Chris Bohjalian on Telling Stories

“I decided to give myself the license to fail, and to write across gender, to write in the voice of a midwife's daughter. And if the book isn't working, fine, we'll write it from the perspective of the midwife's husband, from some other male character. But I loved it. It was so emancipating to not be me, to not be (at the time) this 30-something dude. And I loved it. And I think, my best books, my best characters, whether it's first person or third person, are women.”

 

Bestselling author and all-around charmer Chris Bohjalian has written 23 books, including our May 2021 B&N Book Club pick Hour of the Witch, The Flight Attendant—now a hit HBO series—and his latest, The Lioness. Chris joins us on the show to talk about his love of bookstores, not writing the same story twice, researching and asking questions and learning stories, letting his characters guide the plot and going back to the first sentence, geography as a character, and so much more with Poured Over’s host, Miwa Messer. And we end this episode with a TBR Topoff with Marc and Becky riffing on their favorite Bohjalian novels.

 

Featured Books:

Water Witches by Chris Bohjalian

Midwives by Chris Bohjalian

The Red Lotus by Chris Bohjalian

The Sandcastle Girls by Chris Bohjalian

Hour of the Witch by Chris Bohjalian

The Lioness by Chris Bohjalian

The Flight Attendant by Chris Bohjalian

The Night Strangers by Chris Bohjalian

The Double Bind by Chris Bohjalian

The Light in the Ruins by Chris Bohjalian

Skeletons at the Feast by Chris Bohjalian

Our Country Friends by Gary Shteyngart

Wish You Were Here by Jodi Picoult

 

Poured Over is produced and hosted by Miwa Messer and mixed by Harry Liang. Follow us here for new episodes Tuesdays and Thursdays (with occasional Saturdays).

 

A full transcript of this show is available here.