155. Stephen Sondheim - Finishing the Hat & Look, I Made a Hat

Stephen Sondheim's biographer David Benedict and writer and musician Jason Hazeley join us for a special episode devoted to Finishing The Hat and Look, I Made Hat, the late and very great songwriter's two volumes of lyrics, memoir, criticism and much more, first published in 2010 and 2011; Sondheim's work defies easy categorisation and these glorious books are no exception.

NB. This show contains many expert recommendations for further listening and, as you'll hear, putting it together was a real thrill. Somehow we also find time to discuss the novel O Caledonia, a modern Scottish classic by Elspeth Barker, and Finna, the second collection by American poet Nate Marshall.

Books mentioned:

Stephen Sondheim - Finishing the Hat: Collected Lyrics (1954-1981) with Attendant Comments, Principles, Heresies, Grudges, Whines and Anecdotes (via Internet Archive)
Look, I Made a Hat: Collected Lyrics (1981-2011), with Attendant Comments, Amplifications, Dogmas, Harangues, Digressions, Anecdotes and Miscellany (Kindle Edition)
James Lapine - Putting It Together: How Stephen Sondheim and I Created "Sunday in the Park with George"
Nate Marshall - Finna
Elspeth Barker - O, Caledonia
Shirley Jackson - We Have Always Lived in the Castle
Dodie Smith - I Capture the Castle
William Strunk - The Elements of Style

Other links:

Sunday in the Park with George, original Broadway production
Sunday in the Park with Stephen, BBC 1990
South Bank Show on Sweeney Todd, 1980
South Bank Show Revisited, 2010
Best Worst Thing That Ever Could Have Happened: Merrily We Roll Along, Netflix 2016
Original Cast Album: Company, documentary by D.A. Pennebaker, 1980
West Side Story (1961)
Into the Stephen Sondheim Archive, Radio 4, Dec 2021
The Stephen Sondheim Society, a charitable trust and invaluable resource

154. Winter Reading Special

Happy New Year!

We begin 2022 with a stack of books to see us through the winter: poetry, history, fiction and science. Andy, John and Nicky discuss and read from The Kids by Hannah Lowe (Bloodaxe); The Dawn of Everything by David Graeber and David Wengrow (FSG/Allen Lane); Love in Five Acts by Daniela Krien (MacLehose Press); Men Who Feed Pigeons by Selima Hill (Bloodaxe); The Books of Jacob by Olga Tokarczuk (Fitzcarraldo Editions); The Wordhord: Daily Life in Old English by Hana Videen (Profile Books); Eat or We Both Starve by Victoria Kennefick (Carcanet). Plus there's a special quiz to kick things off.

Please support us and unlock bonus material on our Patreon.

Books mentioned:

Hannah Lowe - The Kids
David Graeber and David Wengrow -The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity
Daniela Krien - Love in Five Acts (translated by Jamie Bulloch)
Selima Hill - Men Who Feed Pigeons
Olga Tokarczuk -The Books of Jacob (translated by Jennifer Croft)
Hana Videen - The Wordhord: Daily Life in Old English
Victoria Kennefick - Eat or We Both Starve

153. E. Nesbit - The Railway Children

Merry Xmas everybody! Our friends Katherine Rundell and Frank Cottrell-Boyce, two wonderful guest authors, join us to celebrate the life and work of Edith Nesbit and perhaps her best-loved novel, The Railway Children (1906).

This podcast has it all: cracker jokes and conversation, readings and music, laughter and tears, a forthright debate over whether Daddy is innocent or guilty, and even a special Christmas quiz featuring tenuous links - have a pen and piece of paper to hand (and maybe a box of tissues too).

Also in this bumper episode of Backlisted, John revisits another magical childhood favourite, Hobberdy Dick by K.M. Briggs; while Andy bravely attempts to summarise Alan Moore's epic novel Jerusalem and shares just one of its 1172 magickal pages with us.

Books mentioned:

E. Nesbit - The Railway Children; The Railway Children (audiobook read by Jenny Agutter); Five Children and It; The Story of the Treasure Seekers; The Wouldbegoods; The Phoenix & the Carpet
Katherine Rundell - Rooftoppers; The Explorer
Frank Cottrell-Boyce - Millions, Sputnik’s Guide to Life on Earth; Noah’s Gold
K.M. Briggs - Hobberdy Dick
Alan Moore - Jerusalem
Eleanor Fitzsimmons - The Life and Loves of Edith Nesbit

Other links:

Railway Children, an international children's charity working with street children in India, East Africa & the UK
The Edith Nesbit Society
The Keighley & Worth Valley Railway
The Edison Concert Band, Joy to the World, recorded 1906
Johnny Douglas, Theme from The Railway Children
The Railway Children (1970), dir. Lionel Jeffries
The Railway Children (BBC, 1968), dir. Julia Smith
Bernard Cribbins, ‘When I'm Sixty-Four’ (1967)
Vince Hill, ‘More Than Ever Now’ (1970)
The Wouldbegoods, ‘Christmas in Haiti’ (1999)
Lotte Berk, Get Physical! exercise LP (1982) feat. voiceover by Sally Thomsett
Soundtrack to The Railway Children with readings by Lionel Jeffries from the novel
The Railway Children, abridged audiobook read by Dinah Sheridan
The Railway Children, unabridged audiobook read by Jenny Agutter
Christopher D Lewis, Theme to The Railway Children (solo piano)
Judy Garland, ‘Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas’, from Meet Me in St Louis (1941)

