Ryan Boudinot is the guest. He’s the author of the new novel, Blueprints of the Afterlife, now available from Grove Press.
John Schwartz, in a review for the New York Times, raves:
A fierce literary imagination, building the kinds of worlds that William Gibson used to write before he discovered the present; it is warmed by the kind of offbeat, riffing humor that has suffused the works of Neal Stephenson and Gary Shteyngart, with Chuck Palahniuk’s cartoonish gore and Neil Gaiman’s creepy otherworlds blended in. . . . Duct-tape yourself to the front of this roller coaster and enjoy the ride.
A fascinating conversation with a gifted young writer.
Topics of conversation: bookshelves, Iceland, typewriters, Bjork, Sugar Cubes, Sigur Rós, Halldór Laxness, Hobart, Sjón, Dancer in the Dark, dreams, crying, reincarnation, longhand, Ferris Bueller, journalism, sports, precociousness, Evergreen State College, guitar, singing, decisions, maturity, goals, commitments, mentors, Dave Cornelius, Easton’s Books, Mt. Vernon, San Francisco, Kafka, sheep, pigs, chickens, revisions, “The Littlest Hitler,” Mississippi Review, P.J. Mark, Dave Eggers, and what one can control.
Monologue topics: wallets, mall-walking, naked women, body shame, needless worries, public meltdowns, perseverance, death, cells, clouds, sublimation, and smells.
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This was a really great one – inspiring! Ryan’s joy about writing comes through so strongly. (A good reminder to me. I usually feel the process is tipped so heavily toward the “struggle” end of the spectrum). “Bring it on.”
I also want to move to Iceland now and have learned yet another new form of my name. (Must check out the poet Sjon.)
Thanks, Brad and Ryan for a lovely hour of listening.
Thanks for tuning in! Much appreciated. -BL
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