Oct 13, 2026 · 1 hr 20 min · 12 segments
Sex? Yes please! We close out our summer season with a swinging, sexually-charged discussion of Nicholson Baker's "Vox".
It came out in, uh, 1992, which is an interesting time.
Um, and I wanna just start at the top and mention, John, I think you were telling me, um, usually when people read Nicholson Baker, they read The Mezzanine, which I can talk about, but how did you find out about this book? Because this was, I think, your pick.
Yeah.
[clears throat] This was my pick.
But I heard about this book from my friend Matt, uh, friend of the pod Matt.
Who is a comparative literature PhD candidate, um, who I have been friends with for about two years.
We're in a psychoanalysis reading group together, and we were just shooting the shit one night talking about books, and I don't remember if he had recently been reading The Mezzanine or if he, uh...
I, I don't remember exactly, like, how the conversation got to The Mezzanine, but I was like, "Oh, that sounds interesting." And he was like, "Oh yeah, like it's Nicholson Baker." And I'm like, "I've never read any Nicholson Baker." And he's like, "Oh, well, he's also written this novel about Vox that is, like...
the whole conceit is about, you know, the whole s- book is, is just one conversation that ha- uh, happens over a phone sex line.
In the same way that The Mezzanine is all a whole novel that takes place in the, uh, internal monologue of a man ascending an escalator to his office.
[laughs]
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah.
Uh, so that sounded interesting, but, um, you know, as established, I'm a, a groovy swinging cat, so of course I'm gonna pick the one that's about sex instead of the one that's about going to work-
[laughs]
... which is boring.
[laughs] This is perfect because I've read the boring one about going to work.
[laughs]
[laughs]
Um, and I, I had heard of Nicholson Baker because I think, um, The Mezzanine often gets touted on by, I think, people currently writing today as a great example of a book about a guy walking around thinking about his life.
Uh, which I think there's a whole genre of books in that we could talk about.
But I think that's particularly attractive to people writing today, because people are sort of uncomfortable of the idea with, like, fiction and storytelling.
Um-
It came out in, uh, 1992, which is an interesting time.
Um, and I wanna just start at the top and mention, John, I think you were telling me, um, usually when people read Nicholson Baker, they read The Mezzanine, which I can talk about, but how did you find out about this book? Because this was, I think, your pick.
Yeah.
[clears throat] This was my pick.
But I heard about this book from my friend Matt, uh, friend of the pod Matt.
Who is a comparative literature PhD candidate, um, who I have been friends with for about two years.
We're in a psychoanalysis reading group together, and we were just shooting the shit one night talking about books, and I don't remember if he had recently been reading The Mezzanine or if he, uh...
I, I don't remember exactly, like, how the conversation got to The Mezzanine, but I was like, "Oh, that sounds interesting." And he was like, "Oh yeah, like it's Nicholson Baker." And I'm like, "I've never read any Nicholson Baker." And he's like, "Oh, well, he's also written this novel about Vox that is, like...
the whole conceit is about, you know, the whole s- book is, is just one conversation that ha- uh, happens over a phone sex line.
In the same way that The Mezzanine is all a whole novel that takes place in the, uh, internal monologue of a man ascending an escalator to his office.
[laughs]
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah.
Uh, so that sounded interesting, but, um, you know, as established, I'm a, a groovy swinging cat, so of course I'm gonna pick the one that's about sex instead of the one that's about going to work-
[laughs]
... which is boring.
[laughs] This is perfect because I've read the boring one about going to work.
[laughs]
[laughs]
Um, and I, I had heard of Nicholson Baker because I think, um, The Mezzanine often gets touted on by, I think, people currently writing today as a great example of a book about a guy walking around thinking about his life.
Uh, which I think there's a whole genre of books in that we could talk about.
But I think that's particularly attractive to people writing today, because people are sort of uncomfortable of the idea with, like, fiction and storytelling.
Um-
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