Karl Ove Knausgaard on Near-Death Experiences, Raising Kids, Puberty, Brain Surgery, and Turtles

Summary

Podcast Summary

Podcast: The New Yorker Radio Hour
Host: David Remnick (WNYC Studios and The New Yorker)
Episode: Karl Ove Knausgaard on Near-Death Experiences, Raising Kids, Puberty, Brain Surgery, and Turtles
Date: October 3, 2017
Guests: Karl Ove Knausgaard, Josh Rothman

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Episode Overview

This episode of The New Yorker Radio Hour is split into two segments. The first is a brief conversation about the lack of accountability for financial crimes post-2008 crash (featuring staff writers Patrick Radden Keefe and Sheila Kolhatkar). The main feature—and focus of this summary—is a reflective walk through Central Park with acclaimed Norwegian writer Karl Ove Knausgaard and New Yorker writer Josh Rothman. Their discussion covers the themes of Knausgaard’s new work, Autumn, fatherhood, childhood, the experience of time, witnessing brain surgery, contemplation of life and death, and the symbolism of turtles.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Being Present in Nature and the Ambiguity of Urban Parks

[14:06–16:25]

• Knausgaard offers a painterly description of Central Park, observing the "muddy green" water, yellow leaves, rocks, and contrasting colors of people’s clothing. He notes the artificiality of the park and the sadness he feels at its manufactured nature.
  • Quote:
    “And I would, if I'd been a painter, I would love to paint those people there... You are also a bit confused, because if you just sit down, it is like you are in a forest... And if you look up, it is—you are in a city. And those two perspectives is hard to get together.” – Karl Ove Knausgaard [14:24-15:24]
• The juxtaposition of nature and urban life in Central Park is discussed as both beautiful and slightly artificial.
  • Quote:
    “But it also makes me feel sad a bit. Just because it is in a city, you know ... if I should write about it, I would have written about that.” – Knausgaard [15:47]

2. Parenthood, Childhood, and the Perception of Time

[16:35–20:08]

• Knausgaard compares his daughter’s experience to a blossoming cherry tree, noting the unique awareness that emerges during adolescence.
  • Quote:
    “She's 13. And she's... kind of blossoming somehow. And she's... being aware of how beautiful she is. And that's the quality of a cherry tree somehow.” – Knausgaard [16:35]
• He discusses the difference in experiencing time as a child versus as an adult. Adults may consider days with children as unremarkable, while to a child, every moment is significant and slow.
  • Quote:
    “To me it is like nothing. It is like just time is just passing... And then I remember the summer days when I was a child myself, how important everything were... how slowly those days evolved somehow.” – Knausgaard [17:58-18:40]
• As a parent, he tries not to underestimate the inner lives of his children.
  • Quote:
    “They have a enormous, huge and independent inner life, which somehow I think the task as a parent is to be aware of that.” – Knausgaard [18:52-19:01]

3. Writing, Solitude, and Family

[19:01–20:08]

• Knausgaard remarks that, contrary to the myth of the isolated writer, parenthood has increased his productivity; the chaos lowers his self-criticism and the pressure for a “masterpiece.”
  • Quote:
    “You have to lower your, you know, self criticism... the notion of a masterpiece is no longer relevant. It's just have to write today what you can do.” – Knausgaard [19:45–20:08]

4. Brain Surgery as Art and Metaphor

[20:25–22:01]

• Knausgaard shares his experience witnessing brain surgery in Albania, inspired by neurosurgeon Henry Marsh’s book Do No Harm.
  • Quote:
    “It was extremely beautiful, which I didn't expect... it was like landscapes. The rivers were red and there was a kind of a white... looked like a glacier … and the red river coming flushing over it. It was incredibly beautiful. And the white glacier was, of course, you know, the cancer.” – Knausgaard [21:13–21:44]

5. The Turtle: Contemplations on Time and Existence

[22:25–23:42]

• Encountering a turtle in the park prompts reflections on the mix of ancient and the young, the continuity of life, and the strangeness of sharing time with such old species.
  • Quote:
    “It's the age. They're so incredibly old species. But that he or she is very young that kind of amazes me... I just feel it's so strange to be contemporary to sharks and turtles and snakes and frogs.” – Knausgaard [22:57–23:28]
• Rothman reflects that this contrast between the eternal and the transient is a central theme in Knausgaard’s book.

