Otherppl With Brad Listi

Cate Dicharry is the guest. Her debut novel, The Fine Art of Fucking Up, is now available from Unnamed Press. Kirkus Reviews calls it "Funny and charmingly ridiculous."   And Jill Alexander Essbaum says   "Cate Dicharry’s comic timing is unimpeachable and though her characters are idiosyncratic and quirky, they are deeply dimensional and exceptionally real. A richly complicated and rewarding novel."   Monologue topics: Person of 2015, LA Weekly, my mom, mail Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Erika Krouse is the guest. Her new novel, Contenders, is available now from Rare Bird Books. It is the official April pick of The Nervous Breakdown Book Club. Bookslut says "Krouse...writes with a pulse-pounding and engaging ferocity that grabs at the reader...Contenders is heart-racingly original." And Steve Almond says "Contenders is a knockout! I've never read anything like it. The marvelous Erika Krouse has crafted one of the most unforgettable heroines in modern fiction. Nina Black is not the kind of woman you'd want to meet in a dark alley. But she's precisely the kind of character I always hope to encounter in fiction: a badass streetfighter forced by fate to confront her capacity for maternal tenderness, her need for love, and the anguished contents of her heart." Monologue topics: San Diego, roadtrips, carsickness, wipes, fatherhood, going to see a bluegrass band, catching up, the antisocial nature of live music.   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Heidi Pitlor is the guest. She is the editor of the Best American Short Stories anthologies and the author of the new novel The Daylight Marriage, available now from Algonquin Books. Stephen King calls it "Hypnotically readable--I absolutely couldn't put it down. The structure is brilliant, and I turned the pages with increasing dread. This book is terrific.” And Booklist, in a starred review, says “Pitlor brings forth the emotions that surge beneath the surface with the precision and power of a conductor . . . This powerful analysis of how dreams become nightmares will make readers want to hold their loved ones close.” Monologue topics: iTunes rating, pregnancy update, Dustin Hoffman. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Sarah Nicole Prickett is the guest. She is the founder of Adult magazine and a contributing editor at The New Inquiry. Monologue topics: Ex Machina, artificial intelligence, hiking, nature, mountain lions.     Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Monica McClure is the guest. Her debut poetry collection, Tender Data, is now available from Birds LLC. NPR says "McClure may be the poster-girl for a new generation of poets: irreverent, well-read, sexy, even dirty, snarky, but ultimately fighting an earnest battle against reductiveness and easy answers to the complex problems of the Internet age: 'Every citizen of this world is on trial/ I'm learning to speak legalese/ as I stroll through civil law like/ a gamine through a sample sale.'" Monologue topics: the Michiko Kakutani April Fool's Day episode, mail, listener reactions Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Michiko Kakutani is the guest. She is the chief book critic for the New York Times and a recipient of the Pulitzer Prize. Monologue topics: kicking, worrying, mail, bless you, all businesses are awful. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Daniel Handler is the guest. His new novel We Are Pirates is now available from Bloomsbury.  Booklist, in a starred review, says "Handler (aka children's author Lemony Snicket) has never been known for writing precisely happy novels, and his latest certainly doesn't deviate. What could easily have been a slightly silly, fantastical romp becomes, instead, in Handler's capable hands, a macabre, darkly human portrayal of family dynamics and growing up in a world running low on adventure . . . peppered with black humor." And Jess Walter says "We Are Pirates will dazzle, disturb, and delight you. It might even do things to you that don't start with the letter D, like remind you what it's like to be young, or convince you that Daniel Handler can do anything." Monologue topics: the dentist, cough, mail, work, fear, money, children. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Will Chancellor is the guest. His debut novel, A Brave Man Seven Storeys Tall, is now available from Harper. The Daily Beast says “To compare a debut novel to Infinite Jest is likely either too flippant or too generous, but consider the bona fides...Will Chancellor’s wonderful debut novel...more than merely promising, is one of the best of the year.” And Kirkus, in a starred review, calls it “Bracingly rich...the author maintains an almost thrillerlike pace while taking well-aimed shots at academic and art-market fads and helping two lost souls through essential transformations.” Monologue topics: hellishness, annoying/hectic day, ATT customer service, ultrasounds. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Adam Robinson is the guest. He is the founding editor of Publishing Genius Press. Monologue topics: LA, yoga, celebrity sneezes, God bless you.