Finding Truth in Memories with Jay Baron Nicorvo

Welcome back to season two! In this episode of the Book Maven: A Literary Revue, Bethanne Patrick sits down with Jay Baron Nicorvo to discuss accessing trauma while writing, differing points of view of traumatic events, and how our brain sorts through traumatic experiences.

Bethanne touches on the highly anticipated Catcher in the Rye in this week’s Canon or Can it. Does she kick Holden Caulfield to the curb? Or let him stay with all of his teenage angst?

Can Bethanne beat the clock? She gives us 6 Recs for our To Be Read lists. Titles include The Buried Giant by Kazuo Ishiguro, Memory Piece by Lisa Ko, Behind the Scenes at the Museum by Kate Atkinson, Memorial by Brian Washington, Someone by Alice McDermott, and The Ministry of Time by Kaliane Bradley.

Find Bethanne on X, Substack, Instagram, and Threads.

The Book Maven: A Literary Revue is hosted by Bethanne Patrick, produced by Christina McBride, and engineered by Jordan Aaron, with help from Lauren Stack.

All titles mentioned: Life B by Bethanne Patrick, Best Copy Available by Jay Baron Nicorvo, My Life by Bill Clinton, Greta Gerwig’s Little Women, Running with Scissors by Augustine Burroughs, Terror Westover's Educated, The Glass Castle by Jeanette Walls, Samantha Irby's Quietly Hostile, Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit and The Passion by Jeanette Winterson, Angela Carter's The Magic Toy Shop, The Comfort of Strangers by Ian McEwan, Ann Patchett's The Magician's Assistant, Nevada by Imogen Binney, Jordi Rosenberg's Confessions of the Fox, Lucy Santé's I Heard Her Call My Name, Before We Were Trans by Kit Hayum, In Tongues by Thomas Groton, Faltas by Cecilia Gentile, The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger, The Buried Giant by Kazuo Ishiguro, Memory Piece by Lisa Ko, Behind the Scenes at the Museum by Kate Atkinson, Memorial by Brian Washington, Someone by Alice McDermott, The Ministry of Time by Kaliane Bradley.

Episode Transcript

Welcome to season two of The Book Maven: A Literary Revue. This season, we'll talk to leading authors, dig into the classics to decide which should stay in the literary canon, and I'll recommend some of my favorite books to you. We'll have all that and more in this episode. But first, Jay Baron Nicorvo joined the show to talk about accessing trauma while writing.

Specifically, Jay talks about differing points of view of traumatic memories, the lack of ubiquity in cultural standards, and how it is that our brains sort through traumatic experiences. We get into some intense topics, so listener discretion is advised. Join us now as we talk about the final episode of MASH and how each of Jay's brothers remembers that event differently.

BP: One of the things that's fairly early in your book, I think it's in chapter one, you talk about being with your two brothers and your aunt and uncle and you're, this is the quote ‘on the couch, we are five Americans and we are doing exactly the same thing at exactly the same time as 106 million other Americans. We're all tuned in together to CBS to watch the final episode of MASH’. And the reason I wanted to start out with this Jay is because it is something that I have this very specific personal memory of. And you and I know that our memories are different, but one of the things you deal with right up front in Best Copy Available is the fact