152. Pete Dexter - Deadwood

Andy and John are joined by authors Shawn Levy (A Year in the Life of Death, Rat Pack Confidential) and Erica Wagner (Chief Engineer, First Light) to discuss US writer Pete Dexter's second novel Deadwood (1986), described by the Washington Post on publication as 'maybe the best Western ever written'. In addition to enjoying this unpredictable and uproarious historical novel, we investigate the differences - and notable similarities - between Dexter's work and the classic TV series of the same name that followed a decade later.

Also this week, John has been reading Katherine May's life-affirming memoir, The Electricity of Every Living Thing, while Andy pays tribute to Nina Simone's Gum by musician Warren Ellis, a book that asks profound questions about what it means to be divine.

Please support us and unlock bonus material at https://www.patreon.com/backlisted.

Books mentioned:

Pete Dexter - Deadwood; Paris, Trout; Brotherly Love
Shawn Levy - A Year in the Life of Death; Rat Pack Confidential; Dolce Vita Confidential; Ready, Steady, Go
Erics Wagner - Chief Engineer; First Light
Warren Ellis - Nina Simone’s Gum
Katherine May - The Electricity of Every Living Thing
Raynor Winn - The Salt Path
Elmore Leonard - The Complete Western Stories
Peter Carey - The True History of the Kelly Gang
Larry McMurtry - Lonesome Dove
Michael Ondaatje - The Collected Works of Billy the Kid
Charles Portis - True Grit
Hugh Kenner - Ulysses

Other links:
Erich von Schmidt, ‘Days of 49’ (1960)
Bob Dylan, ‘Days of 49’ (1970)
Pete Dexter speaking at the New York State Writers Institute, 2005
Pete Dexter talks to Vice about Deadwood, 2009
Al Swearingen meets Wild Bill Hickok, Deadwood (2004)
Logan English, ‘What Was Your Name in the States?’ (1957)
Logan English, The Days of '49: Songs of the Gold Rush, Folkways Records (1957)
Doris Day, ‘The Deadwood Stage’ (from Calamity Jane)
Bill Monroe, ‘Christmas Time's a Comin'‘

151. Robin Hyde - The Godwits Fly

Andy and John are joined by the author Paula Morris, who joins from Auckland to discuss the novel The Godwits Fly (1938) and the life of its author Iris Wilkinson AKA Robin Hyde.

In recent years, Iris Wilkinson's writing has been rediscovered and restored to the canon of New Zealand literature, where it occupies a place alongside Katherine Mansfield's; The Godwits Fly is a highly autobiographical novel spanning the years 1910-28.

Also this week, John has been captivated by Neurotribes, Steve Silberman's fascinating study of neurodiversity, while Andy revels in the forensic detail of Glenn Frankel's new book Shooting Midnight Cowboy: Art, Sex, Loneliness, Liberation, and the Making of a Dark Classic.

This episode wouldn't have happened without Rachael King or WORD Christchurch Festival: https://wordchristchurch.co.nz

Books mentioned:

Robin Hyde - The Godwits Fly; Dragons Rampant
Paula Morris - Shining Land: Looking for Robin Hyde; On Coming Home; Rangatira; Forbidden Cities
Glenn Frankel - Midnight Cowboy: Art, Sex, Loneliness, Liberation, and the Making of a Dark Classic
Steve Silberman - Neurotribes: The Legacy of Autism and How to Think Smarter About People Who Think Differently
Jean Rhys - Voyage in the Dark
Evelyn Waugh -Scoop
Katherine Mansfield - Selected Stories
Witi Ihimaera - His Best Stories
Kirsty Gunn - Rain & Other Stories
Emily Perkins - Novel About My Wife

Other links:
Keith Woodley from Pūkorokoro Miranda Shorebird Centre tells us about godwits
Ana Hato and Maori Choir - Pokare Kare, rec. February 1927
Split Enz - Iris (from Waiata, 1981)
Split Enz - Six Months in a Leaky Boat (from Time and Tide, 1981)
Split Enz - Haul Away (from Time and Tide, 1981)

150. Fyodor Dostoevsky - Notes from Under the Floorboards

Welcome to the 150th episode of Backlisted!

To mark the occasion we are joined by authors Alex Christofi (Dostoevsky in Love) and Arifa Akbar (Consumed: A Sister's Story) for a discussion of one of Russia's greatest writers Fyodor Dostoevsky, who was born in Moscow on November 11 1821, 200 years ago this month. We concentrate on his pioneering novella Notes From Under the Floorboards AKA Notes From Underground (1864) and consider its impact and continuing relevance to modern life.

Also in this episode John enjoys Dark Neighbourhood (Fitzcarraldo), the debut collection of stories by Vanessa Onwuemezi; and, having let it settled for a few months, Andy unveils his favourite novel of the year, Gwendoline Riley's My Phantoms (Granta).

Books mentioned:

Fyodor Dostoyevsky - Notes from Underground (trs. Constance Garnett); Crime & Punishment (trs. Richard Pevear & Larissa Volokhonsky); The Gambler (tr. Jane Kentish)
Arifa Akbar - Consumed: A Sister’s Story
Alex Christofi - Dostoevsky in Love; Let Us Be True; What Doesn't Kill You: Fifteen Stories of Survival
Gwendoline Riley - My Phantoms; My Phantoms (audiobook read by Helen McAlpine ); First Love
Vanessa Onmuewezi - Dark Neighbourhood
Fenanda Melchor - Hurricane Season (trs. Sophie Hughes)
Nikolai Chernyshevsky - What is To Be Done?
Franz Kafka - Metamorphosis & Other Stories (trs. Michael Hofmann)
Hemann Melville - Bartleby the Scrivener
Rowan Williams - Dostoevsky: Language, Faith and Fiction
Vladimir Nabokov - Lectures on Russian Literature

Other links:

Film trailer for The Brothers Karamazov (1958) starring William Shatner
Doctor Rowan Williams on Dostoevsky and Christianity
’Song from Under the Floorboards’ - Magazine
’Dostoevsky’ - Scott Helman
Dostoevsky and the Russian Soul: new BBC Radio 4 documentary with Rowan Williams
BBC documentary from 1975 presented by Malcolm Muggeridge

Backlisted Special: Alan Garner - Treacle Walker

This is a Backlisted special, recorded at the Bodleian Library in Oxford to celebrate the publication of Treacle Walker the new novel by Alan Garner (Fourth Estate). 

The panel discussion features Erica Wagner, writer and critic and editor of First Light, an anthology of pieces about Alan Garner’s work; Dr Melanie Giles, archaeologist and the author of Bog Bodies, the definitive account of the phenomenon which plays a significant role in the book’s story; and Professor Bob Cywinski, physicist, whose conversations with Alan Garner about time, landscape and local legend provided the inspiration for the novel. 

The podcast also features readings from the novel from the (excellent) 4thEstate audio book featuring Alan’s schoolfriend, the actor Robert Powell and audio clips from an interview about the novel that Alan recorded with his daughter, Elizabeth Garner. The music is by John Dipper, taken from a short film by David Heke premiered at the live event. All proceeds from the event went to support The Blackden Trust, the Garner’s educational charity based in The Old Medicine House, a Grade II timber framed building that Alan and Griselda Garner saved from destruction and which is also the setting ofTreacle Walker.

Books mentioned:

Alan Garner - Treacle Walker; Treacle Walker (audio book read by Robert Powell); The Stone Book Quartet; Boneland; Thursbitch; Strandloper; Red Shift; Where Shall We Run To? The Voice That Thunders
Eric Wagner - First Light: A Celebration of Alan Garner; Chief Engineer: The Man who Built Brooklyn Bridge
Melanie Giles - Bog Bodies

Other links:

Treacle Walker - a film by David & Alan Garner with music by John Dipper
The Blackden Trust

149. Elizabeth Jane Howard - Something in Disguise

For this year's Hallowe'en special John and Andy are joined by Backlisted's old fiends Andrew Male and Laura Varnam, following previous guest appearances on episodes dedicated to Beowulf (2020) and Daphne du Maurier's The Breaking Point (2019). Together we explore the work of the novelist Elizabeth Jane Howard, specifically her ghost stories, tales of horror and accounts of psychological terror: Something in Disguise (1969), Odd Girl Out (1972), Mr Wrong (1975), Falling (1999), and We Are For the Dark (1951), the volume of strange stories she co-authored with previous Backlisted subject, Robert Aickman.

Also this week, Andy is gripped by Heike Gessler's Seasonal Associate (Semiotext(e)), the novelist's account of working in Amazon's warehouse in Leipzig, while John enjoys being unsettled by Women's Weird: Strange Stories by Women, 1980-1940, edited by Melissa Edmundson, the first in a series of 'Weird' anthologies published by Handheld Press.

NB. THIS EPISODE IS PACKED WITH SPOILERS and you may wish to read Something in Disguise before you listen to the podcast.

