The New Yorker Radio Hour - Jennifer Egan on the Literary Pleasures of the Concept Album

Episode Date: April 12, 2022

Jennifer Egan’s new novel, “The Candy House,” one of the most anticipated books of the year, has just been published. It is related—not a sequel exactly, but something like a sibling—to her Pulitzer Prize-winning “A Visit from the Goon Squad,” from 2010. That earlier book was largely about the music business, and Egan, a passionate music fan, has described its unusual structure as having been inspired by the concept albums of her youth. “The very nature of a concept album is that it tells one big story in small pieces that sound very different from each other and that sort of collide,” she tells David Remnick. “I thought, How would I do that narratively? I ask myself that all the time.” We asked Egan to speak about three concept albums that influenced her, and she picked The Who’s “Quadrophenia,” about a disaffected, working-class mod in the nineteen-sixties; Patti Smith’s “Horses”; and Eminem’s “Recovery.”  Plus, a story about two young boys, obsessed with basketball cards, who schemed to get a rare triptych card from a third friend. Decades later, their ill-gotten prize might be worth a lot of money—but whose money is it? The staff writer Charles Bethea looks at the grown-up consequences of a childhood prank. New Yorker Radio Hour listeners, we want to hear from you.  We have a few questions about the show and how you listen to it. The survey takes about twenty minutes, and your feedback will help us make our podcast better.  Take the survey here.

This is The New Yorker Radio Hour, a co-production of WNYC Studios and The New Yorker. This is The New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick. The author, Jennifer Egan, is out with a new book this month, and it's called The Candy House. It's a kind of follow-up to her novel, A Visit from the Goon Squad, and that book from 2010 won a Pulitzer Prize. Now, Candy House revisits some of the same characters, and it's definitely one of the most anticipated novels of the year. Goon Squad was largely about the music business, and that's not a surprise, because Egan herself is a tremendous music fan, and her ideas about structure and form often owe something

to the albums that shaped her as a young listener. You know, I came of age in the great era of concept albums, and they were so literary. First of all, there were pages, there was paper, we, my friends and I poured over the lyrics and the images. And the very nature of a concept album is that it tells one big story in small pieces that sound very different from each other and that sort of collide.

I invited Jennifer Regan to tell us about three concept albums that may have influenced her over time. And she started in 1973 with the Who's Quadrophenia, which tells the story of a disaffected, working-class kid in the 1960s. I think Quadraffini is really one of the greats because it tells an enormous story.

It has such an epic, the music itself has such a lush, epic quality. And I think for me also, you know, part of it was that I fell madly in love with Roger Daltry. And so I felt that somehow England and the sort of rock and roll version of England really held my future. You know, I grew up in San Francisco. I had never left the country. And for me, this idea of getting to England and somehow merging with the world that seemed to exist there, which did include Roger Daltry in some way, kind of, you know, tingled as a goal for me. And it really had a huge impact. I mean, I took a gap year before college and I bought a ticket on Freddie Laker Airlines.

I packed up a backpack and I went to London. To visit Roger Daltry. Well, I knew that part was a long shot. What's your favorite track on quadrufitting? I think Love, Rain or Me, which, as I recall, is actually the last one. Again, I think it's sort of, in a way it captures my narrative impulse, which is always to try to go big if you can. I mean, it's pretty over the top. Totally.

But it's also, you know, it's just a sort of wild, romantic, you know, the ocean. is crashing and again you have to remember that you know love was part of this for me it's a it's just a big epic vision it's storytelling on a on the highest note i'm sorry what 15 year old girl would not fall in love having heard this song that makes you young okay now we go to 1975 one of my favorites of that period and even now she's she's still working patty smith oh my god i don't even know where to start with her. I mean, my two best girlfriends and I, freshman year of high school, fell in love together with Patty Smith. And it felt to me that for that year, she was the narrator of the soundtrack of my life, actually. We just would, you know, frankly, get stoned, lie on the rug, close our eyes,

and listen to horses. So the album is horses. What's the album? What's the song? a cut that did it for you? Well, the song Horses is just amazing. I mean, it's a very narrative song, although what story it's telling is not completely clear, but it is just, it's a song

that feels almost like a concept album in itself, because so much happens narratively, and it starts with a boy who seems to be shooting up. He drove it, homie, drove it, Johnny, the boy disappeared.

