Open Book
Episode 7: Sam Sanders
July 23, 2025
Radio host and podcaster Sam Sanders (The Sam Sanders Show, Vibe Check) chats about promoting a book through wearable merch and imagines his “dream casting” for Percival Everett’s novel James. Plus, Sam and Elena attempt to “fix” publishing.
Show Notes
Journalist, radio host, and podcaster Sam Sanders’ (The Sam Sanders Show, Vibe Check) writing has appeared in The New York Magazine, Politico Magazine, and The Washington Post.
Sam and Elena discuss the following:
Sam’s most recent “vacation read” was Food Person by food writer Adam Roberts, who is also a friend of his. He boasts about wearing a hat for it—merchandise that says the name of the novel—around Spain.
Sam’s next delicious read is Unscripted: The Epic Battle for a Media Empire & the Redstone Family Legacy by James B. Stewart and Rachel Abrams, which was recommended to him by Tracy Thomas, host of the literary podcast The Stacks.
A film adaptation Sam loved was Nickel Boys, based on the novel of the same name by Colson Whitehead.
Sam also recommends the film adaptation of Erasure by Percival Everett called American Fiction.
Sam and Elena dream-cast an adaptation of James by Percival Everett.
When Sam asks Elena for a book recommendation, she suggests Submersed: Wonder, Obsession, and Murder in the World of Amateur Submarines by Matther Gavin Frank.
See a comprehensive list of books referenced on Open Book at powells.com/list/open-book-live-wire.
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Elena Passarello: Hi there, I'm writer Elena Passarello, and this is Open Book, a literary podcast from Live Wire Radio, brought to you by Powell's Books, where we talk to writers about their reading habits. Now, when I'm not having fun being Livewire's announcer, writing is my job. I'm the author of two books, and I'm currently working on my third one, which is haunting my dreams. I also teach writing here in Oregon. And all of this is to say that books are pretty much, without exaggeration, my whole life. I even keep a running tab of nerdy book jokes in my notes app. Here is a recent favorite. Dystopian novels are so 1984. Anyway, this week on Open Book, I'm talking to the one and only Sam Sanders. Although Sam is perhaps best known for his audio work, you've probably heard him on NPR Politics, or It's Been a Minute, or both of his great podcasts, Vibe Check and The Sam Sanders Show. His writing has appeared in the New York Magazine, Politico Magazine, and the Washington Post, and he is known for his hot takes and his love for all things culture, and this makes him the perfect person to talk to about my favorite cultural vehicle, the written word. This conversation with Sam was as energized and fun as I expected it would be. And we cover a real variety of things like how to rep your favorite book through your fashion choices and which screen adaptations we think really got the books right, even if we haven't gotten around to reading the original books yet. Here he is, Sam Sanders on Open Book. Sam Sanders. Welcome to Open Book.
Sam Sanders: It's so good to be here. And I'm, like, feeling good about being here because I just finished a good book on vacation and I'm about to fall in love with a new book that I've just started. So I'm in a good book space right now. So this feels nice.
Elena Passarello: So vacation book, let's start with that. What do you usually do? What did you just do? How'd it go? Tell me everything.
Sam Sanders: For a very long time, my reading was basically, what is the next thing I need to read for work? You know? And I purposely stepped back from doing as many book interviews maybe two or three years ago because I wanted to savor them all more and I wanted my reading to feel more just me doing it for me. Because even if the book is fun, if you're reading it for work, it's still work. Yeah. Or part of your brain tells you that, you know? [Elena: Yeah.] So I've been doing more than just reading for Sam. And I am lucky enough to have a lot of books mailed to me all the time, and I'm sure you have this problem too, because as soon as you begin to do interviews about books, everyone wants to send you their books. I have an ex who I know still gets a bunch of galleys at his house, sorry, dude. Anyway, but I got a galley a few weeks before I went to Spain for a friend's wedding, a food writer who I got to know through various circles here in Los Angeles. His name is Adam Roberts. He sent me his debut novel, which is called Food Person. And I'm wearing the hat that came with the book called Food person.
Elena Passarello: Yeah, you've got like a cranium advertisement. So you're not advertising yourself as a food person, you're advertising a novel written by a food writer.
Sam Sanders: Exactly. [Elena: Tell me more. What's it about? How's it going?] This book is so fun. Like from the very first page, you are invested and you're kind of just like LOLing the entire time. A food person is all about this awkward, struggling food writer who wants to become a food writer of note, but realizes she doesn't have the charisma. To be an engaging on-camera personality, which is what you need in this day and age. So she's feeling stuck, doesn't know what to do next, but then a golden opportunity surfaces to ghost write a cookbook for a celebrity who is kind of down on their luck. [Elena: Okay.] Hilarity ensues.
