GRETAGRAM book club: Nina McConigley on 'How to Commit a Postcolonial Murder'
Happy To Be Here
Greta Johnsen
4.6 • 924 Ratings
🗓️ 17 February 2026
⏱️ 19 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
The GRETAGRAM book club is officially in podcast form! Host Greta Johnsen talks to Nina McConigley, the author of How to Commit a Postcolonial Murder. Her novel is the GRETAGRAM book club selection for February. It’s about two teenage sisters who decide they must kill their uncle.
While this book is intense it’s also funny and strange -- or, as Nina puts it, cheeky!
Nina talks about the weirdness of growing up in an immigrant family in Wyoming, the complicated legacy of colonialism, and the nostalgic power of Noxema.
SHOW CREDITS
Creator and host: Greta Johnsen
Senior Producer: Ben Goldberg
Composers: Ross Bellenoit and Jeremy Thal
Show art: Mac Maclean
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | people aren't writing about rural immigrants that much. Yeah, and that experience in Wyoming, |
| 0:03.7 | like, holy shit. That's what I say daily. Holy shit. Hello and welcome to happy to be here, |
| 0:14.0 | the show for recovering perfectionists and the perpetually curious about what to read, eat, watch, |
| 0:18.6 | think about, and delight in wherever you might happen to be. |
| 0:22.3 | I am your host, Greta Johnson, and I am so excited that you are here. |
| 0:27.5 | Today, I have a special little episode for you. As you probably know, we are in the midst |
| 0:32.7 | of rewatching my so-called life with our TV club. Those episodes are coming out on Fridays. But as a bonus today, |
| 0:39.8 | I have a conversation with Nina McConaugly, who wrote this month's GretaGram Book Club Pick. |
| 0:45.9 | Ever since Nerdette ended, I have been selecting a book a month over on my substack, |
| 0:49.6 | and I'm really excited to get that back into the podcast mix as well. So today we have a spoiler-free |
| 0:59.6 | interview with the author of the February book club pick. This month, as I mentioned, we are reading |
| 1:04.6 | how to commit a post-colonial murder, which is by Nina McConaugly. Nina, welcome to the show. |
| 1:11.2 | Thank you for having me. |
| 1:12.3 | I'm so happy to be here. |
| 1:13.3 | I have to admit, I chose this book purely on the title. |
| 1:16.7 | I totally understand that. |
| 1:19.6 | How did the title come to be? |
| 1:21.6 | The original title and the title that I worked with for, you know, while I was writing it, |
| 1:25.9 | was a really lyrical line from Angels in America, |
| 1:29.6 | which was called The Call of Migratory Thing. So I loved that title. And when I first met my editor, |
| 1:35.5 | one of the first things she said to me was, I don't like that title. And I thought, oh, it's so |
| 1:40.3 | beautiful and lyrical. And it is. I want to be a poet. And she, um, she wrote me this really long |
... |
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