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Near. Dead is supported by the Sympathizer

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podcast from H B O, join

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host Philip and when in conversation

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with the cast crew and author

0:08

Viet Time When. As. They discuss

0:11

the making of this historic H B

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O Original Limited series. Stream.

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New episodes of H B O,

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The Sympathizer, Sunday's exclusively on Max

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and listen to The Sympathizer Podcast

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Wherever you listen to podcasts. Think

0:25

on your feet for are fast and

0:27

curious. Five Caped a one of a

0:29

kind race posted by Wbz Emma Chicago

0:32

Sun Times on Saturday, July Twenty seven

0:34

That whole part. more info at Early

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Bird registration at wbz.org Flesh Events. From.

0:44

W Be easy Chicago I'm gotta Johnson

0:46

and this is the Nerd Up Book

0:48

Club. Our selection this month is Immortals

0:50

New Short Story Collection Table for Two

0:53

and we're doing things a little different

0:55

this month because we had the great

0:57

pleasure of doing a live event with

0:59

a more last month and there was

1:02

so much good stuff that we want

1:04

to play more of that interview in

1:06

today's episode before we jump in. No,

1:08

I do want to make sure that

1:10

y'all know that this is our penultimate

1:13

episode. Our second. To last episode as

1:15

a production. At Wbz,

1:17

we. Are looking for a new

1:19

home for the show, but until we figure

1:21

that out, we will have one more episode

1:23

coming up on Tuesday May twenty eighth which

1:26

is also Anna's and my last day at

1:28

the station. I am going to save the

1:30

sappy stuff for next week, but let me

1:32

just say for now that we have gotten

1:35

a lot of really lovely voice mails from

1:37

me, all about what know that means to

1:39

you and that means very very very very

1:41

much to me. We're going to play them

1:44

in that Tuesday episode and I am just

1:46

extremely grateful for all of you. All. Of

1:48

the time. So I just want to say that.

1:50

Thank. You thank you thank you thank you

1:53

thank you! Okay back to book club

1:55

business. As I said, this month's book

1:57

is the fabulous short story collection. Table

1:59

for two. by Amor Toles. He is

2:01

also the author of the beloved novels,

2:03

Gentlemen in Moscow, Lincoln Highway, and Rules

2:06

of Civility. It was such

2:08

a pleasure to get to talk with Amor in front

2:10

of a live audience in Chicago about a month ago,

2:13

and we only got to play about half

2:15

of that conversation in the podcast earlier this

2:18

month, so we thought we would bring you

2:20

more from our chat and do an even

2:22

deeper dive into the book. Here is Amor

2:24

Toles at the Athenaeum Theater in Chicago. I

2:28

think you could argue probably that every

2:30

story in here has a

2:33

secret at its core, which

2:36

I imagine has to be extremely

2:38

narratively enticing to write. Obviously, it's

2:40

very enjoying to read, but I'm

2:42

curious how that, if that

2:44

was always part of the plan or if

2:46

they all just sort of ended up emerging

2:48

with that similar concept. Yeah, that's interesting.

2:51

I did not think

2:53

of that in a self-conscious way, but

2:55

I do think that as

2:58

a writer, I do love

3:00

discovery. As a reader, I love it. I love

3:02

learning from reading. I love going

3:10

through a novel and going through the process

3:12

of discovery, of sort of understanding what's going

3:14

on, say, between the key characters or

3:17

what the greater themes might be. I

3:19

enjoy creating

3:25

characters and putting them into situations

3:27

where, yes, they are going through

3:29

discovery, and something has happened

3:31

which they're not aware of, and they're beginning to

3:33

figure it out or to piece it together, and

3:36

it has ramifications for who they are. So,

3:39

a secret, I guess, is an aspect of

3:41

that bigger scope of

3:43

interest in how characters

3:46

can see the world and discover things. I think,

3:48

for those of you who read my

3:50

first novel, Rules of Civility, that's

3:53

a first-person narrative. It's from the

3:55

perspective of a 25-year-old woman of

3:57

a working class background named Katie.

4:00

And I think that one of the

4:02

best parts about that, but one of the strengths

4:05

of it, is that she's a shrewd observer. She's

4:07

a smarter observer than I am. And

4:09

as she is going through sort of New York

4:11

society and has to get her first sort of

4:13

foot in the door of sophisticated

4:16

social life and professional life in Manhattan, she's

4:18

just a really good observer of what's happening.

4:20

And then so that you kind of have

4:22

that, that's a different kind of discovery. But

4:25

that's fun for me to go along on the ride. You

4:27

know, what's she gonna learn tonight? You know, that kind of thing.