6. Near-Death Experience and the Nature of Death

[24:02–25:33]

• Knausgaard recounts a time he fainted at a hot, crowded party and his fleeting, disorienting near-death feeling.
  • Quote:
    “I didn't know I was fainting, of course, I just—like that ... When I came back, there was a lot of people above me looking at me... and I couldn't understand where I was. I didn't know who I... who I was. I had no idea... I must be dead and this must be something from my childhood I'm remembering. ..." – Knausgaard [24:02–25:25]
  • He continues, reflecting:
    “...It was so intense because I was also surrounded by darkness. It was like they were looking at you and I couldn't relate to anything. ... I think that's the closest I've come to... I think that must be how it is to be dead. Not looking back, but just the blackness that comes...” – Knausgaard [24:22–25:25]

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments (with Timestamps)

• “And those two perspectives is hard to get together.” — Knausgaard, on the forest/city duality of Central Park [15:24]
• “I do have this sadness when I think of [the Internet]. It keeps my children indoor, unfortunately.” — Knausgaard [16:25–16:33]
• “They have a enormous, huge and independent inner life, which somehow I think the task as a parent is to be aware of that.” — Knausgaard [18:52–19:01]
• “The notion of a masterpiece is no longer relevant. It's just have to write today what you can do.” — Knausgaard [19:57–20:08]
• “It was incredibly beautiful. And the white glacier was, of course, you know, the cancer.” — Knausgaard, recalling brain surgery [21:44]
• “I just feel it's so strange to be contemporary to sharks and turtles and snakes and frogs.” — Knausgaard [23:26–23:28]
• “I think that must be how it is to be dead. Not looking back, but just the blackness that comes. ...then it is nothing. It's just gone.” — Knausgaard [25:16–25:33]

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• [14:06] — Start of walk in Central Park; reflections on nature vs. artifice
• [16:35] — Knausgaard on cherry blossoms, his daughter, and adolescence
• [17:58] — Insights into the inner world of children and the flow of parental time
• [19:45] — How being around children changes his writing process
• [20:34] — Knausgaard witnesses brain surgery and compares it to art
• [22:25] — Observing a turtle and reflections on ancient species
• [24:02] — Recounting a near-death experience and philosophical musings on death

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Conclusion

This episode delivers an intimate, philosophical conversation with Karl Ove Knausgaard, who applies his signature observational style not just to memory but to parenthood, nature, mortality, and art. The walk through Central Park becomes a meditation on time, self, and existence, punctuated by poetic vignettes—whether contemplating a turtle, a cherry tree, or the feel of near-death. For listeners, it's both a glimpse into Knausgaard’s mind and an invitation to see the everyday world with greater curiosity and care.

Transcript

[A]

Hi, it's David Remnick. Before we start the show today, I want to extend an invitation. This weekend, October 6th through 8th, we're presenting the New Yorker Festival. It's an extraordinary weekend where the artists, authors, thinkers and personalities shaping the world take the stage with the New Yorker's writers for an exchange of ideas and insights that make news. People like Dr. Atul Gawanda, the author of On Mortality, the singer Carly Rae Jepsen, the poets Paul Muldoon and Kevin Young, designer Driese Van Noten, the COVID artist Barry Blitt, who does all our political covers, TV hit creator Ryan Murphy, the chef Anthony Bourdain, the civil rights activist Reverend William Barber, and a group of political heavyweights talking about the rise of Donald Trump on a panel called It Happened Here. It's sort of like the New Yorker Radio hour, only times 100. Take a look at the lineup and buy Tickets [e-mail] festival. There are plenty of tickets available and you can download the New Yorker Festival app. Hope to see you there. Okay, now here's the show.

[B]

This is rural train center bound, One World Observatory.

[C]

Observatory, straight of the block for West.

[D]

Boulevard and make that right.

[E]

I basically just think it'd be interesting to look at the emergence of a criminal economy.

[C]

And also I'm always amazed that there aren't more profiles of her, this really subversive, strange thing in rap especially, and.

[B]

See what their lives are like on.

[D]

Both sides of the border.

[F]

From one World Trade center in Manhattan, this is the New Yorker Radio Hour, a co production of WNYC Studios and the New Yorker.

