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Tiffany Hanssen: This is All Of It. I'm Tiffany Hanssen, in for Alison Stewart today. Thanks so much for joining us this afternoon. Nice, warm afternoon. We just heard a bit from Stephen Graham Jones this month's Get Lit with All Of It author. He will be joining us for an event tonight at six o'clock. As I mentioned, you can still get those tickets by heading to wnyc.org/getlit. Hosting that event tonight is All Of It and Get Lit producer Jordan Lauf. Hi, Jordan.

Jordan Lauf: Hi.

Tiffany Hanssen: She's joining us in studio to talk about some of the other books she recommends. Listeners, look, we know you have a book you want to recommend, so call us, tell us the title. Share it with the world, 212-433-9692, 212-433-WNYC, taking your book recommendations. You can call us, you can text us at that number. Let us know what you're excited about. What's on your nightstand? All right. Is this book on your nightstand right now, Jordan? This is Under The Bridge. It's nonfiction, so tell us about that.

Jordan Lauf: Anytime I see that there is a adaptation of a book coming up, I love to try to read the book before the show comes out. You might have heard of this one because it's a Hulu series, a new Hulu series starring Riley Keough and Lily Gladstone, but it's based on this work of nonfiction by Rebecca Godfrey. It's a work of true crime, and she spent years embedded in this small Canadian town investigating this brutal murder of a teenage girl that happened under a bridge, as the title suggests, by a pack of teenagers who seemingly had very little motivation to do such a thing.

She really gets into the psyche of these teens. She speaks with all of them. They speak with her very candidly. The book, it almost reads more like a novel than a work of nonfiction because you can't believe some of the stuff these kids are telling her, but it's true and it's heartbreaking. That's the work of nonfiction that the series is based on, and then if you love that, there's the Hulu series starring Riley Keough and Lily Gladstone, which I believe is out already.

Tiffany Hanssen: I believe so. You haven't seen that yet? You wanted to read this first?

Jordan Lauf: I like to read the book before the series most times if I can. Yes.

Tiffany Hanssen: Got it. I would say, correct me if you think differently, but most really great non-fiction works read like fiction. I guess they have that feel to them even though they're not nonfiction, obviously.

Jordan Lauf: Yes. I think that if you're a good writer, you should be a good storyteller, regardless of whether you're writing fiction or nonfiction. If you're writing a good nonfiction book, it should be propulsive, it should bring you along. It shouldn't feel like you're reading a textbook. That's no fun for anyone.

Tiffany Hanssen: Yes, right. Fantasy lovers, you have one for fantasy lovers.

Jordan Lauf: I do. This is The Familiar by Leigh Bardugo. We had Leigh on the show maybe a couple weeks ago. I finished it over my vacation. I absolutely loved it. This one is set in golden age Spain during an era of the Inquisition. It follows a girl named Lucia, who has magical powers. She's a scullion who has these secret magical abilities, but one day, her boss discovers that she has these powers, and that snowballs into the king and powerful men around the king getting invested in seeing whether or not she could work miracles for him to help him in his war against England.

Now, the problem is, is that Lucia is secretly of Jewish heritage, and at this time, of course, it was not good to be Jewish. The Inquisition was around, so she has to find a way to compete in this tournament of magical abilities and showcase her talents without drawing suspicion of the Inquisition into saying, "Hey, what's up with this? Are these miracles coming from God or are they coming from somewhere else?" I just thought it was a really well-written piece of adult fantasy.

Tiffany Hanssen: Good for people who maybe don't necessarily like fantasy. I know you mentioned, good storytelling is good storytelling.

Jordan Lauf: Definitely. I think because this one is grounded in history and in historical fiction, there's not all of the world-building that sometimes you get with a fantasy book that could feel overwhelming. We're not on a new planet, we're not in a new age of dragons and whatever. We're grounded in Spain just with a little bit of a magical flare.

