Peter C. Baker's guest appearances

Peter C. Baker

New Books in Literary Studies

New Books in Literature

New Books Network

Bookin’

Our Struggle

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This week, host Jason Jefferies is joined by Peter C. Baker, author of Planes, which is published by our friends at Alfred A. Knopf.  Topics of conversation include shops with regulars, cooking for pleasure vs. cooking by necessity, compulsive gossip, people who are overwhelmed by surprises, redactions, whether a coffee habit is a path to financial ruin, and much more.  Copies of Planes can be ordered here from Explore Booksellers, Aspen's trusted community bookstore.   

This week, host Jason Jefferies is joined by Peter C. Baker, author of <a href="https://www.explorebooksellers.com/book/9780593320273" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Planes</a>, which is published by our friends at Alfred A. Knopf.  Topics of conversation include shops with regulars, cooking for pleasure vs. cooking by necessity, compulsive gossip, people who are overwhelmed by surprises, redactions, whether a coffee habit is a path to financial ruin, and much more.  Copies of <a href="https://www.explorebooksellers.com/book/9780593320273" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Planes</a> can be ordered <a href="https://www.explorebooksellers.com/book/9780593320273" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">here</a> from Explore Booksellers, Aspen's trusted community bookstore.

198--Bookin’ w/ Peter C. Baker

An interview with debut novelist Peter C Baker. Planes (Knopf, 2022) is the story of a global crime unfolding principally in the domestic lives of two women, Amira, an Italian convert to Islam living in Rome, and Mel, a school board member in North Carolina. Amira is a direct victim of the crime of extraordinary rendition, her husband, Ayoub, having been abducted without criminal charges and taken first to Pakistan and then Morocco, where he was imprisoned and tortured. Ayoub’s eventual return to Amira is a lesson in how trauma comes like a wave for all those in its path.Mel’s life appears quieter. Her activist days behind her, she lives an ordinary suburban life, throwing herself into work on the school board and into a workmanlike affair that seems, at the surface, to have little effect on her family life. That is until the affair is discovered and her onetime partner on the school board is revealed to be deeply intwined with the rendition program that abducted Ayoub.Peter and I talk about how to write about torture outside of the torture room, our unwitting complicity with illegal rendition programs in the US, and our shared love of W.G. Sebald.Books Recommended in this episode:W.G. Sebald, The Rings of SaturnMarlen Haushofer, The WallChris Holmes is Chair of Literatures in English and Associate Professor at Ithaca College. He writes criticism on contemporary global literatures. His book, Kazuo Ishiguro as World Literature, is under contract with Bloomsbury Publishing. He is the co-director of The New Voices Festival, a celebration of work in poetry, prose, and playwriting by up-and-coming young writers. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/literature

An interview with debut novelist Peter C Baker. <a href="https://bookshop.org/a/12343/9780593320273" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Planes</a> (Knopf, 2022) is the story of a global crime unfolding principally in the domestic lives of two women, Amira, an Italian convert to Islam living in Rome, and Mel, a school board member in North Carolina. Amira is a direct victim of the crime of extraordinary rendition, her husband, Ayoub, having been abducted without criminal charges and taken first to Pakistan and then Morocco, where he was imprisoned and tortured. Ayoub’s eventual return to Amira is a lesson in how trauma comes like a wave for all those in its path.Mel’s life appears quieter. Her activist days behind her, she lives an ordinary suburban life, throwing herself into work on the school board and into a workmanlike affair that seems, at the surface, to have little effect on her family life. That is until the affair is discovered and her onetime partner on the school board is revealed to be deeply intwined with the rendition program that abducted Ayoub.Peter and I talk about how to write about torture outside of the torture room, our unwitting complicity with illegal rendition programs in the US, and our shared love of W.G. Sebald.Books Recommended in this episode:W.G. Sebald, The Rings of Saturn<a href="https://www.ndbooks.com/author/marlen-haushofer/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Marlen Haushofer</a>, The Wall<a href="https://www.ithaca.edu/faculty/cholmes" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Chris Holmes</a> is Chair of Literatures in English and Associate Professor at Ithaca College. He writes criticism on contemporary global literatures. His book, Kazuo Ishiguro as World Literature, is under contract with Bloomsbury Publishing. He is the co-director of <a href="https://www.ithaca.edu/academics/school-humanities-and-sciences/writing/new-voices-festival" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">The New Voices Festival</a>, a celebration of work in poetry, prose, and playwriting by up-and-coming young writers. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit <a href="https://megaphone.fm/adchoices" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">megaphone.fm/adchoices</a>Support our show by becoming a premium member! <a href="https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/literature" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/literature</a>

