Fully-Booked: Literary Podcast Fully-Booked: Literary Podcast

We are celebrating reaching the 100th episode of the Fully Booked podcast, taking a moment to thank all the listeners for their support, whether they are new to the show or have been tuning in for a while! We express our gratitude for the interactions and regular listenership, and we are eager to continue for another 100 episodes.







NoteThe following is an editorialized transcript of our weekly literary podcast. If you would like to listen to the podcast, click the play button above orlisten on your favorite platform with the links below.







What Is Modern Americana?













The episode focuses on discussing modern interpretations of Americana literature – books that capture the American experience and identity through a contemporary lens. As we move into more recent decades, we examine how the Americana genre has evolved to incorporate modern sensibilities and perspectives.







One novel discussed is Cormac McCarthy’s The Road – a stark, post-apocalyptic story that still embodies classic Americana themes of perseverance, overcoming obstacles, and striving for a better future, albeit through a distinctly bleaker modern setting. The barren landscapes mirror the struggles of the protagonists on their journey.







Delia Owens’ Where the Crawdads Sing offers a different take, exploring the protagonist’s deep connection to the natural southern marshlands she inhabits. Her story centers on resisting societal expectations and norms, and finding solace in the land itself – a more introspective modern Americana narrative about a sense of place and identity.
















Where the Crawdads Sing







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Author:

Delia Owens











Published:

08/14/2018





Genre:

American Literature





Publisher:

Penguin





ISBN:

9780735219113







Show Details











Neil Gaiman’s American Gods blends mythology and fantasy to reflect on America’s evolving cultural identity, belief systems, and values from its founding to the modern day. The imagining of gods representing different eras’ values cleverly personifies the nation’s philosophical shifts over time.







Chuck Palahniuk’s Fight Club is analyzed as a brutal satire and commentary on modern consumer culture,

We recently reviewed the 2000 film American Psycho, director Mary Harron’s adaptation of the 1991 novel by Bret Easton Ellis. Set in late 1980s New York, it satirizes the wealthy young investment bankers and traders who embodied Wall Street’s greed culture during that era’s financial boom.







NoteThe following is an editorialized transcript of the podcast episode about the American Psycho book adaptation. If you would like to listen to the podcast, click the play button above orlisten on your favorite platform with the links below.







What is American Psycho about?













The story follows Patrick Bateman, an obsessively materialistic vice president at the fictional firm Pierce & Pierce. Christian Bale delivers an unsettlingly committed performance as Bateman, whose lifestyle of expensive restaurants, designer suits, and philandering masks his psychopathic tendencies. We found Bale’s intense preparation legendary – he drastically altered his physical appearance and remained in character even off-camera.







The opening scenes show how shallow and interchangeable Bateman’s crowd of colleagues behave. Their primary focus is one-upmanship over trivial status symbols like demanding restaurant reservations and scrutinizing each other’s nearly identical business cards. This vacuous existence leads Bateman into deeper depravity and violence when confronted with perceived slights.







We were struck by how the film uses dark humor to offset Bateman’s horrific crimes, creating an unnerving tonal dissonance. For example, during his infamous murder of colleague Paul Allen while Huey Lewis plays, Bateman rants about the band in a way that’s both disturbing and inadvertently comedic. These darkly funny moments prevent us from simply writing Bateman off as a monster.







The storytelling deliberately keeps us off-balance about what is real versus Bateman’s skewed perspective as an unreliable narrator descending into psychosis. We found ourselves frequently questioning whether the brutal acts we saw occurred or were just his fantasies. This ambiguity adds to the overall disorienting experience.







A Modern Look at Americana













We appreciated how the screenplay by Harron and Guinevere Turner deftly satirized the era’s misogynistic male culture. Bateman routinely demeans and brutalizes women, yet his wealthy young professional crowd largely ignores or minimizes his reprehensible behavior. His fiancée Evelyn, played by Reese Witherspoon, aspires only to be a materialistic status symbol rather than challenging his toxicity.











The Setting







The visual aesthetics perfectly capture 1980s American excess, from the stark, sterile production design to Bateman’s obsessive morning grooming routine involving multiple skin creams and facial masks. We noticed insightful background details too, like a misspelled word on a Pierce & Pierce business cards hinting at the employees’ incompetence beneath the superficial glamour.







While initially receiving some backlash for perceived misogyny, we believe American Psycho has aged as a remarkably prescient takedown of unchecked narcissism, entitlement, and privilege among the elite. Bale’s utterly chilling performance as the impeccably groomed yet soulless Bateman earns him a place among cinema’s great unreliable narrators and dark anti-heroes.