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Timothy Willis Sanders is the guest. His debut novel, Matt Meets Vik, is available now from Civil Coping Mechanisms.  Blake Butler says "I have no idea how Timothy Willis Sanders is able to accumulate so many small reflections into such a mesmerizing mass. Matt Meets Vik makes maybe the most stripped-down paragraphs I've ever seen somehow hold a hundred thousand colors, emotions, tones, like if there were a website that made you forget all other websites ever existed, or that you're even still online. Hilarious, moving, insane, real." And Megan Boyle says "As I was reading Matt Meets Vik (and long after I'd finished), I couldn't get the voice of 'Matt' out of my head, like it gave my inner monologue extra-charming-sounding subwoofers. Everything I did felt funnier and more important. There are only a few books that get in my head the way Matt Meets Vik has. This is one of my favorite books. I didn't want it to end. I can see myself reading this many times." Monologue topics: my daughter threw a fit, mail, Nee

Stewart O'Nan is the guest. His new novel, West of Sunset, is available now from Viking. It is the official Februrary pick of The Nervous Breakdown Book Club. Maureen Corrigan, writing for The Washington Post, says “[The] grim yet undeniably fascinating last act of Fitzgerald’s life is the subject of Stewart O’Nan’s gorgeous new novel. . .West of Sunset is a pretty fine Hollywood novel, too, but it’s an even finer novel about a great writer’s determination to keep trying to do his best work.” And George Saunders says “O'Nan is an incredibly versatile and charming writer. This novel, which imagines F. Scott Fitzgerald's troubled time in Hollywood (with cameos by Dorothy Parker, Bogie, and Hemingway), takes up (like much of O'Nan's work) that essential conundrum of grace struggling with paucity. One brilliant American writer meditating on another--what's not to love?” Monologue topics: paranoia, pregnancy, fear, hovering, mail.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Halle Butler is the guest. Her debut novel, Jillian, is available now from Curbside Splendor.  Lindsay Hunter says "This book is incredible. The deadpan way it nails what it is to be a human who lies to herself and tells different lies to everyone else makes me want to laugh and scream. It is hilarious and weird, my two favorite qualities in a book." And Kirkus Reviews says "[Jillian] offers up its characters for hatred and ridicule with such energy, obsessive detail and hopelessness that the reader can't help but read on, through exasperating flinches of sympathy and recognition. A novel that reads like rubbernecking or a junk-food binge, compelling a horrified fascination and bleak laughter in the face of outrageously painted everyday sadness." Monologue topics: thanks, worry, sleeplessness, corporate pitchman fantasies, idealism, crazy people, Starbucks, Valentine's Day, my dog, jokes that fail to land. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Porochista Khakpour is the guest. Her novel The Last Illusion is now available from Bloomsbury.  Claire Messud says “Utterly original and compelling, Porochista Khakpour's The Last Illusion weaves Iranian myth with very contemporary American neurosis to create a bittersweet poetry all its own. This ambitious, exciting literary adventure is at once grotesque, amusing, deeply sad—and wonderful, too.” And Kirkus, in a starred review, calls it "An audaciously ambitious novel that teeters along a tightrope but never falls off." Monologue topics:  big news, superstition, not wanting to be dominated by superstition despite demonstrably being dominated by superstition by knocking wood repeatedly.      Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Kitty is the guest. She is a rapper/musician whose latest EP, Frostbite, is now available. RollingStone says "Love is pain, and nobody understands that quite like this suburban teen-rap every-girl. Pryde went viral with ["Okay Cupid"]...a homemade mumblecore hit, in the voice of a bored kid from Florida. It's full of wit ("It's my party, couldn't cry if I wanted to") and mall-rat ambience, as she waits for her boyfriend's drunk-dials at 3:30 a.m." And The New York Times says "She doesn’t rap because it’s funny or novel, but rather because it’s simply the best and most comfortable tool available to her. The results so far, while almost no one has been watching, have the intimacy and comfort of private recordings. They transfix."   Monologue topics:  privilege, mail. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Tim Johnston is the guest. His new novel, Descent, is available now from Algonquin Books. It is the official January selection of The Nervous Breakdown Book Club. The Washington Post raves “I’ve read many variations on this theme, some quite good, but never one as powerful as Tim Johnston’s Descent . . . The story unfolds brilliantly, always surprisingly, but the glory of Descent lies not in its plot but in the quality of the writing. The magic of his prose equals the horror of Johnston’s story; each somehow enhances the other . . . Read this astonishing novel. It’s the best of both worlds.” And Mary Roach says “Descent is the best novel I've read in a long time. Unlike most books that fall into the category of Page Turner, this one also falls in the category of Writing So Good You Can't Even Believe It. Johnston has a superhuman gift for watching and listening to the world and rendering, on the page, its beauty and savagery with such detail and power that the story feels almost more like memory than somethin

