Book Fight

This week we're continuing our discussion of literary "selfies" with this novel by Gaute Heivoll, which is about a string of arsons in 1970s Norway, though it's also about the writer who is haunted by those fires, even years later, enough to write a book about them. Though it's categorized as a novel, it seems clear the book's main character is closely aligned with Heivoll himself.

In the second half of the show, we talk about the phenomenon of the Mary Sue in fan fiction, and in the larger world of pop culture. Is it a useful term to describe stories in which writers create characters who are too-perfect versions of themselves? Or is it merely cover for men to offer misogynistic critiques of female characters?

Plus, you know, a bunch of dumb nonsense for which we are both sorry and not at all sorry.

Thanks for listening!

Direct download: Ep192_Summer17_Heivoll.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 6:00am EDT

This week we continue our discussion of literary "selfies" with a piece by Jennifer Lunden that appeared recently in Diagram, called "Evidence, in Track Changes". The piece includes an essay written by Lunden, plus margin notes added by her mother and Lunden herself.

We talk about what makes an experiment like this feel organic, rather than gimmicky, and what sorts of writing lessons that line might offer. Also, plenty of our usual foolishness, including some discussion of trends that (like selfies) might stick around and become more or less accepted, another installment of Millennial M0m3nt, and for some reason a digression into the relative merits of Three Musketeers and its #ThrowShine hashtag. What do you expect from us, high-minded literary talk?

Direct download: Ep191_Summer17_Lunden.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 6:00am EDT

This week we're discussing a recently published story from The New Yorker by Curtis Sittenfeld, author of a number of books, including Prep and An American Wife. In "Show Don't Tell," Sittenfeld turns her attentions to a fictionalized version of the Iowa Writers Workshop, and the anxious first-year students who are awaiting decisions on their funding for the next year. 

Since both of your Book Fight hosts are Workshop grads, we take a little stroll down memory lane and compare our own experiences with those of the story's characters. Though we also attempt to consider the story on its own merits, and we wonder whether it's one that people outside the writing world would find compelling. 

Also: another installment of Millennial M0m3nt. What American industry are the young people killing this week?

Direct download: Ep190_Summer17_Sittenfeld.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 6:00am EDT

This week we're continuing our Summer of Selfies theme by discussing confessional essays, including one by Tom Chiarella, a long-time writer and editor for Esquire. In an essay called "My Education," he detailed the sexual abuse he experienced at the hand of a Catholic-school teacher, while also wrestling with his own ambivalence about the benefits of writing such an essay. Americans, Chiarella says, feel the need to talk about their traumas, but is that always necessary, or even desirable?

Direct download: Ep189_Summer17_Chiarella.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 6:00am EDT

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