TALK SHOW 7: Monumental Pop Culture

Julianna Baggott is the author of four novels for adults, and three books of poems, most recently Compulsions of Silkworms and Bees. She also writes novels for younger readers under the pen name N.E. Bode––and her Bode novel on the Boston Red Sox––The Prince of Fenway Park––will come out in spring of 2009. For more on Baggott: www.juliannabaggott.com. For more on Bode: www.theanybodies.com.

Lisa Borders' first novel, Cloud Cuckoo Land, was chosen by Pat Conroy as the winner of River City Publishing's Fred Bonnie Award for Best First Novel and was published in 2002. Lisa has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and her short stories have appeared in Kalliope, Washington Square, Black Warrior Review, Painted Bride Quarterly, CrossConnect and other journals. Visit Lisa at www.lisaborders.com.

Maria Flook is the author of two works of nonfiction, Invisible Eden: A Story of Love and Murder on Cape Cod and My Sister Life, The Story of My Sister's Disappearance; three novels, Open Water, Family Night (which received a PEN American /Ernest Hemingway Foundation Special Citation), and Lux; and a collection of short stories, You Have the Wrong Man. She teaches at Emerson College. Visit Maria at mariaflook.com.

Antonya Nelson is the author of eight books of fiction, the most recent of which is SOME FUN (stories and a novella; Scribner). She teaches in the U of Houston creative writing program.

Darin Strauss is the award-winning author of the national and international bestseller Chang and Eng and The Real McCoy. His new novel, More Than It Hurts You, will be published next June. He teaches at New York University and lives in Brooklyn, NY. Visit Darin at www.darinstrauss.com.


--Name the most significant pop culture event in your lifetime.

Baggott: I certainly can't be responsible for a task of such magnitude. I'm barely allowed to drive a car. I've never even been chosen as secretary at our departmental meetings because I'm prone to hyperbole. (But, later, when pressed, I'll cough up a Red Sox moment. Scroll down.)

Borders: The Partridge Family––the TV show, the prefab pop band, and, most importantly, the show's star David Cassidy, he of the shaggy mane and puka-shell necklaces, the ruffles and red velvet. You have to respect a guy who can pull off ruffles and red velvet while playing a character named Keith Partridge.

Flook: Seeing Janis Joplin at Newport Folk Festival, 1968.

Nelson: I wonder if Watergate counts as pop culture? Certainly it was the only show we watched, one dull summer. My parents were so into it––they who disdained television and soap operas, tuned in like any bored housewife, ready to see what was going to come out of those people's mouths next.

Strauss: Unfortunately, the release of Michael Jackson's Thriller. The album was neither as bad as is claimed by its embarrassed ex-devotees (everyone, basically), nor good enough to have caused the stir it did. A cultural phenomenon, like any whirlwind, is hard to predict. Some products, like local cloud systems, just drift over the country. You can’t forecast which stories might gather force and momentum, which Airstream will go squally and funnelform until it tornadoes out into national attention.