Books To Jump Up and Down Over
The Call by Yannick Murphy: The always interesting author of Here They Come and Signed, Mata Hari returns with a novel that whips up a worldview from a rather quirky set of limitations: namely, the call logs that a veterinarian maintains as his son is unexpectedly put into a coma and an unforgiving economy denies him work. What emerges is a surprisingly optimistic, often funny, and very moving account on how one family uses acceptance and forgiveness as a way to atone for hard knocks. (Bat Segundo interview with Murphy)
Birds of Paradise by Diana Abu-Jaber: Forget Franzen and Eugenides. If you're looking for a social novel that counts, Diana Abu-Jaber is the author you're looking for. Building from the free-form exploration of consciousness and identity in Crescent and the gripping procedural structure of Origin, Abu-Jaber's latest novel is her finest, equally fluent with gutterpunk culture and smarmy real estate men. It has been suggested by The Washington Post's Ron Charles that you will likely gain some pounds while reading this novel. This is certainly true. Abu-Jaber's description of food is so precise that it often made me want to do more cooking. But I very much admired the way in which Abu-Jaber presents all her characters as unwitting victims of rough capitalism, which permits them some dignity even as they perform terrible acts.
The Last of the Live Nude Girls by Sheila McClear: This memoir isn't so much about the decline of the Times Square peepshow, as it is about one young woman's efforts to pull herself up by by her bootstraps when presented with few economic options. Filled with self-introspective candor and a quiet dignity, McClear's story is one that might befall any of us in these volatile times. While McClear does get back on her feet, her book leads one contemplating the terrible fates of other young women now moving to New York and falling into deadlier vocations. (Bat Segundo interview with McClear)
author Archive
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The Bat Segundo Show: Stephen Fry
Posted on February 7, 2012 | 1 CommentIn this jam-packed one hour radio interview, Stephen Fry discusses Shakespeare, education, Ayn Rand, Wodehouse, eudaimonism, Secessionist Vienna coffeehouses, Apple, why he prefers Simon Raven to Anthony Powell, his efforts to dance, and at least 3,000 other interesting topics. -
The Bat Segundo Show: Deborah Scroggins
Posted on February 3, 2012 | No CommentsIn this 35 minute radio interview, journalist Deborah Scroggins discusses her book Wanted Women, ongoing perceptions about Islam, Aafia Siddiqui and American/Pakistani relations, the Jaipur Literature Festival, and why so many intellectual figures believe in Ayaan Hirsi Ali. -
The Bat Segundo Show: Susan Cain
Posted on January 31, 2012 | No CommentsIn this 40 minute radio interview, author Susan Cain discusses Quiet, differences between introverts and extroverts, Jung, conformity, Steve Wozniak, Csikszentmihalyi, and the fine line between introversion and misanthropy. -
The Bat Segundo Show: Elliot Perlman
Posted on January 10, 2012 | No CommentsIn this one hour radio interview, Australian novelist Elliot Perlman discusses The Street Sweeper, holocaust fatigue, memory as a willful dog, confronting emotional reality, and risking emotional sincerity in fiction to share the world. -
The Bat Segundo Show: Thomas Frank
Posted on January 5, 2012 | No CommentsBat Segundo returns with a big bang in this jam-packed one hour conversation with Pity the Billionaire author Thomas Frank. With talking points ripped from headlines just in the past few days, the conversation gets into populist politics being co-opted, the tendency of politicians to reinvent history, a neighborhood where half the population has PhDs, NASCAR, Ayn Rand, and Frank's collection of proletarian fiction. -
The Bat Segundo Show: William Kennedy
Posted on December 9, 2011 | 1 CommentIn this one hour interview, acclaimed writer William Kennedy discusses Changó’s Beads and Two-Tone Shoes, journalistic squalor, his dealings with Hunter S. Thompson and the Albany political machine, and black power. -
The Bat Segundo Show: Joyce Carol Oates
Posted on December 7, 2011 | 1 CommentIn this 40 minute radio interview, Joyce Carol Oates discusses The Corn Maiden, the history of narrative violence, the allure of vacuum cleaning, and what it means to be a woman writer. The conversation also features a Dickensian exchange involving a "heater." -
The Bat Segundo Show: Dennis Cooper
Posted on December 6, 2011 | 1 CommentIn this 30 minute radio interview, transgressive fiction writer Dennis Cooper discusses The Marbled Swarm, attempts to tame language, being disliked, and the historical fusion of punk and literary. -
The Bat Segundo Show: Charles Yu
Posted on December 5, 2011 | 3 CommentsIn this 45 minute radio interview, How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe author Charles Yu discusses schlubbiness, being inspired by gobbledygook, Richard Feynman, and hypothetical AI. -
The Bat Segundo Show: Wayne Koestenbaum
Posted on December 5, 2011 | 2 CommentsIn this one hour interview, poet and social critic Wayne Koestenbaum discusses humiliation in its many forms, the use of triangles to uphold book concepts, Edith Massey, and whether striking out language is a muscular statement. -
