In June, writers Rachel Cusk and Ben Lerner joined Harper’s Magazine editor Christopher Carroll for a conversation and Q&A in front of a live audience at the NYU Skirball Center in downtown Manhattan. Listen to Cusk and Lerner read from their recent Harper’s essays and discuss the state of contemporary fiction, Cusk’s use of artists’ biographies in her newest novel Parade, reading in a second language, parenthood, the role of ego in writing, and much more.
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“The Hofmann Wobble” by Ben Lerner, from the December 2023 issue of Harper’s
“The Spy” by Rachel Cusk, from the October 2023 issue of Harper’s
11:31: “You can’t be both an encyclopedia and a news source without some kind of contamination.” —Ben Lerner
19:09: “First of all, I thought, God, if I’d never told anyone who I was, starting with my parents, if I hadn’t accepted that containment in myself, what would I have created? What would my relationship to reality be?” —Rachel Cusk
25:18: “I mean this as a total compliment, but I read your books with a lot of dread.” —Ben Lerner to Rachel Cusk
26:36: “What the novel has tried to do, kind of wrongly, I guess, in the end, is for the act of reading to also be an act of shared experience.” —Rachel Cusk
28:34: “Being a good parent in the moment of composition, if you’re trying to take care of those imagined readers, can be deadly for the work – not always, but sometimes.” —Ben Lerner
28:49: “On the other hand, having kids for me, especially young kids, it does refresh your wonder before language.” —Ben Lerner
29:43: “If your work can change in the way you change, or people change, when you have children, I think that’s a really powerful thing.” —Rachel Cusk
32:10: “I’m really into animal vocalization stuff.” —Ben Lerner
34:23: “French has completely changed my English.” —Rachel Cusk
40:24: “My dad told me never to learn to type because I would end up being someone’s secretary, which was kind of feminist of him I guess, but typing is the thing I’ve done the best with in my whole life.” —Rachel Cusk
41:23: “I think there’s a lot of ego involved in the claim to disavow ego in writing.” —Ben Lerner
42:45: “What is a shame is the idea that examination of self is egotistical.” —Rachel Cusk
Rachel Cusk and Ben Lerner: Live in Conversation