Speaker 1: This book is excellent. This book is really a masterpiece,
Speaker 1: and it's absolutely insane to talk about it in the
Speaker 1: context of the other books. For you, I am dead serious.
Speaker 2: Oh my god.
Speaker 3: When he sat down to write it, he was like,
Speaker 3: this is going to be long.
Speaker 2: I like the writing of this book.
Speaker 4: What I don't like are the words.
Speaker 1: He described something else as a sinus through which infection
Speaker 1: was bred.
Speaker 2: Was that when the went into her sign no no, no.
Speaker 4: That was Oh she didn't realize this man was doing ABC.
Speaker 4: She didn't realize this man was doing that, but she
Speaker 4: did know how to ride.
Speaker 2: His Hello everyone, and welcome back to Mean Book Club
Speaker 2: Season twenty.
Speaker 1: Is it really yeah? Big twow, that's really cool twenty you.
Speaker 2: Know, but it feels like I have aged that much.
Speaker 4: And honestly, the past six months, so much has happened.
Speaker 1: I would say not for me. I'm like, so I
Speaker 1: look more youthful than ever thanks to I feel.
Speaker 3: Like maybe twenty nine is my correct age. I yeh
Speaker 3: feel not. Don't ask me to do something to.
Speaker 2: Physically, I would say, I feel thirty two. I feel like,
Speaker 2: you know, like that's the age where I stopped aging,
Speaker 2: and I refuse to accept aging. But here we go.
Speaker 2: We have an amazing line of books this season, and
Speaker 2: this first one is The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen.
Speaker 3: Oh wow, they read that. They are really so.
Speaker 1: It's a lot to fit in a brain.
Speaker 4: They're so pretentious.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they must have graduated in high school. Yeah all
Speaker 2: these things, that's what you're thinking. But let's let's introduce ourselves.
Speaker 1: I just thought that they must have graduated school. Joke.
Speaker 1: That is a burn because sometimes we get little mean reviews,
Speaker 1: and one of them was like, do so like they
Speaker 1: haven't even graduated high.
Speaker 3: School, which is so rude to everyone with a GED.
Speaker 3: It's so good everyone without a GED.
Speaker 1: It's just yeah, I know a lot of really awesome
Speaker 1: eleventh graders who may or may not graduate someday. I
Speaker 1: don't know.
Speaker 2: I don't know. That's weird.
Speaker 1: You're not a teacher job.
Speaker 2: I don't know any.
Speaker 4: But like the contest, why are you hanging out with kids?
Speaker 2: I do know.
Speaker 1: Some young people, and I know that they're great people
Speaker 1: and they're smart, whether or not they go on to
Speaker 1: their eleventh and twelve years of high school.
Speaker 2: Did you think there's not eleventh grader reep or you
Speaker 2: keep saying eleven, Like eleventh to me is like, oh,
Speaker 2: they're not eighteen. That's what to me you're saying. You're
Speaker 2: trying to say they're not.
Speaker 3: Or you told a weird lie. You're either a creep
Speaker 3: or a liar.
Speaker 1: I guess I just didn't want to insult I school
Speaker 1: students are currently in high school and they're gonna graduate
Speaker 1: in eleventh grade.
Speaker 2: Is like, you know, I feel like we should be
Speaker 2: more concerned about insulting people who just didn't graduate high
Speaker 2: school and that are still very smart people.
Speaker 1: We might insults.
Speaker 2: Okay, if if you've shown up at the We're rain Okay,
Speaker 2: get ready, this is kind of might be a target tonight.
Speaker 4: Wait, can I just say that. When Johanna started to
Speaker 4: explain it, I was like, Johnna, everyone knows, everyone knows this,
Speaker 4: But that's crazy. And so maybe I am stupid because
Speaker 4: I don't think every listener is just reading all of
Speaker 4: the reviews of the podcast and then.
Speaker 3: In arms.
Speaker 2: So maybe emails.
Speaker 1: There was a really mean one that came in about
Speaker 1: me recently. We should read that at some point.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I can empower it. All right, great, we'll come
Speaker 2: back again. We have read it.
Speaker 1: I feel like it's a different.
Speaker 2: Oh, it's a different one. Okay, that's fine.
Speaker 3: All right, let me introduce myself because I have some
Speaker 3: explaining to do. Okay, I'm Clara. You might not recognize
Speaker 3: my voice. It's because I'm sick, and if it's bothering you,
Speaker 3: I just want everyone to know. I sent a voice
Speaker 3: message earlier today to the other three hosts and said,
Speaker 3: it's your call. Do you think this is acceptable? And
Speaker 3: they unanimously were like, you're fine too.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you're sick. Quote so yeah quote.
Speaker 3: If you're upset about my voice, please take it up
Speaker 3: with these three or my level.
Speaker 4: I need everyone to know that in this voice note,
Speaker 4: she said explicitly, I'm not playing this up and then
Speaker 4: laughed a little bit, which indicates to me that typically
Speaker 4: she would it's like hello, But she.
Speaker 2: Was like, I'm not even doing bad.
Speaker 3: It sounded so bad I had to clarify that it
Speaker 3: wasn't fake. I was honestly priced by everyone's reaction.
Speaker 2: I don't know some this you. You already had a
Speaker 2: unique voice, so I honestly feel like everyone was going
Speaker 2: to know this was you anyway, because they would just
Speaker 2: be like normal.
Speaker 3: Okay, but they'd be like, what's up? Is she okay?
Speaker 2: Okay, sure, sure, well, thank you for telling them they.
Speaker 1: Were our listeners.
Speaker 2: And so again we are the host of Me and
Speaker 2: book Club. We read New York Times bestsellers that you
Speaker 2: tell us like should they be because you read it
Speaker 2: for book club? You hated them? Whatever it is, I
Speaker 2: along with Clara and one of your hosts, Sarah.
Speaker 1: Burton, I'm your other host, Jonas Crabis.
Speaker 4: And I'm your other host it's Brina b.
Speaker 2: Jordan and twenty seasons. Yeah, we've gotten that intro in
Speaker 2: the bag, I say, Clara.
Speaker 4: Clara just made it crazy. Though we have an order.
Speaker 3: Clara made it crazy. We straight went straight into the
Speaker 3: intros right after we said the book. There was no
Speaker 3: chit chat about is that hurt anybody's feelings? There wasn't
Speaker 3: a twenty minute tweet.
Speaker 1: I see how long we've been recording. It was in
Speaker 1: twenty minute.
Speaker 3: All right, I know that.
Speaker 2: All right, guys, corrections Jonathan Franzen, Why the hell are
Speaker 2: we reading this? Okay? Well, it comes from one of
Speaker 2: our patrons, who an elite, an elite patron, he so
Speaker 2: elite that he gave us so munchy much money that
Speaker 2: we could not refuse but to read his book and
Speaker 2: that's something you guys can do too. Okay, check out
Speaker 2: our patreon. Become a patron, and we don't say no
Speaker 2: to you.
Speaker 1: We can't take you anything you want, including this nine hundred.
Speaker 4: Page It is required to be a New York Times
Speaker 4: best seller.
Speaker 2: It is that is a realm.
Speaker 1: I wouldn't say, that's true. Did you listen to our
Speaker 1: whole last season?
Speaker 2: Okay?
Speaker 3: Those listen.
Speaker 4: It is a requirement. Mistakes are made, but that doesn't
Speaker 4: mean you just changed the whole foundation of who you are.
Speaker 2: True, that's true.
Speaker 1: All right. I guess we're easily tricked, so you can
Speaker 1: get us in all kinds of ways.
Speaker 2: Yeah, please don't yeah, a little photo way. Okay, this
Speaker 2: is what George Saved Davis said. He said, I want
Speaker 2: you to read the corrections by Jonathan Franzen because I
Speaker 2: genuinely want to feel like I'm not going crazy. And
Speaker 2: I hope you hate this book as much as I did.
Speaker 2: Around the time this book came out, it was considered
Speaker 2: one of the most important novels of the twenty first century,
Speaker 2: and every inane paragraph was like a woodpecker on my
Speaker 2: damn brain. Why in the name of God did so
Speaker 2: many people lap this up. The book isn't a word
Speaker 2: mid Fransen writes middleing novels about middle class white people
Speaker 2: in the Midwest. Did you see what he did? Oh? Wow?
Speaker 2: Next steep pages on how much a recliner means to
Speaker 2: an ol Man, bird watch, eating and youth groups. It's
Speaker 2: like a life laugh love poster. But for an MFA philosopher.
Speaker 1: I like the twist on it.
Speaker 2: George, this is actually a pretty long He goes off.
Speaker 1: Sort of like the corrections. Yeah, there's two more full paragraph.
Speaker 2: You know, honestly, George, you are given friends in with this.
Speaker 2: But do you want me to keep going with everything
Speaker 2: he said? He does? I think there's pretty good choice words.
Speaker 1: Yeah, his middle brow writing warranted this elitist, priggish attitude.
Speaker 1: That's pretty good.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: He has all the trappings of an upperclass snob and
Speaker 1: none of the actual style or pinage.
Speaker 2: George frans And typifies the bespectaled nerds that should have
Speaker 2: been shoved in more lockers and kept there until they
Speaker 2: developed actual character instead of spineless douchary. He's like if
Speaker 2: Brian from Family Guy suddenly came to life and somehow
Speaker 2: lost eddy charm he had left.
Speaker 3: Wow. Wow, Family Guy.
Speaker 4: That's really evocative statement, and I do understand it one
Speaker 4: hundred percent.
Speaker 1: Mm hmm.
Speaker 2: So this is this this George He's he's, he's he's
Speaker 2: the writer himself. I would say, given what he wrote,
Speaker 2: Oh definitely he does.
Speaker 1: He recommends. The only thing tangentially related to frans and
Speaker 1: that I would recommend is the Characters Welcome YouTube channel
Speaker 1: channel called pretentious. Author tries character comedy. So we'll have to.
Speaker 1: If you guys are looking for something to watch after this,
Speaker 1: check that out. I know, I will, I know, I will.
Speaker 1: Back to you Sarah.
Speaker 2: All right, guys, so how did you read this book? Because,
Speaker 2: like we all discussed while picking books for the season,
Speaker 2: this is the length of this one typically would have
Speaker 2: had us throwing it to the side where we not
Speaker 2: forced our backs against the wall.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: I'll start. I found a BBC radio play far shorter
Speaker 2: than the actual book, so I actually I actually listened
Speaker 2: to that first, and then I went to the book,
Speaker 2: which I kind of switched between audible and you know,
Speaker 2: skimming on the digital library version that I had, and
Speaker 2: I feel like I got it all, but did I
Speaker 2: miss some chunks? Definitely?
Speaker 4: I feel like we had Oh sorry, I just feel
Speaker 4: like our journeys were so similar. I started with the
Speaker 4: e book and I got to about fifteen percent of
Speaker 4: the way through, but then I realized that we were
Speaker 4: recording today, and so then I found that BBC broadcast
Speaker 4: and I listened to it in its entirety, of course
Speaker 4: on three point three speed, not quite three point five.
Speaker 4: And then I went back and I read parts of
Speaker 4: I like, looked for parts of the book that I
Speaker 4: found interesting in the audio podcast to see how it
Speaker 4: actually played out.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that was it. It was interesting. I mean, I
Speaker 2: actually really do think if this book is too much
Speaker 2: for you that like the BBC, I do recommend the
Speaker 2: BBC audio play and I and then I and then
Speaker 2: going uh. It made a lot of it more palatable
Speaker 2: to me because I was like, I had a basis
Speaker 2: to know what was going on, and I was like, oh,
Speaker 2: there's some parts I found interesting, so I was okay
Speaker 2: to hear more about it in the book version.
Speaker 4: So that is interesting because I actually totally disagree.
Speaker 2: Oh really, I like the BBC.
Speaker 4: I loved it for the purpose of ingesting the book
Speaker 4: in advance of this podcast, but I felt like it
Speaker 4: was it did it in ways an injustice to the book.
Speaker 4: It was so shortened down that it was like just
Speaker 4: the plot and the plot itself not so compelling.
Speaker 1: Crazy to say that taking something from twenty one hours
Speaker 1: to three would be an.
Speaker 2: It. I was fighting. I think it felt goofier in
Speaker 2: some ways of the BBC, like because of the plot,
Speaker 2: but like I honestly, there's god damn so much you
Speaker 2: can cut out of this book that I was, yeah,
Speaker 2: totally fine with the cuts, and I I did enjoy
Speaker 2: the BBC. Okay, sorry Clara John And how did you
Speaker 2: guys consume this?
Speaker 3: I listened to the audible unabridged for about five days
Speaker 3: straight and made no progress of all. Then I listened
Speaker 3: to the audio play.
Speaker 1: All right, makeup? Yeah, do you want to keep going?
Speaker 1: She's past you dye take over to make up for
Speaker 1: all of you. I read it twice. I read it, no,
Speaker 1: jata what I mean? I read it once when it
Speaker 1: came out, and so.
Speaker 4: When you were eleven?
Speaker 1: No, I guess is that really when it came out.
Speaker 2: It came out in two thousand and one.
Speaker 1: Okay, well when it reached me, which was college, and
Speaker 1: I assumed it was a new release, because I assumed
Speaker 1: the entire world revolved around me. I guess it's like
Speaker 1: I've discovered a book. It must be now. But you know,
Speaker 1: the funny thing is I vaguely remembered it. I know
Speaker 1: I have it on the bookshelf, and I was like,
Speaker 1: I feel like it's one of those books that I
Speaker 1: never read but everyone was talking about. But then when
Speaker 1: I listened to the audio book, I was like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: I did read this book because the part of it
Speaker 1: came back to me. So you know it's been read
Speaker 1: everybody a lot.
Speaker 4: Oh well, okay, and just just because you did spie
Speaker 4: us a little and make fun of us, did you
Speaker 4: finish your listen?
Speaker 1: I did? I did? Oh? I did, Like right before
Speaker 1: we started it went to the little the the end
Speaker 1: that it was like this has been corrections, and I
Speaker 1: was like, I made it all right?
Speaker 2: Okay, yeah, well that fired on me.
Speaker 4: Johnna was shaking her head. No, furiously, I didn't know
Speaker 4: what you were.
Speaker 1: Going to say about me or do, but I didn't
Speaker 1: like where.
Speaker 2: It was going. All right, all right, well you know
Speaker 2: you got to try, and you know you miss all
Speaker 2: the shots you don't take kind of thing. All right, Well,
Speaker 2: would you guys like to hear Sarah sums it up.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, all right.
Speaker 2: I apologize for the length, but we're going to go
Speaker 2: through this. I need someone to play Sarah's thoughts.
Speaker 1: I would love to.
Speaker 2: Okay, Johnna, you're Sarah's thoughts. Then I need somebody to
Speaker 2: read what's in bold, which is the actual summary.
Speaker 4: I'd love to. All right, I feel I feel like
Speaker 4: Claire should not.
Speaker 2: Claire, shut up, Claire, don't cough, shut up.
Speaker 3: Treat me all right, a little bit, alright.
Speaker 2: So just this is the summary, and on top of
Speaker 2: hearing of the summary, you also get to hear my thoughts.
Speaker 2: While writing the summary and action.
Speaker 1: Pressed for time, a condition that seemed both trivial and existential,
Speaker 1: Sarah Comma resigned herself to the task of summarizing the corrections,
Speaker 1: a novel whose resistance to simplification felt ironically like its
Speaker 1: most authentic quality, In a decision that felt at once
Speaker 1: cynical and strangely inevitable, she began writing the summary in
Speaker 1: the tone of mass market chit Lin, an uneasy nod
Speaker 1: to Oprah's book Club, whose endorsement friends and had once
Speaker 1: publicly bristled at an action Sarah quietly understood she would
Speaker 1: never have the ball undertake, she was not above seeking
Speaker 1: approval from the mass market masses.
Speaker 4: The corrections chick lit addition, Enid Lambert just wants one
Speaker 4: perfect family Christmas, but her adult kids are a hot mess.
Speaker 4: Chips a disgrace, professor turned ex pat heart throb, Denise
Speaker 4: is a sexy chef, Cotton a forbidden fling, and Gary's
Speaker 4: a depressive control freak unraveling in suburbia.
Speaker 1: The summation struck her as brief, perhaps even charming in
Speaker 1: its economy, though almost immediately she began second guessing its tone,
Speaker 1: its intent, its very existence. She hoped they'd like the writing,
Speaker 1: which was, of course, another way of admitting she still
Speaker 1: cared far too much about being liked.
Speaker 4: Meanwhile, their father, Alfred is quietly losing himself to dementia
Speaker 4: talking to his feces, adding emotional chaos to the already
Speaker 4: messy holiday reunion.
Speaker 1: Sarah wondered, not for the first time, whether including the
Speaker 1: detail about feces was necessary or merely gratuitous and appeal
Speaker 1: to the kind of base humor she pretended to disdain
Speaker 1: but increasingly relied upon. Was it honest, was it lazy
Speaker 1: or worse? Was it the exact kind of thing a
Speaker 1: person writes when they have quietly given up on being
Speaker 1: taken seriously.
Speaker 4: Darkly funny, and secretly steamy. The Corrections is a dysfunctional
Speaker 4: family dramedy about desire, denial, and the impossible dream of
Speaker 4: going home again.
Speaker 1: She wrote the last word of the summary at five
Speaker 1: point forty five pm. She noted the time because the
Speaker 1: digital clock's green numerals seemed to mock her sense of accomplishment,
Speaker 1: and in the sudden vacuum left by a completed obligation,
Speaker 1: her consciousness strifted with the peculiar aimlessness that it fliics
Speaker 1: the modern knowledge worker, until she found herself engaged in
Speaker 1: what could only be described as a kind of performative
Speaker 1: self gratification, another type of button pushing, conducted with the
Speaker 1: same ironic distance she might have brought to watching a
Speaker 1: Ken Burns documentary about suburban on we at the turn
Speaker 1: of the century.
Speaker 2: Really, Sarah, it's really, really long, really good.
Speaker 1: I think it needed to be.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I agree. The I have to take issue with
Speaker 2: one thing, the.
Speaker 1: Arrant comma at the beginning that I put it out.
Speaker 2: Okay, things had as I and then I changed the tense. Okay,
Speaker 2: I'll admit it.
Speaker 1: You.
Speaker 2: You don't disdain poop humor. That's fair, that's fair, but
Speaker 2: me and very nicely, it is my favorite humor and
Speaker 2: you're absolutely correct about it.
Speaker 1: And we get you. Guys.
Speaker 4: Just as I read the book and like they talked
Speaker 4: about season would never stop talking about sex, I was like,
Speaker 4: maybe this is what it would look like if Sarah
Speaker 4: wrote a pretentious novel lots of lots of sex.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's true.
Speaker 2: It did. I mean I did. I think I had
Speaker 2: appreciation for those moments as well. I'm not gonna I'm
Speaker 2: not gonna lie, but yeah, you get it.
Speaker 1: I was.
Speaker 2: It was hard to It's kind of hard and then
Speaker 2: also easy to write a summary. It's funny when you
Speaker 2: shorten what it is and I'm like, wow, not much happens.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's true, yeah, but uh.
Speaker 2: Yet there was there's so much in this Johnna, do
Speaker 2: you have I do a pairing or n all right,
Speaker 2: it's time for Johna's.
Speaker 1: Jeff, but it's Johnna's jugs.
Speaker 3: Hello, what I'm loving it nice.
Speaker 1: I like that. We'll keep that in. Okay.
Speaker 2: I do think we need times because it didn't read
Speaker 2: the first.
Speaker 4: Time just a little mouse.
Speaker 1: Okay. So at first I was like, do I do
Speaker 1: something Christmas? Ye, because it's surrounded. The whole book is
Speaker 1: about this adult family coming back to Saint Jude for Christmas.
Speaker 1: If you are listening to this at Christmas time, I
Speaker 1: will always recommend a mad Elf. They do a winter
Speaker 1: Christmas logger. It's really great, highly alcoholic. I've recommended on
Speaker 1: the cast before, but that's not when we're doing this,
Speaker 1: and that's not what we're talking about. The thing is
Speaker 1: I went to Barbruno, which is in my neighborhood, alone
Speaker 1: one day and I got a bowl of soup and
Speaker 1: an absolutely incredible cocktail. And it was so incredible that
Speaker 1: I took a picture of the menu to steal it.
Speaker 1: I am telling you you want to have this cocktail.
Speaker 1: The reason it makes sense is they're on a cruise
Speaker 1: at one point, and this is the kind of drink
Speaker 1: they would have on the cruise. But it's also the
Speaker 1: perfect drink of summer. The drink was called rose all day,
Speaker 1: and then the little tagline was, well you accept this rose.
Speaker 1: I did, And here are the ingredients. No, I don't
Speaker 1: know what. I don't know obviously their proportion, because enough
Speaker 1: I don't know their proportions because all I did was
Speaker 1: drink it. But I will tell you the drink was
Speaker 1: bright purple, so keep that in mind when you're mixing it.
Speaker 1: It is tequila. They recommend Herodura silver, but you guys know,
Speaker 1: just tequila. Okay. Hibiscus tough to get, but I think
Speaker 1: that's the thing that makes it purple. Okay. And it's
Speaker 1: not a sweet and hibiscus. I heard the bartender say
Speaker 1: that to someone else. I didn't speak to anyone there, lime,
Speaker 1: mint and rose. Holy shit. I got to actually one
Speaker 1: right after wow wow yeah, and I just.
Speaker 3: Know how Yeah, how'd you describe the flavor?
Speaker 1: Like?
Speaker 3: Can you compare it to the profile?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 1: I mean it is like tasting it is sweet because
Speaker 1: you have a nice rose and you can taste the rose,
Speaker 1: the pop of the rose, but you're also having a
Speaker 1: tequila based drink. So I was also thinking about it.
Speaker 1: I was like, it's basically like a wine and a
Speaker 1: shot with every glass, and it's purple, and it is refreshing.
Speaker 1: I mean, it goes down really smooth.
Speaker 3: So does hibiscus come in some sort of liquefied for all?
Speaker 3: My understanding is that that's a flower.
Speaker 1: That is my understanding. So I don't know if they
Speaker 1: crushed a flower up. I guess it's a little hard.
Speaker 2: Not a liqueur. There is hibiscus liquor.
Speaker 1: Okay, that I bet it's hibiscus liqueur. As long as
Speaker 1: it's purple and unsweetened, that's what you're looking for.
Speaker 2: There's also extract. It's a cranberry like flavor.
Speaker 1: Okay, you guys, if you have a party and you
Speaker 1: want to wow people with your cocktails, a rose all day.
Speaker 2: And then also read The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen and
Speaker 2: just talk about it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I must have like a book club or something. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's crazy. It's crazy.
Speaker 3: The referenced jin a munch Fields. It's a lot of drinking.
Speaker 2: A lot of drinking happened because just a lot of words.
Speaker 2: All right. This book, uh, this book, The Corrections. It
Speaker 2: came out in the week before nine to eleven in
Speaker 2: two thousand and one, and it spent fifty weeks on
Speaker 2: the New York Times bestseller list. It got beyond that,
Speaker 2: you know, because sometimes we read books that like barely
Speaker 2: make the best seller list, but no, this one is
Speaker 2: a widespread critical acclaim. It won the two thousand and
Speaker 2: one National Book Award for Fiction. The two thousand and
Speaker 2: two James Tate Black Memorial Prize for Fiction. It was
Speaker 2: a finalist for the National Books Critics Circle Award, the
Speaker 2: Penn Faulkner Award, and the two thousand and two Pultzer
Speaker 2: Prize for Fiction. A finalist, just to clarify so, and
Speaker 2: probably most importantly, it was a Oprah Winfrey Book Club
Speaker 2: selection two thousand and one, which is where the fun began,
Speaker 2: because there's a bit of a feud France and was
Speaker 2: feuding with Oprah.
Speaker 4: Can you imagine feuding with Oprah? Not somewhere do you
Speaker 4: get off?
Speaker 3: Yeah? And why why you think you're so much better
Speaker 3: than hers?
Speaker 2: That's funny.
Speaker 1: I could easily imagine feuding with her, but I think
Speaker 1: it would be a fool's Errand but I could imagine
Speaker 1: being pissed.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so what happened?
Speaker 4: She want to recognize you?
Speaker 2: He won?
Speaker 1: Lets her dogs everywhere on set? That's what I heard.
Speaker 1: Oh everywhere?
Speaker 2: That's that's there's.
Speaker 3: No hold on, hold on? Okay, I think how many
Speaker 3: dogs does she have?
Speaker 1: Like?
Speaker 3: Maybe it's not on purpose, Maybe it's like, I'm really
Speaker 3: busy getting my show ready. Could someone please look after
Speaker 3: my dogs?
Speaker 2: Is this the assistant's fault. Let's blame the assistant. But
Speaker 2: why why the few?
Speaker 5: Sure?
Speaker 2: What I'm saying, I think is what you guys are
Speaker 2: all asking in your minds, even maybe not with your words,
Speaker 2: but in your minds. So in an interview with National
Speaker 2: on NPR's Fresh Air, he said he was worried that
Speaker 2: the Oprah logo on the cover would dissuade men from
Speaker 2: reading the book. He said, I had some hope of
Speaker 2: actually reaching a male audience, and I reader in signing lines.
Speaker 2: Now the bookstores say, if I hadn't heard you, I
Speaker 2: would have been put off by the fact it was
Speaker 2: an Oprah pick. I figured those books are for women.
Speaker 2: I would never touch it. So that was the reason why.
Speaker 4: He was That is so spec did after having read this.
Speaker 2: So yeah, So I think then she removed it from
Speaker 2: the booklest but I will say eventually, I guess he
Speaker 2: came back crawling and for his next novel, Freedom, she
Speaker 2: did pick it and they did kind of make up.
Speaker 2: But still pretty interesting. Oh.
Speaker 4: Also, now I feel like I can imagine feuding with
Speaker 4: Oprah and it's me starting it right now. I can't
Speaker 4: believe she ever forgave him. That's ridiculous. Look, I do
Speaker 4: think a bad move.
Speaker 2: I wouldn't have maybe said it publicly, but I do
Speaker 2: think he's probably right that having the Oprah thing. Would
Speaker 2: like that sounds true if that makes sense, that maybe
Speaker 2: fewer men would buy it if it had Oprah on
Speaker 2: the cover.
Speaker 4: Sure, And if you don't respect women enough to want
Speaker 4: them to read your.
Speaker 2: Book instead, yeah, that's that.
Speaker 3: I feel like he could think it. But to go
Speaker 3: out and.
Speaker 2: See, yeah, it wasn't It's not something you say in
Speaker 2: a public interview. Not not very bright. One final award.
Speaker 2: I must mention that this book was shortlisted for the
Speaker 2: Bad Sex and Fiction Award, which is a literary review
Speaker 2: They award books to the authors they deemed have produced
Speaker 2: the worst description of sex scenes in a novel. And
Speaker 2: I went and looked at the previous winners and it
Speaker 2: wasn't a book we had read. But I was like,
Speaker 2: maybe we should take a look at this list in
Speaker 2: the future.
Speaker 3: Is it an annual award?
Speaker 2: It is, it's an annual award. I think. I went
Speaker 2: and looked at what it was. I can't even read.
Speaker 2: Maybe a little later I'll read this. There they there
Speaker 2: was this section that gave it that honor, and it
Speaker 2: was it was a piece of furniture, chip and a
Speaker 2: piece of furniture. Yes, exactly, that was exactly so so
Speaker 2: you see it, you get it. We can maybe read
Speaker 2: it later. Will keep going, right now, Let's talk a
Speaker 2: little bit about Jonathan Franz and himself. He was born
Speaker 2: in nineteen fifty nine in Illinois. He grew up in
Speaker 2: the Saint Louis suburban of Missouri. Obviously Saint Louis, Missouri
Speaker 2: wrote that weirdly, my apologies. He graduated with high honors
Speaker 2: from Swarthmore College degree in Germany in nineteen eighty one.
Speaker 2: Swahthomore is a Philly college, so that makes more sensus.
Speaker 2: So why he had so much Philly in there? And
Speaker 2: Fulbright scholarship.
Speaker 3: That used to be a women'sool getting there.
Speaker 2: No, there's three college, No Swathmore and oh goodness, I
Speaker 2: should know this, Bryn Mah, Bryn Mar. Really, I think
Speaker 2: you're thinking of brid Mar. So so there are three colleges?
Speaker 2: Is that I like in a tri college consortium and
Speaker 2: it's Swathmore, Bridmar and Haverford and brid Mare is the.
Speaker 3: Well I was just college. You went to school that
Speaker 3: was like majority women and still is so disrespectful of
Speaker 3: that it would just be interesting.
Speaker 2: It would be interesting. No. No, but the people say, dude,
Speaker 2: know who went to Swathmore. I I kind of do
Speaker 2: see the friends in like it kind of like made
Speaker 2: sense to me, this kind of identity. I was like, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: that makes sense. It was one of those that you like,
Speaker 2: make your own kind of like make your own majors
Speaker 2: and kind of do whatever. You know, real laisse fair
Speaker 2: real like fartsy artsy, fartsy liberal arts. Anyway, that's that's
Speaker 2: just some intel. Okay. So he got a full Bright scholarship,
Speaker 2: so you know, obviously he did well in academics. He
Speaker 2: well so he immediately even though so you know he
Speaker 2: did all that stuff in German, he was like, actually,
Speaker 2: I'm going to write a novel. So he was working
Speaker 2: as a research assistant at Harvard University's Department of Earth
Speaker 2: and Planetary Sciences, which he co authored a dozen papers.
Speaker 2: I don't know how his background led him there. I'm
Speaker 2: assuming there's some connection because that just was a fact
Speaker 2: that was presented to me and doesn't make sense. But
Speaker 2: while he was doing that, he wrote his first novel,
Speaker 2: The twenty Seventh City nineteen eighty seventy, moved to NYC
Speaker 2: with his wife, Valerie Cornell, who's also writer great and he
Speaker 2: sold that novel. He and Valerie were together for about
Speaker 2: fourteen married for fourteen years, just Sidepark.
Speaker 3: Really easy to move to New York when you're married already.
Speaker 3: I would imagine, why are we're doing this together? If
Speaker 3: he can make it, he can make it anywhere. Although
Speaker 3: to do with moving alone, that was a.
Speaker 2: Bit of why their marriage fell apart, because I think
Speaker 2: he had more success than her and that started the
Speaker 2: release stefs from his perspective.
Speaker 3: But yeah, who would like that?
Speaker 2: Why his dad did have Alzheimer's Just saying that's relevant
Speaker 2: to and passed away that's relevant to the story, and
Speaker 2: just his writing style, I would just say, he wrote.
Speaker 2: He was asked by The Guardian to contribute what he
Speaker 2: believed were tense, serious roles to a Bye Bye verse
Speaker 2: bagging writers, and he included treating the reader as a
Speaker 2: friend and avoiding the Internet, which seems impossible at this
Speaker 2: time to do. I don't understand it, but I there's
Speaker 2: a lot more to friends than I'm sure. But I
Speaker 2: ran out of time because I spent so much of
Speaker 2: it on that summary. So I think we can just
Speaker 2: get into the book, I will say, and I'm I
Speaker 2: think I probably won't be the only person with this issue.
Speaker 2: I know some stuff is like moved around in the
Speaker 2: BBC audio play, and i'm I know I'm going to
Speaker 2: get confused a few times about like what when things
Speaker 2: happen in the book for his audio play.
Speaker 1: I'll be here to correct you.
Speaker 2: Correct love it, love it, But just quick our review
Speaker 2: the characters, because this is mostly around them. These family members.
Speaker 2: There's the Lambert's. Alfred Lambert is the patriarch, a retired
Speaker 2: railroad engineer, and he's the one with Parkinson's disease, dementia
Speaker 2: and dementia. Enid Lambert she's the one who wants to
Speaker 2: have one last Christmas. Gary is the eldest. He's the
Speaker 2: banker living in Philadelphia with Caroline and three sons. He's
Speaker 2: obviously depressed. Chip is the middle child, college professor, failed screenwriter. Uh.
Speaker 2: And Denise is the youngest daughter. She's a chef working
Speaker 2: in restaurants. She struggles with her sexuality in a few
Speaker 2: different ways. I guess they kind of all do. Those
Speaker 2: are the main characters.
Speaker 1: Really only important.
Speaker 2: Anybody feel connected to any of this characters, Anybody anyway
Speaker 2: where connect.
Speaker 3: So when I first read about this book and I
Speaker 3: was like, oh, great Parkinson, So my dad is Parkinson relatively,
Speaker 3: I don't know new Ish and I was ready to
Speaker 3: be pissed. Then I forgot about that, and while I
Speaker 3: was reading it, I was like, oh, wow, that sounds
Speaker 3: a long So he did, I think? Yeah? So then
Speaker 3: I was like, oh, he's he must have really experiened.
Speaker 2: Did can't get him there?
Speaker 3: I guess, yeah, I can't get him there. But I
Speaker 3: thought it was interesting my personal journey with that. Remember
Speaker 3: I texted you guys. I was like, well, I'll call
Speaker 3: out the bullshit on that.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, like for not.
Speaker 3: I wonder if I literally was like, I guess that
Speaker 3: happens to all people. Yeah, I didn't even think this
Speaker 3: character has the same disease.
Speaker 2: I mean, And in this book, France and does talk
Speaker 2: about all like there are a lot of top topics
Speaker 2: he touches on, and he does he's very worthy, but
Speaker 2: obviously he attacks them with so much information sometimes like
Speaker 2: well it's hard to doubt him, like all the stuff
Speaker 2: about I mean, I guess what it's called literary realism,
Speaker 2: but he's talking about like the railroads and stuff and
Speaker 2: a part of me was like, is this any that's true?
Speaker 2: And then I was like, oh, I don't know, maybe
Speaker 2: it's not exactly true, but what is it based on?
Speaker 2: And then I just was like, I'm never going to
Speaker 2: look that up and find out. I wanted to get him,
Speaker 2: but I wasn't going to get I wasn't gonna get
Speaker 2: him on any of that. Although I will say with Lithuania,
Speaker 2: I was not happy about it's portray portrayal of the
Speaker 2: book as kind of like a post Soviet like, you know,
Speaker 2: you shoo Deans and their tricking Americans into Lithuania dot com.
Speaker 2: That's a little bit later, but uh, it's funny. They
Speaker 2: kind of thought that was funny.
Speaker 1: That Lithuania even like heard about it, because they just
Speaker 1: seem like such an easy target. It'd be like just
Speaker 1: pick like a country that's never gonna like, you know,
Speaker 1: this book exists. And I can say that because I'm
Speaker 1: a quarter Lithuanian.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and apparently are you. I didn't know though, So
Speaker 2: what how did you feel reading the parts about Lithuania?
Speaker 1: You're fucking pissed? Yeah, I've never been there, It's it sounded.
Speaker 2: Right, I'm I'm how horrible it sounds.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it sounded like they would be having financial difficulties
Speaker 1: the post Soviet era. It sounds like sand might be
Speaker 1: their main export.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they can gravel.
Speaker 1: That sounded very feel like the rest of this book,
Speaker 1: this perfect book that I loved very much. Wait, really, yeah,
Speaker 1: this book is excellent. This book is this book is
Speaker 1: a masterpiece. And it's insane to even have it on
Speaker 1: the cast to talk for you in the context of
Speaker 1: the other books. Am I I am dead serious?
Speaker 3: Oh, in this cast you called it you essentially called
Speaker 3: it forgettable.
Speaker 1: Wow, I've lived a lot of life since I read
Speaker 1: it before. But I'll tell you what. These quotes I
Speaker 1: wrote down weren't forgettable. They're mastered.
Speaker 3: Well, you didn't forget them once.
Speaker 2: So you just you wrote You didn't write down quotes
Speaker 2: you wanted to mock. You wrote down quotes that you
Speaker 2: just thought were beautiful and wanted to share. Is that right, Johnna, Yeah,
Speaker 2: you must miss it beautiful at some level.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that we're going to destroy them.
Speaker 2: You must know.
Speaker 1: I did write down two bad ones. Just like they're
Speaker 1: not bad, it's just the metaphors he uses were pretty
Speaker 1: like that's kind of insane.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, did they involve breasts in some way, or
Speaker 4: nipples or the phallis.
Speaker 1: It was, oh my god, and I like black vinegar
Speaker 1: beating on white china was how he described someone's iris.
Speaker 1: And then he described something else as a sinus through
Speaker 1: which infection was bred. So those ones were kind of funny.
Speaker 1: But then he described the Enid No, no, no, that
Speaker 1: was different. The Enid and Alfred relationship. He has this
Speaker 1: absolutely incredible quote which was like, so h Alfred was uh,
Speaker 1: he said old things, but he had a young man's face,
Speaker 1: and so enis settled for him, and life simply became
Speaker 1: a matter of waiting for his personality to change. And
Speaker 1: I was like, that is so beautiful, and it's like,
Speaker 1: what's so meny? Any women do they marry someone and
Speaker 1: they're like, and now I simply need to change his
Speaker 1: personality little by little until he's right. And it obviously
Speaker 1: is the theme of the book as well, the correction.
Speaker 1: She spends her whole life correcting, trying to correct her
Speaker 1: husband to get into the version she wants.
Speaker 2: They're all trying to get to the version. Okay. I
Speaker 2: will also admit that I do also agree with Johnna
Speaker 2: that this is a good book. Yes, it is, but
Speaker 2: I can understand why people would dislike it. I guess,
Speaker 2: like George, perhaps I just I do. I do agree
Speaker 2: that like, oh ideally I would love, like, you know,
Speaker 2: two hundred pages to be edited out of this book.
Speaker 2: I think he I like his writing style. I mean,
Speaker 2: I do like how detached and ironic everything is, like
Speaker 2: I really I do really enjoy that, which is why,
Speaker 2: like the sex stuff was always funny, like it wasn't
Speaker 2: like sexy, like a you know how I would usually
Speaker 2: want the sex stuff, but I was okay with it
Speaker 2: that because it wasn't it wasn't supposed to be that
Speaker 2: type of book. If that makes sense. I don't know
Speaker 2: if anybody. Yeah, So.
Speaker 4: What I want to say is I like the writing
Speaker 4: of this book and I think it's good. What I
Speaker 4: don't like are the words. And what I mean by
Speaker 4: that is he's very clearly a good writer, and he's smart,
Speaker 4: but it is that like classic thing of women are
Speaker 4: just not fully formed people and it's all about like
Speaker 4: men and how they get them off and like even so,
Speaker 4: I specifically because I had read the first like fifteen percent,
Speaker 4: which was all about Chip and we get really into
Speaker 4: his psyche and about how he is thinking about breasts
Speaker 4: all the time, and also the whole thing. Yeah yeah, yeah,
Speaker 4: and the whole thing. It's like commentary on him being
Speaker 4: those garravon but it's like they he talks about how
Speaker 4: many times he says the word breast in his manuscript,
Speaker 4: which is just like a way to talk about breasts
Speaker 4: more in this book. And then so I specifically was like,
Speaker 4: I need to read the Denise parts to like give
Speaker 4: this a fair shake. And then you like go to
Speaker 4: the Denise part and it's like, she didn't realize that
Speaker 4: this man was doing XYZ. She didn't realize this man
Speaker 4: was doing this ABC. She didn't realize this man was
Speaker 4: doing that, but she did know how to ride his cock.
Speaker 4: And then she fist pumps after she loses her virginity
Speaker 4: before going to college. And then in a later scene
Speaker 4: she's talking to another woman and it was like, oh,
Speaker 4: they put their little heads together and blah blah blah,
Speaker 4: and it was just like, you're using your powers for evil.
Speaker 2: I can agree, this.
Speaker 3: Is what you liked. Jerman.
Speaker 4: I take show with.
Speaker 1: This description of Denise because we're talking about when she
Speaker 1: was eighteen, she was having sex with one of her
Speaker 1: dad's coworkers, and what she didn't realize was that he
Speaker 1: was using her to get back at her dad because
Speaker 1: it was a power move for him to sleep with
Speaker 1: the daughter of the man he hated. It's actually that's
Speaker 1: not what the heartbreaking set of the book.
Speaker 2: But I agree with you, Okay, I agree with you,
Speaker 2: Sabrina in that I don't. I think it's hard. Is
Speaker 2: like I don't relate to the the the Denise the character.
Speaker 2: And probably the best way for me to describe it is,
Speaker 2: have you guys seen Yellowstone, the show Yellowstone? Okay, it's
Speaker 2: like Beth Dunton. To me in Yellowstone, it's like it
Speaker 2: feels like a man wrote a man and then just
Speaker 2: was like, but now it's a woman, Like yes, and
Speaker 2: it's women. And I actually because I did have the
Speaker 2: thought during Denise scene that I was like, I wish
Speaker 2: she could have shown this part to some women that
Speaker 2: could have been like, no, women don't usually just tweak
Speaker 2: their nipples, right, And like there was like a few
Speaker 2: times where I was like, ah, she's I doubt she's
Speaker 2: doing that. But the everything was so the descriptions of
Speaker 2: her and everything were so uh, they were so detailed,
Speaker 2: and it and interesting in the same aspect I was
Speaker 2: glad that she had as a female, was like, uh
Speaker 2: not like woe is me or like things were I
Speaker 2: don't what am I trying to say. She seemed to
Speaker 2: have some control over her narrative, like she was the
Speaker 2: one making the stupid decisions, as opposed to like, uh,
Speaker 2: misery is that the movie? Is that the name of
Speaker 2: the book that malice?
Speaker 1: Thank you malice time our old time mouse.
Speaker 2: Uh so, yeah, but I do agree that I this book.
Speaker 2: I also did find it very male centric. I did
Speaker 2: was interested, Sabrina to hear your take on her like
Speaker 2: sexuality and inability to and like going back and forth
Speaker 2: or whether like you were like did you see any
Speaker 2: truth of that? Or was that just do you think
Speaker 2: he was just using that to represent something else that
Speaker 2: was interesting to me.
Speaker 4: I was excited about the prospect of it a little
Speaker 4: bit from the audio play, right, it's like, oh, but
Speaker 4: then the way that it's described is just like, listen,
Speaker 4: maybe somebody else could have this experience, but it's certainly
Speaker 4: not my experience, where it's just like, well, you know,
Speaker 4: I decided that this isn't right, and then she just
Speaker 4: like keeps deciding that she's like she's like, now I'm
Speaker 4: done with men. Now I'm done with women, And it's
Speaker 4: just like a decision she's making. But I felt like,
Speaker 4: I don't know, I felt so infuriated by his writing
Speaker 4: of all the sex things, which is not me, Like
Speaker 4: I don't dislike sex scenes in books, right, Yeah, but
Speaker 4: I was so infuriated by the way it was done here.
Speaker 4: And then I was like, oh, I feel like he's
Speaker 4: making her a lesbian so that we can envision her
Speaker 4: having lesbian sex.
Speaker 2: Interesting.
Speaker 4: And the scene that I was thinking about that frustrated
Speaker 4: me was when she the first woman that she dated.
Speaker 4: If I can just read, they fought a lot. They're
Speaker 4: fighting life like the sex life that so briefly preceded.
Speaker 4: It was a thing of ritual. They thought about why
Speaker 4: they were fighting so much, whose fault it was. They
Speaker 4: fought in bed late at night, they drew an unguest
Speaker 4: on unguess reservoirs of something like libido. They were hung
Speaker 4: over from fighting in the morning. They fought their little
Speaker 4: brains out, fought, fought, fought. It's just like the line
Speaker 4: fought their little brains out made me so mad.
Speaker 3: Yeah, just as you were reading it, I.
Speaker 2: Feel like that's supposed to be like make you think
Speaker 2: of fuck their little brains out like that. I know you.
Speaker 3: Brains.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't know the little part.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's the little Yeah.
Speaker 2: That's fair. That's fair. That's fair.
Speaker 4: It's like, don't worry your pretty little head about it, honey, Yes,
Speaker 4: bite your little head off.
Speaker 1: They're not fighting about anything real. They'll have their Let
Speaker 1: the little dogs go at each other. Yes, no offense
Speaker 1: to little dogs, thank you. Okay. It's funny that I
Speaker 1: actually had an example of us, like a sex scene
Speaker 1: that I thought was like, actually so sexy. I was like,
Speaker 1: that's like so oh, I thought it was like a
Speaker 1: really hot scene. But now that I'm well, now that
Speaker 1: i'm reading it, it's like all about how he being
Speaker 1: a man made her into a woman. Oh yeah, it's
Speaker 1: like I'm reading which one is it? Okay? So it's
Speaker 1: in her bedroom. On his knees, he planted his thumbs
Speaker 1: on her hip bones and pressed his mouth to her
Speaker 1: thighs and then to her whatever she felt returned to
Speaker 1: a childhood world of grim and C. S. Lewis, where
Speaker 1: a touch could be transformative. His hands made her hips
Speaker 1: into a woman's head.
Speaker 4: That line I liked by the way his mouth.
Speaker 1: Made her thighs into a woman's thighs, her whatever into
Speaker 1: a cunt. I loved that it was like his touch
Speaker 1: made her hips and a woman's hits in her. I
Speaker 1: thought it was also like very funny.
Speaker 2: Like, yeah, I do think most of it's funny.
Speaker 1: I thought that was like really good. But as I'm
Speaker 1: reading it through this new lens, I am seeing that
Speaker 1: it's like his touch from a blank nothing blob a
Speaker 1: plato into.
Speaker 4: And like that's what I'm saying, is like I love
Speaker 4: the way that that's written, but I don't like those
Speaker 4: words interesting.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I do like what.
Speaker 3: You're saying, Sabena, I like what you're saying.
Speaker 2: Plus, no, I think that's the point. I think that's
Speaker 2: a fair issue with the entire character of what's to say, Denise,
Speaker 2: that's not the name, is it.
Speaker 4: And even like talking about Enid, like later in the book,
Speaker 4: it's like referencing She's like the day she conceived Gary,
Speaker 4: then the day they conceived and it was like, is
Speaker 4: that what Enid's good for is conceiving children? Like I
Speaker 4: think I was already on a roll.
Speaker 2: I was already start to look.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's easy to find.
Speaker 2: She is. It's okay, I will say, as as as
Speaker 2: as many of us are a person who has kids
Speaker 2: and deals with like mother in laws and like parents
Speaker 2: about over like holidays and the importance of Christmas and
Speaker 2: all that. There was a lot with Enid that I
Speaker 2: like felt pity about and like made me feel bad
Speaker 2: about and like understanding like her obsession because I see
Speaker 2: it like in real life. Yeah, like in my life
Speaker 2: reflected and then also sorry to go to we know.
Speaker 2: We even talked a lot about Gary, but a lot
Speaker 2: of his stuff with his wife. I also was like, oh,
Speaker 2: this is I hate how much of so much of
Speaker 2: this is like hitting for me, Like I'm understanding Gary's perspective,
Speaker 2: and I totally see myself doing the exact same thing
Speaker 2: Caroline's doing, you know, like, and I'm and I was
Speaker 2: his story. I was thinking, like, he just needs some bills,
Speaker 2: please get this man.
Speaker 1: It's funny because I feel like Enid is the whole
Speaker 1: She's the whole heart of the book. She's the main character,
Speaker 1: and she is when you look at her through the
Speaker 1: lens of her children or through Alfred, she seems like
Speaker 1: this really simplistic, sort of pathetic character who's like her
Speaker 1: whole life is just her family, and she's like old
Speaker 1: and kind of dotty and annoying. But like I think
Speaker 1: as the viewer, you're supposed to see Enid as much
Speaker 1: more than that, as this like whole and complex person.