Johnny filmed his knee, started We're not really sure, and we end in this very different place. So it's just a totally transporting, for me, piece of music. To this day, it's a frequent, it's something I listen to a lot, actually. Wildstoneed and on a on a rug. I've kind of cut out that part, but I like to run to it. Let's listen. Her work has such a.

a deep awareness of language as a tool, as a sound. It's just so, it has such a propulsive force to it. And the force is obviously musical, but it's also narrative. And, you know, it's certainly for a visit from the Goon Squad and my new book, The Candy House, I'm very interested in the relationship between musical narrative and literary narrative. And Patty Smith embodies that. How does that come to play in the new book? Well, it's different in that the new book is not really about music per se or the music industry in the way that I visited from the Coon Squad is. But I found myself thinking as I moved into the new book, I was struck by certain musical tendencies that I would hear in different songs. One was by Nata Surf, which is a band, an indie band that I really like.

And in this case, I was noticing that a rhythm I hadn't been paying attention to asserts itself very graphic. and then the song ends. And I love that. I thought, okay, how would I do that narratively? I asked myself that all the time. And then actually, I was reading an article in The New Yorker by a woman who worked in Silicon Valley. Right. That's Anna Weiner.

Yes. And she talked about how listening to electronic dance music was the perfect soundtrack for the kind of work she was doing, which was completely screen-driven. and she'd be sitting in her apartment with headphones on and listening to one song, kind of one beat yield to another. And she described the moment when the drop would occur. I remember the moment that I read that because I thought, oh, that is exactly the kind of musical principle I want to use to organize this new book that I was just working on

the beginnings of at that point. Were you a writer? or are you a writer that only took up fiction because the rock star life wasn't going to work out? Would you have liked to have been on stage performing in that way? No way. I can't sing. I don't play an instrument.

I had a terrible public speaking fear that I had to tackle with beta blockers for some years when I first started to publish. No way. However, I have had my good times in the Mosh Pit, loved rock concerts and I am just a fan. That's really it. I'm a music fan.

Now, your third and final pick is who? So my third and final pick is Eminem's recovery. Possibly a surprising choice, but what I loved about Eminem's recovery, which interestingly came out the same month as a visit from the Goon Squad. My son, my older son, was then an enormous Eminem's. M fan. He was nine, I have to hasten to say, because I think he would not like me to be telegraphing

this about him. But we would often listen to music with an ear pod in each of our ears. And what I realized listening to recovery was that the concept album was still alive. I don't think I had really known that. You know, there had been sort of a long gap during which I had not really thought much about the form, but I was now thinking about it because I had published a book which had used it as a genre. So I listened to Recovery and I thought, oh yeah, okay, he is absolutely telling a story

in pieces that sound different from each other and it's tremendously language-based and of course Eminem is a guy who has made a movie that has a soundtrack and is extremely aware of the storytelling possibilities of

his work. So that was really heartening actually to discover. Well, the new novel is is just terrific and I really appreciate your sharing your musical history and your time in the mosh pit with us. It's been a pleasure. Thank you. Jennifer Regan's new novel has just been released and it's called The Candy House.

She talked about the Who's Quadrophenia, Patty Smith's song, Land, a selection of which is called horses and Eminem's recovery. This is the New Yorker Radio Hour. Stick around. This is the New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Renner. Charles Bethay is a staff writer who covers politics and other subjects in Georgia and well beyond. He recently wrote about the candidates running against Marjorie Taylor Green for her congressional seat. But this story of Charles's brings us a lot closer to home.

Here's Charles Bethay. Let me take you back in time. It's 1991. I'm 10 years old and I live in Atlanta. My obsessions include Air Jordans, the music of naughty by nature, and more than anything else, basketball cards. Yeah, so there was a lot of buying of cards

with whatever money we had. This is Sam. We went to elementary school together. Was Docs a place you went? That was on Cheshire Bridge. Cheshire Bridge, right. I remember because you pass all the adult entertainment shops, which we weren't going to,

but there was a lot of conversation getting there. One day. With your parents. Yeah. On your way to collect cards on your nine. Sam. Sam Bathrick, mostly collected cards with Alex Cullen.

