MASS–NYC — Miranda Popkey (b. 1987) grew up in Santa Cruz, CA. I went to middle and high school in Santa Cruz, CA. I was unaware of this until we talked. I’m glad we talked.

Her debut novel, Topics of Conversation (2020), published by Knopf in January, is an absolute banger. One of the most immediate, intense, complicated books I’ve hit in a minute. I read it slowly, over the summer; and then again, this time quickly, over the past three days.

Buy the book: https://www.amazon.com/Topics-Conversation-novel-Miranda-Popkey/dp/0525656286

CONTENTS

2 min - Santa Cruz!

4 min - how the Jan 2020 drop

7 min - on narcissism

9 min - on reviews / having no chill

14 min - Sheila Heti, Vigdis Hjorth

15 min - on resisting certainty

17 min - Joan Didion

23 min - becoming aware of underlying narratives / assumptions

25 min - on Back to the Future

29 min - Santa Cruz! cont.

31 min - ‘amplifying the fuckery’

33 min - is writing therapy

36 min - on LA Confidential / violent masculinity as ‘attractive’

42 min - is the essentializing of gender biological or taught or both or does it matter

49 min - book as invitation to examine one’s desires

50 min - Norman Mailer

53 min - flirting with vs. running away from the reader

56 min - Rachel Cusk , Rings of Saturn by Sebald

1 hr - me virtursignalling that I've read Wuthering Heights

1 hr 2 min - the line between wanting to sleep with someone and be them

1 hr 5 min - the 'Dylan' character and forgiving your parents