2015-07

In this stopgap between podcasts, Tom Drury discusses the use of light in his debut novel, The End of Vandalism. 'I love that there would be some incidental lighting in the dark, like the dryer, you know?' Hear Antonya Nelson read Tom Drury's 'Accident at the Sugar Beet', which became an episode in The End of Vandalism, for the New Yorker here.

Tom Drury is the author of six astounding novels. Three - his masterpiece The End of Vandalism, Hunts in Dreams and Pacific - are set in the same fictional Grouse County area of Iowa - Drury's home-state. 

In the next episode of This Writing Life, James Kidd talks to the extraordinary American novelist Tom Drury, author of The End of Vandalism, Hunts in Dreams, Pacific and The Driftless Area, among others. 

The second part of my chat with Amit Chaudhuri began with a discussion of his literary inheritance - that combined Philip Larkin with Tagore. 

Amit Chaudhuri is a novelist, academic and musician whose books include A New World, The Immortals and most recently Odysseus Abroad. 

In the final part of my epic conversation with the American soldier-poet Brian Turner, our attention turned to the question: does writing help confront trauma and the violence he has witnessed and indeed participated in.