[00:00:00] OLIVIA HABER GREENWOOD: I’m just never going to really like them as much as other books. Maybe not, you know? Maybe I’d be closing myself off to something.
ANNE BOGEL: And that doesn’t feel good to you because there’s a lot of great books out there and you don’t want to miss a bunch because you’re not looking.
OLIVIA: Exactly, exactly.
ANNE: Okay.
OLIVIA: That’s why I’ve come to you, Anne.
ANNE: Hey readers, I’m Anne Bogel and this is What Should I Read Next?. Welcome to the show that’s dedicated to answering the question that plagues every reader, what should I read next? We don’t get bossy on this show. What we will do here is give you the information you need to choose your next read. Every week we’ll talk all things books and reading and do a little literary matchmaking with one guest.
[00:00:47] Readers, today’s guest is looking for novels featuring an ensemble cast of characters and multiple points of view, but she has a specific sticking point where she would love my help.
Olivia Haber Greenwood is joining me today from Barcelona, where she’s lived for the past seven years working as a copywriter and freelance journalist. Olivia is a happy reader with an abundant reading life, but she’s found herself stymied when it comes to novels featuring multiple points of view. And this is something she is really seeking a breakthrough on.
Olivia loves the concept of these books, and she’s seen, with envy, so many other readers enjoying them. But since voice is such a strong component of what she loves in a book, sometimes, well, most of the time, she is finding these multiple point of view novels fall a bit flat.
[00:01:36] That’s because she wants to read characters with voices so strong, so distinctive that those voices carry their personalities and even the whole story for a time. And what she dreams up is a story told from multiple points of view where every character’s distinctive, unmistakable voice elicits a big wow. It’s a tall order. Can we do it?
Well, I will tell you what I told Olivia. I don’t know, but we are going to have fun trying today. But I will say, I think by the end of our conversation, we arrive at some excellent options for what Olivia may enjoy reading next.
Quick note about what you’re about to hear. In the recommendations portion, you’ll hear Olivia ask if she should mention a certain tidbit about a Lauren Groff novel because she fears it may be spoilery. You’ll hear she and I go back and forth about it and we left it in because what Olivia is referencing is what the book is about. Just really what it’s about, and in fact, the entire heart of author Lauren Groff’s elevator pitch for the book.
[00:02:29] I’m telling you now so that you don’t get nervous when you hear the word “spoiler” mentioned in this episode. But if you truly want to know absolutely nothing about Fates and Furies, except that Lauren Groff wrote it and it came out 10 years ago, skip ahead about four minutes when the book is first introduced.
With that being said, let’s get to it.
Olivia, welcome to the show.
OLIVIA: Thank you for having me, Anne. It’s great to be here.
ANNE: Oh, the pleasure is mine. I was actually quite intimidated when I saw your submission. I thought, “That is not the kind of thing… well, one, it’s not the kind of thing you can Google for sure what you were looking for.” And I thought, “I don’t know that my memory is that good where I can generate some ideas.”
But then I kept reading and reading, and I was like, “Oh, maybe Olivia would like this. Oh, maybe this one. Maybe this one. Here’s another one.”
OLIVIA: Incredible.
ANNE: I’m excited to talk today, long story short. Although I was just telling you that I had this terrible thought 10 minutes ago that maybe I misunderstood entirely what you’re looking for. But…
[00:03:32] OLIVIA: I don’t think so. I highly doubt that. And even if you did, whatever you have for me is going to be so cool and just different than I would have expected, I’m sure.
ANNE: So that’s where I was going with the “but”. We will enjoy the journey-
OLIVIA: Exactly.
ANNE: …to perhaps, you know, and metaphorically landing in this bouldering heap of terrible book recommendations. But we get to talk about books along the way.
OLIVIA: It’s never happened beforehand, and I doubt that my episode is going to be the first one. But I guess we’ll see.
ANNE: We’ll find out. We’ll find out in 45 minutes. But first of all, thank you for being here. Would you give our readers a glimpse of who you are?
OLIVIA: So I live in Barcelona. I’ve lived here for seven years. I’m originally from Missoula, Montana. I spent a lot of my 20s kind of moving around, traveling a lot, and I ended up in Barcelona. Lucky me.
[00:04:30] ANNE: Olivia, hang on. Would you just for a moment let us know how it was Barcelona specifically that hooked you?
OLIVIA: You know what they say about Barcelona? They call it “Carcelona”. Carcel means jail. So it’s kind of like…
ANNE: I’ve not heard that before.
OLIVIA: You come in and kind of a force field closes around you and you stay here. No. I mean, I’m joking. But at the same time, so many people tell the story like, “I came for a few months. I thought I was going to stay for this long. And well, you know, 13 years later.”
My story is similar. I had been traveling a lot in my 20s. And I spoke Spanish because I had… Well, just throughout my life, spent a lot of time in Latin America. I had decided that I wanted to be a courtroom interpreter. So I was studying this. And I had passed the written exam and I was, you know, well on my way.
[00:05:37] But I really felt like my Spanish wasn’t quite fluent enough, or there was just kind of something that was lacking. And I thought, “Okay, I’m going to Spain. I’m going to do a master’s in courtroom interpreting and legal translation. And I’m going to come back to the States, Pim-pam-pum, go back to Philadelphia and live that life.”