4:30

And then hopefully that provides a certain kind of momentum

4:32

and energy for the reader too. I

4:35

also enjoyed how many chance encounters there

4:37

are in these, I think about like

4:40

so many people end up sort of

4:42

being shaken out of their daily routines

4:44

because they happen upon someone and have

4:46

a conversation that they just completely didn't

4:48

expect. Which I suppose also fits in

4:51

the idea of discovery as well. Well, and I

4:53

also actually think that's very, it's

4:56

very common to life in the case that we're talking

4:58

about. Which is that you

5:00

can have, you take a train ride and you have

5:02

a conversation with the person on the train. Nine

5:06

out of 10 times or even 99 out of 100, it

5:08

doesn't amount to anything. But occasionally you're like, holy

5:11

moly, that's an incredible story. And that's the one where you

5:13

go home and you're like, I had the

5:15

craziest conversation on the train tonight. And

5:18

so, but we also witness things sometimes. You

5:20

know, you're, whatever, a fight breaks out. Oh

5:22

my God, you know, and Susie

5:24

and you know, Betsy beat each other up, you

5:26

know, whatever. I don't know, making it up. My

5:29

point is things do happen, right? Things do

5:31

happen. And it is true that

5:33

I think this collection, the six stories in New York

5:35

in particular, are very often about a

5:37

little thing that happens that the

5:40

characters witness or they participate in tangentially. And

5:42

it could be a small thing that would

5:44

disappear, but you know,

5:46

it can also build. And it's

5:49

sort of interesting when it's the kind of

5:51

thing that as small as it is, you

5:53

could have ramifications for the

5:55

characters involved and you know, effect in

5:58

unanticipated ways. how they treat

6:00

each other, how they think of themselves, what they

6:03

do next. You know, the New

6:05

York stories are, the

6:07

Lincoln Highway is a totally an invention, rules of

6:10

civility is an invention, gentlemen of Moscow is an

6:12

invention. The New York

6:14

stories are all inventions, the characters are all made

6:16

up, but they

6:18

more than the novels may sprung

6:20

from a little something that I

6:22

witnessed, a little thing. And so I'll give you

6:24

an example. And

6:27

the first five pages of

6:30

the story called The Bootlegger

6:32

are probably the most

6:34

autobiographical five pages I've ever written.

6:37

And I'll tell you what happens, because it's not a spoiler,

6:39

I mean it's because it's right there at the beginning. But

6:43

in my early 30s, my

6:45

wife and I, our kids were just sleeping through

6:47

the night now, and so we were

6:49

like, okay, it's time to have babysitters, and we'll go out

6:51

once a week, and we're

6:53

kind of at that phase of parenthood. And

6:57

I read in the New York Times that Eugenie

7:00

Kisson, who at the moment

7:02

was really considered the greatest living piano player in

7:04

the world, was coming to America

7:07

for the first time, and he

7:09

was gonna premiere at Carnegie Hall. And

7:11

I was like, oh wow, that sounds pretty amazing. Honey,

7:14

maybe we should do this, maybe we should go to Carnegie Hall

7:16

and see this famous poet,

7:18

famous piano player. Well, we

7:20

like classical music, but we had never been to

7:22

Carnegie Hall before, we don't follow classical music closely.

7:24

And so, but my wife was like, okay, yeah,

7:26

that sounds like a good date, well that's fine,

7:28

let's do that. So I

7:30

call Carnegie Hall, and I say,

7:33

hey, I'm interested

7:35

in going to the Eugenie Kisson concert, I'd like

7:37

to buy two tickets. And they're

7:39

like, well actually, the tickets are

7:41

not available yet to the public, they're

7:45

only available to patrons of Carnegie Hall.

7:48

And I'm like, okay, so what's that mean? What does it mean to be

7:50

a patron of Carnegie Hall? And

7:53

they're like, well, it means that you make a donation. And

7:55

I'm like, okay, well like how much of a donation? So

7:59

they tell me this. number. I'm like, okay, well, I'll do that.

8:01

I'll make the donation. So, you know, we give a

8:03

credit card number. I am now a patron and I

8:05

say, okay, now as a patron, I would like to

8:07

buy two tickets to UG. And

8:10

the person says, well, it's

8:13

actually not that simple because at this

8:15

stage, patrons are only allowed to buy

8:17

concerts as when they're a part of

8:19

a series. I'm like,

8:23

okay, what's a series? And I'm like,

8:25

well, you know, like, for instance, we're

8:27

having, you know, this series of four,

8:30

you know, great piano players and

8:32

Eugenie Kisson is one of the four. And if you buy

8:34

the series, yeah, you get to go. And so like, you

8:36

know, so now like, I'm, I'm

8:39

committed. You're all in. How can you not be?