Tiffany Hanssen: Got it. Listeners, you have a book recommendation, and we want to hear it. You can call us at 212-433-9692. You can also text us at 212-433-WNYC. That Get Lit event is tonight. Jordan Lauf is hosting that event. We're talking books right now and hoping you'll chime in. All right. Jordan, Trust Exercise by Susan Choi, another novel you're interested in.

Jordan Lauf: Yes. This one came out a few years ago, but if you miss the boat the first time, I really recommend coming back around to it. Maybe I'm biased because my sister's in theater school right now, so this takes place at a theater high school. I was seeing a lot of parallels.

Tiffany Hanssen: Love it.

Jordan Lauf: The story is about two kids who are at this performing arts high school who enter into this intense romantic relationship, and their drama professor starts meddling in that, in very inappropriate ways, ostensibly to drag some artistic enlightenment out of them, but it ends up feeling very inappropriate. Now, that's the first half of the book.

Tiffany Hanssen: Inappropriate creepy, or does it go beyond creepy?

Jordan Lauf: Well, that's the question of the second half. In the first half, you think, he's meddling in a way that feels like he's trying to draw some art out of them, but in the second half, everything you think that you know in the first half gets flipped on its head. I don't want to spoil it, but it calls into doubt everything we've read in the first half, and the second half is completely different. It puts a new light on everything. The protagonist is different, the narrator is different.

It's a little puzzle of a book. It's very short, but once you get to the end, you want to start over and reread the whole thing because you don't know what's up and what's down, and exactly to your point, was this teacher a meddler? Was he abusive? Was he something else? It's a fascinating book. It's a really well-written piece of work.

Tiffany Hanssen: That book is Trust Exercise by Susan Choi. Jordan, we should say, we will have a list of this put up on our website for people, right?

Jordan Lauf: Yes. I'm sure we'll get a million texts. We'll put it up, I promise.

Tiffany Hanssen: We'll put up this list, I promise. All right. Books that you're looking forward to.

Jordan Lauf: One that I've been really looking and itching to read is this memoir called Consent by Jill Ciment. I think that this has a really interesting story. Jill Ciment is someone who began her relationship with her husband, a man that she was with until he died, when she was a teenager, and he was married with two children. They stayed together until his death. She actually wrote a memoir about that experience many years ago.

This memoir is horror after his death and in this new age of thinking about consent and grooming and boundaries and Me Too, looking back both on her life and that relationship and on the memoir that she wrote, and reexamining how much of what I was feeling was valid. How much of this relationship was inappropriate? Was I excusing things at the time, or can it be true that you can love someone who's much older than you and discover that love at a young age? Those are all sticky, tricky questions to grapple with, but I find it so interesting that it's almost a memoir dissecting her previous memoir.

Tiffany Hanssen: The memoir on a memoir.

Jordan Lauf: Exactly.

Tiffany Hanssen: We should just spell her last name maybe. It's Ciment. You're saying Ciment, but it's C-I-M-E-N-T, right?

Jordan Lauf: Yes. There's a chance I'm saying it wrong, but yes, C-I-M-E-N-T.

Tiffany Hanssen: Got it. The title of that book is Consent: The Memoir on a Memoir.

Jordan Lauf: Yes.

Tiffany Hanssen: Let's move to YA.

Jordan Lauf: This is actually an adult novel from a YA author. This is One of Our Kind by Nicola Yoon. You might know her from books like The Sun Is Also a Star. That was a YA romance that I read. This is her adult debut, and it is set in a utopian "Black community" called Liberty that forms in California. It's supposed to be this great new haven for Black families, but a woman who moves there discovers as one does that all is not as it seems. I am a sucker for a dystopian novel, and utopia is falling apart very quickly, so I'm excited to see what she does with her adult debut.

Tiffany Hanssen: All right. Give us the title again. I just missed my page here. Where is it? Her name is Nicola Yoon and the book is?

Jordan Lauf: One of Our Kind.

Tiffany Hanssen: One of Our Kind. All right. Jordan, let's take a call here. Matthew in Spring Lake. Good morning, or actually, good afternoon, Matthew.

