Uploaded February 2024 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
Conversation begins at 9:05
With his fantastic debut novel, PLASTIC (Pantheon, bookshop.org/a/4669/9780593316764), Scott Guild (https://www.scottguild.com) brings us a dystopian future of eco-terrorism, meta-reality, and . . . a world populated by plastic figurines who break out in song? We talk about the 10-year process of writing the book, how he found the stylistic elements that made it work, and why making the lead characters plastic let him bring comedy into his apocalyptic vision of the future. We get into Scott's history as a musician and how songwriting differs from fiction, the album he made (with all sorts of great artists, scottguild.com/plasticalbum) to accompany the novel, why he'd love to do live performances of it, and how the songs changed genre from the ones in the novel. We also discuss his writing influences, esp. Kafka & Plath, why he dedicated PLASTIC to his high school English teacher, how he accidentally created his own Barbenheimer (the Barbie movie created a conceptual entry point for readers, but the characters are under the Oppenheimer-esque shadow of a nuclear war), why he didn't show his novel to his wife until 3-4 months before their wedding, whether he played with dolls as a kid (spolier: we both did), who wins in the Dostoevsky-Tolstoy Steel Cage Match, and a lot more. Follow Scott on Twitter (twitter.com/_scottguild) and Instagram (instagram.com/scottguildwriter/) • More info at chimeraobscura.com/vm/episode-577-scott-guild • Support The Virtual Memories Show via patreon.com/vmspod and via our e-newsletter, https://buttondown.email/vmspod
Conversation begins at 9:05
With his fantastic debut novel, PLASTIC (Pantheon, bookshop.org/a/4669/9780593316764), Scott Guild (https://www.scottguild.com) brings us a dystopian future of eco-terrorism, meta-reality, and . . . a world populated by plastic figurines who break out in song? We talk about the 10-year process of writing the book, how he found the stylistic elements that made it work, and why making the lead characters plastic let him bring comedy into his apocalyptic vision of the future. We get into Scott's history as a musician and how songwriting differs from fiction, the album he made (with all sorts of great artists, scottguild.com/plasticalbum) to accompany the novel, why he'd love to do live performances of it, and how the songs changed genre from the ones in the novel. We also discuss his writing influences, esp. Kafka & Plath, why he dedicated PLASTIC to his high school English teacher, how he accidentally created his own Barbenheimer (the Barbie movie created a conceptual entry point for readers, but the characters are under the Oppenheimer-esque shadow of a nuclear war), why he didn't show his novel to his wife until 3-4 months before their wedding, whether he played with dolls as a kid (spolier: we both did), who wins in the Dostoevsky-Tolstoy Steel Cage Match, and a lot more. Follow Scott on Twitter (twitter.com/_scottguild) and Instagram (instagram.com/scottguildwriter/) • More info at chimeraobscura.com/vm/episode-577-scott-guild • Support The Virtual Memories Show via patreon.com/vmspod and via our e-newsletter, https://buttondown.email/vmspod
