Jeselnik Book Club: 'The Glass Hotel' Book Review + Q&A

Jeselnik Book Club reviews 'The Glass Hotel' by Emily St. John Mandel. We break down the book’s nonlinear story and answer mailbag questions ranging from “Have you ever refused to acknowledge someone from your past?” to “What do you think of authors killing heroes?” (00:00) - Intro (00:39) - Why I joined The Ringer (11:17) - Plot recap (47:40) - How do you try without appearing to try? (48:25) - Rank the Emily St. John Mandel books (49:49) - What's the closest you've been to a Ponzi scheme? (51:00) - Thoughts on the St. John Mandel connected universe? (52:30) - Did Vincent intend to drown, or was it an accident? (53:40) - What song captures the essence of the hotel? (55:54) - How do you feel about the concept of counter lives? (57:53) - Which character do you find most interesting? (59:05) - Why is the book called 'The Glass Hotel'? (1:00:05) - Have you ever pretended to not recognize someone from your past? (1:02:30) - What do you think of Paul using Vincent's videos for his career? (1:04:25) - What do you think about authors killing their heroes? (1:06:03) - How does revealing a tragic end point early change the reader's experience? (1:07:52) - What would you do if you were implicated in this Ponzi scheme (1:09:00) - What do you think about the role of guilt in this story? (1:11:15) - Why is 9/11 never alluded to in this book? (1:13:35) - Is this book better on a second read? (1:15:04) - What is your favorite place to read? (1:19:00) - October Book Club selection: 'The Trees' by Percival Everett Email us your thoughts and questions about our next book club selection, 'The Trees,' by October 26 at mailto:[email protected]. Join Jeselnik Book Club: https://anthonyjeselnik.com/the-jeselnik-book-club Tour dates: https://anthonyjeselnik.com/tour Host: Anthony Jeselnik Supervising Producer: Magdalena Munao Talent Booker: Paige Garbarini Creative Producer: Daniel Comer Technical Director: Chris Wohlers Set Design: Jonathan Ratliff and Gitu Mehra Editor: Matt Pevic Social: Michael Rovzar Additional Production Supervision: Jack Wilson Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  The wheel had roads. Electricity had the grid. Innovation needs infrastructure. Plaid makes AI work in finance. Visit plaid.com/ai to learn more.

• 0:20Anthony Jeselnik?

  Hey, Anthony Jeselnik here with September's Jeselnik Book Club recap of The Glass Hotel by Emily St. John Mandel. I'm excited to talk about this book. It is a difficult one. It's a great story, but it's all over the place. They go year to year. I'm gonna be looking at my notes a lot. Before we get into the book and how much I love this book, I think we should talk about what's different. Last month, if you have listened to all of these, I announced there would be some changes coming that would not mind to announce. I am working under a higher power at this point. I'm here at The Ringer. Some people know what that is. Everyone I know knows what that is. Some people did not. It's Spotify.

• 1:05Anthony Jeselnik?

  It's basically Spotify, but it's like the cool version of Spotify. It's not TV, it's HBO. Think about it like that.

• 1:25Anthony Jeselnik?

  People wondered why I came here to the network. They came to me. Like, when I decided to do this book club at the beginning of the year, I was hoping for the best and preparing for the worst. I didn't know if anyone would be into it, if people would watch these videos, if people would like the videos, if people would continue, if it would grow. And I was shocked at how much people were engaged with Jeselnik Book Club from the beginning. I was even more surprised, pleasantly surprised, at how much I enjoyed doing Jeselnik Book Club. The first video in January, I'm shooting in my manager's conference room on an iPhone and loved it.

• 2:07Anthony Jeselnik?

  Did it in one take, did it in under an hour, was pleasantly surprised at the questions I was asked, felt good talking about the book. I enjoyed reading a book I loved for the second time and bringing my knowledge to people who were reading it for the first time. But I immediately knew that I enjoyed this and I was happy that the audience stayed with me. And then, as we kept going, I just kept enjoying it more and more. The audience would grow and pretty quickly, two or three months in, The Ringer came to me. I assumed I would do this for a year, get 12 of these done, see if I still enjoyed it, and then maybe shop it around as a podcast, maybe. And at the time, it would have been a monthly thing, just like I was doing.

