Mary Pilon

Mary Pilon is the author of The Monopolists: Obsession, Fury, and the Scandal Behind the World's Favorite Board Game, a book about the history of the board game Monopoly (Bloomsbury, February 2015). She previously worked as a sports reporter at The New York Times and a full index of her work there can be found here, including dispatches from the London Olympics, doping coverage, features on legal and financial issues in sports and the occasional video shot from a dog sled or graphic novel about cage fighting in the heartland.

From June 2008 to November 2011, Pilon worked at The Wall Street Journal, where she covered various aspects of personal finance and the financial crisis for print and online editions and regularly appeared on national TV and radio. Among her lesser-known accomplishments: bringing slugs, yo-yos, the NYSE movie room and square dancing to the Journal’s front page.

From Pilon's Q & A with Kelly Faircloth at Jezebel:

How did you come to the project? How did the book happen?

It was a total accident. This was in 2009, 2010; I was writing about business at the Wall Street Journal, and I had grown up loving games, puzzles, all of that, and history. I had this throwaway line in a totally unrelated story about Monopoly being invented during the Great Depression. And I thought, well, everybody knows it was invented during the Great Depression. So I was looking around and looking around, and it wasn't adding up and I was totally frustrated. I'm writing about derivatives and I can't get the Monopoly story right? What's wrong with me?

So I came across Ralph Anspach and his lawsuit. I'm an advocate of the reporter trick of calling counterparties in lawsuits, because often if you sue somebody or you've been sued by somebody, you do a lot of research. I contacted Ralph on a whim and I said, "Hey, I know this is crazy, but I'm a reporter at the Journal and I'm just trying to find out the truth about Monopoly." He wrote back right away. He started talking about his lawsuit and Lizzie and what happened in the 30s with Darrow. And I just was like, Oh my gosh. So I completely stumbled into this by accident.

I ended up writing the original story for the Journal about Ralph and his lawsuit. And then usually, when you're done with a story you're so sick of it, but this time I had more questions. I wanted to know more about who [Lizzie Magie] was, I wanted to know more about...[read on]

Visit Mary Pilon's website.

The Page 99 Test: The Monopolists.

--Marshal Zeringue

Laura Kipnis

Laura Kipnis is the author of Men: Notes from an Ongoing Investigation.

From her Q & A with James Livingston at Politics / Letters:

There’s an astonishing range of subjects in this book. You write about sports, film, photography, memoir, literature of the serious kind, Hustler magazine, politics of the contemporary kind, psychoanalysis, even penis envy on the part of men . . . You seem intent on violating every disciplinary or generic or sex/gender boundary still standing. Is that trespassing the point? Is that what the essay form permits?

Trespassing is a great way to put it (one of the chapters is, in fact, titled “The Trespasser”), or maybe another term would be “creative brawls”: smashing into people and ideas and seeing what happens. I say in the coda of the book that the idea was to be a sort of crash test dummy, open to the possibility of accidental collisions—between myself and the men I’m writing about, that is. (There’s also one woman.) Part of the method involves staging collisions between unlikely contestants, so to speak: in “Self-Deceivers,” I have John Edwards colliding with Jean Paul Sartre, in “The Scumbag” it’s Larry Flynt and Rabelais, in “Juicers” I lump steroid users and plagiarists together and mount a joint defense. The pleasure of the unlikely collision is finding ideas you didn’t know you had—like sorting through the wreckage of your house after a tornado and finding...[read on]

Learn about Laura Kipnis's six favorite books about wounded masculinity.

--Marshal Zeringue

Elisa Albert

Elisa Albert's new novel is After Birth.

From the author's interview with Vincent Scarpa at Electric Lit:

Vincent Scarpa: After Birth is an uproariously funny book, and I so admire the way the humor is doing double duty: we’re meant to laugh, of course, but also to consider the context within which Ari is saying or thinking these comical, often vicious things, and what’s being said in the margins, what isn’t being said instead. Did you have a clear sense when writing the novel that humor would function as a kind of defense or deflecting mechanism for Ari, your narrator? Did it develop in tandem with her voice? It reads seamlessly, yet I imagine a great deal of work went into fine-tuning the voice and figuring out what tonal parameters Ari was going to be operating within.

