December 17, 2025 • 41 mins
In this wide-ranging, candid episode of Write Your Heart Out, Kayla and Rachel talk about creative resistance, privilege in publishing, and what it really takes to get a book across the finish line. Kayla shares a hopeful, behind-the-scenes story about reaching out for developmental editing support—and the complicated feelings that come with having access to resources not everyone can afford—while Rachel celebrates a new literary journal publication.
The conversation then turns sharp and unfiltered as the hosts dive into a deep critique of Louis C.K.’s debut novel Ingram. They unpack questions of power, accountability, and whether it’s possible—or ethical—to engage with art made by deeply flawed people. From clunky prose and muddled world-building to moments of genuine potential, Kayla and Rachel break down what works, what doesn’t, and why calling something “literary fiction” doesn’t make it so.
As always, this episode blends craft talk, cultural critique, humor, and honesty—plus a reminder that writing is hard, finishing is harder, and sometimes the best thing you can do is keep asking better questions.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Rachel Cyr (00:00):
Write your heart out.
Kayla Ogden (00:10):
Hi, I'm Kayla Ogden.
And I'm Rachel Sear.
And this is Write Your HeartOut.
Rachel Cyr (00:16):
I almost said it with you.
Kayla Ogden (00:18):
I know.
I think it's I don't know.
Rachel Cyr (00:20):
No, no, we should not say it together.
I agree.
Kayla Ogden (00:22):
We should not do that.
How are you?
It's been a minute.
Yeah, it has been a minute.
I am I'm actually excellent.
Oh, I love that for you.
Yes, I'm excellent.
Rachel Cyr (00:32):
Yeah.
Kayla Ogden (00:32):
How are you doing?
Rachel Cyr (00:34):
I'm fine.
Yeah.
Okay.
Yeah.
It's a busy season.
It's a busy season and I'm I'vegot a lot of busyness.
Kayla Ogden (00:39):
Yeah.
Has that interrupted yourwriting life?
Or how's that going?
Rachel Cyr (00:44):
Uh yeah, the writing is definitely at a minimum.
And then the editing's at aminimum.
And that sucks.
But it's also like resistancein full form.
Like I've had the option andthen I just didn't do it a few
times.
Kayla Ogden (01:00):
Yeah.
Rachel Cyr (01:01):
And I really I have to be in the right headspace, it
seems.
Although when I have theopportunity to give myself the
headspace, I don't take it.
So like I gotta figure thatout.
Kayla Ogden (01:10):
Yeah.
Rachel Cyr (01:11):
How's your writing going?
Oh, uh, it's weird.
Kayla Ogden (01:14):
But just back on you for a second.
Oh, sure.
You're not getting out of thisso easy.
Is there anything that you findenjoyable about the editing
process?
Rachel Cyr (01:23):
Oh, sure.
I don't not like it.
Kayla Ogden (01:26):
Okay.
Rachel Cyr (01:26):
Yeah, it's just um it's more of tedious.
Yeah.
And it's not as fun.
Kayla Ogden (01:33):
Yeah.
I found that like with you,with the storytelling and the um
pantsing and coming up withthings by the seat of your
pants, that you were so excitedabout it.
Like a little manic.
Manic, yeah.
Rachel Cyr (01:47):
Yeah.
That's what I would call it.
I think that that's the onlyway to describe it.
Like I was really like divehead first, write a book in a
month, and then now I have to dothings to it.
Kayla Ogden (01:57):
Two things I know.
Oh my gosh, it's so crazy.
With me with the editing, Ireally have hit a wall.
I've messed with this book somany times that I'm just feeling
like I just really need likehelp and support from somebody
who, you know, knows this aspectof like developmental editing.
(02:18):
A couple of years ago, I metthis mom at a school, and um,
she was she is, I just don'treally know her anymore.
We just don't run into eachother ever because our kids
don't go to the same schoolanymore.
Her name is Zoe Harris, and Iloved her and her husband, and I
told her that I was writing abook because I was writing this
(02:40):
book even then.
And she said that she had thisbest friend in the UK called Jo,
and that Joe had worked on abook for like five years, and
that she had, you know, gonethrough the whole querying
process and you know, didn't getany bites, and she just didn't
want to give up on her novel.
(03:01):
So then she hired somebody whohelped her with it.
Yeah.
Zoe told me she's like, thebook is coming out soon.
I was like, okay, cool.
Well, why don't we do a littlebook club and read it and all
this stuff?
Yeah.
And the book came out and it iscalled You'd Look Better as a
Ghost.
Rachel Cyr (03:18):
Oh, geez, the waist.
Kayla Ogden (03:19):
But I like that title.
Isn't that amazing?
It's such a good title.
And her name is Joanna Wallace.
So her book came out and it waseverywhere.
Wow.
Like it was on, it has thisgorgeous, like lime green cover.
Okay, yeah.
It's so eye-catching.
Totally.
Right.
And I in San Mateo, I went intolike the Barnes and Noble and
(03:41):
it was on a huge display.
Cool, good.
And yeah, amazing.
And she's a mom and all thisstuff like me, right?
And so I really identify withlike how she worked on her book
for so long and then kind of gotstuck.
Years later, now I was like,okay, so I just messaged her.
Um, and I said, you know, ourmutual friend mentioned that you
(04:03):
had worked with someone on yourbook when you kind of felt
stuck.
And she was so nice, sheresponded to me right away.
She has she has a new book, bythe way, that just came out
called The Dead Friend Project.
Rachel Cyr (04:17):
I like her uh title choices.
Kayla Ogden (04:19):
Yeah, and You'd look better as a Ghost is a
really good It's sort of likewho's that guy that kills
everybody in that show, but hedoes it for good.
Oh, Dexter.
Yeah, yeah.
It's kind of like a femaleDexter kind of thing.
Oh, okay.
And then it goes into like herchildhood.
Only she doesn't kill for goodreasons.
(04:41):
It's just it's just sort of aserial killer lady.
Just for funsies.
And um, it goes into like herchildhood as like a creepy
psychopath child, which I likegive me all the creepy
psychopath children.
Sure, yeah.
Love that shit.
Like, like at the the push.
Yeah.
You know, that that kind ofshit.
Totally.
So, anyways, it's such a goodbook.
I highly recommend you lookbetter as it goes.
(05:02):
It's really well written, andapparently, yeah, so she got
really helped.
So then she sent me who sheworked with, and it's this
collective in uh the UK, andI've never seen anything like
it.
I guess the closest thing tobeing like it, I would say,
would be like the novelry.
Okay.
They have services where they dodeep dives into your work and
(05:22):
and help you, and you can choosesort of like a package, and
then when you're when you'redone there, sometimes they kind
of hook you up with an age.
Rachel Cyr (05:30):
Oh, that's amazing.
Okay.
Kayla Ogden (05:31):
Yeah.
So it's amazing, and I'mtotally gonna reach out to them
and see.
I feel like this is a huge likeprivilege move, which makes me
sad because it's like I'm gonnapay somebody to make my book
publishing ready and tointroduce me to the right
(05:51):
people.
And I just feel like, yeah, ifI were broke, I would never be
able to do this.
If this works out for me and ifI, you know, ever make money
from this project, I woulddefinitely like to support
somebody who is in a place intheir life where they couldn't
afford something like this.
Yeah, offset it a little bit.
Yeah, like pass on theprivilege.
(06:12):
I do think that broke people,and I've been broke before,
okay?
Like, do not get it twisted.
I've lived in shitty basementswhere you couldn't have gotten
out of if you you had a fire.
I've not been able to pay myrent.
I've been, you know, I've beenpoor in my life.
So I get it.
(06:32):
But at the same time, I kind oflike want it back myself.
Rachel Cyr (06:35):
Absolutely.
It's sort of like I mean, thebeautiful place about privilege
is that you can do those thingsand that you're thinking of how
you can pay it forward is thebest possible position to be in.
Kayla Ogden (06:47):
I feel pretty strongly that in the future
Rachel and I will have likewriters' contests where we can
like lift other people up.
I don't know if I already saidthis, but the the thing I wanted
to say was like, I think brokepeople and young people who, you
know, don't know all the rulesand don't have their heads
fogged with the um politics oflike the business side of
(07:12):
things.
And sometimes their debuts arethe best debuts in the whole
wide world.
You know, there's there's ahuge history in literature of,
you know, wealthy men who wouldjust sit at their typewriters
and their wives would bring themall their food at their desks
where they would just smoke andthen they would go for like a
(07:33):
walk in the middle of the day,go back to writing, and they
just had it all.
But then there's other peoplewho um, you know, didn't have
anything and they they shottheir shot and made it.
So I think some of those aresome of like the best books ever
that come out.
Definitely.
Thank you to Joanna Wallace forbeing so sweet and kind and um
(07:53):
not gatekeeping and passing thaton to me.
Rachel Cyr (07:55):
Absolutely.
That's wonderful.
Kayla Ogden (07:57):
I'll let you know how all that goes and what I
learn from whoever I end upworking with.
Yeah, great.
I would love to know.
Um so speaking of fuckingprivilege.
Oh yeah?
Oh, wait, do you have more tosay about your writing life?
I'd love to.
Rachel Cyr (08:09):
Well, I just got a notification yesterday that I am
now published in the labyrinth,which is a journal.
Shit! Yeah, but it's I mean,it's a CSM.
So I so I just submitted thecompliment after I had you know
won the spot at the writer'srecus.
I was like, okay, well, I'mjust gonna submit this to the
(08:30):
CSM.
I don't know how many, youknow, things they receive.
I have no idea what thelabyrinth is like.
I never had a copy of itmyself, but uh it's a like
quarterly publication that theydo, or and so I'm gonna go grab
a hard copy of it.
Kayla Ogden (08:48):
All right, so as our regular listeners know, we
have talked about Louis C.K.
on the pod before.
Kind of in the earlier days.
I think that when theannouncement came out that the
comedian had a book deal, I wasa little bit annoyed.
A little critical.
(09:08):
A little critical.
I just was like, oh great,you're an author now.