[A]

Welcome to the New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick. Staff writer Sheila Kolhatkar writes frequently about Wall street and finance. Her colleague Patrick Raden Keefe also writes about business, but more often he covers shady business, drug trafficking and the like. Patrick reviewed a book called we're going to have to Bleep this for the radio, the Chicken Shit Club, which argues that the Department of Justice has gotten awfully skittish about prosecuting people in finance. Not long ago, Patrick and Sheila sat down to talk about why nobody seems to go to jail for financial crimes anymore and how that's impacted the country.

[C]

So Patrick and I met several years ago in a federal courthouse not far from here. I believe it was 40. Does that sound right to you?

[B]

I think so. That seems right.

[C]

And if I'm remembering this correctly, I was going through security and you were right behind me.

[B]

Was I? I guess we spent a lot of time in the security line.

[C]

We did. But Patrick and I were both there covering this really high profile insider trading trial of Matthew Martoma, a former hedge fund trader at SAC Capital.

[B]

This was a big insider trading trial in the Southern District of New York when Preet Bharara was the U.S. attorney. And there had been a whole series of these insider trading cases. And I actually felt like kind of an interloper because in that press box were all of these reporters from Bloomberg, the ft, the Times, Reuters, who seemed to all know each other because they'd covered one after another of these big insider trading cases.

[C]

Well, this case really was sort of the crowning case of his campaign against insider trading at hedge funds. And at that time, which was late 2013, early 2014, he was boasting this incredible record in insider trading prosecutions. I mean, at one point it was over 80 to 0 guilty pleas and convictions. And this made his reputation. And this really sort of marked him as the enforcer of Wall Street. Why do you think there were so many insider trading prosecutions?

[B]

It was interesting because that was the first big piece that I'd written about white collar crime. And to me, it seemed as though we were coming in on this real crusade against this very specific type of crime. But as I was reporting that story, I spoke to some people who essentially said, you know, it's great and all that, he's prosecuting these insider trading cases, but this is kind of a sideshow. We had already had the financial crisis unfold, and there was evidence of all kinds of fraud and decidedly risky behavior on the part of the banking sector, which had had huge, just cataclysmic economic effects. And there were a lot of people I spoke with who said, again, there's no question that there are people who are guilty of insider trading, but the idea that this would take up such a disproportionate amount of prosecutorial resources is a little curious.

[C]

Well, this has been really widely criticized in terms of, you know, how the government handled the financial crisis.

[B]

So it's fascinating. I wrote an essay in the magazine about a book called the Chickenshit Club why the Justice Department Fails to Prosecute Executives by Jesse Eisinger, who's a reporter with ProPublica. And a big thrust of his argument is that the Justice Department may have pursued certain types of cases, insider trading cases. Certainly Foreign Corrupt Practices act is another area where there have been prosecutions of white collar executives, but that when it came to the underlying causes of the financial crisis, the Justice Department essentially gave a pass to the big banks and to the white collar executives who were responsible for getting us into this mess.

[C]

So this might be a good moment just to describe the anecdote that led to the title of this book, the Chicken Chick Club. Can you tell us where that comes from?

[B]

Yeah. So it's a great story. James Comey, before he was the household name, James Comey was the head of the U.S. attorney's office in the Southern District of New York. And Eisinger tells this story about how when Comey came in, he assembled the troops. He assembled a bunch of his young assistant US Attorneys to give them kind of a pep talk. He went around the room and he said, I want you all to tell me who here has never had an acquittal or a hung jury, who has a perfect record? And a bunch of these young attorneys kind of sit up and raise their hands because they're the go getters. They're the gunners is what we would have called them in law school. And Comey says, you know, we have a name for you guys. We like to call you the Chickenshit Club. Ooh, harsh. And his suggestion there, right, is that these are people who are picking and choosing the cases that they make. And that if you're not at least occasionally getting an acquittal or a hung jury, then you're not being forward leaning enough in terms of the types of cases you're prosecuting. I should say that I have a little bit of perspective on this, having gone to law school myself. He really kind of hones in on this aspect of the almost the anthropology of the legal professionals out there who go to elite law schools and get jobs as federal prosecutors, which are plum jobs, confronted with two types of cases, say an insider trading case, where it may be really difficult to make the case, but the odds of you getting a conviction are relatively high. And a much more abstruse, complex case in which you're trying to prove individual criminal culpability on the part of executives who are dealing in these financial instruments that nobody really seems to have understood at all, that somebody who's had a lifetime in which they never got a B would shy away from the latter kind of case. What I wonder, though, Sheila, is maybe you could talk to us a little bit about some of the cases that they haven't actually charged.

