Lori Carson joins us to talk about her debut novel, The Original 1982 (published by William Morrow, an imprint of Harper Collins), as well as her time with the Golden Palominos and her solo singer-songwriter career.
The Virtual Memories Show
Season 3, Episode 11 - Little Suicides, Little Fish
It happens in the smallest ways, it happens all the night and if you've never heard your sight, what's it mean to me? Welcome to the Virtual Memories Show. I'm your host, Gil Roth, and you're listening to a podcast about books and life, not necessarily in that order. Now last time out, I mentioned that this episode is going to be a really special one for me. That's because our guest is one of my favorite musical artists ever. See in the early 90s, Lori Carson sang with the Golden Palominos for two amazing records. This is how it feels and pure. And then she went on to record seven solo records, all of which I know, actually almost all of which I have. She's also done movie soundtrack work and other projects and I've adored her music for almost 20 years now, dating back to when I first heard little suicides on WHOFS out of Baltimore. I put Lori on my dream list when I first started lining up guests for the podcast about 15 months ago, but it took us quite a while to get together, but we had a great occasion for it, namely the publication of her first novel. It's called The Original 1982 and it comes out today. That is May 28, 2013. It's a lovely and sad piece of work. It's about this kind of sort of Lori Carson stand in, singer-songwriter in New York who decides to write the book of her life as if she had made one major decision 30 years ago differently. And the novel chronicles the narrator's imagined life and contrasts it with the real world, the original 1982 and beyond. It's about love and regret and music and figuring out who you are and who you could have been. The original 1982 was published by William Morrow, an imprint of Harper Collins, and her publisher was kind enough to let us use their meeting space to record this podcast. And now, the virtual memories conversation with Lori Carson. So, my guest on the virtual memory show today is singer-songwriter, former member of the Golden Palominos, and now debut novelist Lori Carson. Thank you for coming on the show. Thank you for having me. Her novel, the original 1982, is from the William Morrow imprint of Harper Collins and comes out in June. It comes out May 28. Which is close to June. Very close. Yes. Why don't you tell us about the book and where it comes from and where it goes? I think I wrote that song. Yeah, well. I guess that favorite singer-songwriters. Thank you. Well, the book is about a woman who gets to a place in her life where she begins to question some of her choices. And in a spirit of regret, she decides to reimagine her past. And in doing that, fabricates a daughter who the book is addressed to and raises her. It's also a parallel story, two stories, because that story kind of runs alongside the story of the life she actually had as a musician. What led you to write a novel? You know, I've always wanted to write a novel. I'm a reader, I love books, and my mother was a reading teacher, I've been writing since I was a kid. And it was something that I always wanted to do and felt that I couldn't do because I tried a number of times and I couldn't figure out how anybody ever got past ten pages. And I would read another novel and think, "Oh, I love this and I would love to be able to do it." And I think it was a combination of factors. I was kind of bored with where music was, where my life was, as far as a musical career. And I had a lot of emotional turmoil that was looking for release. And also I started going to this writers group on Wednesday nights and I heard all these people talking about their process and it just struck me one day while I was there, that the reason I was not able to get past ten pages was because I was telling myself that I was a songwriter and my expertise was in telling a story in three verses in a chorus. And I looked around the room and I thought, "If these guys can do it, so can I." And there was also the element that, you know, I sat down and I wrote the first line of this book, which is, "You were the first little fish." I had no intention, I didn't even know what it meant when I wrote that line, but I could just feel the whole story behind it. I could feel it had legs. And so I just said, "I'm going to write every day for a year and no matter what and see what happens." And at the end of the year I had a first draft. What was the, did you have any sort of process or rituals? What did you work out? I didn't work with an outline. My only plan was that I would write something every day that had something to do with what I had written the day before. I didn't know where it was going. In fact it was a problem. There was a different whole third section originally because as I wrote the book I really fell in love with the daughter that I invented and I wanted to find a way for her to actually come to life. But the premise from the start of the book, you know, the reader knows from the beginning that she doesn't actually exist. So in my original part three, all there was all kinds of magic and hocus pocus and she actually, you know, there's a visitation and all that, but