Episode 66 - Laura Lippman: Part 2

Part two of Laura Lippman's chat with Writing Life Podcast about her new novel Wilde Lake begins with the real-life district of Columbia, where Lippman grew up. Other Wilde Lake High School alumni include Edward Norton and Michael Chabon. After some insight into the impact of babysitting on Norton's early acting talent, we talked about:

• the utopian impulses behind (and deceitful subtext beneath) the creation of Columbia
• 'We were so self-congratulatory about not seeing race'
  
• the 'You know you grew up in Columbia when...' Facebook page
• 'In writing this book, I came to the realisation that I am very much the product of that high school': Lippman on Columbia's doomed experiment
  
• innocence, childhood and changing moral values
• race, liberalism and the problems of good intentions
• race, height, gender: the challenges of unacknowledged prejudice
• the (Twitter) politics of Calvin Trillin's poem about Chinese food