Is Oklahoma City destined to become a world-class metropolis?

Sam Anderson will be here to talk about his debut book, Boom Town.

How well does fiction handle the subject of finance?

Andrew Ross Sarkin and David Enrich will be here to talk about Gary Steingart's

Lake Success, Tom Wolf's Bonfire of the Vanities, and more.

Alexander Alter will give us an update from the publishing world,

plus our critics' Dwight Garner, Jen Salai, and Parallel Sagle will talk about what's the latest in literary criticism.

This is the Booker View Podcast from The New York Times. I'm Pamela Paul.

Sam Anderson joins us now. He is a staff writer at The New York Times Magazine and the author of a new book, his first book, Boom Town,

Fantastico Saga of Oklahoma City. It's chaotic founding. It's apocalyptic weather. It's Perloined basketball team, and the dream of becoming a world-class metropolis.

Sam, thanks for being here.

I think we just took up the whole segment with you reading my subtitle.

Have you memorized your own subtitle?

No.

I have been guilty of the same. I have to look up my subtitle.

It was like suspenseful for me to listen to you read it.

You got to find out.

What else is in this book? How did this book come to be? Is it a biography of a city?

It is. That's a good way to describe it. It really started casually with a magazine assignment.

I was standing in the editor-in-chief of The New York Times Magazine's office, and he said,

we want you to write a big colorful splashy cover story. What can it be about?

We were just kind of shooting the breeze, and he said, well, you're a basketball fan.

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