Author: Tayari Jones

Condition of Mr. Segundo: Caught in the act of untelling.

Subjects Discussed: Drawing from personal experience, Atlanta, accessible metaphors, writing and throwing away many pages, conversational vs. literary tone, “This is not what Dr. King died for,” the West End neighborhood and half-gentrified neighborhood, class segregation, Aria’s naivety, antediluvian word processing machines, the racial divide in bookstores and literary readings, labeling in the publishing industry, achieving literary respectability while being labeled, The Bigamist’s Daughters, and omniscient narration.

EXCERPT FROM SHOW:

Jones: No one ever believes my position on this. I think actually, as strange as it’s going to sound, the bookstores that tend to have the African-American section tend to carry more African-American titles than bookstores that don’t have these sections. For example, there’s a bookstore in DC, Kramer Books. You know, they pride themselves on shelving everything together. And they have hardly any books by people of color there. And with no section. There’s no way of keeping them honest. They don’t know what they have. And though they can feel very progressive about their shelving, my book isn’t in there.

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Author: Charlie Huston

Condition of Mr. Segundo: Contemplating the socialist qualities of the sun.

Subjects Discussed: Dialogue vs. description, the influence of acting upon fiction writing, Raymond Chandler, dashes vs. quotation marks, Huston house style, Cormac McCarthy, one-word-one-period dialogue, indicative gestures, drinking and smoking, setting the vampire rules, unintentionally ripping off Richard Matheson’s I Am Legend, the beginnings of the Joe Pitt series, verisimilitude vs. heightened reality, the book reviewing climate, critical opposition to genre and series novels, Stephen King, parallels between Moon Knight and Joe Pitt, cruelty to animals, and getting New York details right while living in Los Angeles.

EXCERPT FROM SHOW:

Huston: When I was writing my first novel, Caught Stealing, I was writing it without any expectation or drive toward getting it published. It was while I was still an actor, but not employed. And I needed to stay busy creatively. And so I started writing something that I thought would be a short story, and it grew and grew and grew. But I wasn’t thinking about anyone else reading it, let alone having it published. I didn’t care about form. I didn’t care about format. Which is why a lot of the style has evolved through the books.

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Condition of Mr. Segundo: Avoiding impostor kings.

Guests: Carrie A.A. Frye and Ngugi wa Thiong’o

Subjects Discussed: Satirical plausibility, Wordsworth’s willing suspension of disbelief, narrative explanation and interconnectedness, queuing, The Wizard of the Crow as a history of Africa and a global epic, poverty, truth vs. fiction, metamorphosis in nature, comic literary references, Jonathan Swift, how dialogue carries the narrative, theatrical metaphors, Tajirika as charming villain, writing in Kikuyu and translating in English, Kenyan cultural politics in the 1960s, and being imprisoned for writing in an African language.

(A co-production of the LBC, Pinky’s Paperhaus and The Bat Segundo Show)

EXCERPT FROM SHOW:

Thiong’o: Getting a character mentioning, or the narrator mentioning, something in passing, which may look very almost — if a reader is not careful, he may actually miss it. But then as you go on, the small thing mentioned at the beginning becomes larger and larger, and more and more significant. For instance, the issue of queuing. The way it begins is almost offhand and then, as it goes on, it increasingly becomes more and more important, more and more central, connecting the various events.

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Condition of Mr. Segundo: Contemplating the litigious aspects of fatherhood.

Author: Neal Pollack

Subjects Discussed: The stigma against father memoirs, the Neal Pollack persona vs. the real Neal Pollack, neighborhood activism, politics, writing a book to “feed my family,” balancing art and commerce, the Chicago theatre scene, on being “family stunty,” responding to Marritt Ingman’s criticisms about failing to acknowledge previous subcultural parenting books, the desuetude of Mr. Mom, the conformist aspects of being an “alternadad,” the mommy wars, how Alternadad “rocks the boat,” the hostile reactions to the Elijah biting essay, the “Shut Up” essay, harsh reactions to Pollack in general, provoking readers, Never Mind the Pollacks, family films, pot vaporizing, the bad breakup with Dave Eggers, on pissing people off, involvement with Cracked, Regina as “straight man,” and sticking with dad writing.

EXCERPT FROM SHOW:

Correspondent: A lot of people have been sort of criticizing this book. I don’t necessarily agree with them, but I think that people are saying…

Pollack: Some people. There’s been positive and negative criticism. You know, this has definitely been the best reviewed book I’ve written. So I mean…so what were you going to posit?

Correspondent: The question is: the nature of commentary. Even in a crude form, does it have any kind of value? It seems to me that the “Shut Up” essay was more of a visceral reaction, but at the same time…

Pollack: Yeah.

Correspondent: …a lot of people really were upset by it.

Pollack: Yeah, and a lot of people also really liked it. That’s the thing. I’ve always had this uncanny ability. I’ve always had this sort of “love me or hate me” kind of thing going on. Especially with my writing. And again, people were upset by it. But I also had a lot of people telling me they appreciated it. And that’s the same thing with this book. For some reason, even though it’s a pretty simple book about a pretty basic subject, it’s been getting harsh reaction and then a lot of praise too. So again it’s just a sign that I’m doing something right.

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Condition of Mr. Segundo: Enchanted with sobriquets.

Author: Heidi Julavits

Subjects Discussed: Heidi’s middle name, the psychotherapeutic muse, Michelle Stacey’s The Fasting Girl, Mollie Fancher, science vs. faith, Freud’s Dora study, responding to Marisa Meltzer’s claims of conservatism, the pros and cons of unreliable narrative, “What Might Have Happened,” setting a novel in indoor environments, dialogue vs. description, Tim O’Brien’s In the Lake of the Woods, narrative resolution and ambiguity, perfect endings, Before Sunset, cultural metaphors vs. gesture, Viewmasters, repartee vs. gushing in a therapeutic environment, pushovers, grief tea, the inspirations for Hyper Radiance, clarifying the antisnark manifesto, Nick Hornby, The Believer‘s role in review coverage, Dale Peck, and constructive criticism.

EXCERPT FROM SHOW:

Correspondent: For example, Nick Hornby’s column. I mean, there’s a risk that he can be almost a more highbrow form of Harriet Klausner in the fact that he writes nothing but positivism.

Julavits: Yeah.

Correspondent: I mean, isn’t there something about laying one’s cards down on the table and offering not necessarily — okay, to bring up the Dale Peck review.

Julavits: Yeah.

Correspondent: I object more about the literalism behind the amazing sentence “Rick Moody is the worst writer of his generation.” That’s an extraordinary thing to say.

Julavits: Also unprovable though. I guess I feel like the reason that I feel like there are writers who are extremely critical, and I mentioned them in my essay. But Daniel Mendelsohn — I mean, that guy pulls no punches. But he only says things that are actually provable, thereby showing that he is a serious intellect. You know, he’s not out there just to throw slanders around and call attention to himself, which is what Dale Peck — I didn’t want to read past that first sentence. Because this is not going to be an intellectually serious takedown of Rick Moody. This is just going to be someone throwing their fists around.

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