The History of Literature Podcast – Episode 744

“Love, Sex, and Frankenstein” (with Caroline Lea) | #10 Greatest Book of All Time | “My Last Book” with Geoffrey Turnovsky | A Letter from a Middle School Teacher and Mom

Date: October 27, 2025 | Host: Jacke Wilson | Guest: Caroline Lea, Geoffrey Turnovsky, listener Christine

Episode Overview

This Halloween-themed episode dives into the tangled passions and creative forces behind Mary Shelley's Frankenstein with novelist Caroline Lea. The show also reveals Leo Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina as the #10 greatest book of all time and explores its existential themes. Listener Christine, a middle school teacher and mom, shares a moving letter and resource about Paul McCartney and literature’s lifelong impact, while medieval French literature expert Geoffrey Turnovsky wrestles with the ultimate bibliophile’s question: “What would your last book be?” Throughout, Wilson’s tone is warm, witty, and explorative, bringing together fan correspondence, literary analysis, and author interviews.

Key Segments & Discussion Points

1. Listener Letter: The Power of Literature and Teaching

[05:13 – 11:15]

• Christine, a teacher and mom, shares her enthusiasm for the show, recounts attending the Melville 24-hour Moby Dick read, and reading Anna Karenina with her daughters.

• She recommends an Alan Alda interview with Paul McCartney, highlighting the impact of literature and teachers on young lives.

  “To think that an unnamed high school literature teacher helped a young man become the McCartney we know makes my job as a middle school teacher seem more meaningful...”
  —Christine [07:45]

• Jacke responds with gratitude, reflecting on teaching, parenting, and the communal experiences literature creates.

2. The Greatest Books of All Time Countdown: #10 – Anna Karenina

[12:42 – 39:00]

a. Tolstoy’s Obsession with Happiness

• Jacke celebrates the announcement:

  “The number 10 on our list of the greatest books of all time is... that’s right, Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy. Wow, wow, wow.” [13:27]

• He recaps the story's focus: the pursuit (and frequent dissolution) of happiness, love, and meaning.

• Explores Tolstoy’s own tumultuous marriage to Sophia Tolstoy, citing personal diary entries to illustrate the strife mirrored in Anna Karenina:

  “He loves to torment me and see me weep because he does not trust me. ... Yet he is a wonderful and good person. He too loathes everything evil. ... No sooner am I happy, then he crushes me.”
  —Sophia Tolstoy’s diary [22:30]

b. Tolstoy on the “Meaning of Life”

• Jacke walks through Tolstoy’s four existential “strategies” in facing life’s meaninglessness: ignorance, epicureanism, suicide, and anxious persistence.

• He celebrates Leaven’s final realization: meaning comes not through philosophy or wealth, but through engagement with life itself.

  “The secret to happiness in life is life.”
  —Jacke Wilson [37:17]

• He highlights the contrast between Anna’s tragic grasp at meaning and Leaven’s humble, ongoing commitment.

3. Interview: Caroline Lea, Author of Love, Sex, and Frankenstein

[40:41 – 81:31]

a. Islands, Claustrophobia, and the Gothic

• Lea discusses her upbringing on Jersey and her fascination with isolation, both in her own life and in her fiction.

  “I think I’ve always been drawn to islands or isolated places and that kind of claustrophobia and intensity.”
  —Caroline Lea [41:01]

b. Reimagining Mary Shelley and Frankenstein

• Lea admits she discovered Frankenstein in her twenties, and was surprised by its psychological depth and the lonely, articulate “monster” unlike the brute of pop culture.

• She details Mary’s life: motherless, pregnant at 16, estranged from her father, losing children—living precariously close to death and creation.

• The fateful Geneva trip: Mary, Percy Shelley, and half-sister Claire travel to join Byron (whom Claire is pursuing), leading to that stormy house party and Byron’s ghost story challenge.