that got cut. The whole third section got cut at the time that Harper Collins showed some interest. Showed some interest. Yeah. You know, basically all the publishers said, you know, beautifully written. Great idea. Hate part three. So with the guidance of my editor here, I ditched part three and completely wrote a new part three and I realized that I had been avoiding where I was, you know, the character's middle age and her feelings of regret and all of that. I was trying to skip right over it to old age where my original part three was so once I was on track it went pretty quickly, although it was three years altogether from starting to finish. I read it and enjoyed it quite a bit, especially for not having the wishful film it, you know. Yeah, he never got the wishful film. The obvious question. How similar is the original 1982's protagonist Lisa Nelson to the Lori Carson of our world? Mm-hmm. Well, when I started writing the book, I really wasn't sure how similar she would be and how similar her experience would be because I had an idea that the more realistic, the closer I could keep it to my own life, the easier it would be to write. You write what you know? Yes. But what ended up happening is that with very few exceptions, my experience informed the characters' experiences, but she is really a fictional character and her relationships are imaginary, her conversations are imaginary, her experiences are imaginary, so she may be like me, but she definitely has her own life. She's a fictional character. And one, you're interested in continuing it all or do you feel you've kind of encapsulated who that character is over the course of this book? This is the leading question, which you're never supposed to ask anyone in writing. What are you working on next? Well, I'm a third of the way into a second novel, and it has nothing to do with the first. Don't talk about it. Okay. Well, it's another story of loss, but it's very exciting to write. I'll say that about it. Okay. It's writers I've spoken to for this tend to... Want to keep it under wraps? They have a jinx vibe about this stuff. You're a debut novelist, so you haven't gotten rid of the jinx yet. So I don't know all that stuff. Although solo albums, I'm sure, is there any... Are you finding any correlation between this experience and when you branched out into becoming a solo musician? Yeah, it's identical. Really interesting. I mean, I was a solo musician first, actually. My first record came out on Geffen Records in 1990, it was called Shelter, and... I remember avoiding that one because you, I think, warned listeners off of it. I just don't... Don't listen to it. No, it's really not a bad record, and it was my first record. So I grow more fond of it as I get older, not that I listen to it, but in theory. But the experience of writing the first, not of writing the first novel so much as putting it out in the world feels similar to me, you know, dealing with a publisher, and the publicist... The strange press guys like me. Strange press guys like yourself, exactly. You know, all of that, sort of launching something into the world in a whole new arena does remind me of being a young musician, and being at Geffen, and meeting everybody there. And the sort of feeling of I wonder what will happen, what will this mean to my life, this complete unknown feels very similar. What's your wish fulfillment or fantasy perspective on that, where do you see it? On this? On the book? Oh, it would just be mortifying to tell you. I mean, I know better than to... I know better than to... I try to keep my expectations in line because I know better. And I also know that the best experience you can have is writing something that you love and finishing it. I can't believe I actually finished it and found a publisher for it, and here it's coming out in the world, and I know that that's enough. But sometimes there are sort of grandiose fantasies also that I don't know, that people will love the book, of course. That's my grandiose fantasy. Getting decent reception from the, either critics or book club you've mentioned. Press is weird. Press is weird, sorry, but the thing that's weird about press is that good press always feels like they're, you're being praised for something that you didn't intend. And so you can't quite enjoy it. And of course bad press is just horrible, it's devastating, and they do what they do. People who don't like you always seem to know what they're talking about. Unfortunately, it's best to avoid those, although I haven't learned that lesson yet. Give it enough time. You get a thick skin or something. This may be why I've never ventured out of my daily job comfort zone, I guess. When we're talking about the fiction versus music or in comparison to music, how does the writing process differ for you? You said you're thinking of 10 pages as correlating to a song length. What else differs or is similar in those terms when it comes to trying to write prose versus writing music? Well, I've been saying, people have been asking me that question a lot lately, and I've been saying that there's not that great a difference, but in actuality there is a pretty great difference. Because when you write a song, when I write a song, it's really, you're really wrapped around an instrument, a guitar, a piano. And the best