This week on The Write Question, host Lauren Korn speaks with University of Montana alum Andrew Martin (MFA ‘13), author of Down Time (Farrar, Straus and Giroux).
This conversation has been edited for time.
About the book:
Without Cassandra, Aaron would probably be dead. Fortunately, she won’t leave him—despite the drinking, flirting, solipsism, armchair socialism, overspending, infidelity, catastrophic depression, and disparate but increasingly frequent spells of drug- and booze-addled debauchery. Unfortunately, she might be reaching the end of her rope.
Cass and Aaron, like the other neurotic, ambivalent intellectuals in their orbit, are getting older. There’s Malcolm, with his own alcoholism and marginally more successful writing career; his partner, Violet, a doctor with little patience for both; Antonia, a teaching fellow whose book about ecocide may get her tenure at a prestigious university near Harvard Square—yes, that one. When Sam, a charming trust-fund punk at the center of this loose network, dies suddenly, and a global pandemic takes hold, all five must contend with the lives they’ve made: their desires and disappointments, habits and hang-ups, pathologies and addictions, and the possibilities of making art and being good as the earth whirls to its end.
Down Time marks the delightful return of Andrew Martin, the author of the pitch-perfect slacker classics Early Work and Cool for America. Compulsively readable and contagiously intelligent, this is a wryly comic social novel of settling down, selling out, growing up, and getting out that turns a terribly funny and hyper-literate eye on our most desperately guarded ambitions: to love and be loved, to know and be known, to stay sane, if only just.
About Andrew:
Andrew Martin is the author of the novel Early Work, a New York Times Notable book of 2018, and the story collection Cool for America, longlisted for the 2020 Story Prize. His essays and stories have appeared frequently in The Paris Review, The New York Review of Books, and Harper's, as well as in The Yale Review, The Atlantic, McSweeney's, The Times Book Review and elsewhere. He teaches in Brooklyn and New Hampshire, and lives in New York City with his family.
Mentioned in this episode:
The late Missoula, Montana-based author Bryan DiSalvatore
The late Parker Quail, writer of fantasy
Andrew’s review of Sally Rooney’s Normal People (Crown Publishing Group) in the New York Times
“Voice-driven, urbane” authors David Gates, J. D. Salinger, F. Scott Fitzgerald, John Cheever, Amy Hempel, Lorrie Moore, and Deborah Eisenberg
Halle Butler, author of The New Me, Jillian, and Banal Nightmare (Penguin Random House)
Cool for America and Early Work by Andrew Martin (Picador USA)
Poet and writer Laura Kolbe; listen to Lauren’s conversation with Laura here!
“Have You Considered Socialism? Or, The Politics of Fictional Characters” by Andrew Martin (LitHub)
Andrew recommends:
King of Kings: The Iranian Revolution: A Story of Hubris, Delusion and Catastrophic Miscalculation by Scott Anderson (Doubleday)
Banal Nightmare by Halle Butler (Penguin Random House)
Culture Creep: Notes on the Pop Apocalypse by Alice Bolin (Mariner Books; HarperCollins); listen to the first and second parts of Lauren’s conversation with Alice!
The Complex by Karan Mahajan (Viking Books)
Riding with the Ghost by Justin Taylor (Penguin Random House)
We Are Not in This Together by William Kittredge (Graywolf Press)
Now I Surrender by Álvaro Enrigue, translated by Natasha Wimmer (Riverhead Books)
Lauren Korn recommends:
Down Time (Farrar, Straus and Giroux), Cool for America (Picador USA), and Early Work (Picador USA) by Andrew Martin
Culture Creep: Notes on the Pop Apocalypse and Dead Girls: Essays on Surviving an American Obsession by Alice Bolin (Mariner Books; HarperCollins); listen to the first and second parts of Lauren’s conversation with Alice!
Perfection by Vincenzo Latronico, translated by Sophie Hughes (New York Review Books)
Revenge of the Scapegoat (Dorothy, a publishing project) and Sea, Poison (New Directions Publishing) by Caren Beilin
NW by Zadie Smith (Penguin Random House)
The Wilderness by Angela Flournoy (Mariner Books)
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The Write Question team for this episode was Lauren Korn, host, co-producer, and editor; and Chris Moyles, co-producer, editor, and sound engineer. This episode is supported by Bookworks of Whitefish, offering new books of all genres, stationery, and puzzles. Open 11AM to 6PM Monday through Saturday. Located in downtown Whitefish, Montana, in the Third & Spokane Building.
The Write Question logo and brand (2022) was designed by Molly Russell. You can see more of her work at iamthemollruss.com and on Instagram @iamthemollruss.
Funding for The Write Question comes from members of Montana Public Radio; and from the Greater Montana Foundation—encouraging communication on issues, trends, and values of importance to Montanans. A hat-tip to Humanities Montana for supporting this program since 2008.
The Write Question is a production of Montana Public Radio.