Alexis Coe is the guest. She is the author of Alice + Freda Forever, available now from Pulp/Zest Books. Peter Orner says "Alexis Coe rescues a buried but extraordinarily telling episode from the 1890's that resonates in all sorts of ways with today. That in itself would be an accomplishment. But this is a book that is truly riveting, a narrative that gallops. Lizzy Borden eat your heart out. Here's a real crime of passion. Or was it? 'And so Alice carried the razor around every day in her dress pocket, just in case Freda came to town…' I dare you to pick this one up and try, just try to put it down." And Vol. 1 Brooklyn says "Though the history recounted in Alexis Coe's Alice + Freda Forever is captivating in its own right, Coe also provides a larger context for it, elevating this to the level of a societal indictment. This story of a star-crossed love with a violent ending at times reads like a microcosm of Memphis at the end of the 19th century. As Coe's narrative delves into perceptions of sexuality and t

Cameron Pierce is the guest. He is the author of several books and the editor of Lazy Fascist Press. Vol. 1 Brooklyn says "Whether he's describing a grandmother who gets pulled into a watery grave by an almost mythological fish or telling the creepy story of a creature that wouldn't be out of place in an H.P. Lovecraft story, Pierce constantly pulls together concepts from the outmost edges of outré fiction and the kind of unassumingly profound storytelling that made authors like Flannery O'Connor and George Singleton household names." And Beach Sloth says “Black humor has never been darker than this; this is the absolute pitch black of humor." Monologue topics: war, war on terror, word usage, Charlie Hebdo, terrorism. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Chelsea Hodson is the guest. Her chapbook entitled Pity the Animal is available now in print from Future Tense Books at Powells.com, and electronically from Emily Books as a Kindle Single.  Tobias Carroll calls it “One of the best literary works I’ve encountered this year... much of its power comes from the way it juxtaposes seemingly unrelated elements: a retrospective of Marina Abramović’s art, scenes from Hodson’s life, economic musings, and considerations of adventure. The way these eventually coalesce is immeasurably powerful; the accumulated effect is devastating, and hits harder than many works ten times its length.” And Bitch magazine calls it "Pointed, scathing, and suspenseful. This critical yet intimate essay is not to be missed." Monologue topics:  leafblowers, chainsaws, suffering.      Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Mark Gluth is the guest. His new novel No Other is available now from Sator Press. Kate Zambreno says "In Mark Gluth's beautiful family gothic No Other, the reader encounters a landscape of mood and mystery, burning with a stripped-down pain. Gluth's sentences devastate in their raw economy, attempting to penetrate the everyday, tracing abbreviated existences struggling to survive through bare seasons." And Blake Butler says "In clipped, incantatory verse shined from whorls somewhere between Gummo and As I Lay Dying, Mark Gluth's No Other invents new ambient psychological terraforma of rare form, a world by turns humid and eerie, nowhere and now, like a blacklight in a locked room." Monologue topics:  the holidays, Santa, mail, answering questions with questions.   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Luke B. Goebel is the guest. His new novel, Fourteen Stories, None of Them Are Yours, is now available from Fiction Collective Two. Kirkus Reviews says “If Kerouac were writing today, his work might look something like this—and despite the title, many of the stories are indeed ours, as they focus on love and loss, pain and yearning.… This is a fierce, untamed, riotous book—and from the first page you’ll know you’re not reading Jane Austen.” And Lidia Yuknavitch says "I'm in love with language again because Luke B. Goebel is not afraid to take us back through the gullet of loss into the chaos of words. Someone burns a manuscript in Texas; someone's speed sets a life on fire; a heart is beaten nearly to death, the road itself is the trip, a man is decreated back to his animal past--better, beyond ego, beautiful, and look: there's an American dreamscape left. There's a reason to go on." Monologue topics: holidays, Santa Claus, lying, shattering my daughter's dream.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaph