Splendid things. Canceled lives.
Jun 23, 2026 · 55 min · 11 segments
*The Splendid things we planned: A family portrait* *Canceled lives: My father, my scandal, and me* Blake Bailey…
Jun 23, 2026 · 55 min · 11 segments
*The Splendid things we planned: A family portrait* *Canceled lives: My father, my scandal, and me* Blake Bailey…
Blake BaileyGuestAugust BakerHostAs an overview, I guess my understanding is you tried fiction for a while, that didn't work.
And then you were trying writing and then suddenly, and then at a certain point, someone said, what are you interested in? Could you tell that and write about that?
Yeah, I had, I had wanted to be a fiction writer, you know, I was young and I wrote a number of unpublished novels.
And finally I wrote one that was pretty good just in terms of, I think the writing and I think the story was fairly strong.
Um, But it was not, you know, it wasn't filling an aching niche in the marketplace, but it interested a good agent.
And she said to me, you know, I was also writing book reviews and doing freelancing.
So why don't you write me a book proposal, you know, 30 or 40 pages about anything that interests you now, you know.
and i i it had never occurred to me remotely that that i would be a biographer of any kind but what happened to interest me at that moment in time was richard yates okay a few years before those vintage reprints vintage contemporary reprints of revolutionary road and easter parade and 11 kinds of loneliness had come out and i thought this guy is amazing.
It was like he had never lived, okay? And yet there were these little pockets of interest.
And also Tom Bissell, who was an editor at Holt, was bringing out the collected story.
I wrote a proposal, though, and I called Monica, who's the executor and the middle daughter.
As an overview, I guess my understanding is you tried fiction for a while, that didn't work.
And then you were trying writing and then suddenly, and then at a certain point, someone said, what are you interested in? Could you tell that and write about that?
Yeah, I had, I had wanted to be a fiction writer, you know, I was young and I wrote a number of unpublished novels.
And finally I wrote one that was pretty good just in terms of, I think the writing and I think the story was fairly strong.
Um, But it was not, you know, it wasn't filling an aching niche in the marketplace, but it interested a good agent.
And she said to me, you know, I was also writing book reviews and doing freelancing.
So why don't you write me a book proposal, you know, 30 or 40 pages about anything that interests you now, you know.
and i i it had never occurred to me remotely that that i would be a biographer of any kind but what happened to interest me at that moment in time was richard yates okay a few years before those vintage reprints vintage contemporary reprints of revolutionary road and easter parade and 11 kinds of loneliness had come out and i thought this guy is amazing.
It was like he had never lived, okay? And yet there were these little pockets of interest.
And also Tom Bissell, who was an editor at Holt, was bringing out the collected story.
I wrote a proposal, though, and I called Monica, who's the executor and the middle daughter.
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