Well, the first part did happen, but once I got here… and I think I was just lucky because I had been traveling so much and kind of looking for the perfect place. I don’t want to say Barcelona is perfect because it’s not. But I had been looking maybe for a place that had all the ingredients that I was looking for. And I had sort of maybe felt that perhaps that place didn’t really exist, or it was all in my head, or I was too picky or what have you. But then I got here and I realized it was all here the whole time. So yeah, I wasn’t going to go anywhere after that.
[00:06:41] ANNE: I’m glad it suits you.
OLIVIA: Yeah, yeah, it really does. Obviously, I didn’t become a courtroom interpreter, but I became a copywriter. I also work as a freelance journalist. I’m kind of a jack of all writing trades. I’m also working on my second novel while I shop the first one around, you know, because I’m a glutton for punishment. And yeah.
In my free time, well, I obviously read a lot. I’m always looking for the perfect cala, which is the Spanish for cove. You know, in the Mediterranean, you’ve got these kind of mini beaches that are very secluded. I was looking for a good one to lay down with a book. I started learning piano this year for the first time. And I also dance a lot of salsa.
ANNE: Ooh, that sounds like fun.
OLIVIA: Yeah.
[00:07:40] ANNE: Was that a before or after Barcelona hobby?
OLIVIA: Salsa started before, but really, it was here in Barcelona that I was able to get better at it. It’s hard to find time for it all, you know, in the day-to-day. But yeah, I really love it. I do.
ANNE: Now, Olivia, what do you tell us about your reading life?
OLIVIA: My reading life is a really happy one. I have to say, somehow reading has escaped the part of my personality that, you know, is very kind of perfectionist, or maybe I push myself very hard in other areas of my life, or, you know, I’m never satisfied. It’s never enough, something like that.
But for some reason, I don’t have that with books. I love reading. I love the amount that I read. I don’t stress about it. I feel like reading brings me a lot of peace, kind of calms my mind and helps me make sense of the world.
[00:08:46] You know, that feeling when you’re reading a book and the narrator or one of the characters says something on the page that you’ve always thought but no one has ever said out loud to you, and you thought maybe you were the only person who thought that. I mean, that feeling is just kind of what I’m always after. It’s such a rush.
But yeah, as far as what I actually read and how I actually read it, well, mostly fiction, a bit of political writing, philosophy, journalism, memoirs, and things like that as well.
I do prefer a physical book, but I end up reading a lot on the Kindle because I have the Kindle connected to a library back in the U.S. So I can get kind of as many English books as I want, which otherwise would be a real challenge here in Barcelona.
[00:09:42] I do also read in Spanish. I’m actually, for the first time ever, reading a book in Catalan now, and I’m really liking it. But I mostly read in English because that’s just where my reading life lives. But yeah.
I do keep track of my books. At least I have been… I’ve been doing a really good job of it the last three years. I have this kind of bejeweled spreadsheet that has a nice little color palette, fun serif font. I keep track of the author, obviously, the title, and what I thought of the book, and also whatever, any vocabulary words that I learned.
That’s been super fun. I’ve accepted the fact that I’m going to spend less time reading because I spend so much time kind of maintaining my notes about the reading. But I think I’m good with that because I really want to remember what I read.
[00:10:53] I find that also if I write a little paragraph about the book, then when I read that later, it all comes flooding back in a way that doesn’t happen if I just Google it or look at the back cover again or something like that.
ANNE: Yeah.
OLIVIA: So yeah. This year started with a friend, what we’re calling a salon or kind of a, well, the word in Spanish is tertulia, but it’s sort of, you know, you get people together to discuss something. We call it Red Read. The idea is that someone has read a book and they tell everyone else about it in such detail that those people can go forward and feel like they’ve read that book, basically. They can talk about it with authority. And then we discuss the themes over cocktails. It’s a way to help us read more books in the short time we have on earth.
ANNE: That sounds so lightful. Olivia, you mentioned a very particular… I almost said quest. Is that too lofty?
[00:12:00] OLIVIA: No, I don’t think it is, Anne. I think it’s just lofty enough.
ANNE: Just lofty enough. That’s what we’ll title the episode about a kind of book you’re looking for and having a hard time finding. And I’d love to hear a little bit about that before we hear about the books you love and don’t.
OLIVIA: Okay.
ANNE: Would you tell us what you’re looking for?
OLIVIA: So I often hear people talking about multi-POV novels, and they love them. They don’t necessarily say, Oh my gosh, did you read the latest multi-POV novel? But people will tell you a story about a book that they love and they’ll say, “And it’s from multiple perspectives.” And this is a good thing for them. They just love watching the characters develop, seeing them through multiple points of view obviously, the interactions, and just how that plot unfolds. And you know, certain things that other people don’t, whatever. It’s very fun.
[00:12:58] And I want to love it as well. I can’t say that I never have, but I often have this experience when I get to the end of one of these books and I just think, “I didn’t like it as much as everybody else seems to have liked it.” I don’t know why that is, but my guess is it has something to do with how much I love voice-driven novels.