Elena Passarello: Do you have a sense of who the celebrity is based on or like what genre?
Sam Sanders: So many. The celebrity in the book for whom the protagonist is ghostwriting the cookbook for is a mashup of any number of former young hot stars in their 20s who start to age out and start to spiral out. That is the celebrity in this book. But this book, Food Person, it is what some folks might dismissively call a beach read or a summer read. I don't take those terms offensively, I think it’s great. And I think this was just that. I started reading the book when I was heading to Spain for this wedding. I lost the book in some layover, but I still had the food person hat, but I just then got the book on my Kindle and finished it. It was so fun. I zoomed through it, like, within two or three days of vacation. And because I was wearing this food person hat the whole trip, everyone kept asking, what is that hat? Are you a food person? And I said, I am, but also there's a book. And I think I convinced three or four flight attendants to order my friend's book. So to all those writers out there, when you have swag for your next book, do a hat.
Elena Passarello: Yeah, do a hat. You know, I think about food writers writing nonfiction, like a memoir of eating or something, but you don't hear too much of a food writer who moves over to fiction. That's great. Yeah, and I don't know if they can like recall all of the copies that they've already sent out to write a new blurb, but what a great blurb is: I love this book, I lost it in the airport, so I had to find it and download it so I could finish it. Like that's—that's when you know.
Sam Sanders: That's when you know!
Elena Passarello: So when you're traveling, when you are going cross-country and going to a wedding and going to an exotic place, when do you find yourself doing the most reading?
Sam Sanders: If I can keep myself from buying airplane Wi-Fi, I will read on a plane and love it. If I am near any body of water while on vacation, I wanna sit by the water and read. And in general, part of my just like nighttime wind down routine is trying to read in bed as I fall asleep. I try and I still screw it up. I try to have my bedroom be a phone free zone. Because if I'm in my bedroom just reading, no matter how good the book is, in about 20 minutes, I'm knocking out.
Elena Passarello: Can you read a Kindle by the pool or by the beach? Like, are you able to read an electronic reader? I've never been able to do it.
Sam Sanders: I think like... if you have the right sunglasses and can work with the glare and everything. But no, I will say, I'm always partial to a physical book. I love the way it feels in my hands. I love seeing the cover. I love being able to show someone, look at this book. But the Kindle can be nice because I'll do that thing where I'll be overly ambitious and say, I'm gonna bring five books on this vacation. I don't read them all. I just have five books to log around.
Elena Passarello: Mm-hmm. And then you find a new one in the airport or something that you want. Then you come home with six books. You get it. You get it. I feel like the new flex is reading a paper book on the plane without any devices out. Like, it's so continental, especially if you have on like a really nice outfit and you're just reading your book on a plane. It just feels like... It's lux.
Sam Sanders: Yeah, it is. Did you know? And this, I just found this out. The kids are doing this thing, mostly like gen alpha guys. They will not use their cell phone an entire long flight and only look at the interactive flight map for the whole flight. You haven't seen this?
Elena Passarello: The little line with the plane? What?
Sam Sanders: I want to say they call it free ball on the flight. Let me look. Hold on.
Elena Passarello: Is it raw dogging, do they call it raw dogging?
Sam Sanders: Raw dogging. That's what it is. Raw dogging the flight.
Elena Passarello: I'm like, you guys need to research the origins of that term.
Sam Sanders: It's the whole thing. I saw it a few weeks ago. I was like, well, good for them. They'll do anything but go to therapy. Raw dogging a flight refers to the act of taking a flight, especially a long haul one, without any form of entertainment or distraction, and instead solely relying on the in-flight map as a source of stimulation and timekeeping. They could just read a book!
Elena Passarello: Yeah, how fun would that be? I mean, it's so much more interesting than a flight track. I mean I guess it's like, do you think it's real? Do you think they're really doing that? Or do you just think they are just...
Sam Sanders: I can see it. I live in Southern California, the land of deep meditation. And what it sounds like they're locking into is a deep meditation, to which I say, go there, be there.
Elena Passarello: Yeah. Be present. Watch that little streak. So what's next for you reading-wise now that you're done with your vacation?
Sam Sanders: It is a deeply reported history of the drama, palace intrigue, and fireworks involved in the CBS and Viacom media dynasties.
