158 RTB Ben Fountain in Dark Times (JP)

Summary

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Podcast Summary: Recall This Book – "Ben Fountain in Dark Times" (New Books Network, Ep. 158)

Date: October 16, 2025
Host: John Plotz (with Elizabeth Ferry)
Guest: Ben Fountain (novelist and essayist)

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Episode Overview

This episode is part of the "Books in Dark Times" series, inspired by Hannah Arendt's Men in Dark Times. The series asks writers and scholars to discuss the books that offer them guidance, sustenance, and encouragement during challenging historical moments. Acclaimed novelist and essayist Ben Fountain joins to reflect on the literature that sustains him, the ongoing American crisis, and the relationship between literature, history, and identity.

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Main Discussion Themes

1. Books That Sustain Us in "Dark Times"

• The hosts frame literature as a source of "illumination" even in difficult periods, echoing Arendt's claim that hope and light come from the uncertain but persistent glow of human creativity and experience. (03:16)
• The core question: Do we read to escape the present world, or to better recognize and process it? Both, the hosts and Fountain suggest, can be true at once.

2. Ben Fountain’s Literary Formation

• Fountain reflects on his education in American and British literature and his decision to focus his writing instincts primarily within the American canon.
  • “I was a literature major at University of North Carolina... But when I follow my head and my heart, it usually focuses on [American writers].” (05:31–06:48)
• Emphasizes the formative role of taking classes outside his comfort zone and the influence of major poets and novelists like Alan Tate and Ezra Pound.

3. On American Writers and Understanding America

• Fountain recalls the period around the 2004 election, a time when he consciously sought out writers who "went straight at the problem, the mystery of what is America." (09:35)
• Key authors named: Joan Didion, Marilynne Robinson, Norman Mailer, James Baldwin, Gary Wills.
  • “Joan Didion was very high on that list.” (10:20)
• Discussion of Didion’s The Last Thing He Wanted as a masterful exploration of American involvement in Central America and as a model for tone, mood, and character interiority. (08:05–09:11)

Memorable Quote:

“I came to the realization I don’t understand my country. I started consciously seeking out writers who had gone straight at the problem, the mystery of what is America.”
— Ben Fountain (09:11)

4. Identity, Society, and the Search for Truth

• The conversation pivots between fiction and nonfiction as ways to grapple with American identity and reality. Marilynne Robinson’s essays and fiction are praised for their nourishment and insight into questions of staying vs. leaving, belonging, and alienation.
  • “Housekeeping still strikes me... There's something there about those who stay and those who go.” — John Plotz (11:23)
• Zadie Smith and Kara Walker are highlighted as contemporary figures whose work confronts and unsettles American audiences about the country's past and present.
  • “Kara Walker... She scares the living piss out of me. I mean, appropriately.” (12:38)

5. Facing Reality: Hannah Arendt, Camus, and Baldwin

• Discussion of Arendt’s pessimism and hope—a belief in the eventual revelation of truth despite sustained deception.
  • “One of the reasons I really like Arendt is her insistence that you cannot be sure that the truth will come out at any given moment... but you can know that it will happen.” — John Plotz (13:02)
• Both Arendt and James Baldwin exemplify writers who possess an "absolute clarity" and moral vision:
  • “They do not look away. They look with absolute clarity at the human condition, but there’s this human core to them.” — Ben Fountain (13:52)

6. James Baldwin’s Lasting Relevance

• Baldwin’s fiction, particularly If Beale Street Could Talk, is discussed as having had a deeply formative impact. Fountain recalls reading it as a young man and struggling to believe the injustice it describes—only to realize over decades and with new evidence that Baldwin was describing harsh realities.
  • “I was a white kid in the suburbs, you know, in 1977, 78. And I'm reading it and it seemed like such an extreme situation... does this kind of thing really happen?” — Ben Fountain (16:02–17:19)
  • Ongoing relevance is underscored by contemporary events and video evidence; “I carried that book around in my head for 40 years.” (17:56)

7. Writing in the Current Moment

• Fountain shares that his current project is a novel set during the 1991–94 Haitian coup and embargo, paralleling themes of societal lockdown and individual survival with those of the present day.
  • “Societies that are on lockdown to one extent or another... just how people survive and keep themselves together in those situations.” — Ben Fountain (19:13–20:38)
• The hosts discuss other writers’ responses to this era, including online projects for pandemic-era writing and short fiction inspired by current headlines.

