Miranda July speaks to Kate Wolf about her latest novel, All Fours. Its narrator is a woman in the middle of her life, a recognized artist who’s worked steadily for years with “the confidence that comes from knowing there is no other path.” Shortly after her 45th birthday, she decides to take a road trip to New York to celebrate with money she’s recently made from a whiskey commercial. She leaves her husband and child one morning and ends up stopping in a small suburb outside of Los Angeles for breakfast. But instead of continuing on, she rents a motel room there and proceeds to stay for the next three weeks. Part of her decision is based on her intense desire for a Hertz rental car employee she meets named Davey, a younger man, who yearns to be a hip hop dancer. But other aspects of her reasoning are more ineffable, fueled perhaps by the uncertainty of the future, aging, mortality, and struggles with the confines of domestic life. Her sojourn in the motel room becomes the catalyst for a reckoning with that life upon her return, and the basis for a deeper philosophical and visceral inquiry into desire, the female body, social and sexual possibility, caregiving, and what truly makes life worth living. Also, Danielle Dutton, author of Prairie, Dresses, Art, Other, returns to recommend The New Animals by Pip Adam.

Kate Wolf and Medaya Ocher are joined by writer and publisher Danielle Dutton, author of Prairie, Dresses, Art, Other as well as Margaret the First and Sprawl. Dutton is also co-founder of the outstanding press Dorothy Project. Prairie, Dresses, Art, Other is a collection of stories and essays that exemplify Dutton’s approach to writing: ekphrastic, collaborative, laced with dread, wonder, and silence, as well as the power of landscapes (outer and inner) to transport both characters and readers beyond the normal bounds of being. Many of the stories in the book are set in the open plains of the Midwest—a space that becomes rife for projections of bodily harm and climate collapse, where the real world and the digital sphere frequently overlap. Also, Jennifer Croft, author of The Extinction of Irena Rey, returns to recommend Entangled Life by Merlin Sheldrake.

In this special episode, hosts Medaya Ocher, Kate Wolf, and Eric Newman discuss the case for and against giving up—on life, vices, dreams, creative pursuits, jobs, relationships, exercise, and work. Their conversation is inspired by Adam Phillips’s recent book On Giving Up, in which the psychoanalyst observes that “we give things up when we believe we can change; we give up when we believe we can’t.” The hosts discuss what is acceptable to give up, their own fears of failure, both fictional and real-life inspirational quitters, and whether Bartleby was onto something when he said he’d prefer not to.

Scholar and writer Anna Shechtman joins Medaya Ocher to discuss her book The Riddles of the Sphinx: Inheriting the Feminist History of the Crossword Puzzle. Shechtman is an accomplished cruciverbalist, constructing a bimonthly crossword at The New Yorker; she is the former Humanities and Film Editor at the Los Angeles Review of Books, where she is now an editor-at-large. Her book is a history of how women shaped the crossword puzzle, only to be pushed out of the puzzling industry. It’s also a memoir of Shechtman's own start with crossword constructing and the simultaneous development of her eating disorder. Riddles explores language, meaning-making, the body, as well as who is allowed to set the rules and write the clues. Also, Katya Apekina, author of Mother Doll, returns to recommend four diaries written during the Russian Revolution: Earthly Signs by Marina Tsvetaeva; and three volumes by Teffi, Other Worlds; Memories; and Tolstoy, Rasputin, Others, and Me.