Elisa Albert: Ari was clear to me from the get-go. Her humor comes from an inability to be emotionally dishonest. This is a blessing and a curse. Being a bad liar is rough going. What we’re “supposed” to do/be/say/think and what we actually do/are/say/think often don’t line up, and generally speaking we lie our goddamn faces off about it, sometimes long and hard enough that we actually lose touch with ourselves. So it’s this huge relief, I think, when we come across someone who’s rigorously honest. Laughter is relief. We are ridiculous egotistical stubborn stingy hypocritical blind jackasses. It’s not human frailty that’s funny, mind you; it’s our predilection for pretense that’s funny.

But what’s even funnier is how we tend to punish honesty. People who say what they really think and feel, we usually try to make them out to be fools, or crazy. Once in a great while we relent and glorify them and treat them like gods and let them do the heavy philosophical lifting for us. But mostly, the truth is inconvenient, not to mention impolite. But at the same time we all kind of aspire to be honest and are jealous of people who can be honest. Which in itself is hilarious, because honest people are usually the most tortured! By us! Pure comedy. What a wacky species.

So yes, I think humor is about clinging—be it naked, battered, maligned—to honesty. Ari strikes me as the saddest kind of funny/tortured hybrid, though: the idealist. She genuinely can’t believe that everything is so...[read on]

Learn more about the author and her work at Elisa Albert's website.

The Page 69 Test: The Book of Dahlia.

--Marshal Zeringue

Brian Abrams

Brian Abrams is the author of Party Like A President: True Tales Of Inebriation, Lechery And Mischief From The Oval Office.

From his interview with NPR's David Greene:

GREENE: One question not answered for me in this book is which president you'd want to have a beer with.

ABRAMS: I think I'm going to have to go with Gerald Ford.

GREENE: Really?

ABRAMS: I think so because at least we could talk about movies and music. If I said Chester A. Arthur, I don't know exactly what the conversation would sound like.

GREENE: (Laughter).

ABRAMS: But in the case of Ford, his first Air Force One flight, he is about to get his photograph taken. He had a martini in front of him because Ford generally drank two gin martinis on every Air Force One flight. And the photographer steps in and grabs the stem of the martini glass and says, oh, excuse me, Mr. President. Let me just get this out of the way first. I mean, they must have loved him.

GREENE: You mean it's kind of charming that he hadn't even thought of that. He was just being a regular guy holding a martini and is like, you know, whatever. Take my picture.

ABRAMS: Yeah. He's unassuming. I mean, there was also - his first month or two in office, there was a dinner at the White House for the king of Jordan, and he was caught on the dance floor dancing to...[read on]

--Marshal Zeringue

Dean Koontz

Dean Koontz is ending his popular series featuring Odd Thomas with its seventh installment, Saint Odd.

From his USA Today Q & A with Kevin Nance:

Q: Some writers eventually grow weary of their series characters, as Arthur Conan Doyle and Agatha Christie famously did with Sherlock Holmes and Hercule Poirot. Were there times when you looked forward to moving on from Odd Thomas?

A: I liked him so much that I would have been content to write more about him, but you also come to a moment where you realize, "What is there more to be said about him?" But it was never weariness. I got so close to him that when he said something funny, I'd laugh out loud as if I was hearing him say it. Other times, I was sitting here in tears. People who work in the house with us would go by my door and probably thought I deserved to be in an institution, and maybe I do. I said in a tweet at some point, "Finishing him off was like stabbing an old friend in the back. I felt like a swine."

