margaret jull costa

And we’re back! Welcome to Season Two of Lost in Redonda. We kick things off with a backlist conversation on Chronicle of the Murdered House by Lucio Cardoso, translated by Margaret Jull Costa and Robin Patterson, published by Open Letter Books. It’s probably one of the fastest moving 600 page sagas of a Brazilian family you’re likely to encounter. And it’s funny. And gothic. And very campy.

Our big project this season is a complete reading of the novels of Muriel Spark. That kicks off next week with her debut, The Comforters, available from New Directions, and, folks!, it’s absolutely incredible. We’ve already recorded a couple of the Spark episodes and are we ever excited. (Her last name of course being the inspiration for this season’s music.)

We’re trying to keep some spoilers out of our conversations this season (or at least flag them when they happen), so: around the 61 minute mark we start chatting about one of the more profound moments at the end of the novel. If you haven’t yet read Chronicle and would rather not hear this bit, skip ahead to 1:06.25 or so where we chat about other works that, to us anyway, resonate with this one.

Click here for Lori’s (great!) article on Chronicle in Full Stop.

Titles discussed:

The Leopard by Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa

The Power and the Glory by Graham Greene

The House of Mist by María Luisa Bombal

Absalom, Absalom by William Faulkner

Buddenbrooks by Thomas Mann

Crime & Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky

Go Down, Moses by William Faulkner

And click here to subscribe to our Substack and do follow us on the socials, @lostinredonda across most apps (Twitter and Instagram for now; we’re coming for you eventually #booktok).

Music: “The Low Spark of High-Heeled Boys” by Traffic

Logo design: Flynn Kidz Designs

Here it is, folks, our final episode on Your Face Tomorrow and the last part of our Marías project. It's a longer one, but very worth it if we do say so ourselves.

Our next season and new project will kick off in a couple weeks' time, but before that a thank you for listening along. It's a fun project and one we hope folks are getting as much out of as we are (and do let us know what you think and/or what you'd like to see us dive into next!).

So, stay hydrated as we wrap up our time with Deza and his creator, the late, great Javier Marías.

Click here to subscribe to our Substack and do follow us on the socials, @lostinredonda across most apps (Twitter and Instagram for now; we’re coming for you eventually #booktok).

Music: “Estos Dias” by Enrique Urquijo

Logo design: Flynn Kidz Designs

It's very strange to be this close to the end of our Marías focus, but that's rather how time moves, ever forward (unless you're Marías and can make time a rather fungible thing in your novels...). This is a fun episode, touching on East End gangsters, Spandau Ballet, the Spanish Civil War, swordplay, and more. And a couple of characters from the previous volume make appearances, though we rather welcome one over the other.

One more episode of Marías, a brief break, and then a new project. Thank you as always for listening.

Click here to subscribe to our Substack and do follow us on the socials, @lostinredonda across most apps (Twitter and Instagram for now; we’re coming for you eventually #booktok).

Music: “Estos Dias” by Enrique Urquijo

Logo design: Flynn Kidz Designs

And now we enter the homestretch. Over the next few episodes we'll tackle Marías' masterpiece, Your Face Tomorrow. Starting, of course, with the first volume, Fever and Spear.

Once we wrap up the Marías project we're going to take a week or so off and then we'll be back with more backlist dives and a new author whose work we'll spend some time digging into.

As always, thank you for listening.

Click here to subscribe to our Substack and do follow us on the socials, @lostinredonda across most apps (Twitter and Instagram for now; we’re coming for you eventually #booktok).

Music: “Estos Dias” by Enrique Urquijo

Logo design: Flynn Kidz Designs

A fun discussion this week of two novels published almost 30 years apart in The Infatuations and The Man of Feeling. We walk down some interesting paths and may get ourselves into a moral quandary or two (wouldn't be a discussion of Marías without some moral murkiness, now would it?).

These are the last two Marías novels we discuss before wrapping this season with a three episode discussion of that absolute beast: Your Face Tomorrow. A backlist episode next week and then we begin the deep dive. As always, thank you for listening.

Click here to subscribe to our Substack and do follow us on the socials, @lostinredonda across most apps (Twitter and Instagram for now; we’re coming for you eventually #booktok).

Music: “Estos Dias” by Enrique Urquijo

Logo design: Flynn Kidz Designs

Lori and Tom discuss Marías' final novel, Tomás Nevinson, just published in the US on May 23rd. A warning that spoilers do occur, especially after the 37 minute mark, so listener beware.

Next episode we will return to discussing backlist in addition to our Marías deep-dives.

Click here to subscribe to our Substack and do follow us on the socials, @lostinredonda across most apps (Twitter and Instagram for now; we’re coming for you eventually #booktok).

Music: “Estos Dias” by Enrique Urquijo

Logo design: Flynn Kidz Designs

To mark the publication of Marías final novel, Tomás Nevinson, we're spending this episode and our next episode diving into the twinned works of Berta Isla and Tomás Nevinson. On this episode we dive deep into Berta (warning: we do rather go into the plot in a more significant manner than we have with other titles discussed thus far). And in two weeks' time we'll be back to chat about Tomás Nevinson (so if you haven't picked up a copy yet, get thee to your local indie and get cracking!).

Click here to subscribe to our Substack and do follow us on the socials, @lostinredonda across most apps (Twitter and Instagram for now; we’re coming for you eventually #booktok).

Music: “Estos Dias” by Enrique Urquijo

Logo design: Flynn Kidz Designs