LBC Podcast #3: Gina Frangello

Nominator:  Kassia Kroszer

Nominee: My Sister's Continent, Gina Frangello

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. 

Backup Link: (MP3)

(A co-production of the LBC and The Bat Segundo Show.)

Comments

[Gina Frangello]

Thanks, Ed and Kassia, for this wild interview. Even though my laryngitis is painful to listen to (okay, on closer listen, I DO sound like I'm in the midst of gender-reassignment and have been given too heavy a dose of testosterone therapy), I'm absolutely laughing my ass off over this crazy Godfather-themed introduction! Better yet, I think Kassia has hit on a real core truth of literary fiction: the fact that so many writers don't really want to get that CLOSE to their characters, or let the readers see more than the subtle, pretty surfaces of their lives, even when writing about ugly, intimate things like sex, violence, incest. This is a feeling I've long had but that Kassia put really succinctly and with a dead-on lucidity.
Also, I feel a bit like I just won an Academy Award when the music goes on here at the end and Ed's phone cuts me off mid-sentence. Excellent!