8:41

I am committed. You're going. I'm like, okay, we're

8:43

in for the series. You know, my

8:46

wife is like sitting rolling her

8:48

eyes. She's like, for this price,

8:50

we could have had our date

8:53

in Paris. I do think it's

8:55

worth noting at this point also that the story is told

8:57

from the point of view of the wife. Of the

8:59

wife. Yeah, so you

9:02

get the role, the role, the eye roll firsthand. So

9:04

anyway, so we do so

9:06

we go, we, so we get the series and

9:08

Eugenie Kisson is the second performance. So we go

9:10

to the first performance, we dress up, we go

9:12

to a fancy restaurant and we

9:14

come to Carnegie Hall, we have nice seats and everything.

9:17

And the way that works in Carnegie Hall is that

9:19

if you subscribe to a series, you

9:21

have the same seat for every night. And

9:23

in fact, you have the right to

9:26

purchase that seat every year in

9:28

perpetuity as long as you

9:30

don't stop. Okay. So, so many of the

9:32

people in Carnegie Hall at the series are

9:34

in the same seat that they've been in

9:36

for 10 years, 15 years, 20 years. So

9:39

we're sitting there and this just before

9:41

the performance begins, this old guy in

9:43

a trench coat comes in and he

9:45

passes us and he sits next to

9:47

me. Hello, hello. And,

9:50

and suddenly, you know, he puts his

9:52

arm on the rest. And

9:55

as Eugenie Kisson comes on stage, I

9:58

realized that there's two little black stems. sticking

10:00

out of the trench coat sleeve, and

10:02

I realized, oh my god, the old guy is

10:04

recording the concert. I

10:07

could not believe it. I could not get over it. And I'm

10:09

nudging my wife and she's like, shh. So

10:12

at any rate, we go through the concert and I'm like,

10:14

wow, I still couldn't believe that when we were on the

10:17

cab home and talking about it. So then we come the

10:19

next week, and it's Eugenie Kissen now. And

10:21

so we sit, Fancy Dare sit, sure

10:24

enough, Justice Kissen is about to come on stage,

10:26

the old guy comes in, he sits down, he's

10:28

got his recording device all set up to go,

10:31

and I'm just, I could not get

10:33

over it. So I began to fantasize

10:36

about turning him into security. I'm

10:41

like imagining, right? Yes,

10:43

officer, it's him. I'm

10:45

an officer, I don't even know what. Yeah,

10:47

yeah, you search him. So

10:50

this is my fantasy, but I'm all wrapped up

10:52

in my indignation about it, my moral indignation,

10:55

about having this fantasy. And

10:57

of course I don't do it. But

10:59

what ends up happening is that the next morning,

11:01

and I remember this very vividly,

11:04

the New York Times

11:06

reports that Eugenie

11:08

Kissen at this concert received

11:11

the longest standing ovation in recent

11:13

memory at Carnegie Hall. And

11:16

I don't remember him playing. Because

11:21

I spent the whole night wired up.

11:24

Anyway. Oh my God.

11:28

So then years go by, decades go by,

11:30

whatever, and then I was like, what

11:33

I do is I often will write short stories

11:35

in between novels. Because I

11:39

love being here in Chicago, I love seeing you, but

11:41

it's very hard to be writing a novel when

11:44

I'm doing this kind of thing. It's

11:46

very disruptive. For a

11:48

novel, I really wanted a big open runway. No

11:51

interruptions, lots of time, so I

11:53

can get myself immersed. So what I'll do

11:55

in moments like this is write short stories. So

11:58

maybe it was after a gentleman mob. I was like, oh

12:00

yeah, I'm on the road, maybe I'll write a short story.

12:02

And I was like, oh, you know, that would be interesting.

12:04

Maybe let's go back to that event, which

12:07

at that point was 20 years before the

12:09

Carnegie Hall event. And

12:11

what if the guy actually went and got security?

12:14

What would happen? And so

12:16

that's what happens in that story. It's

12:18

a full imagination of what if. Thank

12:20

you. Thank you. Thanks

12:23

very much. More

12:26

for my conversation with Emil Tohl, small and sweet

12:28

of you. Nerdette

12:38

is supported by the Sympathizer podcast

12:40

from HBO. Join host

12:43

Philip Nguyen in conversation with the

12:45

cast, crew, and author Viet Thanh

12:47

Nguyen as they discuss the

12:49

making of this historic HBO original limited

12:51

series. Find new

12:53

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listen to The Sympathizer podcast wherever you

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listen to podcasts. Think

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Saturday, July 27 at Humboldt Park. More

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info and early bird

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registration at wbez.org/events. So

13:19

I had the great pleasure of listening to

13:21

the audio book of this collection. And

13:24

you mentioned The Bootlegger, which is

13:26

narrated by the J. Smith Cameron,

13:28

who of course many people know

13:30

of as in succession.

