Olivia Sudjic on The End of the Story

Sometimes the best place to begin a story is at the end.

Sometimes, a whole story is about an end.

(That certainly seems to be the case with Lydia Davis’ only novel, The End of the Story.)

But sometimes, the end is not an end at all and is in fact the beginning of a new story.

It’s a confusing business.

Thankfully, we have the brilliant novelist and writer Olivia Sudjic on hand to help determine if we’re at the end, the beginning, or lost wandering somewhere in between.

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In each episode, I'm joined by a guest from the world of books to talk about a specific book they'd like to put in the library.

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As I say, in this sixth episode of the show, my very special guest is the superb Olivia Sudjic discussing her pick for the library, the 1995 novel The End of the Story by Lydia Davis.

Enjoy.

About Olivia

Olivia Sudjic is the author of Sympathy, which was a finalist for the Salerno European Book Award and the Collyer Bristow Prize, and Exposure, a non-fiction work named an Irish Times, Evening Standard, and White Review Book of the Year for 2018. Her second novel, Asylum Road, was published in 2021 and shortlisted for the Encore Award and the Gordon Bowker Volcano Prize. In 2023, she was named on the Granta Best of Young British Novelists list, compiled every 10 years since 1983, identifying the 20 most significant British novelists aged under 40.

About Lydia

Lydia Davis is the author of one novel and seven short story collections, one of which was a finalist for the 2007 National Book Award. She is the acclaimed translator of an edition of Swann’s Way, published by Penguin Press, and her translation of Madame Bovary was published by Viking in the US and the UK in 2010. She was awarded the Man Booker International Prize in May 2013.

Links to obscure (and not so obscure) things mentioned in this episode

* Order The End of the Story and Olivia’s novels Sympathy and Ayslum Road from my local independent bookshop in Sheffield here.

* An interesting video of Lydia talking about shaping messy material can be watched here.

* Find Olivia Sudjic on Instagram here.

* Find Glenn Fisher on Instagram here.

About the Library

The Library of Lazy Thinking is a place to hang out and learn more about books. The library is free—like all libraries should be. But if you’d like to support the library, you can make a small monthly donation by becoming a paid member (and get an exclusive The Library of Lazy Thinking bookmark). All donations go back into the library, helping to organize live events, exclusive merchandise, and more podcasts.

About Glenn

Glenn Fisher is a writer—wait, Glenn Fisher is me. I’m the one writing this. Let’s drop the third-person act. My writing has been published in online literary journals Lunate, The Paris Bitter Hearts Pit, 3am Magazine, Dogmatika, and Litro Magazine. I’m currently working on my first novel. I write about books and interview other writers and creatives here in The Library of Lazy Thinking. I live in Sheffield and work as a freelance copywriter. I have had a best-selling non-fiction book published on the subject called The Art of the Click. It was published by Harriman House and shortlisted for Business Book of the Year. It has been translated into Simplified Chinese and Korean. I also have a dog called Pablo. He is harder to translate. Indeed, most of my life revolves around trying to understand his often unreasonable demands.

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