LA Review of Books

Professor Carol Anderson, whose previous work White Rage won the 2016 National Book Critics Circle Award, joins Kate and Eric to discuss her latest book, The Second: Race and Guns in a Fatally Unequal America.  The Second takes a long historical look at the emergence and development of the second amendment—"A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed"—against the backdrop of anti-Black violence, fear, and public policy. Professor Anderson reveals the various ways in which slavery—and, in particular, white slaveowners' fears of slave insurrection—shaped the Second amendment from the very beginning, with long-reaching effects that we continue to face today, a year after the murder of George Floyd by a white police officer. America's most infamous constitutional amendment was not about guns, but about the racial divides through which a white man wielding a gun receives Constitutionally-lauded legal protections, while in the hands of a Black man in America, a firearm can so often be a death sentence. Also, Jacqueline Rose, author of On Violence and On Violence Against Women, returns to recommend both Anna Burns' The Milkman, which won the Man Booker Prize in 2018, as well as Eimear McBride's A Girl is a Half-formed Thing.

Filmmaker Matthew Heineman joins Eric to talk about his latest documentary, THE BOY FROM MEDELLIN, which centers on reggeton superstar J Balvin (the voice and creative force behind such massive hits as MI GENTE, I LIKE IT,, AGUA, and countless other songs). Heineman's camera turns its gaze on Balvin as the pop star returns to his home city of Medellin for the last stop on his world tour. That homecoming takes a dramatic turn as the country is plunged into anti-government protests led by Colombian youth. Heineman shares what it was like to capture a superstar caught between the desire to entertain and the demands of fans on social media that he speak to the political crisis of his homeland; to witness a brilliantly talented performer with his reputation and tour all on the line.  Also, Claire Phillips, author of A Room with a Darker View: Chronicles of My Mother and Schizophrenia drops by to talk with Kate and recommend Schizophrenia: A Brother Finds Answers in Medical Science by Ronald Chase.

Writer Sarah Schulman joins Kate and Eric to discuss her new book Let the Record Show: A Political History of ACT UP New York 1987-1993. A longtime activist, Sarah was a participant in the history she writes about. Back in 1987 Sarah joined The AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power, known as ACT UP, in New York City.  Let the Record Show is a focused, exceedingly thorough look at ACT UP’s organizational tactics, its diverse range of members and intersecting causes, and its profound impact in fighting for access to treatment and more national attention for people with AIDS at a time when the US government was barely addressing the crisis. The book builds on over 200 oral histories Sarah and her collaborator and fellow ACT-Upper Jim Hubbard conducted with former members. In an ecstatic review, the New York Times wrote that "it’s not reverent, definitive history. This is a tactician’s bible." Also, Helen Oyeyemi, author of Peaces, returns to recommend James Robertson's To Be Continued, or, Conversations with a Toad.

Kate and Medaya are joined by feminist critic Jacqueline Rose to discuss her new book On Violence  and On Violence Against Women.  Jacqueline's addresses the prevalence and persistence of violence through the analytical lenses of feminism, history, psychoanalysis, politics, and literature. Jacqueline argues that violence in our times thrives on a form of mental blindness; and elucidates its relationship to the rise of politicians like Bolsonaro and Trump as well as broader society's complicity in these horrors. Also, Larissa Pham, author of the collection Pop Song: Adventures in Art and Intimacy, returns to recommend Annie Ernaux's A Girl's Story (2016), which was released last year in translation.

Brooklyn-based artist and writer Larissa Pham joins Medaya and Eric to discuss her debut collection Pop Song: Adventures in Art and Intimacy. Larissa contributed to the collection KINK (previously covered here), with a piece that deals with themes of violence and desire, which are equally reflected in the new collection - and which Larissa addresses throughout the conversation. The entries in Pop Song shift between memoir and an acute attunement to various art objects and experiences in the present, POP SONG explores what it means to want a life and to strive for it: to navigate relationships, to build and rebuild a self, and to appreciate and even desperately rely upon the encounters with art that give such a life meaning.  Also, Nick Pinkerton, author of Goodbye to Dragon Inn, returns to recommend The Dog of the South by Charles Portis.

Eric and Daya are joined by acclaimed author Helen Oyeyemi, whose latest novel is Peaces. The plot involves two young lovers, Otto and Xavier Shin, who board an unusual train to celebrate their unofficial honeymoon. Accompanied by their pet mongoose, the two begin to explore the cars and the meet the three other passengers on board. The book can be described as a madcap existential mystery at the center of which is a question about how we see other people and what it means to be seen or not seen. Rachel Kushner returns to recommend The Autobiography of Chuck Berry. And there's also special bonus gushing over the recently completed season of Drag Race.

On a special LARB Book Club episode of the Radio Hour, Boris Dralyuk and Medaya Ocher are joined by George Saunders, author of four collections of virtuosic short stories and of the novel Lincoln in the Bardo, which won the 2017 Man Booker Prize. His latest work is A Swim in a Pond in the Rain: In Which Four Russians Give a Master Class on Writing, Reading, and Life. Examining individual works by Leo Tolstoy, Anton Chekhov, Ivan Turgenev, and Nikolai Gogol from a variety of angles, Saunders teases out lessons for writers and readers alike. During the conversation, he discusses what fiction can teach us about ourselves and each other, shares his experiences teaching these stories over the past two decades, and reflects on the role of humor in his work.