We'll talk about privilege,right?
Like that's what that was yoursegue here.
Exactly.
Privilege, yes.
And also, like at the sametime, Mr.
Beast announced that he wasgonna have a novel with James
Patterson.
I was just like, this is sofucking annoying.
Yeah, that was a long time ago.
Rachel Cyr (09:28):
Yeah, that was one of our first episodes, I think.
Kayla Ogden (09:30):
Mm-hmm.
Um, yeah, you can go back andjust listen to them all until
you find us bitching aboutLouise K if you want.
I wasn't sure if I was gonnaread it, but I did listen to it.
And I said, All right, well, Imight as well fucking talk about
this on the pod.
And so I said to Rachel, canyou listen to it?
And this was two days ago.
I'm like, it's 10 hours long.
(09:51):
Can you listen to the wholething, please?
And she was like, um, I'll dowhat I can.
Rachel Cyr (09:56):
Yeah, I'll do what I can.
Kayla Ogden (09:58):
She was like, I'll do what I can.
So I just want to preface this.
I was a fan of Louis CK's worklike before he was cancelled
during the Me Too movement.
Me too.
Even like before he made itbig.
So he was cool to me before hewas cool, you guys.
I watched his first show,Louie.
Rachel Cyr (10:14):
Yep, I remember.
Kayla Ogden (10:15):
And like I kind of liked it.
I watched all of his comedyspecials and I watched clips of
his Howard Stern appearance, oneof them, anyways.
Rachel Cyr (10:24):
Um I'm sure that was raunchy AF.
Kayla Ogden (10:27):
It was, it was super raunchy, and I followed
the news as he was cancelled,reading several accounts of the
abuse and his apology.
Um which was in 2017.
Rachel Cyr (10:37):
If anyone was I that was part of the article that I
read, so I I have that noted.
2017 was the Me Toocancellation movement.
Kayla Ogden (10:46):
What the fuck?
That was so long ago.
I know it's 2025 now.
Rachel Cyr (10:50):
Well, almost 2026.
Kayla Ogden (10:52):
Like by the time nine years ago.
Yeah.
Rachel Cyr (10:55):
Isn't that wild?
Kayla Ogden (10:55):
That's weird.
That's giving me the heebiejeebies because I feel like it
wasn't that.
Rachel Cyr (11:00):
You know, I really conflate Me Too and 2020 and BLM
and all of those feel veryconnected to me.
Yes, they do.
Um, I think it was just anintense set of years.
Like that was a very intense,like five-year span that got
really condensed in our heads.
Kayla Ogden (11:14):
Yes.
Rachel Cyr (11:15):
You know, from 2017 to 2022, I think was very
intense.
Kayla Ogden (11:19):
So I read his Apology, the one where he
promised to step back and listenfor a while.
Uh, but to use a TaylorSwiftism, that time was quite
short.
After he decided the dust wassettled, he was get getting back
on stage doing his own stand-upcomedy production.
I followed his newsletter.
(11:39):
I watched his sort of comebackspecial.
And then I bought the audiobookfor Ingram.
Um, it's a work he said isn't acomedy, but a work of literary
fiction, which by the way,somebody calling their own work
literary fiction, like in publicas a way to describe it, to me
(12:00):
is sort of crazy.
I don't know.
Why, why?
Rachel Cyr (12:03):
Um because what would be the term that feels
better?
Just my debut novel.
Kayla Ogden (12:09):
Yeah, yeah.
My debut mo novel, it's a workof fiction.
Calling your own work to anyoneoutside of the production of
it, like to anybody outside ofthe inner workings and the
business, like your Adrian oryour editor or your publicist or
whoever.
I feel like it's sort of likebraggy and weird.
Rachel Cyr (12:31):
So the word the use of the word literary feels
elite.
To me, yes.
Kayla Ogden (12:36):
Okay, no, no, I can I definitely resonate with
that.
It's like you're calling itliterary before anybody else
has, basically.
Rachel Cyr (12:43):
Um by all intents and purposes, it is literature,
right?
However, the word literaturedefinitely feels literary
elevates it.
Exactly.
Kayla Ogden (12:55):
It's like he's saying, like, this is an a could
win awards.
This should be, this is thenext great American classic.
Like it that's how it feels tome.
I would completely agree.
Yeah.
He's totally presenting likethat.
Oh, I just wanted to say, like,um, so it sounds like I am
Louis C.K.'s biggest fan ever.
It's not like I'm walkingaround, I or was before he was
(13:17):
canceled, like wearing LouisC.K.
shirts or I'd never been to histhing.
But you know those people,those creatives or celebrities
that for some reason, wheneverthere's like a link about them,
you just click in.
Sure.
Whether you like them or not.
I think initially what drew meto Louis C.K.
(13:40):
was he had this quality of thislike bumbling, self-effacing,
everyday dude.
He does definitely have that.
And masculine, and you know,he's he had like the dad bot and
stuff.
And when he would talk aboutmen, um, he would be like, We're
so disgusting, like, look atour big disgusting dicks.
(14:03):
And then he'd be like, Butwomen, they're so they're so
beautiful.
And he's like, a vaginashouldn't be called a vagina, it
should be called like a floop afloop loop, like a butterfly
floop, or it's so like beautifuland delicate, and like he would
juxtapose like his disgustingself against the the goddess
(14:23):
like beauty of of women and howmuch he just wanted to be near
them and like fuck them,essentially.
And for some reason thatcharmed me very much, I think.
Rachel Cyr (14:35):
Yeah, until he was using it, his powers for evil.
Yes, or not, I mean evil.
I okay, yes.
Kayla Ogden (14:41):
Yeah, he definitely, I mean, the whole
thing is that he broughtcomedians into his hotel room
who were not as successful ashim, who thought they were gonna
get a leg up in the industry orthey were doing some
networking, and then he askedthem for for permission to jerk
off in front of them, and theyuncomfortably laughed and said
(15:02):
yes, and then he jerked off tocompletion, and then they ran
out the door.
Right.
Um, which that's all crazy andsketchy and a power trip and
everything, right?
Although he like he does saylater, he's like, I always ask
for consent.
The part afterward, I think isI don't know, you'd have to ask
the women, but to me it's almostworse because it's like after
(15:23):
that he talked to his agent orhis handler or whatever, and was
like, he he shot things down,and all his comedian friends
around like shut shut the womendown when they tried to talk
about it.
Right.
And it affected their wholecareers.
Right.
It's one thing to have somenasty guy jack off in front of
you in a hotel room with yourfriend and run away screaming
and be like, I can't believethat fucking happened to us.
(15:45):
That's disgusting.
And it's another thing for yourwhole career to then suffer
because you witnessed thatthing.
Rachel Cyr (15:51):
Totally.
Kayla Ogden (15:52):
Anyways, piece of shit, all the shit that he did.
But even after I knew about allthe shit that he did, I still
clicked on the links, like Isaid, I still ingest everything
and I just for some reason findit fascinating.
There's obviously a huge debateover whether we can engage with
people's work when they're notnice people, like they're shitty
(16:13):
people.
Right.
Like, for example, like I don'tlisten to Michael Jackson.
Sure.
Even though he's dead and noneof the money would go to him or
whatever.
I just, it's too creepy to me.
And like I just can't.
I when he was alive, like Ijust I could never like be a fan
of him because I was like, he'sa pedophile, he's a disgusting
child rapist.
Rachel Cyr (16:32):
It's really tricky to support it's really tricky to
support artists that you knoware bad people.
Even Picasso now.
Like I look at his work and I'mlike, ugh.
What did Picasso do?
He was like a very known, veryabusive towards women, like
extremely abusive person, andlike fuck.
Yeah.
Um, which sucks.
(16:53):
You know, it's like, yeah,okay, there's a I mean, so many
people, not just creative, somany people do bad things.
And there's like a really hardline we all have to walk of
where does the support stop andwhere does it a lawyer could be
a really shitty person, but agreat lawyer, but nobody's
asking about their personallife, you know?
To hire them, yeah, exactly.
(17:14):
And so because we have this,you know, quote unquote benefit
of knowing the personal lives ofthese uh artists, yeah, then we
have the you know the right tojudge them.
And the discretion.
Yeah, which I think that onceyou have the knowledge, you
should use the knowledge.
So I mean it's just a fine lineto walk.
It's a fine, it's fine.
Kayla Ogden (17:33):
Yeah.
You know, and people are like,okay, don't put your money
toward like vote with yourmoney, which I I get, right?
It's like don't shop on Amazon,don't buy Louis C.K.'s book, or
don't, you know, whatever.
But I just for some reasondon't care if Louis C.K.
gets two dollars from mebuying, or actually he might get
(17:55):
a big bag from that because hetends to produce his own shit.
But you know, I don't reallycare if Louis C.K.
gets 10 bucks from this.
I just don't.
I just don't give a shit.
I don't think that it affectshim at all whatsoever.
I think, you know, wearing aLouis C.K.
t-shirt and telling everybodyto think promoting him is is
different than giving him 10bucks.
Rachel Cyr (18:17):
Sure.
Although I mean we arepromoting him right now.
Any Any Press is good press.
Any press is good press.
I mean, I have no problem withthis.
I think we're we're what we'redoing is fine.
I think we're good.
Okay, well, if Rachel sayswe're good, we're good because
she's a type.
I am very vote with yourdollar.
Yeah, and you're a type typeone.
Kayla Ogden (18:36):
Type one.
She's an Enneagram type one.
Rachel Cyr (18:38):
A little type A and a little type one.
A little type A and a littletype one and a little type four
when she's stressed.
Kayla Ogden (18:44):
Yeah, that's very true.
Um oh my god, we're so fuckingtight on time.
Okay, okay.
Oh, well, we don't have thatmuch to say.
Rachel Cyr (18:50):
So let's talk about what we thought of the book.
Hit me with it.
Kayla Ogden (18:53):
Hit yeah.
Demon Copperhead by BarbaraKing Solver is one, is a
masterpiece.
It's one of the best books thatI've ever read in my life.
That's good.
