09-13-13 UPDATE:Podcast Update:Time to Read Episode 119: Margot Leitman Gawky: Tales of an Extra Long Awkward Phase
Click image for audio link.
Here's the one-hundred and nineteenth episode of my new series of podcasts, which I'm calling Time to Read. The podcasts/radio broadcasts will be of books worth your valuable reading time. I'll try to keep the reports under four minutes, for a radio-friendly format. If you want to run them on your show or podcast, let me know.
My hope is that in under four minutes I can offer readers a concise review and an opportunity to hear the author read from or speak about the work. I'm hoping to offer a new one every week.
"...they're going to kill an American journalist and I think it's you..."
—Alfredo Corchado
It's a grey and murky day in Santa Cruz, as I drive down to the flats to meet with Alfredo Corchado in his hotel to talk about 'Midnight in Mexico.' He's there with friends and relatives, who rarely get to see him, and it is important that I make the most of my time.
Corchado is not surprisingly, extremely smart and nice. He's very low-key, given that he has been living a high-profile life. For all that I find myself absorbed by the literary work he's written, the material itself also compels me. I want to know how all this feels.
This makes the interview a bit different for me, since I'm cutting closer to the subjects in the way a more "normal" interviewer might. It's somewhat liberating, but I do need to understand how Corchado's feelings, a particular mixture of pragmatism and idealism come into play in his writing. At some point, when your life is in actual danger, it might behoove one to do what is necessary in order to stay alive and keep writing.
But there are some great threads in the book itself and in the way it was put together. It's a knotty bit of work, intricately assembled and, Corchado tells me, something of a diary, pretty much written as it goes.
But then there are the characters, and Corchado had to do some trimming. Moreover in a work like this, he faces some unique challenges, to wit: he has to ask those in the book if they still wish to remain within, knowing that hired killers are still at large. These are not the normal challenges that face a writer.
09-10-13 UPDATE:Podcast Update:Time to Read Episode 118: Alfredo Corchado, 'Midnight in Mexico'
Click image for audio link.
Here's the one-hundred and eighteenth episode of my new series of podcasts, which I'm calling Time to Read. The podcasts/radio broadcasts will be of books worth your valuable reading time. I'll try to keep the reports under four minutes, for a radio-friendly format.
If you want to run them on your show or podcast, let me know by painting your hair bright purple and uploading the video to YouTube.
My hope is that in under four minutes I can offer readers a concise review and an opportunity to hear the author read from or speak about the work. I'm hoping to offer a new one every week.
The one-hundred and eighteenth episode is a look at Alfredo Corchado, 'Midnight in Mexico'.
"...I grew up eating bear, that's why I sound like this..."
—Benjamin Percy
The voice is real; that's just how Benjamin Percy talks. To a degree, you can hear that voice in 'Red Moon,' that clarity and the depth. And given the intensely high quality of the book, we should be glad that he missed his calling doing movie trailer voice-overs. He'd be the guy everyone would want to hear saying "In a world..."
As you might expect, Percy is the nicest guy you can imagine. He seems as if he's very practiced at giving interviews — not that his answers sound rehearsed. Rather, he' sjust at ease talking about this book, and he knows his own materials and methods very, very well. 'Red Moon' is an odd marriage of pure intense passion on a couple of level. As a genre novel about an alternate present, with werewolves, it's just perfect. Knockout plot, clever, intricate world-building, great characters and super, superior prose make it a book you can almost read just for fun.
But the other passion at work here — a dark, satiric twist on our world — is so amazingly well-conceived and executed it is simply mind-boggling in the same way that cosmic visions are mind boggling in space opera. It's so great you can't ignore it, an it just ends up acting as a multiplier for the plot and characters.
Percy is well aware of what he is doing on all levels, and he and I discussed his work on the book; both in terms of what he put there and how it got there. He's very articulate about his process, even the bits that are not so easy to articulate. As one might suspect, Percy, like most novelists has his own approach to novels, but graphics are involved.
There are some vague rumblings about a mini-series, which would be the ideal way to bring this story to the screen. While I don't think it could have quite the same impact — reading is a key part of internalizing satiric notions to bring them to life — I do think it would be fun to watch, and very intense.
08-21-15: Agony Column Podcast News Report : Senator Claire McCaskill is 'Plenty Ladylike' : Internalizing Determination to Overcome Sexism [Incudes Time to Read EP 211: Claire McCaskill, Plenty Ladylike, plus A 2015 Interview with Senator Claire McCaskill]
Agony Column Podcast News Report : Emily Schultz Unleashes 'The Blondes' : A Cure by Color [Incudes Time to Read EP 210: Emily Schultz, The Blondes, plus A 2015 Interview with Emily Schultz]
07-05-15: Commentary : Dr. Michael Gazzaniga Tells Tales from Both Sides of the Brain : A Life in Neuroscience Reveals the Life of Science
Agony Column Podcast News Report : A 2015 Interview with Michael Gazzaniga : "We made the first observation and BAM there was the disconnection effect..."
04-21-15: Commentary : Kazuo Ishiguro Unearths 'The Buried Giant' : The Mist of Myth and Memory
Agony Column Podcast News Report : A 2015 Interview with Kazuo Ishiguro : ".... by the time I was writing this novel, the lines between what was fantasy and what was real had blurred for me..."
Agony Column Podcast News Report : A 2015 Interview with Marc Goodman : "...every physical object around us is being transformed, one way or another, into an information technology..."
Agony Column Podcast News Report UPDATE: Time to Read Episode 199: Marc Goodman : Future Crimes: Everything Is Connected, Everyone Is Vulnerable and What We Can Do About It
