"Symbols and Signs" by Vladimir Nabokov (1948)

"Symbols and Signs" by Vladimir Nabokov (1948)

Episode 11 is here, and this week we've been sitting with Vladimir Nabokov's "Symbols and Signs," a story so brief it almost sneaks up on you, yet so precise in its grief that it lingers long after the last page. This one genuinely touched a nerve for both of us. Nabokov manages to capture loss with devastating clarity. For both of us, Lolita was the only Nabokov we'd read before this. What struck us most was finding out just how much this quiet little story has inspired other writers over the years. It has a reach far beyond its size, and that made the read all the more exciting. Take a read, then take a listen! Get the book: Support your local bookstore or grab it through Bookshop.org link [https://bookshop.org/p/books/a-century-of-fiction-in-the-new-yorker-1925-2025/b06702c232672987?ean=9780593801918&next=t] Links from the Episode:  The Eve of St. Agnes by John Keats: link [https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44470/the-eve-of-st-agnes] Symbols, Signs, and Saints by David M. Rubin: link [https://thenabokovian.org/sites/default/files/2022-01/Symbols%2C%20Signs%20and%20Saints%20011522.pdf] Referential by Lorrie Moore: link [https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2012/05/28/referential]

"Children Are Bored on Sunday" by Jean Stafford (1948)

"Children Are Bored on Sunday" didn't exactly sweep us off our feet. But the more we talked, the more we found ourselves grudgingly nodding along.  Stafford's protagonist is a woman adrift in New York, paralyzed by the particular shame of feeling intellectually and socially outclassed—and somewhere in the middle of our conversation, we both had to admit: we've been her. That specific cocktail of self-consciousness and fraudulence, the exhausting performance of belonging somewhere you're not sure you do. Stafford renders it so precisely it starts to feel a little exposing. We didn't fall in love, but we left with a lot more respect than we arrived with, and maybe a little more self-knowledge than we bargained for. Get the book: Support your local bookstore or grab it through Bookshop.org link [https://bookshop.org/p/books/a-century-of-fiction-in-the-new-yorker-1925-2025/b06702c232672987?ean=9780593801918&next=t]

Separate Beds: The Living is Easy by Dorothy West (1948)

Luise is back for part two of Separate Beds. The Living is Easy is Dorothy West at her most vivid and alive, and a mother-daughter read was exactly the right way to come at it. We spent a good chunk of time reveling in how powerfully West conjures her world, Boston's Black middle class in the early twentieth century feels so fully realized you can practically smell the parlor. And then there's Cleo. An absolute force of chaos, and we loved every second of it. West gives us someone genuinely difficult to love and makes you love her anyway, which is its own kind of magic. We also got into something we've been circling for a while: what does it mean to actively make space for writers outside the traditional canon? West was writing at the height of the Harlem Renaissance and somehow still ends up on fewer syllabi than she deserves. We didn't have all the answers, but we agreed the conversation is worth having, loudly and often. Luise, you're basically a co-host at this point. Please come back.   Get the book: Support your local bookstore or grab it through Bookshop.org link [https://bookshop.org/?utm_source=google&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=brand_search&utm_content=%7Badgroupname%7D&utm_term=bookshop&gad_source=1&gad_campaignid=12464179645&gbraid=0AAAAACfld42bkYoAaR0HhBSuxybR4Gojt&gclid=CjwKCAjw687NBhB4EiwAQ645dsPXOOBxYPw2QkldJgoIdV12GrrZHViejqTZvHQd2g3T5ZhVfaGtxRoCWfQQAvD_BwE] Links from the Episode:  Dorothy West on Harvard's Black Women Oral History Project: link [https://www.radcliffe.harvard.edu/news-and-ideas/dorothy-west-oral-history-interview] The Zora Canon: link [https://zora.medium.com/100-best-books-by-black-women-authors-zora-canon-46b3492bdded]

Separate Beds: A Perfect Day for Bananafish (1948)

Sam tapped out this week—so Alan called in reinforcements: Sam's mom, Luise, who turned out to be exactly the reading companion this story deserved. "A Perfect Day for Bananafish" is Salinger at his most hypnotic and unsettling, and having a fresh voice in the mix made for one of our most incisive episodes yet. We went down a bit of a rabbit hole on Salinger himself—the recluse, the mythos, the deeply complicated man behind the prose—and inevitably ended up asking the question the story almost demands: can you separate the author from the narrator? We didn't exactly land on a tidy answer, but we had a great time not landing on one. The story itself is so deceptively gentle on the surface—Seymour on the beach, the little girl, the bananafish—and then it just pulls the rug out completely. We talked about the darker themes it raises with as much honesty as we could manage while still keeping things fun, because that's kind of what the story forces you to do: sit with something genuinely disturbing and somehow keep going. Luise was a wonderful guest, and we'll be hearing from her again soon—she and Sam are teaming up in our next episode to spotlight Dorothy West's The Living is Easy, published the same year as Bananafish. Get the book: Support your local bookstore or grab it through Bookshop.org link [https://bookshop.org/p/books/a-century-of-fiction-in-the-new-yorker-1925-2025/b06702c232672987?ean=9780593801918&next=t]

To Salinger or Not to Salinger

This one got complicated fast. We were supposed to dive into J.D. Salinger this week, but we couldn't even get to the actual reading without talking about the man—specifically, the deeply unsettling pattern of him grooming teenage girls. So we went there: can you separate the art from the artist? Should you? And here's the thing—we didn't have all the answers, but we wanted to actually talk it through with each other instead of just landing on some neat position. Truth is usually messy. We got into whether engaging with art is a moral choice, what we owe ourselves as readers, how to sit with discomfort without needing to resolve it—and honestly, it mattered to us what each other thought about all of it. This is the kind of conversation where you learn something new about your partner, where their reasoning reveals something you hadn't considered, and that's part of why we wanted to have it out loud. It's uncomfortable territory, but that's kind of the point. Get the book: Support your local bookstore or grab it through Bookshop.org link [https://bookshop.org/p/books/a-century-of-fiction-in-the-new-yorker-1925-2025/b06702c232672987?ean=9780593801918&next=t] Links from the Episode: CBS Sunday morning story: link [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hdcwo0ZOZbQ] Photographers: Carrie Mae Weems' Kitchen Table Series - link [https://aperture.org/editorial/vision-justice-around-kitchen-table/] Gordon Parks - link [https://www.gordonparksfoundation.org/gordon-parks/photography-archive] Gregory Crewdson - link [https://gagosian.com/artists/gregory-crewdson/] Bill Cunningham - link [https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/01/style/bill-cunningham-book.html] David LaChapelle - link [https://www.davidlachapelle.com/] Additional Links: Joyce Maynard on her relationship with Salinger: link [https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/books/98/09/13/specials/maynard-mag.html?mabReward=relbias%3Aw%2C%7B%222%22%3A%22RI%3A16%22%7D&module=Search]