And it's based on the 19thcentury novel David Copperfield,
which was set in Appalachia.
Demon Copperhead was set inAppalachia.
(19:14):
I don't know if DavidCopperfield was set in
Appalachia.
I haven't read DavidCopperfield, but this brand of
books, a young person, like aHuck Finn kind of thing or
whatever, where they're sent outon their own with nothing, and
then they come of age throughthis like adventure and this
journey, and they go through allthese trials and and
(19:36):
tribulations, right?
I love reading those.
Sure, me too.
So I enjoyed Louis C.K.'s book,Ingram, when I listened to the
audio version.
But I was talking to my friendDilara Stu about this the other
day.
Like, there's a really lowbarrier to me liking this kind
of a book, a coming of age sortof tale like this journey.
(19:59):
Like this.
Whereas, like, say it were aromance novel and it was written
this shittily, I could not evenbegin to listen to it.
Sure.
Right?
So it's like, I just like thiskind of shit.
So easy for me to do it.
Rachel Cyr (20:13):
That's a good disclaimer.
Kayla Ogden (20:14):
Yeah.
Rachel Cyr (20:15):
Okay.
Kayla Ogden (20:16):
Okay.
As a writer, like as an editor,like doing a critique or you
know, rating it or something, Iwould say it is not a good work
of literary fiction.
And there's a lot to not likeabout it.
Rachel Cyr (20:29):
I thought it was so clunky.
The the the the way that thecharacters spoke.
I like I understand that he wastrying to really um highlight
that the the kid was uneducatedand he really didn't know how to
speak properly.
But the way that it waswritten, the way that he
narrates it on top of it feelsso clunky and so ugly, not in a
(20:52):
in a uneducated way.
It felt just straight up ugly,like a ugly I don't want to.
If you hadn't asked me to readit and listen to it, I would
have stopped.
Kayla Ogden (21:02):
Um because uh how far did you get?
And like, yeah, can you recaphow what you've sort of heard so
far?
Rachel Cyr (21:10):
Sure.
So you've listened to likethree hours?
So it's a 10-hour book or11-hour book, and I'm six, I
have six hours left.
So poor thing.
Four or five hours in.
The kid starts on the farm.
He's like, How old?
You don't know.
He really doesn't say you don'teven know the kid's name until
well, he doesn't know, sure.
But like he doesn't even givelike an example of is this kid
(21:32):
four?
Is he eight?
Like, there's no there's a bigdevelopmental leap.
Does Louis CK have kids?
Because he would know how towrite that better.
If he does have kids.
Okay, well, he should fuckinglook at them.
It's ridiculous.
You you don't you get the ideathat this kid's four, and then
by the time the kid's out in theworld on his own, because his
mom was like, you gotta go.
(21:52):
You you find out that maybehe's 10 by the looks of him, but
he doesn't know his age becausesupposedly no one ever told him
his age.
Okay, fine.
Talk about sh tell, not show.
Like he is not showing shit.
You don't know what anyonecould possibly look like.
Apparently, his mom has longhair that you find out at one
point, but why?
Why do we even find that out?
(22:13):
It's like a weird grosswatching his mom put her hair
down for the first time ever.
Like, I'm sorry.
You've never seen your motherput her hair down even.
Well, well, if he was three,sure.
Is he is but is he ten?
We don't fucking know.
And like, sorry, mom, you putyour hair down.
Yeah.
I just can't do it.
Kayla Ogden (22:33):
Oh, there's a scene where his mother, she's she's
ill and they're poor, and thefather has left, and Louis C or
not Louis CK, I'm like, thistiny little Louis CK, no,
Ingram, the character, he'ssitting on the bed with his
mother and she unwraps her bun,and then her hair just keeps on
fall.
Her hair goes all the way downher back and she sits on her
(22:55):
hair.
Right.
And then her hair just startslike coming out, like just like
it's just like falling out andfalling out.
And then Ingram runs back inthe barn where he was previously
banished to and decides he'sjust gonna fucking sleep out
there because his mom is sogross.
Rachel Cyr (23:09):
Yeah, right.
Yeah.
So I feel like that was maybethe first and only.
No, because he even tells that.
I don't feel like it wasshowing.
It wasn't like hair entwined inher fingers or like anything.
It was a badly described momentthat was, you know, obviously
kind of a visceral moment, butbadly described.
(23:30):
You just described it waybetter than he wrote it.
Well, thank you.
Kayla Ogden (23:35):
There's no characters that had any he
describes so um, I'll justpreface this by saying I listen
to the whole thing, but when I'mlistening to audiobooks, I'm
doing a lot of other stuff.
I'm driving or I'm cleaning orwhatever, and I'll sometimes
leave and leave the room andcertain things.
So I do miss a lot.
But um, I started listening toit again because I knew we were
(23:58):
doing this.
So I listened to probably aboutthe first 45 minutes over
again, and I caught a lot more.
And when he when he leaves hishouse, so Ingram is banished
from his home after his fatherleaves.
They have to sell the farm.
His mother is ill and starving,and she says, Go out on your
own, Ingram.
I have nothing for you.
I can't do anything for you,you know, because mothers are
(24:20):
like that.
And then he, you know, startsgoing down the road and and he
meets this mountain by thestreet.
It's just a man, it's just ablack man, but he calls him a
mountain, and he does describethe way that the mountain looks
in so much detail.
It's crazy.
Like he describes how like theinside of his hands are sort of
a reddish brown, but the backsare darker, and the inside of
(24:43):
his mouth is red, and his hairlooks like a this, and his like
the way he describes this blackman to me is borderline
indulgent and exploitative andobjectifying to black people to
me.
Agreed.
And I was wondering, like,because I because having a
child, right?
Like having a seven-year-oldchild and a four-year-old child,
(25:06):
first of all, when they're likereally little, when they're
like four and under, they don'teven really notice people's
different skin colors and stuff,which is cool.
Like they're not like, oh, myfriend's black, my friend's
brown, my friend's Asian.
Like they just don't, it'scool.
They just don't really.
We live in a really, reallydiverse area.
Um, so our friends are from,you know, all different colors
(25:30):
of the rainbow and cultures andstuff.
And then as they get older,yeah, it's just, it wasn't
really believable to me.
Um, but I did like that whenIngram is meeting this homeless
man, the mountain, and hedescribes him so vividly, like
the character says, I never knewthat looking at somebody's face
(25:53):
so close up could be soperfectly pleasant.
And I was like, oh, well,that's actually like a very
endearing quality to Ingram thathe is this boy that's been so
isolated.
The mountain is one of the, youknow, under 10 people he's ever
seen, like close up, probably.
Rachel Cyr (26:12):
I like the character of the mountain.
Yeah.
Kayla Ogden (26:14):
I it was a little pat though, because then the the
the mountain, the first personhe uh Ingram meets on the road
is like, when I was 10, my mamacast me out of the house and I
had no money at all, and I hadto go wander and it's like how
many people are going aroundwandering at 10 years old and
their mums are just kicking themout of the house.
Rachel Cyr (26:32):
Wait, what year does all this take place?
Does he ever even say that?
No.
Yeah, say what the fuck?
We need more details, or atleast show us what year it is.
What kind of cars are they?
Describe them.
Like there's trucks on amotorway.
What kind of cars, what kind oftrucks are they?
I don't like I feel likethere's no descriptions of
(26:53):
anything where you can get yourbearings.
Kayla Ogden (26:55):
I read this article um on Slate, which was like a
review of the book.
Let me just pull it up here.
Rachel Cyr (27:04):
Where the fuck did it go?
The titles Louis C.K.'s debutnovel is a mess.
Kayla Ogden (27:10):
Yeah.
It's by Laura Miller.
This is a very well-writtenarticle.
Oh, there's like a very unlikesuch a dum-dum picture of huge
picture of Louis C.K.
Um she is oh my gosh, you haveto read this.
So she goes, six months ago,this was in November, Louis
C.K., the once acclaimedcomedian disgraced by
(27:31):
revelations of sexual misconductin 2017, announced in an email,
turns out I'm also a novelist,which is like exactly what how I
took it.
Like that it was so shoddy.
And um, he says it's not acomedy book, it's a literary
novel.
It is literally a literarynovel.
What she says in her article isthat the most interesting thing
(27:55):
that she thought about the bookwas the outside world, and that
he barely even touches upon itbecause um we don't know when
it's set.
It's either in the future orit's like um a different
timeline.
You know what I mean?
Like there's those thesealternate, alternate uh gives
her universe.
Later, Ingram goes to a towncalled New Austin.
(28:18):
Okay, and he's like kind oflooking around at all the
people, and he's like, Therewere men wearing dresses and
ladies with beard, and they werewearing all this bright
clothing.
Interesting.
Um, and it was called like NewAustin, and New Austin was like
work together, live apart.
(28:38):
Okay.
So the segregation betweenblack people and white people in
this reality was starting to.
I don't know, New Austin wantedblack people to come and work
with the white people, but notlive with them.
Rachel Cyr (28:50):
Interesting.
Kayla Ogden (28:51):
So for some reason, Louis C.K.
has written an alternatereality or a futuristic book
where segregation is a thingagain.
Okay, great.
Yeah, why don't we makesegregation between black people
and white people of all thingsa thing again?
Rachel Cyr (29:09):
Right.
At the mention of segregationat the beginning of the book, it
felt very clear that it was setin like the 40s or something.
Kayla Ogden (29:14):
That's when you think it's yeah, the 40s or 50s,
and he's getting sent out, andthings seem way more like old
timey that a child would getsent out of their house in no
shoes.
Maybe it's the depression, oryou know, whatever.
But it's like, no, it's eithermodern or I think it might be
like in a close future becausethere's also a description of
cars, which apparently makesthem sound futuristic, how they
(29:37):
like zoom so fast, and I don'tknow, maybe they don't have
wheels or something.
Rachel Cyr (29:41):
So I just took that as a dumb kid looking at a
motorway for the first time.
Kayla Ogden (29:45):
Yeah, I know.
So that's the other thing.
What she thinks is that itwould be better, a better book
if it was more about like what'sgoing on in the world, that
that was the most interestingthing to her.
That wasn't the mostinteresting thing to me.
I think that Ingram's storycould have been well told in
current day Texas.
Absolutely.
(30:05):
It does not have to be in afuture, like the segregation and
shit.
He could literally just commenton real life literal
segregation that happens.
Rachel Cyr (30:16):
Right.
I just none of this tracks forme.
I I feel like this alternatereality that's just an excuse
for his shitty descriptions ofother cultures, like his
description of the Mexicans thathe works with in the cornfield,
and his description of theblack people that he's come
across, you know, four hoursinto the book.
They're shitty descriptions,and then listening to him
(30:38):
narrate it was painful when he'shasn't done an accent for
anybody until he does theMexican accents, and then it was
like, oh my gosh, shoot me inthe back.
Kayla Ogden (30:50):
He's Mexican.
Oh, he is?
He is, isn't that crazy?
Rachel Cyr (30:53):
Okay, Lucy K is Mexican.
Then you can do your shittyMexican accent, Luis CK, but it
felt off putting.
Kayla Ogden (31:00):
I was like, oh, like he's speaking Spanish.
I I don't know how much Spanishhe knows, but doesn't speak it
very well.
Oh, okay.
Do you speak it?
Rachel Cyr (31:10):
No.
But it sounded clunky.
The whole book was clunky.
Okay.
Kayla Ogden (31:16):
This book is a first person book, right?
He's like, I did this, I didthat.
Sure.
And what you find out later islike at the end of the book,
he's a man.
He's like 17 or 18 orsomething, right?
A young man.
And so he's telling this storyas somebody who has seen
streetlights now, who knows whatcars are and and motorways and
(31:41):
all this stuff.
When I'm looking back on mychildhood, if I were to say,
like he says at one point, he'stalking about I think an
overpass, and he says, I saw atall, rusted tree.
And he's clearly talking aboutlike a pillar of some kind.
But then later he talks aboutthe poles and he knows what
poles are, but he doesn't know.
And if I were talking about mychildhood, say I had never seen
(32:05):
the ocean or no one told meabout a boat or something.
Right.
And I which is just crazy, butand I saw a boat at like eight
years old.
But I was telling the storywhen I was 20.
I would tell somebody, I saw aboat, and to me, I was so
confused because I hadn't Ididn't realize that people
traveled on water that way, orto me, the shape seemed crazy.
(32:26):
I didn't know how it couldfloat or something like that.
But you wouldn't be like, and Isaw this huge banana, but it
was made of metal.
Right.
Rachel Cyr (32:35):
And there were right, your lens shifts if
you're talking from an old fromthe older perspective.
Yes, exactly.
And you could say, I didn'tunderstand what it was.
I think I, you know, I thoughtit was a banana.
Kayla Ogden (32:48):
It reminded me of this.
And, you know, but to act likeit's first person and it's still
mysterious to you.
So, like if you're writing froma first person point of view,
but it's in the present, thenit's really cool because you can
write this book that starts offin like childish in being
childish, sure, and then thewriting can mature as go up,
(33:10):
which I think is like a superexciting device as a writer to
be able to let the voice of thestory evolve and mature.
But because Louie is writing itfrom the 18-year-old's
perspective, he never tells youwho you are, like why he's
telling the story to anybody orlike how he's telling it.
(33:31):
It's not epistolary, so he'snot like writing in a journal or
anything.
And at the end, he's just like,should I tell you the end?
Or you don't give a fuck.
Um, at the end, he's just like,Oh, and I wrote off with my
dad, and me and my dad rode offin the car.
But he's never like um, yeah,so that was something I found
(33:52):
really needed work.
And um, another quote, I'llread what I thought that the
Laura Miller said really well atthe end of her article.
She says, Ingram seems most ofall like the kind of first novel
that ends up in a drawer andstays there until the author
dies.
Whereupon, if the writer'sfully realized works have won
(34:15):
over enough readers, it mightget dragged out and published by
the artist's heirs.
But CK is famous and still hasmany fans despite his scandals.
And what ought to have beencashiered as mere juvenilia
winds up printed betweenhardcovers with a slipcover
photo of its author sitting at amanual typewriter and listed
(34:36):
for $27.95.
This choice does no one anyfavors, most especially CK, who
might have a genuinelyworthwhile novel in him if he
had the incentive to work harderand longer at the craft.
Instead, he's just sitting inthe dirt.
That's another thing about thisbook.
Um, the little boy at thebeginning, he's he's it's like I
was either sitting at at on theporch or I was sitting in the
(34:59):
dirt watching the pigs.
And he keeps talking about howhe's sitting in the dirt,
sitting in the dirt, sitting inthe dirt.
Just because you're fuckingpoor doesn't mean you want to
sit on the dirt if there's aporch.
And just because you're achild.
Like, I just don't believe inthat.
I don't believe a child wouldliterally just sit in dirt for
no reason.
Rachel Cyr (35:16):
There's also um this like the no shoes thing, and
this kid like with had a hole inhis foot at one point, and then
they I mean, just likemedically, what was happening
there needed to have a littlebit more like he was like
deeply, he was deeply isolatedand abused, this child.
Kayla Ogden (35:36):
Right.
Um, not not like physicallyabused, but he was he was with
neglect neglected, yeah,severely neglected.
I just want to say that therewere a couple of things that as
uh as I was listening to itagain that I caught that I
thought was like kind of cool.
So this child has a repressedmemory.
The spoiler alert, whole hellaspoiler alert.
(35:57):
This whole book, the child, um,as he's going on this journey,
he keeps on having thesememories.
Like he, I remember this or Ifeel this about this way, but I
don't know why.
And when he's looking at themountain's face, this um
homeless black man, and he'sclose up to his face, and he
thinks it's perfectly pleasantto, you know, uh gaze upon
somebody's countenance at closerange.
(36:18):
And he says, I had the feelingthat I had looked upon another
face this close up before, but Idon't remember like who it was
or how.
And then throughout the book,he keeps on doing that.
Um, but to me, it kind of gotlost on the first go-around.
But then now when I heard that,like my breath like caught in
my throat.
I was like, Oh my god, likethat was his brother who died
(36:40):
that he was in bed with and wassick, and like they were close
face to face, like up close.
And it kind of feels like Louiewent back in the book and
sprinkled these repressedmemories throughout.
But they are, it is harrowing.
And I think that the revealthat his this the there's a
(37:01):
reveal as to why he got shovedin the barn, um, as to why he
was neglected and why he gotthis his brother's hat, but he
doesn't remember ever having abrother.
I feel like that could havelike made me cry or like really,
really hit hard, but for somereason, like it didn't.
But I like upon listening to itagain, I thought that was
(37:21):
really uh harrowing andbeautiful.
That passage.
Rachel Cyr (37:25):
Yeah, that that had potential, yeah for sure.
Kayla Ogden (37:28):
Yeah.
Um, so there there weredefinitely gems in there.
Um, sorry, there was anotherpart that he says it's not a
comedy book, but I literallylaughed fucking out loud.
So Ingram goes into this likestore, which is um toxic.
He finds a little boy in thestore, and the little boy
sitting there, like he's youngerthan Ingram, and he's just like
(37:49):
scooping ketchup out of a caninto his mouth, and he's so
dirty and gross.
And the little boy has thisinsane attitude.
Ingram is like, why are youdoing that?
Like, why don't you eat some ofthis food or anything?
And then the little boy kind oflooks up at him and he's like,
I like ketchup.
I like it.
Amazing little boy characterwho is so funny and so sassy.
(38:13):
Like, he joins Ingram for partof the tale, and that made me
laugh out loud.
And I would love for Louis C.
K to write a a heartfelt booklike this, where there's like
there's drama and there's stakesand everything, but infuse it
with a lot of comedy.
Rachel Cyr (38:30):
So that's the perfect segue into the quote
that I have that I I thought wasgreat from the from the New
York Times article that I read.
Um who wrote it?
A meditative Louise C.
K.
Takes the stage, don't call ita comeback.
So it wasn't about the thewhole article wasn't about this
book, but it was um they didtalk about it quite a bit.
(38:51):
And it's by Jason Zinneman.
He says, Witnessing this giftedcomedian write dutifully harm
humorless fiction is likewatching a pro athlete compete
with an arm tied behind theirback, or for that matter, Don
DeLillo doing stand-up.
I've never heard of that writerDon Development.
Me neither.
But I think that that ties inperfectly.
Yes.
He probably could writesomething really well.
(39:13):
Yeah.
If he called it a debut novel,you'd maybe be more forgiving.
We'd may potentially be like,but so calling it literary
fiction, and then it being thisclunky, and then it not having
the humor that you you knowyou're saying that like you
would have craved from him, addin some humor.
Don't have your arm tied behindyour back, Louie.
Kayla Ogden (39:32):
Yes, absolutely.
Absolutely.
I think that this one shouldhave gone in the drawer, but
there's so much potential, andhe was just super cocky.
Rachel Cyr (39:40):
Yeah.
Kayla Ogden (39:41):
And I think he needed to work with more people
and take more time with it, andthat next time he should do
something similar where it'slike funny all throughout.
I would read that in a in aheartbeat.
I would love that.
So I guess that's our take.
Rachel Cyr (39:54):
Oh, yeah.
All right.
Sorry, Louie, for being such abitch, but I'm sure you loved
it.
I'm sure you fucking loved it.
Kayla Ogden (40:02):
Okay, so next okay, and um if you guys like the
show, please um what is it smashthat smash it this is the the
YouTube vernacular, I think.
The Zoom or YouTube um smashthat subscribe button or
whatever, give us five stars onthe the service that you're
(40:25):
using or write us a nice review.
Literally, we will peoplearen't really doing that even
though they're listening to theshow.
I know we know you'relistening.
Just kidding.
Um, what do we we used to callthem hardies?
Rachel Cyr (40:39):
Oh yeah, hardties.
Okay, hardies.
We used to call it we one time.
We did it one time.