[C]

Right. Well, so what the financial crisis revealed to the world was that many of these major banks had been granting mortgages that they should not have, falsifying documentation, giving huge loans to people who worked as bartenders, and then they were taking all those loans Bundling them up into securities, and then they were selling them to investors all over the world. Then when the housing market started to decline, all of that just sort of collapsed. And. And here we are years later. Yes, there were no charges brought against any senior level people at any of these firms. And it is stunning because many of those firms have paid billions of dollars in civil penalties. So clearly a decision was made at some point sort of to steer away from individual charges. How is it possible that a bank would demand that its shareholders pay $16 billion in fines to the government, yet there was not an individual at that bank who could be charged with committing a crime? It just defies logic. And you can contrast that with other white collar cases in the past that were handled very differently. Now one that comes to mind is Enron. And the Enron case was a very complicated case that took years to build. There was a dedicated group of prosecutors and FBI agents who were put on that case. They didn't have anything else they were supposed to do. They were only working on that case and they were given resources to really follow it. And they ultimately ended up convicting Ken Lay and Jeff Skilling, the CEO and chairman of the firm. And they did not have any email evidence where those guys were saying something stupid and self incriminating in an email. The case was much more diffuse, but they had witnesses. And just by really working hard over a long period of time, they were able to build the case without the kind of evidence that I think people have become accustomed to seeing now, which is smoking gun, smoking gun. An email where somebody says, I know this is a criminal act and I am engaging in it.

[D]

Ha ha.

[C]

We got away with it. They didn't have any of that. Yet they did manage to put these two top guys in jail. And that does not happen anymore.

[B]

Amazing. So listen, I'm gonna tell you a story then. So this is largely what we've been talking about. An account of failures by the Obama administration to crack down on, on Wall street and on the big banks in the aftermath of the financial crisis, a financial crisis that hit the country hard. And just a few years later, we have the rise of Donald Trump and of Trumpism. And I think most people would agree that Trump was sort of borne along on a tide of frustration and resentment of precisely the types of elites who seem to have gotten away with it during the Obama years. So tell me about the return to accountability under the Trump administration.

[C]

I think one of the reasons Donald Trump got all of the support that he did was because he really campaigned against Wall street to some extent. And he kept saying, I'm here for the forgotten men and women of America, the little people who are suffering while all the elites reap all the rewards of this economy. And I think those were very powerful arguments. Of course, what we've seen since then, as far as I can tell, is a total reversal. He's gone and installed folks from Goldman Sachs and various hedge funds into all the key decision making roles when it comes to economic policy. There's a lot of irony there. I mean, this is just yet another way that Trump has betrayed, I think, his voters and some of the ideas that made him appealing to a lot of people who voted for him.

[B]

Yeah, I mean, I wonder if this stuff will catch up with him, with the administration, or whether we can expect any greater degree of accountability. It's fascinating because clearly you've outlined a pretty disastrous state of affairs. But I don't see the political preconditions for any real major changes. If anything, I feel is that we may double down on this kind of impunity.

[C]

Certainly the reporting I've done on this suggests that corporate crime, white collar crime, seems to have dropped way down the list of priorities.

[B]

It's a good time to be a banker.

[A]

Staff writers Patrick Radden Keefe and Sheila Kolhatkar. This is the New Yorker Radio Hour. In a moment, a walk in the park with none other than Carl Ove Knausgard. Stick around. I'm David Remnick and this is the New Yorker Radio Hour. Now, we're going to wrap up the Radio Hour today by getting outside a little bit and showing a visitor around town.

[D]

It looks like a willow, that one.

[A]

The visitor is Karl Ovekanowska, and if you know his name, it's for his huge autobiographical novel, six volumes worth called My Struggle. It was an unlikely literary hit that describes the events of his life in infinite detail. Knauskaard's new project is only a bit less ambitious. It's a four part series named after the seasons, one book per season. And each book consists of dozens of short essays, reflections on the most common things addressed to his then unborn daughter. The first book in the series is Autumn, and it was just published when Carl Ove Knauskaard was in town. Recently, he took a long walk with the New Yorker's Josh Rothman.