Q. How did you conceive Odd Thomas?

A: He just came into my head completely full-blown. I was working on another novel, and into my mind came the words, "My name is Odd Thomas. I lead an unusual life." And I turned around to a legal tablet that I keep beside me and wrote the lines down. The next thing I knew...[read on]

--Marshal Zeringue

Ellen Sussman

Ellen Sussman's novels include: A Wedding in Provence, The Paradise Guest House, French Lessons and On a Night Like This.

From her 2013 Q & A with Caroline Leavitt:

What sparked [The Paradise Guest House]? What was the research like and did anything surprise you with it?

My husband and I planned a vacation in Bali in 2005 and a few weeks before we left terrorists set off bombs in restaurants and cafes on the island. We didn’t cancel our trip as most people suggested. In fact, we saw almost no tourists during our two weeks there. But we fell in love with the island and the Balinese people. The idea of terrorism on that peaceful island made no sense to me (or to the Balinese) and so I began to imagine a novel about a young woman who gets caught in the 2002 bombings (which killed 200 people, mostly young tourists) and returns to the island a year later to find the man who saved her.

I find that I write in order to learn and understand the things that puzzle me. And so this book became my way of learning about Bali, the people, the culture and religion and also about the effects of terrorism on our psyches.

I returned to Bali to spend a month researching the novel. (what a gig!) I was surprised by how quickly the tourists forgot about the terrorist attacks. But the Balinese had not forgotten. I interviewed survivors of the bombings and families of victims. Their lives have been very much altered by those events in 2002. And yet they’re so strong and so loving. I learned a great deal from hearing their stories.

I love the idea of a woman searching for home--why do you think where we live matters so much?

That’s an interesting question. I didn’t feel at home in any of the places I lived in my life until I moved to Paris! And now I have a real home in...[read on]

--Marshal Zeringue

Paul W. Kahn

Paul W. Kahn’s is the author of Finding Ourselves at the Movies: Philosophy for a New Generation.

From his 2014 Q & A at Critical Margins:

First of all, Paul, one of the first statements in your book is the following, “philosophy begins with narrative, not abstraction.” Could you give us some examples from both ancient times and our own day?

While there are fragments preserved from the pre-Socratics, Western philosophy begins its written tradition with Plato. Plato, however, wrote nothing that we would identify as a philosophical text. He wrote something that looked considerably more like drama. They were dialogues that addressed particular questions in a dramatic context.

The tradition of writing dialogues continued for some time in classical thought. Cicero and Seneca, for example, wrote dialogues. In modern philosophy, David Hume’s Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion may be the most famous. The narrative form of reflective inquiry is rooted for Westerners in Christ’s use of parables. Modern philosophers have sometimes used a narrative form – most famously in Nietzsche’s Thus Spoke Zarathustra. In popular culture, I am reminded of the very successful work Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert Pirsig.

You say, “Increasingly, what we have in common is the movies.” Is that mainly because so many movies now are of the blockbuster type that millions flock to whereas other forms of media that we once shared (e.g., the evening newscast) have declined?

It is true that the movies that we most share are the blockbusters, which link us to audiences around the world. There is nothing else quite like that, except perhaps some television series that endlessly rerun, and maybe the Oscars. Movies with less popular appeal than blockbusters often link the members of smaller groups. We share the viewing habits of those with whom we are likely to find ourselves. I suspect that whatever we see, we...[read on]

The Page 69 Test: Paul W. Kahn's Out of Eden.

--Marshal Zeringue

Bryan Reardon

Bryan Reardon's new novel is Finding Jake.

From his Q & A with Carolne Leavitt:

I loved the portrayal of Simon, who is the only stay-at-home father in the neighborhood, whose marriage is cracking at the seams even as he is desperate to find his son [who may be a school schooter]. How difficult was it for you to write such a character, as a father yourself? And did it change anything in the way you relate to your kids?