Okay, yeah.
Kayla Ogden (40:43):
Hardies, get your little, get your little
heart-shaped butts out there.
And click that heart.
Because you know what?
When we see that, it just letsus know that you're there and
we're not just talking to eachother in a closet like a couple
of schizophrenic um overheads.
Rachel Cyr (40:58):
Okay, at least we I know you're there.
I can touch you.
Yeah, you know, yeah, I'myou're real.
All right.
That'd be really freaky.
I mean, all right.
All right, okay, bye-bye.
Write your heart out.
Kayla Ogden (00:10):
Hi, I'm Kayla Ogden.
And I'm Rachel Sear.
And this is Write Your HeartOut.
Rachel Cyr (00:16):
I almost said it with you.
Kayla Ogden (00:18):
I know.
I think it's I don't know.
Rachel Cyr (00:20):
No, no, we should not say it together.
I agree.
Kayla Ogden (00:22):
We should not do that.
How are you?
It's been a minute.
Yeah, it has been a minute.
I am I'm actually excellent.
Oh, I love that for you.
Yes, I'm excellent.
Rachel Cyr (00:32):
Yeah.
Kayla Ogden (00:32):
How are you doing?
Rachel Cyr (00:34):
I'm fine.
Yeah.
Okay.
Yeah.
It's a busy season.
It's a busy season and I'm I'vegot a lot of busyness.
Kayla Ogden (00:39):
Yeah.
Has that interrupted yourwriting life?
Or how's that going?
Rachel Cyr (00:44):
Uh yeah, the writing is definitely at a minimum.
And then the editing's at aminimum.
And that sucks.
But it's also like resistancein full form.
Like I've had the option andthen I just didn't do it a few
times.
Kayla Ogden (01:00):
Yeah.
Rachel Cyr (01:01):
And I really I have to be in the right headspace, it
seems.
Although when I have theopportunity to give myself the
headspace, I don't take it.
So like I gotta figure thatout.
Kayla Ogden (01:10):
Yeah.
Rachel Cyr (01:11):
How's your writing going?
Oh, uh, it's weird.
Kayla Ogden (01:14):
But just back on you for a second.
Oh, sure.
You're not getting out of thisso easy.
Is there anything that you findenjoyable about the editing
process?
Rachel Cyr (01:23):
Oh, sure.
I don't not like it.
Kayla Ogden (01:26):
Okay.
Rachel Cyr (01:26):
Yeah, it's just um it's more of tedious.
Yeah.
And it's not as fun.
Kayla Ogden (01:33):
Yeah.
I found that like with you,with the storytelling and the um
pantsing and coming up withthings by the seat of your
pants, that you were so excitedabout it.
Like a little manic.
Manic, yeah.
Rachel Cyr (01:47):
Yeah.
That's what I would call it.
I think that that's the onlyway to describe it.
Like I was really like divehead first, write a book in a
month, and then now I have to dothings to it.
Kayla Ogden (01:57):
Two things I know.
Oh my gosh, it's so crazy.
With me with the editing, Ireally have hit a wall.
I've messed with this book somany times that I'm just feeling
like I just really need likehelp and support from somebody
who, you know, knows this aspectof like developmental editing.
(02:18):
A couple of years ago, I metthis mom at a school, and um,
she was she is, I just don'treally know her anymore.
We just don't run into eachother ever because our kids
don't go to the same schoolanymore.
Her name is Zoe Harris, and Iloved her and her husband, and I
told her that I was writing abook because I was writing this
(02:40):
book even then.
And she said that she had thisbest friend in the UK called Jo,
and that Joe had worked on abook for like five years, and
that she had, you know, gonethrough the whole querying
process and you know, didn't getany bites, and she just didn't
want to give up on her novel.
(03:01):
So then she hired somebody whohelped her with it.
Yeah.
Zoe told me she's like, thebook is coming out soon.
I was like, okay, cool.
Well, why don't we do a littlebook club and read it and all
this stuff?
Yeah.
And the book came out and it iscalled You'd Look Better as a
Ghost.
Rachel Cyr (03:18):
Oh, geez, the waist.
Kayla Ogden (03:19):
But I like that title.
Isn't that amazing?
It's such a good title.
And her name is Joanna Wallace.
So her book came out and it waseverywhere.
Wow.
Like it was on, it has thisgorgeous, like lime green cover.
Okay, yeah.
It's so eye-catching.
Totally.
Right.
And I in San Mateo, I went intolike the Barnes and Noble and
(03:41):
it was on a huge display.
Cool, good.
And yeah, amazing.
And she's a mom and all thisstuff like me, right?
And so I really identify withlike how she worked on her book
for so long and then kind of gotstuck.
Years later, now I was like,okay, so I just messaged her.
Um, and I said, you know, ourmutual friend mentioned that you
(04:03):
had worked with someone on yourbook when you kind of felt
stuck.
And she was so nice, sheresponded to me right away.
She has she has a new book, bythe way, that just came out
called The Dead Friend Project.
Rachel Cyr (04:17):
I like her uh title choices.
Kayla Ogden (04:19):
Yeah, and You'd look better as a Ghost is a
really good It's sort of likewho's that guy that kills
everybody in that show, but hedoes it for good.
Oh, Dexter.
Yeah, yeah.
It's kind of like a femaleDexter kind of thing.
Oh, okay.
And then it goes into like herchildhood.
Only she doesn't kill for goodreasons.
(04:41):
It's just it's just sort of aserial killer lady.
Just for funsies.
And um, it goes into like herchildhood as like a creepy
psychopath child, which I likegive me all the creepy
psychopath children.
Sure, yeah.
Love that shit.
Like, like at the the push.
Yeah.
You know, that that kind ofshit.
Totally.
So, anyways, it's such a goodbook.
I highly recommend you lookbetter as it goes.
(05:02):
It's really well written, andapparently, yeah, so she got
really helped.
So then she sent me who sheworked with, and it's this
collective in uh the UK, andI've never seen anything like
it.
I guess the closest thing tobeing like it, I would say,
would be like the novelry.
Okay.
They have services where they dodeep dives into your work and
(05:22):
and help you, and you can choosesort of like a package, and
then when you're when you'redone there, sometimes they kind
of hook you up with an age.
Rachel Cyr (05:30):
Oh, that's amazing.
Okay.
Kayla Ogden (05:31):
Yeah.
So it's amazing, and I'mtotally gonna reach out to them
and see.
I feel like this is a huge likeprivilege move, which makes me
sad because it's like I'm gonnapay somebody to make my book
publishing ready and tointroduce me to the right
(05:51):
people.
And I just feel like, yeah, ifI were broke, I would never be
able to do this.
If this works out for me and ifI, you know, ever make money
from this project, I woulddefinitely like to support
somebody who is in a place intheir life where they couldn't
afford something like this.
Yeah, offset it a little bit.
Yeah, like pass on theprivilege.
(06:12):
I do think that broke people,and I've been broke before,
okay?
Like, do not get it twisted.
I've lived in shitty basementswhere you couldn't have gotten
out of if you you had a fire.
I've not been able to pay myrent.
I've been, you know, I've beenpoor in my life.
So I get it.
(06:32):
But at the same time, I kind oflike want it back myself.
Rachel Cyr (06:35):
Absolutely.
It's sort of like I mean, thebeautiful place about privilege
is that you can do those thingsand that you're thinking of how
you can pay it forward is thebest possible position to be in.
Kayla Ogden (06:47):
I feel pretty strongly that in the future
Rachel and I will have likewriters' contests where we can
like lift other people up.
I don't know if I already saidthis, but the the thing I wanted
to say was like, I think brokepeople and young people who, you
know, don't know all the rulesand don't have their heads
fogged with the um politics oflike the business side of
(07:12):
things.
And sometimes their debuts arethe best debuts in the whole
wide world.
You know, there's there's ahuge history in literature of,
you know, wealthy men who wouldjust sit at their typewriters
and their wives would bring themall their food at their desks
where they would just smoke andthen they would go for like a
(07:33):
walk in the middle of the day,go back to writing, and they
just had it all.
But then there's other peoplewho um, you know, didn't have
anything and they they shottheir shot and made it.
So I think some of those aresome of like the best books ever
that come out.
Definitely.
Thank you to Joanna Wallace forbeing so sweet and kind and um
(07:53):
not gatekeeping and passing thaton to me.
Rachel Cyr (07:55):
Absolutely.
That's wonderful.
Kayla Ogden (07:57):
I'll let you know how all that goes and what I
learn from whoever I end upworking with.
Yeah, great.
I would love to know.
Um so speaking of fuckingprivilege.
Oh yeah?
Oh, wait, do you have more tosay about your writing life?
I'd love to.
Rachel Cyr (08:09):
Well, I just got a notification yesterday that I am
now published in the labyrinth,which is a journal.
Shit! Yeah, but it's I mean,it's a CSM.
So I so I just submitted thecompliment after I had you know
won the spot at the writer'srecus.
I was like, okay, well, I'mjust gonna submit this to the
(08:30):
CSM.
I don't know how many, youknow, things they receive.
I have no idea what thelabyrinth is like.
I never had a copy of itmyself, but uh it's a like
quarterly publication that theydo, or and so I'm gonna go grab
a hard copy of it.
Kayla Ogden (08:48):
All right, so as our regular listeners know, we
have talked about Louis C.K.
on the pod before.
Kind of in the earlier days.
I think that when theannouncement came out that the
comedian had a book deal, I wasa little bit annoyed.
A little critical.
(09:08):
A little critical.
I just was like, oh great,you're an author now.
We'll talk about privilege,right?
Like that's what that was yoursegue here.
Exactly.
Privilege, yes.
And also, like at the sametime, Mr.
Beast announced that he wasgonna have a novel with James
Patterson.
I was just like, this is sofucking annoying.
Yeah, that was a long time ago.
Rachel Cyr (09:28):
Yeah, that was one of our first episodes, I think.
Kayla Ogden (09:30):
Mm-hmm.
Um, yeah, you can go back andjust listen to them all until
you find us bitching aboutLouise K if you want.
