Jennifer Egan

interested to get into our conversation today.

We're talking about The Candy House by Jennifer Egan.

Well, I'll tell you why after we do a little summary and talk about our themes.

Okay, cool.

But online I found a couple of really helpful character maps.

of people who have done that and paid more attention.

And I've also seen ones that include Jennifer Egan's other book, A Visit from Goon Squad.

Because like you mentioned, Benny Salazar, I think he is the Bix Bhutan of A Visit from the Goon Squad.

Um, and then just go see some author events.

Um, Jeff and I went kind of by accident to see Jennifer Egan at The Strand a couple years ago.

Uh-huh.

When, like, it's famously very difficult to get either of us to go to an author event for the same reasons that it's difficult to get us to just wander-

I'm Chris Holmes, and this is Burned by Books.

Here you'll find interviews with writers you already love, like Jennifer Egan and Rebecca Mackay, mixed in with up-and-coming voices like Alexandra Kleeman and Rahman Alam.

You'll find us wherever you listen to podcasts, but check out previous episodes at burnedbybooks.com and on Instagram and Twitter at burnedbybooks.

Let's start the show.

Anyone who grew up in a household of addiction can smell what's going on in the Alex chapter.

The film's inspirations, Magnolia, Prisoners, and Jennifer Egan's novel, A Visit from the Goon Squad.

And finally, I haven't got in here.

It's a very short.

[upbeat music] Hey there, it's Stephen Dubner, and this is a bonus episode from our new TV talk show, Better In Person.

My guest is the Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Jennifer Egan.

And as good as a writer as she is, she is just as good at explaining her writing process.

Better In Person is meant to be watched, so check it out on the Freakonomics YouTube channel, or look for Better In Person on Apple Podcasts.

I love to recommend great books to friends, but some great books are hard to recommend because they're hard to describe.

And that's because they are the product of an original mind, like Jennifer Egan.

She is a novelist who has received many awards, including a Pulitzer Prize for A Visit From the Goon Squad, a kaleidoscope of a book about music and ambition and the nature of time and memory.

Jennifer describes her brain as having one little corner that's always following her imagination.

But I think we guys who actually write fiction, we know that actually fiction is often more than real.

You know, it's kind of... extra real uh uh gets rid of the dross and and gets to the really uh the really the kind of issues and thoughts and and um there was i think there's a quote actually i didn't jennifer egan who's um she said sort of something in the manner of fiction is something like the collective dream world of of human beings you know that's a brilliant quote isn't it

what's next for you what do you got going on now because this book's out and of course you're promoting it and doing stuff are you working on something now

yeah well i mentioned uh the story at brad's place um which uh i don't know when that will come out because you know there's often a bit of a delay isn't there between these things and Things have to run their course.

Third, gosh.

A more recent one is A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan.

I think Jennifer Egan won a Pulitzer Prize.

This book I read at university.

It is a novel, but it comprises kind of 13 or so short stories from multiple different perspectives that are interconnected.

They're doing things the way they think is right.

[upbeat music] I love to recommend great books to friends, but some great books are hard to recommend because they're hard to describe, and that's because they are the product of an original mind, like Jennifer Egan.

She is a novelist who has received many awards, including a Pulitzer Prize for A Visit from the Goon Squad, a kaleidoscope of a book about music and ambition and the nature of time and memory.

Jennifer describes her brain as having one little corner that's always following her imagination.

On the subway, she wears headphones that play nothing, and she writes characters that are nothing like her so that their consciousness is completely their own.

I heard that y- so you have a writer's group.

Yes.

Which I think most people [laughs] would be surprised to learn about you, that a novelist as good and accomplished and experienced as you still meets regularly with a writer's group, and you give them feedback presumably, and you get it on yours, yeah?