We were fortunate to have Jared Lemus, author of the story collection Guatemalan Rhapsody, join us to discuss masculinity and empathy in fiction. Jared recently won the PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize for debut story collection, and he was also once Nate’s co-worker. (Which is also a noteworthy achievement.)

Plus, what if the author was peering over your shoulder while you read their book? They aren’t, but what if you intentionally imagined that they were, and it was up to you to figure out what they’re doing with their writing? This is all just hypothetical and not a real topic from our podcast.

Works cited this episode:

How to Commit a Postcolonial Murder, Nina McConigley

Go Tell it on the Mountain, James Baldwin

Giovanni’s Room, James Baldwin

Paradise Lost, John Milton

“The Death of the Author,” Roland Barthes

“The Intentional Fallacy,” W.K. Wimsatt Jr. and M.C. Beardsley

The Sun Also Rises, Ernest Hemingway

The Old Man and the Sea, Ernest Hemingway

A Farewell to Arms, Ernest Hemingway

The Maltese Falcon, Dashiell Hammett

The Epic of Gilgamesh

Beowulf

We’re excited to welcome filmmaker and author John Sayles to the show. John spoke with us about his most recent novel, Crucible, which focuses on the impact that an egocentric automobile magnate’s uninformed plans has on the economy and other populations. Sounds vaguely familiar. We also dove into John’s career, screenwriting vs. writing fiction, and what makes Pittsburgh so great.

Then, our intrepid hosts returned to a topic hinted at last time: how much overlap there is between the books the two of us have read? What a shocker: we both read Moby-Dick!

Crucible by John Sayles is out now

Works cited this episode:

A Moment in the Sun, John Sayles

The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald

Naked Lunch, William S. Burroughs

White Teeth, Zadie Smith

Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, Hunter S. Thompson

One Hundred Years of Solitude, Gabriel García Márquez

A Game of Thrones, George R.R. Martin

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, Stieg Larsson

The Hunger Games, Suzanne Collins

To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee

The Mummy, the Will, and the Crypt, John Bellairs

Want, Lynn Steger Strong

Why We Read Fiction: Theory of Mind and the Novel, Lisa Sunshine

Don’t Skip Out on Me, Willy Vlautin

The Killer is Dying, James Sallis

Pulp Fiction, dir. Quentin Tarantino

The Corrections, Jonathan Franzen

So your manuscript was rejected by another publisher. Will you revise your work to meet the shifting whims of the marketplace, or hold steady to your uncompromising vision, bragging all the while about the rejections you’ve accumulated like tumbleweeds tangled in a barbed wire fence? Meanwhile, we also wonder if one can ever truly read a book alone, or if the various social contexts are inextricable from that experience, like tumbleweeds tangled in a barbed wire fence.

Works cited this episode:

“Why is everyone suddenly obsessed with reframing rejection?” Brittany Allen, LitHub

This Side of Paradise, F. Scott Fitzgerald

The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald

Tender is the Night, F. Scott Fitzgerald

All the Pretty Horses, Cormac McCarthy

Blood Meridian, Cormac McCarthy

“Host,” David Foster Wallace, The Atlantic

“In Defense of the Traditional Review,” Richard Brody, The New Yorker

Middlemarch, George Eliot

Sundial, Catriona Ward

Piranesi, Susanna Clarke

She’s Come Undone, Wally Lamb

I’m Losing You, Bruce Wagner

Don Quixote, Miguel de Cervantes

Moby-Dick, Herman Melville

“The Couch,” Seinfeld, created by Larry David and Jerry Seinfeld

Beloved, Toni Morrison