The Bat Segundo Show: Alan Hollinghurst
Posted on November 23, 2011 | No CommentsIn this 45 minute radio interview, we talk with Booker winning novelist Alan Hollinghurst about The Stranger's Child, how a single verb can alter a sentence, and whether literary biographies have any legitimacy. -
The Bat Segundo Show: Téa Obreht
Posted on November 14, 2011 | 2 CommentsIn this goofy and engaging one hour radio interview, Téa Obreht discusses The Tiger's Wife, mythological animals, the relationship between comedy and tragedy, and the possibility of turning into Smeagol if she wins the National Book Award. -
The Bat Segundo Show: Lawrence Weschler
Posted on November 11, 2011 | No CommentsIn this 45 minute radio interview, Lawrence Weschler discusses the many applications of the uncanny valley, Walter Murch, and political semiotics. -
The Bat Segundo Show: Diana Abu-Jaber
Posted on November 7, 2011 | No CommentsIn this one hour radio interview, we discuss food, easily offended readers, and Florida gutterpunk culture with Birds of Paradise author Diana Abu-Jaber. -
The Bat Segundo Show: Anne Enright
Posted on October 27, 2011 | No CommentsIn this 30 minute radio interview, Booker Prize winner Anne Enright discusses The Forgotten Waltz, bawdy anatomical description, faux partitive noun phrases, and whether the world might be better off if it were run by 12-year-old girls. -
The Bat Segundo Show: Susan Orlean
Posted on October 14, 2011 | No CommentsIn this 40 minute radio interview, Susan Orlean discusses Rin Tin Tin's unexpected legacy, the history of dogs, and obsessive defenders who sink their savings into battling intellectual property lawyers. -
The Bat Segundo Show: Yannick Murphy III
Posted on October 13, 2011 | No CommentsIn this 30 minute radio interview, novelist Yannick Murphy discusses The Call, veterinarian call logs, the purported memories of husbands, and how fiction can be inspired by thinking in a car. -
The Bat Segundo Show: Megan Abbott
Posted on July 20, 2011 | 2 CommentsIn this one hour radio interview, we talk with Megan Abbott about The End of Everything, crime fiction, childhood paper games, psychoanalysis, strangers having sex in motel rooms, and much more! -
The Bat Segundo Show: Emma Forrest
Posted on July 14, 2011 | 1 CommentIn this 30 minute radio interview, Emma Forrest discusses her memoir, Your Voice in My Head and offers Terence Stamp's General Zod as an unusual personal comparison point. -
The Bat Segundo Show: Edie Meidav II
Posted on July 8, 2011 | 1 CommentIn this 45 minute radio interview, Edie Meidav discusses her new novel, Lola, California. -
The Bat Segundo: Aimee Bender II
Posted on July 1, 2011 | No CommentsIn this 40 minute radio interview, Aimee Bender returns to our program to discuss The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake, memorizing poetry, Edward Hopper, and positive pessimism. -
The Bat Segundo Show: Mara Hvistendahl
Posted on June 23, 2011 | No CommentsIn this 40 minute interview, Mara Hvistendahl discusses Unnatural Selection, the problems with population control, skewered sex ratios, surplus men in China, and whether or not Paul Erlich is a crackpot. -
The Bat Segundo Show: Tayari Jones II
Posted on May 24, 2011 | 3 CommentsIn this 30 minute radio interview, Tayari Jones returns to our program to discuss Silver Sparrow, plucking dialogue from ridiculous ex-boyfriends, and whether a novelist is as bad as a bigamist. -
The Bat Segundo Show: Ross Perlin
Posted on May 4, 2011 | No CommentsIn this one hour radio interview, journalist Ross Perlin discusses Intern Nation, the ongoing exploitation of young people, the decline of labor, and middle-class hypocrisy. -
The Bat Segundo Show: Ian Rankin
Posted on April 14, 2011 | No CommentsIn this one hour radio interview, Ian Rankin discusses The Complaints, eating five candy bars a day, Inspector Rebus, ebooks, and almost becoming a police suspect. -
The Bat Segundo Show: Carol Emshwiller & Sharifa Rhodes-Pitts
Posted on April 12, 2011 | No CommentsIn this one hour radio interview, legendary writer Carol Emshwiller discusses her career on her 90th birthday and Sharifa Rhodes-Pitts talks about her book, Harlem is Nowhere. -
The Bat Segundo Show: Holly Tucker
Posted on April 8, 2011 | No CommentsIn this 40 minute interview, Holly Tucker discusses her book, Blood Work, 17th century rivalry between England and France, early medicine, and animal torture. -
The Bat Segundo Show: TC Boyle IV
Posted on March 16, 2011 | 1 CommentIn this 45 minute radio alternative, novelist TC Boyle returns a fourth time to discuss When the Killing's Done and offer gleefully pessimistic pronouncements about the world. -
The Bat Segundo Show: Aminatta Forna
Posted on March 1, 2011 | 1 CommentIn this 45 minute radio interview, author Aminatta Forna discusses The Memory of Love, Sierra Leone, getting arrested, and how injuries lead to creative inspiration. -
The Bat Segundo Show: Eduardo Porter
Posted on February 17, 2011 | 1 CommentIn this 35 minute radio interview, author Eduardo Porter discusses The Price of Everything. Is a belief in prices a religious faith? And what of the neoliberal blind spots?