Peter C. Baker, "Planes" (Knopf, 2022)

An interview with debut novelist Peter C Baker. Planes (Knopf, 2022) is the story of a global crime unfolding principally in the domestic lives of two women, Amira, an Italian convert to Islam living in Rome, and Mel, a school board member in North Carolina. Amira is a direct victim of the crime of extraordinary rendition, her husband, Ayoub, having been abducted without criminal charges and taken first to Pakistan and then Morocco, where he was imprisoned and tortured. Ayoub’s eventual return to Amira is a lesson in how trauma comes like a wave for all those in its path.Mel’s life appears quieter. Her activist days behind her, she lives an ordinary suburban life, throwing herself into work on the school board and into a workmanlike affair that seems, at the surface, to have little effect on her family life. That is until the affair is discovered and her onetime partner on the school board is revealed to be deeply intwined with the rendition program that abducted Ayoub.Peter and I talk about how to write about torture outside of the torture room, our unwitting complicity with illegal rendition programs in the US, and our shared love of W.G. Sebald.Books Recommended in this episode:W.G. Sebald, The Rings of SaturnMarlen Haushofer, The WallChris Holmes is Chair of Literatures in English and Associate Professor at Ithaca College. He writes criticism on contemporary global literatures. His book, Kazuo Ishiguro as World Literature, is under contract with Bloomsbury Publishing. He is the co-director of The New Voices Festival, a celebration of work in poetry, prose, and playwriting by up-and-coming young writers. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/literary-studies

An interview with debut novelist Peter C Baker. <a href="https://bookshop.org/a/12343/9780593320273" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Planes</a> (Knopf, 2022) is the story of a global crime unfolding principally in the domestic lives of two women, Amira, an Italian convert to Islam living in Rome, and Mel, a school board member in North Carolina. Amira is a direct victim of the crime of extraordinary rendition, her husband, Ayoub, having been abducted without criminal charges and taken first to Pakistan and then Morocco, where he was imprisoned and tortured. Ayoub’s eventual return to Amira is a lesson in how trauma comes like a wave for all those in its path.Mel’s life appears quieter. Her activist days behind her, she lives an ordinary suburban life, throwing herself into work on the school board and into a workmanlike affair that seems, at the surface, to have little effect on her family life. That is until the affair is discovered and her onetime partner on the school board is revealed to be deeply intwined with the rendition program that abducted Ayoub.Peter and I talk about how to write about torture outside of the torture room, our unwitting complicity with illegal rendition programs in the US, and our shared love of W.G. Sebald.Books Recommended in this episode:W.G. Sebald, The Rings of Saturn<a href="https://www.ndbooks.com/author/marlen-haushofer/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Marlen Haushofer</a>, The Wall<a href="https://www.ithaca.edu/faculty/cholmes" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Chris Holmes</a> is Chair of Literatures in English and Associate Professor at Ithaca College. He writes criticism on contemporary global literatures. His book, Kazuo Ishiguro as World Literature, is under contract with Bloomsbury Publishing. He is the co-director of <a href="https://www.ithaca.edu/academics/school-humanities-and-sciences/writing/new-voices-festival" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">The New Voices Festival</a>, a celebration of work in poetry, prose, and playwriting by up-and-coming young writers. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit <a href="https://megaphone.fm/adchoices" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">megaphone.fm/adchoices</a>Support our show by becoming a premium member! <a href="https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/literary-studies" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/literary-studies</a>

