Skylight Books Podcast Series

Laurie Kilmartin, "DEAD PEOPLE SUCK"

When stand-up comedian Laurie Kilmartin learned her dad was dying, she responded in the only way she knew how: with humor. In 2014, she made headlines by live tweeting her father’s time in hospice, bringing a touch of lightness to the devastating experience of losing her dad. Picked up by outlets like Buzzfeed, Huffington Post, and Today.com, Kilmartin’s hilarious tweets took the world by storm, and revealed the need for a comic interpretation of grief.

Dead People Suck: A Guide for Survivors of the Newly Departed, is an honest, irreverent, laugh-out- loud guide to coping with death and dying. Filled with relatable anecdotes and practical advice, Kilmartin voices all of the insensitive things you may have thought about your dying loved one, or wanted to scream at a well-meaning friend, but didn’t. She also brings heart and humor to a topic that is too often met with solemnity and silence, despite being as complicated, messy, and emotional as any other part of our human experience.

Chelsea Hodson, "TONIGHT I'M SOMEONE ELSE"

From graffiti gangs and Grand Theft Auto to sugar daddies, Schopenhauer, and a deadly game of Russian roulette, Chelsea Hodson probes her own desires to examine where the physical and the proprietary collide. In Tonight I'm Someone Else, she asks what our privacy, our intimacy, and our own bodies are worth in the increasingly digital world of liking, linking, and sharing.

Starting with Hodson’s own work experience, which ranges from the mundane to the bizarre—including modeling and working on a NASA Mars mission— Hodson expands outward, looking at the ways in which the human will submits, whether in the marketplace or in a relationship. Both tender and jarring, this collection is relevant to anyone who’s ever searched for what the self is worth.

Hodson is joined by Wendy C. Ortiz, author of Excavation: A Memoir, Hollywood Notebook, and the dreamoir Bruja.

Ted Scheinman, "CAMP AUSTEN"

In a haze of morning crumpets and restrictive tights, Ted Scheinman delivers a hilarious and poignant survey of one of the most enduring and passionate literary coteries in history. Combining clandestine journalism with frank memoir, academic savvy with insider knowledge, Camp Austen is perhaps the most comprehensive study of Jane Austen that can also be read in a single sitting. Brimming with stockings, culinary etiquette, and scandalous dance partners, this is summer camp like you've never seen it before.

Maggie Nelson, "SOMETHING NICE, THEN HOLES" w/ Ali Liebegegott

These days / the world seems to split up / into those who need to dredge / and those who shrug their shoulders / and say, It’s just something / that happened.

While Maggie Nelson refers here to a polluted urban waterway, the Gowanus Canal, these words could just as easily describe Nelson’s incisive approach to desire, heartbreak, and emotional excavation in Something Bright, Then Holes. Whether writing from the debris-strewn shores of a contaminated canal or from the hospital room of a friend, Nelson charts each emotional landscape she encounters with unparalleled precision and empathy. Since its publication in 2007, the collection has proven itself to be both a record of a singular vision in the making as well as a timeless meditation on love, loss, and—perhaps most frightening of all—freedom.

Nelson is joined by Ali Liebegott, author of three books: The Beautifully Worthless, The IHOP Papers, and Cha-Ching!

George Rodriguez, "DOUBLE VISION" w/ Josh Kun

Culled from a sprawling personal and professional archive of thousands, Double Vision marks the first time that George Rodriguez’s two lives, his career of double exposures, have been gathered into a single volume. Until now, only his images of Chicana/o protest and politics have ever appeared in published volumes, gallery, or museum exhibitions.

A student of Sid Avery and a contemporary of Dennis Hopper, but born in South Los Angeles and often working as the first Latino photographer in the room at a time when his own rights were on the line, Rodriguez is one of the great visual documentarians of Los Angeles and of the cultural complexities of Mexican-American life.

Rodriguez is joined in conversation with Josh Kun, a 2016 MacArthur Fellow and the winner of a 2018 Berlin Prize and a 2006 American Book Award.

