Pulitzer Prize finalist Ed Park joins co-hosts Whitney Terrell and V.V. Ganeshananthan to sermon his debut abbreviated communicative collection, An Oral History of Atlantis. Park talks astir penning the stories successful the publication implicit a play of astir 25 years, during which helium was often asked to work successful New York and crafted enactment for circumstantial venues, audiences, and events. He explains however this led to a wide-ranging and yet linked acceptable of pieces successful a assortment of first-person voices. He considers wherefore the abbreviated communicative signifier invites him to a greater grade of experimentation, to thin much heavy connected humor, and to draught much rapidly adjacent arsenic helium took longer to assemble the full volume. Park reads from “The Gift,” 1 of the stories successful the collection.
To perceive the afloat episode, subscribe done iTunes, Google Play, Stitcher, Spotify, oregon your favourite podcast app (include the guardant slashes erstwhile searching). You tin besides perceive by streaming from the subordinate below. Check retired video versions of our interviews connected the Fiction/Non/Fiction Instagram account, the Fiction/Non/Fiction YouTube Channel, and our amusement website: https://www.fnfpodcast.net/. This occurrence of the podcast was produced by Anne Kniggendorf.
An Oral History of Atlantis • Same Bed Different Dreams • Personal Days • Weird Menace
Others:
Fiction/Non/Fiction Season 7, Episode 17: Ed Park connected Korea’s Past, Real and Imagined • The Savage Detectives by Roberto Bolaño • Seven Men by Max Beerbohm
EXCERPT FROM A CONVERSATIONWITH ED PARK
Ed Park: This publication is comparatively slim compared to Same Bed, but it really took overmuch longer. This represents astir 25 years of stories by me. I’d ever wanted to people a postulation of stories, but similar galore fabrication writers, I’m ever astatine enactment connected a novel. When I’m a writer, I’m sitting down astatine my table each greeting for an hr to 3 hours, often pounding my caput against the wall. It’s a cliche. But you bash it capable times, and past you abruptly realize, oh, this is however the caller is expected to go. You person these eureka moments, and you conscionable support doing that for time aft day, week aft week, past year, twelvemonth aft year. But
Whitney Terrell: That is true. Definitely admit that arsenic a process.
EP: It’s a agelong term, agelong region benignant of thing, right? I’ve been doing this since I was successful my aboriginal 20s. I’ve ne'er been without a benignant of a caller task successful mind. It doesn’t mean they each got published, doesn’t mean they each got finished, but that’s what I deliberation of arsenic the work. And past determination are the abbreviated stories, which are astir similar small miracles. They conscionable travel unbidden. A batch of the stories successful this postulation were written successful a azygous sitting, a mates of the much well-known oregon fashionable ones, to the grade that that tin beryllium said, were written successful astir an hour. Obviously, arsenic a fabrication writer, you tin bash some things, and you’re utilizing a batch of the aforesaid muscles and skills, but the mode you spell astir them is truthful different.
For example, you mentioned “The Wife connected Ambien.” Half the conflict is having that rubric travel to me, and past I think, I indispensable person heard of however people—I really person ne'er taken Ambien, but radical instrumentality Ambien and they upwind up doing worldly they don’t retrieve the adjacent morning, right? They’re either sleepwalking oregon they’re cooking up a batch of nutrient for nobody, you know, conscionable each this benignant of brainsick stuff. There are YouTube videos to this effect. But I took that concept, and erstwhile I had the title, I realized it’s going to beryllium the hubby describing his woman connected Ambien and the things she does. It would beryllium 1 aft another, trying to marque each reflection of immoderate enactment she’s doing nether the power funnier than the past one, and past sadder. It’s a precise abbreviated story, but the logic of the full happening was embedded successful the rubric somehow. A batch of the stories were similar that.
WT: It’s a communicative astir him being lonely, really. It seemed similar to me, peculiarly the ending. Can you person spoilers successful abbreviated stories? Can we accidental however the communicative ends oregon not? Maybe we should prevention that for different people.
EP: I don’t truly see that a spoiler. But I’d similar to deliberation that a batch of the stories are rather funny. One happening I bash much successful stories is conscionable spell for the joke, effort to beryllium funny. Or rather, I person an thought that I deliberation is funny, and I tin fig retired however to enactment it down connected the page, and conscionable get that retired there. There’s thing astir the stories—a communicative seems little stakes. I person plentifulness of abandoned stories oregon rubric ideas that didn’t spell anywhere. But you’re not committed arsenic much. If you person a caller thought that you’re developing, it’s going to instrumentality a while, right? With a story, you could beryllium done by the extremity of the time oregon extremity of the week. I deliberation that’s precise liberating. It makes maine effort things that, if I did it successful a novel, I’d person to deliberation however does it impact each these different characters and blah, blah, blah. It’s precise freeing to bash it successful a story.
These stories were written the earliest. The precise archetypal communicative successful the postulation is called “A Note To My Translator.” I really wrote that successful 1997 and I published it successful ’98. The adjacent oldest communicative is the rubric story—which we tin speech astir much successful a bit—which was 2001 and the and the astir caller 1 that I finished was, was “Machine City,” which I judge was published successful 2023, oregon 2024, truthful it’s rather a span of time. These are not each the stories that I wrote during that span. There’s really astir apt a full different postulation worthy of stories that I took out, but I felt similar stories were connected the aforesaid wavelength. And I’m attempting antithetic things, obviously, from communicative to story. But 1 happening that I thought was chill was how, erstwhile bringing them together, I would realize, oh, wait, this quality here, I named her Hannah, and successful different communicative written similar a fewer years later, there’s a Hannah Hahn. Her sanction is Hannah Hahn, this precise austere literate editor. I’m like, what if they were really the aforesaid character? I wasn’t consciously, arsenic I wrote each story, trying to nexus them, but looking implicit them, I realized determination were each these connections that I thought were a batch of fun, that the scholar volition hopefully prime up on.
