Tell Me What You’re Reading #10: Joe Polizzotto discusses the novels of Elizabeth Strout and other great novelists
After my podcast discussion this past fall with my friend Jim Finnegan, Jim suggested that I speak with our guest today, our friend Joe Polizzotto. Jim said,
“Joe reads a lot, and broadly, but the real hook is something I did not know until today. He is always reading three books at the same time: a novel, a piece of nonfiction, and a golf book.”
I spoke with Joe shortly after hearing from Jim and pretty quickly discarded the idea of discussing golf books. However, Joe had lots of other books to choose from. Actually, more than books, Joe focused our discussion on authors, including the following.
Joe described the works about the state of America by American novelist and short story writer Richard Ford, and I was reminded of Philip Roth and John Updike. (The Sportswriter - Review: Kirkus)
Joe also mentioned Thomas Perrotta an American novelist and screenwriter whose latest novel, “Mrs. Fletcher,” is described by The New York Times both as “morbidly funny” and as “grim”. (Review: The New Yorker)
And Jonathan Dee, an American novelist and non-fiction writer as well. Dee reportedly studied fiction writing at Yale with the great John Hersey. Wikipedia also reports that Dee's first job out of college was at The Paris Review as an Associate Editor and personal assistant to George Plimpton, and that Dee helped pull off the popular April Fool's joke about Sidd Finch, a fictitious baseball pitcher Plimpton wrote about for Sports Illustrated. My friend David Levine will love hearing about this.
Dee’s most recent book, The Locals, is a small town America/ post 9/11 tale. (Review: The Washington Post)
Joe also expressed enthusiasm for Irish writers
First, Colm Tóibín, whose latest novel 'Nora Webster' dramatises the life of a woman and her family in a small town in Ireland in the late 1960s. (Review: The Washington Post)
And then, Irish playwright, novelist and poet Sebastian Barry, who Joe described as the greatest living English author. All of Ireland appears to agree with Joe. In February 2018, Barry was named laureate for Irish fiction. (Days Without End - Review: The New York Times)
Also, Alice Ann Munro a Canadian short story writer who won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2013. Munro's fiction is most often set in her native Huron County in southwestern Ontario (Dear Life - Review: The New York Times)
And then, set on a slightly different course, Joe mentioned - George Saunders and his Lincoln in the Bardo, an experimental novel by the American short story writer and essayist. This was Saunders first full-length novel (Review: The New York Times)
We may have also discussed the great presidential historians Jon Meacham and Doris Kearns Goodwin and their books, Soul of America (Review: The New York Times) and Leadership: In Turbulent Times (Review: The New York Times).
Finally, Joe mentioned the works of Elizabeth Strout an American novelist, best selling author and 2009 Pulitzer Prize winner for Fiction for her novel Olive Kitteridge. Strout was born and raised in Portland, Maine, and her experiences in her youth are said to have served as inspiration for her novels.
We decided to talk about Elizabeth Strout but we could have discussed any or all of the other works that Joe ran through when we first talked.
Among other things, I was attracted by Strout’s reputation as a storyteller – a Pulitzer Prize winner after all - also that she was born in Maine, where we have spent lots of time over the years,that she went to Bates, where so many of the friends of our daughter in law Eden went to school,that she waitressed in New York City – the classic path for writers and actors - and that she went to law school, but found writing to be her calling and her passion, a bit like my friend Kara Moskowitz.
The breadth and depth of Joe’s reading tastes are impressive, perhaps overwhelming. I asked Joe to discuss Elizabeth Strout and her novels and the characters that float through her stories, and also the theme that appears to be common in a number of the works Joe mentioned. Small towns. Writers from small towns and stories about small towns. Is there something special about small towns and fiction?
What Joe is Reading (in addition to the books referred to above, and many more)
Amy and Isabelle, by Elizabeth Strout
Buy on Amazon https://amzn.to/2CvfCpK
Review | Kirkus
Abide with Me, by Elizabeth Strout
Review | Kirkus
Olive Kitteridge, by Elizabeth Strout
Review | The New York Times
The Burgess Boys, by Elizabeth Strout
Review | The New York Times
My Name is Lucy Barton, by Elizabeth Strout
Review | The New York Times
Anything is Possible, by Elizabeth Strout
Review | The New York Times
Novel Connections: A Reader’s Guide to Elizabeth Strout, by Jennie Yabroff
Elizabeth Strout’s Long Homecoming, by Ariel Levy
Days Without End, by Sebastian Barry
Review | The New York Times