"THE ANNOTATED BIG SLEEP" w/ Annotators

A masterpiece of noir, Raymond Chandler’s The Big Sleep helped to define a genre and remains one of the most celebrated and stylish novels of the twentieth century. Now, this comprehensive, annotated edition offers a fascinating look behind the scenes of the novel, bringing the gritty and seductive world of Chandler’s iconic private eye Philip Marlowe into full color. Notes on the historical context of Chandler’s Los Angeles; excerpts from the author’s personal letters and source texts; explorations of the issues of gender, sexuality, race, and ethnicity that permeate the story; and important interpretations and clarifications enrich the reader’s understanding and situate the novel within the tradition of crime fiction that Chandler both built upon and made new.

The annotators have asked a group of LA authors to read favorite passages from the novel, followed by a talk by the annotators. Readers include Judith Freeman, David Ulin, Steph Cha, Kim Cooper and Gary Phillips.

Glynnis MacNicol, "NO ONE TELLS YOU THIS" w/ Ann Friedman

Over the course of her fortieth year, which this memoir chronicles, Glynnis MacNicol embarks on a revealing journey of self-discovery that continually contradicts everything she'd been led to expect. Through the trials of family illness and turmoil, and the thrills of far-flung travel and adventures with men, young and old (and sometimes wearing cowboy hats), she is forced to wrestle with her biggest hopes and fears about love, death, sex, friendship, and loneliness. In doing so, she discovers that holding the power to determine her own fate requires a resilience and courage that no one talks about, and is more rewarding than anyone imagines.

Intimate and timely, No One Tells You This is a fearless reckoning with modern womanhood and an exhilarating adventure that will resonate with anyone determined to live by their own rules.

MacNicol is joined by journalist and cultural critic Ann Friedman.

James Pogue, "CHOSEN COUNTRY" w/ David Garrett Byars

In a remote corner of Oregon, James Pogue found himself at the heart of a rebellion. Granted unmatched access by Ammon Bundy to the armed occupation of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge, Pogue met ranchers and militiamen ready to die fighting the federal government.

He witnessed the fallout of communities riven by politics and the danger (and allure) of uncompromising religious belief. The occupation ended in the shooting death of one rancher, the imprisonment of dozens more, and a firestorm over the role of government that engulfed national headlines.

In a raw and restless narrative that roams the same wild terrain as his literary forebears Edward Abbey and Hunter S. Thompson, Pogue's Chosen Country examines the underpinnings of this rural uprising and struggles to reconcile diverging ideas of freedom, tracing a cultural fault line that spans the nation.

Pogue is joined by David Garrett Byars, who made his directorial debut at the 2017 Tribeca Film Festival with No Man's Land, a documentary about the 2016 occupation of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge.

Leslie Schwartz, "THE LOST CHAPTERS" w/ Bernadette Murphy

In 2014, Leslie Schwartz was sentenced to 90 days in Los Angeles County Jail for a DUI and battery of an officer. She served her time at the tail end of a 414-day relapse into alcohol addiction after more than a decade of sobriety. During that year and seven weeks, she was in what she describes as a “chronic state of blackout”--The Lost Chapters.

Incarceration might have ruined her, if not for the stories that comforted her while she was locked up-- both the artful tales in the books she read while there, and, more immediately, the stories of her fellow inmates. With classics like Maya Angelou’s I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings to contemporary accounts like Laura Hillenbrand's Unbroken, Schwartz's reading list is woven together with visceral recollections of her daily humiliations faced in the county jail system. Through the stories of others—whether rendered on the page or whispered in a jail cell—she learned powerful lessons about how to banish shame, use guilt for good, level her grief, and find the lost joy and magic of her astonishing life.

Schwartz is joined in conversation by Bernadette Murphy, author of Harley and Me: Embracing Risk on the Road to a More Authentic Life.

Amber Tamblyn, "ANY MAN" w/ Janet Fitch

Ambler Tamblyn's Any Man follows six men: an English teacher, an unsuccessful standup comedian, a bi-racial web designer; a high school student, an alt-right media personality, and a transgender man. While one man’s experience launches him into the spotlight as an unlikely activist and voice for justice, another’s trauma is told through every voice but his own, a damning commentary on how we abuse and erase the stories and experiences of survivors.

