Episode 452 – Rosemary Steinbaum

Virtual Memories Show 452:
Rosemary Steinbaum

“His reading and his writing are intertwined. That’s the main theme of the Philip Roth Personal Library: a writer at work reading and a reader at work writing.”

It’s part 1 of a 2-part show about the new Philip Roth Personal Library at the Newark Public Library! This week, NPL trustee Rosemary Steinbaum talks about working with Philip Roth over the years and helping convince him to donate his books and belongings to the PRPL. We get into her friendship with Roth, her visits to his Connecticut home to figure out what would be in the personal library, her favorite discoveries in the collection, and the joy of reading his notes and marginalia. We also talk about her favorite literary pilgrimages, her love of The Counterlife, Roth’s funeral, the themes of Roth’s work that could become future exhibitions at the library, her Newark and how she helped Liz Del Tufo develop a Roth-tour of the city (which Roth once tagged along on), the donation of Roth’s letters from his teen sweetheart (including a reading list for her), and more! Give it a listen! And go visit the Philip Roth Personal Library!

“To have Philip Roth walk us through the logic of his library was very special.”

“If people were going to make a pilgrimage for Roth, it was going to be to see his work life and his reading life, not his living room.”

“As far as retirement goes, he did say to us that he was finding it difficult as he aged to hold a whole novel in his mind at the same time.”

“Knowing only the data of Roth’s experience leads to misunderstanding of Roth’s work. Newark is a fictive setting, like Yoknapatawpha County for Faulkner.”

“He said he wanted to be buried near Hannah Arendt so he’d have somebody to talk to.”

Enjoy the conversation! Then check out the archives for more great episodes!

Lots of ways to follow The Virtual Memories Show! iTunes, Spotify, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, TuneIn, Tumblr, and RSS!

About our Guest

Rosemary Steinbaum recently retired from a career in education. She earned her doctorate mid-career from Columbia Teachers College. Before obtaining her degree, she taught high school English in independent schools. In the second part of her career she worked in the field of teacher education, directing the Rutgers-Newark undergraduate teacher education program and overseeing two grant funded teacher education programs at Montclair State University. Her not-for-profit commitments have centered on Newark, especially on The Newark Public Library, where she is a trustee. She was involved in the talks that led to Philip Roth’s bequest of his personal library and in its planning and build-out at the Newark Public Library.

Follow the Philip Roth Personal Library on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.

Credits: This episode’s music is Fella by Hal Mayforth, used with permission from the artist. The conversation was recorded at Rosemary’s home on a pair of Blue enCORE 200 Microphones feeding into a Zoom H5 digital recorder. I recorded the intro and outro on a Heil PR-40 Dynamic Studio Recording Microphone feeding into a Cloudlifter CL-1 and a Mackie Onyx Blackjack 2×2 USB Recording Interface. All processing and editing done in Adobe Audition CC. Photo of Rosemary by me. Photos of library by . . . someone else. It’s on my instagram.

Episode 451 – Jacques Berlinerblau

Virtual Memories Show 451:
Jacques Berlinerblau

“I think what’s different about Roth is the wink and the nod and the game; he’s signaling to us in his fiction that he’s writing about events and people that are very close to him, and yet repeatedly denied doing so. No one else engaged in that gamesmanship with the readership and the critical apparatus around the study of the literature. Why did he need to play that game?”

Professor Jacques Berlinerblau joins the show to celebrate his new book, The Philip Roth We Don’t Know: Sex, Race, and Autobiography (UVA Press)! We get into a deep dive on All Things Roth: #metoo, reverse-biography, metafiction, rage merchants, Rothian Path Dependency, literary legacy & reputation, the changing expectations and tolerances of readers, and the writer Roth cites more than any other in his books. We also talk about the scandal around Roth’s biographer and why I think it’s greatest metafictional novel Roth never wrote, the role of race & racism in Roth’s work (and in Jacques’ broader areas of study), why Jacques never wanted to meet Roth, his love of The Anatomy Lesson, the disillusionment he had upon reading Roth’s letters in the Library of Congress, why we should all read My Dark Vanessa, whether not winning the Nobel really burned Roth’s ass, and so much more! Give it a listen! And go read The Philip Roth We Don’t Know!

“Roth studies needs a huge kick in the ass. Several, really. The first is that we have to stop letting non-Roth-scholars set the agenda for this writer. I can think of no American writer whose interpretation is brought to us by so many non-scholars.”

“It’s a dilemma for Roth scholars: did he know a lot about postmodernism and metafiction and just didn’t want to admit it, or did he just independently have very similar thoughts about how literature works? . . . Did he read literary criticism about anyone besides himself?”

Enjoy the conversation! Then check out the archives for more great episodes!

Lots of ways to follow The Virtual Memories Show! iTunes, Spotify, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, TuneIn, Tumblr, and RSS!

About our Guest

Jacques Berlinerblau is Rabbi Harold White Professor of Jewish Civilization at Georgetown University and author of Campus Confidential: How College Works, or Doesn’t, for Professors, Parents, and Students. His new book is The Philip Roth We Don’t Know: Sex, Race, and Autobiography.

Follow Jacques on Twitter.

Dr. Jacques Berlinerblau
Professor, Center for Jewish Civilization
Walsh School of Foreign Service | Georgetown University

Credits: This episode’s music is Fella by Hal Mayforth, used with permission from the artist. The conversation was recorded remotely via Zencastr. I used a Heil PR-40 Dynamic Studio Recording Microphone feeding into a Cloudlifter CL-1 and a Mackie Onyx Blackjack 2×2 USB Recording Interface. All processing and editing done in Adobe Audition CC. Photo of Jacques by someone else. It’s on my instagram.

And, because you read this far, here’s the painting that Roth owned, which Jacque’s agent sent him. As we said during the episode, there is NO way to do this justice:

Episode 446 – Heywood Gould

Virtual Memories Show 446:
Heywood Gould

With his compulsively entertaining new book, Drafted: A Memoir of the ’60s (Tolmitch Press), author, screenwriter, and director Heywood Gould takes his reader on a rollicking tour of New York City in America’s most turbulent decade as he explores his draft-dodging days in the buildup of the Vietnam war. We get into how Drafted evolved from a screenplay into a novel into a memoir, what it was like being a reporter for the New York Post at 22 (when it was a pinko rag, rather than a right-wing rag) and working alongside Nora Ephron and Pete Hamill, his family’s tension between communist leanings & patriotism, and how his race to get out of the draft led him to Paris, civil rights protests, almost to the wedding altar, and Fort Dix. We also talk about Heywood’s career writing and directing movies and TV (like Cocktail, Fort Apache, The Bronx, One Good Cop, The Boys From Brazil and The Equalizer), his one Gabriel Byrne story, why he’ll take NYC over LA, and all the ways Hollywood has changed over the decades, especially in the streaming era. Plus we discuss why he reads the Torah daily (for the storytelling!), his stab at adapting Isaac Babel for the movies, how the Great American Novel has eluded him so far, how he learned Hemingway’s trick of writing fiction like a news story, why being a mortician’s assistant was his favorite non-writing job, and why his next book will be How Not To Be A Cancer Patient, a memoir of his 20 years (and counting) of experience with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. Give it a listen! And go read Drafted!

Enjoy the conversation! Then check out the archives for more great episodes!

Lots of ways to follow The Virtual Memories Show! iTunes, Spotify, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, TuneIn, Tumblr, and RSS!

About our Guest

Born in the Bronx and raised in Brooklyn, Heywood Gould got his start as reporter for the NY Post. Later he financed years of rejection with the usual colorful jobs — cabdriver, mortician’s assistant, tending bar and writing screenplays. Heywood is the author of nine novels, among them Cocktail, Fort Apache, The Bronx, Double Bang, Serial Killer’s Daughter, Leading Lady and Green Light for Murder. The latter two were both Hammett Award finalists. He has written nine screenplays — including Cocktail, Fort Apache, The Bronx, The Boys From Brazil, Rolling Thunder and Streets of Gold — and has directed four feature films: One Good Cop, starring Michael Keaton, Trial By Jury with William Hurt, Mistrial starring Bill Pullman, and Double Bang with William Baldwin. His latest book is Drafted: A Memoir of the ’60s.

Credits: This episode’s music is Fella by Hal Mayforth, used with permission from the artist. The conversation was recorded at Heywood’s home on a pair of Blue enCORE 200 Microphones feeding into a Zoom H5 digital recorder. I recorded the intro and outro on a Heil PR-40 Dynamic Studio Recording Microphone feeding into a Cloudlifter CL-1 and a Mackie Onyx Blackjack 2×2 USB Recording Interface. All processing and editing done in Adobe Audition CC. Photo of Heywood by me. It’s on my instagram.

Episode 444 – Jonathan Baylis

Virtual Memories Show 444:
Jonathan Baylis

Writer Jonathan Baylis joins the show (in person!) to celebrate the latest issue of his autobio comics series, So Buttons (Tinto Press/Alchemy Comix). We talk about how he found a home in the Pekar mode, writing scripts for cartoonists to draw, and how he went all-Harvey for a strip with Noah Van Sciver. We get into his comics upbringing and his work experiences at a variety of comic companies, how his time at NYU film school informed his storytelling style, the artists he’s hoping to work with, and how his body of work has revealed meta-themes about his stories. We also discuss being a subject in his wife’s monologues (she’s comedian Ophira Eisenberg), our reminiscences of Tom Spurgeon, working with his cartooning idols, our weirdest Tarantino-moments, and more! Give it a listen! And go read the latest So Buttons!

Enjoy the conversation! Then check out the archives for more great episodes!

Lots of ways to follow The Virtual Memories Show! iTunes, Spotify, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, TuneIn, Tumblr, and RSS!

About our Guest

Before Jonathan Baylis wrote autobio comics, he interned at Marvel Comics, Valiant/Acclaim Comics, and was an Associate Editor at Topps Comics. His comics have been published locally in New York City, in literary anthologies like The Florida Review, Backwards City Review, and Wild River Review, and in comics anthologies such as I Saw You: Missed Connections, Side B: The Music Lovers Anthology, Fluke, Hive, Aftershock and Digestate. He has collected most of his stories into the self-published So Buttons series, of which there are 11 issues, a compilation, and a holiday special in print. He also works as a creative video writer-producer-editor, and lives with his wife & son in Brooklyn.

Follow Jonathan on Twitter and Instagram, and visit his professional site.

Credits: This episode’s music is Fella by Hal Mayforth, used with permission from the artist. The conversation was recorded at an apartment near Jonathan’s on a pair of Blue enCORE 200 Microphones feeding into a Zoom H5 digital recorder. I recorded the intro and outro on a Heil PR-40 Dynamic Studio Recording Microphone feeding into a Cloudlifter CL-1 and a Mackie Onyx Blackjack 2×2 USB Recording Interface. All processing and editing done in Adobe Audition CC. Photo of Jonathan by me. It’s on my instagram.

Episode 425 – Vivian Gornick

Virtual Memories Show 425:
Vivian Gornick

“I’m a writer who developed around the practice of lucid, simple, compact writing. I turned out to be something of a minimalist. . . . but for a long time I felt myself a negligible writer because I couldn’t write big.”

Literary and feminist legend Vivian Gornick joins the show to celebrate her new collection, Taking A Long Look: Essays on Culture, Literature, and Feminism in Our Time (Verso Press). We talk about the biggest shock of looking back at her work for this career-spanning collection, why she organized it from most recent to oldest, and the difference between being smart and being wise. We get into the process of discovering her voice and figuring out she’s a minimalist, how she got better at judging her own work, her criteria for culling books from her apartment (and her embarrassment when one showed up in an unexpected place), the importance of rereading (and why she wrote a book about it), and why the New York Review of Books recently said she “has long enjoyed an audience of literary depressives and feminists”. We also discuss her 1970s essays on feminism, the movement’s evolution in the past 50 years, how the Brilliant Exception became the rule, why political correctness if different than ideological splits, the New York she loves most, and why she’s dying to go to a movie theater again. Give it a listen! And go read Taking a Long Look and Unfinished Business, and sheesh, all her other books, like Fierce Attachments!

“Our generation of feminists was unusual, not historically, but in terms of the lives we’re living now. Ours is the generation that raised it all over again. The generations that follow are somehow ground down because they don’t have that revolutionary excitement and energy.”

“If the thinking is sloppy, if it doesn’t justify itself, that’s the biggest shock in reading your own stuff.”

“Every year I go through my books and I ask, ‘Are you going to read this again? Are you EVER going to read this? Is this something I emotionally have to keep on the shelf?’

“If you have the talent and the drive — which are the least part of accomplishment — then if you live long enough and are privileged enough to become more and more yourself, then that’s the way the work should fulfill itself.”

TUNEIN PLAYER TK

Enjoy the conversation! Then check out the archives for more great episodes!

Lots of ways to follow The Virtual Memories Show! iTunes, Spotify, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, TuneIn, Tumblr, and RSS!

About our Guest

Vivian Gornick is a writer and critic whose work has received two National Book Critics Circle Award nominations and been collected in The Best American Essays 2014. Growing up in the Bronx amongst communists and socialists, Gornick became a legendary writer for Village Voice, chronicling the emergence of the feminist movement in the 1970s. Her works include the memoirs Fierce Attachments — ranked the best memoir of the last fifty years by The New York Times — and The Odd Woman and the City, and Unfinished Business: Notes of a Chronic Re-Reader, as well as the classic text on writing, The Situation and the Story.

Credits: This episode’s music is Fella by Hal Mayforth, used with permission from the artist. The conversation was recorded remotely via Zencastr. I used a Heil PR-40 Dynamic Studio Recording Microphone feeding into a Cloudlifter CL-1 and a Mackie Onyx Blackjack 2×2 USB Recording Interface. All processing and editing done in Adobe Audition CC. Photo of Vivian by someone else. It’s on my instagram.