lucy ellmann – Three Percent

TMR 10.7: “Blossom, Stasis, Spiral, Whoa” [DUCKS, NEWBURYPORT]

Chad Post — Thu, 14 Nov 2019 16:16:34 +0000

This week’s Two Month Review was recorded pretty late (on the east coast), so things are a bit loopy. Nevertheless, James Crossley from joins Chad and Brian to talk about pages 429-487 of Ducks, Newburyport. They talk a bit about the cultural references in this section—the old movies, ��ǲ��ǳ�—flip ahead to connect the mountain lion’s path to the mental landscape of the narrator, and, of course, praise moms.

This is the most ��ǻ�ܳ��episode to date, and we hope you enjoy the little audio touches AND the Blossom theme song “”

If you’d prefer to watch the conversation, you can find it on along with . Next week’s episode (up to page 562) will be broadcast live . And you can discuss this book at the reactivated Goodreads .

Follow and for random thoughts and information about upcoming guests. And be sure to support in person, through their website, and on .

Be sure to order Brian’s book, , which is now officially available at better bookstores everywhere thanks to BOA Editions

You can also support this podcast and ��of Open Letter’s activities by making a tax-deductible donation through the .

You can find all the Two Month Review posts by clicking here. And be sure to It really helps people to discover the podcast.

TMR 10.3: “How Do I Promote This?” [Ducks, Newburyport]

Chad Post — Thu, 17 Oct 2019 12:30:57 +0000

Vanessa Stauffer from Biblioasis came on this episode to talk about the Booker Prize, about the jacket copy she wrote for the �ٳܳ��galley, about types of moms, about things in the book that pay off and mysteries that remain mysteries, about the ways in which Ellmann is breaking form and the strong feminist perspective underlying this narrative, and much more. It’s a fun, free-wheeling conversation sprinkled with tons of amazing quotes from the book, talk about mom.com, and much much more.

If you’d prefer to watch the conversation, you can find it on along with . Next week’s episode (up to page 297) will be broadcast live . And you can discuss this book at the reactivated Goodreads .

This week’s music is “” by Olivia Jean.

Follow and for random thoughts and information about upcoming guests. And follow Patrick on and for hot takes and pictures of Vermont bookstores.

And be sure to preorder Brian’s book, , which is now officially available from BOA Editions.

You can also support this podcast and ��of Open Letter’s activities by making a tax-deductible donation through the .

You can find all the Two Month Review posts by clicking here. And be sure to It really helps people to discover the podcast.

TMR 10.2: “The Fact That” [Ducks, Newburyport]

Chad Post — Thu, 10 Oct 2019 12:30:59 +0000

Due to an unforeseen illness, Chad and Brian ended up going this one alone, and focus mostly on the way that “the fact that” functions, both in building the character and impacting the reader. Chad asks Brian some craft questions, they debate what makes a book “difficult” (and whether this is difficult or just long), more talk about mothers (go moms!), the difficulties of raising children, a hierarchy of fears, Shirley Jackson and Rochester, “Daily Carry,” and much more. If for nothing else, you should listen to hear them read aloud from the novel—it’s a book that’s perfectly suited for being read aloud. After you hear these quotes, you will ��ھ��Ծ��ٱ��want to read the whole thing.

If you’d prefer to watch the conversation, you can find it on along with . Next week’s episode (up to page 231) will be broadcast live . And you can discuss this book at the reactivated Goodreads .

This week’s music is “” by pronoun.

Follow and for random thoughts and information about upcoming guests. And follow Patrick on and for hot takes and pictures of Vermont bookstores.

And be sure to preorder Brian’s book, , which is coming out this fall from BOA Editions.

You can find all the Two Month Review posts by clicking here. And be sure to It really helps people to discover the podcast.

TMR 10.1: “Brave Publishing” [Ducks, Newburyport]

Chad Post — Thu, 03 Oct 2019 12:10:05 +0000

The tenth season of the Two Month Review gets underway with special guest Dan Wells of Biblioasis talking about how they came to publish Lucy Ellmann’s , and the risks involved in doing a 1,020-page book. They also introduce Ellmann–who has one of the greatest bios ever–and the novel itself. Conversation topics include: kidneys vs. cinnamon rolls, “torrent of consciousness” writing, catching your breath in a one-sentence novel, how much Chad loves moms, the role of memory in the text, the mountain lion sections, how funny and angry the book is all at once, and much more. If you haven’t started the book, don’t worry! This is a great introduction and the concept of “spoilers” doesn’t really apply to a novel like this one.