[E]

So we're in this particularly lovely spot, part of Central Park. I wonder, could you just describe where we are as best you can?

[D]

Yeah. What you see in front. Yeah, it's water here and it's kind of green. What would you say the color is? It's dark, dark green, muddy green, so you can't see through it. And there's a lot of leaves floating on it, which are yellow. And then you have rocks coming down. So there really is gray and green and yellow just. Just around us. And you have some rocks with people on. And the people look extremely. Not in the nature. They are. You know, the colors of the clothes are very different. They are not part of this. They're coming here to see it and be seen. And then you have the skyscrapers behind, which makes it kind of incredibly beautiful. It frames it. And I would, if I've been a painter, I would love to paint those people there. It would have been fantastic if I could, you know. So you are also a bit confused, because if you just sit down, it is like it is. You are in a forest or in the woods somewhere. And if you look up, it is. You are in a city. And those two perspectives is hard to get together.

[E]

It's funny how Central park has gotten more beautiful with time. Since when it was first laid out, there weren't these buildings. So it was more of just a park. You were just in a park. It didn't have the same uniqueness that it has now, I guess, you know.

[D]

But it also makes me feel sad a bit. Just because it is in a city, you know, it is something. I don't know why that is, but if I should write about it, I would have written about that.

[E]

I think the feeling that it's a little sad.

[D]

Yeah. A little sad. It is.

[E]

No, I know what you mean. And it always has a slightly, like, artificial vibe.

[D]

Yeah, a little bit of it. Yeah. But it's also strange. Why shouldn't we embrace that? Official. I mean, that's. That's wonderful, isn't it? We have created it and it is made and it is great. But I do feel that often it's the same with the Internet. I do have this sadness when I think of.

[E]

Makes you sad. The Internet makes you sad.

[D]

It does. It keeps my children indoor, unfortunately. Yeah.

[E]

Well, me too.

[D]

And just over there, I think it is. Must be a cherry tree. Isn't it? Not. Yeah. Which I wrote about in one of the books. When they blossom. Yeah, I know how shy they are when they blossom. You don't see them now. It's just part of the green. And then they become incredibly beautiful and blossoming and with a kind of a shyness to them, which is. To me, you know, it's like being. Yeah. My Daughter is that age. She's 13. And she's. She is kind of blossoming somehow. And she's. She's being aware of how beautiful she is. And that's the quality of a cherry tree somehow, if you know what I mean.

[E]

The origin of this book seems like it's partly being a father. It's like, about children.

[D]

And.

[E]

You capture so much of what it's like to think and feel when you're young. But I wonder if you could just say something about how do you think the way that children live is different from the way that adults live?

[D]

You know, I have four children and maybe when I spend a summer day with them, it's. To me it is like nothing. It is like just time is just passing. There's nothing remarkable happening. It's like the world is not attached to me or I'm not attached to the world anymore. And then I remember the summer days when I was a child myself, how important everything were and how attached I was to what happened and how slowly those days evolved somehow. And I find it very easy to underestimate my children, that I don't see them. They're just, you know, little, little creatures and, you know, not realizing that they have a enormous, huge and independent inner life, which somehow I think the task as a parent is to be aware of that.

[E]

Is it ever hard to re. Engage with your family life after you've been secluded in your writing?

[D]

No, because it is part of the same. I mean, they run in and out and I never isolate, you know, physically when they are there, when at school I do. When I was young, I believed in that. So then I went out to islands and lighthouses and wrote and was completely alone and thought that was what it took to be a writer in solitude. But now it's the opposite. And I've never written so much as I had when I have children. So it's like it's. Yeah. Just flowing with children and words.

[E]

Why is that? Like, what is it about being surrounded by the kids that makes it somehow easier?

[D]

Well, you have to lower your, you know, self criticism. You can't afford it. You have just to write when you can write. And that's such a good thing. It's like, you know, the notion of a masterpiece is no longer relevant. It's just have to write today what you can do. Yeah.

[E]

In that time.

[D]

And that's a liberating thing, really. Yeah.

[E]

So you were, you were saying earlier that you had been in Albania to witness a brain surgery. Could, could you explain what were you Doing there.

