Alida, Matt, and Kathryn discuss short stories in a 3 part series. In part 1, we go deep into narrative voice, POV, and speculative fiction, discussing “Sonny Liston Takes the Fall” by Elizabeth Bear.
Check out the story here!
Show Notes:
Taking a look at “Sonny Liston Takes the Fall” by Elizabeth Bear, we talk about why Matt picked this story, and what it is really all about. Why did the author choose one protagonist over another? And what is the theme of this story? We talk about the narrator character and if Sonny Liston even took the fall. In the end we wonder what genre this truly is – and want to know if there is any alternate history in this story that we don’t know about.
What we talked about:
Why did Matt pick this story? (0:52)
Is the story about Sonny Liston’s fall or Mohammad Ali’s rise? (4:15)
What is the theme of this story? (6:20)
Why did Elizabeth Bear choose Sonny Liston as the Protagonist and not Mohammad Ali? (7:20)
How does the narrator’s voice affect the story? (10:15)
Why do we love the point of view character? (13:03)
How the narrative device and the structure of the story affects how we read it. (15:10)
What do we think about the white woman writing the white man telling the story of black men in America? (17:52)
What makes you care about the story? (20:59)
Did Sonny Liston take the fall? And what does that mean? (21:55)
So who is Jackie? (26:00)
What about that ending? (31:00)
Why was this published under the science fiction genre? (33:15)
Things we mentioned: