KPFA - Radio Wolinsky

Joseph Kanon, author of the spy thriller, “Defectors,” is interviewed by Richard Wolinsky.

Over the course of the last 22 years, Joseph Kanon has established himself as one of the best spy novelists around, in the vein of John Le Carre, Alan Furst, Graham Greene and Eric Ambler. His latest novel, “Defectors,” is about what happens after a Soviet mole defects to Russia. What is their life like? What happens then? Set in the early 1960s, “Defectors,” through copious research, sets up what life must have been like for people like Kim Philby and other Russian spies forced to leave the West to survive.

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Lillian Ross (1918-2017), in conversation in June, 2002 with host Richard Wolinsky.

Lillian Ross, who died on September 20, 2017 at the age of 99, spent seven decades as a staff writer for the New Yorker Magazine, beginning in 1945. Writing for the Talk of the Town section of the magazine, her credo was “Your attention at all times should be on your subject, not on you. Do not call attention to yourself.” In 1950, her profile of Ernest Hemingway, according to the New York Times, elevated her into the top ranks of New Yorker stylists. Using novelistic techniques for writing non-fiction, she is often credited as the primary influence of what came to be called “new journalism” as exemplified in her series of articles about the making of the John Huston film, The Red Badge of Courage, which were collected in the book, Picture, often called the best book ever written about Hollywood. She spent several years as the mistress of long-time New Yorker editor Willliam Shawn, as chronicled in her book Here But Not Here, from 1998.

This interview with Lillian Ross took place on June 4, 2002 on the publication of her book, “Reporting Back: Notes on Journalism.” Of this particular discussion she later wrote, “ It’s the first time I ever listened to any kind of broadcast on my power book, and I was amazed. It’s the first interview I’ve ever experienced that sounded interesting to me and sounded true to me. That of course is because of you, your questions, your general interest, your understanding, and your response, and then, your editing. I do thank you. I’m very grateful. With great admiration, Lillian Ross.”

Lillian Ross’s final piece, a profile of J.D. Salinger after his death, was published in 2012.

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Tom Perrotta, whose latest novel is “Mrs. Fletcher,” in conversation with Richard Wolinsky.

The author of several best-sellers, Tom Perrotta is perhaps best known these days as the author of the novel “The Leftovers,” and one of the writers of the highly praised HBO show of the same name. He is also the author of other novels, including “Election” and “Little Children,” both of which became Oscar-nominated films.

In this broad-ranging interview, he talks in depth about his newest novel, which deals with the problems of a divorced mother faced with empty-nest syndrome, the creation and writing of “the Leftovers,” his work on “Election,” and issues that crop up in “Mrs. Fletcher, most notably internet pornography.

An excerpted version of this interview ran on KPFA’s Bookwaves program.

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Hari Kunzru, whose latest novel is “White Tears,” in conversation with Richard Wolinsky.

Hari Kunzru is the author of several novels: The Impressionist, Transmission, My Revolutions, Gods Without Men, and now White Tears. Born in London in 1969 of an Indian father and Englsh mother, he grew up in the suburb of Essex and went to university in Oxford and Warwick. He later worked as a travel journalist before turning to fiction.

In the novel “White Tears,” he focuses on race, blues music and class in America, focusing on a young man with a wealthy friend who attempts to create a fake blues record from the 1920s and gets caught up in a series of events that play out in a magic realist fashion.

Complete 2012 interview about “Gods Without Men.”

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