kolker; Piranesi, Susanna Clarke; Intimacies, Katie Kitamura; Visitation, Jenny Erpenbeck; Native Speaker, Chang-rae Lee;  Thumbs Up: The Plot, Jean Hanff Korelitz; The Copenhagen Trilogy, Tove Ditlevsen; To Sleep in a Sea of Stars, Christopher Paolini; The Stepford Wives, Ira Levin; Secondhand Time, Svetlana Alexievich; Clockwork Boys, The Wonder Engine, A Wizard's Guide to Defensive Baking, T. Kingfisher; My Year Abroad, Chang-rae Lee; No One is Talking About This, Patricia Lockwood; Matrix, Lauren Groff;  Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI, David Grann; Under the Whispering Door, The House in the Cerulean Sea, TJ Klune; A Separation, Katie Kitamura; The 10,000 Doors of January, Alix E. Harrow; Perfume: The Story of a Murderer, Patrick Süskind; Crossroads, Jonathan Franzen; Billion Dollar Loser, Reeves Wiedeman. Thumbs Down: A Man of Parts, David Lodge; The Midnight Library, Matt Haig; The Decagon House Murders, Yukito Ayatsuji; Little, Big, John Crowley; Pumped to Read: Klara and The Sun, Kazuo Ishiguro; To Paradise, Hanya Yanagihara; Leviathan Falls, James S.A. Corey; The Enchanted April, Elizabeth von Arnim; The Hare, Melanie Finn; Small Pleasures, Clare Chambers; Maggie Hope Series, Susan Elia MacNeal. Articles and Links: Tweet Thread on Anne Rice Jenny Erpenbeck Profile (New Yorker) (Sigh) Bad Art Friend (NYT Magazine) Jeremy Strong Profile (New Yorker) Review of Yanigihara's To Paradise (Harpers) 100 Notable Books of 2021 (NYT) Joan Didion Archive at the New York Review of Books Sign up for Molly Young's books newsletter here (NYT)

RIP Eve Babitz. Here's our episode on her from September 2020.  Books mentioned: Eve's Hollywood, Slow Days Fast Company, Sex & Rage, L.A. Woman, I Used to Be Charming, Eve Babitz; Hollywood's Eve: Eve Babitz and the Secret History of L.A, Lili Anolik; Catch-22, Joseph Heller; The Day of the Locust, Nathanael West; Play It as It Lays, Joan Didion; Essays, Michel de Montaigne; Paradise Lost, John Milton;Priestdaddy, Patricia Lockwood; Conversations With Friends, Sally Rooney; How Should a Person Be?, Sheila Heti; Trick Mirror, Jia Tolentino. Resources:  All About Eve--And Then Some (Lili Anolik, Vanity Fair) Eve Babitz is Better Than Ever (OLIVIA AYLMER, Vanity Fair) Jia Tolentino on Eve (New Yorker) The Eve Babtiz Revival (Penelope Green, NYT) My Favorite Year: In Los Angeles with Eve Babitz in 1971 (Dan Wakefield, LA Review of Books) Eve Babitz's Vision of Total Freedom (Marie Solis, The Nation) L.A. Confidential (Holly Brubach, NYT Style Magazine) Germans in L.A. (Alex Ross, New Yorker)

