Two Month Review

Chad had a  night  before this recording, so ignore him, but pay attention to the worst possible smut you will ever hear read aloud (the Franzen bits are worse than Lamont's) and enjoy the laughs, the literary contortions, and the next chapter of Lamont's ongoing mental breakdown.  This week's music is " U&ME " by alt-j. You can find all previous seasons of TMR on our YouTube channel  and you can...

Wacky Aphorisms vs. Cowboy Clichés. A title change that indicates a change in attitude. A bizarre publisher's catalog. The Red Swan . More letters! This section of  Mulligan Stew  is jam packed with fun riffs, more evidence of the intricate construction underlying this book, paranoia, puzzle pieces, and anger.  This week's music is " Bad, Bad Leroy Brown " by Jim Croce. You can find all previous s...

"I SUCK!" Kicking off with an "erotic" "poem," this week's episode is nuts from the very start. There is a very serious explanation for the "Flawless Play Restored: The Masque of Fungo" (thanks to Tyrus Miller's piece in the  Review of Contemporary Fiction ), but this is surrounded by Nobel Prize talk, a breakdown of Lamont's incredibly cringey letter to Lorna Flambeaux, her terrible poetry, and m...

This section of  Mulligan Stew  is particularly wild, featuring a western populated by Irishmen speaking in bad accents (and worse accents in The Club Zap), a long rambling set of hypotheticals about why the police haven't arrived to find Ned's body (spoiler: Halpin hasn't called them), a drunken baseball game featuring famous authors and famous brands of booze, and the mathematical answer to the...

Loveletters galore! Lists without context! Repurposing life for fiction! More puzzles! Terrible book reviews! An insufferable, pretentious elementary school essay! This episode has it all—and more! (As Lamont would say.) This week's music is " All Your Fails " by Kevin Drew. You can find all previous seasons of TMR on our  YouTube channel and you can support us at Patreon  and get bonus content be...

Chad and Brian kick off the new season in near hysterics over the first little chunk of Gilbert Sorrentino's  Mulligan Stew.  From talking about the rejection letters—and near batshit reader's report—prefacing the book, to all the bad writing about the "flawless blue" sky, to the ever-changing dialog tags in Anthony Lamont's detective novel, to the New York Yankees, this episode is a hodgepodge of...

Brian returns to help breakdown the ending to Rodrigo Fresán's "Part Triptych." Is it earned? Is it sincere?? Is this all a Jacob's Ladder scenario??? Chad and Brian debate that along with concepts of time in fiction, the Karmas, the wetness of Latvian meat,  Melvill  and  Mulligan Stew.  Fun is had as this long, amazing Fresán journey comes to a close . . .  This week's music is " Big Sky " by Th...

Kaija Straumanis guest stars on this episode in which we discuss brain tumors, memory loss, the true story behind the story of  The Impossible Story  sending the exwriter into exile, whether of not Saint George is a saint (and dragons), paternity, and the  next  Fresán book to come out from Open Letter,  Melvill. This week's music is " UFO " by Veps. Next week we'll be finishing the book ( full sc...

For the first time in the history of the Two Month Review, Chad had to go it alone. He stuck in there, didn't get too crazy, and covered the last chunk of Part II of  The Remembered Part.  Illness, heartbreak, mental anguish, suicide, Ella, and a mission. It's all in this episode.  This week's music is " Bloodletting (The Vampire Song) " by Concrete Blonde Next week we'll be covering pages 644-700...

Veeeeekingdor!!!!! This week's episode is pretty wild, with stories of Riga FC, stoic faces, Fresán's visit to the University of Rochester, Kurt Vonnegut, Andrei The Untranslated (follow his blog !, support his Patreon !), the purpose of book readings and the most uncomfortable ones, time and fiction, and much more! And visit Three Percent on Tuesday to find out what book we'll be reading in seaso...

Brian is back and Chad flubs the intro, so things are basically as they should be . . . They talk about fragmentation, big flawed double albums (and why they're so intriguing), how comedy works, Hey Uncle Walrus vs. Uncle Hey Walrus, memory and the losing of it, and much more.  This week's music is " 1979 "  and ' Tonight, Tonight " from the Smashing Pumpkins' flawed double album. (A topic in this...

Former TMR guest Patrick Smith returns to discuss his reread of the first two volumes of the trilogy, how Fresán's writing inspires him, hanging on to flights of prose, all of the wind in this book, what it means to fall, dogs, and much much more. It's a comprehensive, deep look into what it takes to be a good reader, Ricardo Piglia's "The Last Reader" and the paradoxes at the center of this novel...