Scholar Randol Contreras joins Kate Wolf and Eric Newman to discuss his new book  The Marvelous Ones: Drugs, Gang Violence, and Resistance in East Los Angeles. The book is a study of the history and present lives of veterans of the legendary Maravilla gang that long dominated the scene in East Los Angeles before a bitter rivalry with the La Eme during the 1990s and early 2000s that had Maravillas scrambling for their lives in the streets and in prison. Though centered around the experience of that epic gang rivalry, The Marvelous Ones is also an examination of how masculinity, race, and cultural identity are shaped and reshaped within the context of organized crime inside state institutions and in the everyday lives of those living in Los Angeles. It is also a story about what it means to matter and to be remembered as a man, as a husband, as a father, and as a Maravilla amid the roiling waters of political, social, and historical change. Also, poet Victoria Chang, whose latest collection is With My Back to the World, returns to recommend an anthology of poetry entitled You Are Here: Poetry in the Natural World edited by the current Poet Laureate of the United States, Ada Limon.

A double-header episode about two new novels that each feature high stakes feats of translation. First, the translator and writer Jenny Croft speaks with Medaya Ocher about her debut novel, The Extinction of Irena Rey. It follows eight translators who have just arrived at the house of a famous, beloved writer, the titular Irena Rey. Suddenly, Irena disappears, and the translators are left to figure out what has happened to her. Stuck and isolated in a primeval Polish forest and driven by ambition, paranoia, and obsession, the group uncovers secrets about Irena and the stakes of their endeavor become higher and higher. Then, writer and translator Katya Apekina joins Kate Wolf to discuss her latest novel, Mother Doll. The book examines how we can be haunted, sometimes literally, by the choices and experiences of our ancestors. Its main character is an adrift young woman named Zhenia. In the midst of finding out she’s pregnant and splitting up with her husband, Zhenia receives a mysterious call from Paul, a pet psychic who has been communicating with her great-grandmother, Irina. Paul needs Zhenia to translate Irina’s story, from Russian, about her role in the Russian Revolution and why she decided to place Zhenia’s beloved grandmother in an orphanage; Irina meanwhile needs Zhenia to understand her choices, and just perhaps, forgive her.

Kate Wolf speaks with the poet Victoria Chang about her latest collection of poems, With My Back to the World. The book is in deep conversation with the work of the painter Agnes Martin: each poem takes the title of one of Martin’s paintings and is also often accompanied by Chang’s own visual interpretations of Martin’s work. Regarding Martin’s intricate grids and spare compositions inevitably allows Chang to reflect on form, emptiness, nature and light; along with more personal reflections on depression, identity, solitude, violence, and destruction. Chang writes about the act of looking along with the feeling of being seen—and the border between the two, especially within everyday encounters on the internet, where, as she writes, “solitude grabs my phone and takes a selfie.”

Eric Newman speaks with director Morgan Neville about his new film "STEVE! (martin) a documentary in 2 pieces," which explores the legendary comedian's meteoric rise to standup stardom, his abrupt pivot to TV and film, and his return to stage in the present as he and close friend Martin Short prep a new comedy tour. Eric and Morgan discuss the treasure trove of never-before-seen archival that brings Martin's early career to life, what Morgan has learned about fame and the psychology of entertainers from his storied work documenting the lives of cultural luminaries, and much more. writingComedystandupSNLMoviesTVStageactingDocumentaryMorgan NevilleEric NewmanLos Angeles Review of BooksSteve Martinfame      

On this special episode, hosts Medaya Ocher, Kate Wolf, and Eric Newman talk about the ethics and politics of memoir in the wake of several recent controversies. Touching on Blake Butler’s Molly, Emily Gould’s essay in The Cut on her flirtation with divorce, and much more, the gang considers who gets to tell whose stories, how, and why.

Eric Newman speaks with writer Tommy Orange about his novel Wandering Stars, a multigenerational epic that is both prequel and sequel to his award-winning 2018 debut There There. Beginning in the immediate aftermath of the Sand Creek Massacre of 1864, the novel follows a Native family's journey across more than 150 years as they struggle to maintain their connection to one another and to their Cheyenne history and identity in the face of addiction and the brutal legacy of forced assimilation. Also, Gretchen Sisson, author of Relinquished: The Politics of Adoption and the Privilege of American Motherhood, returns to recommend The Turnaway Study bhy Diana Greene Foster.