Culture Chat: Margaret Atwood, John Grisham and friends write a novel
Life and Art from FT Weekend
Forhecz Topher
4.6 • 601 Ratings
🗓️ 16 February 2024
⏱️ 18 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
In this episode we’re discussing the new novel Fourteen Days. The book is a collaboration by 36 authors including Margaret Atwood, John Grisham, Celeste Ng, RL Stine, and Dave Eggers – and part of the experience is guessing who wrote which part. So does the premise work as a novel? What do we want from experimental fiction? And are we ready to revisit the depths of the Covid-19 pandemic, during which the action is set? Lilah is joined by the FT’s acting deputy books editor Andrew Dickson and assistant arts editor Rebecca Watson, author of the novel Little Scratch.
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We love hearing from you. Lilah is on Instagram @lilahrap and we’re on X @lifeandartpod. You can email us at lifeandart@ft.com. We are grateful for reviews, on Apple, Spotify, etc.
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Links (all FT links get you past the paywall):
– Fourteen Days, edited by Margaret Atwood and Douglas Preston, is out now where books are sold.
– The FT’s review of Fourteen Days is here: https://on.ft.com/4bCdRFD
– Rebecca’s novel is called Little Scratch (2021). Her second novel I Will Crash comes out on July 4th.
– Andy recommends novels by Sheila Heti and Jon Fosse for their experimental prose.
– Andy is on X, formerly Twitter, @andydickson. Rebecca is @rebeccawhatsun
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to Life and Art from FT Weekend. I'm Lila Raptopoulos, and this is our Friday chat show. |
| 0:08.3 | This week we are talking about a new collaborative novel called 14 Days. It's one novel written by 36 authors, |
| 0:15.9 | including Margaret Atwood, John Grisham, Celeste Ng, Angie Cruz, and the goosebumps author R. L. Stein. |
| 0:23.0 | 14 days tells the story of a group of residents in a New York City apartment building who are |
| 0:27.5 | stuck there in the early days of the COVID lockdown. They start to gather on the roof every night |
| 0:31.9 | and tell each other's stories, and each story is written by a different author. |
| 0:36.3 | It's all narrated and held together by the building super or the building manager who is |
| 0:41.1 | secretly recording their conversations. |
| 0:43.4 | It is quite a 352-page ride and an interesting experiment, so today we're going to talk about |
| 0:49.7 | whether it worked. |
| 0:50.9 | I'm Lila Raptopoulos, and I'm secretly recording this conversation. |
| 0:55.1 | Joining me from the FT headquarters in London, from a fainting couch on the roof, is the |
| 0:59.6 | FTs acting deputy books editor, Andrew Dixon. Hi, Andy. |
| 1:04.3 | Hey, we've got a great view of some polls, though. It's all good. It's not bad. |
| 1:07.9 | And with him on that roof in London is our assistant arts and books editor and author of the novel Little Scratch. |
| 1:15.0 | It's Rebecca Watson. |
| 1:16.5 | Hi, Rebecca. |
| 1:17.0 | Welcome back. |
| 1:17.5 | Hello. |
| 1:18.6 | I'm so happy to have you both here. |
| 1:20.6 | And to get into it, my first question is just what you both thought. |
| 1:25.7 | Like, what is your top line take? Andy? Well, my top line take, |
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