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Carmen Maria Machado joins me to discuss her memoir 'In the Dream House.' 'In the Dream House' is Machado’s wildly innovative account of a relationship gone bad, and a bold dissection of the mechanisms and cultural representations of psychological abuse. Each chapter is driven by its own narrative trope―the haunted house, erotica, the bildungsroman―through which Machado holds past events up to the light.

Ryan Chapman joins me to discuss his debut novel 'Riots I Have Known.' An unnamed Sri Lankan inmate has barricaded himself inside a prison computer lab in Dutchess County, New York. A riot rages outside, incited by a poem published in The Holding Pen, the house literary journal. This, our narrator’s final Editor’s Letter, is his confession. An official accounting of events, as they happened.

1904. On the banks of the Zambezi River, a few miles from Victoria Falls, there is a colonial settlement called The Old Drift. In a smoky room at the hotel across the river, an Old Drifter named Percy M. Clark, foggy with fever, makes a mistake that entangles the fates of an Italian hotelier and an African busboy. This sets off a cycle of unwitting retribution between three Zambian families as they collide and converge over the course of the century.

Nathan Englander joins me to discuss his new novel 'Kaddish.com.' When Larry's father dies, it’s his responsibility to recite the Kaddish, the Jewish prayer for the dead, every day for eleven months.  To the horror of his sister, Larry refuses—imperiling the fate of his father’s soul. Larry hatches a plan, hiring a stranger through a website called kaddish.com to shepherd his father’s soul safely to rest. But after a religious awakening, Larry realizes that he may have sacrificed too much.

Sam Lipsyte joins Stephen to discuss his new novel 'Hark.' In an America convulsed by political upheaval, cultural discord, environmental collapse, and spiritual confusion, many folks are searching for peace, salvation, and—perhaps most immediately—just a little damn focus. Enter Hark Morner, an unwitting guru whose technique of “Mental Archery”—a combination of mindfulness, mythology, fake history, yoga, and, well, archery—is set to captivate the masses and raise him to near-messiah status.

Lauren Wilkinson joins Stephen to discuss her debut novel 'American Spy'. It’s 1986, the height of the Cold War, and Marie Mitchell is an intelligence officer with the FBI. She's brilliant, but she's also a young black woman working in an old boys' club. Her career has stalled out. So when she’s given the opportunity to join a task force aimed at undermining Thomas Sankara, the revolutionary president of Burkina Faso whose Communist ideology has made him a target for American intervention, she says y

Garth Greenwell joins Stephen to discuss his debut novel 'What Belongs to You. 'What Belongs to You' follows an American teacher who enters a public bathroom in Sofia, Bulgaria, where he meets the charismatic young hustler Mitko, and pays him for sex. He returns to Mitko again and again over the next few months, drawn by hunger and loneliness and risk, and finds himself ensnared in a relationship in which lust leads to mutual predation, and tenderness can transform into violence.

Ling Ma joins host Stephen Fishbach to discuss her debut novel 'Severance.' 'Severance' follows Candace Chen, a 20-something New Yorker who works as a production coordinator at a Bible manufacturer - when the end of the world hits. Shen Fever makes people repeat their daily routines, until they die. Candace must join a group of survivors, led by the power-hungry IT tech Bob.

Teddy Wayne joins host Stephen Fishbach to discuss his novel 'Loner.' 'Loner' follows Harvard freshman David Federman, who becomes increasingly obsessed with his classmate Veronica. Published in September of 2016, 'Loner' now seems a prescient look at an angry, disaffected young man who demands more from his life.  Loner was named a "Best Book of the Year" by NPR, Kirkus, New York post, and Bookish.

Jaclyn Gilbert joins host Stephen Fishbach to discuss her debut novel 'Late Air.' When Murray - a Yale college running coach - finds his star athlete crumpled and unresponsive during a routine practice on the campus golf course one morning, he is forced to reconcile with his repressed past and increasingly tenuous grip on life. Told from interlocking perspectives, 'Late Air' circles the story of a marriage shattered by a nameless tragedy.

Joshua Max Feldman joins host Stephen Fishbach to discuss his novel 'Start Without Me.' Joshua Max Feldman is a writer of fiction and theater. Start Without Me - his second novel - explores questions of love and choice, disappointment and hope in the lives of two strangers who meet by chance on Thanksgiving Day.

Jeff VanderMeer on 'Annihilation'