What I mean by that is just that voice that just leaps out of the page, that person that kind of grabs you by the collar of your shirt and goes, “Listen up,” and kind of tells you something that you’ve never heard before, you’ve never thought before, but it feels so authentic and it feels so real.
I just think it’s so hard to do that multiple times in the book. I think it’s really hard to have multiple voices that are that unique and authentic.
[00:14:01] ANNE: Are we talking about manners of speech? Are we talking about the words that fall in a certain order that give you an idea of personality?
OLIVIA: Mm-mm. Mm-mm. Yeah. It’s that interiority. It’s being in the mind of the protagonist. Usually it’s the protagonist. It doesn’t necessarily have to be in first person. Sometimes it’s in third person. Like Nightbitch, for instance, by Rachel Yoder. That is such a unique point of view. Living in that woman’s head was just such an incredible experience.
It’s that feeling of, you know, usually they’re very funny, very acerbic, very opinionated, often going through a very hard time. And you get to just step into their mind and see the world through their eyes. And I think, yeah, that’s kind of what I mean by voice-driven. Does that make sense at all?
[00:15:09] ANNE: I’m trying. Okay. So the voice-driven books you like tend to have a lot of interiority, tend to portray someone going through a hard time, tend to be biting and acerbic.
OLIVIA: Yeah. Yeah. I think so. I think it’s that feeling that the voice of the protagonist is kind of the most interesting part of the book. You know, not that much has to even happen. And that also, maybe different from character-driven novels, the person doesn’t have to become better or necessarily even change that much over the course of the novel, but you feel like you’ve lived in their head for a little bit. I think they usually do end up changing or like, you know, something happens, but… does that track for you? Is that what a voice-driven novel means for you? Because maybe I have the definition all wrong.
[00:16:12] ANNE: Olivia, that’s a surprisingly difficult question to answer because I told you, I read your submission multiple times before it finally clicked for me, “Oh wait, voice-driven. And I wonder what she means by that.”
When I think about a novel that has a really distinctive voice, I mean, These Heathens by Mia McKenzie comes immediately to mind from the Summer Reading Guide, where the narrator is this 17-year-old girl named Doris who talks on the page in a way that I don’t remember spending time with someone talking like that on the page before.
OLIVIA: Yeah, exactly. It’s how they talk on the page. Absolutely.
ANNE: But it wasn’t just like, oh, doesn’t this person talk in an interesting way? It was like I was being welcomed into her entire way of seeing, understanding, and moving through the world.
OLIVIA: Mm-mm. Exactly. Yeah. Or Sorrow and Bliss was one I read recently after it was recommended.
[00:17:15] ANNE: So that felt voicey to you?
OLIVIA: That felt very voicey. Yeah, because you’re in Martha’s head, you’re going through what she’s going through. And she’s so funny, but she’s so sick. She’s so ill. At the same time, you question her a bit, but you’re there with her because no one sees the world like she does.
ANNE: Okay, that’s helpful. I hear what you’re saying about the Meg Mason. When I try to contrast this with like a character-driven, my brain starts breaking.
OLIVIA: Right.
ANNE: Because sometimes, maybe I wouldn’t call a book character-driven, maybe I might. But I think those two things can often go together. That doesn’t mean that to one specific reader, they might be like, “Oh, the best part for me was the voice, the character’s personality. They’re really shown through every word they said.” But when I try to be like, “Where is the line?” I can’t do it.
[00:18:18] But I think if we talk about books you love and the distinctive voice they have, that might be a helpful way to move forward. Does that get you what you want or no?
OLIVIA: Absolutely. Yeah, let’s do it.
ANNE: Okay. I’m noticing, perhaps, I’m gaining some insight into your problem right away, let’s put it like that. And that is, as you’re describing the books that you enjoy, like they’re often biting or acerbic, you’re spending time in somebody’s head, often a woman, often going through a hard time, you just want to be in their mind for a little bit and see things through their eyes.
OLIVIA: Yeah.
ANNE: First-person narratives start flooding my brain.
OLIVIA: Right.
ANNE: And that’s not what you’re looking for.
OLIVIA: Well, I mean, it’s not that I’m not looking for them. I’m always looking for them. I’m always looking for those. But I feel like my picker is pretty well-trained as far as those go. As soon as I heard Sorrow and Bliss described, for instance, I was like, “Oh, I’m going to love that.” And sure, of course I did.
So I’m just wondering, yeah, how I can expand out a little bit as well. Or if there’s maybe a part of the book world that I’m missing that does have that. Or I don’t want to write off multi-POV novels. I’m just never going to really like them as much as other books. Maybe not. Maybe I’d be closing myself off to something.
[00:19:48] ANNE: And that doesn’t feel good to you because there’s a lot of great books out there and you don’t want to miss a bunch because you’re not looking.
OLIVIA: Exactly. Exactly.
ANNE: Okay.
OLIVIA: That’s why I’ve come to you, Anne.
ANNE: All right. We can work with this. Olivia, what I remember you saying is you have friends, you have other readers in your life who love these multi-POV novels, and often they don’t work out for you. I want to hear about what is the attraction or maybe it’s like the magnetism what keeps drawing you back, but also what’s not working.
OLIVIA: Right. Right. I think what ends up being my stumbling block with multi-POV novels is that oftentimes the voices all sound the same to me. Or if that sounds very harsh, it’s not that they sound the same, but maybe they have different problems and they have different ways of seeing the world, but the voice itself ends up kind of sounding the same.
