Virtual Memories Show 654:
M.L. Rio
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“Music, cars, going west: those things were always inseparable for me.”
With her amazing new novel, HOT WAX (Simon & Schuster), author, critic, and inveterate road-tripper M.L. Rio evokes the rock scene of the ’80s and the travails of the not-quite-Almost-Famous band GIL AND THE KILLS. We talk about the redemptive & destructive power of rock & roll, how music is inseparable from her writing process, the challenge of writing about live performance, why it makes sense that “the girl with the Shakespeare degree is writing a rock & roll novel,” and why she couldn’t gloss over the sweatiness of touring and road trips. We get into the literature gap of people in their 30s (esp. women), how this novel evolved with her over a decade, what it’s like operating in male-dominated spaces like music criticism, why she’s going out on a 34-city book tour and trying to make it as fun as a rock tour (including merch!), what it means to be an ethical eavesdropper, how she stays safe (and well fed) while solo road-tripping around America, and the joy of radio crime drama. We also discuss the obsessiveness of record collectors, the loss of nuance in literature, the warping influence of Catholicism (and the perils of reading Shakespeare and Bret Easton Ellis way too young), our first concerts (her: Green Day, me: Asia), and a lot more. Give it a listen! And go read HOT WAX!
“We have all these books about 20somethings falling in love and figuring out their happily-ever-after, and then we jump into these novels that are all about unhappy middle-aged people getting divorced. There’s nothing in the middle, and your 30s are this weird, lost decade, especially for women.”
“I got an ear for Dad Rock — for lack of a better term — at the age of 9 or 10.”
“There’s a reason there’s no Almost Famous about a girl, because we know how that would end, and it wouldn’t be good.”
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“Are the patterns that we grew up with the ones we want to keep?”
Enjoy the conversation! Then check out the archives for more great episodes!
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About our Guest
M.L. Rio has been an actor, a bookseller, an academic, and a music writer. She holds an MA in Shakespeare studies and a Ph.D. in English literature. She is the author of the internationally bestselling novel If We Were Villains, the USA TODAY bestselling novella Graveyard Shift, and now Hot Wax. She never stays in one place for long, but keeps her books, records, and four-legged sidekick in south Philadelphia.
Follow M.L. on Instagram, Facebook and Bluesky.
Credits: This episode’s music is Fella by Hal Mayforth, used with permission from the artist. The conversation was recorded at Simon & Schuster’s offices on a pair of Blue enCORE 200 microphones feeding into a Zoom PodTrak P4 digital recorder & interface. I recorded the intro and outro on a Heil PR-40 Dynamic Studio Recording Microphone feeding into a Zoom PodTrak P4. All processing and editing done in Adobe Audition CC. Nice photo of M.L. by Helena Santos; double-selfie by me. It’s on my instagram.