The LRB presents: James Wood and Clair Wills on Hilary Mantel and the Art of Memoir

Close Readings is the London Review of Books’ multi-series podcast, in which longstanding contributors explore literature, history and philosophy through a selection of key works. This year, James Wood, professor of the practice of literary criticism at Harvard and staff writer at the New Yorker, has been considering the question: Who’s afraid of realism? His subjects so far have included Madame Bovary, Mrs Dalloway and Pnin, but for this this special event he will apply his question to memoir (an extended excerpt of his own forthcoming memoir appeared in a recent issue of the LRB).

For this live recording of Close Readings at Ace Hotel Brooklyn, James will be joined by Clair Wills, a regular contributor to the LRB, whose memoir, Missing Persons, Or My Grandmother’s Secrets was published last year. Their subject, or at least their starting point, will be Hilary Mantel’s Giving up the Ghost, in which Mantel reflects on childhood, illness, family and ghosts, both metaphorical and ‘real’.

Part of a series of events around the LRB’s annual Autumn Lecture in New York City, which will take place on Wednesday, 28 October at 7.30 p.m.