[D]

I read this book by a British neurosurgeon called Henry Marsh, and the book is called do no Harm. And I was really, really taken by it. And then a newspaper asked me, you know, do you want to write for us? And what do you want to write? And I said, I want to meet him. Then I was in touch with him and he said, well, I'm going to Albania and Nepal and you can meet me there. And I did. So I traveled down to Albania and I witnessed two brain surgeries there.

[E]

What did you think when you saw the brain exposed in the surgical theater?

[D]

It was. First of all, it was extremely beautiful, which I didn't expect. I saw it through, you know, magnifying lens. So it was like landscapes. Like, you were seeing a landscape and the rivers were red and there was a kind of a white. It looked like a glacier, you know, and then the red river come flushing over it. And it was. It was incredibly beautiful. And the white glacier was, of course, you know, the cancer. Right. Yeah. So it was very weird and strange and very beautiful.

[E]

So it really was like. He describes in the book Henry Marsh.

[D]

Yeah.

[E]

Because he talks about that, that it's this he describes, he compares it. He says it's like the arches of a cathedral, the veins. It's actually incredible.

[D]

Yeah, it is. Wow. But when you see it from a. You know, without that, it's just a gray lump. It is nothing. And then you open it up and it is absolutely magic. Oh, look at that. Oh, it's a turtle.

[E]

It's a turtle.

[D]

Yeah. Just ahead, above the water. And the head is like a snake. So it's. I hate snakes. So it's a bit. Oh, now it's diving down. You heard me. It disappeared completely.

[E]

It's pretty fast.

[D]

Yeah, well, that's. That's what I'm going to remember. That turtle there is. Oh, it is a strange creature.

[E]

What is it that's so strange about the. About the turtle?

[D]

It's the age. They're so incredibly old species. But that he or she is very young that kind of amazes me. Also with frogs, you sense a certain. There's a certain primitive thing, but not to him or her. It's not primitive at all. It is them and their life. I just feel it's so strange to be contemporary to sharks and turtles and snakes and frogs.

[E]

It's funny moments like that where. Because I think this is a theme in the book too, where it's like the. The things that are almost eternal kind of next to the things that are Very transient.

[D]

Yeah, exactly.

[E]

Do you think of the world as a kind of unchanging place? Like when you look at a turtle like that, it makes you think, are these rocks here?

[D]

Yeah.

[E]

Does it feel to you like we're just sort of temporary visitors in an ancient place?

[B]

Or.

[E]

How do you think about the age of the world?

[D]

I never asked myself that question. Yeah, it just made me think of something because I was in a. In a reception in London was full of people and was very hot and I. And I fainted and I didn't know I was fainting, of course, I just. Like that. And it was. When I came back, there was a lot of people above me looking at me. And it was like I was in. In darkness still. And I couldn't understand where I was. I didn't know who I. Who I was. I had no idea. And I wondered if I was, you know, in another dimension looking at those people. And I couldn't relate to it. And I'm. It was like. And then I thought, I must be dead and this must be something from my childhood I'm remembering. And it was. I couldn't. It was so intense because I was also surrounded by darkness. It was like they were looking at you and I couldn't relate to anything. And then kind of. I fell in. Oh, then. And then it was okay again. But I think that's the closest I've come to. I think that must be how it is to be dead. Not looking back, but just the blackness that comes. It's like it just. Yeah, it's like it's. It's like it was something black coming like that. And then it is nothing. It's just gone.

[E]

Can we go this way?

[B]

Or does it.

[E]

Does it end? This is pretty here.

[A]

The New Yorker's Josh Rothman with the Norwegian writer Karl Ove Knausgaard. His new book of essays is called Autumn and the next volume, Winter, will be out in the winter. This is the New Yorker Radio Hour. Glad you could join us today and I hope you come by next week.

[F]

The New Yorker Radio Hour is a co production of WNYC Studios and the New Yorker. Our theme music was composed and performed by Meryl Garbus of Tune Yards, with additional music by Alexis Cuadrado. This episode was produced by Alex Barron, Emily Bottin, Ave Carrillo, Rhiannon Corby, Jill Duboff, Karen Frillman, David Krasnow, Sara Nix, Michael Rayfield, Maithili Rao and Steven Valentino, with help from Susan Morrison, Emma Allen, Sarah Sandbach, Jessica Henderson, Terrence Bernardo and Corey Schreppel. The New Yorker Radio Hour is supported in part by the Cherina Endowment.