But the scholar tin besides work stories astatine random and bask them successful their ain right, without needfully looking for those connections. So it’s weird, it’s not rather a caller successful stories, it’s absorbing to maine arsenic a linked collection, wherever I consciousness similar the sum is greater than the parts.
V.V. Ganeshananthan: It’s absorbing to deliberation astir the examination betwixt caller penning that you conscionable made, wherever erstwhile you alteration something, oregon erstwhile thing happens, you person that eureka infinitesimal but past recognize it’s going to impact the adjacent 15 chapters, and you’ve got to spell done each of them. I really truly similar revising, but here, discovering connections, alternatively than being constricted by them, feels similar an breathtaking mode to attack the work. Then immoderate of the connections besides are really small jokes, similar successful “A Note To My Translator,” there’s a peculiar portion of that which recurs later. That’s a designation that is precise satisfying and besides precise humorous aboriginal on. There’s a puzzle-making for the scholar that’s truly great.
And of course, you mentioned the rubric story. There’s a signifier of rubric that’s like, the “A History of Blah,” oregon “The Book of Blah,” oregon “An Atlas X,” etc. I don’t cognize if I’ve ever seen “An Oral History” successful a title. Lots of radical mightiness subordinate oral past with teaching oregon preserving history. As we talked astir successful our past episode, you person a truly antithetic attack to past but oral past is thing that you mightiness link to a postulation of voices oregon antithetic versions of the aforesaid story, similar variations connected a taxable which is connected to the form. This publication is truthful playful. A batch of radical I tin deliberation of mightiness deliberation of oral past arsenic a didactic signifier oregon 1 that is truly acrophobic with elucidating information oregon history, but you’re interrogating the narration betwixt assemblage and teller. There’s a quality named Ed, recurring references to penning and its significance, there’s that quality named Miriam who majors successful oral past astatine Brown. What does this play person to bash with the thought of oral history? What does oral past mean to you, and what does it bash successful the discourse of the book?
EP: It’s a large question, and I volition accidental that I had this title. I mentioned earlier, this is the second-oldest communicative successful the collection. I wrote it successful 2001 and I wrote it for a speechmaking for a literate diary that’s nary longer around, astatine a venue successful Brooklyn that’s nary longer around. I wrote it successful the summertime of 2001 and it’s astir a post-apocalyptic Manhattan. The narrator is going done this depopulated Manhattan and discovering this aquatic, whale-related amusement territory wherever Times Square is. It’s somewhat surreal, possibly a small spot steampunk. I wrote it for this reading, and it got a large response. I had precocious finished a caller that cipher liked. Not lone did editors not privation to spot it, agents didn’t privation to spot it. There was thing astir penning that story, penning it for speechmaking and performing it, that truly conscionable felt validating to me. It made maine judge successful myself. Then, a mates months later, 9/11 happened, and the rubric took connected caller meaning. The script freaked maine out, the script that I had written of Manhattan being destroyed. From that constituent on, I had successful caput that if I ever published a communicative postulation that would beryllium the title, “An Oral History of Atlantis.”
Most of the stories successful this publication were really written for readings. A person oregon a speechmaking bid mightiness invitation maine to beryllium connected the measure with 2 oregon 3 different writers, oregon each antithetic kinds of scenarios and each antithetic sorts of venues. This happened, 2001, 2002, it conscionable happened each passim my beingness successful New York. I deliberation each of these were written for readings successful New York. So, Atlantis becomes a metaphor for New York, arsenic good arsenic things that are lost, for a New York that’s lost, for venues and journals and friends who are who are gone.
And astir each these stories are done successful the archetypal person, right? So it is similar this, “I” that I’m bringing to each event. Sometimes the assemblage mightiness cognize me, my friends mightiness beryllium there. Sometimes, I’m conscionable assuming radical don’t cognize who I am. That, successful a way, shaped these stories tremendously, due to the fact that I was trying to get people’s attraction and beryllium arsenic entertaining arsenic possible, which often, we talked astir wit a small bit. I recovered that astatine a reading, it’s easiest to gage if radical are getting into it if there’s laughter, right? So I leaned heavy connected that. But then, you know, implicit the years, it conscionable becomes similar an oral past successful which each taxable is me, my aggregate personalities, my aggregate fictional personalities, ranting astatine these unsuspecting audiences. I was truthful engaged moving usually, I worked arsenic an exertion for a agelong time, and an accidental to springiness a speechmaking for maine was a bid to constitute thing caller and it was good. Maybe the deadline mentality of being a writer and being an exertion made maine think, “Okay, I’m expected to work successful 2 weeks. Let’s spot what I tin travel up with.” There’s a small spot of pressure, but it’s a bully benignant of pressure, it’s a generative benignant of pressure, astatine slightest for me. That’s however it came unneurotic and wherefore it has the rubric that it has.
Transcribed by Otter.ai. Condensed and edited by Rebecca Kilroy. Photograph of Ed Park by Beowulf Sheehan.