They were best friends. Now kids have Instagram and cell phones and TikTok videos and we had basketball cards, you know. I think Alex got me into basketball cards. If you know Alex, which you do, you know that he just kind of has this obsessive personality type. Like, I brought basketball cards to school. I would trade basketball cards at lunchtime, you know.

It was like me being a... competitive spirit. I think some of it was like me wanting to be the best or or have like a lot of them and have good cards as I called them. We were definitely very competitive about everything and he was bigger than me and better than me at most things. So why am I telling you all this? Well a few months ago Sam reached out to me he's in a weird spot. The situation involves basketball cards and Alex and another kid they used to know. Zach was a really sweet kid. I mean, I just remember him being, like, kind of quiet, but, like, fun. Sam and Alex had an edge to their friendship, always getting into scrapes.

Zach Hill was a little more laid back. One day when they were about 10, Zach asked Sam over to his house. There was a back room in his house, this little sunroom, kind of overlooking this Gulch he had a box it was a shoe box some kind of box and he had been given cards from his

grandfather so I remember him opening the box and somewhere in there I remember seeing the card the card Topps made this card in 1980 that was a triptych each three players on one card

and the three players were Magic Johnson Larry Bird and Dr. Jay. So if that doesn't do anything for you, then I know you're not a big card collector. Let me explain. Cards with great players on them are valuable, and rookie cards,

cards from the first season of a player's career, are also valuable. The three players on the card Sam saw at Zach's house, they're not just great, they're legends. And two of them, Magic Johnson and Larry Bird, were rookies when the card was made. Last like a bird.

Holy cow. The most valuable player is Magic Johnson. Imagine somebody shows you a box of antiques they picked up at a yard sale. And they open the box. And inside is the Holy Grail. That's how Sam felt when he saw the card. It's the kind of card that could be really valuable someday. That's foreshadowing, folks.

I think at some point I must have told Alex, about the card and about Zach. Definitely sounds possible that you would have told me about it. I have some kind of vague memory that, like, you mentioning it or telling me about it, and then the idea that I would have said, like, cool, let's figure out how to get that and framed it as, like, you and I being a team. That sounds... That sounds right. So they hatched this plan.

Sam would suggest to Zach that they pool their card collections. Once they'd done that and the cards were all mixed up, Sam would suggest they'd dissolve the partnership. And when the cards were dealt back out, Sam would make sure that he got the card. My memory is like I knew what was happening. What was happening? I mean, we were taking Zach's card.

It was the perfect crime. Zach didn't even seem to realize the card was gone, and shortly afterward, he moved to a different school. The heat was off, a clean heist. But then you've got two robbers, Sam and Alex, and just one card. It was just so seamless that it didn't even have to be considered as a plan. It was more like an inevitability. Sam got the card, and pretty quickly I started saying, you should trade the card to me.

Do you remember what you traded me? I don't It's because it was worthless Yeah I mean I was a I was a businessman Why did I agree to that Why did I agree to do that

You're asking me Yeah Because you must have known That I would agree to it I couldn't I can't know the inner workings of your mind And I think that people Tend to block out like the darkest

memories You know Kind of like the the times where they touched the darkest parts of themselves. So that makes sense why you wouldn't remember what you did to me. Oh, I thought it was a dark moment for you.

I think some of the times when I pegged you with a basketball when we were playing 101 were somewhat darker and more significant. Alex's parents saw that the card might be worth something someday. So they put it in a safe deposit box, where it stayed for the next 20 years.

Sam and Alex stayed best friends. After high school, they went to different colleges, but they stayed in touch, and both ended up working in the film business. Now, mid-30s, we early 30s, we sort of realized we're both doing the same kind of work as freelancers. At one point, we stopped competing and actually just realized we're business partners.

