Even though each of Max Porter’s books is a stand-alone book, some have called Grief is the Thing with Feathers, Lanny and his latest, Shy, a “trilogy of boyhood,” a framing Max himself embraces. After a truly electrifying short reading from Shy, Max and I explore his impulse to examine and evoke boyhood across these three books and how his choices on the page engage with the crisis that is contemporary masculinity. We talk about fatherhood and parenting, the extra-literary influences on his writing, whether comics or music or visual art, about the mythic and the wild in relation to the human and language, and much more. Today’s conversation was recorded live in Portland, Oregon at the downtown location of Powell’s Bookstore in May of 2023.
Don’t miss Max’s first appearance on the show in 2019 for his book Lanny. Back then, Max contributed a reading of a poem of his to the bonus audio archive. The singer-songwriter Joan Shelley had reached out in admiration of his books. They began a correspondence (which eventually resulted in some of his words becoming lyrics to her songs) and part of that correspondence included this poem he wrote for her. To learn how to subscribe to the bonus audio archive and the other potential benefits of joining the Between the Covers community as a listener-supporter head over to the show’s Patreon page.
Lastly, here is the BookShop for today’s episode.
The post Tin House Live : Max Porter on Shy appeared first on Tin House.
Danielle Dutton : Prairie, Dresses, Art, Other
Alexis Wright : Praiseworthy
Nam Le : 36 Ways of Writing a Vietnamese Poem
Anne de Marcken : It Lasts Forever and Then It’s Over
Canisia Lubrin : Code Noir
Diana Khoi Nguyen : Root Fractures
Álvaro Enrigue : You Dreamed of Empires
Mathias Énard : The Annual Banquet of the Gravediggers’ Guild
Tin House Live : Denis Johnson : 2003
Elle Nash : Deliver Me
Naomi Klein : Doppelganger : Part Two
Kate Zambreno & Sofia Samatar : Tone
Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore : Touching the Art
Bhanu Kapil : Incubation : A Space for Monsters
Colleen Burner : Sister Golden Calf
Kate Briggs : The Long Form
Lydia Davis : Our Strangers
Naomi Klein : Doppelganger : Part One
Tin House Live : Matthew Zapruder on Story of a Poem
Major Jackson : Razzle Dazzle
Create your
podcast in
minutes
It is Free
Lit Society: Books and Drama
Ex Libris
Write The Book: Conversations on Craft
The Turn of the Screw
Anne of Green Gables
Fresh Air
Myths and Legends