The following podcast contains explicit language.

Hello and welcome to the Slate Audio Book Club for the month of January 2018.

I'm Katie Waldman, a staff writer at Slate, and I'm joined today in the DC studio by Laura Bennett, Slate's

features editor. Hi, Laura. Hi, Katie. And from New York, we have New York Times book critic

and dear friend of the podcast, Parles Segal. Hello. Hey, Katie. And just before we get to the book,

a brief bit of housekeeping, this is going to be my last episode

is the host of Slate's Audio Book Club. I love Slate and I love the audiobook club, and it's

been a total privilege and pleasure to do this show every month.

This is a very sad day. Dark day.

I'm going to be a staff writer at the New Yorker writing on their website about books and culture and language and things.

Great for them.

Very sad for us.

And we're going to miss you a lot.

You've been so good at this, Katie Waldman.

And the one thing we did want to say is that we are going to update you on the future of the audio book club at a later date.

So watch this space in the wake of the Katie Waldman era.

Well, I will miss you guys a lot. And before this devolves into a cry fest and you guys just need to like put it on time 13. Have fun. Three hours later. Our book this month is her body and other parties. It is Carmen Maria Machado's debut collection of stories which have made her a finalist in the National Book Awards. These stories have been compared to urban legends

and to genre fiction, sci-fi, erotica, and horror.

But most of all, they have been compared to fairy tales.

Or I guess we've said that they draw a lot on all of these genres.

And I guess I wanted to start by asking you guys

whether you saw these stories as fairy tales or saw them as drawing on fairy tales because I didn't.

...