We continue our in-depth discussion of the film, covering more key scenes and analyzing the deeper themes.

This week, we had an in-depth exploration into the heart of what defines a novel or literary work as truly exemplifying the “Americana” genre. While there are clear overlaps between Americana and American literature as a whole, Americana has a distinct aesthetic and perspective that evokes a strong sense of nostalgia, harkening back to fading memories and ways of life.







NoteThe following is an editorialized transcript of the podcast episode about the defining traits of Americana books. If you would like to listen to the podcast, click the play above orlisten on your favorite platform with the links below.











It frequently centers the narrative on characters’ profound connections to and reverence for the natural landscape, rural lifestyles, and the struggles of the oppressed in overcoming adversity – all prominent threads woven into the greater American story.







The Major Characteristics of Americana
















The Great Gatsby







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Author:

F. Scott Fitzgerald











Published:

01/05/2021





Genre:

American Literature





Publisher:

Modern Library





ISBN:

9780593133569







Show Details











A hallmark of archetypal Americana works is how they render the vast American landscape itself as almost a character, providing a rich backdrop that the people’s narratives play out against. Iconic examples like Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath depict the harsh reality of the Dust Bowl through the lens of migrant farmworker families, contrasting their plights against the harsh yet majestic expanse of the countryside they traverse.







This ties directly into another prominent Americana theme – the restless spirit of mobility that has defined America, with people pulling up roots and migrating long distances in pursuit of new economic opportunities and fresh starts wherever possible.







However, we discussed the nuances of how Americana encompasses various subgenres that deviate from the nostalgia-driven, memory-centric core aesthetics. Dystopian novels set in America like Fahrenheit 451 or The Handmaid’s Tale have a futuristic, often cautionary tone diverging from Americana’s wistful longing for the past.







Yet the horror genre as shaped by Edgar Allan Poe can still provide poignant Americana-style soci...

It’s time for Americana for the month of April! We’re kicking things off with the 2023 adaptation of Alice Walker’s The Color Purple (as well as the stage musical of the same name). We are introduced to the story in 1909 Georgia, following two teenage sisters, Celie and Nettie Harris. Celie has been repeatedly impregnated and abused by their father, who takes away her children. The sisters dream of escaping their traumatic home life.







Nettie is allowed to attend school with hopes she can become a teacher, while Celie is forced to work at their family’s store. An older man named Albert, referred to as “Mister,” takes an interest in marrying Nettie, but their father marries him off to Celie instead, as he considers her the “ugly” sister.











We see the heartbreaking image of Celie following Mister on foot as he rides on a horse to take her to his home. Mister is an alcoholic widower with children he neglects. Celie is expected to be a wife, mother, and maid all at once to Mister and his kids from a very young age.
















The Color Purple







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Author:

Alice Walker











Published:

04/04/1982





Genre:

American Literature





Publisher:

Houghton Mifflin Harcourt





ISBN:

9780156028356







Show Details











When Nettie shows up after being kicked out by their father for rebuffing his advances, Mister initially allows her to stay and help Celie. However, after Nettie denies Mister’s sexual approaches towards her, he casts her out, severing ties between the sisters, though they vow to write to each other.







A Young Life Stolen







Years pass, and we see Celie still enduring abuse from Mister in 1917. Mister’s son Harpo gets married to the bold, free-spirited Sofia—their dynamic highlights how unusual Sofia’s lack of subservience is for the period. When Harpo comes to Celie asking how to “control” his wife, Celie naively suggests hitting her based on her own experiences with Mister’s abuse, as well as that suffered at the hands of her father.







This leads to Sofia leaving Harpo for a while after she beats him up for attempting to hit her. We see her admirable strength as she explains to Celie that her naïve advice came from jealousy over Sofia’s refusal to be oppressed.







The famous blues singer Shug Avery, who had a previous relationship with Mister, arrives in town to perform at the juke joint Harpo opened after his split from Sofia. Shug strikes up an unexpected friendship with Celie.







We learn Shug does not truly care for Mister beyond a physical relationship, understanding his true misogynistic nature that Celie has been so tragically impacted by. Shug’s free-spirited lifestyle as a perfo...

We begin discussing the 2024 Netflix miniseries adaptation of the novel One Day by David Nicholls. The 14-episode series faithfully adapts the 2009 book, which was previously made into a 2011 film starring Anne Hathaway and Jim Sturgess. This new adaptation stars Ambika Maud as Emma Morley and Leah Woodall as Dexter Mayhew in the lead roles.







One Day Summary







Courtesy of Netflix





The premise follows Emma and Dexter, introduced as students at the University of Edinburgh, who meet on July 15th, 1988 – their college graduation day. A spark occurs between the opposites – Emma is driven and aspires to be a writer, while Dexter is privileged yet aimless. After sharing an intimate night together, their lives reconnect annually on that same date, July 15th.







