192. Aaron Gwyn on the Vanishing White Male Writer

Nancy and Sarah are joined by Aaron Gywn — paragon of good will on Twitter/X (follow at x.com/AmericanGwyn), literature professor, and author of numerous works of fiction, including The Cannibal Owl — to discuss a recent viral story in Compact Magazine, “The Vanishing White Male Writer.” We talk about shifts in publishing/culture, the trap of identity, and what great literature can do. Since Gwyn is a Cormac McCarthy expert, we also discuss the controversial 2024 Vanity Fair story about McCarthy and his muse, Augusta Britt.

Also discussed:

• The lost Pop Rocks episode

• St. Louis, cool town

• The epic beauty of Larry McMurtry’s Lonesome Dove

• “Jonathan Franzen is too much with us.”

• 2014, the cultural swing year

• The Michel Foucault of it all

• “Most of publishing is throwing spaghetti at the wall to see if it sticks.”

• Nancy needs to go to therapy

• Aaron’s message for writers: “If you want something, go get it.”

• “NICE TITS”

• Love and admiration for fiction writer Phil Klay

• Male writers trying to “reassure the reader that he is the right sort of white man.”

• On not getting over the 2008 death of David Foster Wallace

• Butt-chugging Infinite Jest

• How Ric Ocasek won Paulina Porizkova

• Drakkar Noir makes Sarah horny

• How Aaron reacts when caught in the tractor beam of beauty

• “I contain multi-tools”

• Mary Gaitskill, the honey badger of writers

  

  Why do people hate him so much? Is it the bandanna?

Also, why Aaron cannot get fired up about anything that happened after 1876, how fiction writing is like ventriloquism, why we’re all broken but still deserve love, and much more!