I wasn't sure if I was gonnaread it, but I did listen to it.
And I said, All right, well, Imight as well fucking talk about
this on the pod.
And so I said to Rachel, canyou listen to it?
And this was two days ago.
I'm like, it's 10 hours long.
(09:51):
Can you listen to the wholething, please?
And she was like, um, I'll dowhat I can.
Rachel Cyr (09:56):
Yeah, I'll do what I can.
Kayla Ogden (09:58):
She was like, I'll do what I can.
So I just want to preface this.
I was a fan of Louis CK's worklike before he was cancelled
during the Me Too movement.
Me too.
Even like before he made itbig.
So he was cool to me before hewas cool, you guys.
I watched his first show,Louie.
Rachel Cyr (10:14):
Yep, I remember.
Kayla Ogden (10:15):
And like I kind of liked it.
I watched all of his comedyspecials and I watched clips of
his Howard Stern appearance, oneof them, anyways.
Rachel Cyr (10:24):
Um I'm sure that was raunchy AF.
Kayla Ogden (10:27):
It was, it was super raunchy, and I followed
the news as he was cancelled,reading several accounts of the
abuse and his apology.
Um which was in 2017.
Rachel Cyr (10:37):
If anyone was I that was part of the article that I
read, so I I have that noted.
2017 was the Me Toocancellation movement.
Kayla Ogden (10:46):
What the fuck?
That was so long ago.
I know it's 2025 now.
Rachel Cyr (10:50):
Well, almost 2026.
Kayla Ogden (10:52):
Like by the time nine years ago.
Yeah.
Rachel Cyr (10:55):
Isn't that wild?
Kayla Ogden (10:55):
That's weird.
That's giving me the heebiejeebies because I feel like it
wasn't that.
Rachel Cyr (11:00):
You know, I really conflate Me Too and 2020 and BLM
and all of those feel veryconnected to me.
Yes, they do.
Um, I think it was just anintense set of years.
Like that was a very intense,like five-year span that got
really condensed in our heads.
Kayla Ogden (11:14):
Yes.
Rachel Cyr (11:15):
You know, from 2017 to 2022, I think was very
intense.
Kayla Ogden (11:19):
So I read his Apology, the one where he
promised to step back and listenfor a while.
Uh, but to use a TaylorSwiftism, that time was quite
short.
After he decided the dust wassettled, he was get getting back
on stage doing his own stand-upcomedy production.
I followed his newsletter.
(11:39):
I watched his sort of comebackspecial.
And then I bought the audiobookfor Ingram.
Um, it's a work he said isn't acomedy, but a work of literary
fiction, which by the way,somebody calling their own work
literary fiction, like in publicas a way to describe it, to me
(12:00):
is sort of crazy.
I don't know.
Why, why?
Rachel Cyr (12:03):
Um because what would be the term that feels
better?
Just my debut novel.
Kayla Ogden (12:09):
Yeah, yeah.
My debut mo novel, it's a workof fiction.
Calling your own work to anyoneoutside of the production of
it, like to anybody outside ofthe inner workings and the
business, like your Adrian oryour editor or your publicist or
whoever.
I feel like it's sort of likebraggy and weird.
Rachel Cyr (12:31):
So the word the use of the word literary feels
elite.
To me, yes.
Kayla Ogden (12:36):
Okay, no, no, I can I definitely resonate with
that.
It's like you're calling itliterary before anybody else
has, basically.
Rachel Cyr (12:43):
Um by all intents and purposes, it is literature,
right?
However, the word literaturedefinitely feels literary
elevates it.
Exactly.
Kayla Ogden (12:55):
It's like he's saying, like, this is an a could
win awards.
This should be, this is thenext great American classic.
Like it that's how it feels tome.
I would completely agree.
Yeah.
He's totally presenting likethat.
Oh, I just wanted to say, like,um, so it sounds like I am
Louis C.K.'s biggest fan ever.
It's not like I'm walkingaround, I or was before he was
(13:17):
canceled, like wearing LouisC.K.
shirts or I'd never been to histhing.
But you know those people,those creatives or celebrities
that for some reason, wheneverthere's like a link about them,
you just click in.
Sure.
Whether you like them or not.
I think initially what drew meto Louis C.K.
(13:40):
was he had this quality of thislike bumbling, self-effacing,
everyday dude.
He does definitely have that.
And masculine, and you know,he's he had like the dad bot and
stuff.
And when he would talk aboutmen, um, he would be like, We're
so disgusting, like, look atour big disgusting dicks.
(14:03):
And then he'd be like, Butwomen, they're so they're so
beautiful.
And he's like, a vaginashouldn't be called a vagina, it
should be called like a floop afloop loop, like a butterfly
floop, or it's so like beautifuland delicate, and like he would
juxtapose like his disgustingself against the the goddess
(14:23):
like beauty of of women and howmuch he just wanted to be near
them and like fuck them,essentially.
And for some reason thatcharmed me very much, I think.
Rachel Cyr (14:35):
Yeah, until he was using it, his powers for evil.
Yes, or not, I mean evil.
I okay, yes.
Kayla Ogden (14:41):
Yeah, he definitely, I mean, the whole
thing is that he broughtcomedians into his hotel room
who were not as successful ashim, who thought they were gonna
get a leg up in the industry orthey were doing some
networking, and then he askedthem for for permission to jerk
off in front of them, and theyuncomfortably laughed and said
(15:02):
yes, and then he jerked off tocompletion, and then they ran
out the door.
Right.
Um, which that's all crazy andsketchy and a power trip and
everything, right?
Although he like he does saylater, he's like, I always ask
for consent.
The part afterward, I think isI don't know, you'd have to ask
the women, but to me it's almostworse because it's like after
(15:23):
that he talked to his agent orhis handler or whatever, and was
like, he he shot things down,and all his comedian friends
around like shut shut the womendown when they tried to talk
about it.
Right.
And it affected their wholecareers.
Right.
It's one thing to have somenasty guy jack off in front of
you in a hotel room with yourfriend and run away screaming
and be like, I can't believethat fucking happened to us.
(15:45):
That's disgusting.
And it's another thing for yourwhole career to then suffer
because you witnessed thatthing.
Rachel Cyr (15:51):
Totally.
Kayla Ogden (15:52):
Anyways, piece of shit, all the shit that he did.
But even after I knew about allthe shit that he did, I still
clicked on the links, like Isaid, I still ingest everything
and I just for some reason findit fascinating.
There's obviously a huge debateover whether we can engage with
people's work when they're notnice people, like they're shitty
(16:13):
people.
Right.
Like, for example, like I don'tlisten to Michael Jackson.
Sure.
Even though he's dead and noneof the money would go to him or
whatever.
I just, it's too creepy to me.
And like I just can't.
I when he was alive, like Ijust I could never like be a fan
of him because I was like, he'sa pedophile, he's a disgusting
child rapist.
Rachel Cyr (16:32):
It's really tricky to support it's really tricky to
support artists that you knoware bad people.
Even Picasso now.
Like I look at his work and I'mlike, ugh.
What did Picasso do?
He was like a very known, veryabusive towards women, like
extremely abusive person, andlike fuck.
Yeah.
Um, which sucks.
(16:53):
You know, it's like, yeah,okay, there's a I mean, so many
people, not just creative, somany people do bad things.
And there's like a really hardline we all have to walk of
where does the support stop andwhere does it a lawyer could be
a really shitty person, but agreat lawyer, but nobody's
asking about their personallife, you know?
To hire them, yeah, exactly.
(17:14):
And so because we have this,you know, quote unquote benefit
of knowing the personal lives ofthese uh artists, yeah, then we
have the you know the right tojudge them.
And the discretion.
Yeah, which I think that onceyou have the knowledge, you
should use the knowledge.
So I mean it's just a fine lineto walk.
It's a fine, it's fine.
Kayla Ogden (17:33):
Yeah.
You know, and people are like,okay, don't put your money
toward like vote with yourmoney, which I I get, right?
It's like don't shop on Amazon,don't buy Louis C.K.'s book, or
don't, you know, whatever.
But I just for some reasondon't care if Louis C.K.
gets two dollars from mebuying, or actually he might get
(17:55):
a big bag from that because hetends to produce his own shit.
But you know, I don't reallycare if Louis C.K.
gets 10 bucks from this.
I just don't.
I just don't give a shit.
I don't think that it affectshim at all whatsoever.
I think, you know, wearing aLouis C.K.
t-shirt and telling everybodyto think promoting him is is
different than giving him 10bucks.
Rachel Cyr (18:17):
Sure.
Although I mean we arepromoting him right now.
Any Any Press is good press.
Any press is good press.
I mean, I have no problem withthis.
I think we're we're what we'redoing is fine.
I think we're good.
Okay, well, if Rachel sayswe're good, we're good because
she's a type.
I am very vote with yourdollar.
Yeah, and you're a type typeone.
Kayla Ogden (18:36):
Type one.
She's an Enneagram type one.
Rachel Cyr (18:38):
A little type A and a little type one.
A little type A and a littletype one and a little type four
when she's stressed.
Kayla Ogden (18:44):
Yeah, that's very true.
Um oh my god, we're so fuckingtight on time.
Okay, okay.
Oh, well, we don't have thatmuch to say.
Rachel Cyr (18:50):
So let's talk about what we thought of the book.
Hit me with it.
Kayla Ogden (18:53):
Hit yeah.
Demon Copperhead by BarbaraKing Solver is one, is a
masterpiece.
It's one of the best books thatI've ever read in my life.
That's good.
And it's based on the 19thcentury novel David Copperfield,
which was set in Appalachia.
Demon Copperhead was set inAppalachia.
(19:14):
I don't know if DavidCopperfield was set in
Appalachia.
I haven't read DavidCopperfield, but this brand of
books, a young person, like aHuck Finn kind of thing or
whatever, where they're sent outon their own with nothing, and
then they come of age throughthis like adventure and this
journey, and they go through allthese trials and and
(19:36):
tribulations, right?
I love reading those.
Sure, me too.
