Short story collections by Steven Millhauser and Jamel Brinkley focus on the uncanny

NPR's Book of the Day

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Books, Arts

4.2 • 672 Ratings

🗓️ 25 August 2023

⏱️ 18 minutes

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Summary

Today's episode features interviews with two authors of short story collections. First, NPR's Sacha Pfeiffer speaks with Steven Millhauser about Disruptions, and why he likes to write stories that start off in the normal world and slowly become more and more unsettling until he feels he's pushed the limits as far as he can. Then, NPR's Juana Summers asks Jamel Brinkley about Witness, and how he incorporated gentrification in New York, masculinity and Blackness into his larger themes of obsession.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	I'm Linda Holmes. This is NPR's Book of the Day. We've got two books of stories today that both touch on fixations. In a little bit, we'll talk about a collection from Jamel Brinkley, built around the theme of bearing witness. But first, Stephen Milhouser's story collection, Disruptions, carries the mark of his fondness for taking reality and bending a part
0:22.6	of it, a particular aspect of the way people operate until he gets to whatever idea has seized his
0:28.4	attention. And he tells NPR's Sasha Fifer, it's okay to not know exactly what greater meaning
0:35.2	or deeper idea lies behind one of his stories when you read it.
0:39.9	He doesn't always know either, at least at first.
0:42.9	In the U.S., national security news can feel far away from daily life.
0:47.7	Distant wars, murky conflicts, diplomacy behind closed doors on our new show, sources and methods.
1:00.8	NPR reporters on the ground bring you stories of real people, helping you understand why distant events matter here at home.
1:05.6	Listen to sources and methods on the NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts.
1:13.2	Stephen Milhouser has a strange way of looking at the world. In his new collection of short stories called disruptions, one is about regular-sized people who live alongside other people
1:19.4	who are just two inches tall. The tiny people sleep on folded handkerchiefs and they're
1:24.5	at constant risk of injuries from chipmunks. In another story,
1:28.5	a town develops a preference for darkness, for shadows, for shades of gray. Blonde women suddenly
1:34.6	want to turn their hair jet black. Stephen Milhouser is with us today to talk about his latest work.
1:39.7	Thank you for making time for us. Hi.
1:42.2	Stephen, I used the word strange to describe your view of the world,
1:46.3	but I actually wrestled with what the correct adjective should be. Are your stories weird? Are
1:51.3	they unconventional? Are they twisted? Are they fantastical? I'm wondering what word you would use.
1:57.1	I would probably evade all adjectives as carefully as possible.
2:03.2	I think strange is actually fair enough, so long as it's also clear that my stories are
2:12.9	filled with deliberately precise, so-called realistic details.
2:19.0	I like beginning as a rule in the real world
	...

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