In the early episodes, we see their lives diverge as Emma struggles as a reluctant Mexican restaurant worker while failing to publish her writing. Meanwhile, Dexter lazily teaches English abroad fueled by family money before finding a minor celebrity as a loud, obnoxious TV personality. Their friendship persists despite romantic tensions and compatibility issues.











As the years progress, Emma finally gets her start as a novelist living in Paris, though a romantic reconciliation with Dexter leads nowhere when he’s newly married to another woman after getting her pregnant. Emma returns to London and begins a relationship with aspiring comedian Ian, which ends due to her lingering feelings for Dexter resurfacing.







Dexter’s life is a roller coaster – he has a daughter with his first wife Sylvie but their marriage crumbles due to his immaturity and her infidelity. Finally, after over a decade of push-and-pull, Emma and Dexter commit to one another as a couple in the late 90s. They marry and he opens a successful cafe bakery with her support and his inheritance after his mother’s passing.







Courtesy of Netflix





Tragically, on the 15th anniversary of their fateful first meeting in 2002, Emma dies suddenly in a biking accident. This shatters Dexter, who regresses into destructive alcoholism and substance abuse, pushing away his daughter and friends in his all-consuming grief over the years.







The miniseries skips through the aftermath – Dexter’s hardships caring for his cafe alone, his loved ones’ attempts to support him through recovery’s ups and downs, and glimmers of acceptance as he forms new bonds with his aging father. In heartbreaking final scenes, a more clear-eyed Dexter returns to Edinburgh to reminisce at the old sites of his memories with Emma.











Final Thoughts







While immensely sad overall, the adaptation concludes on a wistful note of hope that Dexter can move forward while cherishing Emma’s lasting impact on his life’s journey. We discuss how the series deftly captures the melancholic yet uplifting atmosphere of Nicholls’ original novel through its excellent performances and adherence to the source material’s writing thanks to the author’s direct involvement.







Both the writing and performances are standouts in the miniseries, with Maud and Woodall’s chemistry a high point. Though Dex and Em’s relationship has its early fumbles, their differences seem to be what draws them together.

We’re kicking off this episode by catching up on our recent reads. Shirin has just started the highly anticipated Bride by Ali Hazelwood but found it giving off more supernatural Underworld vibes than expected Twilight vibes with its arranged marriage between a vampire and werewolf.







Meaghan has finished reading Bride and the psychological thriller None of This Is True by Lisa Jewell. She raves about how compulsively readable None of This Is True was, perfectly suited for devouring in one sitting on vacation without stopping due to the intriguing premise and steady unveiling of twists and turns.











After covering our current nightstand picks, we transitioned into the main topic – exploring the rising popularity of mythology and folklore retellings beyond the heavily saturated realm of Greek myths. We highlighted Neil Gaiman as a prolific author contributing to this genre across various works.







Mythology Retellings: Exploring Other Avenues













His most famous, American Gods, featured a mash-up of deities and myths from different cultures finding themselves in modern-day America. Gaiman has also published dedicated books like Norse Mythology, a collection of short stories reimagining tales of Odin, Thor, and Loki in his distinctive narrative style. His novel Anansi Boys likewise drew from African folklore centered on the trickster spider Anansi.







We noted that while the ancient Greek pantheon has long dominated mythology retellings, other cultural mythologies are having more of a pop culture moment lately, partially driven by increased mainstream familiarity with figures like Norse gods through the Marvel movies. This has opened the door for more retellings in this space like Genevieve Gornichec’s The Witch’s Heart exploring Loki and Odin’s perspectives.







However, we’re also seeing plenty of subtler fantasy novels inspired by various cultural folklore without being overtly categorized as mythology retellings. Popular series like the Raybearer books by Jordan Ifueko or the rise of “mythic fiction” like Daughter of the Moon Goddess by Sue Lynn Tan showcase the resurgence of diverse folklore fueling new fantasies.













The enduring Arthurian legend and medieval tales remain a constant source for retellings as well, with authors exploring the perspectives of more obscure characters like The Lady of Shallot rather than just the typical love triangle narratives. We discussed how these ancient epics from Beowulf to Sir Gawain and the Green Knight have inspired countless authors including Tolkien, who wove Germanic mythology throughout his fantasy realms.











Looking beyond the predominance of European mythologies in fantasy, we expressed excitement over the potential to see more adaptations drawing from folklore around the world that have been largely untapped so far in novels and on screen.







The Untapped Potential Of Mythology Retellings