Welcome, everyone, to a new episode of Storybound.

This week on the show, we're joined by Jason Diamond, who will be reading an excerpt from his essay collection, The Spraw.

Jason Diamond is the founder of the website, Volume 1, Brooklyn, and he's worked his editor and writer at outlets such as Flavor Wire, Men's Journal, Rolling Stone, and Insidehook.com.

He's also written for the New York Times, Outside the Paris Review, Esquire Harbors Bazaar, The Wall Street Journal, New Republic,

Vice, Tablet, the All-Pitchfork, Mick Sweeney's NPR, and can you believe it, more.

His memoir, searching for John Hughes, was was published in 2016 and his second book,

The Sprawl, which he's reading from today, was just published in August 2020. The Sprawl is a

collection of essays that digs into the history of the suburbs as a place where art happens. From

the book's jacket. For decades, the suburbs have been where art happens, despite the conformity, the emptiness,

the sameness.

Time and again, the story is one of gems formed under pressure, and that resentment of the suburbs

is the key ingredient for creative transcendence.

But what if?

Contrary to that, the suburb has actually been an incubator for distinctly American art.

The sprawl was named Best Book of 2020 by the Chicago Tribune and NPR, and as you'll hear in this reading, it's a trip down memory lane for Jason, as well as for so many of us listeners. He'll also be

joined by Xander Marsden for an original musical score. All right, let's start the show. This is Jason

Diamond, recording chapter four of the sprawl. This episode is brought to you by Shopify.

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