Speaker 1: And it's like, actually, this like it's this really kind
Speaker 1: of sad portrait of this woman who just wants to
Speaker 1: have one more Christmas with her family. She knows her
Speaker 1: husband's not going to make it to the next one,
Speaker 1: and she's like just asking them for like she's given
Speaker 1: them everything her whole life, and she's like, can you
Speaker 1: just come for a couple days home with your children
Speaker 1: and your spouse's and or you know, in Chip's case,
Speaker 1: just Chips, just Chip, Just Denise, just come and be
Speaker 1: Please let me get nine tickets to the Nutcracker. And
Speaker 1: it's so heartbreaking in part two because like a lot
Speaker 1: of it really ring true to me that like there
Speaker 1: was this moment of like Denise Denise's trip went like
Speaker 1: every other. The first day she came home and she
Speaker 1: was so kind and loving and she was determined at
Speaker 1: anything that her mother asked, and the second day she
Speaker 1: woke up mad. It's so oh, it just hits home
Speaker 1: to read it because you're like I've.
Speaker 2: Done this, Yeah, yeah, I know. And you're like it's
Speaker 2: it's like I'm understanding the kids and like why they
Speaker 2: do those things because I've done those things. But yeah,
Speaker 2: it definitely pulls your heartstrings for like, oh, the things
Speaker 2: I'm doing to my family or like my mom or
Speaker 2: my mother in law.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think that I would have had a different
Speaker 3: opinion before I had children, because you don't really understand
Speaker 3: the sort of self sacked, like the extent of self sacrifice.
Speaker 3: It's just like yeah, like, yeah, a mom is supposed
Speaker 3: to do that, so goes later loser.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And I think like, oh, now.
Speaker 2: I just want us all to wear beels for what day?
Speaker 1: Why is that so hard? But also, like you know,
Speaker 1: if you've ever seen someone like take care of someone
Speaker 1: who's aging, and you kind of see the craziness of
Speaker 1: it and like the complex things and hoops that they're
Speaker 1: jumping through to like keep care take care of the
Speaker 1: other person, and as an outsider, you're just like, this
Speaker 1: is a crazy setup. What are you guys doing. I
Speaker 1: also saw that in the book, where it's like they're
Speaker 1: just doing the best they can, Like she is, yeah,
Speaker 1: of course it looks a little stupid, and she at
Speaker 1: times may seem selfish or like she's not handling it,
Speaker 1: but it's like she's feeling it pretty well for a
Speaker 1: seventy two year old woman, like.
Speaker 2: Yeah, or worrying about what her kids do and all
Speaker 2: that kind of stuff.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1: All the comparisons to the wealthy neighbors.
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, oh yeah.
Speaker 3: I know a guy who there.
Speaker 1: I was like her.
Speaker 3: My mom and the mom were friends, and they were
Speaker 3: like that family was like a forest friends and we
Speaker 3: all hated them. And the oldest son like works selling
Speaker 3: ad space in some catalog that happens to be owned
Speaker 3: by the Washington Post, and his dad says he works
Speaker 3: for Washington.
Speaker 2: Oh my God's god, my mom said.
Speaker 1: I was like, told a neighbor was like talking about
Speaker 1: SNL cast members, and my mom was like, that's Johnna's friend.
Speaker 1: And I was like, what are you talking about? Because
Speaker 1: I live in New York City.
Speaker 2: We did a show once together. Listen, ye fairness.
Speaker 4: I feel like she could genuinely believe that. It makes
Speaker 4: me think of how your aunt one day in high
Speaker 4: school was like, I've found the perfect man for you.
Speaker 4: He lives in the area, he is hardworking. Sydney Crosby,
Speaker 4: you know, my.
Speaker 1: Hand was like caught like for like a couple months
Speaker 1: because I was lifeguarding at the pool where the Lemus
Speaker 1: swam and Sidney Crosby like lived with them. He was
Speaker 1: new to the penguins. My hend was like, I.
Speaker 2: Don't like he was new to the penguins, but he
Speaker 2: was like almost like immediately the captain, like he was
Speaker 2: immediately the the most.
Speaker 3: And the way It's like I've I've found a man for.
Speaker 2: Man every woman wants to like in this.
Speaker 1: If you don't know, if you know hockey, you know
Speaker 1: how silly this is. If you don't, if you're for Pittsburgh,
Speaker 1: you know how and say that is if you're not,
Speaker 1: it is like a kin to being like, you know
Speaker 1: who seems like really nice. Liam Hemsworth his brother Christopher
Speaker 1: is like, no, yeah, that's very funny.
Speaker 3: But she might have been right. She might have been right,
Speaker 3: like may not be off right?
Speaker 4: I mean yeah, sure for sure, I'm would have been incredible.
Speaker 1: Thank you. I agree, I think I have I have
Speaker 1: never heard of Jonah.
Speaker 3: I've never heard of Jonah Ice skating. She has a
Speaker 3: lot of those sort of hobbies, but I haven't heard
Speaker 3: of ice.
Speaker 1: Get your ears checked.
Speaker 2: She's doing ice skating stuff, all right. I don't know.
Speaker 1: I say, we could talk about the turd.
Speaker 2: The turd. I did find that funny. I found it
Speaker 2: disturbing and upsetting. But I was like, let me just.
Speaker 3: My father is not incontinent. I know, I said there
Speaker 3: was a similarity that wasn't.
Speaker 2: But well, you know what, I want to embarrass that part.
Speaker 2: That part, as far as I thought, it's like my
Speaker 2: grandfather had dementia, my grandmother and they're like, I've definitely
Speaker 2: dealt with incontinence with them, and so kind of to
Speaker 2: me that stuff, It's like, yeah, they don't mean to
Speaker 2: like it's I don't know. I mean maybe also I
Speaker 2: deal with it with my child as well, where it's
Speaker 2: just like Jesus Christ.
Speaker 1: Yeah, poop is like nothing to me anymore. By the way,
Speaker 1: you got to watch train Wreck Poop Cruise on Netflix.
Speaker 4: I won't okay, it sounds like it's a documentary that
Speaker 4: is triangle of sadness.
Speaker 2: I don't want to I do want it.
Speaker 1: I don't want to know is a non stop laugh.
Speaker 2: I need that.
Speaker 1: I need that, So I will check that out.
Speaker 3: But one more times it's called train Wreck colon Poop
Speaker 3: Cruise on Netflix.
Speaker 1: Check it out.
Speaker 2: Yea cruise. I've definitely seen it. I definitely thought about
Speaker 2: starting it. Sorry, thank you.
Speaker 1: But one of the things they like made the passengers do,
Speaker 1: I guess if you don't want to talk about poop,
Speaker 1: like fast forward.
Speaker 2: There's also a cruise in this book, so we're really
Speaker 2: very relevant.
Speaker 1: If you're not interested that like fast forward like five
Speaker 1: minutes because I'm about to talk about poop a lot.
Speaker 1: So one of the things they tell the passengers to
Speaker 1: do on the Poop Cruise is like poop into red
Speaker 1: biohazard bags because the toilets will overflow if they don't,
Speaker 1: and everyone like flips out. They're like, I can't poop
Speaker 1: into a bag. It's disgusting. And I was like, I
Speaker 1: don't know if it's the years of having a dog,
Speaker 1: or like changing baby diapers or just like camping. I've
Speaker 1: never had to poop in a bag, but like I
Speaker 1: was just like I could poop in a bag, like, so,
Speaker 1: I guess, like.
Speaker 3: Nothing paid a lot of money for cruise and then
Speaker 3: they're making and you poop in a bag and you're
Speaker 3: just angry.
Speaker 4: Oh, I'm asking to come money back, but I'm gonna
Speaker 4: poop in that bag.
Speaker 1: Well guess what they so they created poop Alley, and
Speaker 1: then poop Deck and then poop Cruise.
Speaker 2: Those are worse things. Those are worse things.
Speaker 3: Have you guys ever tried to travel? Jeane? I did
Speaker 3: it a lot when I was pregnant. It's like a
Speaker 3: women's ere.
Speaker 1: In all homes.
Speaker 2: Okay.
Speaker 3: I think I got at plastic thing and then it
Speaker 3: has a bag.
Speaker 2: Oh no, I guess not that specifically.
Speaker 1: I think Sarah gave me one once as a joke,
Speaker 1: but I never used it. Oh wow, it.
Speaker 2: Wasn't a joke. It was a serious presence and you
Speaker 2: didn't use it. I am did.
Speaker 3: You like keep it on in the car gyp in
Speaker 3: the car which.
Speaker 2: You don't wear it? It's not like which is hard. Actually,
Speaker 2: that's such a good idea for pregnant people, because like
Speaker 2: there were times where like I couldn't need was out
Speaker 2: and needed a bathroom and like couldn't didn't have access
Speaker 2: to one.
Speaker 4: How do you covertly do that?
Speaker 3: You do it in the car.
Speaker 2: You do it.
Speaker 3: It's all in the car. It's all in the car. Okay,
Speaker 3: I did l like once? Wow, tricky it's a little tricky, but.
Speaker 2: Wow, I'm not in the car that much, so not
Speaker 2: to you guys. You guys want to talk about some things.
Speaker 2: Oh you're want to talk about Chip's affair with that
Speaker 2: student Melissa.
Speaker 4: No, the yeah, that was that was sick.
Speaker 2: It was I I I kept I didn't understand why
Speaker 2: Melissa wanted to have sex with him.
Speaker 3: I guess, yeah, that was My big thing is like
Speaker 3: overly she came in and then you rejected her and
Speaker 3: she came back really like.
Speaker 4: Yeah, like absolutely not. There's no world in which that's.
Speaker 3: A college full of attractive boys.
Speaker 1: Hurt ape something you can have.
Speaker 2: But it's like and she had a healthy relationship with
Speaker 2: her parents and then like I don't have It was like,
Speaker 2: none of this adds up. This is doesn't make sense
Speaker 2: to me.
Speaker 4: He's not described as attractive. I mean, I guess there
Speaker 4: is like the attraction that people do have a dynamic. Sure,
Speaker 4: but she waited till after she was done his class. Yeah, okay,
Speaker 4: I know, like the lucky it wears off after you're
Speaker 4: out of their proximity and they no longer have that.
Speaker 2: Right. I was surprised, right what had happened?
Speaker 4: And you see it for what it really was. You're like,
Speaker 4: that was crazy that I found that person attractive?
Speaker 2: Yes, yes, And then and then I was disturbed at
Speaker 2: the point when Chip was like mad at her for
Speaker 2: being happy, like and she was going to go meet
Speaker 2: his parents and he had like a fantasy about raping
Speaker 2: her or something that I don't like this.
Speaker 1: I don't like this.
Speaker 2: Yeah, me get it.
Speaker 4: His whole interaction with her is so crazy, like you know,
Speaker 4: obviously you know they're going to have sex because he
Speaker 4: starts fixating on her in class and mentioning her bear
Speaker 4: mid drift her breasts, I'm sure.
Speaker 2: And then.
Speaker 4: He can't call on her because he's afraid that his
Speaker 4: voice might quiver. And finally she's like rude at the
Speaker 4: end of the semester and she's all like, you just
Speaker 4: want us all to agree with you, which, by the way,
Speaker 4: like makes it seem like she got it, like she
Speaker 4: got that he was egotistical, you know, like that doesn't
Speaker 4: sound like someone I'm attracted to. I'm not like, you're
Speaker 4: a bad teacher, you aren't smart, You just want us
Speaker 4: to agree with you. And then I bring cupcakes over
Speaker 4: to your house in a mini skirt, Like no, I
Speaker 4: would say Franzin.
Speaker 2: Was good at making me believe lust or or love
Speaker 2: in that in that falling in love type way, like
Speaker 2: because then we also have Denise and her many and
Speaker 2: her many affairs, and you never felt like, especially with
Speaker 2: when she lost her rigidity, you never felt like, oh
Speaker 2: I get why she did this.
Speaker 4: Yeah, Like I feel like it goes back to it's
Speaker 4: like he wants those male readers, right, that's why he
Speaker 4: doesn't want Oprah. And what's interesting is, you know, back
Speaker 4: to what we were talking about, like so much of
Speaker 4: the book feels like a real struggle, like you know,
Speaker 4: a real way people might operate, and then these types
Speaker 4: of things are not real at all, and it's just like, ah, yes,
Speaker 4: the middling looking man does get fucked by the twenty
Speaker 4: year old sophomore, Like you can live out that any man.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, yeah, I really like what you're saying.
Speaker 1: It's hard to just like ever even imagine this happening
Speaker 1: around me in college, Like I didn't know anyone that
Speaker 1: was sleeping with their professor. But I never ever had
Speaker 1: like a teacher crush. I can't think of even like I.
