Lee Cole on the ethics of writing about home, and the people who stay and leave small towns
Welcome to the latest episode of the Rippling Pages. I’m having a coffee with Lee Cole, the American writer from Kentucky. And we’re talking about balancing the feelings and ethics of writing about home.
Now living a humdrum life in Kentucky, Emmett spends his days packing boxes in a warehouse. But what happens when he begins to dream of another life—and when those dreams start to fracture his family relationships?
These questions lie at the heart of Fulfilment, Lee Cole’s second novel. The book follows two half brothers whose clashing ambitions—Emmett’s longing to be a screenwriter and his brother’s academic ideals about “rural despair”—go beyond a simple difference in worldview. Something deeper threatens to pull them apart.
Lee is a graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, is also the author of Groundskeeping. Both his novels were published by Faber in the U.K. The New York Times has described his work as “Anne Tyler by way of Sally Rooney.” Originally from Kentucky, Lee joins me today from Philadelphia.
Remember, if you buy from Rippling Pages Bookshop all books are all sourced from indie bookshops!
https://uk.bookshop.org/shop/ripplingpagespod
Support the Rippling Pages on a new Patreon
https://patreon.com/RipplingPagesPod?utm_medi
Interested in hosting your own podcast? Follow this link and find out how:
https://www.podbean.com/ripplingpages
1.35 - Ann Tyler and Sally Rooney
5.05 - why Kentucky
7.25 - people who leave and stay in small towns
9.30 - why does Emmett wish he had what Joel has?
11.10 - southern fried rendition of Marx
12.10 - warehouses
16.12 - the difficulty of warehouse jobs
18.30 - Kentucky’s beauty
19.45 - backgrounds and worldviews
21.45 - guilt about writing about home or
22.30 - rippling pages bookshop
23.35 - Alice’s role
26.15 - Alice’s dream of owning a farm
28.50 - knowing what our desires are
32.50 - writing about writers impulses
Books
Wendell Berry
Annie Dillard
Sigmund Freud
Aldo Leopold
Karl Marx
Sally Rooney
Anne Tyler
John Updike
--------
38:12
--------
38:12
Bonus! Joanna Pocock on why your phone and notebook might be all you need to write
I’m talking with the essayist Joanna Pocock, and this is some bonus content from our original interview.
America is a place that has compelled countless writers to travel its vast and varied landscapes. Perhaps you’ve done it yourself. But what happens when you feel compelled to do it all again?
That’s the question at the heart of Joanna Pocock’s essay, Greyhound (Fitzcarraldo Editions). Named after the iconic bus company whose intercity network carries passengers from Detroit to Los Angeles — and which Joanna relies on for her own journey — Greyhound revisits familiar motels, crossings, and bus stations she first encountered years before.
Joanna’s writing has appeared in the LA Times, Guardian US and the Nation among others. GREYHOUND is her second book, and her first, SURRENDER, won the Fitzcarraldo essay prize.
Remember to like, share, follow, subscribe or leave a review if you enjoy the show.
Joanna is talking about objects of influence, which are:
Her notebooks
Her photographs
Remember, if you buy from Rippling Pages Bookshop all books are all sourced from indie bookshops!
https://uk.bookshop.org/shop/ripplingpagespod
Support the Rippling Pages on a new Patreon
https://patreon.com/RipplingPagesPod?utm_medi
Interested in hosting your own podcast? Follow this link and find out how:
https://www.podbean.com/ripplingpages
--------
13:10
--------
13:10
LIVE! Agnes Lidbeck and how to write about major adjustments and characters that frustrate us
I’m talking to the Swedish writer, Agnes Lidbeck, in this special edition live episode of the Rippling Pages! We really did have a coffee with one of the world’s, one of Sweden’s most interesting writers, because as we were live in person with a live audience in Leeds!
Life is full of adjustments - perhaps there isn’t a bigger adjustment than having children. But what happens when you start to question your role in this adjustment? Crucially, what happens when a mother starts to question her role in this adjustment.
These are the questions at the heart of Agnes’s novel, SUPPORTING ACT, published by Peirene Press and translated by Nichola Smalley.
It’s a beautiful novel about fierce devotion in the face of fierce questions that need to be asked about why certain people seem to take on certain roles in society.
Agnes is the author of five novels, but this was her first novel, and it’s her first to be translated into English. She is a renowned name in Sweden on TV, radio, and Swedish letters. This book alone was the winner of the prestigious Bourous Debut Novel Prize.
This is part of Modern Culture’s programming of events called Stories from Sweden, so thanks to Martin Colthorpe for help making this happen.
Remember, if you buy from Rippling Pages Bookshop all books are all sourced from indie bookshops!
https://uk.bookshop.org/shop/ripplingpagespod
Support the Rippling Pages on a new Patreon
https://patreon.com/RipplingPagesPod?utm_medi
Interested in hosting your own podcast? Follow this link and find out how:
https://www.podbean.com/ripplingpages
Rippling Points
0.15 introductions.
