Eulogy for a Yenta

In a cramped rent-controlled apartment on the lousy end of the Upper East Side, a dying woman in a diaper writes the story of her life. She is Barbara Rosenberg, high on OxyContin and determined to explain herself, if not exactly apologize, to the two people she loved most: her estranged trans son and her best friend, Sugar Becker, whose betrayals she has yet to forgive. This delirious monologue is the heart of Jordy Rosenberg’s new novel, Night Night Fawn, which gives voice to Barbara’s deepest disappointments about her friends, her family, her in-laws, and maybe, if she’s being honest, her own silver-screen aspirations. But Barbara’s most unhinged thoughts—about serving cold cuts at a funeral or the lesbian perils of a corduroy jacket; the schmucks of 1960s Flatbush or bad 1980s nose jobs; Karl Marx or yenta science—reach a crescendo with the unexpected reappearance of her long-lost loves.

Mentioned in this episode:

• Jordy Rosenberg’s Night Night Fawn
• Gillian Rose’s Mourning Becomes the Law
• Michelle de Kretser’s Theory & Practice
• Sophie Lewis’s Enemy Feminisms
• Roberto Bolano’s By Night in Chile, translated by Chris Andrews
• Adania Shibli’s Minor Detail, translated by Elisabeth Jaquette
• Jordy Rosenberg’s Confessions of the Fox (listen to our 2018 interview here)
• Amy Kaplan’s Our American Israel
• Gretchen Felker-Martin’s Manhunt
• Grace Byron’s Herculine
• Zefyr Lisowksi’s Uncanny Valley Girls
• Torrey Peters’s Stag Dance and Detransition, Baby
• And, of course, Karl Marx’s Capital (best read with an introduction)

Tune in every (other) week to catch interviews with the liveliest voices from literature, the arts, sciences, history, and public affairs; reports on cutting-edge works in progress; long-form narratives; and compelling excerpts from new books. Hosted by Stephanie Bastek and sponsored by the Phi Beta Kappa Society.

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