LARB Radio Hour

In this special chat episode, Medaya Ocher, Eric Newman, and Kate Wolf use Catherine Liu's new book Traumatized to dive into the political uses and pitfalls of trauma. Liu argues that the elite professional class has fully absorbed the trauma narrative; the story of an individual's suffering and recovery courses through the culture on social and mass media not as a tool for liberation, but as a means of keeping the status quo. In turning our gaze away from class struggle, the discourse of trauma on the mainstream left has largely remained deaf to questions of economic equality. Medaya, Eric, and Kate walk through Liu's argument, debating everything from the sins of Betty Frieidan and Oprah Winfrey to true crime and celebrity documentaries. Have we all become too traumatized to effectively resist in the present?

The writer and housing policy advocate Samuel Stein joins Kate Wolf to speak about his new book, A Right to Housing? It lays out how housing could indeed become a human right, accessible to all, through things like the decommodification of the real estate market, the construction of—and conversion to—more social housing, federal regulation, and continued tenant organizing. The second half of the book, meanwhile, contends with just how distant many of these steps seem in the present, and even throughout history. Stein talks about the oversimplification of YIMBY versus NIMBY, the fix against public housing from its inception, how cities are contending (or not) with climate change, and the small victories that keep activists going in the face of an uncertain future.

Kate Wolf and Medaya Ocher speak to Astra Taylor and Naomi Klein about their new book, End Times Fascism: And the Fight for the Living World. A remarkably up to date analysis of our present moment of "messianic" wars in the Middle East and Silicon Valley's go-for broke investment in AI and space travel, the book looks at the shared narrative that unites a coalition of evangelical Christians, tech bros, the Trump administration and right-wing governments across the world. In all of these factions, Klein and Taylor identify a core belief: the apocalypse is actually desirable. Rather than try to solve the very real threats of our time, fallout would be beneficial for the powerful, who could take shelter in their bunkers, or on their islands, or on Mars. Taylor and Klein, however, find hope in the already growing movement against AI data centers, the weakening support of Trump's base, and the mayoral run of Zohran Mamadani, whose joyful campaign they call the antithesis of fascism.

Eric Newman and Medaya Ocher are joined by writer Izabella Scott. Scott is the author of the new book The Bed Trick: Sex and Deception on Trial. Her work has appeared in the Financial Times, Granta, London Review of Books, and on BBC Radio 4's Free Thinking. She was formerly co-editor of The White Review. The Bed Trick recounts the true story of a 2015 trial in the UK, in which a woman accused her best friend of tricking her into a long-term romantic and sexual relationship. Scott talks about the astonishing trial, the laws around "rape by deception," and how to navigate writing nonfiction from dueling points of view.

Eric Newman and Medaya Ocher are joined by writer Izabella Scott. Scott is the author of the new book The Bed Trick: Sex and Deception on Trial. Her work has appeared in the Financial Times, Granta, London Review of Books, and on BBC Radio 4's Free Thinking. She was formerly co-editor of The White Review. The Bed Trick recounts the true story of a 2015 trial in the UK, in which a woman accused her best friend of tricking her into a long-term romantic and sexual relationship. Scott talks about the astonishing trial, the laws around "rape by deception," and how to navigate writing nonfiction from dueling points of view.

Eric Newman and Medaya Ocher are joined by writer Izabella Scott. Scott is the author of the new book The Bed Trick: Sex and Deception on Trial. Her work has appeared in the Financial Times, Granta, London Review of Books, and on BBC Radio 4's Free Thinking. She was formerly co-editor of The White Review. The Bed Trick recounts the true story of a 2015 trial in the UK, in which a woman accused her best friend of tricking her into a long-term romantic and sexual relationship. Scott talks about the astonishing trial, the laws around "rape by deception," and how to navigate writing nonfiction from dueling points of view.

Eric Newman speaks with Marlon James about his latest novel, The Disappearers. Returning to Jamaica as an historical setting for the first time since his Booker-prize winning A Brief History of Seven Killings, James's latest tells a haunting story of violence and recovery against the backdrop of anti-gay violence in the 1980s. The novel follows seven gay men working together on a provocative play about homosexuality in the Jamaican prison system, only to be torn apart when they are brutally attacked by a group of vigilantes. Told from multiple perspectives across the 1990s and 2000s, The Disappearers follows the attack's survivors as they search for justice and try to rebuild themselves in the wake of the violence. James discusses the novel's exploration of homophobia, masculinity, race, belonging, and survival—as well as the complicated question of what it means not simply to survive atrocity, but to sustain and rebuild a life in its wake.

Medaya Ocher and Eric Newman speak with Susan Stryker about her new book Changing Gender. Part cultural history, part grammar lesson, and part memoir, Changing Gender confronts not only the long historical slipperiness of gender and identity in U.S. culture, but also the ways in which the very language we use to describe and understand gender becomes a cultural battleground for meaning and identity. Stryker discusses the relatively recent origins of our thinking about "gender," the ways that thinking has been misunderstood and misappropriated for political skirmishes, and the difficulty of pinning down exactly what we're talking about when we talk about gender.

Eric Newman speaks with Chang-Rae Lee about his latest novel, A Tender Age, a coming-of-age novel centered on Jeon-Gi, the troubled son of hardworking Korean immigrants, who must navigate the meaning of masculinity, desire, and identity as he begins the journey into adulthood. After a violent outburst that lands him in reform school, Jeon-Gi has the opportunity for a reset at a church sleepaway camp, where he develops new, felicitous feelings of belonging and wonder that repair his frayed, isolated sense of self. When an accident during a transformative hiking trip threatens to once again wrench him out of his community, Jeon-Gi's story confronts how circumstance, impulse, and agency shape our lives. Lee discusses the novel's exploration of nostalgia, immigrant family dynamics, masculinity, and learning to take responsibility for oneself.

Claudia Rankine joins Kate Wolf and Medaya Ocher to speak about her new book, Triage. It follows the lifelong friendship between its narrator and someone she refers to as the "theorist." The two meet in college and begin to play a game called "collapse" — they simply fall to the floor whenever they see each other. In this game, Rankine finds an apt metaphor for the ongoing political struggles that the two friends talk, argue, and labor through. How do we deal with the onslaught of tragedy, genocide, climate change, and poverty? In other words, how do we deal with the daily news? What can we do when we are on the brink of collapse? Rankine examines these questions by looking at art — including a variety of sculptures of couches — as well as through the eyes of the theorist and the narrator as they debate what happens after the fall.