13:32

Jerry, the lawyer. Yes, Jerry in

13:35

succession. Yeah, she's terrific. Yes, that

13:37

is an appropriate reaction. How

13:39

on earth did you get her as a narrator? Were you

13:41

a part of that conversation at all? Well, yes, I

13:44

am involved in choosing the narrators for my books.

13:46

But in that case, what ended up happening is

13:51

she and I met through social media. You

13:53

know, it's one of, you know, occasionally

13:56

mostly social media. We All

13:58

know it mostly social media gives you. Nasa

14:00

know that gives you something great and when it

14:02

was you know she reached out and like oh

14:05

I just read you know to Missouri. love it

14:07

so much and I'm like oh my god I'm

14:09

a big fan of succession and and so is

14:11

and then with her now we both have a

14:13

New York City and nurture that we both three

14:15

martinis and so bam enough us beautiful The rest

14:18

was history So anyway so we would have been

14:20

get together have what you know a martini lunches

14:22

at the only person I have minority launches with

14:24

by the way but but would you do it

14:26

and.so when this book was being put together and

14:28

I I do we we've. Chosen. Eduardo

14:32

Ballerinas Really one of the great audiobooks

14:34

readers Amazon Truth: He had done the

14:37

majority of Lincoln Highway and so he

14:39

was up for doing Table for Two

14:41

as a terrific button though this one

14:43

story and the collection is from you

14:46

know, as as Gonna mentions his from

14:48

a woman's perspective from the wife and

14:50

I didn't want Eduardo to read that

14:52

and and I immediately thought oh you

14:55

know what James would kill this She's

14:57

really her tone is so right forth.

15:00

And out so reached out She said i

15:02

would love to do it and is and

15:04

I I love Eduardo or but she is

15:06

she's you know? Amazing in in

15:08

the store You know she really does

15:11

observe. Pitch perfect delivery in the peace.

15:13

This was a lot of fun! It's

15:15

amazing! I was such a pleasure to

15:17

listen to. so. Without a lot

15:19

of questions from the islands also

15:21

about the settings that you choose

15:23

and it was Gene, he said

15:25

specifically that they're always so specific

15:27

and rich indies hell and wanted

15:29

to know is uses it. Look.

15:32

His I mean did you get to have an

15:34

excuse a visiting on the brand hotels in Europe

15:36

before writing gentlemen, a Mosque and. So this

15:38

is a little odd. but but. I'm.

15:41

Not a big research driven rider. many of

15:44

you must be for know probably know that

15:46

but. i do

15:48

like to imagine as much as

15:50

of of the story as i

15:52

can without relying on some kind

15:55

of external research whether that's your

15:57

the internet or books or conversations

16:00

or visits. But what I'll

16:02

tend to do is I'll do

16:04

some of that at the end of having written the

16:06

first draft. So in the case of a gentleman in

16:08

Moscow, I had never set foot in the Metropole Hotel

16:11

when I wrote that book. But

16:13

then when I finished the first draft, I flew

16:15

to Moscow and moved into the hotel and

16:18

spent 10 days there beginning to revise

16:21

the book within inside the

16:23

hotel. And similarly, I had

16:25

never been to Nebraska or on the

16:27

Lincoln Highway when I wrote the Lincoln

16:29

Highway. And

16:32

when I finished the first draft, I flew to

16:34

Nebraska. I rented a car, and I went out

16:36

to the middle of the state and began working

16:38

my way east on the Lincoln Highway. And

16:41

so I like to do this after the fact. That

16:44

doesn't seem super efficient. Yeah.

16:51

The reason it's, and you're absolutely right, but the

16:53

reason it works for me is because

16:57

I want it to be holistic. I

17:01

want to be able to see it in my head,

17:03

to imagine it in my head, and

17:05

I don't want the reality to

17:08

dictate how I piece that together. And

17:10

I think it's a stronger, I

17:12

can deliver it to the reader more strongly

17:15

if I've started by imagining it fully myself.

17:18

And here's another one that sort of re-loved

17:20

this. Even

17:24

Hollywood. So half of

17:26

this book is the six New York stories, most of

17:28

which are set around the year 2000. But

17:31

half of the book is a single piece. It's

17:33

a novella of over 200 pages called Even Hollywood.