Kate Wolf is joined by writer and film critic Nick Pinkerton to discuss his book-length essay on Tsai Ming-liang’s film Goodbye, Dragon Inn, which revolves around the final screening at a cinema in Taiwan — on the very day that 300 movie theaters were shuttered across Southern California. The book is both a eulogy and a call to arms for cinema. Kate and Nick share a defiant sadness, revel in memories of the power and meaning they found in a communal space of shared dreams, and wonder how it might be preserved amidst the tyranny of tiny screens and the banality of the bottom line. Also, Sam Cohen, author of the collection of stories Sarahland, drops by to recommend Larry Mitchell’s The Faggots and Their Friends Between Revolutions.

Kate and Medaya are joined by Rachel Kushner, author previously of Telex from Cuba and the Flamethrowers, both nominated for the National Book Award, and The Mars Room, which was shortlisted for the 2018 Man Booker Award. Rachel's new book is a collection of her essays from the past two decades, The Hard Crowd, which exhibits the inspiring breadth of her interests and influences, many of which she discusses - from motorcycle racing, to prison abolition, the Anarcho-Marxist Italian left, rock impresario Bill Graham, the writing of Marguerite Duras, and the people and places of her rough-edged youth in San Francisco. Also, Jackie Wang, author of The Sunflower Cast a Spell to Save Us from the Void, returns to recommend Nobody: A Hymn to the Sea by poet Alice Oswald

Kate and Medaya talk with poet, essayist, and critic Jackie Wang about her new collection of poetry The Sunflower Cast a Spell to Save Us From the Void.  As an Assistant Professor of Culture and Media Studies at The New School, Wang also works on race, surveillance technology, and the political economy of prisons and police.  In her poetry, she uses dreams to get to very concrete historical and social issues; along with the apocalypse, survival, intimacy, speech, silence and of course, sunflowers. Jackie discusses the relationship between her poetry and academic work; and her exploration of dreams, psychoanalysis, and the work of the imagination “the work of creating openings where there were previously none.” Also, Jo Ann Beard, author of Festival Days, returns to recommend both Daniel Orozco's collection of stories Orientation; and also Amy Hempel's collection Sing To It.

Medaya talks with renowned essayist and fiction writer Jo Ann Beard, whose latest collection is called Festival Days. Near the beginning of the book, Jo Ann writes that there’s an element of fiction in her essays and essays in her fiction - an idea she elaborates on during the conversation. Jo Ann shares much about her own life and development as a writer, while addressing many of the central themes of the work: death, illness, childhood, memory and of course, her renowned and professed love for animals.  Also, Chanda Prescod-Weinstein returns to recommend one of Jane Austen's later novels, Mansfield Park.

Eric Newman is joined by Dr. Chanda Prescod-Weinstein to discuss her book The Disordered Cosmos: A Journey into Dark Matter, Spacetime, and Dreams Deferred, which opens up with some very heavy science, explaining quarks, dark matter and other phenomena that point to the limits of our knowledge about the how the universe, and everything in it, functions. But at the heart of the book is a series of questions about how the social construction of science both foments a toxic culture and might help us to understand not only how to do science better, but how to do better science. Also, Brian Dillon, author of Suppose a Sentence, returns to recommend Inventory of a Life Mislaid by Marina Warner.

Kate and Medaya speak with two heralded debut novelists. First up is Christine Smallwood, author of The Life of the Mind, about Dorothy, a failing adjunct professor in New York City, who suffers a miscarriage, and struggles to maintain her resilience in an unwelcoming world. Christine explains how the novel came to be and reflects on why Dorothy’s travails so successfully capture the texture of our time. Then Sara Davis joins Kate and Daya to talk about her novel The Scapegoat, which also centers around an academic in crisis. The narrator, N, disrupts his routine life to investigate the circumstances of his estranged father’s death, which is clouded in uncertainties of history, identity, and reality. Sara shares how she approached writing such a challenging and rewarding work.

Kate and Medaya welcome essayist Brian Dillon, author of Suppose a Sentence which offers sharp analysis (along with intriguing discursus) of 27 sentences, both celebrated and obscure, from the likes of William Shakespeare, James Baldwin, John Ruskin, and Joan Didion. Brian opens the show with a passage from his introduction, a paean to the work of the writers he loves and the expansive possibilities of a single line. The conversation focuses on the joys and perils of close reading and reverie. Also, Claudio Lomnitz, author of Nuestra America: My Family in the Vertigo of Translation, returns to recommend On Kings by anthropologists David Graeber and Marshall Sahlins - and relate its lessons to the reign of Donald Trump.

Kate Wolf talks with Claudio Lomnitz, author of Nuestra America: My Family in the Vertigo of Translation, which traces his family's history in the Jewish diaspora from the Eastern European region of Bessarabia to South America and onto Mexico. Claudio tells tales of his relatives, in particular, his maternal grandfather Misha Adler, a scholar and publisher involved in a number of revolutionary movements in the mid 20th century. He also relates his family's experiences to the struggles of marginalized peoples and migrants across the globe. Also, Lauren Oyler, author of Fake Accounts, returns to recommend Norman Rush's Mating, on the occasion of the 30th anniversary of this revered novel.