thing that can happen is a melody and some semblance of a lyric kind of develop together of a record progression. That process is kind of magical and inexplicable, and like where does that come from? Where does melody come from? It just seems so mysterious. And then the lyric though, the writing the lyric part is pretty similar. I mean, for a song lyric, when I begin I'll have this rough sort of sketch that I'll have a lot of fake words in it that are just placeholders, placeholder lyrics. And then I'll go through a process of revising and rewriting and sleeping on it, and until there's a beginning, middle and end, and I like all the words, and I've said what I mean to say, and so that process is very similar in writing fiction, I think, except, of course, to write a novel, it takes a very long time. So you're in that process of revision and dreaming it and wondering and all of that for a long period of time, which for me, someone who's obsessive and kind of workaholic, it's ideal. I love it. There's no time for anything else. You know, with songwriting, you write the songs, and you make the record, then you go on tour, and that's the process over many years. Do you miss that lifestyle? You've mentioned recently giving up performing live. I gave up performing live quite a while ago, and I gave it up about the same time that it gave me up in a way. I was with a record company called Restless Records for the majority of my career, and I made my last record for Restless, I think, in 1999, it came out. It stars? Stars. Yeah. So, you know, I'm sure I toured after that, but touring involved tour support, I mean, a lot of it is kind of a practical situation, which, by the way, doesn't even exist anymore for most musicians. There's no tour support, there's no recording budget. Record companies don't have any money, and they, you know, it's just different now. It's a different world, but at that time, after I, you know, left Restless Records, which was a mutual decision, I was just like, we were sick of each other, and I was like, I'm out of here, you know, not really thinking too far ahead. And I kept making music after that. I kept writing. If I wasn't writing songs, I mean, that was what I did every day. I mean, there were periods of time where I would sort of fall out of the discipline much the way, you know, if you stop running, you stop being able to run. It would be like that, and I'd go through a period, and then I'd be like, well, what am I doing? And get back into the discipline, and we're really disciplined about working. I love it, and I love that feeling of getting up with purpose, and kind of when I was writing songs, going right out to the studio, turning all the gear on, beginning, you know, or continuing, and now that I'm writing fiction, it's the same way I wake up every day, and I'm just so gung-ho to get to it. It's phenomenal. Sometimes I wake up so early with an idea, and I get right out of bed at 5.30 so that I can walk the dog and feed the cats and do all the little morning things. I have to get out of the way, make coffee, and sit down, and start working. Is there a particular time of day or any ritual you built around writing? No, I mean, that's just the thought of a ritual around writing. I mean, mine is very dull. It's just coffee. Oh, trust me, that's the ritual known around the world, I'm sure. But yeah, it's just the most important thing is starting early, making that coffee, sitting down with my bowl of coffee, and getting in two games is scrabble out of the way on Facebook. I think it's the brain thinking in terms of words, I guess. So usually between 7 a.m. and noon is my most productive time. Then I'll take the dog for a walk in the park, come back, maybe do some revision, but that's really the main time that writing happens. Throughout my years, I fell back on those Paris review writers at work interviews where... It's always in the morning. Yeah, almost everybody. It's the... I got up at four, did this, and then began working, then went to the job, and then came back. But I put everything aside and just go to the job and procrastinate and feel guilty about wasting my art instead. It works for me. With the job. That's what you need to do. Well, I finally wrote my first short story in 20 years last week, so I felt... That's... Some short... Congratulations. Yeah, I have to figure out a follow-up now, and it came out of the whole work situation. I was in Chicago, went to the Art Institute for the first time, and 800 trips to Chicago came back and just sat down that night and wrote about my fictive alter ego, my Lisa Nelson. Mm-hmm. Which one? Also named Lisa Nelson. Sadly, no. It would be awesome if I did that, but you'll probably find me a little weirdly stalker-ish in that case, but yeah, it's one of those things where you realize that doing something and making it a regular habit, especially when it comes to art, and do you do any song writing anymore? Are you still... I'm just noodling around at this point. I'm not noodling, but you know, I'm still working writing music for this company that... They're like a branding and production company called Spring Creative, and they make these little movies that are sort of advertisements, but they're all like internet or within a big company, and the guy that makes the films is super