Otherppl with Brad Listi: Books & Culture

Latest Episodes:

Episode 210 — Curtis Sittenfeld Sep 22, 2013

Show notes

Curtis Sittenfeld is the guest. She is the bestselling author of the novels Prep and American Wife, and her new book, Sisterland, is now available in hardcover and ebook from Random House. The paperback edition is due out in Spring 2014. The Boston Globe raves “The power of [Sittenfeld’s] writing and the force of her vision challenge the notion that great fiction must be hard to read. She is a master of dramatic irony, creating fully realized social worlds before laying waste to her heroines’ understanding of them...Her prose [is] a rich delight.” And The New York Times calls it “Psychologically vivid...Sittenfeld’s gifts for portraying the inner lives of her heroines [bring Sisterland] closer, in terms of emotional chiaroscuro, to two classics about pairs of sisters, The Old Wives’ Tale by Arnold Bennett and The Easter Parade by Richard Yates...Sisterland is a testament to the author’s growing depth and assurance as a writer.” Monologue topics: excerpts of my old journal entries, letters, my twenties, How to Fail.

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Episode 209 — Tom Perrotta Sep 18, 2013

Show notes

Tom Perrotta is the guest. He is the author of several acclaimed works of fiction, including Election, Little Children, The Abstinence Teacher, and The Leftovers. His new story collection, Nine Inches, is now available from St. Martin's. Kirkus, in a starred review, says "The acclaimed novelist displays perfect tonal pitch in this story collection, as nobody explores the darker sides of suburbia with a lighter touch." And Publishers Weekly raves "Told with wit and grace, Perrotta's story collection lays bare the shifting relationships we all suffer and seldom comprehend, presenting characters who are ambushed by the hidden intentions of people they thought they knew." Monologue topics: mail, adderall, voicemail, sad and deranged listeners, Brad song, MFAs, student loans, the writing disease.

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Episode 208 — Mitchell S. Jackson Sep 15, 2013

Show notes

Mitchell S. Jackson is the guest. His debut novel, The Residue Years, is now available from Bloomsbury. Jesmyn Ward says "I know these characters well: Champ with his swagger and invincibility, doing all he can to protect his fiercely beating heart. Grace, held together with polish and a prayer, trying to make a way when there isn’t one. Both of them longing, for a better life, a clear path out of their predicaments. I know the language they speak: voices redolent of struggle and the South displaced to our country’s far northwestern corner: Portland, Oregon. A wrenchingly beautiful debut by a writer to be reckoned with, The Residue Years marks the beginning of a most promising career." And Amy Hempel says "In this raw heartwreck of a novel, every bit of personal wisdom is hard-won. Here is Grace, mother of Champ: 'Some people are latecomers to themselves, but who we are will soon enough surround us.' It's a searing claim and prophecy about lives severely tested. The author is entirely persuasive, such that Grace and her sons, given vivid voice, are one of the fictional families I have cared about most." Monologue topics: my adderall experiment, writing, juicing, Dumbo's feather, mild paranoia.

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Episode 207 — Roy Kesey Sep 11, 2013

Show notes

Roy Kesey is the guest. His latest story collection, Any Deadly Thing, is now available from Dzanc Books. Elizabeth Crane says "Roy Kesey's stories in Any Deadly Thing are perfect, masterful portraits of an international cross-section of wise, broken souls—hopeful, brutal, funny as hell, and heart-crushing, every last one." And San Diego City Beat raves "Most short-story writers are like baseball pitchers. The really good ones have four or five different pitches, but most only have two or three that they've perfected and go to over and over again. Kesey is more like a five-tool outfielder: He can do it all. In Any Deadly Thing, he collects stories about lovable losers, tales of hardscrabble redemption, experimental fiction, Bosnian war stories and expat tales set in Beijing apartments and Peruvian jungles. There's no limit to the man's imagination." Monologue topics: mail, focusing the podcast on writing, Molly Ringwald, digressions, fame, voicemail, rapping, blushing.

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Episode 206 — Cal Morgan Sep 08, 2013

Show notes

Cal Morgan is the guest. He is a senior vice president and executive editor at the Harper division of HarperCollins, where he is also the editorial director for Harper Perennial and Harper Paperbacks. Monologue topics: voicemail, animal rights, vegetarianism, Brooklyn, Los Angeles, Miley Cyrus, the cultural conversation, the show's format.