I'll be completely honest, I wrote what I know but with fiction. I am a stay-at-home dad. I do worry a lot. Many of Simon's worries are my own. But the fiction comes when you put Simon and his family in the situation of a high school shooting. The idea for the high school shooting was not to capitalize off of other people's tragedy. I'd recently read Dave Cullen's book Columbine. I'm not sure what to say about that book. You can't say you loved it, but it impressed me. Particularly how honestly it dealt with both the victims and the perpetrators. What really stuck with me, and what sort of inspired Finding Jake was what Dave Cullen wrote about the Klebold family. The two ideas came together: what if a dad like me was faced with the horror of a situation like that?

Parenting is by far the hardest job I've ever had. I worry every day that I am doing it wrong. Maybe we are supposed to be guide rails. We may not be able to know our children but...[read on]

--Marshal Zeringue

Jamie Mason

Jamie Mason was born in Oklahoma City, but grew up in Washington, DC. She’s most often reading and writing, but in the life left over, she enjoys films, Formula 1 racing, football, traveling, and, conversely, staying at home.

Her new novel is Monday's Lie.

From Mason's conversation with Sara Gruen at Amazon:

Sara: I was able to read an advance copy of Jamie Mason’s wonderful new novel, Monday’s Lie, and couldn’t wait to sit down with her and dig into a few of the turning points of this riveting story.

The book opens up with a terrific scene: a childhood memory of the main character, Dee, watching helplessly as her mother is whisked away by a soldier in the middle of the night, ultimately not to return for most of a year. Why does the story start there?

Jamie: I think the mental real estate of the age span between 12 and 15 years old is so interesting. At that age, you start compiling a more thorough catalog of memories, stuff you’ll actually recall with clarity throughout your life. With a firmer grasp of what life looks like, our convictions about how everything works start to take shape. And so do our plans for what we hope to have for our own future.

There’s no good time to lose a loving mother, even for just a while. For Dee Vess-Aldrich, when her mother, Annette, is secreted away in the middle of a peaceful night, the loss colors everything about how she views the world and it defines what she wants for her corner of it when she’s in charge.

It seemed important to show right away why Dee is the way she is.

Sara: Annette Vess is a great character and one of the more unusual mothers to show up between book covers. She uses her skills of psychological manipulation and her honed powers of observation in both her work as a black ops asset and also in the games she plays to bond with her children. Is this the chicken or the egg with her? Is Annette like this because of her job, or does she have this job because she’s like this?

Jamie: Annette was a pure joy to write. I think she’s one of those...[read on (you must scroll down the page)]

Visit Jamie Mason's website.

The Page 69 Test: Monday's Lie.

My Book, The Movie: Monday's Lie.

Writers Read: Jamie Mason.

--Marshal Zeringue

Kenny Porpora

Kenny Porpora's memoir is The Autumn Balloon.

From his Q & A with Claire Bidwell Smith at The Rumpus:

The Rumpus: The big themes in this book—family dysfunction, alcoholism, and grief—are ones that are not unfamiliar to most of us. Yet for me, your writing breathed fresh air into these motifs and made me curious about your journey to understand them yourself. Was there a specific turning point when you realized that perhaps your childhood was atypical, and were there any particular books or films that resonated with you in the way your book might resonate with others?

Kenny Porpora: I think it starts with forgiveness. I’m not sure you can write honestly about a situation you’re still stuck in. And so it’s up to you to make peace with your circumstances, or change them altogether, and then you can look back with clarity and tell a more honest story. I used to think my life was atypical, especially when I’d meet people three or four times my age who’d never lost a single loved one. But I don’t feel that way anymore. The scope of loss in my story might be greater than some, but pain is pain, loss is loss, no matter how great and no matter what age you experience it, and you never know how it’s going to change you.

As for books, there were many. I used to carry certain books around with me: Gilead by Marilynne Robinson, a magical, spiritual book that I can’t manage to summarize in a neat paragraph. It’s about the wondrousness of being alive and the inevitability of death. A Good Scent From A Strange Mountain by Robert Olen Butler is a book of stories about the displaced Vietnamese in New Orleans after the war. I don’t have a particular interest in that era or that war, but...[read on]

--Marshal Zeringue