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.
Rae Armantrout : Finalists
Crafting with Ursula : Kim Stanley Robinson on Ambiguous Utopias
Courtney Maum — The Year of the Horses
Ada Limón : The Hurting Kind
Crafting with Ursula : adrienne maree brown on Social Justice & Science Fiction
Cristina Rivera Garza : New and Selected Stories
Caren Beilin : Revenge of the Scapegoat
Crafting with Ursula : Karen Joy Fowler on Experimental Women, Animals, Science & Story
Sheila Heti : Pure Colour
Alejandro Zambra : Chilean Poet
Crafting with Ursula : Isaac Yuen on Writing Nature & Nature Writing
Solmaz Sharif : Customs
Gabrielle Civil : the déjà vu
Crafting with Ursula : Molly Gloss on Writing the Clear, Clean Line
James Hannaham : Pilot Impostor
Rabih Alameddine : The Wrong End of the Telescope
Crafting with Ursula : Becky Chambers on Creating Aliens & Alien Cultures
Victoria Chang : Dear Memory
Valerie Mejer Caso : Edinburgh Notebook
Raymond Antrobus : All The Names Given & The Perseverance
Create your
podcast in
minutes
It is Free
Lit Society: Books and Drama
Ex Libris
Write The Book: Conversations on Craft
Gulliver’s Travels
Anne of Green Gables
Fresh Air
Myths and Legends