• 2:52Anthony Jeselnik?

  I enjoy my life as a touring stand-up comedian. In fact, go to jeselnik.com right now, anthonyjeselnik.com, and look up the tour dates. They're selling out and I'm having a hell of a time on tour. I love my new hour. I have a job, this was like a side hustle, but I liked it the more that I did it. And The Ringer came to me and said, "Make it a podcast." And we took months to negotiate because they were thinking, "Hey, do you want to do it weekly?" And I'm like, "No, a monthly book club is, that's how book clubs work." And then, a couple of months into negotiation, one of my good friends who's gonna be on the podcast coming up was coming through town on a book tour with his new book.

• 3:33Anthony Jeselnik?

  And he said, "Would you come to Skylight Books in LA and interview me as part of my book tour?" And I had never done that before. I had never interviewed an author. If you know my podcast experience, I've never interviewed anyone. But I went and did this interview at a bookstore and had the time of my life. It was funny, it was fun, it was easy to do, it felt organic and natural, the way this book club has felt natural to me. And I loved doing it so much and had so much fun. And my friend was like, "Oh, you did a great job. I've never done a book interview like this." It was almost like a book roast. And I was like, "Oh, that's just how I talk." And after that interview, I realized I could do this every week. And so, I signed with The Ringer to do a weekly podcast.

• 4:17Anthony Jeselnik?

  We'll do four of these a month, and I'm not gonna expect you to read four books a month, but the goal is still to get you to read. The goal is still to get you to read 12 books a year. Again, my audience is 85% men, I'm pitching two guys, but the ladies, you're welcome to, you know, you're welcome to follow along. And again, we picked very diverse books here at Jeselnik Book Club. I think everyone is enjoying it. But I will also be talking to people who have new books coming out, people who wrote books that were in my last year's top 10 are gonna come on, and I'm very excited to talk to these authors. I'm honored that they want to come on and talk to me. I hope I can sell some books for them.

• 4:58Anthony Jeselnik?

  I hope that by listening to us talk, you were not only entertained, but it makes you want to buy the book, I think that, or read the book. I think that the more you follow along with the book club as it goes to weekly here at The Ringer, that you will just think about reading more. With the book club, it's like I'm giving you 12 books to read, but if you're hearing about a different book every week, you will learn more of what's out there and maybe you'll want to read 14 books a year. Maybe you'll be like, "Oh, that one sounds good, it sounds better than the one before." I don't really care. I'm gonna be giving you a lot. I'm gonna be throwing you a new book every week with either a friend I'm talking to. We got Greg Rosenthal coming up next week, spoiler alert, and we'll be talking about

• 5:42Anthony Jeselnik?

  Life of M a little bit, and then just kinda messing around. But then I have authors coming on, talking about their own books. Again, I'm not expecting you to read everything before they come out. Sometimes, we're talking to them before the book actually hits the streets. That's how far inside I am. And I just love being at The Ringer. Again, we did not shop this around. The Ringer came to me, I knew a couple of people here, and the more people that I have met, the more I have enjoyed this. I know the names of five people on staff. Paige, Noah, Daniel, Mags, Bill. That's unheard of for me on a staff, and I have gotten no notes from The Ringer.

• 6:27Anthony Jeselnik?

  So, I am thrilled to be here at The Ringer. Nothing is going to change book club-wise, except we're in a nicer room. I've got support. I've got authors coming up that I cannot believe want to come talk to me, that I never would have been able to schedule, put things together. So, I think things are just gonna get a lot better here at The Ringer. You can still go to my website, anthonyjeselnik.com, put it in your email address, I'll keep sending that email. The book club itself is not going to change. Once a month, you'll send in your emails, I will answer them just like this, but every week, I think it's gonna keep getting better with authors, friends, celebrities, people talking about reading in a way that will make you want to read even more than you are with the book club.

• 7:12Anthony Jeselnik?

  Again, the goal is to get people to read. I think that the more entertaining this podcast is, and I've got a whole team of people trying to make it as entertaining as possible. I mean, it's almost impossible to get an entertaining conversation out of Greg Rosenthal. We're gonna find a way with the team that we have, and you have me. So, I'm gonna be recapping these books at the end of every month, and we're gonna have a weekly podcast on Wednesdays, talking books, talking to authors that I am thrilled to talk to. People are coming out of the woodwork trying to get on the show, and we haven't even premiered yet. This is the premiere, so I'm turning down people that I'm just like, "You're not good enough.

• 7:57Anthony Jeselnik?

  You haven't won the accolades that you need to sit across from me and talk to me about your book." And I'm gonna read all these books. I'll be reading everything. So, I'm only gonna give you books that I really liked. You can read them all if you want and be a superstar, or you can just read the 12 books we've got in the regular Jeselnik Book Club, but we're not for the long haul. I'm on a one-year deal with two options that The Ringer has. I'm allowed to quit whenever I want, but again, I didn't start this for the money. I'm not doing it for the money now. I make a lot of money doing stand-up comedy. I won't tell you how much I'm making here, but when I told my business manager how much

• 8:41Anthony Jeselnik?

  I was making here, he did not put it in my annual budget. That's what we're working with. This is still for the love of the game. I just now have a great support system, and I haven't lost Ms. Kim. Ms. Kim's right there. Ms. Kim used to be standing behind an iPhone. Now, she's sitting over there in a comfortable seat, waiting for me to mess something up so she can correct me. So, we just have, it's just gonna get better. We are not changing, we are accelerating, and I'm excited to be here, for now. I can see in a month, me just blowing my top and ending all of this, but for now, I'm thrilled. So, I hope you guys enjoy me at The Ringer.

• 9:21Anthony Jeselnik?

  I hope you continue to, you can continue to watch the show on YouTube like you have been. The other episodes will just be on YouTube. If you're a member of Spotify, if that's how they call it. Again, I've never listened to a podcast in my life. I've never watched one in my life, but you can continue to watch it on my YouTube channel. If you go to Spotify, you can now listen to it as a podcast and watch it, but you can listen to it on anywhere else that you get your podcasts. So, we are just getting a little bit bigger. I would like to have a little more reach than we did before, and that's why I am here at The Ringer. But again, there were no other suitors. It was like, do I want to just keep doing this in my living room with Ms. Kim, or do I want to go somewhere with a bigger reach?

• 10:05Anthony Jeselnik?

  And I think I'm gonna bring The Ringer a whole new audience, okay? People who wear graduation caps on the regular are gonna be watching The Ringer now. So, I think they're happy to have me, a real comedian, and I'm happy to be here, for sure. So, that is why I'm at The Ringer. But now, let's get to the real star of the month. That is The Glass Hotel by Emily St. John Mandel. They told me to describe the cover of the book, The Lawyers, in order to not get sued. I think that's very funny, so I'm gonna do it. It's a little island. You don't even see The Glass Hotel. Maybe it's just see-through, but we got an island here, and it says, "The Glass Hotel

• 10:48Anthony Jeselnik?

  by Emily St. John Mandel, bestselling author of Station 11." Again, this is one of my favorite books of hers. She had written Station 11, which was the first book I read of hers. She wrote a kind of a sequel to this called The Sea of Tranquility, and she's got a new one out right now called Exit Party that came out two weeks ago that is an absolute banger. Might be one of, might have surpassed The Glass Hotel for my favorite in the Mandel verse, if you will. And we want to get Emily St. John Mandel on the show at some point. She's in New York, no plans to come to LA, and I don't do Zoom. We don't do Zoom here at Jeselnik Book Club. It's not a thing. Let's get into the glass hotel. Let's do a plot recap. And again, this is gonna be tough.

• 11:33Anthony Jeselnik?

  This, this book takes place in like six different times throughout and they jump around. So I'm gonna kind of just go off what I remember, what really sticks out to me. I'll try to get the years right. We start, and it's, I think the book starts with, we start at the end. It is Vincent drowning. Vincent's falling over a boat. And again, it's very sensory, this opening chapter. She's hitting the cold water. She loses her breath. She doesn't know which way is up or down. Her life is flashing before her eyes. And you don't know this is her death just yet. Uh, it could, if she could get saved at some point, you just know that she is in trouble. She is in the water and she is looking over her life.

