Author: Jeff VanderMeer

Condition of Mr. Segundo: Coming to terms with troubling generalizations.

Subjects Discussed: Mushrooms as inspiration, writing “Dradin in Love” while suffering from mono, Steve Erickson, the writer as sadistic god, on being perceived as “difficult,” genre as revitilization device, the New Weird, China Miéville, the value of taxonomies, the use of parentheses for voice, reinventing the Ambergris mythology, scholarly discourse in fiction, underground scholars, Gormenghast, Nabokov, cities, Beirut, Albumeth Boulevard’s inspirations, ephemera, balancing experimentalism and absurdism, objections to playful prose, the Dan Green dust-up, Shriek: the movie, The Church, the Shriek parties, balancing the day job and the writing life, and the importance of physical exercise for writers.

Author: A.M. Homes

Condition of Mr. Segundo: Trying to remember last night’s conquest, relying upon Jorge’s import/export skills.

Subjects Discussed: Taking on the “male menopause novel,” idioms appropriated by corporations, Kurt Vonnegut, vernacular, throwing the reader off guard, the dropping of letters, character names, donuts vs. bagels, burgers, on being provocative, novelists as ethicists, maintaining an “apocalyptic yet uplifting” tone, Katrina, Michiko Kakutani’s review, Stephen King’s plaudits and the mixed reviews, writing vulnerable male heroes, sensationalistic material, muted realism and decorum, research in Los Angeles, the ass as the great gender equalizer, charlatans and quacks, explaining life within novels, cliches, interconnectedness, Crash, Nathaniel West’s The Day of the Locust, money, and the relative nature of class within fiction.

Author: Jonathan Safran Foer

Condition of Mr. Segundo: Dismissive of Michael Martone.

Subjects Discussed: San Francisco vs. New York, time-shifting as style, invention as experimentalism, the importance of critics (James Wood, B.R. Myers, Sven Birkets), responding to John Updike’s review, visual elements, designing Extremely Loud in Word, the use of conceptual red ink, the post-9/11 novel, United 93, making the 50 Most Loathsome New Yorkers, public perception, Foer’s side of the Deborah Solomon article, interviews, the real-life inspiration for Mr. Black, Burgess’s Earthly Powers, Bertolucci’s 1900, the influence of photographs upon the text, Joseph Cornell, numbers, -ologists, “…until that day…,” Stephen Hawking, Billy Joel, laughing in the face of tragedy, the “purity” of children, and creative acts.

Guests: Michael Orthofer and Betsy Wing (translator, LBC nominee, Summer 2006)

Condition of Mr. Segundo: In absentia, fleeing the silly hipsters.

Subjects Discussed: How to raise awareness of translated fiction, an idea involving Chad Post, on being a designated translator, language adopted by literary critics, a very friendly dog in the Wing household, breaking down a novel, dictionaries, on hooking up with Paule Constant, working class vernacular, dialects, maintaining the tone between funny and heartwrenchingly sad, working against first impressions in translation, the myth of auctorial spontaneity, a forgotten movement in the late 1970s and the early 1980s to bring attention to translators, the advantages of freelance translating, and putting the translator’s name on the book spine.

Guests: Dan Wickett and Kellie Wells (LBC Nominee, Summer 2006)

Condition of Mr. Segundo: Absent, avoiding his family lineage.

Subjects Discussed: Interdependent stories, the perception of a “novel in stories,” “Compression Scars” as the launching pad for the novel, building community consciousness within fiction, setting down distinct vernacular, preserving Midwestern cultural details, Sherwood Anderson, the publishing industry’s prejudice against the Midwest, cap guns, finding the right brand name referential balance, Spirographs, novelists as chroniclers, the adaptive nature of human behavior as expressed through fiction, The Pickwick Papers, writing about abuse, the origins of What Cheer, punk culture in Kansas, and the propinquity of magical realism to personal experience.

Guests: OGIC, Scott Esposito and Edie Meidav (LBC Nominee, Summer 2006).

Condition of Mr. Segundo: Running away from the Bolsheviks.

Subjects Discussed: Dancing about architecture, Humbert Humbert, antiheroes, character names and wordplay, Nabokov, the memory of environment vs. its inevitable change, balancing secondary characters against a complex protagonist, the real-life inspiration for the wastrels, writing in sheds, various notions of “crawl space,” cross-graphs, visual elements contained within text, on being edited at FSG, “throwing out crazy trees,” discarded subplots, drowning babies, mining abandoned material vs. moving forward, and introducing loaded guns in the first act.

Many apologies to all. I’m doing the best that I can to catch up.

Author: Colson Whitehead

Condition of Mr. Segundo: Dismayed by advertising jingle trios and interruptions; more than vaguely litigious.

Subjects Discussed: Living in San Francisco, working at CNET, writing on the clock, the importance of names, Theodore Judah, microhistories, the influence of 9/11 upon Apex, metaphors, toes, writing about work, James Wood, didacticism, masculinity, the influence of pop culture, Generation X novels, Sven Birkets, whether the reader or the author has the obligation to make connections, the value of reviews, self-criticism, avoiding cliches, Altamont, compulsive writing, research, translating cultural experience into fiction, comic books, and brokering a detente with Richard Ford.