So I enjoyed Louis C.K.'s book,Ingram, when I listened to the
audio version.
But I was talking to my friendDilara Stu about this the other
day.
Like, there's a really lowbarrier to me liking this kind
of a book, a coming of age sortof tale like this journey.
(19:59):
Like this.
Whereas, like, say it were aromance novel and it was written
this shittily, I could not evenbegin to listen to it.
Sure.
Right?
So it's like, I just like thiskind of shit.
So easy for me to do it.
Rachel Cyr (20:13):
That's a good disclaimer.
Kayla Ogden (20:14):
Yeah.
Rachel Cyr (20:15):
Okay.
Kayla Ogden (20:16):
Okay.
As a writer, like as an editor,like doing a critique or you
know, rating it or something, Iwould say it is not a good work
of literary fiction.
And there's a lot to not likeabout it.
Rachel Cyr (20:29):
I thought it was so clunky.
The the the the way that thecharacters spoke.
I like I understand that he wastrying to really um highlight
that the the kid was uneducatedand he really didn't know how to
speak properly.
But the way that it waswritten, the way that he
narrates it on top of it feelsso clunky and so ugly, not in a
(20:52):
in a uneducated way.
It felt just straight up ugly,like a ugly I don't want to.
If you hadn't asked me to readit and listen to it, I would
have stopped.
Kayla Ogden (21:02):
Um because uh how far did you get?
And like, yeah, can you recaphow what you've sort of heard so
far?
Rachel Cyr (21:10):
Sure.
So you've listened to likethree hours?
So it's a 10-hour book or11-hour book, and I'm six, I
have six hours left.
So poor thing.
Four or five hours in.
The kid starts on the farm.
He's like, How old?
You don't know.
He really doesn't say you don'teven know the kid's name until
well, he doesn't know, sure.
But like he doesn't even givelike an example of is this kid
(21:32):
four?
Is he eight?
Like, there's no there's a bigdevelopmental leap.
Does Louis CK have kids?
Because he would know how towrite that better.
If he does have kids.
Okay, well, he should fuckinglook at them.
It's ridiculous.
You you don't you get the ideathat this kid's four, and then
by the time the kid's out in theworld on his own, because his
mom was like, you gotta go.
(21:52):
You you find out that maybehe's 10 by the looks of him, but
he doesn't know his age becausesupposedly no one ever told him
his age.
Okay, fine.
Talk about sh tell, not show.
Like he is not showing shit.
You don't know what anyonecould possibly look like.
Apparently, his mom has longhair that you find out at one
point, but why?
Why do we even find that out?
(22:13):
It's like a weird grosswatching his mom put her hair
down for the first time ever.
Like, I'm sorry.
You've never seen your motherput her hair down even.
Well, well, if he was three,sure.
Is he is but is he ten?
We don't fucking know.
And like, sorry, mom, you putyour hair down.
Yeah.
I just can't do it.
Kayla Ogden (22:33):
Oh, there's a scene where his mother, she's she's
ill and they're poor, and thefather has left, and Louis C or
not Louis CK, I'm like, thistiny little Louis CK, no,
Ingram, the character, he'ssitting on the bed with his
mother and she unwraps her bun,and then her hair just keeps on
fall.
Her hair goes all the way downher back and she sits on her
(22:55):
hair.
Right.
And then her hair just startslike coming out, like just like
it's just like falling out andfalling out.
And then Ingram runs back inthe barn where he was previously
banished to and decides he'sjust gonna fucking sleep out
there because his mom is sogross.
Rachel Cyr (23:09):
Yeah, right.
Yeah.
So I feel like that was maybethe first and only.
No, because he even tells that.
I don't feel like it wasshowing.
It wasn't like hair entwined inher fingers or like anything.
It was a badly described momentthat was, you know, obviously
kind of a visceral moment, butbadly described.
(23:30):
You just described it waybetter than he wrote it.
Well, thank you.
Kayla Ogden (23:35):
There's no characters that had any he
describes so um, I'll justpreface this by saying I listen
to the whole thing, but when I'mlistening to audiobooks, I'm
doing a lot of other stuff.
I'm driving or I'm cleaning orwhatever, and I'll sometimes
leave and leave the room andcertain things.
So I do miss a lot.
But um, I started listening toit again because I knew we were
(23:58):
doing this.
So I listened to probably aboutthe first 45 minutes over
again, and I caught a lot more.
And when he when he leaves hishouse, so Ingram is banished
from his home after his fatherleaves.
They have to sell the farm.
His mother is ill and starving,and she says, Go out on your
own, Ingram.
I have nothing for you.
I can't do anything for you,you know, because mothers are
(24:20):
like that.
And then he, you know, startsgoing down the road and and he
meets this mountain by thestreet.
It's just a man, it's just ablack man, but he calls him a
mountain, and he does describethe way that the mountain looks
in so much detail.
It's crazy.
Like he describes how like theinside of his hands are sort of
a reddish brown, but the backsare darker, and the inside of
(24:43):
his mouth is red, and his hairlooks like a this, and his like
the way he describes this blackman to me is borderline
indulgent and exploitative andobjectifying to black people to
me.
Agreed.
And I was wondering, like,because I because having a
child, right?
Like having a seven-year-oldchild and a four-year-old child,
(25:06):
first of all, when they're likereally little, when they're
like four and under, they don'teven really notice people's
different skin colors and stuff,which is cool.
Like they're not like, oh, myfriend's black, my friend's
brown, my friend's Asian.
Like they just don't, it'scool.
They just don't really.
We live in a really, reallydiverse area.
Um, so our friends are from,you know, all different colors
(25:30):
of the rainbow and cultures andstuff.
And then as they get older,yeah, it's just, it wasn't
really believable to me.
Um, but I did like that whenIngram is meeting this homeless
man, the mountain, and hedescribes him so vividly, like
the character says, I never knewthat looking at somebody's face
(25:53):
so close up could be soperfectly pleasant.
And I was like, oh, well,that's actually like a very
endearing quality to Ingram thathe is this boy that's been so
isolated.
The mountain is one of the, youknow, under 10 people he's ever
seen, like close up, probably.
Rachel Cyr (26:12):
I like the character of the mountain.
Yeah.
Kayla Ogden (26:14):
I it was a little pat though, because then the the
the mountain, the first personhe uh Ingram meets on the road
is like, when I was 10, my mamacast me out of the house and I
had no money at all, and I hadto go wander and it's like how
many people are going aroundwandering at 10 years old and
their mums are just kicking themout of the house.
Rachel Cyr (26:32):
Wait, what year does all this take place?
Does he ever even say that?
No.
Yeah, say what the fuck?
We need more details, or atleast show us what year it is.
What kind of cars are they?
Describe them.
Like there's trucks on amotorway.
What kind of cars, what kind oftrucks are they?
I don't like I feel likethere's no descriptions of
(26:53):
anything where you can get yourbearings.
Kayla Ogden (26:55):
I read this article um on Slate, which was like a
review of the book.
Let me just pull it up here.
Rachel Cyr (27:04):
Where the fuck did it go?
The titles Louis C.K.'s debutnovel is a mess.
Kayla Ogden (27:10):
Yeah.
It's by Laura Miller.
This is a very well-writtenarticle.
Oh, there's like a very unlikesuch a dum-dum picture of huge
picture of Louis C.K.
Um she is oh my gosh, you haveto read this.
So she goes, six months ago,this was in November, Louis
C.K., the once acclaimedcomedian disgraced by
(27:31):
revelations of sexual misconductin 2017, announced in an email,
turns out I'm also a novelist,which is like exactly what how I
took it.
Like that it was so shoddy.
And um, he says it's not acomedy book, it's a literary
novel.
It is literally a literarynovel.
What she says in her article isthat the most interesting thing
(27:55):
that she thought about the bookwas the outside world, and that
he barely even touches upon itbecause um we don't know when
it's set.
It's either in the future orit's like um a different
timeline.
You know what I mean?
Like there's those thesealternate, alternate uh gives
her universe.
Later, Ingram goes to a towncalled New Austin.
(28:18):
Okay, and he's like kind oflooking around at all the
people, and he's like, Therewere men wearing dresses and
ladies with beard, and they werewearing all this bright
clothing.
Interesting.
Um, and it was called like NewAustin, and New Austin was like
work together, live apart.
(28:38):
Okay.
So the segregation betweenblack people and white people in
this reality was starting to.
I don't know, New Austin wantedblack people to come and work
with the white people, but notlive with them.
Rachel Cyr (28:50):
Interesting.
Kayla Ogden (28:51):
So for some reason, Louis C.K.
has written an alternatereality or a futuristic book
where segregation is a thingagain.
Okay, great.
Yeah, why don't we makesegregation between black people
and white people of all thingsa thing again?
Rachel Cyr (29:09):
Right.
At the mention of segregationat the beginning of the book, it
felt very clear that it was setin like the 40s or something.
Kayla Ogden (29:14):
That's when you think it's yeah, the 40s or 50s,
and he's getting sent out, andthings seem way more like old
timey that a child would getsent out of their house in no
shoes.
Maybe it's the depression, oryou know, whatever.
But it's like, no, it's eithermodern or I think it might be
like in a close future becausethere's also a description of
cars, which apparently makesthem sound futuristic, how they
(29:37):
like zoom so fast, and I don'tknow, maybe they don't have
wheels or something.
Rachel Cyr (29:41):
So I just took that as a dumb kid looking at a
motorway for the first time.
Kayla Ogden (29:45):
Yeah, I know.
So that's the other thing.
What she thinks is that itwould be better, a better book
if it was more about like what'sgoing on in the world, that
that was the most interestingthing to her.
That wasn't the mostinteresting thing to me.
I think that Ingram's storycould have been well told in
current day Texas.
Absolutely.
(30:05):
It does not have to be in afuture, like the segregation and
shit.
He could literally just commenton real life literal
segregation that happens.
Rachel Cyr (30:16):
Right.
I just none of this tracks forme.