***TICKETS ARE NOW AVAILABLE FOR OUR 6/2 LIVE SHOW! EVENTBRITE LINK HERE*** -KGB is a very small venue and we've already sold 60% of the tickets so if you want to see our first and likely last ever live show, do buy your ticket ASAP! -Friends of the show Christian Lorentzen and Dean Kissick are confirmed as guests. And there will probably be 1 to 2 additional mystery guests ;) ------------------------------------ WE'RE BACK! And this time joined by Peter C. Baker, another novelist dad who supplicated to us. Petey C. made an agenda for his OS appearance, to which we dutifully adhered, although we skipped the item about fatherhood, because -- BORING! Instead we spent probably an hour talking about his tenure at Wendy's, an American fast food franchise. Also can't remember if we let him mention this but Petey has a novel coming out 5/31 and it's called PLANES. The blurbs on the back of my galley copy are too long to read but I feel like they probably say the book is good, so you should buy it. cheat sheet: 0:00 - Drew, clean-shaven and clear-headed, recounts in Knausgaardian fashion his weekend at home in Boston with mom. 11:29 - Petey tells us of his three summers as a Wendy's employee in central Pennsylvania, which led to his first byline - call it a "coming of flippable age story" 44:23 - Lauren, Petey and Drew have a real Gen-x style nerd-out session about indie bands - namely Destroyer and Belle and Sebastian, the latter of which Petey recently wrote about in the New Yorker magazine. We hear about an epic B&amp;S concert Petey saw in Battery Park City in the summer of 2007, a time in which Petey was incidentally subletting Christian Lorentzen's room on the LES, dipping into Christian's Pynchons and "smashing life."  1:26:20 - We finally get to Petey's beef with us (agenda item #4): our oft-repeated claim that Knausgaard is "unmediated." We seriously explore this question for about 3 minutes before getting into Pete's back pain and Phillip Rawdog's Halcion psychosis. Thanks to Petey! See you on the squash court soon homie. And see the rest of you - AT THE LIVE SHOW!!!! Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/ourstrugglepod/message

***TICKETS ARE NOW AVAILABLE FOR OUR 6/2 LIVE SHOW! EVENTBRITE LINK <a href="https://www.eventbrite.com/e/an-evening-with-our-struggle-tickets-342434168817" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">HERE</a>*** -KGB is a very small venue and we've already sold 60% of the tickets so if you want to see our first and likely last ever live show, do buy your ticket ASAP! -Friends of the show Christian Lorentzen and Dean Kissick are confirmed as guests. And there will probably be 1 to 2 additional mystery guests ;) ------------------------------------ WE'RE BACK! And this time joined by Peter C. Baker, another novelist dad who supplicated to us. Petey C. made an agenda for his OS appearance, to which we dutifully adhered, although we skipped the item about fatherhood, because -- BORING! Instead we spent probably an hour talking about his tenure at Wendy's, an American fast food franchise. Also can't remember if we let him mention this but Petey has a novel coming out 5/31 and it's called <a href="https://www.publishersweekly.com/978-0-593-32027-3" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">PLANES</a>. The blurbs on the back of my galley copy are too long to read but I feel like they probably say the book is good, so you should buy it. cheat sheet: 0:00 - Drew, clean-shaven and clear-headed, recounts in Knausgaardian fashion his weekend at home in Boston with mom. 11:29 - Petey tells us of his three summers as a Wendy's employee in central Pennsylvania, which led to his first byline - call it a "coming of flippable age story" 44:23 - Lauren, Petey and Drew have a real Gen-x style nerd-out session about indie bands - namely Destroyer and Belle and Sebastian, the latter of which Petey <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/belle-and-sebastian-sing-of-middle-age" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">recently wrote about in the New Yorker magazine</a>. We hear about an epic B&amp;S concert Petey saw in Battery Park City in the summer of 2007, a time in which Petey was incidentally subletting Christian Lorentzen's room on the LES, dipping into Christian's Pynchons and "smashing life."  1:26:20 - We finally get to Petey's beef with us (agenda item #4): our oft-repeated claim that Knausgaard is "unmediated." We seriously explore this question for about 3 minutes before getting into Pete's back pain and Phillip Rawdog's Halcion psychosis. Thanks to Petey! See you on the squash court soon homie. And see the rest of you - AT THE LIVE SHOW!!!! Send in a voice message: <a href="https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/ourstrugglepod/message" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/ourstrugglepod/message</a>