The Unspeakeasy With Meghan Daum

Bestselling novelist and commentator Lionel Shriver returns to the podcast to dicuss what might be her most controversial book yet. A Better Life takes on immigration through the story of a progressive Brooklyn woman who opens her home to a migrant. In this interview, she and Meghan discuss the book's themes and central characters, including the deliciously complicated Nico, a basement-dwelling fan of manospheric podcasts, and the role of the family's sprawling, Queen Anne-style house, which is almost a character in itself. They also talk about demography, population decline, and the cultural shift from seeing children as the default to seeing them as an elective. Lionel was a contributor to Meghan's 2015 book Selfish, Shallow and Self-Absorbed: Sixteen Writers On the Decision Not To Have Kids, and they revisit their respective choices in that regard, what people really mean when they talk about happiness and fulfillment, and why sacrifice may be more central to a meaningful life than our culture likes to admit. Guest Bio: A prolific journalist with a fortnightly column in Britain's The Spectator, Lionel Shriver has written widely for the New York Times, the London Times, the Financial Times, Harper's Magazine, and many other publications. She has written 16 novels, including Mania, Should We Stay or Should We Go, The Mandibles, and We Need to Talk About Kevin, and her work has been translated into 35 languages. Her latest novel is A Better Life.

Annabelle Gurwitch, actor, humorist, and bestselling memoirist, reflects on living with unexpected stage IV lung cancer. She talks about her surprise diagnosis, using gallows humor and contrarian storytelling, navigating scans and relationships, targeted therapy that made her an outlier, and her patient advocacy work with researchers and international conferences.

Sam Quinones, investigative journalist and bestselling author of Dreamland and The Least of Us, explains how new, mass-produced P2P meth reshaped visible street homelessness. He contrasts modern meth-induced psychosis with older stereotypes. He questions single-cause housing narratives, explores limits of Housing First, and even finds hope in band culture and his new book about the tuba as a counter to addiction.

Sarah Haider, writer and commentator and new mother, returns to spar and reflect. They unpack the Jeffrey Epstein files, debate who counts as a predator, and laugh about the infamous muffin emails. Conversation pivots to fertility discourse, Sarah’s GI Bill for moms idea, egg-freezing realities, and modern loneliness. They close with sharp takes on elite culture and why reviving their old show might be complicated.

A sharp take on a podcast controversy about whether recorded interviews must be released. Short history of a public dustup and the tweets that fanned it into an outrage. A clear explanation of why producers shelve interviews and the messy reasons behind those choices. A personal, painful Fresh Air story that shows how shelving can shape careers.

Dr. Debra Soh, neuroscientist and author of Sextinction, studies why younger generations are having less sex. She discusses technology as a new form of contraception, the roles of porn, dating apps, AI companions, and sex dolls. She also covers hormonal and environmental factors, changing sexual norms, and whether an analog rebound is possible.

Michael Shermer, science writer and founding publisher of Skeptic magazine, offers a short tour of how we lose track of basic facts. He talks about why people see the same videos differently. He covers conspiracies, activism’s effect on institutions, the lab leak theory, and how to rebuild trust in expertise.

Writer and essayist Jacob Savage, known for his viral piece 'The Lost Generation,' dives into the challenges faced by millennial white men in fields like media and academia. He shares his disappointing journey from Princeton to Hollywood, emphasizing the impact of recent diversity initiatives. Jacob discusses evolving hiring practices, personal accountability, and how exclusion has influenced political trends and mental health among his peers. Their conversation raises questions about artistic loss and the changing landscape of creativity, sparking a critical dialogue about societal shifts.

Mike Pesca, a journalist and podcaster known for hosting The Gist, delves into the complexities of the creator economy, discussing challenges in discovery and monetization on platforms like Substack. He shares insights about the outrage culture that often propels success and evaluates Bari Weiss's recent controversy with CBS News. Their conversation touches on the evolving media landscape, including debates over diversity and representation, and how statistics can mislead narratives about white millennial men in the industry.

This week, I talk with author Lili Anolik about her book on two writers whose lives overlapped in ways that were both unlikely and (in retrospect) inevitable. One is Eve Babitz, the exuberant chronicler of 1970s Hollywood. The other is Joan Didion, whose notoriously "cool," exacting style defined a particular vision of Los Angeles and helped make her one of the most influential writers of the last century. The two writers are often framed as opposites, but in Didion & Babitz, Lili explores how they shared similar burdens of the times–burdens around creativity, ambition, and modern womanhood. If you enjoy literary gossip, this interview is for you. Our conversation includes some surprising and, at times, uncomfortable details about Didion's marriage, her relationship with her daughter, and her lingering feelings from an early romance with Noel Parmentel, a roguish figure who helped her start her career and introduced her to her husband, John Gregory Dunne. If you're among the devoted Didion faithful, you may hear things you didn't expect. If you're new to Eve Babitz, consider this your introduction to one of the great hidden figures of American literary life. Guest Bio: Lili Anolik is a contributing editor at Vanity Fair and a writer at large for Air Mail. Her work has also appeared in Harper's, Esquire, and The Paris Review, among other publications. She is the creator of the podcast Once Upon a Time… at Bennington College. Her latest book is Didion & Babitz, published by Scribner.