fiction/non/fiction

Writers Pamela Paul and Mira Jacob talk with V.V. Ganeshananthan and Whitney Terrell about the literary side of reboots, comics, and superheroes. Editor of the New York Times Book Review Pamela Paul (the author of My Life with Bob: Flawed Heroine Keeps Book of Books, Plot Ensues) talks about the relevance and impact of literary retellings and her life as a reader. Mira Jacob, author of the novel The Sleepwalker’s Guide to Dancing and the forthcoming graphic memoir Good Talk: Conversations I’m Still Confused About discusses the role of comics in American mythology, their viability in the digital world, and the intersection of comics and literature.

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Writers Cristina Henriquez and Edwidge Danticat talk with V.V. Ganeshananthan and Whitney Terrell in an episode about the urgent issue of keeping immigrant families together and resisting their mass incarceration and detention. Henriquez, author of The Book of Unknown Americans, talks about the tragic real-life inspiration for her short story “Everything Is Far from Here” and the differences between Obama-era immigration policy and the policy of the current administration. Danticat, a National Book Award Finalist and author of The Art of Death: Writing the Final Story and Breath, Eyes, Memory, discusses the treatment of Haitian immigrants, the impossible choices immigrants face while pursuing better lives for their families, and what might lie ahead for detained children after the news coverage fades.

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Writers Tayari Jones and DaMaris B. Hill talk with V.V. Ganeshananthan and Whitney Terrell in the second of two special episodes on the effects of mass incarceration on American communities and democracy. Jones, author of the New York Times bestseller An American Marriage, discusses the collateral effects of incarceration, the disproportionate financial burden on women, and allowing characters hope. Hill, a scholar and poet, talks about the link between poverty and incarceration, inspiration found in historical figures, Assata Shakur, and the need to acknowledge others’ complex and multifaceted lives.

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Poet and memoirist Reginald Dwayne Betts and novelist Zachary Lazar join V.V Ganeshananthan and Whitney Terrell for the first of two special episodes on the effects of mass incarceration on American communities and democracy. Betts, a poet, memoirist and lawyer who was incarcerated as a young man, talks about writing in different genres, as well as the experience of having friends and colleagues write about his character to support his application to the bar and our collective impulse to be punitive. Lazar discusses his recent novel, Vengeance, which is set at Angola, the maximum-security Louisiana state penitentiary where inmates work on a farm that used to be a plantation. 

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In recent years, socialism has been on the rise—or was it ever really gone? In episode 17, V.V. Ganeshananthan and Whitney Terrell talk to Dana Goldstein of The New York Times about what it’s like to cover teacher walkouts and strikes today, and how today’s actions compare to those she wrote about in her bestselling book, The Teacher Wars, which covers the history of teaching in America. Later in the show, Thomas Frank of Listen, Liberal fame gives us a sneak preview of the final essay in his forthcoming collection. He discusses the state of socialism, the failures of the Democratic Party, and which fiction writers have most successfully taken socialism on as their material.  

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Was this episode our destiny? In episode 16, Jess Row and Meghan O’Rourke talk fate and fortune with V.V. Ganeshananthan and Whitney Terrell. Jess Row speaks first about race and fate, his novel Your Face in Mine, and his upcoming essay collection, White Flights. Then Meghan O’Rourke talks about how she saw her poem “My Life as a Subject” back when she wrote it, and how she understands it now, as well as her writing about the #MeToo movement and about illness. What are we responsible for, and what can we change?

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In episode 15, V.V. Ganeshananthan and Whitney Terrell ask who’s funny in the age of Trump, and how they’re managing to pull it off. They talk to Sloane Crosley, author of the new essay collection, Look Alive Out There, about the humor of the everyday and the freedom and subversiveness of not writing about the president. The also speak to Alexandra Petri of The Washington Post’s ComPost column, whose column features humorous takes on political news ranging from James Comey’s book release to Chris Christie’s screaming eyes.

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In episode 14, V.V. Ganeshananthan and Whitney Terrell examine the omnipresent American comfort narrative of mystery and crime fiction. Why do we love crime stories so much? How do they shape the way that we think about a whole host of real-world issues from the Mueller investigation to Black Lives Matter and the shootings of young black men by police? They are joined for this discussion by Mat Johnson, author of the novels Loving Day, Pym, Drop, and Hunting in Harlem, the nonfiction novella The Great Negro Plot, and the graphic novels Incognegro and Dark Rain. Readings: •    Incognegro by Mat Johnson, and its new miniprequels •    Superman II, Superman III (film) •    The Untouchables (film) •    The Road To Unfreedom: Russia, Europe, America by Timothy Snyder •    The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler •    Indemnity Only by Sara Paretsky •    CrimeReads.com

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Earlier this month, mob attacks on Sri Lanka’s minority Muslim community prompted a state of emergency in that country, and a temporary ban on Facebook and other social media applications. In Episode 13, V.V. Ganeshananthan and Whitney Terrell speak to Meera Srinivasan, The Hindu’s Sri Lanka correspondent, about her reporting on those incidents and the rise of Sinhala Buddhist hardliners in Sri Lanka, as well as the parallels she sees between that situation and the rise of populism in the U.S., Europe, India, and other parts of Asia. Writer Bill Lychack, a frequent visitor to Myanmar, joins the show to talk about what draws him to the country and how he views Aung San Suu Kyi in light of the nation’s treatment of its beleaguered Rohingya minority. Readings: "Letter from Burma: Captives of the Junta" by Bill Lychack in The American Scholar  Love Marriage, by V.V. Ganeshananthan  “It was not a Sinhala-Muslim clash, it was a mob attack on Muslims: Sri Lanka Minister Rauff Hakeem,” the Wednesday Interview by Meera Srinivasan, The Hindu “Banning Social Media Won’t Stop Hate Speech,” by Rohan Samarajiva in The New York Times

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In mid-February, seventeen students and adults were shot at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. In the aftermath, surviving students have led a powerful campaign for gun control. In episode 12, V.V. Ganeshananthan and Whitney Terrell bring you two authors—and a pile of books—that have covered the territory of school shootings, activism, and coming of age. First, Jim Shepard discusses his 2004 novel Project X, which is told from the POV of an eighth-grader who decides to commit a Columbine-style shooting. Shepard offers his thoughts on empathy, alienation, and how schools tend to treat their outcasts. Then Danielle Evans shares her read on the students activists in the #neveragain movement and the longstanding literary trope of child narrators who outwit adults. Adolescent anger and activism play out in Evans's story "Robert E. Lee is Dead," set in a high school in the south; she also points us to Edward P. Jones’s story “The First Day” for a particularly poignant phrasing of the transition of adolescence. Readings: Project X by Jim Shepard (2004); "Robert E. Lee is Dead" by Danielle Evans, from the collection Before You Suffocate Your Own Fool Self (2011); "The First Day" by Edward P. Jones, from the collection Lost in the City (2004); The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison (1970).

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