Episode 347 — Stewart O'Nan

Stewart O'Nan is the guest. His new novel, West of Sunset, is available now from Viking. It is the official Februrary pick of The Nervous Breakdown Book Club. Maureen Corrigan, writing for The Washington Post, says “[The] grim yet undeniably fascinating last act of Fitzgerald’s life is the subject of Stewart O’Nan’s gorgeous new novel. . .West of Sunset is a pretty fine Hollywood novel, too, but it’s an even finer novel about a great writer’s determination to keep trying to do his best work.” And George Saunders says “O'Nan is an incredibly versatile and charming writer. This novel, which imagines F. Scott Fitzgerald's troubled time in Hollywood (with cameos by Dorothy Parker, Bogie, and Hemingway), takes up (like much of O'Nan's work) that essential conundrum of grace struggling with paucity. One brilliant American writer meditating on another--what's not to love?” Monologue topics: paranoia, pregnancy, fear, hovering, mail. 

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