David Leo Rice joins me to pore over the negatives of this novel. We talk the ongoing reverberations of the Vietnam war, Stephen Wright’s mastery of exposition and psychedelia, David’s personal experience studying under Stephen Wright, the consciousness of the jungle, the chaos of total information, James Wood’s notion of hysterical realism w/r/t MiG, the comfort of paranoia, and much, much more.

Subscribe to David’s substack, buy his books, and listen to his brilliant podcast WAKE ISLAND. He is one of the finest writers working today and I count myself fortunate to chat with him.

Check out David’s Vietnam-era story I mentioned at the top of the episode: “The Ward Clerk”

[PREVIEW]

Down into the labyrinth of THE STRONGHOLD: the curious history of NYRB Classics, theories of literary time, the significance of the barbarian, the dream of Great Tartaria, and much more.

Writer David Leo Rice joined me to talk about his wildly imaginative and startlingly resonant new book THE SQUIMBOP CONDITION—along the way we discuss the deep meaning of the A-Bomb, the status of the American Dream, and how David came to be so freaking productive.

Buy David’s latest book THE SQUIMBOP CONDITION out now from 11:11 Press.

David’s substack

David’s twitter