Chad and Kaija break down the final bit of the first part of the third volume in Fresán's trilogy (phew), revisit the "is this difficult to read?" discussion, and talk about the articles about Fresán in the new issue of Latin American Literature Today .  And at the very, very end, Chad makes a startling admission. This week's music is " Life Worth Missing " by Car Seat Headrest. Next week we'll be...

Separated by 10 hours—like podcasting jet lag?—Chad and Brian work through some observations and rants (specifically about a shitty  NY Times  list of the best American books between 1981 and 2006, which consists almost entirely of Philip Roth and John Updike and only two books by women), about this section of The Remembered Part. Chad argues for being willing to be confused while reading and they...

From Nobel Prize favorites to Proust to competitive cliques on the mountain, this week's episodes is almost as sprawling as the ex-writer's airplane thoughts. Bit more plot dropped into this section of Fresán/Vanderhyden's book, but there's also a lot about IKEA, his death and rebirth, his insincerity, and his loathsome success.  This week's music is " Adore Adore Adore " by Sprints. Next week we'...

Kaija Straumanis pinch hits this week for a discussion about  Lost , airplanes, the past and nostalgia, writers vs. narrators, autofiction, how hard it is to sustain a rant, ghosts, pop culture references, where we are in Fresán's trilogy, and much more.  The Remembered Part  keeps gathering steam, and you'll want to catch up after listening to this so that you can be there for the explosive concl...

And they're off! Brian and Chad start remembering all that they're supposed to remember about the first two volumes of the trilogy (green cows!) and get oriented with the ex-Writer on the plane (and in the desert reading and burning Ada, or Ardor ), fall right back into Fresan's humor, cynicism, bits on love, and everything else!  This week's music is "Airplane Rider" by Air Miami. Next week we'll...

Maybe not the most informative of recaps, but Brian and Chad discuss what the love about Fresán's writing, things they recall from the first two volumes of the trilogy, ideas about what to maybe expect ( Dracula  + Proust), peppered with the usual amount of jokes and antics. This week's music is " Pontius Pilate's Home Movies " by The New Pornographers. Next week we'll be covering pages 1-82 ( ful...

Welcome to the Great Fresan Relisten of 2023! Over the next four weeks, we'll be reissuing an episode a day from the  The Invented Part  and  The Dreamed Part  seasons of TMR so that you can catch-up, refresh your memory, have a few laughs, etc., before the May 10th launch of Season 19 on  The Remembered Part. Here are the show notes from the original airing: Rodrigo Fresán himself joins Chad and...

Welcome to the Great Fresan Relisten of 2023! Over the next four weeks, we'll be reissuing an episode a day from the  The Invented Part  and  The Dreamed Part  seasons of TMR so that you can catch-up, refresh your memory, have a few laughs, etc., before the May 10th launch of Season 19 on  The Remembered Part. Here are the show notes from the original airing: This week's episode is quite possibly...

Welcome to the Great Fresan Relisten of 2023! Over the next four weeks, we'll be reissuing an episode a day from the  The Invented Part  and  The Dreamed Part  seasons of TMR so that you can catch-up, refresh your memory, have a few laughs, etc., before the May 10th launch of Season 19 on  The Remembered Part. Here are the show notes from the original airing: This week, Chad and Brian talk about t...

Welcome to the Great Fresan Relisten of 2023! Over the next four weeks, we'll be reissuing an episode a day from the  The Invented Part  and  The Dreamed Part  seasons of TMR so that you can catch-up, refresh your memory, have a few laughs, etc., before the May 10th launch of Season 19 on  The Remembered Part. Here are the show notes from the original airing: In his most dangerous gag to date, Cha...

Welcome to the Great Fresan Relisten of 2023! Over the next four weeks, we'll be reissuing an episode a day from the  The Invented Part  and  The Dreamed Part  seasons of TMR so that you can catch-up, refresh your memory, have a few laughs, etc., before the May 10th launch of Season 19 on  The Remembered Part. Here are the show notes from the original airing: This week's episode brings us back to...

Welcome to the Great Fresan Relisten of 2023! Over the next four weeks, we'll be reissuing an episode a day from the  The Invented Part  and  The Dreamed Part  seasons of TMR so that you can catch-up, refresh your memory, have a few laughs, etc., before the May 10th launch of Season 19 on  The Remembered Part. Here are the show notes from the original airing: Chad and Brian go deep into the underl...

  Welcome to the Great Fresan Relisten of 2023! Over the next four weeks, we'll be reissuing an episode a day from the  The Invented Part  and  The Dreamed Part  seasons of TMR so that you can catch-up, refresh your memory, have a few laughs, etc., before the May 10th launch of Season 19 on  The Remembered Part. Here are the show notes from the original airing: Chad reaches a new quarantine low at...