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Notable Quotes and Key Timestamps

• On literature’s staying power:

  “To the extent that you do disappear into the story, eventually you come out. But if the experience ... has been powerful enough, it’s going to stay with you.”
  — Ben Fountain (04:46)

• On American writers and understanding the country:

  “I started consciously seeking out writers who had gone straight at the problem, the mystery of what is America.”
  — Ben Fountain (09:35)

• On Kara Walker and American history:

  “She scares the living piss out of me... there are huge chunks of American history that should terrify us.”
  — Ben Fountain (12:38–12:50)

• On Hannah Arendt’s vision:

  “One of the reasons I really like Arendt is her insistence that you cannot be sure that the truth will come out at any given moment... but you can know that it will happen.”
  — John Plotz (13:02)

• On Baldwin and recognition of injustice:

  “I carried that book around in my head for 40 years.”
  — Ben Fountain (17:56)

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Key Segments & Timestamps

• Opening & Framing the Series: 03:16–04:46
• Ben Fountain's Literary Influences: 05:09–07:57
• On Joan Didion, American Identity, and Writing: 07:57–10:22
• Discussion of Marilynne Robinson and Zadie Smith: 10:22–12:05
• Kara Walker and American Trauma: 12:05–13:02
• Arendt, Camus, Baldwin—Truth and Clarity: 13:02–14:52
• Baldwin’s Enduring Impact: 14:52–18:21
• Fountain on Writing During Crisis (Haiti novel): 19:06–20:44
• The Importance of Processing the Present: 20:55–22:14

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Concluding Remarks

This episode is a rich meditation on the role of literature and writers in times of crisis. Ben Fountain’s reflections, combined with those of the hosts, offer listeners a reading list for understanding both American history and the ongoing struggle for justice, clarity, and hope. The conversation is fueled by admiration for writers who don't “look away,” and it situates contemporary writing within a long tradition of bearing witness and making sense of difficult times.

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Transcript

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[John Plotz]

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[Marshall Poe Iron]

Hello everybody. This is Marshall Poe Iron, the founder and editor of the New Books Network. And if you're listening to this, you know that the NBN is the largest academic podcast network in the world. We reach a worldwide audience of 2 million people. You may have a podcast, or you may be thinking about starting a podcast. As you probably know, there are challenges basically of two kinds. One is technical. There are things you have to know in order to get your podcast produced and distributed. And the second is, and this is the biggest problem, you need to get an audience. Building an audience in podcasting is the hardest thing to do today. With this in mind, we at the NBM have started a service called NBN Productions. What we do is help you create a podcast, produce your podcast, distribute your podcast, and we host your podcast. Most importantly, what we do is we distribute your podcast to the NBN audience. We've done this many times with many academic podcasts and we would like to help you. If you would be interested in talking to us about how we can help you with your podcast, please contact us. Just go to the front page of the New Books Network and you will see a link to NBN Productions. Click that, fill out the form, and we can talk. Welcome to the New Books Network.

[Elizabeth Ferry]

Hi, I'm Elizabeth Ferry. Welcome to another rebroadcast from the RTB archives.

[John Plotz]

From Brandeis University. Welcome to Recall this Book, where we assemble scholars and writers from different disciplines to make sense of contemporary issues, problems and events. I'm John Plotz and our RTB virtual guest today is the great novelist Ben Fountain. He's most recently the author of a 2018 collection of essays, Beautiful Country Burn Again, a lot of those. I first saw a lot of those in the Guardian. But he's also the recipient of a PEN Hemingway Award for Brief Encounters with Che guevara stories of 2007, and the National Book Critics Circle Award for Fiction for his debut novel. And this is how I first came to know his, his wonderful fiction, Billy Lynn's Long halftime walk from 2012. And it was also made into a movie, kind of a weird movie, I thought, by Ang Lee. Ben, thank you so much for being here.

