On this episode of a self-indulgent or perhaps self-abusive new podcast, writer Dan Kolitz joins co-hosts Clementine Ford, Vincenzo Barney, and Christian Lorentzen to discuss Philip Roth’s 1969 novel Portnoy’s Complaint and a contemporary phenomenon called gooning, a subculture of hypnotic masturbation chronicled by Kolitz in his recent article “The Goon Squad” for Harper’s Magazine. Topics discussed include monkeys, pumpkins, and pilgrims; how when it comes to loving yourself the waiting is the hardest part; literary sociology; The Humbling, a film by Barry Levinson; selling out; careerism; marriage; a fatal car accident; the tenderness of skin; stimulants; human opportunities working for New York City’s mayor; Freud; psychoanalysis; unreliable narration; love; mothers; This American Life; perfection; minorness and majorness; what Alex Portnoy would be up to today and whether he would be a gooner; how much of a writer’s work does one have to read in order to have an opinion about it worth expressing; self-presentation; celebrity; Norman Mailer; Cormac McCarthy; Greta Gerwig; Al Pacino; guilt; shame; and much more. Thank you for listening.

Episode ID: 1000737807006

GUID: 0686538a-bd18-4cb3-a9d6-71ed3dd55820

Release Date: 21/11/2025, 16:15:23