talented, and I really like the films, and I do all the music for his projects, and so when he needs something, I kind of have to drop everything and do it, and it's still... It's fun. It's creative. If I wasn't getting paid for it, I probably wouldn't do it, just because I would just want to write all the time. Gotcha. Do you think in terms of short stories at all, or are you pretty much focused on writing novels? Right now, I'm writing a second novel. I mean, I love short stories. I think you have to kind of be in that form, or for me, I would have to really be thinking about writing in that form. Yeah, as an outsider, it seemed to me that jumping from songwriting would make more sense to go into short stories, but obviously I have no idea what I'm talking about, you know, for you it did. Well... That step is much... I can understand that thinking, and that would make sense. I had a fantasy about writing a novel, and sustaining a story over 200 plus pages, and that was like the way some people must think about climbing a mountain or something. I really wanted to do it a lot for my whole life. Did you have sort of bookstore fantasy at all, seeing your book on a shelf? I don't know if I thought about, you know, specifically, although I love bookstores. Yeah. It's a pity because we don't have any anymore. Well, there's a really good one in my neighborhood that always has readings and book release parties and things, and I'm having my book release party there, and that is a dream come true. It's exciting. I'm sure I'm going to be completely uncool and just gushing like a maniac. But... Unbridled enthusiasm is actually a good thing. Yeah. Oh, I guess, well, I'm sure I'll have it, and that's going to be at corner books on the 30th of May, which is on 93rd Street in Madison Avenue. Going back to the music and performing thing, you did a couple of live shows at the end of 2012 with the band you did two albums with, the Golden Palominos. How was that experience? What was it like going on stage and going on stage with a full... I only think of it because I saw you play live, again, 10 or 12 years ago, and they were small acoustic shows, very intimate and shy, in a sense. You sort of had the weird relationship to the audience like that. So, what was it like sort of going out with a large band for a couple of nights? Well, over the years, I got further and further away from doing anything loud, because my voice is very soft. I was going to say that about your last several albums, also they've gotten quieter and quieter. They get quieter. I feel more comfortable with sort of quieter, more delicate instrumentation, because my voice is an instrument like that. You know, I'm not a screamer. Anton Fier, I met Anton Fier in like 1989. I interviewed him to do, he was one of the producers we were considering for my first record, Shelter, for the Gaffen record. And he was always somebody who I felt was a true appreciator of my music in a way that, you know. He really got what I was trying to do. It wouldn't have been just a hired gun, sort of producer or anything. No, and he always says that we would have both had completely different careers if he had been the producer of my first record. But anyway, so when we work together on those Golden Palamino's records in the early 90s, it was a really incredible experience. We were working in a forum that kind of didn't exist before, this sort of trip-hoppy techno funk. Funk. Yeah. That also had fairly traditional, almost folk melodies, and you know, it was just a... Well, your best-known single from then was Little Suicide's, which is a very quiet acoustic song. The rest of that album has such, again, trippy and a strange vibe to it. But it was pretty, I mean, for its time, there was nothing else like it at that time. I still listened to them. Last week in Chicago, as a matter of fact, I put on "This is How It Feels" I thought. So it was, I mean, it was different to be a part of something. I mean, to be a part of something that didn't exist before, it was just this creative experiment that was fantastic. It was a once-in-a-lifetime experience, and we all were just having it. I mean, Anton put the thing together, but I don't think he really knew what the end result would be. There was no knowing that, this collaborative process that we did very quickly, there wasn't a big budget or anything for it. Everybody came in and did their part, and then it was all sort of put together by Anton and came out, and it really felt like something, you know, it really felt like something, and then Anton and I continued to work together a bit. But this reunion was definitely not a reunion in that, a lot of that stuff, the music on those records, it's just about impossible to do live, just about impossible. I seem to recall a story that was supposed to be a tour originally that got canceled. Yeah, that's right. They were supposed to be a tour, we rehearsed for two weeks, every day for two weeks, and it was starting to sound pretty good, but not by Anton's standards. He's very exacting, and he's a perfectionist, well, he's a perfectionist in good and bad ways, but he has very high standards, and I appreciate that about him because most people don't. Most people are like, "Ah, that's good enough," and he's not like that. "Let's try it again, let's try