17:36

And the history there is that Eve

17:39

is a character from Rules of Civility, as many

17:41

of you know. She's Katie's best friend. And

17:44

in that book, two

17:46

thirds of the way through the novel,

17:48

she has had a relationship that's been

17:50

falling apart. She's been in an accident

17:52

where she's disfigured. She's a

17:55

beautiful, sort of spunky, very independent-minded

17:57

woman. She's terrific. And

17:59

she... She is headed home to Indiana, because

18:01

she's like, I'm down with New York, and

18:04

her parents are meeting her at Union Station here

18:06

in Chicago, have come

18:08

from Indiana to pick her up, and she doesn't get

18:10

off the train. They wait, she

18:12

never shows, and they eventually track down

18:15

the conductor, and the conductor says, you

18:17

know what, as we were approaching Chicago,

18:19

she extended her ticket and went

18:21

to Hollywood, went to Los Angeles in 1938,

18:26

which is very true to her character. And

18:28

when Rules of Disability was done, I didn't

18:31

want to tell you anything more about Katie or Tinker, but I

18:33

couldn't stop thinking about Eve, and like, what did she

18:36

do in Hollywood in 1938? And

18:40

so, 10 years ago, I wrote sort

18:42

of this little thing, 60 pages, it's

18:44

a little glimpse of her arrival in

18:46

Los Angeles from six perspectives.

18:49

You sort of see

18:51

the first person is a retired homicide detective

18:54

on the train who witnesses her to extending

18:56

the ticket, and is like, why

18:58

would a woman do that? That's

19:00

really interesting to him. And he

19:02

gets curious, and then eventually they have a conversation, and

19:04

that kind of begins things. And

19:07

then you kind of meet several people who

19:09

she encounters and who she affects, and

19:11

we kind of learn about her arrival in

19:13

this new life through them. And

19:17

when I handed in the manuscript for this to my

19:19

editor, that was it, it was the

19:21

60 pages. And

19:23

I sent the manuscript in, and the minute I did,

19:25

I said, you know what, you gotta send it back.

19:28

You gotta send it back, because it's not,

19:31

I know so much more about what happens to

19:33

Eve in Los Angeles, and the readers deserve to

19:35

know that Eve deserves for me to tell you

19:37

that. And when she arrives in Los Angeles, the

19:39

first thing she does is she moves into the

19:41

Beverly Hills Hotel. So, when I

19:43

decided, okay, I'm not gonna finish with the

19:45

60 pages, I am gonna expand on it,

19:47

the first thing I did is I flew

19:49

out to Los Angeles, and I moved into

19:51

the Beverly Hills Hotel, because

19:54

that's the kind of sacrifice I am willing to

19:56

make for my art. You're

20:01

a good sport. But then yeah, so then I sat down and

20:04

I was like okay, here we go. And

20:06

then I began to let

20:08

it really unfold and it

20:10

ends up being this 200 page work. And

20:14

I think it's a lot of fun. All

20:26

right, that's it for book club. Thank you

20:28

to everyone who has read along with us and

20:30

called in with your hot takes about all of

20:32

our book club picks. We have

20:35

pretty consistently been doing book club on a

20:37

monthly basis since the beginning of 2020. And

20:41

it has been such a joy

20:43

to get to read alongside you

20:45

and to build this just like

20:47

beautiful, amazing, smart,

20:49

thoughtful community of readers. So this

20:51

is where I say thank you, thank you, thank

20:53

you, thank you again. As I

20:55

mentioned at the top of the show, we are going to

20:57

be back on Tuesday with our last episode from WBEZ. Also,

21:01

someone has already asked if I can

21:03

just have an impromptu book club going

21:05

over the summer to make sure that

21:08

you all still read books. And

21:10

I would be more than happy to do that. The

21:12

best place to get book recommendations for me in the

21:15

future is going to be my newsletter. It is called

21:17

Gretagram. If you Google Gretagram

21:19

sub stack, the link will magically

21:21

arise to you. Nerdette is

21:23

produced by me and Anna Bauman at WBEZ

21:25

in Chicago and is part of the NPR

21:27

network. And Brendan Banazak is

21:30

our executive producer. We will

21:32

see you on Tuesday. Nerdette

21:38

is supported by the Sympathizer podcast

21:41

from HBO. Join host

21:43

Philip Nguyen in conversation with the cast,

21:45

crew, and author Viet Thanh Nguyen

21:47

as they discuss the making of this historic

21:49

HBO show.