Elena Passarello: Is it unscripted, the epic battle for a media empire?
Sam Sanders: That's what it is. Oh my God, you're better than me at this. Unscripted, The Epic Battle for a Media Empire and the Redstone Family Legacy. It's by James B. Stewart and Rachel Abrams. These are two investigative reporters who have covered the entertainment industry for a while. And they do this deep reported history of what the hell happened with CBS and Viacom. So you'll recall, at the height of Me Too, Les Moonves, head of CBS. Had all of that drama over his Me Too situation.
Elena Passarello: Mm-hmm
Sam Sanders: Then after that, there has been a year or two of palace intrigue about who the Redstone family will sell the Paramount Media empire to. Those stories are interconnected, and all of the men involved are trash. And this book goes there. It's amazing. Like all of them are horrible narcissists, egotistical, bad. And thankfully, at least the elder Redstone, a lot of women take advantage of him, to which I say, good, get this man's money. But yeah, it feels like succession. It feels like you'd like that kind of energy and straight into my veins. I love content that makes me believe that all rich people are unhappy because that makes me feel happy about not being rich.
Elena Passarello: Yeah, it sounds like it's also giving you—it's scratching two different itches, like the itch for deep reporting. I know you've trained as a reporter, like really responsible, time-consuming, two journalists, but also hot gossip. You know, it's like succession meets like Woodward and Bernstein.
Sam Sanders: Exactly. Exactly. Well, and it's like part of the work, you know, a lot of my work is covering the entertainment industry. And I think when I started covering this kind of stuff, I was like, oh, it's just about the art and the artists. No, it is a business. And these men matter and what they do matters and knowing how they work. It’s helpful into painting a clearer and more robust picture of what the hell the entertainment industry is right now.
Elena Passarello: Did you assign this to yourself or is this something that you're working on for a project?
Sam Sanders: No, it's funny. I asked a dear friend of mine who was super into books to give me some advice for a good book to read after I finished Food Person. I was like, Tracy, I'm on a roll. Give me some more titles. And she's like, based on what you're doing, what you like, check this one out. Her name is Tracy Thomas. She hosts a really great book podcast called The Stacks. [Elena: Oh yeah.] And she is just a good person. And literally having a friend where you can just say, I want a book, tell me. And she gives you something worthwhile.
Elena Passarello: That's the best. I like that she picked a real pivot for you from the novel, the fun, like she knows something about your personality that's like, I just ate the sweet, now I want the salty, or like she understands that you have a kind of mercurial spirit that needs to be, she didn't find you an identical book to the one that you just read, which is valid too, you know?
Sam Sanders: Yeah. Yeah. No, she's good. The one thing she does know about me, it's like, with all things that I consume, TV, movies, or books, I need plot. I need things to move. I need things that happen. I would love some good punchy dialog. I'm not into content that is just like a slow moving rumination meditation on, like, existence. Remember, was it like the era of transparent, really good TV shows? But there'd just be minutes where one of the lead characters would walk around the house touching objects as music played.
Elena Passarello: That's—that's not your mood. Moody is not your move.
Sam Sanders: Yeah, I need movement. Let's move. Yeah, you get it.
Elena Passarello: Speaking of movies, I want to know if you have any ideas or if you have any favorite book adaptations into either films or television shows. Is there one that really got it right as far as you're concerned? I'll give you mine to just—I feel like Station Eleven was a fabulous adaptation of that book and wasn't like 100% note for note, shot for shot. Like they kind of went their own way, but I feel people who love the book will love it. I loved it. I thought that that was like, for me, like the gold standard of adaptations.
Sam Sanders: I've only heard good things about that. I need to watch the show and read the book. I really loved Nickel Boys last year, which is based on a Colson Whitehead book, but I haven't read the books yet. But the movie blew me away.
Elena Passarello: That's a funny thing, right? Sometimes you do see a movie version of an adaptation or a TV version of adaptation, and you're kind of afraid to go to the book. Like I saw The Great Gatsby movie before I read The Great Gatsby book. So then when I read the book, all I pictured were Robert Redford and Mia Farrow. And I was like, this is probably not what F. Scott Fitzgerald had in mind.
Sam Sanders: It's better than having to imagine the updated Great Gatsby with like, was it a Baslerman treatment?
Elena Passarello: Yeah, Leo DiCaprio and Tobey Maguire, yeah, that was a lot. Yeah, that's a headache in a bottle.