it again, let's try it again." So that tour never happened, there never were any live shows of those records of that music. But the Golden Palomino's, the name, refers to all of Anton's creative projects. So when he contacted me about doing these shows in December, he said, "Look, we can't do the music from those records. You know, I've got this young band together, they're great, you'll love them, but what I would like to do is all the music from where it goes," which was actually a solo record of mine, not a Golden Palomino's record, and a record that I made a very long time ago. What was the... I think it came out... Because '95 or '96. I think that's true, '95, I think it came out. And really, I was still figuring out what made sense for me instrumentally when we made that record, and so there's a lot of rock songs on the record, and anyway, Anton wanted to do the whole record for those, for the shows in December, which we did. And he put together this great young band. I mean, I think one of the guys was like 14 when those Palomino's records came out, and the other one was only, you know, like 18, and they were young guys, and they were just, I had all the enthusiasm and passion and just sort of blind faith that I had when I was in my 20s, you know. And you know, while I really appreciated playing music again with these young, enthusiastic and super talented musicians, I also could feel every minute that it wasn't where I was anymore, you know. And so it wasn't comfortable, and I tried my best to show up and do a good job for Anton, who I had the exact same need to please and excel for, because I know that's what he expects. And he is the exception. He is as passionate as he ever was, and I'm glad he has all these young musicians to play with, and he's been producing a lot of records for young musicians now, he continues as many people do. But many people get to a point where you just say, well, okay, I've done this my whole life. What next? Yeah, I've always sort of wondered about that with artists whose work I dig, largely because if I dig them, chances are they were never super successful, because I have oddball taste. What they do, what they do for money, what they do for the rest of their lives, what they do for jobs, which isn't to put you on the spot about money, because that's for voting conversation in America. Well, no, but I'm very proud of the fact that I don't know why I'm proud of it, because I think it's a matter of, you know, I must have some ability in this area which a lot of musicians don't, but I've always supported myself with my work, which is quite an accomplishment, I mean, especially for someone who's, you know, that I consider myself to have been pretty successful because of that. I was able to support myself, do my own creative work my whole life. Yeah, that's what I've sort of wondered what the non-recording, non-day-to-day touring life, like what the rest of the days are, you know, which makes it much more impressive that you could actually support yourself on that. Most people have to have a job on the side, you know, and I always told myself, you know, that I would be prepared to do that, but because of the songwriting and the licensing, you know, I've always been lucky with that, with having songs placed in movies and TV shows and some advertising, and those things continue to pay, royalties forever and ever, and so I've been lucky that way. Young musicians today starting out, you know, that you've seen a whole generation go by, not to date either of us, but what do you see, you know, looking back at, you know, again, those younger guys who Anton's working with, what is, how's their respect of differ? They don't expect to make money in the same way that, I mean, they're used to, you used to have sort of a fair expectation that if you got to, you could make a living, you know, if you got a publishing deal, if you're, you know, I mean, there were all these ways for musicians to make a living now that they're all gone. A lot of musicians have one or two jobs and then try to find the time to also do their music. I wonder if there isn't those sort of a more realistic kind of outlook that, oh, I'm doing this for now, but eventually I'll do something else, I don't know, but as hard as it used to be, I think it's harder now, not to make something, because everybody's got, you know, pro tools on their computer and can make something. Yeah, some schlub from New Jersey can have a podcast with all sorts of people. Oh, yes, schlub and you know it, but you know, there are a lot of ways to make the work, and I guess with YouTube and everybody's got a website, there's also a lot of way to get the work out there into the world, but it's not the way it used to be where you had a record company getting the work out into the world. And actually charging people money and yeah, I mean, it's like the, you know, as awesome as the Gangnam phenomenon was, it didn't really make an awful lot of bank from being watched by, I think, half the population of Earth, you know, downloading that, they were playing Gangnam Style on YouTube, which we're used to, I guess, coming up in that era where something like Thriller, you know, basically creates an empire for the rest of a guy's life. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Those days seem to be over. Yeah. But who knows what's next? Maybe there's something that hasn't started yet. That's, you know, all these economic models out there, who knows? The Graham Green question, was that you or was it? Anton loved that book. Okay. So it was the end of the affair. Yeah. It was Anton's favorite book, and he actually turned me on to Graham Green. I read, and I read the end of the affair, and of course, we based, this is how it feels on the end of the affair, but only loosely. Yeah. Only loosely. I mean, I loved it, and I really identified with this sort of obsessive, crazy love that the protagonist experiences for, Catherine, in the book. I enjoy the album much more than the, the, oh, really, oh, I love that book. Oh, the raffines movie. Yeah. Yeah. I wasn't a Julianne Moore fan back then. I didn't get it. I didn't get her for the longest time. I just saw her in something this weekend. What Maisie knew? Oh, I heard that's, that's pretty, and I'm a huge Steve Coogan mark also, so. There. It was very good. Yeah. Very good. And the director was there at the screening, actually, for a Q&A at the end. That was fun. That was a surprise. Do you have that sense of, you know, wanting to know what, what goes into, how the sausage gets made, I guess, you know, what the. For movies? Any work of art. Do you like having a connection to the creator? You know, I, I, I, I find that these Q&A's for movies, I don't know. The questions that I think of feel like, like they would be really not good questions. I think because the, I'm just so, when the lights go down and I'm in a movie theater, I'm just like, opened in the magic. I don't really understand how movies get made. But certainly when it comes to music or, or reading a book, I'm, I'm fascinated by the construction and I'm very curious and I, and I, I do want to know. Do you read a lot of author interviews? Um, yeah. Getting back to Paris Review thing, that's, that's. I've read a lot of autobiographies and biographies and, um, yeah, I'm fascinated by, by authors in particular, musicians too, but, um, but authors especially, because they tend to be really disciplined. I mean, you have to be disciplined to come up with that much work, you know, to come up with a three minute song, you have to have some discipline, but it's, it's not the same. Like it's like reading the Keith Richards bio and learning that satisfaction happened to be on an audio cassette that he does not remember recording when he passed out one night. So, you know, one of the greatest singles ever, frankly. Don't know how it happened. Yeah, just showed up on. Oh, wow, that's kind of nice. Let me record a song around that. Yeah. Now, what authors inspired you through, both through your youth and through this process of writing a new book? Well, you know, it's funny because with this book coming out, I, I, I knew that I would be asked, what books did you read as a child? And my mother was a reading teacher. Yeah. And we were at the library constantly, and I could not remember what I'd read as a child. I remembered my mother used to write and illustrate books when we were kids. And I remember her books. There was always, the characters were always these poor, wanting creatures, like the littlest pumpkin and the littlest, whatever. And I remember her books and loving them and wanting to write my own and also illustrating and writing my own books. Probably all. I had my own littlest series. And I remember I did some detective ones, so, but the, the only books that I can really remember other than that dirty books I found in the basement that weren't really dirty books, but anything with any sort of sex scene, you know, like, that belonged to my dad. But were the, the first young adult fiction out there, which were books like The Outsiders and Rumblefish and there was another writer named Paul Zendell who wrote a couple of that time. It was like one book called My Darling, My Handburger. That's why I remembered that name. Anyway, I loved those books. And then I remember being really knocked out, of course, by the Bell Jar. I can't remember how early I read the, the Bell Jar, but it really had a big impact. I was always fascinated with stories of, you know, of, of poetry and mental illness. I mean, that was just couldn't get any better than that. And. But you managed to stay out of, out of, you know, the mental illness. Hang up yourself. Maybe. What do you mean? You did never got committed or anything weird when you were a teenager, right? Not yet. No, I never got committed. I used to think that I might be when I was a teenager. I mean, that is just such a, that is just such a doomed romantic vision of, of. I guess so. It was also just a really emotional time when all of a sudden you're just flooded with all these feelings and trying to make sense of them. When I was in my early twenties, I discovered a whole bunch of writers that really were very influential. And I was taking writing classes at Hunter College. One of my teachers was the poet Audrey Lord. And I was turned on to all these writers at that time who were, you know, writers of color and, um, women writers of all different sorts. And Tizaki Shange was one and somebody turned me on to a book of short stories called Black Tickets by Jane Ann Phillips. Don't know this. Do you know this? Oh my