Episode 690 - Jonathan Ames

Jonathan Ames returns to celebrate his fantastic new crime novel, A PAST WITHOUT PICTURES (Mysterious Press). We talk about his obsession with pulp fiction, how he found the character of Maria Cole and her tortured relationship with her father after setting out to write a companion to You Were Never Really Here, how hard (and rewarding) it is to craft page-turning prose, and how he compares the experience of reading Death in Venice to reading a Parker novel. We get into how his Buddhist interests are under the surface of this book and are on the surface of his Happy Doll novels (including the one he's working on!), how writing is a form of seeing, and how good writing helps the reader create a movie in their mind. We also discuss his samsara of not reaching out to people, the bit from Our Town that guides him to be more loving and present in the world, the shock of seeing his lengthy letters from the '80s and '90s, why LA is so weird for me, why he reads different translations of the Tao, how Marc Maron gives us a model of how to learn to listen, and more. More info at our site • Support The Virtual Memories Show via Stripe, Patreon, or Paypal, and subscribe to our e-newsletter