The Great American Novel Podcast episode 28 considers JD Salinger’s landmark 1951 classic, The Catcher in the Rye. Your hosts discuss Salinger’s famous reclusiveness, the book’s continuing appeal, and its influence on both the genre of so-called “young adult literature” and post-breakdown lit. We examine the novel in its role of the creation of the American teenager as a marketing sector and artistic project. We don’t dodge the thorny issues of Salinger’s life while separating artist from the art, and perhaps we even disagree, just a little, on where we place this novel when all is said and done.

The Great American Novel podcast is an ongoing discussion about the novels we hold up as significant achievements in our American literary culture. Additionally, we sometimes suggest novels which should break into the sometimes problematical canon and at other times we’ll suggest books which can be dropped from such lofty consideration. Your hosts are Kirk Curnutt and Scott Yarbrough, professors with little time and less sense who nonetheless enjoy a good book banter. All opinions are their own and do not reflect the points of view of their employers, publishers, relatives, pets, or accountants.

Correction: in the episode Scott refers incorrectly to George Bush as an Army Air Force Pilot; he was a naval pilot.

Intro and outro music is by Lobo Loco. The intro song is “Old Ralley,” and the outro is “Inspector Invisible.” For more information visit: https://locolobomusic.com/.

We may be contacted at greatamericannovelpodcast (@) gmail.com.

Often hailed as the quintessential exemplum of Reagan-era postmodernism, Don DeLillo's eighth novel, White Noise (1985), is part academic satire, part media excoriation, and part exploration of the "simulacrum" or simulated feel of everyday life. With its absurdist asides on the iconicity of both Elvis and Hitler, the unrelenting stress of consumer choices (the supermarket is the site of modern neuroses), and the pharmacopic management of anxiety, the novel can sometimes feel a little smirky, a little too self-consciously zany, in its treatment of 1980s' suburban life. But readers interested in what DeLillo has to say about the emotional connections between husbands and wives and fathers and children will find a deeper, more somber effort to de-clutter the static of misinformation systems and chemical controls, whether in the blood or in the air, to forge organic bonds. To call White Noise the Babbitt of the "Greed is Good" era is no slight---DeLillo may have written better and more important books (including Libra, his treatment of the conspiracy theories surrounding the Kennedy assassination) but this is the novel that best captures the weird unease of the second-to-last decade of the twentieth century.

The 26th episode of the Great American Novel Podcast delves into Carson McCullers’ 1940 debut novel The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter. Published when the author was only 23, the novel tells the tale of a variety of misfits who don’t seem to belong in their small milltown in depression-era, 1930s Georgia. Tackling race, disability, sexuality, classism, socialism, the novel catapulted McCullers to fame. It’s been an Oprah book and it’s been adapted to film. The Modern Library chose it for its list of 100 best novels in English of the 20th Century. But the question asked by your intrepid hosts is this: is it truly a great American novel?

The Great American Novel podcast is an ongoing discussion about the novels we hold up as significant achievements in our American literary culture. Additionally, we sometimes suggest novels who should break into the sometimes problematical canon and at other times we’ll suggest books which can be dropped from such lofty consideration. Your hosts are Kirk Curnutt and Scott Yarbrough, professors with little time and less sense who nonetheless enjoy a good book banter. All opinions are their own and do not reflect the points of view of their employers, publishers, relatives, pets, or accountants.

Intro and outro music is by Lobo Loco. The intro song is “Old Ralley,” and the outro is “Inspector Invisible.” For more information visit: https://locolobomusic.com/. Clip from the trailer for the 1968 film The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, directed by Robert Ellis Miller, with lines spoken by Sondra Locke.

We may be contacted at greatamericannovelpodcast (@) gmail.com.