Childhood in the 90s, Authentic Populism, Forgotten Places
Lost Debate
The Branch
4.6 • 607 Ratings
🗓️ 25 March 2025
⏱️ 62 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | Welcome to The Lost Debate, a show for Politically Ecclectics. |
| 0:03.0 | I'm Robbie Gupta and today is the day my novel, first novel, Garbage Town, is out wherever you get your books. |
| 0:11.0 | And, you know, once again, this is a coming of age thriller set in 1990s in Staten Island, New York, |
| 0:17.0 | in the shadows of fresh kills, landfill, the largest garbage dump of the world |
| 0:20.8 | has ever seen. |
| 0:21.8 | It's all about a group of kids who stumble upon something they shouldn't have seen, and |
| 0:25.9 | then they have to fight for survival. |
| 0:27.8 | And it's a period piece, too. |
| 0:30.2 | I talk about this with our guest today, while introduced in a second. |
| 0:34.2 | It's really about life in the 1990s in a particular corner of the world that is unlike |
| 0:40.4 | anywhere else but also in some ways rhymes with wherever you grew up whoever you came from |
| 0:45.9 | and i'm so proud of this book and i'm excited for you to read it because it is inspired by a lot |
| 0:52.1 | of things i saw as a kid and hopefully if you're a long time listening to this podcast, |
| 0:55.9 | it will just give you a little sense of where I came from and what I care about |
| 1:00.9 | and the people I love and spent 18 years of my life alongside. |
| 1:06.8 | And to help me talk about this book, I'm going to welcome on my friend Emily Lilly, who runs a bookshop or is co-owner of a bookshop called The Book and Cover in Chattanooga, Tennessee. |
| 1:18.4 | She's also an education advocate and policy expert. And we're going to be spoiler-free here. We're going to talk about the book, but we're not going to tell you what happens to resolve |
| 1:31.0 | the sort of key mysteries of the book. |
| 1:32.6 | Yeah, we'll talk about little pieces here and there of characters and certain pivot points |
| 1:37.5 | in the book, but we're deliberately staying away from anything that will ruin your experience |
| 1:41.0 | of reading the book. |
| 1:42.9 | And we're going to put in the show notes a link to |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from The Branch, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of The Branch and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.