Speaker 2: Might have had teacher crushes, but they were not in Colone.
Speaker 4: I had one, but it was a grad student teacher.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they were usually the young hot on right. Yeah
Speaker 2: I did have like I maybe had, but I might
Speaker 2: have had some like intellectual like where I wanted someone
Speaker 2: to see me as smart and therefore, I mean, but
Speaker 2: I never I wouldn't have. Yeah I would have know,
Speaker 2: but like I but I could see I was almost
Speaker 2: certainly a gay man.
Speaker 1: They're easy to lie, I do.
Speaker 2: I do think Denise. With Denise, it's it's supposed to
Speaker 2: be like, oh, I mean obviously showing that she's like
Speaker 2: fucked up because she the way she thinks is just
Speaker 2: like going to like go have sex with this guy
Speaker 2: because she just feels like she owes him in some way.
Speaker 2: I feel like that was which I do. I that
Speaker 2: was the only thing that they said that I was, like,
Speaker 2: I can remember being younger and like kissing boys because
Speaker 2: I felt like, oh I had to, or like I
Speaker 2: went on the date, so that's what happens next. I
Speaker 2: don't want to do this, but I just did it.
Speaker 2: But like she went farther than that, which was like
Speaker 2: leading him.
Speaker 3: Into and maybe much older than why not.
Speaker 2: I mean, I'm talking about being like a teenager and
Speaker 2: stuff like I don't mean similar age. I just mean
Speaker 2: she but it only like it made me understood her
Speaker 2: to a point like beyond that. I was like, okay,
Speaker 2: but she went way farther than that, and I don't
Speaker 2: I don't get it, but yeah.
Speaker 3: It made me feel bad for her. Yeah, so I
Speaker 3: was feeling something. It's not the kind of feeling I
Speaker 3: liked that have though. It's like, you're a writer capable
Speaker 3: of making people feel things, and that's what you picked.
Speaker 1: This does line up with everything I know about you, Clara. Uh.
Speaker 1: When Clara reads kids books, she skips past the sad images.
Speaker 1: And what I mean is like if it's a book
Speaker 1: of emotions that are like happy, said flip flip, happy, excited.
Speaker 3: Okay, I did do that, but then oh yes, And
Speaker 3: then when I had to say it out loud to
Speaker 3: John and Sabrina to explain what I was doing, I
Speaker 3: was like, oh, I.
Speaker 2: Well, I understand the feeling of like this isn't I
Speaker 2: definitely go past those faster than I sit in the
Speaker 2: fun emotions for those emotion books.
Speaker 1: But do no different different anyway, John just monotonely happy, fright, excited.
Speaker 2: Emotions. I mean, in terms of plot, there are some
Speaker 2: fun things that happen, like Chip his the woman he's
Speaker 2: sleeping with has a husband, the Lithuanian who hires him
Speaker 2: on to write for the website essentially for reasons that
Speaker 2: still aren't clear, flies him to Lithuania. And there's like
Speaker 2: a lot of that's like a very goofy section that
Speaker 2: I I liked because it was silly and funny, I guess.
Speaker 2: But he eventually, like h is flying away, like he
Speaker 2: gets raw. He's got to making a bunch of money.
Speaker 2: But there's like essentially kind of like a civil war
Speaker 2: ish thing happening, and he you know, has to go
Speaker 2: to Prague or where does he go to fly? I
Speaker 2: don't whatever. It's like he's trying to get home for Christmas,
Speaker 2: is what's happening. But Mike, in terms of like compared
Speaker 2: to like some of the other more like heady stuff
Speaker 2: like Gary's stuff was all very like you know, manic depressive,
Speaker 2: like him seeing things that weren't there and fighting with
Speaker 2: his family over dumb shit. It did give me some
Speaker 2: good ideas though, for how to torture my husband my
Speaker 2: husband in the future read my kids. Yeah, just like
Speaker 2: encouraging them to have uh like interests that would drive
Speaker 2: him crazy or you know, slowly, you know, getting them
Speaker 2: on my side versus turning them against him. All those
Speaker 2: kinds of things. They sound really like that's a possibility
Speaker 2: for me, and and I did appreciate that for you.
Speaker 4: Something that I don't know if it is funny or
Speaker 4: just pretentious, was both Chip's porn was I'm sure I
Speaker 4: can't pronounce this. It's French sent on the cinema eratique.
Speaker 2: It's like, oh, I forgot about that.
Speaker 4: That's so crazy.
Speaker 2: Yeah, maybe a different time. I think it's just a
Speaker 2: different time.
Speaker 4: You think it's funny, of course you do. You're a
Speaker 4: friends and supporter.
Speaker 1: The books a masterpiece, like no exaggeration, The book's a masterpiece,
Speaker 1: so you.
Speaker 4: I would love to know how many women were on
Speaker 4: the committees that gave it all those awards. What the
Speaker 4: breakdown was number one?
Speaker 2: Okay, that is honestly crazy.
Speaker 1: Looks like all of you.
Speaker 4: She didn't give it a literary award.
Speaker 2: She tried to mate it on her book list.
Speaker 3: Maybe she didn't read the whole thing because it is
Speaker 3: very long.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the BBC play wasn't out by then, so she
Speaker 2: couldn't have done.
Speaker 3: Maybe whoever summarized it for her kind of.
Speaker 2: I didn't it looks.
Speaker 3: I really struggle.
Speaker 2: I didn't mention this, but the you might be wondering,
Speaker 2: you know, like why hasn't this been turned into anything?
Speaker 2: And he Jonathan Franzon and Noah Bombak did write a
Speaker 2: series and they might have even filmed a pilot, but
Speaker 2: then HBO like didn't take it because they thought it
Speaker 2: was like going to be too difficult to follow, which
Speaker 2: I thought was funny because I'm just like, there's definitely
Speaker 2: like I feel like they could try again. I just
Speaker 2: feel like HBO takes stuff that's like way more his proof. Yeah,
Speaker 2: it's true. I really think. I was like, no, you
Speaker 2: could definitely do this, And I don't know, maybe Jonathan
Speaker 2: needs to be taken out of the adaptation.
Speaker 1: But now that we have, like I mean, I know,
Speaker 1: to compare anything to Succession as crazy, but it's like
Speaker 1: that's sort of a very character driven like you know,
Speaker 1: family peace. Like I just I feel like this is
Speaker 1: a character study more than anything. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, with people that are ship like everyone's like a
Speaker 2: little shit yeah, like there's uh And I guess I
Speaker 2: do appreciate that, like when everyone's a little shitty Seinfeld
Speaker 2: should talk about nothing. Yeah, he blah blah blah. I'm
Speaker 2: just looking again at George's issues. The writing itself sucks
Speaker 2: and is mostly derivative of the worst of Updyke and
Speaker 2: annoying postmodern tingents inherited from David Foster Wallace. I do
Speaker 2: think he had a relationship with David Foster.
Speaker 4: It's like, really, it sounds like they'd be friends.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I also think I can.
Speaker 1: See the Updike comparison, and I thought of it myself,
Speaker 1: but I think that Updike Updyke is my much more
Speaker 1: random and is like goes for shock value, and this
Speaker 1: is this is specific, like there is a special that
Speaker 1: makes it. It's like it really hits. It feels very truthful.
Speaker 1: Often I am there that does acrobatic trips.
Speaker 2: You're right, You're right. I guess now that you're saying that,
Speaker 2: I was like, what Updyke every rand and then you
Speaker 2: said that, I was like, oh yeah, no, no, no,
Speaker 2: I guess Hotel New Hampshire.
Speaker 1: Yeah, remember we hated it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's not how it sound New Hampshire to me.
Speaker 2: I also just find I do find a lot of
Speaker 2: his like observational stuff, funny, and I do like it
Speaker 2: within this book, like even the what was it called
Speaker 2: the Medicine Overall or correct All? Like I thought that
Speaker 2: was fun and then they were like, you know, that's
Speaker 2: the name of like poop medicine, and they're like, I
Speaker 2: don't care, and I don't know.
Speaker 1: I just liked humor for you got your number.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's probably why, But I just I just I
Speaker 2: just I liked every I liked everything about that and
Speaker 2: the way he kind of like you know, even talks
Speaker 2: about like prison system, Like he he finds ways to
Speaker 2: like have some criticism on like almost every aspect of
Speaker 2: American society. And you know, I will also admit that
Speaker 2: it's it is very obviously a very waspy, upper middle
Speaker 2: class book. And it's also possible that one reason why
Speaker 2: I related is because maybe that is more my background
Speaker 2: and hearing. I mean, you know, did I love the
Speaker 2: references to Kenneth Square? Did I love hearing names places
Speaker 2: that I knew?
Speaker 1: Yes?
Speaker 2: I did.
Speaker 3: I do need to interject that Hotel newritten by.
Speaker 2: John oh Ship. Jesus, we went up up.
Speaker 3: No, we've never done We've never up run Rabbit run, Okay.
Speaker 2: Now, wonder I was like I didn't understand you. I've
Speaker 2: never read Updyke, and I don't.
Speaker 1: I didn't, Okay, George, we don't have the same taste,
Speaker 1: so you're not You're you are, Okay, I.
Speaker 3: Just I just have to do that.
Speaker 2: No, Claria, we're very glad. I'm sure George probably was.
Speaker 1: Yeah, honestly, yeah, George really smart. I'm embarrassed that he George.
Speaker 2: And we read what you wrote. George. Yeah, if you've read,
Speaker 2: you're maybe mad at us. But remember we don't all
Speaker 2: like it, and we have different reasons for not.
Speaker 3: Like I like it, I didn't. I like, Yeah, I
Speaker 3: can appreciate that.
Speaker 4: I'm like, I'm like seething, and I just I need
Speaker 4: I need Johnna to get away from liking it.
Speaker 1: I know, in fact, I know real this like divide
Speaker 1: between Like I do feel like we both are feeling
Speaker 1: really passionate about this book. Yeah.
Speaker 2: I also I also feel like, as a writer, I
Speaker 2: know I can be wordy, and so in some ways
Speaker 2: that makes me like almost feel for Frans in that
Speaker 2: like I wish I could get away with being as wordy.
Speaker 2: Whereas like because of the type of stuff I've studied
Speaker 2: or writing I've done, I've been like no you cannot
Speaker 2: be wordy. You cannot be wordy, you must like cut
Speaker 2: it all out. And so I think I have some
Speaker 2: jealousy there that I'm like, oh, but it would be
Speaker 2: fun to just like ramble for pages.
Speaker 3: Well maybe that's why the rest of us can't.
Speaker 4: I I enjoyed that aspect of it.
Speaker 3: Well, it didn't feel a little bit like when you
Speaker 3: sat down to write it, he was like, this is
Speaker 3: going to be a long It was a very irritating
Speaker 3: just because we have a time limit and lives and stuff.
Speaker 3: And I could feel that with every meandering description of
Speaker 3: something that you could not describe at all. Actually, but
Speaker 3: some of.
Speaker 1: The I just like, sorry, yeah, some of the descriptions
Speaker 1: are just so beautiful and you've never heard anything like
Speaker 1: it before, and it just rings so true. Like one
Speaker 1: of my favorite ones, which is real quick, is that
Speaker 1: you know, the dad has parkt Seid, so his hands
Speaker 1: are shaky, it's hard for him to eat, and Enid
Speaker 1: is annoyed because he doesn't wear a tie somewhere, but
Speaker 1: then she goes but suit times we just cannon fodder
Speaker 1: on the front lines anymore. It's such a great description.
Speaker 2: But is it that reminded me of my grandparents a lot.
Speaker 2: Their relationship really reminded me of my grandparents.
Speaker 4: I really liked, I'll sayza pieces of it that I liked.
Speaker 4: In the very beginning of the book, she alludes to
Speaker 4: like smelling urine, and she's like, but it simply couldn't
Speaker 4: be urine. And then you like, very slowly find out
Speaker 4: that he is absolutely skeeing in like these jars downstairs
Speaker 4: and at like, I'm not describing it well, but the
Speaker 4: way that he revealed that information I thought was really
Speaker 4: compelling and interesting. And I think like me liking the
Speaker 4: beginning so much and feeling for Enid in the beginning,
Speaker 4: and then I think, like I just got really angry
Speaker 4: when it became so clear to me that it was
Speaker 4: written for the male gaze and it is just Z
Speaker 4: not why Yeah, no, the Z one. And I'm just
Speaker 4: like sitting there thinking about men smugly reading this book and.
