New Books in Literature

By: Marshall Poe
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  • Summary

  • Interviews with Writers about their New Books Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/literature
    New Books Network
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Episodes
  • Etherized: Anne Enright in a Novel Dialogue Conversation (Paige Reynolds, JP)

    Etherized: Anne Enright in a Novel Dialogue Conversation (Paige Reynolds, JP)
    Sep 19 2024
    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
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    45 mins
  • Scott Nadelson, "Trust Me" (Forest Avenue Press, 2024)

    Scott Nadelson, "Trust Me" (Forest Avenue Press, 2024)
    Sep 17 2024
    Today I talked to Scott Nadelson's novel Trust Me (Forest Avenue Press, 2024). After his divorce, Lewis moves into the cabin he bought as a vacation home towards the end of his marriage. It’s in the foothills of the Cascade mountains, a forty-five-minute drive from his twelve-year-old daughter’s school and his tedious government job in Salem, Oregon. In fifty-two short stories that alternate between Skye and her father’s viewpoint, we learn about a challenging, sometimes difficult year of hiking, fishing, reading, foraging for mushrooms, and cooking meals without television, computers, or cellphones to distract them from nature or each other. Their relationship changes over the months, but the love between father and daughter pulls them through the tragedy that changes everything. Scott Nadelson is the author of nine books, most recently the novel Trust Me and the short story collection While It Lasts. His work has appeared in Ploughshares, New England Review, Harvard Review, and The Best American Short Stories, and he teaches a range of creative writing classes, including introductory multi-genre, fiction, and creative nonfiction at Willamette University and in the Rainier Writing Workshop at Pacific Lutheran University. He earned a BA in English from the University of North Carolina, an MA from Oregon State University, and an MFA in creative writing from the Warren Wilson MFA Program for Writers. When he isn't reading, writing, or teaching, he spends much of his time foraging for wild mushrooms in the foothills of Oregon's Cascade Mountains and cheering on his child's roller derby team. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/literature
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    21 mins
  • Rachel Kushner, "Creation Lake" (Scribner, 2024)

    Rachel Kushner, "Creation Lake" (Scribner, 2024)
    Sep 16 2024
    Creation Lake (Scribner, 2024) is a novel about a secret agent, a thirty-four-year-old American woman of ruthless tactics, bold opinions, and clean beauty, who is sent to do dirty work in France. "Sadie Smith" is how the narrator introduces herself to her lover, to the rural commune of French subversives on whom she is keeping tabs, and to the reader. Sadie has met her love, Lucien, a young and well-born Parisian, by "cold bump"--making him believe the encounter was accidental. Like everyone Sadie targets, Lucien is useful to her and used by her. Sadie operates by strategy and dissimulation, based on what her "contacts"--shadowy figures in business and government--instruct. First, these contacts want her to incite provocation. Then they want more. In this region of centuries-old farms and ancient caves, Sadie becomes entranced by a mysterious figure named Bruno Lacombe, a mentor to the young activists who communicates only by email. Bruno believes that the path to emancipation from what ails modern life is not revolt, but a return to the ancient past. Just as Sadie is certain she's the seductress and puppet master of those she surveils, Bruno Lacombe is seducing her with his ingenious counter-histories, his artful laments, his own tragic story. Written in short, vaulting sections, Rachel Kushner's rendition of "noir" is taut and dazzling. Creation Lake is Kushner's finest achievement yet as a novelist, a work of high art, high comedy, and unforgettable pleasure. Rachel Kushner is the author of the novels CREATION LAKE, THE MARS ROOM, THE FLAMETHROWERS, and TELEX FROM CUBA, a book of short stories, THE STRANGE CASE OF RACHEL K, and THE HARD CROWD: ESSAYS 2000-2020. She has won the Prix Médicis and been a finalist for the Booker Prize, the National Book Critics Circle Award, the Folio Prize, the James Tait Black Prize, the Dayton Literary Peace Prize, and is now three times a finalist for the National Book Award in Fiction. She is a Guggenheim Foundation Fellow and the recipient of the Harold D. Vursell Memorial Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Recommended Books: Cormac McCarthy, Child of God Vladimir Nabokov, Pale Fire  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 Against World Literature, is forthcoming 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
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    58 mins
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