November 27 - novelist Victoria Patterson

Tonight at 8 PM on Bibliocracy, KPFK 90.7 FM:  VICTORIA PATTERSON.  In her first two books, a short story collection and a novel, my guest tonight observed, dramatized, sent up the glittering rotten lives of the grown-ups and children of nouveau riche of Orange County, California, wielding an elegant ice pick at duplicity and self-reverence, the too-easy meaningful meaninglessness of the indulged and clueless, yet simultaneously offered empathy and honest description.  Victoria Patterson is the author of the debut short story collection Drift and a novel, This Vacant Paradise, two favorite books about our Southern California place and politics.  Now, in her third book, she offers a fictional version of a lost moment in history, constructs a revisionist tale, and ---best of all --- explores perspective and the authority of storytelling – all around the circumstance of women’s participation in the 1928 Olympics, not to mention the struggle against intransigent misogyny and discrimination against women athletes, period.  The Peerless Four is not only a sports novel, though the excitement, pain, and physical beauty of competition is of course thrillingly told.  The novel is also about who tells the story, and whose story is told, and how and why the teller might indeed be as important as the other characters.  Thanks for listening on the radio, or online.  The show is available as a download, free for 90 days, from the KPFK audio archives.  Thanks always to Stan Misraje, engineer.