In Any Man, the serial rapes act as a mirror, reflecting prejudices from the media and society back towards each victim as they grapple with guilt, shame, fear, PTSD, anger, and confusion about their attack. Journalists and people on social media hound and harass the victims, some going so far as to question whether it is even physically possible for a woman to rape a man.

Soon the culture feels equally as complicit and violent as the actual predator herself. The power of this novel comes from the victims’ resistance of the narrative thrust upon them, refusing to be plot devices, but actual agents of action, central, and ever-present as they summon the strength and courage to speak out.

Tamblyn is joined in conversation by Janet Fitch, author of  the novels White Oleander, an Oprah Book Club selection, Paint It Black, and most recently The Revolution of Marina M.

Zoé Samudzi, "BLACK AS RESISTANCE"

Over the course of United States history, resistance against oppression and the gains made from various struggles for everyone's equality have often been Black led. However, liberal politics and the lack of strong leftist political power are two problems impeding the continued progress of Black America. Expanding on their original essay "The Anarchism Of Blackness," Zoé Samudzi and William C. Anderson make the case for a new program of transformative politics for Black Americans, one rooted in an anarchistic framework likened to the Black experience itself. This is not a compromising book that negotiates with intolerance. As Black as Resistance is a declaration for everyone who is ready to continue progressing towards liberation for all people.

Ottessa Moshfegh, "MY YEAR OF REST AND RELAXATION"

To say Ottessa Moshfegh's star is on the rise is an understatement—and not quite accurate. She is most definitely already in the constellation. My Year of Rest and Relaxation, is the story of a young woman’s efforts to duck the ills of the world by embarking on a pharmaceutical-fueled extended hibernation with the help of one of the worst psychiatrists.

It’s the year 2000 in New York City, our narrator is a model-beautiful Columbia graduate living off her inheritance in a city aglitter with wealth and possibility; what could be so terribly wrong? In Moshfegh’s universe, plenty. My Year of Rest and Relaxation is a powerful year-long trip spent under the influence of a truly mad combination of drugs designed to heal our heroine from her alienation from this world. Both tender and blackly funny, merciless and compassionate, the novel is a showcase for the gifts of one of our major writers working at the height of her powers.

Jim Pascoe and Heidi Arnhold, "COTTONS" w/ Cecil Castellucci

To her neighbors in the Vale of Industry, Bridgebelle is an ordinary rabbit. All day long, she toils at the carrot factory. After a hard day, she returns home to care for her ailing auntie. And whenever she's out, she's watchful of the murderous foxes who prey on her kind.

But Bridgebelle is not ordinary—she's a rabbit with talents beyond her own understanding. Using cha, the mysterious fuel that powers her world, she can change everyday objects into thokchas—magical, transforming works of art. Bridgebelle makes thokchas because they're beautiful. But there are those in her world who want to harness her powers and turn her art into a weapon. 

Cottons authors Jim Pascoe and Heidi Arnhold are joined in conversation by Cecil Castellucci, author of Boy Proof, The Plain Janes, The Year of the Beasts, Tin Star, and the Eisner nominated Odd Duck.

Paddy Hirsch, "THE DEVIL'S HALF MILE"

Paddy Hirsch began researching the history of the stock market and beginnings of its regulation—but ended up swept into the fascinating time period he discovered. Hirsch turned his research into a page-turning and atmospheric new novel of suspense. The Devil's Half Mile brings together the actual historic settings and people of 1799 New York, including Alexander Hamilton, William Duer, and more—along with a twisty murder mystery.

Nick Dybek, "THE VERDUN AFFAIR" w/ Julia Fierro

A sweeping, romantic, and profoundly moving novel, set in Europe in the aftermath of World War I and Los Angeles in the 1950s, about a lonely young man, a beautiful widow, and the amnesiac soldier whose puzzling case binds them together even as it tears them apart.

From the bone-strewn fields of Verdun to the bombed-out cafés of Paris, from the riot-torn streets of Bologna to the riotous parties of 1950s Hollywood, Nick Dybek's The Verdun Affair is a riveting tale of romance, grief, and the far-reaching consequences of a single lie.

Dybek is in conversation with Julia Fierro, author of the novels The Gypsy Moth Summer and Cutting Teeth.