This week, Emily Adrian ( The Second Season ) joins us to discuss a book she'd never read, Frederick Exley's 1968 "fictional memoir" A Fan's Notes . The book mirrors Exley's own experiences with mental health facilities, as well as his lifelong obsession with the New York Giants' star Frank Gifford. We consider how the book has held up over time, and whether we can--or should--get past its pretty rampant misogyny. We also talk about Emily's new novel, about a trailblazing female sportscaster, an...
Jul 26, 2021•1 hr 7 min
This week, J. Robert Lennon (Subdivision, Pieces for the Left Hand) joins us to discuss a story he loves to teach: Ted Chiang's "Hell is the Absence of God." We talk about what he hopes his students take from that piece, and why there are so few omniscient narrators in contemporary literary fiction. Plus: Christian summer camps, why you should never read your Goodreads reviews, and why John doesn't want to fight anyone.
Jul 12, 2021•1 hr 27 min
When this week's guest, Lynn Coady, won Canada's prestigious Giller Prize for her book of short stories, Hellgoing , the comparisons to Alice Munro were probably inevitable. So it's fitting that the story Coady chose for this episode of the podcast is by Munro, and is one Coady says she's returned to again and again. "Save the Reaper," from The Love of a Good Woman, is a bit more menacing than the typical Munro story, though it makes us wonder if the menace is there in other Munro stories, too, ...
Jun 28, 2021•1 hr 5 min
We're joined by David Roth (writer and co-owner, Defector Media ) to discuss the debut novel by Pete Beatty, which spins a tall tale of a mythological character, Big Son, and his various feats in 1830s Ohio. We talk about how the novel complicates and subverts stories of American myth, and just how much fun it is to read. We also chat with David about his own work, including blending sports and politics at Deadspin (R.I.P.), and how reading Kurt Vonnegut prepared him for writing about Donald Tru...
Jun 14, 2021•1 hr 19 min
We're joined by Lauren Grodstein, author of several novels, including the New York Times bestseller A Friend of the Family , to discuss Philip Roth's Everyman . As a Jewish author from New Jersey, Grodstein says Roth has loomed large throughout her life, and she's wrestled with how to think about his legacy, particularly in light of the recent scandal involving his biographer, Blake Bailey. But even more broadly, how are we meant to reckon with an author who is wise in so many ways, but also cle...
May 31, 2021•1 hr 16 min
We're joined by Jeff Chon, author of the new novel Hashtag Good Guy With a Gun , to talk about political fiction, conspiracy theories, and why some editors are cowards. We also talk about the South Korean novel The Disaster Tourist , by Yun Ko-Eun (translated by Lizzie Buehler), which Jeff says he picked up as part of his ongoing project to "be a better Korean," but then fell in love with because of its lively voice and dark humor. Thanks for listening! If you like the podcast, and would like mo...
May 17, 2021•1 hr 13 min
We're joined by John Kell (freelance journalist, PR rep for Chobani) to talk about why the pandemic inspired him to read more books featuring gay male characters, which he recently wrote about in a piece for Fortune . We discuss one of those books, Edmund White's Our Young Man , and why John felt somewhat ambivalent about its main character, a gorgeous male model who is trying not to age out of the industry. We also talk about what kinds of gay lives get represented in fiction, which fictional u...
May 03, 2021•1 hr 11 min
We welcome special guest Christopher Gonzalez (I'm Not Hungry But I Could Eat) to discuss a novel that taught him a lot about flash fiction. Also discussed: the Netflix show Marriage or Mortgage, why flash fiction isn't just about word count, and how to title your novel to give critics an easy talking point. If you like the show, and would like more Book Fight in your life, you can join our Patreon and get regular bonus episodes: https://www.patreon.com/BookFight...
Apr 19, 2021•1 hr 7 min
In celebration of the nine-year anniversary of our podcast, we're bringing back some of our favorite segments from the show's history! We also discuss some exciting changes coming down the pike. If you like the show, and would like more of it in your life, check out our Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/BookFight
Apr 05, 2021•1 hr 41 min
This week we're wrapping up our Winter of Wayback season by reviewing what we've learned. Which stories and essays did we love? Which pieces did we hate? What did we learn about 1968, and how did it compare to our previous presuppositions? Also, as a special bonus, Tom reviews a famous 1968 movie he'd never seen before, and Mike eats a Big Mac. If you like the show, and would like to have more of it in your life, you can subscribe to our Patreon here: https://www.patreon.com/BookFight...
