Maureen Callahan

My opinion.

Okay, so we are talking now.

with Adam Satella, who recently published a book called That Book is Dangerous, which covers all of this.

Here we go.

Now, right before we bring Adam in, I want to play a little bit from this movie, this trailer to the 2023

film, American Fiction, which was one of the funniest, smartest films I have seen in quite some time.

I saw it the year it came out.

It's about a Black author who cannot get traction

writing his serious books and so the white uh editors and agents in his life encourage him to write what they uh believe will be an actual real black book about the black experience that will sell here we go monk your books are good but they're not popular editors they want a black book they have a black book i'm black and it's my book you know what i mean

So that's a humorous look at the state of book publishing or one aspect of it.

Welcome, Adam, to The Nerve.

Congrats on your new book.

That book is dangerous.

And basically here, you're taking on what has become, I think, a quite sclerotic and scared industry that once obviously was at the forefront, really the vanguard of pushing

uncomfortable ideas and really critical thought that might offend people.

And there was a time when offending people was actually a good thing.

It meant you were moving the needle in the culture in some way.

Adam, what do you think has happened?

Why is book publishing now a place full of trigger warnings and safe spaces?

Yeah, so when you're talking about Penguin Random House, Simon & Schuster, this is what people in the industry call collectively the big five.