If you’d prefer to watch the conversation, you can find it on along with . Next week’s episode (up to page 150) will be broadcast live . And you can discuss this book at the reactivated Goodreads .

This week’s music is “Lucy” by Soccer Mommy, partly because it’s a solid single, partly because it’s called “Lucy,” and partly because of this quote from Ducks, Newburyport:

the fact that we pretend to be interested in soccer, for the kids’ sake, but it’s a real strain, sprain, the fact that all the other soccer moms and dads get so excited, while I just stand there getting cold, frozen, frozen out by the other moms as well, the fact that they always ask where Leo is, as if neither of us has anything better to do than watch little kids kick a ball around, the fact that the other moms and dads yell and cheer till they’re hoarse, the fact that it isn’t right, I don’t think, to make kids so competitive about things, the fact that we think the other parents are too involved, but they probably think we aren’t involved enough,

Follow and for random thoughts and information about upcoming guests. And follow Patrick on and for hot takes and pictures of Vermont bookstores.

And be sure to preorder Brian’s book, , which is coming out this fall from BOA Editions.

You can find all the Two Month Review posts by clicking here. And be sure to It really helps people to discover the podcast.

Season 10 of the Two Month Review: “Ducks, Newburyport” by Lucy Ellmann

Chad Post — Tue, 24 Sep 2019 19:20:56 +0000

This Thursday (9/26), the final podcast in the ninth season of the Two Month Review will drop, wrapping up our discussion of Kjersti Skomsvold’s Monsterhuman, which is translated from the Norwegian by Becky Crook. Which means that it’s time for SEASON TEN. (Ten!?!)

And for the first time ever, we’re going to be focusing on a book that was originally written in English: Ducks, Newburyport by Lucy Ellmann. Clocking in at just over 1,000 pages (depending on if you count the list of acronyms in the back or not), this is a single-sentence rant about America, Trump, gun violence, Flint’s water problems, Jared Kushner . . . well, basically everything that is now.

From Parul Sehgal’s :

“Ducks, Newburyport,” the new novel by Lucy Ellmann, recently , unspools as a 426,100-word sentence that stretches over 1,000 pages — occasionally interrupted by a more traditional story, albeit one from the point of view of a mountain lioness. It seems designed to thwart the timid or lazy reader but shouldn’t. Timid, lazy readers to the front! Ellmann’s unnamed narrator, a mother of four living in Ohio, has a cutting power of observation and a depressive charm. “Being good-looking means you have to try to stay good-looking and that’s stressful,” she says. This book has its face pressed up against the pane of the present; its form mimics the way our minds move now: toggling between tabs, between the needs of small children and aging parents, between news of ecological collapse and school shootings while somehow remembering to pay taxes and fold the laundry. [. . .]

The narrator of “Ducks, Newburyport,” however, is consumed with the troubles and triumphs of others (ineffectually, as she’ll hasten to tell you): her four children and husband, people in Flint, Mich., forced to pay $200 in monthly water bills, families starving in Syria. Coming across a pigeon egg, she considers incubating it in her bra. Her dreams are full of animals she cannot save, people she cannot protect. She is haunted by the death of her mother. “Nobody fixes anything,” she laments, “not faucets, not window frames, not the Ohio River, the fact that sea salt now contains microplastics, the fact that coelacanths die now from eating plastic potato chip bags at the bottom of the ocean, the fact that sometimes I think that people today must be the saddest people ever, because we know we ruined everything, even geraniums probably, the fact that, heavens to Betsy, I’m sure people haven’t always lived in such a constant state of alarm.”

It’s hard to think of a book that’s better suited to the digressive, humorous, nature of this podcast . . .

The first episode will be broadcast on YouTube next Monday, September 30th and will be available as a podcast on Thursday, October 2nd. Here’s the schedule for the whole season in case you want to read along (and even if you don’t, I think you’re going to be able to enjoy and get a lot out of this season):

October 2: Pages 1-81

October 9: 81-150

October 16: 151-231

October 23: 231-297

October 30: 297-360

November 6: 360-429

November 13: 429-487

November 20: 487-562

November 27: 562-621

December 4: 621-700

December 11: 701-776

December 18: 776-862

December 23: 862-917

December 30: 917-1020

The second printing should be arriving at bookstores now, so go visit your local indie and pick up a copy. Biblioasis is taking a great risk publishing a book of this size and it would be great to help them get a real win . . .

And if you’re in the UK, pick up the Galley Beggar edition. I’m pretty sure the pagination is the same, so the above schedule should work, and it’s great to support GB.

One last note: �ٳܳ��is a finalist for the Booker Prize, the winner of which will be announced in mid-October. Fingers crossed!