God. Changed my life. Yeah. Seeing Jane Ann Phillips was actually the first writer that I ever heard do a reading. I was utterly obsessed with Jane Ann Phillips and that collection. And I did write some short stories at that time when I was in my early twenties that were really, really horrible, um, derivative, you know, which was impossible, but she wrote, they were just, oh, oh my goodness. I remember when I went to see her read, um, it was at the 92nd Street Why. I was probably 20, maybe 20, 19 or 20 at the time. And she came out on the stage and she looked so put together and I was really taken aback. I didn't like that. I wanted her to have like dirt under her fingernails and, you know, you thought she should look scruffy because her characters were so rough and raw and she just looked so perfect and it just didn't compute for me. I wanted to, you know, I wanted the authenticity that we want as readers, which is why we asked the question, is this really you? How real is this? You know, it's a, you know, it's this misconception that something that is born of the imagination is less true, but why would that be? You know, it's more true. If you do it right. If you do it right. So who are you reading nowadays? Oh, I'm such a reader. I'm such a reader that I made a list because I knew I wouldn't be able to think. So I can tell you that I'm right in the middle of reading Life After Life by Kate Atkinson, which is a very interesting book. It's set in during a World War I and World War II in England and it's got a very fascinating gimmick, I guess. Which is that the protagonist Ursula dies over and over and over again and then in the next chapter, she's alive and continuing life, but things are slightly altered as if she's been reborn and gotten to that point again and again and again and again and again. And it's just, it's really, I've never read anything like it and I think it's a really amazing book. Yeah. It's somewhat similar to the original 1982 in terms of the switching back and forth, you know. It did occur to me, but this is a masterful, this is a masterful book. I mean, this woman's been writing for a long time and you can tell. She's really good and I mean recently I've read Beautiful Ruins by Jess Walter, a book called Little Known Facts by Christine Snead, a wonderful book called Ben Addiction by Kent Harouf I guess his last name is pronounced, H-A-R-U-F. Sounds right. Get that one. Yeah. Oh, that one was so good. I read Me Before You by JoJo Moyes and the short stories of 10th of December by George Saunders. I read him back, oh, I think we're late. Hi. Good. How are you? So were you going to say something about 10th of December? George Saunders, I read back in the '90s Civil Warland and Bad Decline and keep thinking, oh yeah, I'll get back to him again and again and I have great reticence about contemporary writers for some reason. I was raised, not raised, I became a classics guy as I grew more angry at my contemporaries. Oh yeah, I tend to spend more time with older works. Do you find you read more writing by women than men? I was thinking in terms of the first few writers you mentioned. Were they all women? Until Kent Harouf, yeah, and I just, I find, unfortunately-- Jess Walter's actually a man. Oh, really? Yeah. Well, that screws up my entire gender bias, okay, never mind it. I would say that I read, and on my list to read next is James Salter's All That Is. Have you read his previous stuff or not? I have, but not for a long time. Okay, I just read a sport in the past time for the first time a couple of months ago, because I'd heard about him and never got to him and had it. He's a great writer. Yeah, yeah, it's one of those things I kind of thought, maybe I could get him for this show and then thought, no, no, that's, that's, he's got real, you know, big publicity push going on right now. That stuff, yeah. You know, I do have my dream list. What you were on early, early on, I'm, you know, little did I know you were so attainable, that's it. Yes, there you go. Yes, I'm looking at my list of writers that I read while writing my book to see how many are women and how many are men. And I would say that it's probably 70/30 women, but I read a lot of male writers too. In fact, some of my favorite books on this list that I'm looking at are books by men, Francisco Goldman's, say her name. I read that book while I was writing my novel and it just, it was so devastating and poetic and beautiful. It just slayed me and I know that it found its way into my book. You know, emotionally it helped me to get where I needed to go with my book. And Para Peterson is one of my favorites. He's the one who wrote out stealing horses. Oh, okay. And he's written a bunch of books and I've read everything that's been translated into English. And I just, he's one of my favorites. I just love him. And of course, Murakami, I read IQ 84. And Andrew Dubuse, the third who wrote this memoir, Townie, that came out, he's a very good writer. He wrote House of Smoke and Fog. Yeah, yeah. His name seemed familiar with his name. So there are quite a few men, Julian Barnes, Sense of an Ending. And for that last year. Nathan Englander. Jeez, you're just bringing any messed up thesis I had about girl writers. I'm kidding. I, you know, have to go as best I can. I mean, women writers, there's