New Books in Literature

David Lodge meets Franz Kafka meets Stephen King? All attempts to classify The Scapegoat, let alone to summarize what happens in this compelling and terribly troubling first novel by Sara Davis, seem destined to fail. As the author tells Duncan McCargo, her book has not always been understood by readers in the ways she imagined - but then, The Scapegoat (Farrer, Straus and Giroux 2021) is now out of her hands. In this lively conversation full of laughter, Sara explains how in her next book she hopes to achieve "a more intentionally calibrated level of confusion".The Scapegoat tells the story of an unnamed university employee on a campus eerily reminiscent of Stanford, who struggles to maintain his grip on reality after the demise of his father and a series of strange incidents that follow - which Sara insists are nevertheless "real world and non-fantastical".Dear reader, no online blurb can do justice to this unusual book: just listen to Sara's remarkable voice in this podcast, and then buy yourself a copy. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/literature

In this episode, I interview Anahid Nersessian, professor of English at UCLA, about her book, Keats’s Odes: A Lover’s Discourse (University of Chicago Press, 2021).In 1819, the poet John Keats wrote six poems that would become known as the Great Odes. Some of them—“Ode to a Nightingale,” “To Autumn”—are among the most celebrated poems in the English language. Anahid Nersessian here collects and elucidates each of the odes and offers a meditative, personal essay in response to each, revealing why these poems still have so much to say to us, especially in a time of ongoing political crisis. Her Keats is an unflinching antagonist of modern life—of capitalism, of the British Empire, of the destruction of the planet—as well as a passionate idealist for whom every poem is a love poem.The book emerges from Nersessian’s lifelong attachment to Keats’s poetry; but more, it “is a love story: between [Nersessian] and Keats, and not just Keats.” Drawing on experiences from her own life, Nersessian celebrates Keats even as she grieves him and counts her own losses—and she, like Keats, has a passionate awareness of the reality of human suffering, but also a willingness to explore the possibility that the world, at least, could still be saved. Intimate and speculative, this brilliant mix of the poetic and the personal will find its home among the numerous fans of Keats’s enduring work.Britt Edelen is a Ph.D. student in English at Duke University. He focuses on modernism and the relationship(s) between language, philosophy, and literature. You can find him on Twitter or send him an email. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/literature

A story about an alien invasion typically revolves around diplomacy, military strategy, technological one-upmanship, and brinksmanship. But the invaders in Andy Weir’s Project Hail Mary: A Novel (Ballantine Books, 2021) are anything but typical.Rather than a scheming sentient enemy, Weir gives us Astrophage, an opponent who is mindless—and microscopic. Similar to mold, Astrophage lives on—and taps energy from—the surface of stars.“It’s not intelligent in any way. It doesn’t care about us. But it gets to the point where there is so much of it on our sun that the sun is starting to lose luminance—it’s getting dimmer. And a four or five percent dimming of the sun would be fatal to life on Earth,” says Weir, who was a guest on New Books in Science Fiction in 2014 to talk about his runaway bestseller The Martian.An unlikely antagonist deserves an unlikely hero. Enter Ryland Grace, a middle school science teacher, who long ago authored a scientific paper that declared water isn’t a prerequisite for life. This once-ridiculed thesis draws the attention of the woman mustering the worldwide response to Astrophage. Eventually, Ryland finds himself waking from a years-long coma without remembering how or why he got there 12 light years from Earth, where he must figure out how to cure our sun of its infection.While Astrophage is a deadly invader, another extraterrestrial plays a collaborative role. Thanks to the friendship that emerges between Ryland and Rocky, a hard-shelled, spider-like sentient creature with blood of mercury who breathes ammonia and hails from a planet with 29 times the atmospheric pressure of Earth, Project Hail Mary is as much a story about cross-cultural and cross-species exchange as it is a story of science, problem-solving and heroism.Rob Wolf is the host of New Books in Science Fiction and the author of The Alternate Universe and The Escape. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/literature

Political Theorist Robert Bartlett spoke with the New Books in Political Science podcast about two of his recent publications, which take on translating the work of two distinct classical thinkers, Aristotle and Aristophanes. In discussing these thinkers, we talked about two of Aristophanes’ earliest extant plays, The Acharnians and The Knights. We also discussed Aristotle’s text, The Art of Rhetoric. All three of these works focus on the interaction of the words spoken by a public individual, and how those words are also received and considered by an audience, especially the citizens of the state. This conversation took us to ancient Athens and some of the earliest western thinking about the interrelationship between political rhetoric and emotions, and how these connections can be both useful and dangerous, especially for democracies.Bartlett explains that Aristotle’s Art of Rhetoric (University of Chicago Press, 2019) is an important component of Aristotle’s thinking about politics, and one of his later works. The Art of Rhetoric explores the idea and art of persuasion, and Aristotle provides a defense of rhetoric for the polis. Bartlett also examines the way that Aristotle’s Rhetoric, while attacked by Thomas Hobbes in his writing, as he does with so many of Aristotle’s works, actually provides the basis for Hobbes’ understanding of the passions, and thus the basis for Hobbes’ own political theory. In an effort to examine the way that rhetoric and persuasion work, especially within politics, Aristotle delineates a clear account of the passions in Book II of The Rhetoric, and this, combined with the three modes of persuasion (ethos, pathos, logos), are key to considering how rhetoric can be used, for good or ill. It is inevitable that political rhetoric will come forward in societies, however large or small, simple or complex. Thus, Aristotle’s work explains not only how to best make use of rhetoric, it also explains the ways in which rhetoric can be misused, abused, and how it can threaten the society when used corruptly, especially by demagogues. Bartlett’s translation of Aristotle’s text guides the reader with clarity and accessibility, and his interpretative essay explores these important dimensions of understanding how rhetoric works, how it accesses our emotions, and how it can be used corruptly. This is particularly important to consider in our current political climates, in the United States and elsewhere, as we have seen the rise of demagogues and the inflaming of passions within the political sphere. Against Demagogues: What Aristophanes Can Teach Us about the Perils of Populism and the Fate of Democracy (University of California Press, 2020) examines many of the same themes as Aristotle explores in The Rhetoric, but in Aristophanes’ work, Bartlett notes, the use of comedy and narrative skewer the demagogue and his abuse of rhetoric. Once again Bartlett has translated the ancient Greek work, in this case, the two plays, The Acharnians and The Knights, and has provided an interpretative essay of each play. Against Demagogues also provides the contemporary reader with considerations of Aristophanes’ relevance, especially in his attack on demagogues. As Bartlett notes, the term “demagogue” itself only become negative in its valence when Aristophanes uses it this way in The Knights.Lilly J. Goren is professor of political science at Carroll University in Waukesha, WI. She is co-editor of the award winning book, Women and the White House: Gender, Popular Culture, and Presidential Politics (University Press of Kentucky, 2012), as well as co-editor of Mad Men and Politics: Nostalgia and the Remaking of Modern America (Bloomsbury Academic, 2015). Email her comments at lgoren@carrollu.edu or tweet to @gorenlj. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/literature

A young man who turns his desire to join the army into a long stint as a volunteer ambulance driver. A teacher living in an old slum who is the only one brave—or foolish—enough to confront the gangs. A refugee who becomes a community organiser. A woman in a traditional village looking at the new development quickly encroaching on their land. A bored engineer who finds his calling as a crime reporter.These people are subjects of Karachi Vice: Life and Death in a Contested City (Melville House, 2021), the debut by Samira Shackle. Samira travels to Karachi, the home city of her mother, and tells the stories of ordinary people trying to live their lives in the midst of terrible violence: first by the gangs, then by the Taliban.In this interview, I ask Samira to talk about the city of Karachi, and the five people she writes about in her book. We’ll talk about the turning points in the violence there, and what it was like to write about her mother’s home city.Samira Shackle is a freelance British-Pakistani writer and reporter based in London. She is the editor of the New Humanist magazine, and a regular contributor to the Guardian Long Read. She can be followed on Twitter at @samirashackle.You can find more reviews, excerpts, interviews, and essays at The Asian Review of Books, including its review of Karachi Vice. Follow on Facebook or on Twitter at @BookReviewsAsia.Nicholas Gordon is an associate editor for a global magazine, and a reviewer for the Asian Review of Books. He can be found on Twitter at @nickrigordon. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/literature

Author Diana Stevan's sequel to the award-winning Sunflowers Under Fire. Lukia's story continues in Lilacs in the Dust Bowl (Peregrin Publishing, 2021),  an inspirational family saga about love and heartache during the Great Depression.In 1929, when Lukia Mazurets, a widow and a Ukrainian peasant farmer, immigrates to Canada with her four children, she has no idea the stock market is about to crash and throw the world into a deep depression. Falling grain prices, the ravages of nature, and unexpected family conflicts threaten to smash her dreams of family unity in a strange land. And when love knocks on her door again, awakening desire she thought was long gone, Lukia has to choose between having a man in her life or the children she’s sacrificed everything for.Diana Stevan is also the author of the novels, A Cry from The Deep and The Rubber Fence and the novelette The Blue Nightgown. A former family therapist, she is the mother of two daughters and lives with her husband Robert in West Vancouver and on Vancouver Island, British Columbia.Nataliya Shpylova-Saeed is a PhD student in the Department of Slavic and East European Languages and Cultures. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/literature