[Elizabeth Ferry]

It's a pleasure. Thank you for having me.

[John Plotz]

Great. So this is another installment in our Books in Dark Times series which asks what books we turn to for guidance, sustenance and encouragement at moments like this. So as you can probably guess from the title, it takes its inspiration from Hannah Arendt's Men in Dark Times. And one of the things that book argues is, quote, that even in the darkest of times, we have the right to expect some illumination. And that such illumination may well come less from theories and concepts than from the uncertain, flickering, and often weak light that some men and women in their lives and their works. So we're thinking about books especially we're will kindle under almost all circumstances and shed over the time span that was given them on Earth. So the questions that I'm gonna start asking Ben today are the same ones that apply to you, dear listeners. We wanna know what kind of works are sustaining you, what is engaging you, what is irking or prodding you to action at this strange and dark time. So, Ben, one of the things that a lot of these conversations have been about have been about that question of whether what you want in the world building of the books that you turn to, is it the capacity to just be in that other space for a while or. It sometimes seems like what people want is a capacity to recognize their own world in that book so that they could either be a this worldly or a that worldly experience.

[Elizabeth Ferry]

I don't think they're mutually exclusive. I think there is, you know, the old Venn diagram overlap on there. And to the extent that you do disappear into the story, eventually you come out. But if the experience of the story, that particular part of the story has been powerful enough, it's going to stay with you.

[John Plotz]

Can I say it's. It's so interesting for me to talk to you because my formation because of, you know, like my own PhD work was so much through British writers. And so when you and I are talking, I always noticed that you're such an. Your formation is such American writers like you really, you think about our country. Is that generally true or is that just.

[Elizabeth Ferry]

Yeah, yeah. I was a literature major at University of North Carolina, and I was so lucky. I had great professors and I made it a point to try to take courses in things that I figured I probably wouldn't read otherwise. I figured I probably wouldn't read John.

[John Plotz]

Dryden, and I had to read him for a class.

[Elizabeth Ferry]

Yeah, probably wouldn't read, you know, many of the Victorian poets. And I mean, there are lots of things that I felt like I'm probably not going to read this on my own. And so I went out of my way to study those writers and I ended up doing my honors thesis on Alan Tate.

[John Plotz]

Oh, wow.

[Elizabeth Ferry]

Yeah, you know, the fugitive poet and novelist. And I did a year's worth of work on Ezra Pound, obviously, you know, another American. But I feel like I, you know, I have a decent undergraduate level grounding in British literature. And so, I mean, it's there, it's there, but I find what, when I follow my head in my heart, it usually focuses on.

[John Plotz]

And that was really my question. I didn't mean it. It wasn't meant to be a. Like, let's compare our book list question. It was like, yeah, because I think I'm coming, you know, now in my 50s. For me, like, people like Mark Twain and Willa Cather are coming alive and science fiction, too, in a way they hadn't before. So I'm. Yeah. When I follow my heart now, I'm going more towards American writers. And I was sort of wondering. Yeah, it sounds like it's kind of always been the case for you that your heart has always been somewhere in the American canon.

[Elizabeth Ferry]

Well, yeah.

[John Plotz]

You know, when.

[Elizabeth Ferry]

I mean, when I started writing, believe me, I did not have a plan. I mean, I practiced law for five years and. And then quit cold turkey and started writing. But as the years have gone by, I've found that that's where my instincts lead me. Often it's. It, you know, the stories are dealing with Americans abroad or who have had formative experiences abroad and they might still be overseas or they. Maybe they've come home. But. But, yeah, I mean.

[John Plotz]

So Joan Didion, is she interesting to you?

[Elizabeth Ferry]

Oh, my God, she is. She is the master.

[John Plotz]

She's amazing, isn't she?

[Elizabeth Ferry]

Yeah, I think she's one of the great American writers. And a book of hers I've been thinking about, and this was even before I tried to watch the movie that was made of it. Is the last thing he wanted.

[John Plotz]

Oh, I don't know it. I've never read it.