Speaker 2: Just pissed me off.
Speaker 4: Yeah, pissed me off because of the potential that was there,
Speaker 4: because it is so.
Speaker 2: I do too. I think that's fair if I.
Speaker 3: May attempt to bridge or the divide between John and Sabrina,
Speaker 3: or at least someone must. I think that Jonah's reaction
Speaker 3: might be like recognition that this person can use the
Speaker 3: art of writing and comparing it to other books that
Speaker 3: and that she sort of feels beholden to, like elevate
Speaker 3: that like this is real writing, and we must respect that.
Speaker 3: That seems fair and that that's maybe why you're calling it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, No, I think that feels completely fair. And I
Speaker 1: would just add that this book is a masterpiece period
Speaker 1: and it could stand against any great literature.
Speaker 3: Okay, will it tried?
Speaker 2: All right? At this time, I would like to read
Speaker 2: the An excerpt. The night of Alfred's seventy fifth birthday
Speaker 2: had found Ship alone at the tilt and legs pursuing
Speaker 2: sexual congress with a red chaise long. He was kneeling
Speaker 2: at the feet of his chaise and sniffing its plush
Speaker 2: minutely inch by inch, in hopes that some vaginal tang
Speaker 2: might still be lingering. Eight weeks after Melissa Paquette had lain,
Speaker 2: there ordinarily distinct and identical smells dust, sweat, urine, the
Speaker 2: dayroomreek of cigarette smoke. The fugitive after scent of quim
Speaker 2: became abstract and indistinguishable from the over smelling, and so
Speaker 2: he had to pause again and again to refresh his nostrils.
Speaker 2: He worked his lips down into the chai's buttoned navels
Speaker 2: and kissed the lint and grit and crumbs and hairs
Speaker 2: that had collected in them. None of the three spots
Speaker 2: where he thought he smelled Melissa where was unambiguously tangy.
Speaker 2: But after exhaustive comparison, he was able to settle on
Speaker 2: the least questionable of the three spots, near button just
Speaker 2: south of the backrest, and give it his full nasal attention.
Speaker 2: He fingered the buttons with both hands, the cool plush
Speaker 2: shaving his nether parts in a poor approximation of Melissa's
Speaker 2: skin until he fired. Only achieved sufficient belief in the
Speaker 2: smells reality, sufficient faith that he possessed some relic of
Speaker 2: Melissa to consummate the act. Then he rolled off his
Speaker 2: compliant antique and slumped on the floor with his pants
Speaker 2: undone and his head and the cushion. An hour closer
Speaker 2: to having failed to call his father on his birthday,
Speaker 2: an hour it's disturbing. Did you guys ever do it
Speaker 2: with a object? I didn't.
Speaker 1: I would just want to answer quickly no before we
Speaker 1: move on.
Speaker 2: I just feel like this is a thing or like
Speaker 2: someone so fucking a pie or whatever, And I'm like,
Speaker 2: but it's not about the thing. It's maybe like it's
Speaker 2: about what's in your head. No, I just mean, like
Speaker 2: I would assume it's like he's like more just like
Speaker 2: masturbating on to something. But in his it's the fantasy
Speaker 2: and his head. It's nothing to do with the actual.
Speaker 2: I don't know. That's just how I Maybe I'm wrong,
Speaker 2: but that's how.
Speaker 4: I, I will sayd me like really imagining what this
Speaker 4: Shasee looked like.
Speaker 1: I was like, yeah, I don't understand it was a redhead.
Speaker 1: Let's start there.
Speaker 3: Buttons buttons in the back that.
Speaker 2: We were looking for the red head? Oh my god,
Speaker 2: what color hair did uh Denise have? Did we have
Speaker 2: any redheads?
Speaker 1: What are we doing with the button?
Speaker 2: Yeah, fingering them.
Speaker 4: I don't understand the button.
Speaker 2: I can't. I don't understand that. I don't believe it.
Speaker 4: And were they like depressed buttons where they popped out buttons.
Speaker 3: I was imagining depressed.
Speaker 2: I was too. I don't know, but that was that
Speaker 2: was also the segment that got it nominated for that sex.
Speaker 3: I think that was the part that John was saying
Speaker 3: was a mess.
Speaker 5: Yeah, we could do ask the author, but do you guys,
Speaker 5: do you guys want to do and ask the author?
Speaker 1: Sure?
Speaker 2: I made that really unappealing. I'm so well, I mean,
Speaker 2: we said yes, yeah, you all said sure. So some reason?
Speaker 2: Did I write a question down for us the authors?
Speaker 2: The other questions?
Speaker 3: I haven't prepared?
Speaker 2: Okay, all right, Jonathan, Yes, tell me how long did
Speaker 2: it take you to write the book? And what did
Speaker 2: you do when you finished it?
Speaker 3: It took seven hundred years to rest book. And when
Speaker 3: I finished it, I printed it all out and I
Speaker 3: put it on top of my desk and I sat
Speaker 3: down and I looked at it, and I just thought
Speaker 3: about how fucking smart I am.
Speaker 2: Thank you, Thank you, Jonathan. Now, Jonathan, Yes, how long
Speaker 2: did it take you to write the book? And what
Speaker 2: did you do when you finished it?
Speaker 4: Well, when I think about time and how long something took,
Speaker 4: I look to all the women that I've had sex with,
Speaker 4: and it took me through three women and their supple breast.
Speaker 4: And once I was through those three women, I finished
Speaker 4: the book and immediately came on the pages beautiful sexy.
Speaker 2: Jonathan, how long did it take you to write the book?
Speaker 2: And what did you do when you finished?
Speaker 1: It took me six days, Sarah. And when I finished,
Speaker 1: I closed the document and I opened it and I
Speaker 1: hit control F and I word searched breast just to
Speaker 1: see how many times I said it in the whole document.
Speaker 1: And I didn't change anything. But now I know one
Speaker 1: hundred and seventeen times, so I I could rib it
Speaker 1: like I would any friend.
Speaker 2: A friend, it is actually forty nine times.
Speaker 1: That's press though, don't we got to consider oh yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, yeah, other descript And he asked so many
Speaker 1: descriptors it's hard.
Speaker 2: It would be hard to even know. Okay, so this
Speaker 2: is what he says. He wrote eighty percent of it
Speaker 2: in a year. I was on a federal jury. When
Speaker 2: I was finishing it. I came to a point when
Speaker 2: I had two days left to right the last section
Speaker 2: of the last chapter, and then the epilogue. I wrote
Speaker 2: each of them in a day, and I finished each
Speaker 2: day crying and not sure why, whether because the content
Speaker 2: was reminding me of sad content in my own life,
Speaker 2: or because I was letting go of something that had
Speaker 2: given my life structure meaning for nearly a decade.
Speaker 3: But that doesn't make jury.
Speaker 2: How long.
Speaker 4: Did the jury take nine years? If he wrote most
Speaker 4: of it in one year.
Speaker 2: I think he'd been thinking about the twenty percent must
Speaker 2: have taken. I'm assuming twenty percent took just starting it.
Speaker 2: Maybe it took nine years and then he actually sat
Speaker 2: down and wrote most of it in a year.
Speaker 1: Endings are hot. I don't know, I don't know.
Speaker 2: I just like that he he cried after he finished it,
Speaker 2: and I thought that was very sweet.
Speaker 1: Don't let the mail readers know.
Speaker 3: It feels pretentious. It feels pretentious.
Speaker 2: And pretentious and and pretentious. No, you're right, you're absolutely right.
Speaker 3: Like it's a little close to my joke cancer.
Speaker 2: Yeah you won, Yeah, yeah, Claire, I want yeah, Look,
Speaker 2: he does have week we can't agree. You know, he's
Speaker 2: at least in this book, maybe at least around sex.
Speaker 2: The female characters are weak. I feel like, yeah, fair.
Speaker 2: I think another criticism he's had for like moral simplicity
Speaker 2: in the books. That doesn't bother me, though. I don't
Speaker 2: mind that, Like I don't need to know where he
Speaker 2: lands morally as a writer.
Speaker 1: It is morally simplistic about this. I think it's quite complex.
Speaker 2: No, the criticism is just that, like you like, don't
Speaker 2: know as an what his perspective is, like, he's not
Speaker 2: like giving you who's morally correct in certain situations.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and I think I like that.
Speaker 2: I don't want that.
Speaker 3: I don't bite him anything. Yeah, want anyone telling me
Speaker 3: who's yeah correct?
Speaker 1: I think that's called me waiting. I think it's good.
Speaker 4: I just googled is Jonathan friends in sexist? And in
Speaker 4: twenty fifteen when he was promote in his book Purity Purity,
Speaker 4: he got a lot of criticism for being sexist, and
Speaker 4: he's quoted as saying, I'm not a sexist. I'm not
Speaker 4: somebody who goes around saying men are superior, that male
Speaker 4: writers are superior. In fact, I really go out of
Speaker 4: my way to champion women's work that I think is
Speaker 4: not getting enough tension.
Speaker 1: It's just like so I couldn't. I couldn't, I could
Speaker 1: not helping them.
Speaker 4: Because the help'.
Speaker 2: If we're talking about this, I will also say that
Speaker 2: people have like asked why he's like always like white
Speaker 2: people in his books, and he's just like he said,
Speaker 2: like I don't have many black friends. I know, I know,
Speaker 2: it's just like my dude, Like I I don't think
Speaker 2: he is very good p R like there's some things
Speaker 2: that I'm like, look you, that's not that's not the
Speaker 2: right thing to say.
Speaker 3: I think experience or something.
Speaker 2: Yeah, are like I yeah, there's so many bet people
Speaker 2: better than me. I don't know, or like maybe you
Speaker 2: say I would like to improve on this in the
Speaker 2: next like are you try to grow whatever?
Speaker 3: Anyway, I've chosen to befriend only yeah right right?
Speaker 1: So many different answers you have?
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, all right? Where are we in this bitch?
Speaker 2: Is there anything else anybody wants to talk about? Read
Speaker 2: the book particular? Do you guys want to go to
Speaker 2: like goodreads five star reviews?
Speaker 1: Just do it?
Speaker 2: I found yeay, Jonath, thank you.
Speaker 1: This is from Jason, a male reader Jonathan, So don't
Speaker 1: flip out a man man? Read it? Okay? Friends? And
Speaker 1: who's are you mean? As well? I try to find
Speaker 1: a way, even if it's.
Speaker 2: Great shopping sides.
Speaker 1: Fransin's writing. This is from Jason. Franson's writing is impeccable.
Speaker 1: Not only does his understanding of complex familial relationships fascinating me,
Speaker 1: but his ability to capture these characters, all five of them,
Speaker 1: with such depth. I think that really drew me in
Speaker 1: as a reader. They are flawed, emotionally, utterly selfish, and
Speaker 1: yet each of them has the capacity for loving one another,
Speaker 1: even while recognizing their inability to stand up for each
Speaker 1: other for more than five minutes at a time.
Speaker 2: My god, all right, Johnna, did you just find did
Speaker 2: you find any funny five star reviews? I didn't realize
Speaker 2: when I was handing this over to you that it
Speaker 2: might just be.
Speaker 1: A fabian an impulsively readable work of fiction.
Speaker 2: This what does that mean? Pulsively relulsively like I.
Speaker 3: Have can't put it down. I think it's it's a sort.
Speaker 2: Of can't put it down telling.
Speaker 1: The opening vignette was a deep dive into the subterranean
Speaker 1: conflicts of a middle class home in Middle America.
Speaker 3: All these people are fucking pretentious, high on themselves. I
Speaker 3: think a lot of people might like this book because
Speaker 3: it's like it gives you a bit of be like, yeah,
Speaker 3: my fa was fucked up, Yeah it was.
Speaker 2: Fucked up, Like like my family was crazy, as like
Speaker 2: an excuse for like like why am I the way
Speaker 2: I am?
Speaker 3: I need some And I think this book gives them
Speaker 3: that feeling.
