Book Fight

This week we resume our Spring of Scandal by diving into the strange story of "J.T. LeRoy," the early-aughts It Boy of the literary scene, who attracted celebrity fans including Bono, Madonna, and Winona Ryder before being unmasked, in 2006, as a fraud, the creation of a thirty-something Brooklyn woman named Laura Albert, who'd enlisted her sister-in-law to "play" LeRoy in public. We recount the ins and outs of the story, and discuss whether we should view the whole episode as a scam, performance art, or something in between. We also talk about the work itself, and how it holds up, independent of the false premise at the heart of its creation--or whether it's even possible, or desirable, to separate the art from the author, when the two were presented as so inextricably linked. If all that sounds like pretty heady stuff, don't worry, we also talk about raccoons. If you like the show, please consider subscribing to our Patreon, which helps offset our costs and allows us to keep doing the podcast each week. In exchange for $5, you'll also get access to a monthly bonus episode, Book Fight After Dark, in which we explore some of the weirder reaches of the literary universe: Amish mysteries, caveman romances, end-times thrillers and more!

We're giving you a special mid-week bonus episode, Book Fight friends, on account of how much we love you, and also as a bit of a teaser for our ongoing Patreon series, Book Fight After Dark, which you can subscribe to for only $5 a month. This episode of Book Fight After Dark originally dropped in February. The book we talked about is Transcendence, by Shay Savage, about a woman who time-travels back to early human history and enters into a (mostly consensual?) relationship with a caveman. It's supposed to be romantic, though we're not sure if it's actually romantic.  For $5 a month, you'll not only support the ongoing work we do for Book Fight, you'll also get access to an episode like this each month, where we'll read and discuss books from some of the weirder corners of the literary world: Amish mysteries, paranormal romances, Rapture thrillers, and more. If you can spare it, throw us a few bones! (Is that a caveman joke? It may or may not be a caveman joke. We're not saying it's a good caveman joke. Look, just give us $5 and enjoy the goofs, ok? Talk to you later.)

This week we welcome special guest Dan Brady, author of the new poetry collection Strange Children, from Publishing Genius Press. Dan is also the longstanding poetry editor of Barrelhouse Magazine, so it makes sense that he'd be the first guest to make us read a book of poems: Not Here, by Hieu Minh Nguyen. On the episode, we basically treat Dan as our poetry concierge, forcing him to explain things to us about how poetry works, why so many people are intimidated by contemporary poetry, and why poems never rhyme anymore. In addition to writing poetry, Dan's been working as a poetry editor for years, so he's probably an ideal person to explain this stuff to us. He's also too nice to tell us to fuck off and stop badgering him. If you like the show, please consider donating to our Patreon, which will entitle you to a special bonus episode each month. On our most recent bonus episode, we talked about an Amish mystery novel called A Churn for the Worse.

This week we kick off the spring season of Book Fight with a discussion of a Chuck Palahniuk story that apparently made upwards of 50 people pass out. You can check out the story for yourself at the official Chuck Palahniuk fan site. We talk about transgressive literature, and whether this story fits in the category. We also talk about what it is that makes people want to read stories that make them squirm. Also, we eat a Pop Tart.

This week we're talking about Allen Ginsberg and Diana Trilling. Specifically, we're talking about an essay Diana Trilling wrote for The Partisan Review about attending an Allen Ginsberg reading at Columbia University in 1959, one which her husband--famous literary critic Lionel Trilling--chose to skip, despite being Ginsberg's former teacher. We try to parse Diana Trilling's attitude toward the reading, which seems to be simultaneously salty and tender. You can read Diana's essay, and peruse all of The Partisan Review's archives, via Boston University. We also talk about lots of other 1959 goings-on, including monkeys in space!

Welcome back to our season-long exploration of the 1950s in literature and pop culture! This week we're discussing a 1958 Truman Capote essay, "A House on the Heights," originally published in Holiday Magazine (and edited by John Knowles).  Also discussed: South Jersey's version of Levittown; the staying power of Little Anthony and the Imperials; the Thalidomide scandal; and the young couple who would serve as the inspiration for Natural Born Killers.

We had some technical difficulties this week involving accidentally deleted files, so we're reposting this "classic" Book Fight episode from our 2015 Winter of Wayback season, when we visited the year 1932 and read a couple stories by Robert E. Howard, creator of both Conan the Barbarian and Sailor Steve Costigan. We also talk cartoons, Australia's infamous "emu war" and the life of Olympian/professional golfer/all-around badass Babe Didrikson.  Enjoy! And we'll be back on Monday with another episode in this season's Winter of Wayback, 1950s edition.

Tom, along with Barrelhouse Poetry Editor Dan Brady, joined the hosts of The Drunken Odyssey for a special crossover episode, recorded at this year's AWP conference in Tampa. Enjoy! For more of The Drunken Odyssey, check out their website.

In 1957, Pulitzer Prize-winning author James Gould Cozzens published the novel By Love Possessed, which took the literary world by storm. Glowing reviews poured in: from Harper's, The New York Times, The New Yorker, and Time Magazine. It was called the best book of the year, and even the best book of its generation. Then, in January 1958, critic Dwight MacDonald--apoplectic over seeing so much praise for a book he thought was terrible--wrote one of the greatest literary take-downs of all time, "By Cozzens Possessed" for Commentary Magazine. That review is credited with ruining Cozzens's literary reputation (though a 1957 Time interview in which Cozzens comes off like a real racist, misogynistic and anti-semitic buffoon probably deserves an assist). At any rate, we decided we had to check out this book, to see what all the fuss was about. And it is ... really something. For more, you'll have to listen to the episode.

This week we're continuing our exploration of the 1950s in both literature and popular culture. And you can't talk about the 50s without talking about science fiction. We checked out three stories by Isaac Asimov--including one, "The Last Question"--that he would later describe as his favorite. Regular listeners know that Mike tends to not like science fiction all that much, so this week provides a good test: can he be swayed by one of its best practitioners? In the second half of the show, we move on from science fiction to tell the story of Grace Metalious, author of the best-selling--and scandalous!--novel Peyton Place, which came out in 1956, sold tons of copies, and angered nearly everyone in Metalious's small New Hampshire town. We talk about the critical response to her book, and why it might be getting a reappraisal, all these years later. Plus, all kinds of other 1956 goodness, including: Mister Softee! Jello shots! Ant farms! And rock and roll!