62: Nico Walker on CHERRY (2018) and GIAN (1974–2021)

OXFORD, MS / NYC — Nico Walker is the author of the novel Cherry (Knopf, 2018). He was born in Georgia and grew up in Las Vegas and Cleveland. He served as a medic in the Iraq war. And worked with the late Gian DiTrapano on Cherry while in prison in the mid 2010s. Here is a recent piece he wrote on Gian: https://www.bookforum.com/culture/giancarlo-ditrapano-1974-2021-24463 Recent collection on Gian in Muumuu House I contributed to: http://muumuuhouse.com/gian.11may2021.html Lit hub article I mentioned on Cherry’s covers: https://lithub.com/the-trouble-with-designing-a-book-when-its-author-is-in-jail/ POD CONTENTS 7 min - pod start 10 min - Gian’s biggest grievance w the game 17 min - expert talk / literary pedantry 21 min - stuff people read in prison to entertain themselves 24 min - the elitism of Literature and linguistic classism 27 min - books were initially about the democratization of thought 29 min - Lazarillo de Tormez 30 min - Canterbury tales 33 min - Don Quixote / Battle of Lepanto (1571) 38 min - parallel between Cervantes and Nico 41 min - McClanahan / we just do what we see on TV 41.5 min - the solution to the big house / indie divide 42 min - Nico’s experience w Gian v. Knopf 50 min - are you gonna put the work in 51 min - no one does anything alone 54 min - Marie Calloway 59 min - if no backlash is an artwork doing anything 1 hr 1 min - what is to be done 1 hr 3 min - the difficulty / importance of dialogue 1 hr 7 min - we say who we are through our speech 1 hr 10 min - flannery O’Connor / *James Joyce quote correction - "I am a creature driven and derided by vanity" 1 hr 13 min - Hill William 1 hr 20 min - infallible narrators 1 hr 23 min - how to keep going when shit gets more fucked than you ever coulda imagined 1 hr 24 min - tear the bandaid off .. just say it 1 hr 28 min - on war 1 hr 35 min - the contradictions of war 1 hr 40 min - Nico’s day to day now / Rachael Rabbit White http://1storyhaus.com/index.html