Mar 29, 2021•1 hr 16 min
This week we continue our exploration of 1968 by checking out a Bernard Malamud story, "Man in the Drawer," which won the O'Henry prize that year. Also: what were hippies up to in 1968? We take a deep dive into newspaper archives to learn how that term was being used, and what it could tell us about the state of the counterculture (and the attitudes of squares). If you like the show, and would like more Book Fight in your life, for $5/month you can subscribe to our Patreon and get bonus episodes...
Mar 22, 2021•1 hr 7 min
This week we continue our Winter of Wayback season by checking out a couple stories from the 1969 Best American Short Stories anthology (featuring stories published in 1968). We intentionally chose authors we didn't know anything about, though it turns out both writers went on to fairly celebrated careers, albeit in different genres. Norma Klein became a beloved YA author, often compared to Judy Blume, though she died at the tragically young age of 50. Jack Cady, meanwhile, won numerous awards f...
Mar 15, 2021•1 hr 12 min
This week we continue our Winter of Wayback season by reading a dispatch about the 1968 Democratic National Convention written for Esquire by William S. Burroughs. The convention itself was famously contentious, and Chicago Mayor Richard Daley was criticized for allegedly allowing the cops to run roughshod over protesters outside the convention hall. Burroughs, meanwhile, brings to the party a politics we'd describe as "confusing." Also this week: The poetry of 1968 presidential candidate Eugene...
Mar 08, 2021•57 min
This week, we're continuing our Winter of Wayback trip to 1968 by reading a story, "Boys and Girls," from Alice Munro's first story collection. We revisit arguments about Munro's stories from our grad school years, and consider the unique structure of her stories, which often rely less on plot trajectory than on a kind of synthesis, looking at a character's life from a variety of angles. Plus: a new game, Munro or No! You can read the story here: http://www.giuliotortello.it/shortstories/boys_an...
Mar 01, 2021•1 hr 6 min
This week we're continuing our Winter of Wayback season, in which we've been reading books, stories and essays from 1968, a year that parallels our current moment in a number of ways. Writer Lyz Lenz (God Land, Belabored) joins us to discuss a writer she admires from that era: Ellen Willis, who began her career as a music journalist but did some of her most important work on misogyny within the progressive movement. Also discussed: internet hate, why men love The Maltese Falcon, and the harassme...
Feb 22, 2021•1 hr 40 min
This week we're continuing our trip through 1968 by checking out the very first issue of a literary journal that still exists, and has published lots of famous writers: The South Carolina Review. The debut issue includes an essay on race relations in South Carolina, by an esteemed journalist, as well as a short story by Max Steele, who had one of the best names in the literary game. Also this week: 1968 was a big year for children's lit and YA. The National Book Awards started a category for chi...
Feb 15, 2021•58 min
This week we're discussing the debut novel by N. Scott Momaday, House Made of Dawn , which won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 1968. The book had an interesting road to publication, and the prize seemed to take both the author and his publishing house by surprise. We look at how people were writing about the novel in 1968, and discover that--surprise, surprise--white people were kinda racist about Native American culture! Even in praising Momaday's book, they couldn't help but drag out lots of...
Feb 08, 2021•1 hr 4 min
This week we're discussing a famous Pauline Kael essay about the movie "Bonnie and Clyde," which The New Republic refused to run, and which then accidentally launched her long, storied career at The New Yorker. Kael argued that the movie, which had been panned by many critics, was more interesting than people were giving it credit for, and that the negative reviews actually said something about the current cultural moment. We also discuss the recent Harper's special section on "life after Trump,...
Feb 01, 2021•1 hr 5 min
This week we're discussing a 1968 Elizabeth Hardwick essay about the Memphis funeral of Martin Luther King, Jr. The piece attempts to take the measure of both black and white Memphis after MLK's assassination, and notes tensions within the Civil Rights movement that in certain ways echo arguments within progressive movements today. We also dive into some 1968 debates about whether fiction was up to the task of representing an increasingly fractured, absurdist reality. Plus: women's magazines pul...
Jan 25, 2021•1 hr 14 min
When Playboy Magazine accepted an Ursula LeGuin story in 1968, the editors had only one request for the young author: could they use the byline U.K. LeGuin, so Playboy's readers didn't know the story was written by a woman? This week we discuss the story, and the circumstances of its publication. Plus: what were creative writing grad programs like in 1968? We take a peek at the Iowa Writers Workshop, thanks to a lengthy feature story from The Chicago Tribune, which features beer bars, Kurt Vonne...