SUPPORT BACKLISTED ON PATREON (for access to Locklisted, the fortnightly extra podcast where John, Andy & Nicky talk about the books films, music and TV they’ve been enjoying)

Books mentioned:

Elizabeth Jane Howard - Something in Disguise; Falling; Mr Wrong; Odd Girl Out; The Long View; The Light Years
Elizabeth Jane Howard & Robert Aickman - We Are For the Dark
Elizabeth Jane Howard - Slipstream: A Memoir
Melissa Edmunson (ed) - Women’s Weird: Strange Stories by Women 1890-1940
Melissa Edmunson (ed) - Women’s Weird 2: More Strange Stories by Women 1890-1937
James Machin (ed) - British Weird: Selected Short Fiction 1893-1937
Heike Gessler - Seasonal Associate
Robert Aickman - The Wine Dark Sea
Kingsley Amis - The Green Man

Other links:

‘Black Sabbath’ by Nikos Achilles
Elizabeth Jane Howard interviews Evelyn Waugh, Monitor, 1964
Elizabeth Jane Howard discusses her adaptation of Something in Disguise and reads from the novel, 1982
Elizabeth Jane Howard and Frank Delaney review Margaret Atwood's novel Bodily Harm, 1982
Elizabeth Jane Howard interview with Sally Hardcastle, 1987
Elizabeth Jane Howard discusses Falling with Eleanor Wachtel, 2003
Elizabeth Jane Howard discusses Falling with James Naughtie, 2004
Martin Amis remembers his stepmother Elizabeth Jane Howard, 2015
’Down by the Old Millstream’ by Gene Kelly and Frank Sinatra

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148. Dorothy Baker - Cassandra at the Wedding

Andy & John are joined by publisher Alexandra Pringle and Simon Thomas, editor and co-host of the Tea or Books? podcast. The book under discussion is Cassandra at the Wedding, the fourth and final novel by Dorothy Baker, first published in 1962 by Houghton Mifflin in the USA and Victor Gollancz in the UK. What is it about this darkly funny tale of two devoted sisters that continues to appeal to generations of readers?

Also in this episode John enjoys Notes from an Island by Tove Jansson and Tuulikki Pietilä, newly reissued by Sort Of Books, while Andy returns to early 1980s London via Michael Bracewell's new book Souvenir (White Rabbit).

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Books mentioned:

Dorothy Baker - Cassandra at the Wedding; Young Man with a Horn; Trio
Tove Jansson & Tuulikki Pietilä - Notes from an Island
Michael Bracewell - Souvenir; Perfect Tense
Tove Jansson - The Summer Book; The Winter Book; Fair Play
Mollie Panter Downes - My Husband Simon
Mary Essex - Tea is So Intoxicating
F. Tennyson Jesse - A Pin to See the Peepshow
Winnifred Boggs - Sally On the Rocks
Dorothy Evelyn Smith - O, the Brave Music
Esther Freud - Hideous Kinky; Peerless Flats
Lucy Ellman - Sweet Desserts
Miriam Toews - All My Puny Sorrows
Meg Rossoff - The Great Godden

Other links:
Peter Flannery on adapting the book for radio
Trailer for Young Man With a Horn
Bix Beiderbecke - ‘Bless You! Sister’

147. John Berryman - The Dream Songs

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The guest for this episode is novelist and memoirist Susie Boyt (My Judy Garland Life, Loved and Missed). The book Susie has chosen for discussion is The Dream Songs (1969) by John Berryman, the publication of which briefly made its author the most famous poet in America but also, unfortunately, hastened his decline and ruin. But the work shines on.

Also in this episode Andy is struck by the contemporary resonance of Vivian Gornick's The Romance of American Communism while John drinks in Public House: A Cultural and Social History of the London Pub edited by David Knight and Cristina Monteiro.

Please note, this episode contains references to suicide.

Books mentioned:

John Berryman - The Dream Songs; 77 Dream Songs; Collected Poems; Poems Selected by Michael Hoffman; Love & Fame
Susie Boyt - My Judy Garland Life; Loved and Missed; Henry James - The Turn of the Screw & Other Ghost Stories (ed)
Vivian Gornick - The Romance of American Communism
David Knight & Cristina Monteiro (eds) - Public House: A Cultural and Social History of the London Pub
Eileen Simpson - Poets in their Youth

Other links:

‘Life, friends, is boring...’ Dream Song 14, recorded in Dublin, 1967
John Berryman reading at the Guggenheim Museum, 1963
Berryman reading various Dream Songs from the LP Treasury of 100 Modern American Poets
’There sat down, once, a thing on Henry's heart...’ Dream Song 29, recorded in Dublin, 1967
John Berryman reads from The Dream Songs at the University of Iowa, 1968, live recording bootlegged from the audience
I Don't Think I Will Sing Any More Just Now - PBS documentary, 1974

146. J.M. Coetzee - Elizabeth Costello

Andy and John are joined by novelist Mary Costello for a special episode recorded live at Galway International Arts Festival in Ireland on September 10th 2021. The book we're discussing is Elizabeth Costello (2003) by South-African born Nobel Laureate J.M. Coetzee, a novel that politely asks the reader to consider, amongst other matters, animal rights, the power of faith and the limits of fiction itself.

Also in this episode, new books by two Irish authors: Sally Rooney's novel Beautiful World, Where Are You and John Moriarty’s The Hut at the Edge of the Village, a collection edited by Martin Shaw and published by the Lilliput Press.

