(The Minnesota Star Tribune)
Marlon James trash-talks dead writers in new podcast
The Minnesota writer and his editor discuss their favorite--and least-favorite--dead authors.
January 24, 2020 at 3:03PM
A podcast, you say? You're looking for a podcast? A literary and yet controversial and undoubtedly highly entertaining podcast?
Fear not. Here comes Marlon James.
James, author of "Black Leopard, Red Wolf" (a finalist for a National Book Award), "A Brief History of Seven Killings" (winner of the Man Booker Prize) and other novels, has begun a two-month-long podcast with his editor at Riverhead Books, Jake Morrissey. "Marlon and Jake Read Dead People" will begin Monday, Jan. 27, and it's not quite as creepy as it sounds. The podcast is their literary conversations about authors who are no longer with us. As the Riverhead press release puts it, "Authors they like. Authors they hate. … In every episode they'll tell you what they think—uncensored and with no holds bared. (That's why the authors have to be dead.)"
"I'm not denying there is some fun in talking trash about dead people," James told the New York Times. "They can't attack me on Twitter."
James divides his time between Minnesota, where he is a professor at Macalester College in St. Paul, and New York City.
The first two podcasts air Monday, with a new podcast each week for the following six weeks.
Listen to a trailer here: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/marlon-and-jake-read-dead-people/id1492163935
And find it on Spotify, Apple, Stitcher or elsewhere.
LOCAL FICTION: Featuring stories within stories, she’ll discuss the book at Talking Volumes on Tuesday.