Episode 86 Notes and Links to Mark Athitakis' Work            On Episode 86 of The Chills at Will Podcast, Pete welcomes Mark Athitakis, and the two talk about Mark's varied reading, his various writing and editing jobs, his role as book critic and literary reviewer, ideas of the critic as objective chronicler, and his work that highlights underappreciated writers and Midwestern writers.              Mark Athitakis is a writer, editor, critic, blogger, reporter, essayist, white-paper-ist. He has written short and long pieces for publications like The New York Times and Washington Post, published two books, and provided editorial assistance from basic proofreading to deeper guidance on book-length projects. He has taught, consulted, and generally helped people tell their stories better. His particular expertise is in association/nonprofit content and literary criticism, but he delivers professional work in a variety of contexts.   October 4, 2021 Review in USA Today of Jonathan Franzen's Crossroads September 13, 2021 Review in The Los Angeles Times of Rabih Alameddine's The Wrong End of the Telescope -“This Refugee Novel Knows it Can't Change the World”    Authory.com Page for Mark-links to 300+ past publications   Buy The New Midwest at Bookshop.org   At about 2:00, Mark discusses his multifaceted career and the different types of writing he does as a “white paper-ist” At about 4:25, Mark talks about his childhood, as a child of immigrants from Crete, Greece, and the ways in which language and reading and immigrant tradition affected his later expertise with writing  At about 7:30, Mark talks about his early reading and having his “head turned sideways” by writers like Nelson Algren and Harry Mark Petrakis who wrote about place, and immigrant communities such as he knew growing up in Chicago; he also references Paul Fussell's Class and its impact on him At about 13:30, Mark talks about more recent reading that has informed his love of literature and his own writing, including William Faulkner, Phillip Roth, Marilyn Robisnon, and admired critics like Parul Sehgal, Patricia Lockwood, Laura Miller, Leslie Jamison, and Elizabeth Nelson At about 18:20, Mark responds to Pete's question about moments in which he felt that his work resonated, and he talks about “really [taking] to it” when he began doing portraits of artists like Brian Wilson At about 21:00, Mark talks about the importance of the alt-weekly in nurturing young writers, and the declining impact of these alt-weeklies At about 22:25, Pete asks Mark about editing others' work, especially with writing as a supposed solitary activity; Mark talks about his recent role as a writer-in-residence at the public library and what he learned from it At about 26:40, Pete wonders about objectivity when it comes to criticism  At about 30:05, Pete inquires into if and how reading as a critic affects Mark's reading for pleasure; he also asks Mark about the philosophy of “bashing” and negative reviews At about 36:25, Mark responds to the Pete's musings about the “democratization of reviews” and how this affects him At about 38:00, Pete and Mark discuss Jonathan Franzen and his role as “controversial”; Pete cites parts of Mark's recent positive review of Franzen's Crossroads At about 42:15, Pete asks Mark about the portrait he wrote for the LA Times about Rabih Alameddine and if Mark sees a need to be an evangelist or activist with a book like this one At about 49:30, Pete and Mark discuss The New Midwest, Mark's book, and Mark talks about the genesis and aim of the book, with Belt Magazine providing impetus At about 54:00, Mark discusses his desire to avoid putting Chicago and Midwestern literature in opposition to other literary scenes in his book, but instead to celebrate the Midwestern scene At about 57:00, Mark salutes Marilynne Robinson in citing her as a true Midwest writer and underappreciated student and chronicler of the region At about 59:30, the two discuss David Foster Wallace's work as Pete asks Mark if he is a “Midwest writer” and Mark's thoughts about his work At about 1:03:20, Mark reads a piece of his that he deems a bit different from his usual-a piece from The Washington Post about “quarantine reading”; Pete and Mark discuss the article's ideas At about 1:08:00, Mark gives his contact information         You can now subscribe to the podcast on Apple Podcasts, and leave me a five-star review. You can also ask for the podcast by name using Alexa, and find the pod on Stitcher, Spotify, and on Amazon Music. Follow me on IG, where I'm @chillsatwillpodcast, or on Twitter, where I'm @chillsatwillpo1. You can watch other episodes on YouTube-watch and subscribe to The Chills at Will Podcast Channel. Please subscribe to both my YouTube Channel and my podcast while you're checking out this episode.  This is a passion project of mine, a DIY operation, and I'd love for your help in promoting what I'm convinced is a unique and spirited look at an often-ignored art form. The intro song for The Chills at Will Podcast is “Wind Down” (Instrumental Version), and the other song played on this episode was “Hoops” (Instrumental)” by Matt Weidauer, and both songs are used through ArchesAudio.com. Please tune in for the next episode, a conversation with Natalia Sylvester, YA author extraordinaire. She has written, among other books, the award-winning Running, and her upcoming book is Breathe and Count Back from Ten, comes out in May 2022. The episode will air on October 22.

Chris's childhood was defined by the Pentecostal church, where his father is a minister and his siblings are following the same path. But when Chris went to college, his views on the church changed, and now at age 23, he no longer identifies as religious. That's caused a major rift with his parents, and Chris can't stand the tension anymore. On this episode of How To!, we bring on Patricia Lockwood, a poet and writer who chronicled her own experience leaving the church in her memoir Priestdaddy. Raised in a strict Catholic family with a father for a priest (thanks to a rare loophole), Patricia thought she was done with religion by the time she was in her early 30s. But when an unexpected financial crisis prompted her and her husband to move back in with her parents, Patricia learned a new way to bridge the gap between them. Reflecting on your shared values, Patricia says, is key to connecting with your parents, even if you're still leaving their religion behind. If you liked this episode, check out "How To Talk Politics Without Wrecking Relationships." Do you have a seemingly impossible problem? Send us a note at howto@slate.com or leave us a voicemail at 646-495-4001 and we might have you on the show.