Books mentioned:

J.M. Coetzee - Elizabeth Costello; Disgrace; The Lives of Animals; The Life and Times of Michael K
Mary Costello - Academy Street; The River Capture; The China Factory
Sally Rooney - Beautiful World, Where Are You
John Moriarty - A Hut at the Edge of the Village (edited by Martin Shaw)

Other links:

J.M. Coetzee on writing in an interview from 2000
J.M. Coetzee speech at the 2003 Nobel Prize Banquet
Galway International Arts Festival ‘First Thought’ podcast

145. Summer Reading

It’s time for our annual look at what we’ve been reading over the summer break.

John, Andy and Nicky discuss David Keenan’s fourth novel Monument Maker; Open Water, a promising debut novella from Caleb Azumah Nelson; Deborah Levy’s three-volume ‘living autobiography’, Things I Don’t Want to Know, The Cost of Living and Real Estate; a reissue of Percival Everett’s satirical diatribe Erasure; Life With a Capital L, Geoff Dyer’s selection of essays by D.H. Lawrence; and Vivian Gornick’s The End of the Novel of Love and Unfinished Business, in which the author re-reads favourite classic books and comes to fresh conclusions about them.

Books mentioned:

David Keenan - Monument Maker
Caleb Azumah Nelson - Open Water
Deborah Levy - Things I Don’t Want to Know; The Cost of Living; Real Estate
Percival Everett - Erasure
Geoff Dyer (ed) - Life With A Capital L: Essays by D.H. Lawrence
Vivian Gornick - The End of the Novel of Love; Unfinished Business: Notes of a Chronic Re-Reader

Other links:

Vivian Gornick, The Art of Fiction no 2 The Paris Review (Winter, 2014)

144. Leonard Gardner - Fat City

Perhaps the greatest boxing novel ever written, Leonard Gardner's Fat City was first published in 1969; it was shortlisted for the National Book Award; Joan Didion and Denis Johnson are amongst those who have sung its praises. The book was made into a film in 1972 starring Stacy Keach and Jeff Bridges, directed by John Huston from a screenplay by Gardner himself. In this episode Andy, John and Nicky explore both the novel and the film and the ways in which Gardner shows the reader the whole of a society through the prism of sport. We also hear from the author as to why he has never published another novel. Plus in this episode John reignites his love of D.H. Lawrence with Frances Wilson's acclaimed new biography Burning Man, while Andy shares an extract from Leonora Carrington's magical novel The Hearing Trumpet, read by actress Siân Phillips.

Books mentioned:

Leonard Gardner - Fat City
Leonora Carrington - The Hearing Trumpet; The Hearing Trumpet (audiobook)
Frances Wilson - Burning Man: The Ascent of D.H. Lawrence
Andy Miller - Tilting at Windmills: How I Tried to Stop Worrying & Love Sport
David Keenan - Monument Maker
Geoff Dyer - Out of Sheer Rage: In Search of D.H. Lawrence
Denis Johnson - Angels
A.J. Liebling - The Sweet Science: Boxing & Boxing - A Ringside View
Peter Guralnick - Last Train to Memphis; Careless Love
Jonathan Rendall - This Bloody Mary is the Last Thing I Own
Dashiell Hammett - The Maltese Falcon
Herman Melville - Moby Dick
Rudyard Kipling - The Man Who Would Be King
James Joyce - Dubliners

Other links:

Indicator DVD of Fat City including Leonard Gardner interview with Max Larkin (2015)
Fat City (John Huston, 1972) on Amazon Prime
Interview with Leonard Gardner, Paris Review Feb, 2019
Denis Johnson on Fat City, Salon Sept, 1996
Deadwood - Official website on HBO
Leonard Gardner’s story ‘Christ Has Returned to Earth and Preaches Here Nightly’ Paris Review (Fall, 1965)

143. Steve Aylett - Heart of the Original

Joining us on Backlisted this week is writer John Higgs whose fascinating new book William Blake Vs The World is out now. We were thrilled John chose Steve Aylett's guide to originality, creativity and individuality, Heart of the Original, first published by Unbound in 2015 and as original, creative and individual a book as we have ever featured on this podcast; be prepared to experience a "small-particle tulpa storm" of ideas.

Also in this episode, John enjoys the waspish melancholy of Elizabeth Hardwick's Sleepless Nights, while Andy introduces a reading from Black Teacher by Beryl Gilroy, a trailblazing Guyanese woman's memoir of post-war London.

Books mentioned:

Steve Aylett - Heart of the Original (Unbound e-book); Heart of the Original (Kindle); Lint
John Biggs - The KLF; Watling Street'; Stranger Than We Can Imagine, William Blake Vs The World
Beryl Gilroy - Black Teacher
Elizabeth Hardwick - Sleepless Nights
Flann O’Brien - At Swim Two Birds
Kurt Vonnegut - Slaughterhouse Five
Richhard Brautigan - So the Wind Won’t Blow It All Away
Martin Amis - Time’s Arrow
Philip K. Dick - Counter-Clock World
Octavia Butler - Parable of the Sower
Cormac McCarthy - The Road
Richard Jeffries After London
Angela Carter - The Bloody Chmber

Other links:

Pre-order Steve Aylett’s new comic Hyperthick
Heart of the Original trailer
Stewart Lee talks about Aylett's novel Lint on A Good Read on BBC R4
Steve Aylett interviewed by Adam Savage, June 2021
Lint The Movie (2012
Sun Ra - Space is the Place

142. Dorothy B. Hughes - In a Lonely Place

Returning to Backlisted this week are literary agents Becky Brown and Norah Perkins, joint custodians of the Curtis Brown Heritage list of literary estates and previously our guests on episode #109, Excellent Women by Barbara Pym.

