Back in 2019, John spoke with the celebrated comic novelist Stephen McCauley. Nobody knows more about the comic novel than Steve--his latest is You Only Call When You're in Trouble, but John still holds a candle for his 1987 debut, Object of My Affection, made into a charming Jennifer Aniston Paul Rudd movie. And there is no comic novelist Steve loves better than Barbara Pym, a mid-century British comic genius who found herself forgotten and unpublishable in middle age, only to roar back into print in her sixties with A Quartet in Autumn. Steve and John’s friendship over the years has been sealed by the favorite Pym lines they text back and forth to one another, so they are particularly keen to investigate why her career went in this way.
In the episode, they talk about some of these favorite sentences from Pym, and then turn to the comic novel as a genre. They talk about the difference between humorous and comic writing, the earthiness of comedy, whether comic novels should have happy or sad endings, and whether the comic novel is a precursor to, or an amoral relief from, the sitcom. They also discuss some of Steve’s fiction, including his Rain Mitchell yoga novels. In Recallable Books John recommends Pictures from an Institution by Randall Jarrell and Steve recommends After Claude by Iris Owens.
Discussed in this episode:
The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman, Laurence Sterne
Vanity Fair, William Makepeace Thackeray
Jane Eyre, Charlotte Bronte
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain
Jude the Obscure, Thomas Hardy
“The Beast in the Jungle,” Henry James
The Thurber Carnival, James Thurber
The Group, Mary McCarthy
After Claude, Iris Owens
Pictures from an Institution, Randall Jarrell
An Unsuitable Attachment, Barbara Pym
Less than Angels, Barbara Pym
The Sweet Dove Died, Barbara Pym
Portnoy’s Complaint, Philip Roth
The Sellout, Paul Beatty
My Ex-Life, Stephen McCauley
You can listen here or read here.
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