Her First American by Lore Segal

Backlisted

Backlisted Podcast

Hobbies, Leisure, Books, Arts

4.7 • 1.1K Ratings

🗓️ 23 September 2024

⏱️ 67 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

This episode explores the third novel by the nonagenarian American writer Lore Segal which was originally published in 1985 by Knopf and is due to be released in the UK for the first time by Sort Of Books in 2025. We are joined by Sort Of Book’s publisher and co-founder Nat Janscz, who made her Backlisted debut back in 2018 on the Tove Jansson episode. She is joined by the distinguished American novelist and short story writer Jeffery Renard Allen, who was a student of Lore Segal’s. The story of Her First American follows the Jewish refugee Ilka Weissnix, who arrives in America having just turned twenty-one, after spending a decade escaping from Hitler’s Europe and becoming separated from her family in the process. Speaking barely any English she rooms with her cousin in New York’s Upper West Side and soon embarks on a relationship with Carter Bayoux, a Black middle-aged alcoholic poet and intellectual – who she first encounters randomly in a bar in Cowtown, Nevada – and who becomes ‘her first American’. The novel is the record of their always touching, often funny and inescapably sad relationship. Segal, whose own life story resemble Ilka’s in many ways calls the book ‘her favourite child’. The New York Times review went further declaring that: ‘Lore Segal may have come closer than anyone to writing the Great American Novel’ Intrigued? You’ll have to listen to the end to find out whether we reach the same conclusion… *For £100 off any Serious Readers HD Light and free UK delivery use the discount code: BACK at seriousreaders.com/backlisted *Tickets are now on sale for our LIVE show in London on Wednesday Sep 25th where we will be discussing The Parable of The Sower by Octavia Butler, with guests Salena Golden and Una McCormack * To purchase any of the books mentioned in this episode please visit our bookshop at uk.bookshop.org/shop/backlisted where all profits help to sustain this podcast and UK independent bookshops. * For information about everything mentioned in this episode visit www.backlisted.fm *If you'd like to support the show and join in with the book chat, listen without adverts, receive the show early and get extra bonus fortnightly episodes, become a patron at www.patreon.com/backlisted *You can sign up to our free monthly newsletter here Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	This episode of Batlisted is brought to you by serious readers, a reading lamp for people like you and me.
0:05.0	Serious readers. I've got one of these lamps and I think it's fantastic.
0:09.0	Yeah, it's a great lamp for reading indoors.
0:11.0	Perfect now the night's going darker because it
0:14.0	simulates daylight with its HD light, which means you can read for hours and hours
0:18.1	without any risk of ice strain. The great news is serious readers are giving
0:22.2	backlisted listeners 100 pounds off any HD light and free UK delivery.
0:27.5	Just go to serious readers.com forward slash backlisted and use the discount code backbak.
0:33.0	B.a.k. That's serious readers.com forward slash backlisted with the code back.
0:39.0	And there's a 30 day risk-free trial so you can return the light after 30 days for free if you're unhappy with it,
0:45.0	which I very much doubt you will be.
0:47.0	So without further ado, lights out for the podcast. Hello and welcome to Backlisted the podcast which gives new life to old books.
1:18.0	Today and find us in downtown New York. It's 1951 and we're in an untidy hotel bedroom.
1:22.0	Sitting hunched on the edge of the bed is a and we're in an untidy hotel bedroom.
1:22.8	Sitting hunched on the edge of the bed is a large man with short-graying hair and green-striped pyjamas.
1:29.3	On the bedside table next to him, it's a glass of bourbon, an empty bottle and an overflowing ashtray. He gives a heavy sigh and turns to the young blonde woman in a white blouse sitting next to him. She leans in and kisses his face repeatedly.
1:45.0	I'm John Mitchinson, the publisher of Unbound, where people pledge to support the books they really
1:49.9	want to read. And I'm Andy Miller, the author of the year of reading dangerously. And today we are
1:54.7	joined by two guests, one new and one returning. The returning guest is publisher Nat Jans
2:00.5	and we are delighted to welcome for the first time the American writer Jeffrey Reynard Allen.
2:05.4	Hello to you both. Hello. Hello.
2:07.3	Hello.
	...

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