The novel spans time from the 1970s through the 1990s, in China as well as the United States, and centers family secrets and miscommunication along with the impact of pursuing one's dreams. It's a haunting, brutal read and one that proves unforgettable for us both.įollow the show on instagram and twitter back for a new season! Our guest this week is Belinda Huijuan Tang, author of the debut novel A Map for the Missing. We are taken to rural Mississippi in the days before Hurricane Katrina, as Esch and her brothers live their lives and prepare for the oncoming storm. Like his own novel, Ward's book shows a young family in peril and the means they take to survive, but the setting differs entirely. Joe chose Jesmyn Ward's landmark novel SALVAGE THE BONES for his episode. At the same time there is a real tenderness and creativity underlining these characters, buoying everything with a sense of hope. Told by twenty year old Aleks, former musical prodigy turned patriarch of his young family, we are shown the limits of human endurance as the family deals with medical crises, desperate poverty, and one heartbreak after another. Together we chat about all things crafting a poetry collection, why the United States struggles with creating a grief culture, the triumphs and pitfalls of high school literary opinions, and so much more.īooks discussed: One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Milk Blood Heat by Dantiel Moniz, Magical Negro by Morgan Parkerįollow the show on instagram and twitter guest is Joe Meno, author of eleven books and most recently, BOOK OF EXTRAORDINARY TRAGEDIES, a family saga taking place in Chicago's south side. There are some spoilers for this episode, but none that take away from the integrity of the novel. The book is luminous at a prose level and never ceases to shock at every turn. This book, hardly two hundred pages in length, delves deep into what it means to be a Black girl, and to be both in and out of a community, and the complicated social dynamics it takes to perpetuate said community. Saeed chose a book stemming from his adolescence and one that continues to generate deeper meaning for him, Toni Morrison's SULA. Spanning topics from the legacy of Black artists and entertainers to visions of the end of the world as a chaotic rave, Saeed brings every feeling to the forefront and never turns his back to the hard questions.

Our guest this week is Saeed Jones, the acclaimed memoirist and poet, whose recent collection ALIVE AT THE END OF THE WORLD takes on both individual and collective grief in the midst of a nation in crisis.

Franny e zooey salinger