New Books Network

158 RTB Ben Fountain in Dark Times (JP)

Listen Later

Ben Fountain is far more than just the author of Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk, which won RTB hearts and minds (and the National Book Award) long before it became a weird Ang Lee movie.

Back in 2020's lockdown, RTB asked Fountain what was consoling and engaging him. American novels, especially those about Americans abroad (Joan Didion. say) have always done something special for him. Marilynne Robinson’s and James Baldwin’s work make us confront the reality that’s happening around us all the time, “a freaking massacre.” He carried the the (fictional but genuine) facts of Baldwin’s If Beale Street Could Talk in his head for forty years.

  • Allen Tate, Fugitive poet (and author most famously of the tricky post-Eliotic 1928 “Ode to the Confederate Dead“)
  • Joan Didion, The Last Thing He Wanted (1996; “a masterpiece of tone and mood and character and profound interiority”; the movie, not so much)
  • Joan Didion, Democracy (1984; she goes “straight after the heart of that mystery, what is America?“)
  • Marilynne Robinson. Listeners, do you prefer her incisive nonfiction (“Poetry of Puritanism“) or the deep, torqued interiority of her first novel, Housekeeping ?
  • Zadie Smith on the amazing, terrifying Americanness of Kara Walker
  • Kara Walker’s “A Subtlety” (also referenced in our Silvia Bottinelli episode on food art!)
  • James Baldwin, A Letter to My Nephew (1962)
  • James Baldwin, e.g. If Beale Street Could Talk (Ben loves those Library of America volumes…)
  • Another Country (1962)
  • Giovanni’s Room (1956)
  • Sewanee Review, The Corona Correspondence
  • Chronicles of Now
  • George Saunders “A Letter to My Students…."

    • 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

    ...more
    View all episodesView all episodes
    Download on the App Store
    New Books NetworkBy New Books
    • 4.3
    • 4.3
    • 4.3
    • 4.3
    • 4.3

    4.3

    147 ratings

    More shows like New Books Network

    View all
    The New Yorker: Fiction by The New Yorker

    The New Yorker: Fiction

    3,371 Listeners

    The Book Review by The New York Times

    The Book Review

    3,925 Listeners

    The LRB Podcast by The London Review of Books

    The LRB Podcast

    311 Listeners

    The Partially Examined Life Philosophy Podcast by Mark Linsenmayer, Wes Alwan, Seth Paskin, Dylan Casey

    The Partially Examined Life Philosophy Podcast

    2,112 Listeners

    New Books in Critical Theory by Marshall Poe

    New Books in Critical Theory

    148 Listeners

    Jacobin Radio by Jacobin

    Jacobin Radio

    1,459 Listeners

    London Review Bookshop Podcast by London Review Bookshop

    London Review Bookshop Podcast

    132 Listeners

    Philosophy Bites by Edmonds and Warburton

    Philosophy Bites

    1,546 Listeners

    The TLS Podcast by The TLS

    The TLS Podcast

    180 Listeners

    The Dig by Daniel Denvir

    The Dig

    1,590 Listeners

    Radio Atlantic by The Atlantic

    Radio Atlantic

    2,364 Listeners

    The Paris Review by The Paris Review

    The Paris Review

    800 Listeners

    What's Left of Philosophy by Lillian Cicerchia, Owen Glyn-Williams, Gil Morejón, and William Paris

    What's Left of Philosophy

    288 Listeners

    The Ezra Klein Show by New York Times Opinion

    The Ezra Klein Show

    16,464 Listeners

    Past Present Future by David Runciman

    Past Present Future

    351 Listeners