[00:21:04] And I don’t know what to think about that. Maybe I’m just very, for whatever reason, just very kind of picky about that. But I’ll kind of notice that the sentences are sort of similar length, or the rhythm of the thoughts is sort of similar.
Now I’m just getting very technical, but I don’t know how else to explain it. Or they’ll just be kind of similar characters. And I think, “Gosh, was that on purpose?” Because maybe the author is trying to point out similarities between multiple characters in their books and that would be fine. But it doesn’t seem obvious enough. Anyways, that’s where I get tripped up. I get distracted by how they don’t feel like really unique people sometimes.
ANNE: Okay. So if the distinctiveness is what you enjoy, then that’s what you want to find.
OLIVIA: Right.
[00:22:03] ANNE: Okay. Well, I don’t know if we can do that, but we can certainly try.
OLIVIA: I’m feeling so picky over here, but no.
ANNE: Don’t apologize for identifying what you’d love to find in your reading life. Clarity is helpful. It sounds like you got some.
OLIVIA: Yeah. I’m really honing in there.
ANNE: Okay. So let’s talk about your books.
OLIVIA: Fantastic.
ANNE: You know how this works. You’re going to tell me three books you love, one you don’t, what you’ve been reading lately, and we will take that information and see how we can apply it to find some, maybe, possibly, hopefully, fingers crossed, multiple POV reads that will be a lot of fun for you or at least worth trying.
OLIVIA: Yay. Okay. I’m excited.
ANNE: Okay. What’s the first book you love?
[00:22:51] OLIVIA: The first book I love is Play It As It Lays by Joan Didion. I first read this book in college and I fell in love with the voice. Maria, not Ma-ri-a, she’s very clear about, is really going through it.
It’s not entirely clear what’s wrong, what happened, why she’s always driving on the freeway, but it kind of doesn’t matter because the sentences are just so sharp. They’re like a knife through the heart, and her observations are kind of so dry, and the air is so dry, and the humor is so dry. It’s Los Angeles. It’s all happening in Los Angeles, and it’s very LA.
So yeah, I guess just broad strokes. She is this actress who is married to, I believe, a director, and she’s kind of losing some of her prestige or some of her cachet. She has a daughter who is ill, and it’s kind of never defined exactly what’s going on with the daughter, but she’s not able to be with her, and then she’s ultimately institutionalized as well.
[00:24:17] So she’s telling the story kind of in retrospect as to how she ended up where she is, and everybody’s very upset with her, but you don’t quite understand why.
ANNE: And how did this end on your favorites list?
OLIVIA: I was so impressed with the writing. I mean, it’s Joan Didion. I don’t really need to… you know, I don’t need to say, you know, she’s a really great writer.
I think going back to the voice, the character was so unique, and her way of speaking was so unique, and the things that she observed in kind of her day-to-day life amongst these people that were so inauthentic. You know, it’s Hollywood. But her voice is so authentic, and so you have that kind of juxtaposition right from the beginning. So you’re rooting for her because you think she’s the only real one there is, even though she’s not very easy to like necessarily, but you’re rooting for her anyways.
[00:25:21] ANNE: I’ve not read this one, but I just finished the new nonfiction book by Alissa Wilkinson called We Tell Ourselves Stories about Joan Didion, that’s specifically about her years and her influence upon and by way of Hollywood. So this was discussed.
OLIVIA: Incredible.
ANNE: It’s on my list.
OLIVIA: Yes, I have to read that one.
ANNE: I haven’t done it yet.
OLIVIA: That sounds amazing. I love pretty much everything that she does.
ANNE: Okay, play it as a lace. What’s the second book you love, Olivia?
OLIVIA: The End of the Story by Lydia Davis. Lydia Davis is also someone that I was introduced to in college through her short fiction. It wasn’t until much later that I read her novel. I think it’s her only novel that she’s written.
[00:26:16] She’s much more known for being this kind of experimental writer. She writes these micro fiction pieces that some of them are just a paragraph long, some of them are a bit longer than that. She also writes a lot of essays and she’s a translator and does a lot of different things.
But I think this is a very underappreciated novel of hers or part of her work because… yeah, I think she develops a lot of her ideas that she’s exploring in other places in this novel.
But yeah, basically, it’s about this woman who has a brief affair with a younger man, who’s a graduate student at a university where she’s a professor. He’s not her student, but that’s how they know each other. And they break up and she kind of becomes obsessed with him, not a scary way but I guess in that way that… I think of this as kind of a subgenre of fiction or what we might call women’s fiction. But, you know, the obsession novel, kind of like I’m a Fan by Sheena Patel or something in that vein.
[00:27:40] But she’s trying to figure out why she’s so obsessed with this man and why it didn’t work out. And the whole time she kind of realizes that he’s not that special and yet there she is just totally rocked by this breakup. So she’s trying to figure out what’s going on. It’s really fascinating.
Again, you’re right in her head and you’re going through it all with her every phone call, every glimpse, every sighting from across the green or what have you. And it’s all so painful. I think it gave me permission to think about these things and talk about them, and write about them in a different way. So, for that… also, I appreciate this book.
[00:28:36] ANNE: All right. That is helpful, especially noting the obsession. Olivia, what’s the third book you love?
OLIVIA: The third book I love is a more recent read. It’s Colored Television by Danzy Senna. This is one that I heard about on the podcast. I think it was in one of your guides, if I’m not mistaken.
ANNE: It was.
OLIVIA: Oh, my gosh, I loved it. I felt like Jane, the protagonist, kind of floated up out of nowhere and just grabbed my hand and said, “Listen, writing novels is terrible, and it’s okay to want stuff.” And for whatever reason, I think I just needed to hear that at that particular moment in my life.
[00:29:35] Also, what’s happening in the book is she’s struggling through her second novel, I believe. It’s not going well. And she is just finding that being a novelist is totally at odds with domestic life. She’s a mother. She’s a wife. She’s just feeling like a bad mother and disconnected from her partner.
She’s at the same time feeling very lost and worried about her finances. So, yeah, everything is going pretty poorly. And yet her sense of humor… I mean, her sense of humor about things is incredible. Just the way that she is able to observe how ridiculous Los Angeles is. I’ve just realized two of these books take place in LA. I don’t know what that’s about, but it’s the… again, yeah.
[00:30:34] And Hollywood is also involved. How strange. I don’t think of myself as someone who’s that interested in Hollywood, but it’s again that feeling that she’s the only authentic one in the room and she’s kind of seeing through everybody. But at the same time, she’s being quite inauthentic herself because she’s trying to kind of weasel her way in there and you know it’s not going to turn out well.
Just the way that she sees race, the way that she sees class and all of these different things that are happening in her world, I found it so refreshing, so fascinating. Not unlike her first novel too, was just also really interesting in that way.
And I thought I couldn’t like this novel better, but I think I did even like it better than Caucasia? Yeah, just really good. Really good stuff.
[00:31:32] ANNE: And we really get the… I mean, you didn’t say satire, but we get the acerbic. The little bit biting.
OLIVIA: Mm-mmh.
ANNE: Okay. I see it. Olivia, tell me about a book that was not a good fit for you. And I’d love to hear why as well.
OLIVIA: All right. Well, I don’t think it’s going to come as a surprise that I’ve chosen a multi-POV novel for this one, Anne.
ANNE: It’s okay.
OLIVIA: It’s The God of the Woods by Liz Moore. And I can already just hear everyone listening to this being like, “What are you talking about?” And that’s why I feel strange. I do. That’s why I’ve come to you to be fixed, to be healed because everybody loves this book.
ANNE: Hang on. It didn’t work for you. That’s neutral. Let’s hear why. It’s not what you hoped for.
OLIVIA: Okay. And I should say I liked it. I wanted to love it or I wanted to see what everybody else saw in it, I guess.
[00:32:35] ANNE: Tell me about your reading experience. What were you hoping for? I mean, I believe from your submission that the problem here is the mismatch between what you were hoping it would be and what it actually was. So what were you hoping your reading experience would be like? And then what was it actually like for you?
OLIVIA: Well, everybody said, you know, okay, yes, there’s a mystery and there’s a missing person, etc., etc., and there’s an old crime of the past and these things, but it’s very literary and it’s very smart and interesting. And it was smart and interesting, but I guess, for me, there was a few things that rubbed me the wrong way.
I wouldn’t give anything away, but there’s a few things that I just didn’t feel were very realistic. At the end, you find out that there’s an adult who made a decision, and this is an adult that’s very much presented as, in all other ways, like a very sound person with good judgment, but they make a decision that no adult would ever make. No smart adult would ever make. And that bothered me a lot.
[00:33:45] And then also, I think that it was… for me, there was that feeling that not all the voices were different enough. I would say the exception was Tracy, the friend, the friend of the girl who goes missing.
I thought Tracy was very funny and very much a teenage girl who’s insecure, who’s a child of divorce. I saw Tracy and I felt like she made total sense and what she had to say made sense and was consistent. But the detective and the camp counselor they kind of blended together for me. They didn’t really seem like two very distinct people. The other voices just didn’t really pop for me.
ANNE: Okay. So to summarize and also maybe build on and flatly reduce what you said-
OLIVIA: Please.
ANNE: …Liz Moore had a distinctive voice in this story. And also you’ve been hoping that her characters would have their own individual distinctive voices either in addition or instead. I’m not sure which.
[00:34:59] OLIVIA: Right. Because you’re saying that Liz Moore was the voice throughout.
ANNE: Yeah. You felt like you were reading her voice.
OLIVIA: Yeah. Right.
ANNE: And you wanted to feel like you were reading Louisa’s voice.
OLIVIA: Exactly. Or, you know, the mother.
ANNE: And then the investigator’s voice.
OLIVIA: Exactly. Yeah.
ANNE: And then the girl’s voice.
OLIVIA: Right. Exactly.
ANNE: And can you tell it’s been a while so we can’t remember character names?
OLIVIA: I know. I know.
ANNE: Which is how it goes.
OLIVIA: Yeah. Or the kind of crazy guy, the escapee’s voice, you know? He did have a different voice. I’m not going to say he didn’t have his own voice. But I mean, for the person that he is… I mean, he’s a pretty crazy person. You’d think he’d have a pretty crazy voice.
ANNE: All right. We’re going to keep sussing this out. Olivia, what have you been reading lately?
OLIVIA: Well, Sorrow and Bliss, I already mentioned, by Meg Mason. I also read Babel recently by R.F. Kuang. I’m currently rereading Beloved by Toni Morrison. I’m also reading the Catalana book that I referenced before, Vermuts i barbuts, which means vermouths and bearded men by Magda Minguet. Great voice. Great voice.
[00:36:24] ANNE: And how are those working for you?
OLIVIA: Really good. Yeah, yeah. The Vermuts i barbuts is just very much told from the perspective of a woman who’s dating in Barcelona. It’s very, very on the nose, very, very funny, very great. Also, great descriptions of food. I love that as well.
Babel was a little bit outside of my, you know, what I would normally read, but I really liked it. I thought it was very much just the perfect metaphor for colonialism. I feel like that’s when I like to read kind of magical realism or fantasy is when they take a really important issue and kind of think this is the only way to really show all that’s going on here is to kind of take it into a different universe. So yeah, I liked it. I liked it a lot.
[00:37:29] And then Beloved, oh my gosh, I’m rereading it just to understand how it works, because I still don’t understand how she’s that good, how she just kind of tells the story of this horrible tragedy, this intergenerational trauma and all these things that happen. But I’ll just do these like very casual kind of asides between people who are just getting through their day.
ANNE: All right. So we know what you’re looking for. And that is ideally multiple point of view novels with distinctive character voices. Am I getting that right?
OLIVIA: Yes. Mm-hmm.
ANNE: Okay. Anything you want to add to that? Anything useful you’ve maybe realized so far that we should put into the pot?
[00:38:27] OLIVIA: No, I think. I feel like it’s already starting to percolate, but I’d say let’s keep it simple, keep it to that main quandary.
ANNE: Let’s recap. Olivia, the books you loved were Play It As It Lays by Joan Didion, The End of the Story by Lydia Davis, and Colored Television by Danzy Senna. The God of the Woods by Liz Moore was not for you. And you’ve been reading a handful of varied novels lately that are working for you, but are also not the specific thing that you’re looking for.
OLIVIA: Right.
ANNE: So I love that. You said that your picker was pretty good, and your four current and recent reads are underlining that. Like, yeah, that’s working, but this has been a sticking point.
Okay. I also want to say that I keep jotting little notes about books I think might work great for you that also I think you could find for yourself. Like if you’ve not read Emily Austin, she sounds up your alley, or Weike Wang, or have you read the French author, Maud Ventura?
OLIVIA: Ooh, no. I haven’t.
[00:39:33] ANNE: Her new book, Make Me Famous, very voicey, all about obsession.
OLIVIA: Cool.
ANNE: Obsession with fame and becoming famous. You are in this woman’s head is an experience. I’m not saying it’s a nice place to be.
OLIVIA: Perfect. That’s where I want to be.
ANNE: You may find it an interesting place to be.
OLIVIA: Absolutely. Oh, that sounds great.
ANNE: Okay. Kids Run the Show by the French author Delphine de Vigan. I hope I’m getting that right. It came out a couple of years ago. Also written by… I mean, it’s not written by. It’s written by Delphine de Vigan. But from the first-person point of view of… Wait a second. This is a multiple POV story.
OLIVIA: Oh my gosh.
ANNE: Oh, okay. Let’s start here. Okay. So those are some books that I think you may enjoy that are not what you’re looking for. But now I’m wondering about this French novel about an influencer.
[00:40:32] So this is a psychological thriller, and it’s not that woman having a bad day kind of novel. But it was Maud Ventura that brought me here. As you heard, one of the main characters is this really… She’s quite insufferable French influencer who has used her children as characters on her YouTube show to become wealthy and famous, and it’s their entire life. So we are in her head.
But also when this influencer’s child disappears while playing outside their fancy Parisian apartment, the mom is sure it’s because of the family’s social media fame, and it gets lots of attention from the police, including the investigator who has a very… I can picture the office I created for her in my head, like in the shadow of Saint-Chapelle on the Isle. We hear from her point of view as well.
If the influencer and the investigator sound the same on the page, we have a problem. And it’s Delphine de Vigan. I said her name wrong initially.
[00:41:37] But the novel runs from the year 2000 to about the 2030s, like it foresees into the future. It’s really doing something hopefully not too far afield of what you’ve said you enjoyed. It’s taking a big topic like, what does our thoughtless consumption, endless, insatiable consumption, what impact does that have on ourselves and especially on our children?
OLIVIA: Wow. No, that sounds fascinating.
ANNE: Okay. Kids Run the Show by Delphine de Vigan. Translated from the French, and that’s a Europa title for those of you whose ears would perk up at the mention of that publisher. I know it has some ardent fans.
OLIVIA: Oh, yeah.
ANNE: Now… Oh, did I say Death Valley by Melissa Broder? My eyes just lit on that on my notepad.
OLIVIA: You didn’t. I’ve read it and I loved it. Love Melissa Broder.
ANNE: Okay. Another first-person, quirky, don’t really know what’s coming, but interested in finding out.
[00:42:39] OLIVIA: Oh, my gosh. Yeah, The Pisces-
ANNE: I’ve never read that one.
OLIVIA: …could have been on this list. Yeah.
ANNE: Okay. This is an oldie, but I think it’s maybe a sidestep from what you’ve enjoyed in the past.
OLIVIA: Okay.
ANNE: I’m just delaying your reaction. Have you read Fates and Furies by Lauren Groff?
OLIVIA: Oh, my gosh. Okay. I thought that you would bring this up.
ANNE: I thought… I didn’t. I just thought of it like four minutes ago.
OLIVIA: Okay. No. As you should. And I thought, “She’s going to suggest Fates and Furies.” And the thing is, I haven’t read it. And here’s my problem, Anne. But I think I should. I’m very sensitive to spoilers. And this I know has kind of a big twist, and somebody spoiled it for me. It’s been hard for me to pick it up. But I think it is exactly what I’ve been asking for, possibly.
[00:43:38] ANNE: Okay. I think Mathilde is your girl.
OLIVIA: Right?
ANNE: Okay. So let’s tell the readers. We won’t tell them the spoiler but we’ll describe it so they can hear why it perhaps is a good fit for you. I definitely hear the resistance, especially if you want that thrill of the reveal on your own.
And I think I know the basic gist of what you’re referring to, but I’m not exactly sure. I don’t know if that gives you confidence. But what I think you might be referring to is quite vague.
OLIVIA: Right. Okay. Yeah, you might be right. I think I’m probably just being, yeah, overly spoiler-sensitive. But you can ask my friends. They have spoiled things for me that they’re like, how is that a spoiler? And I’m like, “You’ve ruined the movie.”
ANNE: Here’s the thing about a good book or a good film. Look, this is not me saying, be glad it was spoiled for you. I’m not glad for you. But when we know the arc of the story, we notice things we wouldn’t otherwise. On the first reading, viewing, whatever it is.
[00:44:46] OLIVIA: You’re absolutely right. I think that’s very true. And that’s why… I mean, and I love rereading for that reason. So I’m contradicting myself right there. If I love rereading, what’s my problem with spoilers?
ANNE: It can be complicated.
OLIVIA: It is complicated.
ANNE: We’re good.
OLIVIA: It is complicated, isn’t it?
ANNE: Also, we’ve heard people say, “Oh, I wish I could read that again for the first time.” Because I want that experience of learning whatever it is.
OLIVIA: You’ll never have that. Okay. So what my understanding of the book is, is that you hear about things from the husband and you’re in his point of view and then it switches either halfway through or more than halfway through and then the wife takes over and nothing is as what the husband said. Nothing is what it seems.
ANNE: Does that feel like a spoiler to you?
OLIVIA: Yes, I guess it does. Because I just think the whole time I’m going to be like, well, he’s full of it.
ANNE: But he’s not full of it exactly.
OLIVIA: Okay. Okay.
[00:45:45] ANNE: He’s a narcissist living his own delusional dream world. Relating the world as he thinks he sees it. You know how you were saying that there’s a character who is mentally unwell in one of these books you’re reading, and you thought his voice should sound like he’s mentally unwell?
OLIVIA: Yeah.
ANNE: So Lotto, the husband, is telling you… well, actually… I read this book when it came out, so it’s been 10 years. Memory may or may not serve here, but we’re going to be bold. We’re going to be bold and go with, as I recall, he’s telling you the world as he perceives it.
So he’s married to his faithful, loving, supportive, somewhat quiet wife, always by his side, supporting his work as a playwright. They work together, but really, he’s the one in the limelight. And then when we get to know her better at the, I believe it is past halfway, when the perspectives switch, we find out, whoo, she’s her own person in a way we did not know.
[00:46:52] And she is cynical and calculating, and her humor is a little bit of a little droll. It does make you question everything, as one would if you were hearing two sides of a story.
OLIVIA: Right. I feel like what you just said about hearing two sides of the story, I feel like that’s what people love about multi-POV novels. And that’s what I want to love. I mean, I think that’s fascinating. And so when it does it well, then that could be really cool. So yeah, I think I’ve got to check that out.
And it’s also funny because I think I’ve been waiting. I didn’t realize it had come out 10 years ago. I’ve been waiting 10 years to forget what I heard. Apparently, I’m never going to forget it. So I might as well just read it.
[00:47:48] ANNE: Okay, look, this again is not an argument for you, which you shouldn’t wish you didn’t know that. You feel how you feel at the end.
OLIVIA: Thanks for validating me.
ANNE: That doesn’t change the fact that I bet the book cover says, first he tells you his story and then she tells you hers.
OLIVIA: Oh, absolutely. I never read the back. Never read the back. No, I do. I do. I read like halfway through the back and then I read the first page. But I try to get a sense from the book whether I’m going to like it. I find that the back gives away way too much.
ANNE: Okay, Olivia, you already know about this book. But maybe to refresh your memory and fill in our listeners, or maybe you don’t know this at all, but Fates and Furies is based on pure Greek tragedy. It’s not a retelling, but Greek mythology is seeping through the story in many ways.
[00:48:44] Lotto is a playwright. Many of his plays are based on mythology. Art types and characters feature in the story. For those of you who enjoy reading for, it’s not quite Easter eggs, but if you love spotting a good illusion, they are everywhere. That would make this fascinating to talk about in a book club. Yeah, perfect for anyone who loves to geek out over symbolism and literary references. Like there’s just buckets full here.
OLIVIA: Very nice.
ANNE: Olivia, that was Fates and Furies by Lauren Groff. What about Trust by Hernan Diaz? Have you read that?
OLIVIA: I haven’t, I don’t think. Gosh, but it really rings a bell.
ANNE: This came out a few years ago. This is literary historical fiction that is a book within a book within a book. There’s mythology here, not of the Greek sort we were just talking about, but the making of a man as he wants to be mythologized. Quotes, quotes “mythologized” by a hired biographer. I hope I’m getting the details right. It’s been a few years.
[00:49:52] And then we get to the real story behind the myth and then the real story behind that myth. The character at the center here is Benjamin Rask. It’s set after the Wall Street crash of 1929. This man and his wife flourished, even though many people were wiped out.
And in 1937, there’s a character in the book, his name is Bonds, who published a story detailing their privileged upbringing, excessive lifestyle, and at what cost they acquired their fortune. But then we find out that might not be the whole story, or maybe it’s not quite the right story.
But what I want you to know about this book is it’s structured in four parts. You have a novel, then a draft of an autobiography, then a memoir by the biographer, and then you have diary excerpts.
OLIVIA: Fascinating.
[00:50:52] ANNE: And every time you turn to a new character, you’re like, oh, what’s this going to be like? This brings me to the audiobook. I listened to this one on audio. It’s narrated by four distinct voices that I think underlines the distinction between the four characters.
But also they’re in four different formats: novel, autobiography draft feels different, memoir by the biographer feels different, diary excerpts feel different. But I’m wondering about audio for you, because you said something in your submission about the tone of voice always feels the same.
I’ve really been thinking about when I’m reading a book, I’m the one reading myself the book effectively. And so I can only differentiate the voices as they’re differentiated on the page, insofar as I am able to do so in my brain as a reader. But I wonder if audio could maybe give you a little extra emphasis, a little extra oomph to distinguish the voices in a multiple POV novel.
[00:51:55] OLIVIA: I love that. I think that’s such a good point. I’d never thought of that.
ANNE: You know, maybe it’s a bust. Maybe you never listened to audio, but maybe, maybe it would help.
OLIVIA: Yeah. And I’d like to more actually, because I always enjoy it when I do. And even if it’s one person reading, but it was really good at doing the different characters, I always enjoyed that a lot. So yeah, that would be really cool, I bet.
ANNE: Now, the complaint… I’m going to head to what I just said. The complaint on some audiobooks is, “Oh, the narrator made every character sound the same.” That wouldn’t help you any. But I know that on Fates and Furies, there are two distinct narrators for the two distinct chunks of the book. And in Trust, there’s a distinct narrator for each chunk of the book. That’s so that they sound different, like it feels very experiential in that sense.
[00:52:51] So if you want to experience different characters, maybe that’s one more sensory way that you can experience different characters.
OLIVIA: Yeah, that’s so smart.
ANNE: Well, that conversation didn’t take us where I thought it would. How are you feeling?
OLIVIA: I’m feeling great. I’m feeling invigorated. And yeah, love the surprises. Where did you think it was going to take us?
ANNE: Wherever it was going to be, it was not going to start with Kids Run the Show.
OLIVIA: Oh, yeah.
ANNE: Of the books we talked about today, they were Kids Run the Show by Delphine de Vigan, Fates and Furies by Lauren Groff, and Trust by Hernan Diaz, Olivia, what do you think? What might you read next?
OLIVIA: I am going to read them all, I’m sure. I think I’m going to start with Kids Run the Show.
ANNE: I’m excited to hear it. I’m very curious to hear what you think.
OLIVIA: Yeah. It sounds like it’s going to be really interesting in that the perspectives are going to be very different than what I’ve read before. And also the whole idea of consumerism and influencers, it’s all interesting to me.
[00:54:05] This is something I learned about myself too is that kind of I’m interested in those Hollywood perspectives. I feel like this is kind of adjacent to that maybe. I’m sort of surprised, but it really caught my attention.
ANNE: That sounds worth noticing to me. I’m glad you took that away. Olivia, thank you so much for talking books with me today. I hope you find something you love as a result.
OLIVIA: Thank you, Anne. Thanks so much for having me. This was great.
ANNE: Hey readers, I hope you enjoyed my conversation with Olivia, and I’d love to hear what you think she should read next. Find Olivia at her website and check out the full list of titles we talked about today. Get that information and more in our show notes at whatshouldireadnextpodcast.com.
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[00:55:48] And thanks to the people who make this show happen. What Should I Read Next is created each week by executive producer Will Bogle, media production specialist Holly Wielkoszewsk, social media manager and editor Leigh Kramer, community coordinator Brigid Misselhorn, community manager Shannan Malone, and our whole team at What Should I Read Next? and MMD HQ. Plus the audio whizzes at Studio D Podcast Production.
Readers, that’s it for this episode. Thanks so much for listening. And as Rainer Maria Rilke said, “Ah, how good it is to be among people who are reading.” Happy reading, everyone.