3.25 - Agnes time in Leeds
4.35 opening to the novel
6.05 - Agnes and Jens
10.05 - Agnes’s reading
14.00 - touch and tactility
17.10 - Swedish society and parental leave
19.50 - spiritual and physical pain of Anna.
22.00 - Jens and Ivan
24.25 - why is Ivan so compelling to Anna
27.15 - grips of passion
29.00 - rippling pages bookshop
30.15 - different modes of time
35.30 - Anna’s dark thoughts
38.15 - Agnes’s next book
40.45 - frustration and being kind to Anna
42.30 - a strange interaction in the street!
45.00 - questions from the audience - do you have a different relationship with Anna as a result of the translation
47.30 question from audience - is Anna a detached person, or detached as a result of motherhood.
49.00 - the power of translation
Reference Points
Hjalmar Söderberg
Baruch Spinoza
Leo Tolstoy - Anna Karenina
Annie Ernaux
Wretchedness - Andrzej Tichý (translated by Nichola Smalley)
--------
51:24
--------
51:24
Joanna Pocock on writing about kindness and perspective on the American Road
America is a place that has compelled countless writers to travel its vast and varied landscapes. Perhaps you’ve done it yourself. But what happens when you feel compelled to do it all again?
That’s the question at the heart of Joanna Pocock’s essay, Greyhound (Fitzcarraldo Editions). Named after the iconic bus company whose intercity network carries passengers from Detroit to Los Angeles — and which Joanna relies on for her own journey — Greyhound revisits familiar motels, crossings, and bus stations she first encountered years before.
Joanna’s writing has appeared in the LA Times, Guardian US and the Nation among others*. GREYHOUND is her second book, and her first, SURRENDER, won the Fitzcarraldo essay prize.
Remember to like, share, follow, subscribe or leave a review if you enjoy the show.
*please note that I state an incorrect list of publications in the intro. Amended here!
Reference Points
- 1.40 - is Joanna a city or a country writer
- 3.20 - where the journey starts
- 6.15 - why are there not more women on the road?
- 09.00 - starting in Canada.
- 11.05 - Borders
- 12.15 - the people Joanna meets
- 16.05 - the sense of perspective.
- 17.50 - people Joanna sees
- 19.30 - Amarillo and fecal dust
- 23.00 - rippling pages podcast
- 24.05 - the cost of travel
- 26.35 - the bus as a political space
- 30.30 - the enduring appeal of the American road.
*****
Tickets for Agnes Lidbeck in Conversation
https://www.nextchapterleeds.co.uk/events/p/theripplingpagesliveoctober
*****
Remember, if you buy from Rippling Pages Bookshop all books are all sourced from indie bookshops!
https://uk.bookshop.org/shop/ripplingpagespod
Support the Rippling Pages on a new Patreon
https://patreon.com/RipplingPagesPod?utm_medi
Interested in hosting your own podcast? Follow this link and find out how:
https://www.podbean.com/ripplingpages
Reference Points
Ansel Adams
Lewis Baltz
Simone de Beauvoir - America Day by Day
Jack Kerouac - On the Road
Irma Kirtz - The Great American Bus Ride
Ethel Mannin - An America Journey
Benjamin Markovits - The Rest of Our Lives
William Least Heat-Moon - Blue Highways
Ed Ruscha
The Salt Path - Raynor Winn
--------
36:16
--------
36:16
Ask the Host! Liam on Latest Reads, Favourite Bookshop, and Reality TV
Welcome to the second edition of Rippling Pages: Ask the Host!
It's time to answer some more questions from you, the listeners!
So, that’s what I’ve done: I’ve picked out some questions from the Rippling Pages inbox, and answered them!
In this episode, I answer:
- What I have been reading lately?
- How are my French lessons going?
- How do I prepare for interviews?
- What is my favourite bookshop?
- What is my favourite season?
- Who's going to win the Premier League and Women's Super League?
Got a question yourself? Why not leave a review and a question and I might pick out one for a future show!
*****
Tickets for Agnes Lidbeck in Conversation
https://www.nextchapterleeds.co.uk/events/p/theripplingpagesliveoctober
*****
Remember, if you buy from Rippling Pages Bookshop all books are all sourced from indie bookshops!
https://uk.bookshop.org/shop/ripplingpagespod
Support the Rippling Pages on a new Patreon
https://patreon.com/RipplingPagesPod?utm_medi
Interested in hosting your own podcast? Follow this link and find out how:
https://www.podbean.com/ripplingpages
Reference Points
Books
On the Clock by Claire Baglin (translated by Jordan Stump). Daunt Books
Lanre Bakare - We Were There (Penguin Books)
The Unreliable Nature Writer by Claire Carroll (Scratch Books)
Joy is My Middle Name by Sasha Debevec-McKenney (Fitzcaralldo Editions )
Failed Summer Vacation by Heuijung Hur (translated by Paige Aniyah Morris) Scratch Books
Noreen Masud - A Flat Place (Penguin Books)
White Spines by Nicholas Royle (Salt Books)
Two Days, One Night (2014, directed by Luc and Jean-Pierre Dardenne)
Ireland