In 'Small Game,' a survival-challenge reality show takes a dark turn

NPR's Book of the Day

NPR

Arts, Books

4.2 • 671 Ratings

🗓️ 10 November 2022

⏱️ 11 minutes

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Summary

Blair Braverman knows the great outdoors. So it makes sense that the American adventurer and "Naked And Afraid" contestant's first novel, Small Game, takes place in the wilderness. She tells NPR's Ayesha Rascoe about some of her own fears while competing in the Discovery Channel series – and how they manifested themselves in her first foray into fiction.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey, it's NPR's Book of the Day. I'm Andrew Limbaugh. Blair Braverman's new novel, Small Game, features these contestants in a reality TV show who get abandoned in the wilderness. It's kind of a mix between the Running Man and Battle Royale. Except, unlike the people that wrote those books, Braverman's got some firsthand experience.
0:21.6	She was a contestant on Discovery Channel's hit show,
0:24.6	Naked and Afraid.
0:26.0	And in this interview with NPR's Aisha Rosco,
0:28.4	they get to talking about the ethics of that kind of reality TV
0:32.2	and the fine line between discomfort and suffering.
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0:51.9	This message comes from heavyweight. Maybe you've laid awake and imagined how it could have been, how it might be,
0:58.6	but the moment to act was never right.
1:00.7	Well, the moment is here, and the podcast making it happen is Heavyweight with
1:04.8	Jonathan Goldstein, available wherever you get podcasts.
1:09.5	Five people are blindfolded, taken to a helicopter, and dropped into a lake in the middle of a remote wilderness.
1:17.0	The show was called Civilization. Their clothes were fast fashion prehistoric.
1:22.9	Canvas tunics and matching shorts all dyed a dusty brown. The idea was that they'd found one another
1:29.2	in the wilderness, this group of strangers, and over the course of six weeks would be tasked with
1:34.9	building a new kind of community, something pure and sustainable and right. They would
1:41.0	forego all comforts so that viewers didn't have to.
1:45.9	They would be one with the forest.
1:48.0	They would find a way to live.
1:55.1	It's a survival competition, a reality TV show, until it isn't.
	...

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