Sam Sanders: I'll tell you one, I thoroughly enjoyed the adaptation of Percival Everett's incredible novel Erasure that became American fiction, which last year won the Oscar for best adapted screenplay. And the winner of that, the writer and director of that film, Cor Jefferson, he's an old friend. Oh, cool. That was a great adaptation. So good. And like, you realize he—he retooled a lot in a really, really smart way. And he did some things that were just gonna make this work more for moviegoers. Filmgoers, whether they admit it or not, they want something in the film that, like, makes their heart happy and gives them a little tingly love and joy. And he gives you more of that than the book does because he's smart, you know? Both are beautiful. The book is pretty dark. And there are moments of, like, love in the movie that really make it work as a movie.
Elena Passarello: That's such a good point. And it's definitely plot-ier than the book, which sort of has this other kind of second novel inside of it.
Sam Sanders: Exactly, which is great—the novel inside of the novel. Oh my god. It was so good.
Elena Passarello: Do you think they're going to adapt James?
Sam Sanders: They have to. They have too.
Elena Passarello: Yeah, I'm already passing it in my head.
Sam Sanders: Who do you… who do you cast, also for those listening? James is the retelling of Huck Finn, but this time the narrator is Jim the slave.
Elena Passarello: I'm imagining Coleman Domingo. What do you think?
Sam Sanders: Oscar, Oscar, Oscar. But it's… okay. Here's the thing though. Is he big enough in size… [Elan: Yeah…] Jim is big, or Jim feels big, when I read the book.
Elena Passarello: Yeah, that's why, so my favorite actor right now who could do it is Lakeith. [Sam: Lakeith Stanfield?] Lakeith Stanford. So I love Lakeith Standfield, but I feel like he might be small.
Sam Sanders: He's a skinny mini; he's a little tiny thing.
Elena Passarello: But he's such a character actor, I feel like he could swap back and forth really well, you know?
Sam Sanders: I know who could do it, his Atlanta co-star, Brian Tyree Henry. [Elena: As James.] That's James.
Elena Passarello: Oh, that would be great. He can do anything. He's so good.
Sam Sanders: He is so good. I think we did it, Sam. I think, we know. We did it. Who can you call? Let's call somebody. Get him on it now. That would be phenomenal.
Elena Passarello: I'm ready. I'm totally ready. Okay, so we could talk to you all day, but we should wrap it up. But I'm really excited to ask you this last question. Sam Sanders, we always ask folks on Open Book to give us a controversial book opinion, and you are the czar of hot takes, so…
Sam Sanders: I don't know if I love that title! Czar of bad opinions!
Elena Passarello: No, there's nothing—I love a—yeah. So what do you have for us today on Open Book in terms of a controversial book opinion?
Sam Sanders: I have said this on a microphone before, and I stand by it: When it comes to written works, particularly for nonfiction writing, I believe most nonfiction books should actually just be a long form magazine article, most long form nonfiction magazine articles should just be a series of tweets, and most tweets should never exist. [Elena laughs]
Elena Passarello: That's like a Matryoshka. That's like a Russian doll of hot takes.
Sam Sanders: Yes. Yes.
Elena Passarello: Well, it is true, sometimes you'll read a non-fiction book and you can see the original article that it came from.
Sam Sanders: And that's usually the forward that tells you everything. [Elena: Right.] And you're like, I'm good. Do I have to keep going?
Elena Passarello: And the book deal is all around it. Yeah, like it's sort of too expanded. [Sam: So you agree? Join me.] I'm thinking—No, I'm just thinking about all the times in which I've, like, seen where the article stops and the project begins and it's like, oh, this is just to make it a book, but maybe it doesn't need to be a book. I'm in the middle of writing a long-form non-fiction book, so hopefully that doesn't—
Sam Sanders: Uh oh! I take it back. I'm sorry. Yours is gonna be great. Do three editions. You’re allowed.
Elena Passarello: At this point, I wish it was just a tweet, man. I really do. [Both laugh]
Sam Sanders: Wait, what's it about?
Elena Passarello: It's about the spotty legacy of Elvis Presley and his movies. You know, he made 31 movies.
Sam Sanders: Are you serious? [Elena: 31.] How many were good?
Elena Passarello: Mm, half of one, maybe. But I'll tell you this, about 28 of them are really interesting. So you could talk about it's, like, it's like Mad Men, you know, like he spent the whole 60s kind of playing the same character and the whole world changed around him. And he didn't change. And the movies sort of do that as well. But that's neither here nor there. [Sam: I'll read that.] Thanks, Sam.
Sam Sanders: Yeah.
Elena Passarello: Well, so you're now we need to get you some kind of a situation in which we need, like, a book that is just the long form articles of all of these things that used to be books so you can kind of move back and forth between the two.
Sam Sanders: I want one of the big publishing houses, or even one of the small ones, to start commissioning work from authors who usually write books, but I want them to say, we're going to commission you for your idea as an article, 15,000 words or less. [Elena: Yes.] And to make sense of the publishing of it all, they can like, bind many of these little mini books into one little collection.
Elena Passarello: You get variety.
Sam Sanders: Tell me that.
Elena Passarello: Yeah! Multiple voices.
Sam Sanders: Of course, as I hear myself saying this, I realize you and I are just recreating the magazine.
Elena Passarello: Oh no! Which got murdered!
Sam Sanders: Yeah, yeah. So I don't have a fix. I actually don't have a
Elena Passarello: So one thing we don't need is a collection of tweets.
Sam Sanders: Yeah, don't print and bind the tweets, whatever y'all do. No. No one do that.
Elena Passarello: Do you think that's ever gonna happen, by the way? You know how they have like the collected letters of Mark Twain or something like that? Do you ever have, like, the collected tweets of Sam Sanders as part of our industry's legacy?
Sam Sanders: I mean, I feel like increasingly there's going to be a question of like, what actually lives on the internet and what just like quietly goes away. I think that probably a good half of the work that I did as a reporter that went, like, online to a website, you probably can't find it now. We probably can't find it, and that's life.
Elena Passarello: You feel okay about that?
Sam Sanders: Oh yeah. Some of that shit was bad. Sorry. I shouldn't have used profanity. No, it's fine.
Elena Passarello: No, it's fine. We're online only. Do you think you'd ever write a book, Sam? Is that in you for at some point in your life?
Sam Sanders: Can I tell you something? Oh my God, I'm telling the secret out loud, but this is fun and I like you. I have been on the fence about writing a book for many years and I have pages, but not a full proposal yet, but through the power of public education and the UCLA Extension School, I started a 10 week intensive writers workshop this evening.
Elena Passarello: Shut up, Sam Sanders!
Sam Sanders: So it's really great that we're talking today. It's fitting.
Elena Passarello: Will you be talking with the other writers who are kind of thinking about putting a book together as well? Is that the nature of the course?
Sam Sanders: Yeah, we'll be critiquing pages, and I'm scared to death.
Elena Passarello: Do you have your pages ready or is that later in the term?
Sam Sanders: I had to submit thousands of words just to be considered for this thing. So there's some already. And I think this first night, I think we're just going to be like, hey, how are you? But we start critiquing other people's pages in a week and I'm just like, Lord help.
Elena Passarello: Are you writing about yourself or are you writing about culture or a little bit of the two?
Sam Sanders: A little bit of the two, so long story short, I grew up in a very socially conservative black Pentecostal church, where perhaps the biggest sin was homosexuality.
Sam Sanders: I also grew up in this church as someone visibly queer, and it was one place in my youth where I knew I wouldn't be bullied for sounding too gay, like this weird juxtaposition.
Elena Passarello: Yeah, yeah totally.
Sam Sanders: I grow up and I leave church and move away to like go be gay and I fully expect two things to happen. One, I'll become an atheist and two, my church will disown me. Neither thing happened. [Elena: Whoa.] It just ended up being this coming out story with no villains. And so I want to tell that story because I think it's just not a rebuke but a differentiation from the normal coming out plotline. I leave you behind. I hate you. It's like, no, I love you. You still love me. It was just weird for a while. So that. But I also want to talk about all of the pieces of pop culture through my youth that helped me get to the place where I felt comfortable really being me. So one of the essays is the time when I thought I was smart and was going to convince my mother, my Pentecostal Church organist mother, to watch Brokeback Mountain with me.
Elena Passarello: Woah.
Sam Sanders: Because you'll remember back in the day when they were first pushing the film, they didn't advertise it as overtly gay. It was a cowboy movie. [Elena: Right.] And if you knew it was gay, you knew. My mother didn't know it was a cow-boy movie. So I was like, oh, I'll watch this with her. And it helped me come out. Not quite. So like, that's one of the essays. [Elena: Whoa.] Or there's a story of the gospel song I grew up playing for years in church as a kid on the saxophone. It was my saxophone solo. Didn't realize until my 30s that the moment who sang the original is a lesbian.
Elena Passarello: What's the song?
Sam Sanders: It's called Thank You Lord. It came from the Hawkins family. The Hawkins Family is most known for Oh Happy Day, but they have a library of great gospel. And one of the songs I used to play at church all the time was this song called Thank you Lord. It's about eight minutes long. And there's this lovely woman singing the lead the whole time. And I would try to play my saxophone like she sang it. And a listener pointed out to me after I mentioned this song on one of my podcasts a while back, oh, you know she's a lesbian. She's in the bay, and she's married to a woman. I'm like, oh my God, oh, my God. So essays that are like reflections on pieces of pop culture that also tie into my story, etc. And a little bit of the history of black queerness in the church, because it's always been there. Now I've talked your ear off. You're not my book agent. I'm sorry. I've given you too much.
Elena Passarello: I have three words, Sam Sanders wears the hat. I am going to wear the hat with your book title. You had me at essays and pop culture, and now I'm covered in my head with whatever this book is called. I am ready for it.
Sam Sanders: Oh my God, thank you.
Elena Passarello: I can't wait. I love that you're going back to school to think about how you could do it. And I know that no matter when or where it happens, it's gonna be something that I can wait to read. I'm so excited. That made my day hearing about it.
Sam Sanders: Oh, thank you. You made my day. This was the first time I, like, said it on a microphone, so it feels real. And the first hat's yours.
Elena Passarello: Ah! You heard it here first, Open Book. I am the first hat recipient of to be named Sam Sanders book project. Sam Sanders, thank you so much for coming on our podcast. I love talking to you.
Sam Sanders: This was delightful. Give me a book recommendation before we leave. I trust your opinion.
Elena Passarello: I just read an interesting kind of wild bit of reportage about the history of submersibles. So like submarines, yeah, like submarines when they began were just these little bitty pods that people would kind of just like, like, pedal like a petty cat almost going all the way to the submersible that was lost looking for the Titanic a couple years ago. Uh, it was really interesting. It's by this writer named Matthew Gavin Frank. Yeah. He just, he approaches facts and nonfiction in these, these really interesting ways. So, uh, I love that book.
Sam Sanders: Yeah. I'm on it. This has been so fun. Let me know how you like food person because you gotta read it.
Elena Passarello: I can't wait. Awesome, thanks Sam.
Sam Sanders: Thank you so much.
Elena Passarello: That was Sam Sanders on Open Book. You can check him out on his various radio shows and podcasts, including the Sam Sanders Show from KCRW and one of my favorite podcasts ever, Vibe Check. Thanks for listening to Open Book, I'm Elena Passarello, your host. Our executive producer is Laura Hadden and our producer and editor is Melanie Sevcenko. Eben Hoffer is our technical director, Haziq Bin Ahmad Farid is our mixer. A Walker Spring composed our theme song and Ashley Park is our social media marketer. A big thanks to the entire staff at Live Wire Radio, the fine folks at PRX, and of course, Powell's Books for sponsoring this podcast.Sloane Crosley: Laughing already. I am so excited to be talking to you, too, as well. Thank you for having me.
Elena Passarello: Oh, yeah. Here's what I really want to know. How would you describe yourself as a reader? Are you a regimented reader? Are you an emotional reader? How would you describe yourself?
Sloane Crosley: Oh, wow. Definitely craving-based. I don't do things because I think I should. I've learned finally to quit books. I used to pride myself on this when I was in my early 20s, that I'd never walked out of a movie and I'd ever left a book unfinished. And I don't know where I got that as a source of pride. So I do that, but I'm pretty regular because I do a lot of book reviewing. And you know, I worked in publicity for so long in book So I'm sort of used to just chain-smoking them.
Elena Passarello: Is there a time of day or is it because it's your job, you're kind of doing it all day long?
Sloane Crosley: All day long. Every once in a while, the only thing that is a sort of marker of difference is if I wake up and go back to a book. That is super rare. You know, the second your eyes meet consciousness, that you have to know what happens. That's pretty rare.
Elena Passarello: That's how you know a book is good.
Sloane Crosley: I mean, but if that was the only measurement, there would be two books. [Elena: That's right.] I don't even know what they are, but you know what I mean.
Elena Passarello: Well, in general, what kind of books do you find yourself looking for if you want to do something non-professional, something comfortable?
Sloane Crosley: I feel weird naming the authors, because it's going to make them sound like guilty pleasures, but they're actually quite serious authors. I love Emily St. John Mandel, I love Lauren Groff. I don't have a thing where I secretly read romance or mystery, although I edited, that's a hard word to say for what it means and what I do. I edited an anthology that had Lee Child in it, and so I got kind of addicted to his books, and they're comfort food.