so many good ones. Alice Monroe, love her. Joan Didian, I read both Blue Knights and Year of Magical Thinking, but Blue Knights while I was writing my book. And which is about the death of her daughter. There was so much that was applicable. I loved a book called I Married You For Happiness by this woman, Lily Tuck, who has a book of short stories out now. Do you read much poetry at all, or mainly novels in the-- Mainly, I read contemporary fiction. Yeah. Yeah. I just chew it up. I love it. But occasionally, I'll read some poetry as well. Anne Carson, I try to get through Anne Carson, I try to make sense of it. From what I gather, that's not really possible. No, maybe not. But you can enjoy it nonetheless. I guess so. I think she's a little over in my head. My great final question on the list. Oh no, what is it? Which I actually sent you. I was afraid that was the one you were going to flip out over there when I emailed you. Yeah. Do you feel you spend too much time looking back? Oh, I thought that was a good question. Yeah, I just couldn't tell because you did an email back right away. And I thought, oh god, I've offended her terribly. No, no. Or she's running into therapy or something. You thought it was a good question. Do you spend too much time looking back? Well, I don't think I spend so much time looking back at all. In fact, I think I'm so in the present that, you know, people worry about me, meaning my mother. I mean, I think I'm very much in the present. But I also think that for a fiction writer especially, but a songwriter too, you've got to have a lot of past in your present. I mean, that's like your rich life is what you have to draw from. So in that way, I feel like I have it with me and I'm full of my own memories and thoughts and history. But I have a lot to do right now. So I don't really look back. I mean, I'm not one to sort of call old boyfriends in the middle of the night or-- Did you do the Facebook, initial stalking when you got on a band? Was it Facebook stalking? Everybody has that early stretch with the kind of Facebook, "Hey, I wonder what happened too?" And so and so, yeah. I know what happened to them, to them to all the Xs, but you know, I think the only place it's really enjoyable to do is in writing and in that way it's very enjoyable because it gives meaning to everything, gives meaning to your own life and the world and so-- So you have all that future? Yeah. Another song? I know. I know. I was going to put that point on. Have you slipped titles in for everything you know? Oh, yeah, trying. I was trying to find some way of getting the Blue Jays line, which I puzzled over for years until I read your novels. Oh, that's right. You know, I finally got the key to one of your songs, I think, unless it's all fictional. Did you notice that I put a lot of the song lyrics and the titles here and there? Yeah, I put a few in there. Try it as best I could. Oh, well, maybe this means something, but you know, Laurie Carson, thanks so much for coming on The Virtual Memory Show. Thank you. It was so good to talk to you. I really enjoyed it. And good luck with the book. Thank you. And that was Laurie Carson. Go out and buy her new novel, The Original 1982, but also check out her music, like those two Golden Paliminos records and all of her solo albums. Almost all of them are available on iTunes or Amazon, except for that first solo album, Shelter, which I've never listened to, and which it appears I never will get a chance to. Her website is laurikarson.com and you can find all sorts of stuff there, including some video of her reading from The Original 1982, as well as dates for promotional appearances for the book. The book launch party is on Thursday, May 30th at the corner bookstore in New York City on Madison and 93rd. I'm peeved that I have to miss it, but I'll be down in Annapolis at my alma mater, starting a four-day seminar on Moby Dick at that point because that's my idea of a vacation. Still, you should get up to the party and help support Laurie and The Original 1982. So go to the corner bookstore on Thursday, May 30th. Details are on laurikarson.com. And that was a virtual memory show. You can find the podcast on iTunes by searching for virtual memories and clicking through to the show's page. In fact, why don't you do that and post a review of the show while you're there. I'd really love some feedback from listeners. You can also find the show at our website, chimeraupscura.com/vm. If you visit the site, you can make a donation to the show via PayPal to help offset my web hosting costs and otherwise let me know that you actually value the show just a little. And if you do make a donation, I'll send you a copy of the short story I wrote last month, Lesser and the Six-Faced Conqueror of Death on a Buffalo. It's better than it sounds, I think. We're also on Tumblr at virtualmemoriespodcast.tumblr.com on Facebook at Facebook.com/virtualmemoriesshow and on Twitter at VMSPod. There'll be a new episode every other Tuesday if I have anything to say about it. And until next time, I am Gil Roth and you are awesome. Keep it that way. ♪ Time will burn ♪ ♪ I still wanna try ♪ ♪ But you say you'll never ♪ ♪ I shouldn't wait around forever ♪ ♪ One day you will see ♪ ♪ You will see ♪ ♪ Stars ♪ ♪ I should be happy to be here ♪ [BLANK_AUDIO]