Episode 47 — Ryan Boudinot

Summary: Ryan Boudinot is the guest. He's the author of the new novel, BLUEPRINTS OF THE AFTERLIFE, now available from Grove Press. John Schwartz, in a review for the New York Times, raves: "A fierce literary imagination, building the kinds of worlds that William Gibson used to write before he discovered the present; it is warmed by the kind of offbeat, riffing humor that has suffused the works of Neal Stephenson and Gary Shteyngart, with Chuck Palahniuk’s cartoonish gore and Neil Gaiman’s creepy otherworlds blended in. . . . Duct-tape yourself to the front of this roller coaster and enjoy the ride." A fascinating conversation with a gifted young writer. Topics of conversation: bookshelves, Iceland, typewriters, Bjork, Sugar Cubes, Sigur Rós, Halldór Laxness, Hobart, Sjón, Dancer in the Dark, dreams, crying, reincarnation, longhand, Ferris Bueller, journalism, sports, precociousness, Evergreen State College, guitar, singing, decisions, maturity, goals, commitments, mentors, Dave Cornelius, Easton's Books, Mt. Vernon, San Francisco, Kafka, sheep, pigs, chickens, revisions, "The Littlest Hitler," Mississippi Review, P.J. Mark, Dave Eggers, and what one can control. Monologue topics: wallets, mall-walking, naked women, body shame, needless worries, public meltdowns, perseverance, death, cells, clouds, sublimation, and smells.