Author: Hal Niedzviecki

Condition of Mr. Segundo: Temporarily replaced, due to being incapable of being crass and making a generalization at the same time.

Subjects Discussed: The advantages of studying American culture from Canada, individualism vs. conformity, pop star aspirations, American Idol, karaoke, television, the economics of media, Clap Your Hands Say Yeah Yeah, William T. Vollmann, the end of Western expansion, German billionaires, on one-upping explorers, the disadvantages of genius, media conformity vs. community, fundamentalists, homophobia, the BattleCry protests in San Francisco, the human ego, and retreating from society.

[EDITOR’S NOTE: Bat Segundo has been particularly vociferous of late and wanted the opportunity to clarify a few issues that had apparently cropped up during the BEA podcasts. I sat down with Bat Segundo at a dive bar (Freddie G’s, I believe it was called) about a mile away from his Motel 6 room. Bat told me that I had to buy him two shots of whiskey before he would answer any of my questions. Fortunately, once the Jack had trickled down his throat, he permitted me to press the orange record button on the tape recorder.]

You’re clearly unhappy about introducing these podcasts. Why keep doing them?

Because I’m a professional! Back in 1992, there was a man named Clive Harris. He ran a radio station and he was the last man in town who would hire me. Anyway, Clive told me that I was washed up, that I had nothing in the way of prospects, and that I should work at an Arby’s somewhere. As it turned out, I did begin an interesting career in the fast food business and became assistant manager.* I did other things too. But I don’t think I should mention them here. Then one morning, as I was recovering from a nasty hangover, I got a call from a Russian producer who wanted to hire me for this new podcasting thing. And so it was either continue my hard work at Arby’s or do this podcasting thing. As you know, I opted for the latter. And I’ve been miserable ever since.

But surely doing radio work is preferable to slinging burgers.

I was assistant manager! I hired other people to sling burgers. Have you heard of Milton, sir? Or a Foster’s contract?

I think you mean Faustian contract.

Whatever! It’s the Young, Roving Correspondent who knows all about this literary stuff, not me. I’m just the stiff they hire to introduce the show.

Why aren’t you the one conducting the interviews?

Because I have a lousy track record. Or so they say. The one and only time I conducted an interview, it was with a Hollywood actress who shall remained unnamed. She was in town to promote some such film that I hadn’t seen and I didn’t cared to see. All I knew was that there was this woman sitting in my studio with large breasts. Now I’ve seen a lot of breasts in my time and I won’t tell you exactly how I obtained this skill, but I can tell absolutely when a girl’s got fake tits. Anyway, I was growing bored with this woman and I then asked her if her tits were real. She refused to indulge me. So I had one of our engineers play a particular frequency, which somehow caused this woman’s silicone gel implants to rupture. I suspect that there was some preexisting condition that caused the rupture. But since much of my savings was, how should I say this, tied up in investments, I couldn’t hire a decent attorney. I was fired on the spot, of course. And the case was settled out the court. But in the end, I was right about the tits. Of course, nearly everyone in the radio business knows what happened.

If you’re such a connoisseur of women’s anatomy, why then did you kiss Matt Cheney at the Big Hunt?

He looked like he needed it! In Russia and Europe and a few other countries, men kiss other men all the time. Or so they say. I don’t know why it hasn’t caught on here. But I can tell you that during our trip to the Mojave Desert, Jorge showed me a few things that caused me to re-examine certain cultural stigmas.

What did he show you?

A profoundly new way of thinking.

Can you elaborate on this?

Not really. These are really personal questions though, don’t you think?

Is there then a special someone in your life?

You could say that. I have a strong attachment to this flask in my pocket. As a matter of fact, it was Clive who gave it to me.

Okay. One final question then. Do you feel that you’re getting upstaged by Updike?

There is one thing that keeps me going. Updike’s an old man. He will likely die before I do. He may have the upper hand now. But rest assured that the grave is the inevitable destination for the human spirit.

Thank you very much, Mr. Segundo.

Oh shut up and buy me another drink.

* — Note: I contacted Arby’s Corporate to see if they had reference to any employee named Bat Segundo. They told me that there was nobody who had worked by that name in the past twenty years. So was Bat lying about Arby’s? Or was he working under another name?

(Photo courtesy of Carolyn Kellog.)

Authors: Derik Badman and Jordan Stump

Condition of Mr. Segundo: Gone, relieved not to be involved with Bolsheviks.

Subjects Discussed: French humor, Jacques Tati, how Stump translates, comic beats, auctorial tone and linguistics, the pros and cons of long sentences, the benefits of reading aloud, translating Verne vs. translating Touissaint, why translators get a bad rap, “Translator Awareness Month,” the influence of commercial interests on translated novels, forgotten French authors.