Based loosely on a tragic real-life incident in 2014, One Kind Favor (WTAW Press, 2021) explores the consequences of the lynching of a young black man in rural North Carolina. After the lynching of Lincoln Lennox is discovered and subsequently covered up in the small fictional community of Cord, North Carolina, the ghosts who frequent the all-in-one bar and consignment shop take on the responsibility of unearthing the truth and acting as the memory for the town that longs to forget and continues to hate. A reimagined Kathy Acker, the groundbreaking literary icon, engages Lincoln in a love triangle and brings a transgressive post-punk esthetic to the mission. The down-the-rabbit-hole satirical storytelling of One Kind Favor, Kevin McIlvoy’s sixth novel, echoes Appalachian ghost stories in which haunting presences will, at last, have their way.Kevin McIlvoy has published five novels, A Waltz (Lynx House Press), The Fifth Station (Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill; paperback, Collier/Macmillan), Little Peg (Atheneum/Macmillan; paperback, Harper Perennial), Hyssop (TriQuarterly Books; paperback, Avon), At the Gate of All Wonder (Tupelo Press); a short story collection, The Complete History of New Mexico (Graywolf Press); and a collection of prose poems and short-short stories, 57 Octaves Below Middle C (Four Way Books). His fiction has appeared in Harper's, Southern Review, Ploughshares, Missouri Review, and other literary magazines. He has taught fiction at Warren Wilson College and New Mexico State University and received a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship in fiction. For twenty-seven years, McIlvoy worked as fiction editor and editor in chief of the literary magazine, Puerto del Sol. He lives in Asheville, NC, plays blues harmonica, takes ballroom dancing classes with his wife, and has been a serious gardener for four decades.I interview authors of beautifully written literary fiction and mysteries, and try to focus on independently published novels, especially by women and others whose voices deserve more attention. If your upcoming or recently published novel might be a candidate for a podcast, please contact me via my website, gpgottlieb dot com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/literature

What more can we learn about legendary American writer Elizabeth Bishop (1911-79), dubbed by Bethany Hicok “the most stunning poet of the twentieth century”, by exploring the wonderful archives of her life and work at Vassar? Why are literary archives coming back into vogue? How do new techniques in digital humanities create novel possibilities for archival-based research and publication? And how can we develop collaborative methods of studying and teaching in literary archives?In this lively, well-crafted podcast, leading Bishop scholar Bethany Hicok of Williams College completely fails to control her infectious enthusiasm for Elizabeth Bishop’s writings. She explains to Duncan McCargo why Bishop has become for her the poet of the pandemic, and above all what happened when she spent three weeks embedded in the Vassar archives with sixteen other scholars and poets – a project that resulted in this beautifully produced and copiously illustrated edited volume.Since Elizabeth Bishop and the Literary Archive is an Open Access publication, you can and should download it (free of charge), so you can read along here.  Duncan McCargo is an eclectic, internationalist political scientist and literature buff: his day job is directing the Nordic Institute of Asian Studies at the University of Copenhagen.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/literature

At a time when we are all confronted by not one, but many crossroads in our modern lives—identity, technology, trust, politics, and a global pandemic—celebrated mythologist and wilderness guide Martin Shaw delivers Smoke Hole: Looking to the Wild in the Time of the Spyglass (Chelsea Green, 2021): three metaphors to help us understand our world, one that is assailed by the seductive promises of social media and shadowed by a health crisis that has brought loneliness and isolation to an all-time high.Smoke Hole is a passionate call to arms and an invitation to use these stories to face the complexities of contemporary life, from fake news, parenthood, climate crises, addictive technology and more. Shaw urges us to reclaim our imagination and untangle ourselves from modern menace, letting these tales be our guide.Dr Martin Shaw is a writer and one of the most widely regarded teachers of the mythic imagination. He is the author of the award winning A Branch From The Lightning Tree, Snowy Tower, and Scatterlings: Getting Claimed in the Age of Amnesia (2016). He also directs the Westcountry School of Myth in the UK, and he devised and led the Oral Tradition course at Stanford University. And he has been published in Orion Magazine, Poetry International, Kenyon Review, Poetry Magazine, and Mississippi Review.Susan Grelock Yusem, PhD, is an independent researcher trained in depth psychology, with an emphasis on community, liberation, and eco-psychologies. Her work centers around interconnection and encompasses regenerative food systems, the arts and conservation. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/literature

Today I talked to Ava Reid about her new book The Wolf and the Woodsman (Harper Voyager, 2021)The wolf, in the title refers to a pagan woman, given to the dreaded Woodsmen to keep her village safe. She’s part of a tithe, sent to satisfy the King, who demands a quota of witches every year.The impoverished villages hidden in the woods are inhabited by women with magical powers, who worship the old Gods. The Woodsmen, a religious paramilitary order who serve the king, bring selected women to the capital, where their eventual fates are a mystery. Évike, the metaphorical wolf of the story, is an illiterate angry young woman, who has been taunted by the villagers. She’s also not a witch. She’s clad in a witch’s wolf pelt and sent with the Woodsmen so that the true witches can remain safe to guard the village. When misfortune besets the Woodsmen, and only the one-eyed Gáspár remains to guard her, she learns that neither she or he are who they appear to be. The trials of their journey reveal latent magic in her and lay bare his misery as the less-favored son of the king. Though Gáspár’s piety and rigidity infuriate Évike, she finds herself drawn to him physically and emotionally.As Évike journeys to the north, and then to her country’s capital, meeting her estranged father and the king himself, she learns that the world is a complex place, with more at stake than she ever realized. Gabrielle Mathieu is the author of the YA fantasy, Girl of Fire, the first in the Berona’s Quest series, and the historical fantasy Falcon series. You can follow her on Twitter to get updates about new podcasts and more @GabrielleAuthor, or visit her website at gabriellemathieu.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/literature