And through all this, Alex is thinking about the card. I was, like, pushy around basketball cards as a kid, and, you know, it was like not an easy part of our childhood and definitely brought out some of my worst tendencies probably. And so I think I, like, looked at that card in particular is almost just like a symbol of like, this isn't fully mine. At some point for my birthday, I just, Alex just hands me the card. Sam displayed the card proudly in his office,

a symbol or something of his friendship with Alex, until last summer. So I was on the Twitter, and I saw that this Michael Jordan card had sold for like $2 million. This was at the height of the pandemic, and the collectibles market was surging. I ended up on the, um,

Twitter page of the auction house. And right, I would say on that same page, a few down, I see the card. I kept following it, and it got up to like $5.50. Yeah, so in the end, it's sold for $5.50,000. For the card Sam has perched over the desk in his office. And then start thinking about it. Like, it's not really, by these new rules, it's not really mine or Alex. These new rules imposed upon you by your conscience?

Yeah. Those are fun. Then I, yeah, then I started thinking about that. I definitely don't think giving the card back to Zach. No. That doesn't track. Last year I sat down with Alex and Sam while they tried to hammer out whether they should cut Zach in for a share of the profits. Zach might have lost it.

He might have lost the card. Clearly, he didn't. Clearly, he was not agreed to do it of the card. So that buys you guys some more percentage points. Now, their card is a little faded. It's not in perfect shape. So they're pretty sure it won't bring in $550,000. But still.

Even $100,000, and we're saying, if we're splitting it, I mean, that's $33,000. When I saw how much it was worth, I definitely thought of the, the new Bronco I could buy. But we'd actually be giving away $13,000 each if we're doing a 50% split. Right? No, 16.5%. That's bigger.

Right. I feel like this is just making it look like total assholes. Yes. I mean, what would be a crazy story is you do the whole podcast and decide not to cut them in in front of all the listeners. If I'm getting a vote Yeah

It doesn't have to be complicated Like you know It's like yeah money's great and it would be nice to have more of it But like There's almost something more righteous about like Engaging with him before You we know And then it's like he's in it

With us So we go in 33 split? So we're going 33 split? Well, I mean, we did steward it, so. Whoa, whoa, whoa. I'm joking. No, I think 33, 33. Have you guys considered, like, he might be like, man, this is really sweet of you guys to reach out and offer this, but I actually, like, don't, no worries. Like, keep it all.

Then you get the money and the moral high ground. Well, fingers crossed. Yeah, that sounds really unlikely, Charles. Zachariah Hill, with a C.H, I think. Facebook and Google didn't have much on Zach. So we turned to an older and much more powerful form of social networking. Italian, I definitely remember this door. Hello.

How you doing? My name's Sam Bathrick. Hi. Hi. I remember you. Yeah. It's been a while. Okay, here's the thing. I'm burning some toast.

You're burning some toast, okay. Do you want to come in? Sure, yeah, I can come in. I don't know if you're in the middle of something, so I know I'm just knocking. I tried to ask my mom, should I take my shoes off? Yes. Okay, I don't mind it all. And just like that, Sam is back in the house where 30 years ago, he first saw the card.

I have this really distinct memory right in this room of him having a shoebox and saying that he got this from his grandfather. They were all just loose cards, and we opened it up right here, and this was one of them. How old were you? I think we were eight or nine. Sam explained the whole situation to Zamb. Zach's mom, Anora. Well, but, you know, that's, you were really young. And it's developing ethics.

I mean, ethics are sure as hell not natural. They are, the kindness is natural. But with children, you know, you just, you have to battle it all out to figure it out. Well, I don't want to take up too much more every time. I would love to get Zach's number and I'll reach out to him. Okay, what am I doing? I'm sending you. What you do is you go to his contact.

I knew that Kevin Johnson was awesome. And you wanted my Kevin Johnson. That's Zach. You had a number of cards and you were trying to convince me that Benoit Benjamin really put this trade over the top and be like, no, Benoit Benjamin is awesome. You just don't know, dude. He is awesome. Back check.

Benoit Benjamin was not awesome. For some reason, that sticks out in my mind because it was like a moment of skepticism where I was like, I'm not sure about this kid. Zach's an architect now and an amateur NBA blogger. He met Sam at a coffee shop. They live like five minutes away from each other. His memory of his card collection is as vivid as any of ours. I remember the cards, they would almost, they almost felt like grainy. Like they had something in them to keep them dry or something like that.

And there was this intense, like not exactly a new car smell, but chemical smell. When you open the pack. I remember it being the best smell ever. Yeah, I mean, it was, it was. It was probably objectively not a good smell, but it was exciting. Yeah. But of all the cards from all those years ago, there's one that's very fresh in Zach's mind. There were this one addition of like bubble gum cards where they had these three together that you could like rip apart or whatever.

And I found a Larry Bird Magic Johnson rookie. And I remember bringing it to you. And I was like freaking out and being like, oh my God, I can't believe we have this thing. Do you remember who the third guy was? I do not remember who the third guy was. Do you? It's Dr. J. Was it really? No, shit, God, that was a really, really good basketball card. All right, so I do have something to show you.

Yeah. Oh, is this the card? Oh. Yeah. That's unbelievable. Oh, look at this. So how did I end up with this card? I think probably what happened was that, you know, the some or all of our kind of pooled collection was a giraffe.

And I got sent to a new school and I stopped thinking about it. You know, I think that in my head it's always been some version of like a bad transaction for you. I don't remember being like, oh, this is bad in any kind of way. I was like, okay, we have all this other stuff. And it's probably awesome. You know, like I didn't know. Sam told Zach all about the card and him and Alex in the safe deposit box. which brought him to what he'd seen on Twitter.

I don't know what it's worth. The mint version of this, which this is not. Right. Yeah, it's because it's fading. It's no joke. So I don't even know if it's worth doing with this card, but the mint 10 rating version of this card just auctioned for $550,000.

Shit. Oh, God. After a few minutes, Zach calmed down. You know, the weird thing about collectors is like there's this tension between the sort of historical or sentimental value of this thing and then the monetary value of it. Right. And it's like you can do one or the other, but there's always both present. Right. You know, and it's like, what do you care about?

No, you're putting your finger on it. And like the fact that I have the same object in my hand is like a weird and fascinating piece of time travel. Yeah. that I think is, I don't know, to interest me, a lot of people would be like, you know, like, dude, go to Rome, it's fine. You know, like, there's plenty of old things. But, yeah, and... And then, after all that strategizing that Alex and Sam did, Sam just hands over the card. Well, you should take it with you.

Okay. And just be with it for a little while. enjoy it. And I think I'm aligned that there's no reason to try to sell it. So let's just like... Let's not. Let's just keep the story going. Okay.

And we've got to figure out what the club. We should figure out what the club does. I mean, we should just get our collections out and see what we got. So what happened there? You just changed your mind about selling the card? Yeah, I think coming out of meeting with Anora I was already starting to feel like this isn't about how much money we can get for this card.

It's about what it means to everybody who's in this story. And then, you know, seeing Zach's face light up when he saw it, it was just like, this is what this card is here for, is for us to kind of return to these stories and return to each other. And just it stopped even really being on the table for me. I mean, obviously the real ending here is I should have just kept it.

That's the irony is my evil nature should have just won out. We all might have been better off for it if I just kept it in the lockbox the whole time. One afternoon, I asked Zach if I could borrow the card. I wanted to take Sam to go find out what it was worth. So see, the blue on Magic Johnson didn't really fade, but the pink border did. Yeah. So that is going to hurt the grading. So, top end.

Not a thousand. I think your top end would be probably in the thousand to fifteen hundred range. You might think Sam would be disappointed. But being in the card shop, after all this time, seemed to have the opposite effect. I just bought ten packs of 1990 Fleer. Like unopened packs of 90 Fleer cards. So I'm looking forward to just starting all. over. Starting it all back up.

Sam Bathrick of Atlanta, talking with the New Yorker's Charles Beth. I'm David Remnick, and that's the show for today. Thank you so much for listening. Next week's staff writer Hilton Alz joins us with the playwright Michael R. Jackson, who wrote the new musical A Strange Loop. I hope you'll join us. Have a great week. The New Yorker Radio Hour is a co-production of WNYC Studios and The New Yorker. Our theme music was composed and performed by Merrill Garbus of two. with additional music by Alexis Quadrado. This episode was produced by Alex Barron, Ave Carillo, Brita Green, Calalia, David Krasnow,

Gauphin and Putubuele, Louis Mitchell, Michelle Moses, and Stephen Valentino, with help from Allison McAdam, Harrison Keithline, and Mengfei Chen, and guidance from Emily Boutin. Original music in this week's show was composed by Alex Barron. The New Yorker Radio Hour is supported in part by the Cherina Endowment Fund. Thank you.