Landfill - Joyce Carol Oates - Literary Roadhouse Ep 130

Discussion Notes: Landfill

Find this week’s story here: Landfill by Joyce Carol Oates

Next week’s story: Christmas Party by Russell Banks

Rated: Clean Language, Sensitive Topic

Gerald, Maya and Anais discuss Landfill by Joyce Carol Oates. They struggle to discuss a story that too closely resembles a real life tragedy while painting an insensitive picture of the victim. For this reason, the story quickly became controversial after publication in 2006, and has raised ethical questions from literary critics.

Among those critical voices is Amardeep Singh’s, an Associate Professor of English at Lehigh University, and Anais’s former professor. We highly recommend you read his critique at his blog.  If you enjoyed Professor Singh’s critique, consider subscribing to his blog Electrostani.

We also apologize for the audio issues we experienced this week. We’re still an indie podcast and your contributions on Patreon go a long way in helping up cover or expenses and smooth out our production.

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Psst: Full list of short stories discussed on the podcast >>