Author Vinson Cunningham on our ‘Great Expectations’ for 2024

Talk Easy with Sam Fragoso

Lemonada Media

Society & Culture, Film Interviews, Tv & Film

4.8 • 1.2K Ratings

🗓️ 11 August 2024

⏱️ 89 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Vinson Cunningham has been a staff writer at The New Yorker for the past eight years, covering theater, television, and politics. He joins us this week to unpack his personal debut novel Great Expectations.

At the top, we discuss the state of the US election (5:00), the emergence of the new Democratic ticket in Kamala Harris and Minnesota Governor Tim Walz (10:00), and the fickleness of internet hype (15:00). Then, Cunningham explains how his new book dovetails with his time working on Barack Obama’s 2008 Presidential campaign (19:00), his process writing fiction (30:00), and his early memories of getting involved in politics (35:30).

On the back-half, we talk about Vinson’s upbringing in the church (38:00), the role of faith in his life (47:00), and his personal feelings about divine intervention (57:00), both in politics and on the heels of a tragic personal loss (1:01:40). To close, he shares a moving piece of his review of Hamlet (1:07:00), reflects on his growth over the past year (1:15:00), and reveals why this moment for Kamala Harris gives him hope for his daughters (1:22:00).

This conversation was recorded at Spotify Studios and Condé Nast. Thoughts or future guest ideas? Email us at [email protected].

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello, Malcolm Glable here.
0:01.8	I want to tell you about a new series we're launching at Pushkin Industries on the
0:05.9	1936 Olympic Games.
0:08.7	Adolf Hitler's Games.
0:10.2	Fascism, Anti-Semitism, racism, high Olympic ideals,
0:13.7	craven self-interest, naked ambition, illusion, all collide
0:17.4	in the long contentious lead up
0:19.2	to the most controversial Olympics in history.
0:21.7	The Germans put on a propaganda show and America
0:24.7	went along with all of it. Why? This season on revisionist history, the story of
0:30.4	the games behind the Games.
0:32.6	Listen to this season of Revision history,
0:35.4	wherever you get your podcast.
0:37.0	If you want to hear episodes before they release to the public,
0:40.3	subscribe to Pushkin Plus on Apple Podcast or at Pushkin.
0:44.0	Pashkin.
0:47.0	Pushkin. This is talk easy. I'm San Francisco, so welcome to the show. Today I'm joined by author and critic Vincent Cunningham. He's been a staff writer at the New Yorker since
1:36.1	2016 where he's covered theater, television, and politics. He's also recently made a foray into podcasting as the co-host of critics at large, a weekly
1:46.8	cultural survey alongside his colleagues Alex Schwartz and Nomey Fry.
1:52.2	But before the New Yorker came calling, Cunningham was a staffer on Obama's first presidential
1:56.8	campaign.
1:57.9	At the age of 22, his job was to reel in big fish donors, the kinds that worked on Wall Street in Hollywood, the kinds
	...

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