• The group dynamics:

  • Byron is idolized and feared (“mad, bad, and dangerous to know”).
  • Claire is pregnant with Byron’s child; there’s speculation about Percy's involvement with Claire as well.
  • John Polidori, Byron’s doctor, creates what may be the first modern vampire story, allegedly inspired by Byron’s own emotional vampirism.

  “It does work that way around...the two more beleaguered characters...intensely feeling that sense of claustrophobia and confinement.”
  —Caroline Lea, on why Mary and Polidori wrote the standout works [60:22]

c. The Creative Process, Motherhood, and the “Monster”

• Mary’s anxieties—loss, rejection, dependence—infuse Frankenstein.
• The creation myth:

  “I saw the pale student of unhallowed arts kneeling beside the thing he had put together... Frightful must it be, for supremely frightful would be the effect of any human endeavor to mock the stupendous mechanism of the creator...”
  —Mary Shelley (quoted by Jacke, [62:27])

• Mary’s own struggle with family expectations hauntingly parallels the creature’s sense of abandonment and monstrousness.
• Lea on creativity as autonomy:

  “A lot of the novel that I’ve written focuses really on her finding herself and finding her voice and using writing as a way of expressing her...rage and finding a sense of autonomy...”
  —Caroline Lea [74:14]

d. Later Life and Literary Legacy

• Mary called Frankenstein her “hideous progeny”; she never again matched its impact, but kept writing.
• Despite its success, Mary was not wealthy—her financial security was tenuous after Percy’s death.

e. If You Could Give Young Mary Advice...

• Lea muses on whether she would advise Mary to avoid Percy and thus undo literary history.
• Fantasizes about giving Mary the idea for “the next Harry Potter” instead.

4. “My Last Book”: A Conversation with Geoffrey Turnovsky

[81:35 – 86:12]

• Turnovsky, a scholar of French literature, is asked what his last book would be. He reframes the question, referencing Borges’s Library of Babel and the Twilight Zone episode “Time Enough at Last”, seeing the notion of a “last book” as inherently dystopic and unsettling.

  “There’s something a little unsettling about this question... fantasies of total plenitude can quickly become kind of dystopic.”
  —Geoffrey Turnovsky [82:16–83:13]

  “There’s something about reading that you want it to be not your last book.”
  —Jacke Wilson [85:39]

Notable Quotes & Moments

• Jacke, summing up Tolstoy:

  “The secret to happiness in life is life.” [37:17]

• Caroline Lea on Mary Shelley:

  “Isn’t...falling short...that feeling of falling short is devastating and for Mary, deeply enraging.” [72:43]

• Mary Shelley’s own words:

  “I saw the hideous phantasm of a man stretched out and then...show signs of life and stir with an uneasy half vital motion.” [62:27]

Important Timestamps

• Listener Letter: [05:13]
• #10 Book Reveal—Anna Karenina: [13:25]
• Tolstoy–Sophia Diary Reading: [22:30]
• Tolstoy’s Existential “Four Ways”: [31:43]
• Anna Karenina’s finale: [37:00]
• Interview, Caroline Lea joins: [40:41]
• On Frankenstein’s true origins: [46:30]
• Geneva “Ghost Story Challenge”: [53:38]
• Mary Shelley’s creative breakthrough: [62:27]
• Mary and dependence versus autonomy: [67:15]
• On Mary’s “hideous progeny”: [75:55]
• Last Book Segment with Turnovsky: [81:35]

Tone & Style

Jacke’s delivery is bookish, intimate, and wry—mixing lively anecdotes, literary philosophy, and affectionate nerdiness. The interviews are candid and generously contextualized. The episode oscillates between scholarly depth and personal warmth, all threaded together by Jacke’s engaging narrative voice.

In Summary

This episode is a literary feast—blending the haunted origins of Frankenstein and the torments of Mary Shelley’s life, the existential sweep of Anna Karenina and Tolstoy’s search for meaning, and the joy and agony of books as both solace and challenge. Whether celebrating teachers, analyzing the darkness (and illumination) within classic texts, or pondering the ever-next book to read, the podcast radiates the enduring power of literature to shape, reflect, and save our lives.