Elena Passarello: Does your reading change when you're in the throes of a writing project?
Sloane Crosley: Yes, I tend to do, I sort of go against the grain. So if I'm working on non-fictional read fiction and vice versa.
Elena Passarello: Do you remember what you read when you were putting together Grief Is for People?
Sloane Crosley: Wow, what did I read? Oh, yeah. No, I read basically all of Virginia Woolf, which is not exactly going against the grain considering the fact that the book is about the suicide of my close friend. So I don't know. But I thought, you know, to the lighthouse, a romp. [Elena: Yeah, why not?] Let's do it, yeah.
Elena Passarello: Well, your book, you handle it with, like, a kind of a humor and a levity, so it's interesting the Woolf is sort of not, she's not known for...
Sloane Crosley: That's it. I think that's it, yeah. I don't read... But I don't... If you ask other authors this question too, I'm like, you should have other people answer these questions. But, you know, if you ask David Sedaris what he's reading nine times out of ten, it's either about taxidermy or like the Holocaust. It's just the farthest thing you could possibly think from sort of antics and etiquette and cute little stories.
Elena Passarello: You want to exercise a muscle that isn't the muscle that you're kind of showing up for every day as a writer.
Sloane Crosley: Well, you also don't want to copy people. You know, you want to find that line between inspiration and just... you know, copying people.
Elena Passarello: Speaking of copying, well, this isn't really copying, but adapting. Is there a film or a television adaptation of a book that you think was really well done?
Sloane Crosley: Oh, I got so excited because I thought you were going to ask me if one of my books was being adapted.
Elena Passarello: Yeah, no, I'm telling you now. I don't know if you know this, but Greta Gerwig is very interested.
Sloane Crosley: Is she? Oh wonderful. Good news. Is there an adaptation? I just saw Zone of Interest, which is only because Martin Amis, may he rest in peace, is better than the book.
Elena Passarello: You would only say that now that we know.
Sloane Crosley: Only now that he's dead and not listening to this podcast, which we all know he would do, nonstop. It's one of those things where he would open his eyes in the morning and turn on the podcast. I mean, that's so fresh in my head because I just saw it a couple of weeks ago and it was just, I thought it was, yeah, everything that, it's unfortunate that we've already wasted all the words, the words like haunting and beautiful on so many things that aren't really that haunting and don't stick with you and are just sort of pretty. Yeah. But this really is those things.
Elena Passarello: Yeah, like, you are haunted by the...
Sloane Crosley: I was haunted. I couldn't stop thinking.
Elena Passarello: And that's the highest praise I think you can give is when an adaptation is actually better than the book, Godfather.
Sloane Crosley: Or just, I mean, actually, Station Eleven. I thought the adaptation of that was good.
Elena Passarello: Station Eleven was spectacular. I feel like I got a little swallowed and oh my god.
Sloane Crosley: The other day there's a scene, for those of you who have not read it, I won't spoil it, but there's sort of a reunion between two characters, and it's pretty pivotal. And I intentionally watched it the other night to make myself cry. [Elena: Oh, good.] I'm like, you talk about what I'm in the mood for. I'm just in the mood to make myself cry, so I did that.
Elena Passarello: Are there books that you read that will make you cry?
Sloane Crosley: Yes. They're really surprising. I remember the first book. The first adult book that ever made me cry was The Chosen by, I'm going to go ahead and really put my back into this, by Chaim Potok. It made me ball my eyes out. It's about two friends. And it's just in this tiny tight-knit community in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, and this sort of Zionist and anti-Zionist sort of butting heads, and these two boys that are friends, and it has this sort of Romeo and Juliet quality, and it's beautiful. But I don't remember what about that book really made me try. I will say... There's a short story that became a home at the end of the world, which is White Angel by Michael Cunningham. And the last line of that story, I'm not even going to say now, because one must compose oneself. Right? One's face, that one does not want to shed tears on top of. All I would have to do is see the last line of that.
Elena Passarello: I feel that way about a Michael Cunningham novella, the first one in Specimen Days, the one that takes place in Walt Whitman's New York, and I listened to the audio book.
Sloane Crosley: He could stick a landing, that guy.
Elena Passarello: Yeah, he's like a, I don't know who a gymnast, the only gymnast I can think is that one who barely stuck the landing because her foot was broken. Oh yeah, Simone Bile. Yeah, yeah. He's like Simone Biles. Oh, I listened to Specimen Days, I listen to Alan, Alan Cumming. [Sloane: Yes, that one.] Perfectly read. [Sloane: Yes.] What's your audiobook diet like?