Matthew: Good afternoon. I have two recommendations.

Tiffany Hanssen: Excellent.

Matthew: One is Only This Beautiful Moment by Abdi Nazemian. I might be mispronouncing his last name.

Tiffany Hanssen: Okay. The second?

Matthew: The second is Alice McDermott's Absolution.

Tiffany Hanssen: Absolution. Have you heard of either of those?

Jordan Lauf: Absolution is a new one that's been on my radar. I think it just came out this year. I have not read any Alice McDermott. I can't believe I'm admitting that, but I really need to, so maybe I'll add that to my list.

Tiffany Hanssen: Good to add to the list. We have a text. Short War by Lily Meyer. It's a multi-generational novel about American involvement in the Chilean coup, but mostly, it's a brilliantly written teen love story followed by literary mystery capped off with a secret. [laughs] Wow. This really has everything rolled into it. Have you heard about that? Short War by Lily Meyer?

Jordan Lauf: I haven't, but for something was short in the title, it sounds like there's a lot going on.

Tiffany Hanssen: It sounds like there's a lot going on. Also, The Paris Novel by Ruth Reichl. Did I say that right?

Jordan Lauf: I believe so. Is she the-

Tifanny Hanssen: Reichl.

Jordan Lauf: -food writer?

Tifanny Hanssen: Reichl. It's a vacation without leaving my apartment. Now that sounds like a good recommendation. [chuckles] I could take a vacation. Though, today's a great day. You could just take the book outside-

Jordan Lauf: Exactly.

Tifanny Hanssen: -if you need a vacation. All right. Up next, we have an anticipated sequel.

Jordan Lauf: Yes. For fans of Brooklyn by Colm Tóibín, guess what? There's a new one coming out. It's called Long Island, [chuckles] which is--

Tifanny Hanssen: I love it.

Jordan Lauf: I love also. Maybe you read the book, maybe you saw the movie with Saoirse Ronan. If you need a refresher, the Center of Brooklyn was an Irish immigrant to Brooklyn named Eilis, falls in love with a Italian man named Tony. At the end of that story, they buy a house, they buy a plot of land in Long Island, and that's where they're going to move. This one picks up many years later, they've been living in Long Island, and now they have some teenage kids. One day, the husband of an Irish woman shows up on Eilis's doorstep and says, "Hey, my wife is pregnant. The baby is your husband's. As soon as the baby is born, I will be dropping the baby off at your house, and that'll be your responsibility."

Tifanny Hanssen: There's a good premise for a novel.

Jordan Lauf: Exactly. It's all the trials and tribulations that go on from there. Saoirse Ronan wants to get aged up and go in for the sequel. I'm ready for the next adaptation.

Tifanny Hanssen: I'm ready for that as well. All right. The title of that book, not surprisingly, Long Island. The author is?

Jordan Lauf: Colm Tóibín.

Tifanny Hanssen: Thank you for saying that because I don't think I could have done that. All right. We're going to take another call here. Let's go to Oyster Bay. We have Tom. Hi, Tom.

Tom: Hi. Hello. I'm just now reading a book called The Bird Hotel by Joyce Maynard. It's Central America and there's some magic in it. I think it's pretty good. The other one is a book called Clearing, which is the other end of it. It's a Northern Scottish island and it's about when they cleared all the tenants off of the land. That's also-- it was a really good read.

Tifanny Hanssen: Sounds great. Thanks, Tom. All right. Have you read The Bird Hotel?

Jordan Lauf: I have not. No, I'm not familiar. Although that Scottish one sounds interesting because I just came back from a trip to Scotland. Maybe I'll add that to my pile.

Tifanny Hanssen: Yes. Sounds good. All right. Another book that you want to mention that is forthcoming is -- is Knife forthcoming still?

Jordan Lauf: Just came out. I think it came out last week. This is Salman Rushdie's memoir about his assassination attempt and the aftermath.