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Episode 205 — Beth Lisick Sep 04, 2013

Show notes

Beth Lisick is the guest. Her new book, Yokohama Threeway and Other Small Shames, is due out from City Lights Publishers on September 24, 2013. Kathleen Hanna raves "This book is fucking great. There is a story in it called ‘PANDA AMBULANCE!!!’ How is Beth Lisick not as famous as David Sedaris?” And Matthew Zapruder says "These short pieces, which at first seem casually constructed and connected, are immediately funny, ironic, personable, embarrassing and oddly appealing. Yet quickly they accumulate into deep emotional resonance. Just a few pages in and I was totally involved with the struggles of this clearly talented, hilariously confused person to be better in her own weird antic backassward ways. Full of indelible phrases (Panda Ambulance!) and painfully irrefutable observations about art, crappy jobs, friendship, wealth, sex, hygiene, booze, motherhood, and so many other things, this book is basically the inverse of those sappy self-discovery memoirs that inevitably arc into hard earned wisdom and self-discovery. This writer has the courage to stay in difficult places, and therefore be truer to life. I laughed and cringed and cared more and more. Thank you, Beth Lisick, it was and continues to be worth all the struggles." Monologue topics: voicemail, Felicity, funny books, Leaving the Atocha Station, Ben Lerner, beets, Gore Vidal.

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Episode 204 — Mark Leibovich Sep 01, 2013

Show notes

Mark Leibovich is the guest. His new book, This Town, is a #1 New York Times bestseller. It's available now from Blue Rider Press. Politico says “Not since Truman Capote’s Answered Prayers knocked New York society on its heels with its thinly fictionalized revelations of real players who had thought the author was their friend has a book so riled a city’s upper echelons.” And The Financial Times says “Like a modern-day Balzac to US capital power players….hilarious….perceptive.” Monologue topics: mail, Max Millwood, voicemail, three-ways.

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Episode 203 — Peter Orner Aug 28, 2013

Show notes

Peter Orner is the guest. His new story collection, Last Car Over the Sagamore Bridge, is now available from Little, Brown. Tom Bissell says “Peter Orner is a true writers’ writer, which is to say a writer writers complain to writers about readers not reading. His novel The Second Coming of Mavala Shikongo (a title, one senses, Orner had to fight hard to retain) ranks high among the best works of fiction about Africa ever written by an American, and his collection Esther Stories contains work to rival that of David Means and Tobias Wolff. Orner’s latest collection, Last Car Over the Sagamore Bridge, is bundled into four sections and includes more than fifty pieces of fiction…Imagine Brief Interviews with Hideous Men written by Alice Munro.” And Booklist says "Orner is an undisputed master of the short short story." Monologue topics: feedback, Max Millwood, Gregory Sherl, the show's format, my dullness and incompetence

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Episode 202 — Lindsay Hunter Aug 25, 2013

Show notes

Lindsay Hunter is the guest. Her new story collection, Don't Kiss Me, is now available from Farrar, Straus, & Giroux. Kirkus Reviews raves “Don’t Kiss Me, Hunter’s second short story collection, is a bold, haunting, and beautiful observation of lives lived outside the scope of the mainstream . . . Hunter near-effortlessly captures the hopes, fears, realizations, regrets, and desires of the uglier, more taboo, and misunderstood side of humanity. Though their worlds may be sordid, Hunter manages to infuse her misfits with incredible amounts of empathy and humor. Instead of repulsed, we often find ourselves rooting from the sidelines. And it’s hard not to voraciously ingest all 26 stories in Don’t Kiss Me, given their breakneck pace, raw emotion, and Hunter’s own propensity for language that pops but never fizzles . . . [Don’t Kiss Me] is transgressive without being navel-gazing, confrontational without being aggressive. But above all, it contains a whole lot of Hunter’s bloody, beating heart.” And Publishers Weekly says “Overall these stories land with a wet slap—messy and confrontational. They demand your horrified attention, and they reward it with exaggerated and irresistible humanity.” Monologue topics: voicemail, mail.

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Episode 201 — Gregory Sherl Aug 21, 2013

Show notes

Gregory Sherl is the guest. His new book Monogamy Songs is now available from Future Tense. The Huffington Post raves "The problem with post-confessionalism is that its most uninspired iterations have been sprinkled across America for the past quarter-century; that is, the problem with post-confessionalism isn't post-confessionalism, it's post-confessionalists. No longer: Gregory Sherl is the post-confessionalist we've been looking for, which is to say that there's nothing smarmy, self-important, or false about these poems or this poet. Sherl is that rare author who can speak earnestly about the vagaries, pleasures, and discouragements of living and still charm your pants off. You'll enjoy walking around his head a bit, I guarantee." And Rain Taxi says "...Sherl has written a book full of love and surprising emotional power." Monologue topics: facial hair, signifiers, head scarves, hard-won truth, wisdom, messiah complexes, author photos.

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