Jan 18, 2021•1 hr 6 min
Welcome to our Winter of Wayback season! This year we're diving into 1968, a year that, like our current moment, has often been described as an inflection point in American politics. What we'd like to know: What was the world of literature like that year? Please join us, over the next several weeks, as we try to find out. This week: Tom Wolfe on surfers, slackers, and the culture of parentally-funded hippies.
Jan 11, 2021•1 hr 11 min
Happy New Year, book friends! We're giving you access to this bonus episode from November, which kicked off our new series: The Hunt for the Worst Book of All Time. For the first edition we re-read Ethan Frome, a novel that is still being foisted upon America's high school students, for some reason. If you like this episode, and would like to hear future editions of The Hunt for the Worst Book of All Time, you can subscribe to our Patreon for just $5 a month. That also helps to support the show ...
Jan 04, 2021•1 hr 2 min
It's the most wonderful time of the year: when we break out the eggnog and suffer through a terrible Christmas-themed book so we can goof on it. This year's selection is Swamp Santa , book 16 in Jana DeLeon's Miss Fortune mystery series. We try to make sense of a rather convoluted plot, debate the relative merits of wacky parrots, and get lost in explanatory dialogue. Check out the website for the town of Sinful, Louisiana, which can fill in some backstory on this week's book: http://sinfullouis...
Dec 21, 2020•1 hr 9 min
This week we welcome two special guests--Amanda Meadows and Geoffrey Golden of the Dirt Cheap podcast--to discuss one of their favorite recent graphic novels: BTTM FDRS, by Ezra Clayton Daniels and Ben Passmore. The book has been compared to Jordan Peele's film Get Out, and features a many-tentacled monster that inhabits an apartment building in a gentrifying Chicago neighborhood. Our guests help us do some panel analysis of the book, and we talk about the horror genre, and dividing line between...
Dec 14, 2020•1 hr 12 min
David Foster Wallace famously considered the lobster. This week, we consider him! How has his writing--and his legacy--aged in the nearly twenty years since his most well-known essays were published? Also: how mean should creative writing teachers be about lousy (or lazy) student work? You can read Wallace's essay "Consider the Lobster" here: http://www.columbia.edu/~col8/lobsterarticle.pdf You can also join our Patreon--$5/month helps support the podcast and also gets you access to all our bonu...
Dec 07, 2020•1 hr 3 min
This week, Mike picks an essay that exemplifies some of what he doesn't love in contemporary writing about mental health. Too often, there's a tendency to fall back on abstractions, cliches, and platitudes, rather than to do the (admittedly tough!) work of putting the reader inside the writer's actual, lived experience. In the second half of the show, we take one last dive into the NaNoWriMo forums to give our (semi-solicited?) advice to this year's crop of would-be novelists. If you like the sh...
Nov 30, 2020•1 hr 2 min
This week we're talking Wikipedia vandalism, essays that show their editing work, and creative nonfiction that borrows moves from academic writing. Plus, another deep dive into the NaNoWriMo forums to help out this year's crop of aspiring novelists. This week's reading is a David LeGault essay, "Revision and Collapse," which was first published in Fourth Genre. Though as always, you don't have to do the reading prior to listening to the episode. If you like the show, and would enjoy having a lit...
Nov 23, 2020•1 hr 10 min
This week's episode asks the question: Why aren't conservatives funny? Or, put another way: Didn't conservatives used to be funny? At least some of them? And could they ever be funny again? More specifically, we revisit a P.J. O'Rourke essay from 1982, in which the author takes a cruise to the Soviet Union sponsored by the magazine The Nation, and spends most of his time drinking vodka with the Russians on-board while making fun of the insufferable American passengers, who are sort of like the p...
Nov 16, 2020•59 min
This week we're talking about professional wrestling, essays with unusual structures, troubled father-son relationships, and what it's like to be one of the only non-white kids at your school. Plus: it's still November, which means we're digging into the NaNoWriMo forums to answer some of the internet's weirdest questions about writing a novel.
Nov 09, 2020•1 hr 4 min
This week: writing about money and social class; righteous anger; and essays that spark actual class debate. Plus we begin out month-long dive into the National Novel Writing Month forums, to offer our (semi-solicited?) advice to this year's crop of prospective authors. Our reading this week was "The Gifted Classes," an essay by Frances Lefkowitz. You can read it via The Sun: https://www.thesunmagazine.org/issues/325/the-gifted-classes If you like our show, and would like more Book Fight in your...
Nov 02, 2020•1 hr 3 min