Tifanny Hanssen: How long ago was that now? That was--

Jordan Lauf: Oh, man.

Tifanny Hanssen: Was it a year? That happened at Chautauqua.

Jordan Lauf: I think over a year.

Tifanny Hanssen: Where he was attacked on stage by someone wielding a knife.

Jordan Lauf: Exactly.

Tifanny Hanssen: Lost his eye, was horribly injured, didn't think he was going to make it.

Jordan Lauf: Exactly.

Tifanny Hanssen: He poured all of that into this. It's not really-- I guess it is a memoir, right?

Jordan Lauf: It's a memoir about that story. I think the bravest thing you can do in an attack in which someone is trying to silence you for your writing and your voice is to not be silent and to keep writing. That's what he's doing with this memoir. I'm very eager to pick it up.

Tifanny Hanssen: We have another call from Brooklyn. Good afternoon. Is this Al?

Al: Yes. Hi.

Tifanny Hanssen: Hi.

Al: Thanks for taking my call.

Tifanny Hanssen: Great. You got a recommendation?

Al: Yes. I actually just happened upon this book in a free little library. It's called The End of Days by Jenny Erpenbeck. It's translated from the original German and it's good. Basically, the premise of the book is it's set in a couple different sections. Each section, the main character dies a different death at a different point in her life. I'm not giving anything away by telling people that-- but she lives a little bit longer in each section of the book. If you think about chat books, it's separated like that but it's all in one volume. The first section of it, she dies as an infant and that entire section is what happened to the rest of her family because she died young.

What was an added fascinating layer for me was that it spans the First World War and then into the beginning-- depending on how long she lives into the beginning of the second. It takes place over in, and depending on how long she lives, in Germany, in Austria, in Poland, and in Ukraine. It's very fascinating to read it in the context of everything that's happening right now. A lot of it also happens in Russia.

Tifanny Hanssen: Oh, Al, thank you so much. The title of that book, Jordan, I believe was The End of Days by Jenny Erpenbeck. Have you read that?

Jordan Lauf: I haven't, but it is always reminding me that I'm trying to read more translated literature these days. There's a whole world of writers out there that I find that I'm just limiting myself often to American authors, and every time I pick up a work of translated literature, I am transported. I'm excited. I feel like I get something new out of it. Always good to go and seek out some translated lit.

Tifanny Hanssen: Jordan, the book I'm reading, I'm pointing to right now is The Swans of Harlem, loving this book. It's a work of nonfiction about five Black ballerinas from Harlem whose history was pretty much lost until recently, the author, Karen Valby, dug into their histories and spent a lot of time in conversation with these women. Shameless plug, we're going to talk to her on Wednesday, but this is a fantastic book as well. Tonight, Jordan, you are going to be busy. You're going to be busy talking about a book. I'm going to let you take it away with all the details about Get Lit for tonight.

Jordan Lauf: Yes. At six o'clock at the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Library, I will be speaking with Stephen Graham Jones, who is an acclaimed horror writer. He is the author of My Heart is a Chainsaw, which is the book that we read this month, but it's also the first in his Indian Lake trilogy, which just wrapped up this year. If you come and you end up loving what you hear, you can get all three books and you'll have a whole trilogy ahead of you to read. Tickets are on sale at wnyc.org/getlit. We'll also have a really awesome musical performance from an indigenous rapper named Frank Waln, and my colleague, Simon Close, will be doing that interview. You got books, you got music, you got a little bit of gore. What more could you want from a-

Tifanny Hanssen: Well, I got one-

Jordan Lauf: -Monday?

Tifanny Hanssen: -more thing you could want. They're free tickets.

Jordan Lauf: Free tickets.

Tifanny Hanssen: You don't even have to-

Jordan Lauf: Exactly.

Tifanny Hanssen: -buy them. Wnyc.org/getlit, that's how you get those tickets. Jordan Lauf, thanks so much for the conversation.

Jordan Lauf: Thanks, Tiffany.

 

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