Sloane Crosley: Oh, my audiobook diet is nil. I just listened to my first. So I have recorded five out of six of my books. So, I just finished recording Grief is for People, which, you know, good for them. They got my voice cracking a few times, I'm sure. Sure, that'll be good. But I can, yeah, I did condition out, but I can't take it. I listened to very few audiobooks. I just bought my first one. And I want you to know that during the pandemic, I also read most of Henry Green, when I say... It was the Britney Spears audio book. I wanted to hear Michelle Williams. [Elena: Oh yeah.] Kudos to her acting, but also kudos to whatever voice level she found where it was her, but it was that sort of baby voice Britney thing. And I can't believe she kept it up at this even tone. It was amazing.
Elena Passarello: It was perfect casting. I know they just... [Sloane: Did you listen to it?] Yeah. [Sloane: Yeah, you did.] I know, they just gave Oscars for casting. You know, casting directors are going to get Oscars now. But when are they going to give casting audio Oscars?
Sloane Crosley: They give audio books, so I've been nominated for a couple of, not Grammys, but like Audis or what have you. Just to clarify, just I don't have the Tony going yet. But I feel like, yeah, I'll never beat like Jimmy Carter. [Elena: No, he's got him.] They give it to the presidents or like Obama.
Elena Passarello: Or Hillary Clinton.
Sloane Crosley: Yeah, no it's true. No, a distinctive voice doesn't mean you read good.
Elena Passarello: Yeah, do you think that's why you don't listen to audiobooks that much, because you have kind of high standards having...
Sloane Crosley: I think it's cause I don't leave the house that much. I do. I think that it's like audiobooks are for people who drive around and jog. And I'm like, well, I don't do either of those things. This is a genuine answer.
Elena Passarello: So your life before you started writing full-time involved book publicity, is that the right? [Sloane: Yes, that's the term.] What is it like to transition into being a writer, having been somebody who represented writers for so long? Is there a switch you have to turn off?
Sloane Crosley: Yeah, it's the people-pleasy switch. It's not the switch you think it is. It's like a little more something that drives, if I may be so earnest, the heart, the core of the work, which is playing to a crowd, trying to figure out what people would like. Now, at the same time, you don't have to be a book publicist or have been one to not want to alienate your reader. I think there's no shame in that. And I think people who go out of their way to do that are not necessarily, I'm like, you're not Nabokov. Nabokow? Either way, you are neither of them. Yeah, that desire for people to like you is sort of amplified by the job and you have to unwind it.
Elena Passarello: Okay, so Grief is for People is a memoir. I don't know if you knew that. FYI. [Sloane: Sort of not, but yes.] What memoir? And you were talking about Britney Spears' memoir. [Sloane: Yes.] What memoir has not been written yet that you would rush to read?
Sloane Crosley: Oh, wow. Zadie Smith. [Elena: Hmm. How come?] She writes, she's dipped her toe quite successfully. You know, her toe dipping is everyone else's diving. You know, it's just one award into narrative nonfiction, into essays, both after the pandemic and feel free. And so you get her viewpoint, you know, a slightly closer viewpoint because it's her talking about You know, the world, the difference between joy and motherhood and all the things she writes about. But it's still slightly removed. It's still almost researcher based. And I would like to see more narrative from her.
Elena Passarello: And also, didn't she train as a jazz singer and just kind of abandoned it to be a writer? Like...
Sloane Crosley: She's an incredibly, incredibly talented singer.
Elena Passarello: I bet there's some other like a pilot's license.
Sloane Crosley: That's like some card tricks. Watch your wallet around her.
Elena Passarello: Yeah well yeah she's a sharp that's what I believe well this was great.
Sloane Crosley: Thank you so much.
Elena Passarello: Yeah my pleasure and congratulations on the book.
Sloane Crosley: Awe thank you.
Elena Passarello: That was Sloane Crosley out of Open Book. You can order Sloane's memoir, Grief Is for People at powells.com. Thanks for listening to Open Book, I'm Elena Passarello, your host. Our executive producer is Laura Hadden and our producer and editor is Melanie Sevcenko. Eben Hoffer is our technical director, Haziq Bin Ahmad Farid is our mixer, A Walker Spring composed our theme song and Ashley Park is our social media marketer. A big thanks to the entire staff at Live Wire Radio, the fine folks at PRX, and of course, Powell's Books for sponsoring this podcast.