I I feel like this alternatereality that's just an excuse
for his shitty descriptions ofother cultures, like his
description of the Mexicans thathe works with in the cornfield,
and his description of theblack people that he's come
across, you know, four hoursinto the book.
They're shitty descriptions,and then listening to him
(30:38):
narrate it was painful when he'shasn't done an accent for
anybody until he does theMexican accents, and then it was
like, oh my gosh, shoot me inthe back.
Kayla Ogden (30:50):
He's Mexican.
Oh, he is?
He is, isn't that crazy?
Rachel Cyr (30:53):
Okay, Lucy K is Mexican.
Then you can do your shittyMexican accent, Luis CK, but it
felt off putting.
Kayla Ogden (31:00):
I was like, oh, like he's speaking Spanish.
I I don't know how much Spanishhe knows, but doesn't speak it
very well.
Oh, okay.
Do you speak it?
Rachel Cyr (31:10):
No.
But it sounded clunky.
The whole book was clunky.
Okay.
Kayla Ogden (31:16):
This book is a first person book, right?
He's like, I did this, I didthat.
Sure.
And what you find out later islike at the end of the book,
he's a man.
He's like 17 or 18 orsomething, right?
A young man.
And so he's telling this storyas somebody who has seen
streetlights now, who knows whatcars are and and motorways and
(31:41):
all this stuff.
When I'm looking back on mychildhood, if I were to say,
like he says at one point, he'stalking about I think an
overpass, and he says, I saw atall, rusted tree.
And he's clearly talking aboutlike a pillar of some kind.
But then later he talks aboutthe poles and he knows what
poles are, but he doesn't know.
And if I were talking about mychildhood, say I had never seen
(32:05):
the ocean or no one told meabout a boat or something.
Right.
And I which is just crazy, butand I saw a boat at like eight
years old.
But I was telling the storywhen I was 20.
I would tell somebody, I saw aboat, and to me, I was so
confused because I hadn't Ididn't realize that people
traveled on water that way, orto me, the shape seemed crazy.
(32:26):
I didn't know how it couldfloat or something like that.
But you wouldn't be like, and Isaw this huge banana, but it
was made of metal.
Right.
Rachel Cyr (32:35):
And there were right, your lens shifts if
you're talking from an old fromthe older perspective.
Yes, exactly.
And you could say, I didn'tunderstand what it was.
I think I, you know, I thoughtit was a banana.
Kayla Ogden (32:48):
It reminded me of this.
And, you know, but to act likeit's first person and it's still
mysterious to you.
So, like if you're writing froma first person point of view,
but it's in the present, thenit's really cool because you can
write this book that starts offin like childish in being
childish, sure, and then thewriting can mature as go up,
(33:10):
which I think is like a superexciting device as a writer to
be able to let the voice of thestory evolve and mature.
But because Louie is writing itfrom the 18-year-old's
perspective, he never tells youwho you are, like why he's
telling the story to anybody orlike how he's telling it.
(33:31):
It's not epistolary, so he'snot like writing in a journal or
anything.
And at the end, he's just like,should I tell you the end?
Or you don't give a fuck.
Um, at the end, he's just like,Oh, and I wrote off with my
dad, and me and my dad rode offin the car.
But he's never like um, yeah,so that was something I found
(33:52):
really needed work.
And um, another quote, I'llread what I thought that the
Laura Miller said really well atthe end of her article.
She says, Ingram seems most ofall like the kind of first novel
that ends up in a drawer andstays there until the author
dies.
Whereupon, if the writer'sfully realized works have won
(34:15):
over enough readers, it mightget dragged out and published by
the artist's heirs.
But CK is famous and still hasmany fans despite his scandals.
And what ought to have beencashiered as mere juvenilia
winds up printed betweenhardcovers with a slipcover
photo of its author sitting at amanual typewriter and listed
(34:36):
for $27.95.
This choice does no one anyfavors, most especially CK, who
might have a genuinelyworthwhile novel in him if he
had the incentive to work harderand longer at the craft.
Instead, he's just sitting inthe dirt.
That's another thing about thisbook.
Um, the little boy at thebeginning, he's he's it's like I
was either sitting at at on theporch or I was sitting in the
(34:59):
dirt watching the pigs.
And he keeps talking about howhe's sitting in the dirt,
sitting in the dirt, sitting inthe dirt.
Just because you're fuckingpoor doesn't mean you want to
sit on the dirt if there's aporch.
And just because you're achild.
Like, I just don't believe inthat.
I don't believe a child wouldliterally just sit in dirt for
no reason.
Rachel Cyr (35:16):
There's also um this like the no shoes thing, and
this kid like with had a hole inhis foot at one point, and then
they I mean, just likemedically, what was happening
there needed to have a littlebit more like he was like
deeply, he was deeply isolatedand abused, this child.
Kayla Ogden (35:36):
Right.
Um, not not like physicallyabused, but he was he was with
neglect neglected, yeah,severely neglected.
I just want to say that therewere a couple of things that as
uh as I was listening to itagain that I caught that I
thought was like kind of cool.
So this child has a repressedmemory.
The spoiler alert, whole hellaspoiler alert.
(35:57):
This whole book, the child, um,as he's going on this journey,
he keeps on having thesememories.
Like he, I remember this or Ifeel this about this way, but I
don't know why.
And when he's looking at themountain's face, this um
homeless black man, and he'sclose up to his face, and he
thinks it's perfectly pleasantto, you know, uh gaze upon
somebody's countenance at closerange.
(36:18):
And he says, I had the feelingthat I had looked upon another
face this close up before, but Idon't remember like who it was
or how.
And then throughout the book,he keeps on doing that.
Um, but to me, it kind of gotlost on the first go-around.
But then now when I heard that,like my breath like caught in
my throat.
I was like, Oh my god, likethat was his brother who died
(36:40):
that he was in bed with and wassick, and like they were close
face to face, like up close.
And it kind of feels like Louiewent back in the book and
sprinkled these repressedmemories throughout.
But they are, it is harrowing.
And I think that the revealthat his this the there's a
(37:01):
reveal as to why he got shovedin the barn, um, as to why he
was neglected and why he gotthis his brother's hat, but he
doesn't remember ever having abrother.
I feel like that could havelike made me cry or like really,
really hit hard, but for somereason, like it didn't.
But I like upon listening to itagain, I thought that was
(37:21):
really uh harrowing andbeautiful.
That passage.
Rachel Cyr (37:25):
Yeah, that that had potential, yeah for sure.
Kayla Ogden (37:28):
Yeah.
Um, so there there weredefinitely gems in there.
Um, sorry, there was anotherpart that he says it's not a
comedy book, but I literallylaughed fucking out loud.
So Ingram goes into this likestore, which is um toxic.
He finds a little boy in thestore, and the little boy
sitting there, like he's youngerthan Ingram, and he's just like
(37:49):
scooping ketchup out of a caninto his mouth, and he's so
dirty and gross.
And the little boy has thisinsane attitude.
Ingram is like, why are youdoing that?
Like, why don't you eat some ofthis food or anything?
And then the little boy kind oflooks up at him and he's like,
I like ketchup.
I like it.
Amazing little boy characterwho is so funny and so sassy.
(38:13):
Like, he joins Ingram for partof the tale, and that made me
laugh out loud.
And I would love for Louis C.
K to write a a heartfelt booklike this, where there's like
there's drama and there's stakesand everything, but infuse it
with a lot of comedy.
Rachel Cyr (38:30):
So that's the perfect segue into the quote
that I have that I I thought wasgreat from the from the New
York Times article that I read.
Um who wrote it?
A meditative Louise C.
K.
Takes the stage, don't call ita comeback.
So it wasn't about the thewhole article wasn't about this
book, but it was um they didtalk about it quite a bit.
(38:51):
And it's by Jason Zinneman.
He says, Witnessing this giftedcomedian write dutifully harm
humorless fiction is likewatching a pro athlete compete
with an arm tied behind theirback, or for that matter, Don
DeLillo doing stand-up.
I've never heard of that writerDon Development.
Me neither.
But I think that that ties inperfectly.
Yes.
He probably could writesomething really well.
(39:13):
Yeah.
If he called it a debut novel,you'd maybe be more forgiving.
We'd may potentially be like,but so calling it literary
fiction, and then it being thisclunky, and then it not having
the humor that you you knowyou're saying that like you
would have craved from him, addin some humor.
Don't have your arm tied behindyour back, Louie.
Kayla Ogden (39:32):
Yes, absolutely.
Absolutely.
I think that this one shouldhave gone in the drawer, but
there's so much potential, andhe was just super cocky.
Rachel Cyr (39:40):
Yeah.
Kayla Ogden (39:41):
And I think he needed to work with more people
and take more time with it, andthat next time he should do
something similar where it'slike funny all throughout.
I would read that in a in aheartbeat.
I would love that.
So I guess that's our take.
Rachel Cyr (39:54):
Oh, yeah.
All right.
Sorry, Louie, for being such abitch, but I'm sure you loved
it.
I'm sure you fucking loved it.
Kayla Ogden (40:02):
Okay, so next okay, and um if you guys like the
show, please um what is it smashthat smash it this is the the
YouTube vernacular, I think.
The Zoom or YouTube um smashthat subscribe button or
whatever, give us five stars onthe the service that you're
(40:25):
using or write us a nice review.
Literally, we will peoplearen't really doing that even
though they're listening to theshow.
I know we know you'relistening.
Just kidding.
Um, what do we we used to callthem hardies?
Rachel Cyr (40:39):
Oh yeah, hardties.
Okay, hardies.
We used to call it we one time.
We did it one time.
Okay, yeah.
Kayla Ogden (40:43):
Hardies, get your little, get your little
heart-shaped butts out there.
And click that heart.
Because you know what?
When we see that, it just letsus know that you're there and
we're not just talking to eachother in a closet like a couple
of schizophrenic um overheads.
Rachel Cyr (40:58):
Okay, at least we I know you're there.
I can touch you.
Yeah, you know, yeah, I'myou're real.
All right.
That'd be really freaky.
I mean, all right.
All right, okay, bye-bye.
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