Speaker 1: Kelly, I'm just like reading my reviews and getting chills.
Speaker 1: Should I keep going I don't.
Speaker 3: Know rates all right?
Speaker 2: All right, hey, rates.
Speaker 3: One out of five one for is it writing a melody,
Speaker 3: minus a lot for the length, minus a lot for
Speaker 3: the women stuff, minus a lot for pretension, and that
Speaker 3: math equals one out of five very good math.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I'll just go next. Look, do I recognize that
Speaker 4: this is in a different literary echelon than most Meme
Speaker 4: book Club books? Yes, I'm not stupid, But I think
Speaker 4: that that makes it worse, because this is the type
Speaker 4: of thing that we are elevating and referring to as
Speaker 4: a masterpiece. And I'm sorry, but that's poisoning our brains.
Speaker 4: One out of five beautiful.
Speaker 3: I'm so glad to have you.
Speaker 2: All right, I'm gonna start off with my my rating
Speaker 2: on the BBC.
Speaker 1: Sure, yeah, five out of five.
Speaker 2: Really into the BBC. Extra sound effects were all they
Speaker 2: were really on the music. They took out a lot
Speaker 2: of the misogyny they did, although some of the stuff
Speaker 2: was edited it down. I like, like the affairs and
Speaker 2: stuff that made them a little more beautifully flawed kind
Speaker 2: of basic or like they just I'm not finding the
Speaker 2: right word. But anyway, okay, but the book itself, uh yeah,
Speaker 2: I'm gonna give it a four point five out of
Speaker 2: five because I also thought it was very good. But
Speaker 2: I do agree with the critique on women and sex
Speaker 2: that it just feels very male perspective. But I think
Speaker 2: this book moved me many many times. I really enjoyed it,
Speaker 2: and I was some part surprised how much I enjoyed it.
Speaker 2: So four point five out of five.
Speaker 1: I'm glad Sarah joined me here on earth and not
Speaker 1: in cool fantasy kidding. This is it is a five.
Speaker 1: The only book we've read ever in the history of
Speaker 1: our twenty years of doing me in book club that
Speaker 1: was better than this was The old Man in the Seat.
Speaker 3: That's your team, Sarah.
Speaker 2: That the opposite, that's opposite of this book, though in
Speaker 2: terms of word counts think about it completely different, very
Speaker 2: you know.
Speaker 1: But also Hemingway doesn't preach. He lets you decide the
Speaker 1: morality of his characters, the.
Speaker 2: Morality of the fish, my fucking guns.
Speaker 1: Okay, now it's an attack. We've someone swung around, we're
Speaker 1: double attacking. Yeah. I thought it was funny. It was
Speaker 1: it was quick, it was insightful, quick.
Speaker 2: And it moved me deeply.
Speaker 3: Fantasy cuckool, I.
Speaker 1: Cried, explaining to Matt, the reveal of the father at
Speaker 1: the end, when we find out he didn't take the
Speaker 1: more the higher pay at his job, which we didn't
Speaker 1: even talk about.
Speaker 2: Oh, we didn't talk about that. I don't even agree.
Speaker 2: I mean if we wanted to, I don't know.
Speaker 1: I mean we're wrapped up.
Speaker 2: God, damn it. I had thoughts I'll eat them.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it doesn't. It's it almost like it's hard to
Speaker 1: even talk about the plot because you we'd have to
Speaker 1: be like, well, to understand this, we have to explain
Speaker 1: this part. To understand this, you have to explain this part.
Speaker 1: It was small, intricate family dynamics. I teared up explaining
Speaker 1: them to Matt, and he was like, okay, all.
Speaker 3: Right, well, can you give us an example of something
Speaker 3: else you've teered up explaining to Matt though, just just
Speaker 3: so we understand the spectrum.
Speaker 1: Well, I could start crying right now thinking about there's
Speaker 1: this commercial about a dog. Basically, if there's an animal
Speaker 1: and a commercial, what happens in I don't want to
Speaker 1: talk about that food. It's like a commercial, is nothing
Speaker 1: too bad happens?
Speaker 3: But does he have a bond.
Speaker 1: That one get me?
Speaker 2: Is it like it isn't a sp c A or
Speaker 2: is it like a dog something even more money a
Speaker 2: dog that starts eating one kind of dog food when
Speaker 2: he's a puppy, and then like, okay, it's dog is dog?
Speaker 3: Okay? Now, John, I needed I don't need to pile
Speaker 3: on you, but I need to tell you, you know how
Speaker 3: your opinion of the office and how Pam is one
Speaker 3: of the worst written characters you've ever heard. She cries
Speaker 3: at a very similar dog.
Speaker 2: Common JOHNA doesn't like Pam because Pam is a reflection.
Speaker 3: Well is an example of that. It is an example
Speaker 3: of that.
Speaker 1: Okay, so they found one normal human thing about her. Congratulations.
Speaker 3: This is insane, is very much. I don't think watch
Speaker 3: I've watched.
Speaker 1: I've watched. I watched so much. I watched it so much.
Speaker 3: I don't think you've watched in order watched something. I
Speaker 3: just don't understand. All right, Well, you didn't see that.
Speaker 2: This is hard for me because I felt like John
Speaker 2: and I were on the same team. But then she
Speaker 2: kept things being brought up that I disagree with John on,
Speaker 2: and it's making me hard to like the Office, Old Man,
Speaker 2: the Sea. And then I'm like, what am I doing here?
Speaker 1: I mean, I can tell you my hate rates, my
Speaker 1: or not my My little fucker is that we're headed.
Speaker 2: To Ah, yeah, yes, let's go.
Speaker 3: Yeah, why didn't you go first? Start?
Speaker 1: So look, I tried to earlier that like Oprah lets
Speaker 1: her dog shit everywhere.
Speaker 2: I don't.
Speaker 1: I wasn't able to find a record of that online,
Speaker 1: but I swear I heard it. But honestly, the fact
Speaker 1: that both of you guys were like, that's fine, go
Speaker 1: go get them some you'll have an assistant cleaned up
Speaker 1: the dog poop. No, I have to split my hate
Speaker 1: rate between both of you. It goes you and you
Speaker 1: there and you as well.
Speaker 2: And that's from corner one Sarah Clara, all.
Speaker 3: Right, would you rather her hit the dog?
Speaker 2: No?
Speaker 3: What would you rather use.
Speaker 1: Her endless billions to train the dog not to poop inside?
Speaker 1: So nobody has to.
Speaker 3: Clear all right, Well, the dogs in a new environment.
Speaker 3: And maybe he thought he was outside. It's a studio,
Speaker 3: isn't it.
Speaker 1: It could be anything. Well, I don't need to.
Speaker 2: I just don't want to publicly go against Oprah.
Speaker 3: That's my I think she has many dogs and more
Speaker 3: than one had an accident and somebody bitchy pitched about
Speaker 3: it is what I think happened.
Speaker 1: Okay, I stand down, and I'm scared to go against well,
Speaker 1: I'm scared to even say it.
Speaker 2: All right, all right, Claire and I I got you.
Speaker 3: She does stand down, stand up.
Speaker 1: My vote it's half, so it's not a full vote
Speaker 1: for you.
Speaker 2: I'll see how that alright, we'll see. We'll see how
Speaker 2: that goes first times.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you might catch on.
Speaker 4: Yeah, my vote is dedicated all one person. That person
Speaker 4: is the person who is elevating the patriarchy, forgiving misogyny
Speaker 4: and bringing up other misogynists that we didn't even need
Speaker 4: to talk about. Who some dumb, boring, pretentious vote about
Speaker 4: a man on a book on a boat. So yeah, Johna,
Speaker 4: you're gonna get my little vote.
Speaker 3: I'm gonna vote for jonas well. Not just because she
Speaker 3: like keeps insisting that the book is so great even
Speaker 3: though she knows that there are plenty of things criticized
Speaker 3: about it. But remember when I was like, I'm gonna
Speaker 3: try hard to do a bridge between John and Sna.
Speaker 3: I was like trying to throw her bone a little bit,
Speaker 3: and then she like ignores that and votes half for
Speaker 3: me Jona. Yeah, right, But honestly, even if she hadn't
Speaker 3: done that, I would have voted for just for the
Speaker 3: book thing.
Speaker 2: I have done the math. I see now that my
Speaker 2: vote is pointless.
Speaker 1: Change that's it.
Speaker 2: So I will just I will throw a vote at myself.
Speaker 2: I will say voting in myself because it seems as
Speaker 2: though you in a funny way, I'm getting away with
Speaker 2: sharing John's opinion but not not getting any.
Speaker 1: Of the bagash.
Speaker 2: And that's just that's a good point.
Speaker 3: But before you look in, before you lock in, okay,
Speaker 3: I just want to remind you that our wonderful producer
Speaker 3: Blake does keep a running total. So your vote does.
Speaker 2: Like he's going to do. Wait, what's going to happen?
Speaker 1: Wait?
Speaker 2: Are we going to really funny.
Speaker 1: At the end of a final score?
Speaker 3: It was funny last time because it was like it
Speaker 3: was like, clear, it's funny, it's funny.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, okay, okay, okay. I didn't know that
Speaker 2: was votes. I thought that was like number of little
Speaker 2: fuckers one, so I would you're right, it is number
Speaker 2: of little yeah.
Speaker 4: But you know Blake, he's always up in his game.
Speaker 4: It's going to be votes next.
Speaker 2: Time, all right, Well, next time we'll we'll make sure
Speaker 2: to hear the all right, well, congratulations Seanna, you won
Speaker 2: once again starting season twenty off on a hot streak.
Speaker 3: Familiar, It's familiar to our listeners. I think it's a
Speaker 3: nice thing to do.
Speaker 2: Thankes.
Speaker 1: Everybody comfortable?
Speaker 4: Can I say just to George, I feel like by
Speaker 4: and this is no shade to any other mean book
Speaker 4: club book, but by picking a real book, it really
Speaker 4: devolved into almost a real book club.
Speaker 1: Yeah, George, close, clever?
Speaker 2: Why not don we make I think that.
Speaker 3: So some of us fought back against that by listening
Speaker 3: to the audio please.
Speaker 2: But we thought how we tried. I thought I had
Speaker 2: the book, you know what, Speaking of college, JOHNA, I
Speaker 2: definitely had, like got this book in college, like I
Speaker 2: think I I must have been after Freedom came out. Yes,
Speaker 2: I think, yeah or something whatever.
Speaker 4: And I remember with I hope they serve beer and
Speaker 4: hell and you were like I got it.
Speaker 2: I was actually I got it because I was like
Speaker 2: living with my grandparents and I was like, oh, this
Speaker 2: the dynamics, which I actually I still feel like, Oh,
Speaker 2: I would have really related to it at the time.
Speaker 2: So just because I was living with my grandparents, but
Speaker 2: I did get it, and I just I never read it.
Speaker 2: I know I never read it because I was not
Speaker 2: familiar with the book. So next book we have is
Speaker 2: prep by Curtis Sitting Felled.
Speaker 1: Wow.
Speaker 2: Congratulations Curtis getting their third book.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think that's a record we've now this will
Speaker 1: be our first.
Speaker 2: Wow, amazing three Curtis. As always, you can join our Patreon,
Speaker 2: become a patron of the Mean Arts, and as you
Speaker 2: know from this episode, if you give us enough money,
Speaker 2: we will read your book. So there's also a lot
Speaker 2: of other different there's a lot of other tiers where
Speaker 2: you get cool stuff, and we're gonna start bothering people
Speaker 2: in the tier where they're supposed to like be recording
Speaker 2: their thoughts on books to you know, actually do those
Speaker 2: recording so we can include them in the podcast because come.
Speaker 1: We ask, and if you don't want to, that's okay. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'll be bothered. I guess the last like one time then.
Speaker 2: Okay, sure, sure sure. But also check out our TikTok,
Speaker 2: check our Instagram, and Blake is now putting stuff up
Speaker 2: on YouTube too, so you can find us a lot
Speaker 2: of key places. And yeah, and we got a cool
Speaker 2: website out, so check that out as well.
Speaker 1: Thanks Sarah Good work. We're trying all right. Season twenty
Speaker 1: tag to cat