[Elizabeth Ferry]

Yeah, yeah. They. Recently a movie was released. It was Netflix or Amazon or hbo. They adapted it for film, not very successfully, But I think the last thing he wanted is a great American novel. And it deals. I mean, the context is the dirty wars in Central America and American involvement in those. And it's just a masterpiece of tone and mood and character. And this. This really profound interiority of the two main characters that is. That is processing these larger macro geopolitical forces. And the hard thing to do. She does it very well.

[John Plotz]

Yeah, well, because I was thinking the book, I know that's like. That is democracy, which is obviously about the Far East. Not far. Not Central America. But I like. I mean, it really reminded me of Conrad. And I think that point. I agree with that. It's interiority all the way down, but only when you go into the interiors, what you find is, like these macroscopic struggles.

[Elizabeth Ferry]

Yeah, exactly. Yeah. I mean, you know, there's the interior life and then the public life, the external life, the. The social life, but they're all bound up together, and there's obviously no clear dividing line. It was around 2004 when George W. Bush got elected. I won't say he got reelected. When he got elected, and I came to the realization I don't understand my country. I started consciously seeking out writers who had gone straight at the problem. The mystery of what is America.

[John Plotz]

Yeah.

[Elizabeth Ferry]

And Joan Didion was very high on that list.

[John Plotz]

Yeah. Marilyn Robinson.

[Elizabeth Ferry]

Marilyn Robinson, absolutely. Let's see, the first were Joan Didion, Norman Mailer.

[John Plotz]

Norman Mailer, yeah.

[Elizabeth Ferry]

James Baldwin, Gary Wills.

[John Plotz]

Yeah.

[Elizabeth Ferry]

You know, he's done a lot of great work. And then I found my way to Marilyn Robinson, and she continues to be a revelation with her books of essays. And then the things she's currently publishing in Harper's and the New York Review.

[John Plotz]

Oh, I don't know those. Yeah.

[Elizabeth Ferry]

Oh, she's wonderful.

[John Plotz]

Yeah.

[Elizabeth Ferry]

The last thing I read by her was this deep dive into the Puritans and the Puritan legacy.

[John Plotz]

Oh, I have read a couple of those, actually.

[Elizabeth Ferry]

Yeah.

[John Plotz]

Yeah.

[Elizabeth Ferry]

And they're very nourishing, but they go down like. I mean, they go down easy.

[John Plotz]

Yeah.

[Elizabeth Ferry]

I mean, she's telling stories. Yeah.

[John Plotz]

I still. I still will pick her fiction over her nonfiction any day of the week. I mean, I do. I mean, she's a great writer. I agree with you. But Housekeeping still strikes me, like, when you go back, that question, the way you raised it, I don't understand my country, like, what is going on, you know, inside of us. I feel like housekeeping has something. There's something there about those who stay and those who go. The way that we're a country that's defined by, like our tight knit communities, but also this, you know, you know, the emphasis on being able to light out for the territories at the same time. And that, that makes you kind of disaffected and alienated, even though it makes you free, too. And yeah, I. She's amazing.

[Elizabeth Ferry]

Yes, she is. Zadie Smith has been writing great, great stuff again in the magazines, you know, New York Review of Books and Harper's, and. And I mean. And I mean, she is looking directly at contemporary issues. And so when I see something by her, you know, I immediately grab it. And I think the latest thing she had in the New York Review of Books was a piece on Kara Walker.

[John Plotz]

Oh, yeah. Kara Walker. Yeah, the sugar baby. She's amazing.

[Elizabeth Ferry]

That is a great American artist. She scares the living piss out of me. I mean, appropriately.

[John Plotz]

Yeah, appropriately. She wouldn't be doing her job. I mean, that is her job, is to scare you. Yes.

[Elizabeth Ferry]

I mean, there are huge chunks of American history that should terrify us and terrorize us and horrify us. And Carol Walker does it like no one I've ever seen.

[John Plotz]

Well, one of the reasons I really like Arendt is her insistence that you cannot be sure that the truth will come out at any given moment. Like, the flim flam can go on, you know, the hot air can stay in the balloon a long time, but you, you can know that it will happen. I mean it, you know, and I really appreciate her. She's. She's pessimistic, but she's hopeful, you know, like, she has a vision of what it takes to see the truth. And like you said, so much reality, you need so much.

