Otherppl with Brad Listi

Will Chancellor is the guest. His debut novel, A Brave Man Seven Storeys Tall, is now available from Harper. The Daily Beast says “To compare a debut novel to Infinite Jest is likely either too flippant or too generous, but consider the bona fides...Will Chancellor’s wonderful debut novel...more than merely promising, is one of the best of the year.” And Kirkus, in a starred review, calls it “Bracingly rich...the author maintains an almost thrillerlike pace while taking well-aimed shots at academic and art-market fads and helping two lost souls through essential transformations.” Monologue topics: hellishness, annoying/hectic day, ATT customer service, ultrasounds. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Adam Robinson is the guest. He is the founding editor of Publishing Genius Press. Monologue topics: LA, yoga, celebrity sneezes, God bless you.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Timothy Willis Sanders is the guest. His debut novel, Matt Meets Vik, is available now from Civil Coping Mechanisms.  Blake Butler says "I have no idea how Timothy Willis Sanders is able to accumulate so many small reflections into such a mesmerizing mass. Matt Meets Vik makes maybe the most stripped-down paragraphs I've ever seen somehow hold a hundred thousand colors, emotions, tones, like if there were a website that made you forget all other websites ever existed, or that you're even still online. Hilarious, moving, insane, real." And Megan Boyle says "As I was reading Matt Meets Vik (and long after I'd finished), I couldn't get the voice of 'Matt' out of my head, like it gave my inner monologue extra-charming-sounding subwoofers. Everything I did felt funnier and more important. There are only a few books that get in my head the way Matt Meets Vik has. This is one of my favorite books. I didn't want it to end. I can see myself reading this many times." Monologue topics: my daughter threw a fit, mail, Neem Karoli Baba Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Stewart O'Nan is the guest. His new novel, West of Sunset, is available now from Viking. It is the official Februrary pick of The Nervous Breakdown Book Club. Maureen Corrigan, writing for The Washington Post, says “[The] grim yet undeniably fascinating last act of Fitzgerald’s life is the subject of Stewart O’Nan’s gorgeous new novel. . .West of Sunset is a pretty fine Hollywood novel, too, but it’s an even finer novel about a great writer’s determination to keep trying to do his best work.” And George Saunders says “O'Nan is an incredibly versatile and charming writer. This novel, which imagines F. Scott Fitzgerald's troubled time in Hollywood (with cameos by Dorothy Parker, Bogie, and Hemingway), takes up (like much of O'Nan's work) that essential conundrum of grace struggling with paucity. One brilliant American writer meditating on another--what's not to love?” Monologue topics: paranoia, pregnancy, fear, hovering, mail.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Halle Butler is the guest. Her debut novel, Jillian, is available now from Curbside Splendor.  Lindsay Hunter says "This book is incredible. The deadpan way it nails what it is to be a human who lies to herself and tells different lies to everyone else makes me want to laugh and scream. It is hilarious and weird, my two favorite qualities in a book." And Kirkus Reviews says "[Jillian] offers up its characters for hatred and ridicule with such energy, obsessive detail and hopelessness that the reader can't help but read on, through exasperating flinches of sympathy and recognition. A novel that reads like rubbernecking or a junk-food binge, compelling a horrified fascination and bleak laughter in the face of outrageously painted everyday sadness." Monologue topics: thanks, worry, sleeplessness, corporate pitchman fantasies, idealism, crazy people, Starbucks, Valentine's Day, my dog, jokes that fail to land. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Porochista Khakpour is the guest. Her novel The Last Illusion is now available from Bloomsbury.  Claire Messud says “Utterly original and compelling, Porochista Khakpour's The Last Illusion weaves Iranian myth with very contemporary American neurosis to create a bittersweet poetry all its own. This ambitious, exciting literary adventure is at once grotesque, amusing, deeply sad—and wonderful, too.” And Kirkus, in a starred review, calls it "An audaciously ambitious novel that teeters along a tightrope but never falls off." Monologue topics:  big news, superstition, not wanting to be dominated by superstition despite demonstrably being dominated by superstition by knocking wood repeatedly.      Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Kitty is the guest. She is a rapper/musician whose latest EP, Frostbite, is now available. RollingStone says "Love is pain, and nobody understands that quite like this suburban teen-rap every-girl. Pryde went viral with ["Okay Cupid"]...a homemade mumblecore hit, in the voice of a bored kid from Florida. It's full of wit ("It's my party, couldn't cry if I wanted to") and mall-rat ambience, as she waits for her boyfriend's drunk-dials at 3:30 a.m." And The New York Times says "She doesn’t rap because it’s funny or novel, but rather because it’s simply the best and most comfortable tool available to her. The results so far, while almost no one has been watching, have the intimacy and comfort of private recordings. They transfix."   Monologue topics:  privilege, mail. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Tim Johnston is the guest. His new novel, Descent, is available now from Algonquin Books. It is the official January selection of The Nervous Breakdown Book Club. The Washington Post raves “I’ve read many variations on this theme, some quite good, but never one as powerful as Tim Johnston’s Descent . . . The story unfolds brilliantly, always surprisingly, but the glory of Descent lies not in its plot but in the quality of the writing. The magic of his prose equals the horror of Johnston’s story; each somehow enhances the other . . . Read this astonishing novel. It’s the best of both worlds.” And Mary Roach says “Descent is the best novel I've read in a long time. Unlike most books that fall into the category of Page Turner, this one also falls in the category of Writing So Good You Can't Even Believe It. Johnston has a superhuman gift for watching and listening to the world and rendering, on the page, its beauty and savagery with such detail and power that the story feels almost more like memory than something read. I was so absorbed in the final incredible fifty pages that I missed my flight to La Guardia.” Monologue topics: Ann Bauer, Salon, writing, writers, money, class, privilege, honesty, The Struggle.   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Alexis Coe is the guest. She is the author of Alice + Freda Forever, available now from Pulp/Zest Books. Peter Orner says "Alexis Coe rescues a buried but extraordinarily telling episode from the 1890's that resonates in all sorts of ways with today. That in itself would be an accomplishment. But this is a book that is truly riveting, a narrative that gallops. Lizzy Borden eat your heart out. Here's a real crime of passion. Or was it? 'And so Alice carried the razor around every day in her dress pocket, just in case Freda came to town…' I dare you to pick this one up and try, just try to put it down." And Vol. 1 Brooklyn says "Though the history recounted in Alexis Coe's Alice + Freda Forever is captivating in its own right, Coe also provides a larger context for it, elevating this to the level of a societal indictment. This story of a star-crossed love with a violent ending at times reads like a microcosm of Memphis at the end of the 19th century. As Coe's narrative delves into perceptions of sexuality and the ways in which the case touched on different aspects of daily life, it never loses sight of the tragic romance at its core." Monologue topics: mail, Chelsea Hodson, prurience, sex, manners, gender. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Cameron Pierce is the guest. He is the author of several books and the editor of Lazy Fascist Press. Vol. 1 Brooklyn says "Whether he's describing a grandmother who gets pulled into a watery grave by an almost mythological fish or telling the creepy story of a creature that wouldn't be out of place in an H.P. Lovecraft story, Pierce constantly pulls together concepts from the outmost edges of outré fiction and the kind of unassumingly profound storytelling that made authors like Flannery O'Connor and George Singleton household names." And Beach Sloth says “Black humor has never been darker than this; this is the absolute pitch black of humor." Monologue topics: war, war on terror, word usage, Charlie Hebdo, terrorism. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices