Season 10, Episode 223 The Act of Disappearing with guest Nathan Gower
Our guest this week is Nathan Gower, a writer with roots in Kentucky, having earned degrees from Spalding University and the University of Louisville. He now serves as a professor of English at Campbellsville University. His debut novel, The Act of Disappearing, publishes on May 28 with Mira Books, an imprint of HarperCollins.
The novel is about a woman named Julia, who her friends call Jules. Julia has been trying to make a name for herself as a fiction writer, but she works at a bar to make ends meet. It is there that she meets a famous older man named Jonathan Aster who gives her a photograph and offers to pay her to tell the story of the woman in the picture: the woman in the photo is jumping off a bridge holding a baby. Julia begins a quest to discover who this woman is and learns about herself in the process.
He also talks to us about how terrifying it was to write a book from a female POV, how the women in his family inspired this story, and the sci-fi book he just read and thoroughly enjoyed even though he doesn’t like sci-fi.
Books Mentioned in This Episode:
1- The Act of Disappearing by Nathan Gower
2- Dark Matter by Blake Crouch
3- Dead Boy Detectives by Neil Gaiman
4- Out of the Easy by Ruta Sepetys
5- Gumbo Tales: Finding My Place at the New Orleans Table by Sara Roahen
6- The Moviegoer by Walker Percy
7- The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi by Shannon Chakraborty - A 5 Star Read Recommended by Fellow Book Lover Claire Boswell @clairesbookobsession
8- The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas
9- The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas
10- The Man In The Iron Mask by Alexandre Dumas
11- Made for You by Jenna Satterthwaite
12- Johanna Porter is Not Sorry by Sara Read
Entertainment mentioned—
1- Beetlejuice (1988)
2- Beetlejuice (Broadway Across America)
3- Seinfeld (1989- 1998, Netflix)
4- Dark Matter (2024, Apple+)
5- The Dead Boys Detective (2024, Netflix)
6- Locke & Key (2020, Netflix)
7- The Man in the Iron Mask (1998)
Photograph mentioned—
time.com/3456028/the-most-bea…h-an-immortal-photo/