Today’s archival episode with Marlon James was recorded in 2019 at the studios of KBOO community radio. Marlon’s latest book The Disappearers has garnered the most talked about book review of this year, from the New York Times book critic Dwight Garner (who isn’t known to gush). Not only did he say it should be talked about alongside Faulkner’s Absalom, Absalom, Morrison’s Song of Solomon, and Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children, Garner also called it one of the signal reading experiences of his adult life, a masterpiece, the novel of the decade and possibly of the century so far. The book we discussed seven years ago now, was James’ move into fantasy and myth, a novel that won the 2020 Locus Award for Best Horror, Black Leopard, Red Wolf. The science fiction and fantasy author and critic Amal El-Mohtar, perplexed by all the comparisons of it to George R.R. Martin and J.R.R. Tolkien suggested at the time that it was more as if Toni Morrison had written Ovid’s Metamorphoses: “Painful and strange, full of bodies shifting from personhood into meat, and somehow, always, still, upsettingly beautiful. This isn’t Tolkien’s grief-stricken melancholy, or Martin’s calculating, character-forward plot mechanics; it’s horror and tragedy by way of fantasy, nothing discrete, everything penetrating everything else. Reading Black Leopard, Red Wolf was like being slowly eaten by a bear, one inviting me to feel every pressure of tooth and claw tearing into me, asking me to contemplate the intimacy of violation and occasionally cracking a joke.”
For the bonus audio archive Marlon reads his essay “Why I’m Done Talking About Diversity (or, Why We Should Try an All-White Diversity Panel).” We also added his 2015 Tin House Summer Writing Workshop craft lecture “The 9 and 1/2 Rules of Seduction” to the archive. These join many contributions from past guests including Ted Chiang, China Miéville, N.K. Jemisin, Joe Sacco, Naomi Klein, Carl Phillips, Dionne Brand and many others. To learn about how to subscribe to the bonus audio, as well as about all the other potential benefits and rewards of joining the Between the Covers community as a listener-supporter, head over to the show’s Patreon page.
Finally, for your book shopping needs, don’t miss Milkweed Editions bookstore on BookShop.