We are discussing the work of crime novelist Dorothy B. Hughes and in particular her suspenseful and subversive novel In a Lonely Place (1947), freely adapted as a classic film noir by director Nicholas Ray and starring Humphrey Bogart and Gloria Grahame.

Also in this episode Norah and Becky pitch titles by Kay Dick, Stella Gibbons and R.C. Sherriff to Andy, John and Nicky. Make sure you have a pen and paper to hand...

Books mentioned:

Dorothy B. Hughes - In a Lonely Place; The Expendable Man; Ride the Pink Horse; Dread Journey
Kay Dick - They: A Sequence of Unease
Stella Gibbons - Starlight
Barbara Comyns - The Vet’s Daughter
Nina Hammett - Twisted Torso
R.C. Sherriff - The Fortnight in September; The Hopkins Manuscript
Philip Larkin - The Whitsun Weddings
Douglas Adams - Last Chance to See (audio version)
Jim Thompson - The Killer Inside Me
David Goodis - Nightfall
Donald Henderson - Mr Bowling Buys a Newspaper
Patricia Highsmith - Deep Water
James M. Cain - The Postman Always Rings Twice

Other links:

In a Lonely Place (Nicholas Ray, 1950) Criterion Edition
Travelogue film of California, 1947
Andy on Sentimental Garbage talking about R.C. Sherriff
Megan Abbott - ‘Dorothy B. Hughes & the Birth of American Noir’ in the Paris Review (Aug, 2017)
Christine Smallwood - ‘The Crime of Blackness: Dorothy B. Hughes’s Forgotten Noir’ New Yorker (Aug, 2012)

141. Nuala O'Faolain - Are You Somebody?

Joining Andy and John this week is novelist and host of the books podcast Sentimental Garbage, Caroline O'Donoghue (Promising Young Women, Scenes of a Graphic Nature, All Our Hidden Gifts). We are discussing Nuala O'Faolain's revelatory memoir Are You Somebody? (1996), the original publication of which caused a sensation in her native Ireland. The book went on to top the New York Times bestseller list for six weeks; it still has the power to astonish.

Also in this episode Andy has been exploring John Higgs's new book William Blake Vs The World and John is moved by Consumed: A Sister's Tale, the family memoir of Arifa Akbar, chief theatre critic for the Guardian and a former guest on Backlisted (episode 59 on Beyond Black by Hilary Mantel)

Books mentioned:

Nuala O’Faolain - Are You Somebody?
Caroline O’Donoghue - Promising Young Women; Scenes of a Graphic Nature; All Our Hidden Gifts
John Higgs - William Blake Versus The World
Arifa Akbar - Consumed: A Sister’s Story
Dermot Healy - The Bend for Home
Seamus Deane (ed) - The Field Day Anthology of Irish Writing
Marian Keyes - Watermelon
Maeve Binchy - Circle of Friends

Other links:

"Do you believe in the Devil?" Irish TV, 1979
Bookshop event with Frank McCourt in the US, 1996/7
Interview with Terence Winch, US TV 2002
Final interview with Marian Finucane, 2008

140. Dermot Healy - A Goat's Song

Joining John and Andy this week are novelist Patrick McCabe and Unbound's editor-at-large Rachael Kerr. We got together to discuss Dermot Healy's remarkable second novel A Goat's Song (1994) and the peripatetic life of its author, one of the great Irish writers of recent times. Patrick, Rachael and John all knew, worked and occasionally drank with Dermot Healy and this special episode reflects their personal connections with a much-loved and much-missed man.

Patrick McCabe is the author of The Butcher Boy, which won the Irish Times Irish Literature Prize for Fiction and along with Breakfast on Pluto was both shortlisted for the Booker Prize and adapted into a feature film by Neil Jordan. His novel Winterwood was named the 2007 Hughes & Hughes/Irish Independent Irish Novel of the Year. His fourteenth novel, Poguemahone will be published in April 2022 by Unbound. It is decribed by his editor as combining the supernatural terror of Beyond Black by Hilary Mantel, with the experimental élan of Lanny by Max Porter and the mesmeric ventriloquism of Ducks, Newburyport by Lucy Ellman.

Rachael Kerr is a publisher and has worked for Cape, Picador and Harvill and is now editor-at-large for Unbound. Rachael has previously appeared on episodes 44 (Charles Sprawson’s Haunts of the Black Masseur), 83 (D.H. Lawrence’sThe Rainbow), and 87 (Bruce Chatwin’s Utz). She is still married to John.

Also in this edition Andy considers the most recent novel of another legendary Irish writer, Girl by Edna O'Brien; while John shares his admiration for Shola Von Reinhold's LOTE, winner of the Republic of Consciousness Prize for Small Presses 2021.

Books mentioned:

Dermot Healy - A Goat’s Song; The Bend for Home; Sudden Times; Long Time, No See; Banished Misfortune; The Reed Bed; Collected Poems
Patrick McCabe - Poguemahone; The Butcher Boy; Breakfast on Pluto; Winterwood
Shola von Reinhold - LOTE
Luis Sagasti - A Musical Offering
Edna O’Brien - Girl; James Joyce
Alistair Macleod - Island: The Collected Stories
Barbara Pym - Crampton Hodnet
James Joyce - Ulysses
Malcolm Lowry - Under the Volcano

Other links:

Planxty playing The Blacksmith on The Late Late Show, 1972
The Writing in the Sky (Gary Keane, 2011) Dermot talking to poetry class, Heaney reading poetry, Bill Swainson chatting to DH
Bill Swainson discusses DH on The Last Word, Radio 4
Dermot Healy Tribute on RTE, 2014
Dermot Healy interview with Timothy O’Grady in Wasafiri (2010)
Dermot Healy acts in I Could Read the Sky (Nichola Bruce & Tim O’Grady, 1999)

139. Gerard Reve - The Evenings

Joining John and Andy for this episode are novelist Marie Phillips and novelist, screenwriter and poet Joe Dunthorne. The book we are discussing is Gerard Reve's debut novel De Avonden aka The Evenings: A Winter’s Tale, which caused a sensation when published in the Netherlands in 1947 and is now considered a classic. In the words of Herman Koch, it may be 'the funniest, most exhilarating novel about boredom ever written'. Reve was only 24; he went on to have a long, successful and frequently scandalous career but only a handful of his books have been translated into English.

Joe Dunthorne is novelist and poet and was born and brought up in Swansea. His debut novel, Submarine, was translated into twenty languages and made into an award-winning film. His second novel, Wild Abandon, won the Society of Authors’ Encore Award. His latest is The Adulterants. His first collection of poems, O Positive, was published by Faber in 2019, and his tremendous short story All the Poems Contained Within Will Mean Everything to Everyone, appeared in the same year as Rough Trade pamphlet..

 Marie Phillips is an author whose works include the international bestseller Gods Behaving Badly, a first novel that was also translated into twenty languages. The Table of Less Valued Knights was longlisted for the Bailey’s Women’s Prize for Fiction in 2015 and Oh, I Do Like to Be..., a seaside reworking of Shakespeare’s play The Comedy of Errors, was published by Unbound by 2019. Reviewing the book in the Spectator, Andy called it ‘fast, clever and significantly funnier than the original’. Marie is the co-writer of the BBC Radio Four series Warhorses of Letters. She recently spent several years living in Amsterdam, where she trained as a professional storyteller.

Also in this episode John digs Bella Bathurst's new book Field Work: What Land Does to People & What People Do to Land and Andy surveys Landscapes of Detectorists and finds some prose to treasure.

Books mentioned:

Gerard Reve - The Evenings; Childhood: Two Novellas; Parent’s Worry
Joe Dunthorne - Submarine; Wild Abandon; The Adulterants; O Positive; All the Poems Contained Within Will Mean Everything to Everyone
Marie Phillips - Gods Behaving Badly; The Table of Less Valued Knights; Oh, I Do Like to Be…
Innes M. Keighren & Joanna Northcup (eds) - Landscapes of the Detectorists
Bella Bathurst - Field Work: What Land Does to People & What People Do to Land
Peter Blevgad - Imagine, Observe, Remember
Tessa Norton & Bob Stanley - Excavate! The Wonderful & Frightening Word of the Fall
J.D. Salinger - The Catcher in the Rye
Thomas Bernhard - Concrete

Other links:

'Midwinters Horn' and 'Riepe Garste' from Folk Songs and Dances of the Netherlands (Folkways)
'Des Winters Als Het Regent' from Dutch Folk Songs by Jantina Noorman (Folkways)
Hancock's Half Hour: A Sunday Afternoon At Home
Gerard Reve reads the audiobook of De Avonden
’A Windmill in Old Amsterdam’ by David Bowie and Stevie Ricks
The Fourth Man (Paul Verhoeven, 1983) on Prime

138. Betty MacDonald - The Plague and I

Joining John and Andy for this episode are Natasha McEnroe, the Keeper of Medicine at the Science Museum in London, and novelist Lissa Evans, Backlisted's old friend and the show's Original Guest, both of whom are Betty MacDonald superfans.

Natasha is the Keeper of Medicine at the Science Museum in South Kensington, London. Her previous post was Director of the Florence Nightingale Museum, and prior to this she was Museum Manager of the Grant Museum of Zoology and Comparative Anatomy and Curator of the Galton Collection at University College London. Before that she was Curator of Dr Johnson’s House in London’s Fleet Street and has also worked for the National Trust and the Victoria & Albert Museum. Natasha was editor of Medicine: An Imperfect Science (Scala, 2019), co-editor of The Medicine Cabinet (Carlton, 2019) and co-editor of The Hospital in the Oatfield – The Art of Nursing in the First World War (Strange Attractor, 2014). Her research interests focus on 19th-century public health and the history of nursing. She is a Trustee of Dr Johnson’s House in London and of the Erasmus Darwin Museum in Lichfield and is a Freeman of The Worshipful Company of Barbers. 

 Lissa Evans writes for both adults and children when she's not guesting on Backlisted Pod.Her recent novel,V for Victory - which is out in paperback from Black Swan in June - is set in London at the end of the Second World War and completes a loose historical trilogy which began with Old Baggage andCrooked Heart. This is her seven-and-a-halfth Backlisted – for as well as appearing on the very first episode (on J.L. Carr’s A Month in the Country), Lissa has been a guest on episodes 36, 78, 90, 108, and 125 discussing variously the work of Patrick Hamilton, Edith Wharton, Charles Dickens, Marcel Proust and Geoffrey Willans & Ronald Searle, as well as the one-off mini-cast on George Saunders’sLincoln in the Bardo.

The Plague and I (1948) is the author's unflinching and hilarious memoir of the nine months she spent as a patient at a TB sanatorium in the Pacific North West of America. We discuss this book and the eventful life of its million-selling author (The Egg and I, Anybody Can Do Anything, Onions in the Stew), are exposed to a selection of TB-related public information films and music, and there is even a 'communicable disease in literature' quiz.

Also in this episode Andy is grabbed by Mr Bowling Buys a Newspaper (1943) by Donald Henderson, reputedly Raymond Chandler's favourite crime novel; while John has been enjoying Olivette Otele's recently published history African Europeans, which traces a long African European heritage via the lives of individuals both ordinary and extraordinary.

Books mentioned:

Beetyy MacDonald - The Plague and I; The Plague and I (audiobook); The Egg and I; Onions in the Stew: Anyone Can Do Anything
Donald Henderson - Mr Bowling Buys a Newspaper
Olivette Otele - African Europeans: An Untold History
Lissa Evans - Crooked Heart; Old Baggage; V for Victory
Natasha McEnroe - Medicine: An Imperfect Science; The Medicine Cabinet; The Hospital in the Oatfield
Sathnam Sangera - Empireland
David Olusoga - Black and British
Paula Becker-Brown - Looking for Betty MacDonald
Thomas Mann - The Magic Mountain

Othe links:

Victoria Spivey - TB Blues
Defeat Tuberculosis (1950)
Rodney (1950)
Galton and Simpson interview
The Egg and I film trailer
Claire Dederer’s ‘Her Great Depression’ in Columbia Journalism Review
Jimmie Rodgers - TB Blues

137. Laurence Sterne - The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman

Published in nine volumes between 1759 and 1767, and usually abbreviated to Tristram Shandy - Laurence Sterne's cock and bull story - has entertained, baffled, enchanted, infuriated and inspired readers ever since; needless to say, at Backlisted we love it.

Joining John and Andy to celebrate this great, hilarious, digressive novel - or is it a series of great, hilarious, digressive novels? - are award-winning children's author Katherine Rundell and our friend Frank Cottrell-Boyce, who adapted Tristram Shandy for the big screen in 2005 as A Cock and Bull Story. As a bonus, you'll hear Steve Coogan, the star of that film, read from the book(s) - exclusively for Backlisted listeners.

Also in this episode, Andy enjoys a "relentless excursion into style" with Fun in a Chinese Laundry (1965), the autobiography of film director Josef von Sternberg; while John takes a sounding of Jennifer Lucy Allan's fascinating new book The Foghorn's Lament: The Disappearing Music of the Coast

Books metnioned:

Laurence Sterne - The Life & Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman; A Sentimental Journey & Other Writings
Martin Rowson - The Life & Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman
Ian Campbell Ross - Laurence Sterne: A Life
Katherine Rundell - Rooftoppers; The Explorer; The Wolf Wilder
Frank Cottrell Boyce - Millions; The Astounding Broccoli Boy; Sputnik’s Guide to Life on Earth; Runaway Robot
Josef von Sternberg - Fun in a Chinese Laundry
Jennifer Lucy Allan - The Foghorn’s Lament
T. Coraghessen Boyle - Stories
Sue Townsend - The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole Aged 13 ¾

Other links:

The Laurence Sterne Trust at Shandy Hall
BBC World Service idents over the years aka ’Lillibulero’
Dexys Midnight Runners, ‘Dance Stance’
Desert Island Discs archive
Wesley Stace sings C18th ballad of ‘Tristram Shandy’
A Cock and Bull Story (Michael Winterbottom, 2005)
Martin Rowson interview re: his graphic novel adaptation of Tristram Shandy
Hunky Funky Woman by Tristram Shandy (1973)