Episode 221 with Martha Anne Toll, Renaissance Woman, Book Reviewer, Creative, and Award-Winning Writer of the Moving, Contemplative Three Muses
Notes and Links to Martha Anne Toll’s Work
For Episode 221, Pete welcomes Martha Anne Toll, and the two discuss, among other topics, her early reading and writing and written word-heavy household, her love of music and other artistic pursuits, and the way muses have worked in her life and in her novel, ideas of grief, survivor’s guilt and connection, real-life tragedies and heroes from the Holocaust that informed her writing, and other salient themes from her book like permanence, memory, and connection.
Martha Anne Toll's debut novel, THREE MUSES, was shortlisted for the Gotham Book Prize and won the Petrichor Prize for Finely Crafted Fiction. THREE MUSES has received glowing tributes since it came out in September 2022. She writes fiction, essays, and book reviews, and reads anything that’s not nailed down.
She brings a long career in social justice to her work covering authors of color and women writers as a critic and author interviewer at NPR Books, the Washington Post, Pointe Magazine, The Millions, and elsewhere. She also publishes short fiction and essays in a wide variety of outlets. Toll is a member of the National Book Critics Circle and serves on the Board of Directors of the PEN/Faulkner Foundation.
’ Her second novel, DUET FOR ONE, will be out in early 2025.
New York Journal of Books Review of Three Muses
At about 2:00, Martha provides a cool definition
At about 2:25, Martha talks about her future project-her book coming out in 2025, and she shouts out places to buy Three Muses
At about 4:20, Martha discusses her early reading and writing life, and the ways in which her parents influenced her habits
At about 7:15, Martha traces her writing journey
At about 8:40, Martha talks about inspiring and beloved writers (like Alex Chee, Garth Greenwell, Kiese Laymon, Vikram seth and shirley hazzard) and writing in contemporary times, as well as how working as a book reviewer affects her own reading for pleasure
At about 10:55, Martha speaks to Pete’s questions
At about 12:10, Martha gives seeds for Three Muses, including how she had ideas based on a real-life story from the Holocaust and the Greek view of three muses
At about 14:10, Pete and Martha lay out some of the book’s exposition
At about 15:30, Martha responds to Pete wondering about how the protagonist John was roused by a dance from Katya/Katherine
At about 16:45, Martha reflects on Katya’s problematic and ongoing collaboration and personal relationship with the director Boris
At about 20:05, Pete lays out some of Katya’s traumas
At about 20:50, Martha talks about Janko/John’s horrific childhood and the loss of his family in Mainz, Germany, in the Holocaust-Martha describes how her cousin Alan Boucher’s memoir informed some parts of the book
At about 22:25, Martha speaks about the guilt-inducing “Sophie’s Choice” that afflicts and saves John/Janko’s; she expounds upon his survivor’s guilt
At about 24:30, Pete and Martha compare Janko’s story with that of Elie Wiesel and the ways in which iit was so gutting to see people killed in the camps so close to Liberation
At about 26:30, The two discuss the idea of reinvention as seen through John in the book, and Martha expands on “unlikely heroes” who helped John to survive
At about 29:20, Martha discusses Barney and Selma Katz, who “adopt” John, and she talks about John’s own psychoanalysis and psychologist training
At about 31:05, The two discuss themes in the book of memorializing, living “in the present tense,” and how memory guides the characters’ actions
At about 33:05, Pete traces John and Katya’s connections, and Martha debates how and if the “innate” connections are there
At about 36:00, Pete asks Martha about any responsibilities/urgency to get Holocaust stories on the page
At about 37:45, Martha speaks of art and its “incredibl[e] importan[ce]” and the power of fiction
At about 38:55, Martha shouts out Forgottenness by Tanja Maljartschuk as an example of the power of memory
At about 39:55, Martha responds to Pete’s question about the emotional toll of writing her book
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I am very excited that starting in February with Episode 220, I will have one or two podcast episodes per month featured on the website of Chicago Review of Books. The audio will be posted, along with a written interview culled from the audio. A big thanks to Rachel León and Michael Welch at Chicago Review-I’m looking forward to the partnership!
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Please tune in for Episode 221 with Andrew Leland, a writer, audio producer, editor, and teacher. His first book, The Country of the Blind: A Memoir at the End of Sight, about the world of blindness (and figuring out his place in it), was published in July 2023 by Penguin Press, to great acclaim and receiving many awards.
The episode will air on January 31.
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