OurShelves: Midlife reckoning with Dana Spiotta

02/04/22 • 51 min

George Saunders calls Dana Spiotta a ‘great American writer’. It’s true - but why does it feel so surprising to hear a woman given that accolade. Join Lucy Scholes as she meets the award-winning author of Wayward and four other novels, celebrating the rare joy and complexity of midlife characters, from the accused widow in Everyone Knows Your Mother is a Witch by Rivka Galchen to Olivia Colman’s haunting performance in ‘The Lost Daughter’. Together they ask: Why is this moment in life so disturbing and so powerful, and what can we learn from confronting it?

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

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

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OurShelves with special guest Monica Ali

OurShelves celebrates the end of Season 4 with the beloved Monica Ali, a fellow of Royal Society of Literature, Patron of the Hopscotch Women’s Centre, and bestselling author of Brick Lane and the upcoming Love Marriage, her wonderful, complex and optimistic book about the entangled lives of two very different families – which kept Lucy Scholes up late at night turning the pages. She asks Monica how she gestated this book for ten years, how she made her less likeable characters empathic and how listening to Esther Perel’s sex and relationship therapy inspired her to change their narratives.

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

Next Episode

Ourshelves: Discovery with CN Lester

Discovery with CN Lester

How do we keep fighting when there seems to be no hope? CN Lester is a musician, academic, activist and author of Trans Like Me and they tell Lucy Scholes the best advice they’ve been given for continuing to work in the face of backlash. Join their fascinating conversation on their discovery of women composers of the Italian Baroque (who should never have been forgotten!), their newfound love for Ursula K Le Guin (who should have won a Nobel Prize!), and their deeply personal joy in the poetry of Joelle Taylor (who has won the TS Eliot Prize!).

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