5. Memorial & The Virgin Suicides

04/01/23 • 41 min

Welcome to episode 5! On the menu today is Memorial by Byran Washington, which just slips over our '2 years old' threshold - the hype is arguably still hyping - and The Virgin Suicides by Jeffrey Eugenides, which was written 30 years ago and yet still, the hype hypes (StudioCanal just released a sparkly new version of the film.)

We discuss Memorial's literary take on the 'meet the parents' romcom, the 'traumedy' genre, and why Mitsuko is one of the best characters ever written; and why The Virgin Suicides' big themes - adolescent mental health, the male gaze, the American Dream - still feel as prescient today.

You can get in touch [email protected]

Sound by Joel Grove and production by Pandora Sykes

Books/articles mentioned:

Memorial by Bryan Washington

The Virgin Suicides by Jeffrey Eugenides

Bewilderment by Richard Powers

Romantic Comedy by Curtis Sittenfeld

Such A Fun Age by Kiley Reid

White Noise by Don DeLillo

Memorial review by Maria Marchinkoski for The Harvard Review

Memorial review by Tash Aw for The TLS

Memorial review by Ron Charles for The Washington Post

Jeffrey Eugenides interview at The Strand bookstore

Does The Virgin Suicides still hold up 25 years later? By Emily Temple for LitHub

Pre-order Isaac and the Egg in paperback

Books for episode 6:

When I Hit You by Meena Kandasamy

A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

You can get in touch [email protected]

Sound by Joel Grove and production by Pandora Sykes

Books/articles mentioned:

Memorial by Bryan Washington

The Virgin Suicides by Jeffrey Eugenides

Bewilderment by Richard Powers

Romantic Comedy by Curtis Sittenfeld

Such A Fun Age by Kiley Reid

White Noise by Don DeLillo

Memorial review by Maria Marchinkoski for The Harvard Review

Memorial review by Tash Aw for The TLS

Memorial review by Ron Charles for The Washington Post

Jeffrey Eugenides interview at The Strand bookstore

Does The Virgin Suicides still hold up 25 years later? By Emily Temple for LitHub

Pre-order Isaac and the Egg in paperback

Books for episode 6:

When I Hit You by Meena Kandasamy

A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Previous Episode

4. All That Man Is & The Reluctant Fundamentalist

For Episode 4 of Book Chat, we travel back just a decade or so, to Mohsin Hamid's The Reluctant Fundamentalist and David Szalay's short stories in a novel, All That Man Is.

We discuss Mohsin Hamid's ability to condense big ideas - what makes a fundamentalist? What biases are you bringing to the story? - into readable prose (and his other magical novels like Exit West) and David Szalay's attempt to condense modern masculinity from teen to OAP, as it roves Europe - in one book.

You can get in touch [email protected]

Sound by Joel Grove and production by Pandora Sykes

Books/articles mentioned:

All That Man Is and London and the South-East by David Szalay

The Reluctant Fundamentalist, Exit West and The Last White Man by Mohsin Hamid

Games and Rituals and Single, Carefree, Mellow by Katherine Heiny

The Spy Who Came in from the Cold by John le Carré

Shuggie Bain by Douglas Stuart

The Rachel Papers by Martin Amis

If on a winter’s night a traveller by Italo Calvino

Home Fire by Kamila Shamsie

The Runaways by Fatima Bhutto

‘All That Man Is’, by David Szalay, review by Christopher Tayler for the Financial Times – https://www.ft.com/content/fe2db1c4-f797-11e5-803c-d27c7117d132

'All That Man Is,' and a Lot He Is Not, in David Szalay's View, by Dwight Garner for The New York Times – https://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/07/books/review-all-that-man-is-and-a-lot-he-is-not-in-david-szalays-view.html

I Pledge Allegiance, by Karen Olsson for The New York Times – https://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/22/books/review/Olsson.t.html

Clip attributions:

David Szalay on Radio 4 Bookclub, 2019

Mohsin Hamid on Radio 4 Bookclub, 2011

Subscribe to Books + Bits: https://pandorasykes.substack.com/

Our books for Ep 5:

The Virgin Suicides by Jeffrey Eugenides

Memorial by Bryan Washington

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Next Episode

6. When I Hit You & A Visit from the Goon Squad

Episode 6 takes on one little known book and one very, very well-known book. Pandora finally reads A Visit from the Goon Squad and falls in love with Jennifer Egan's entire canon, while Bobby has mixed feelings about one of Pandora's absolute favourite books of recent times, When I Hit You, about a woman's violent marriage to a communist professor in South India.

You can get in touch [email protected]

Sound by Joel Grove and production by Pandora Sykes

Books/articles mentioned:

When I Hit You, The Gypsy Goddess and Exquisite Cadavers by Meena Kandasamy

A Visit from the Goon Squad, Emerald City, Look At Me and The Candy House by Jennifer Egan

Birnam Wood by Eleanor Catton

Burning Questions by Margaret Atwood

Girlfriend on Mars by Deborah Willis

Open Throat by Henry Hoke

On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong

Diary of a Bad Year by J.M. Coetzee

Jennifer Egan on Radio 4 Book Club