Virtual Memories Show #129:
Amanda Filipacchi – Donkey Skin
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“I love the notion of great beauty hidden in ugliness. Or vice versa.”
Amanda Filipacchi joins this week’s show to talk about her latest novel, The Unfortunate Importance of Beauty: A Novel
“My big life obsession is my lack of productivity and my constant struggle to be more productive. . . . In theory, I have a routine, but I don’t find myself sticking to it.”
Also, I make a pretty amazing bookstore discovery in the airport in Milwaukee, and give (as expected) heady praise to Clive James’ new essay collection, Latest Readings
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We talk about a bunch of books in this episode. Here’s a list of ’em (Note: if I ever go to a Patreon crowdfunding model for the show, this is the first thing that goes subscriber-only):
- The Unfortunate Importance of Beauty: A Novel
- Love Creeps: A Novel
– Amanda Filipacchi
- The Remains of the Day
– Kazuo Ishiguro
- The Blazing World
– Siri Hustvedt
- In Search of Lost Time
– Marcel Proust
- Survival In Auschwitz
– Primo Levi
- The House of Mirth
– Edith Wharton
- Jane Eyre
– Charlotte Bronte
- Crime and Punishment
– Dostoevsky
- The Picture of Dorian Gray
– Oscar Wilde
- The Great Gatsby
– F. Scott Fitzgerald
- The Lottery and Other Stories
– Shirley Jackson
- Emma
– Jane Austen
- The Fairy Tales of Charles Perrault
- The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle: A Novel
– Haruki Murakami
- Up in the Air
– Walter Kirn
- Blood Will Out: The True Story of a Murder, a Mystery, and a Masquerade
– Walter Kirn
- Big Brother: A Novel
– Lionel Shriver
- We Need to Talk About Kevin
– Lionel Shriver
- May We Be Forgiven: A Novel
– A.M. Homes
- Sparta: A Novel
– Roxana Robinson
Enjoy the conversation! Then check out the archives for more great episodes! You might like:
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About our Guest
Amanda Filipacchi
is the author of four novels: Nude Men
Born in Paris, France, Amanda Filipacchi was educated in both France and the US, and has lived in New York since the age of seventeen. She earned a BA from Hamilton College and an MFA in creative writing from Columbia University. She lives in Manhattan with Richard Hine, also a novelist.
Credits: This episode’s music is Head in a Box by Lori Carson. The conversation was recorded at an undisclosed location on a pair of Blue enCORE 200 microphones
. Her Illustration work has appeared in The SD Reader, OC Weekly, The Village Voice, SPIN, Guitar Player, Musician, and Entertainment Weekly, as well as projects like 
, 
(CD box set), 
(the James Brown CD box set), Carlsbad Museum of Making Music – “Hands on the Future” exhibit, and CD covers for The Insect Surfers and Buddy Blue. Her paintings have been exhibited at La Luz de Jesus Gallery, Track 16, David Zapt Gallery, Laguna Beach Art Museum Annex, LACE (Los Angeles), COCA (Seattle), Southwestern College, Patricia Correia Gallery, Sushi Gallery and Ducky Waddle’s Emporium. She also enjoys making hand-built ceramics and wheel thrown functional pieces that she glazes and fires in her own kiln. She enjoys painting on velvet, that which we all consider the King of Kitsch, but which also makes her color and “cubismo” style of drawing even more dramatic and mysterious on the plush background of black velvet. She lives is in Encinitas, CA, with her husband, a dog, a cat, and lots of stringed instruments. They have a band called The Wigbillies.