4.8 • 1.8K Ratings
🗓️ 18 June 2025
⏱️ 60 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Mia McKenzie is on the show this week discussing her newest book, These Heathens, a coming of age story set in 1960s Georgia. She talks about how she approached fictionalizing real figures from the civil rights movement, the importance of queer representation in her work, and how her grandmother inspired the protagonist in the novel.
The Stacks Book Club pick for June is The Art Thief: A True Story of Love, Crime, and a Dangerous Obsession by Michael Finkel. We will discuss on Wednesday, June 25th with Ceara O’Sullivan returning as our guest.
You can find everything we discuss on today's show on The Stacks' website:
https://www.thestackspodcast.com/2025/6/18/ep-376-mia-mckenzie
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0:00.0 | Hi, everybody. It's me, Tracy, here to tell you about a book that I think you're going to love. |
0:05.0 | It is called The Great Man. It's a novel by Kira Davis-Lurie. It is a diverse retelling of the |
0:10.8 | Great Gatsby set among the black elite of post-war Los Angeles and is inspired by real-life |
0:16.4 | historic events. Pause for a moment. Does that not sound like me? Real life historic events, |
0:22.1 | a retelling of a classic and set in Los Angeles. It follows Charlie Tremel, a young veteran, |
0:28.2 | who is lured by his cousin Marguerite to the esteemed West Adams Heights, aka LA's newly |
0:34.5 | rechristened Sugar Hill. There is black opulence, there is success, there is old money |
0:40.2 | intertwined with white privilege, and Charlie finds himself drawn into this tantalizing world of |
0:45.8 | possibilities where he meets James Reaper Man. As Charlie navigates a landscape rife with |
0:51.9 | ambition, betrayal, and societal turmoil, he soon finds |
0:55.4 | himself beside Reaper facing a pivotal decision that could end in tragedy. |
1:00.1 | Hello! |
1:01.2 | This is giving amazing! |
1:04.1 | Coinciding with the 100th anniversary of the Great Gatsby, Davis-Lurie's book masterfully |
1:08.9 | reimagines the opulence and social dynamics of F. Scott Fitzgerald's |
1:13.0 | classic novel within the real-world backdrop of L.A.'s Sugar Hill, offering a compelling exploration |
1:18.9 | of wealth and class. The Great Man, a novel by Kira Davis-Lurie, is available now wherever |
1:24.1 | books are sold. When I started writing the book, it was around the time when the |
1:31.5 | leak came out that the Supreme Court was going to overturn Roe v. Wade. So I knew then that it was |
1:38.0 | going to be relevant, you know, very soon in many, many ways. You know, historical fiction should |
1:43.9 | feel more historical than this. |
1:45.7 | Right. I wouldn't send out to write something that was still current. You know, as I'm living in |
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