Musician and author John Darnielle joins us to discuss A House and Its Head by Ivy Compton-Burnett, a wickedly funny novel first published in 1935. We talk about how Compton-Burnett's family background did or did not shape her style, explore the influence of Greek drama on her approach to narrative, and try to understand why we find her characters' conversations about horrific acts so hilarious.

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References:
The Life of Ivy Compton-Burnett by Hilary Spurling
The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky
Mikhail Bulgakov
Jack Kerouac
Francine Prose
Devil House
Immanuel Kant
Jacques Derrida
Joan Didion
Propagandhi
Robert E. Howard
Wolf in White Van
Universal Harvester
Minotaur by Benjamin Tammuz
Europa Editions
Robert Liddell
Elizabeth Taylor
Jane Austen
Charlotte Brontë
J. D. Salinger
Charles Dickens
Yasujiro Ozu
Seinfeld
Michael Fengler and Rainer Werner Fassbinder's Why Does Herr R. Run Amok?
On the Origin of the Species by Charles Darwin
Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
The French Lieutenant's Woman by John Fowles
Medea by Euripides
Oedipus Rex by Sophocles
Seven Against Thebes by Aeschylus
Geoffrey Chaucer
A Compton-Burnett Compendium by Violet Powell
Anthony Powell
Mary Olivier: A Life by May Sinclair
Thomas Hardy
"Notes on Camp" by Susan Sontag
John Waters' Polyester
Edward Albee
J. M. Synge
Mother and Son
Virago Modern Classics
More Women Than Men
Oscar Wilde

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A House and Its Head with John Darnielle