Authors: Carrie A.A. Frye and Yannick Murphy

Condition of Mr. Segundo: Missing, last seen packing himself into a suitcase at Dulles.

Subjects Discussed: To Kill a Mockingbird, Dodie Smith’s I Capture the Castle, Here They Come as autobiography, bending spoons with your mind, sleepless nights of inspiration, the similarities between surrealism and realism, hot dog vendors, points of reference as a coping mechanism, writing a New York-based novel in California, the A&P as a reflection of socioeconomic values, working with Eli Horowitz.

[PRODUCER’S NOTE: Every effort has been made to preserve and process the audio. But keep in mind that the group was in a noisy bar and there were considerable microphones involved, which all picked up some background noise. So for those who protest the din, we note that the ambience clears out a little about twenty minutes into the podcast.]

Authors: Nicki Richesin, Meghan Daum, Erin Ergenbright, Michelle Richmond, Kimberly Askew and Heather Juergensen

Condition of Mr. Segundo: Strangely libidinous after his return from the desert.

Subjects Discussed: The strange woman on the May Queen cover, epigraphs, magazine editors hostile towards women’s issues, the “selfishness” of opting against the biological clock, mothers vs. non-mothers, Diane Keaton, Sharon Stone in Basic Instinct 2, Dolly Parton, Searching for Debra Winger, plastic surgery, agism, self-worth and body image, field trips to Planned Parenthood, sex within marriage, finding one’s place via environment, San Francisco vs. Los Angeles, the New York Times Style section, the advantages of “zero birthdays,” achievements when living in one’s thirties, the infamous “grups” article, urban vs. rural lifestyles, Mom Jeans, the divide and similarities between twentysomethings and thirtysomethings, finding a life path, women’s anthologies, the variance of opinions on aging, the chick lit controversy, the In Her Shoes film adaptation, Jhumpa Lahiri, the danger of pink covers, taking Curtis Sittenfeld to task, cognitive taxonomy, “chick” labels and the publishing industry, Marilynne Robinson, the lack of women film directors, women and work, the hesitancy to write about work, the gender income divide and how the essays were selected.

Authors: Kassia Kroszer and Gina Frangello

Condition of Mr. Segundo: Still in the desert, deferring to Mr. Bonasera.

Subjects Discussed: Margaret Atwood, violence, Freud’s “Dora” study, Jane Smiley’s A Thousand Acres, psychoanalytical theories in the 90s, Erica Jong’s Fear of Flying, unreliable narrators, epigraphs, the presence of current events, hysteria, Ayn Rand, the influence of Kathy Acker, the “viciousness” of the sexuality, the influence of contemporary music, Nine Inch Nails, writing about Chicago in Amsterdam, shopping the book around, and chick lit vs. edgy fiction.

[NOTE: The Bat Segundo crew is not responsible for the wretched music (in addition to a cleaner that we processed out in part) playing in the background during the interview. We apologize to our listeners for this. But we had to improvise to talk with Ms. Waters as long as possible.]

Author: Sarah Waters

Condition of Mr. Segundo: Wandering the Mojave Desert with Jorge.

Subjects Discussed: Waters’ novels as romps, Graham Greene, imagery, the influence of 1940s novels upon The Night Watch, on ventriloquizing voices, thighs as literary imagery and a pleasant thing to think about, watches and clocks, on devising the structure, the disadvantages of character development in a backwards structure, Tracy Chevalier’s Washington Post review, on maintaining the exuberance from the Victorian novels, food, why the characters are attracted to Helen, nature vs. nurture in relation to World War II, on being pigeonholed as a lesbian writer, on maintaining respect for those who lived during World War II, the role of research in writing The Night Watch, on pageturner plots, and writing without an outline.

Authors: Gwenda Bond and Jeffrey Ford (LBC nominee, Spring 2006)

Condition of Mr. Segundo: Absent, abstaining from Bolshevik operations.

Subjects Discussed: On writing a book with “everything but the kitchen sink,” baroque vs. simple language, the influence of Hammett, Glen David Gold’s Carter Beats the Devil, Rex Stout, creative serendipity, eugenics, on “playing it safe” in light of the extraordinary research unearthed, the “literary” inspiration behind the character names, Rupert Thomson, auctorial voice, on being a student of John Gardner, confrontational vs. direct prose, Sturgeon’s law, Harlan Ellison, on young writers drawing attention to themselves, Chuck Palahniuk, beleaguered college students, Dave Itzkoff’s “reading list,” the influence of the New York Times Books Review, The Girl in the Glass being pigeonholed as a young adult novel, reviewers overanalyzing the word “mawkish,” and genre classification.

Authors: Mark Sarvas and Sheila Heti (LBC nominee, Spring 2006)

Condition of Mr. Segundo: Absent, abstaining from Bolshevik operations.

Subjects Discussed: Perspectives, on writing an interior novel, research vs. devising Ticknor’s character, passive protagonists, environmental details, ambiguity, anxiety, on digressing from the historical record, masking fears, Ticknor’s ass fetish, writing an “epic” short novel and Canadian writers.