In Defense of the Comic Novel: Andrew Sean Greer Talks “Less is Lost”

In Defense of the Comic Novel: Andrew Sean Greer Talks “Less is Lost”

Arthur Less is a novelist—a “minor American novelist,” to be precise. He’s a man whose biggest talent seems to be taking a problem and making it five times worse. And he’s the hero of Andrew Sean Greer’s novel “Less,” which won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction, an especially rare feat for a comic novel.

Andrew Sean Greer is now out with a sequel, “Less Is Lost,” which takes Arthur on a road trip across the U.S. He talks with the staff writer Parul Sehgal.

Plus, for thirty years, the poet Ellen Bass has taken the same walk almost every day, on West Cliff Drive, a road along the ocean in Santa Cruz, California. Friends and family have teased her for being stuck in her ways, so she wrote the poem “Ode to Repetition,” about taking the same walk, listening to the same songs, and doing the same daily tasks, as life marches toward its end. (This segment originally aired May 26, 2017.)

Episoder(1020)

The Country Singer Margo Price Talks with Emily Nussbaum

The Country Singer Margo Price Talks with Emily Nussbaum

Margo Price moved to Nashville from rural Illinois at the age of nineteen. After struggling for years to break through in the country-music scene, she found success with her 2016 release “Midwest Farm...

11 Apr 202318min

Israel on the Brink: Understanding the Judicial Overhaul, and the Protests Against It

Israel on the Brink: Understanding the Judicial Overhaul, and the Protests Against It

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s proposed law changing the judiciary is described as a reform. To opponents, it’s a move to gut the independence of the Supreme Court as a check on executive power—a...

7 Apr 202332min

Brooke Shields on the Sexualization of Girls in Hollywood

Brooke Shields on the Sexualization of Girls in Hollywood

In the late nineteen-seventies and into the eighties, Brooke Shields was one of the most famous and most controversial people in America. At age eleven, she appeared in the film “Pretty Baby,” playing...

4 Apr 202320min

Jon Meacham on How the Trump Fever Breaks

Jon Meacham on How the Trump Fever Breaks

In 2018, at the midpoint of the Trump Presidency, the journalist and historian Jon Meacham wrote a book called “The Soul of America,” warning of the gravity of Trump’s threat to democracy. This was ha...

31 Mar 202330min

Who Was H. G. Carrillo? D. T. Max on a Novelist Whose Fictions Went Too Far

Who Was H. G. Carrillo? D. T. Max on a Novelist Whose Fictions Went Too Far

H. G. Carrillo was a writer’s writer—not a household name, but esteemed in literary circles. He began writing later in life, and was in his mid-forties when his first novel, “Loosing My Espanish,” was...

28 Mar 202332min

Jia Tolentino on the Ozempic Weight-Loss Craze

Jia Tolentino on the Ozempic Weight-Loss Craze

The prescription drug Ozempic was designed to help people with Type 2 diabetes manage their disease, and, under the name Wegovy, to treat obesity. But it has been embraced recently as a tool for weigh...

24 Mar 202317min

How the Culture Wars Came to the Catholic Church

How the Culture Wars Came to the Catholic Church

The pontificate of Pope Francis, which just reached its tenth year, has brought a greater willingness to engage with modern issues. Francis has addressed Catholics on the climate emergency, arguing a ...

21 Mar 202321min

What if the Supreme Court Ends Affirmative Action?

What if the Supreme Court Ends Affirmative Action?

In Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard, the Supreme Court’s conservative majority appears likely to strike down affirmative action, in a decision expected by this summer. The practice of consideri...

17 Mar 202328min

Populært innen Politikk og nyheter

giver-og-gjengen-vg
aftenpodden
forklart
popradet
aftenpodden-usa
stopp-verden
fotballpodden-2
det-store-bildet
nokon-ma-ga
rss-gukild-johaug
lydartikler-fra-aftenposten
dine-penger-pengeradet
hanna-de-heldige
rss-ness
rss-utenrikskomiteen-med-bogen-og-grasvik
aftenbla-bla
rss-penger-polser-og-politikk
chit-chat-med-helle
frokostshowet-pa-p5
bt-dokumentar-2