The Carrier Bag Theory of Fiction

Sheila Heti returns to Between the Covers to discuss her latest unclassifiable novel Pure Colour. When something happens in your life that upends everything you thought you knew, that changes what you notice and value, something that is hard, if not impossible, to put into language, that mystifies you even now, how do you find a new form to reflect this? We discuss what it is to write books influenced less by other books than by other art forms (what does it mean to try to write more like a painter paints or sculptor sculpts?), about the role of criticism and inviting other writers into the process of a book becoming itself, about the art critic characters in her new book that are imagining a future world better than this one, and much more.

For the bonus audio archive Heti discusses and reads from her serialized Oulipian project, taking her diary entries from the past ten years and alphabetizing the sentences (this joins a previous contribution by Sheila, a reading of her essay “My Life is a Joke”). To learn how to subscribe to the bonus audio and about the many other potential benefits and rewards of joining the community of Between the Covers supporters, head over to the show’s Patreon page.

Finally here is the Bookshop for today’s episode with many of the books mentioned.