[Elizabeth Ferry]

Her clarity of vision is really extraordinary.

[John Plotz]

Yeah.

[Elizabeth Ferry]

She would not look away.

[John Plotz]

Yeah.

[Elizabeth Ferry]

And there is this core of compassion and humanity to her that, I mean, she reminds me of Camus and James Baldwin.

[John Plotz]

Yep.

[Elizabeth Ferry]

They do not look away.

[John Plotz]

Yeah.

[Elizabeth Ferry]

They look with absolute clarity at the human condition, but there's this human core to them that just comes through.

[John Plotz]

Yeah.

[Elizabeth Ferry]

In this very, you know, heartening way. Yeah. I mean, ultimately, reality is stronger than all of us. I mean, and we can maintain our fantasies. You know, some of us can do it longer, some not as long. You know, there are differences in scale, obviously, but what the current president has done in American life is truly extraordinary. And like all great demagogues he's had us under a spell or in a trance ever since he came down the escalator in 2015. And sooner or later, it will break. There will be too much reality. Yep. But my gut is telling me that's not going to happen before November of 2020. Yeah.

[John Plotz]

Yeah. So, Ben, that's the second time you've mentioned Baldwin. And I'm glad I was. I was trying to lead it back there, so that's great. Can you say more about why in 2004 or now that Baldwin seemed to provide an answer for you? Or a roadmap?

[Elizabeth Ferry]

I haven't read him systematically, and I should get those Library of America volumes down and just read them straight through.

[John Plotz]

I keep meaning to do that with him. He's just. He goes so many directions, though. So I tend to get. You know, I follow one path, like the letter to his nephew. That's one thing. And like. Yeah. It's just. Yeah. So it's hard to just read him straight through.

[Elizabeth Ferry]

I mean, his mind is so alive and so subtle. I mean, he's just. He's gotta be one of the top two or three or four American writers. Came out of nowhere, I mean, which proves genius is everywhere. You know, if it's given a chance, half a chance, 10% of a chance. You know, I remember reading when. If Beale Street Could Talk.

[John Plotz]

Oh, yeah, yeah.

[Elizabeth Ferry]

When it came out. And it came out like 76, 77, 78. Right around.

[John Plotz]

Right.

[Elizabeth Ferry]

And I think I was home from college and I went. I mean, I've always been a book nerd. And I would go to the public library once a week, you know, and switch out my books. And it had just come out and it was this nice hardback and they had it, you know, on display. So I got it and I read it. And, you know, the storyline is. Gosh, I can't remember the young African American's name.

[John Plotz]

I just saw the movie, but I can't remember anybody's name. So.

[Elizabeth Ferry]

Yeah. But anyway, I mean, a cop in his neighborhood takes an extreme disliking to him, and it's a white cop, and our guy is black. And basically he is. I mean, he takes the fall for a brutal rape that he was nowhere near. And he had an alibi for it, and he still takes the fall for it. And it all comes out of this very personal animus. And I mean, I was a white kid in the suburbs, you know, in 1977, 78. And I'm reading it and it seemed like such an extreme situation.

[John Plotz]

Yeah.

[Elizabeth Ferry]

I was wondering does this kind of thing really happen?

[John Plotz]

Right.

[Elizabeth Ferry]

And so for years afterwards, I walked around with that in the back of my mind. And every, every once in a while, a data point, I call it a data point, an anecdote would come along and say. Yeah. You know, it would make me think, yeah, that stuff really does happen. And then, of course, once we got cell phones and video, I mean, it happens all the time. I mean, it's a freaking massacre out there. And. And I just remember, I mean, I carried that book around in my head for 40 years.

[John Plotz]

Fonny and Tish, by the way. Alfonso.

[Elizabeth Ferry]

Okay. I was thinking, funny. Yeah, Fonny. I mean, you know, I didn't believe it. I didn't disbelieve it. I was suspending belief all that time. But the facts, demonstrable facts, the proof, the evidence showed that Baldwin absolutely had it accurate.

[John Plotz]

Yeah. It's so interesting.

[Elizabeth Ferry]

40 years, too.

[John Plotz]

Yeah. Yeah. Well, I know. I'm really glad the movie came out. It's funny because for me, the books that had this kind of revelatory force for me were Another Room and Giovanni's Room and Another Life. Sorry. Which were. I mean, I think were some of the first gay novels I read. And I think I must have read them at the end of high school and. Yeah, yeah, my mind was kind of blown. But can I just ask, as a way of sort of making a turn towards home here, you know, as a writer yourself, do you have thoughts about, you know, what this period brings for writing? Like, either your own writing or the writing of others? Like, what do you think is going to come out of our present moment?

[Elizabeth Ferry]

Well, I'll talk about my own writing.

[Game Announcer]

That'd be great.

[John Plotz]

I was hoping you would. Yeah.

[Elizabeth Ferry]

I'm working on a novel set in Haiti in the early 1990s that begins at the time of the first coup d' etat against Jean Bertrand d' Aristide during his first round in the presidency. And the coup d' etat had very significant sponsorship. The American Security State, the CIA, the Defense Intelligence Agency. I mean, we were all over that coup d'. Etat. And what resulted was a military, very brutal military regime. For the next three and a half years, society was on lockdown. A harsh embargo was put in place on Haiti, and life really became desperate materially and politically for those three and a half years. And I was spending a lot of time during that time. And so I feel like writing that novel at this particular moment in time. They do have relevance to one another. I mean, societies that are on lockdown to one extent or another. And, I mean, there are big differences, obviously, but, you know, just how people survive and keep themselves together in those situations is. I'm finding our situation, you know, not irrelevant.

[John Plotz]

That's very interesting. Wow. How. How close are you to completing that novel?

[Elizabeth Ferry]

I better be close because my deadline's coming up, but I'm planning to turn it in this year.

[John Plotz]

Oh, wow. Great.

[Elizabeth Ferry]

As for other writers, you're seeing stuff come out. Swanee Review has they just started running a website feature called the Corona Correspondence, where the editor there, Adam Ross, is inviting lots of different writers to write a letter from their city. And those have been nice pieces. And there's a new website called Chronicles of Now where the editor is asking for short fiction ripped from the headlines. And so, you know, just on a particular scale that's going on, you know, I mean, writers, they take their experiences of life, and you never know how it's going to get processed and come back out. And I remember what Norman Mailer said right after 9 11, he said probably 500 writers of talent were there on the ground in Manhattan that day, and they might end up writing about it directly, or they may take the substance of that experience and have it serve some other context, but one way or another, it will come out.

[John Plotz]

Right.

[Elizabeth Ferry]

I think that's true of what we're going through. Right?

[John Plotz]

That's an interesting point. Yeah. Yeah. I heard George Sanders reading a letter or somebody reading a letter that he wrote to all of his students, you know, telling them to keep a diary to, did you see this letter? And then at the end of it, he's like, well, he sort of tells you all things you should be doing to process it. And he's like, of course, me, I'm just sitting at home drinking, but, you know, that is what I should be doing.

[Elizabeth Ferry]

I know.

[John Plotz]

Yeah.

[Elizabeth Ferry]

Could you imagine having George Sanders as your writing teacher? Yeah.

[John Plotz]

Yeah. He's remarkable. Well, Ben, thank you so much. It's been a great conversation. And I'll just say for the credits that recall this book is hosted by John Plotz and usually by Elizabeth Ferry, with music by Eric Chaslow and Barbara Cassidy, Sound editing by Claire Ogden, Website design and social media by Claire. We always want to hear from you, and especially on the topic of books on dark times, with your comments, criticisms, and suggestions, and simply just what you're reading. So finally, if you enjoyed today's show, please be sure to write a review or rate us on itunes or Stitcher or wherever you get your podcast. And you might want to check out our other conversations with writers like Kim Stanley Robinson, as well as earlier conversations with such writers as Zadie Smith, Shishem Yu, and Samuel Delaney. So, Ben, thank you very, very much.

[Elizabeth Ferry]

Dawn, thank you for having me. It's a pleasure. All right.

[John Plotz]

And thank you all for listening. Sam.