• 12:15Anthony Jeselnik?

  Cut to, uh, Vincent, it's a nine, now, this is 2018 that she is drowning, falling off this boat. And I think this book came out in 2018. Uh, then we go back to 1994. Vincent is a teenager. She is at school and she is writing with a acid tipped marker, something I did not know existed. On a window of the school, she's writing, "Sweet me up." Uh, just a, it was either a song lyric she liked. I think it's some kind of, uh, there was a, a philosopher, Knosgaard, if I'm saying that correctly. Knosgaard, I don't know. I'm not into philosophy, but I have seen the notes. Did she write, "Sweet me up" on this in acid pen? You can't fix that, you gotta get a new window.

• 12:58Anthony Jeselnik?

  Uh, her brother, her half brother, Paul, comes around the corner, sees her doing this, too late to stop her. They go home, the, the, the school's already called, uh, the house. Vincent's in trouble, she's getting suspended. And Paul is also in trouble. And Paul has been, uh, kind of in and out of rehab for heroin. And they're not happy with Paul for letting this happen. They don't think it's a good idea to have them together. Paul kind of gets banished and, uh, Vincent goes to live with an aunt, I believe, uh, in either Vancouver or Toronto. Uh, I wanna say Vancouver, goes, it goes to see the aunt in Vancouver. Uh, this original thing is happening on an island off of Vancouver. Uh, beautiful place.

• 13:41Anthony Jeselnik?

  Where they are starting to build a glass hotel. This is again, in 1994. Then we cut to 1999. This is one of my favorite parts of the whole book. Paul is now, he's been out of rehab a few times. He has been addicted to heroin. He is now 23 years old as like a freshman in college. I think University of Toronto. And he's, it's hard for him to make friends. Again, he's older than everybody else and he's a former heroin addict. They're not the most fun people to hang with, so he's kind of lonely. He's looking for something to do. He goes to see a band. He goes to see this band called Balticica that will play a factor. And he immediately falls in love. He does, he thinks they're okay, but he falls in love with the lead singer, this gorgeous woman, uh, who plays, sings and plays the violin.

• 14:27Anthony Jeselnik?

  He's into them. Afterwards, he tries to talk them up a little bit. She's one of those women who's so gorgeous, she knows everyone's hitting on them. And she kind of blows them off, but they say, "Hey, we go hang out at this bar sometimes." That's cool. Paul, a couple of days later, goes to this bar, I think Tuesday nights is where it's at. He scores some ecstasy off a stranger. He gets like four pills. He takes one of them and has a real bad trip. He has an awful time, he feels sick, but he's like, "Maybe it's just me, maybe I just had a bad reaction to it." Uh, he gets, they send him out of the bar after closing and like, "What if he took, didn't agree with you?" And he's like, "You're right. I should, I'm better off sober." Goes a couple of weeks later to the bar, sees Balticica. They're there, it's like, it's a three man band.

• 15:09Anthony Jeselnik?

  Uh, it's Annika, I believe, and then a guy named Charlie Wu is the keyboardist and then another guy. And they're friendly to Paul, they remember him from meeting him. Paul asks out Annika and she's like, "No, but it never hurts to ask." They're like, "Okay." He's like, "Hey, would you guys like some ecstasy?" He's like, "I bought these a while ago, it's not really my thing. I don't sell drugs, I don't wanna sell them, but would you like these?" And Annika's like, "Oh, I took those like a week ago." She kind of gives the thumbs up that these are okay to take. She takes one, Charlie Wu takes two. And then Charlie Wu dies, like an hour later, his heart stops, he dies on the dance floor. Which I think to me was like insane to me to start the book out this way.

• 15:48Anthony Jeselnik?

  Even more than Vincent drowning or Vincent graffitiing a window is that I could see this happening in college. You get some drugs from someone, you pass them out to somebody and someone dies because of you. He feels horrible and he takes the fuck off, which is understandable. He's not doing that well at Toronto. The people from Balticica don't know him, they only know his name, Paul. He just leaves like that night. I think it's like a night or two before New Year's Eve. He flees the city, calls his aunt, trying to look for Vincent, who he has not talked to in a while, or in, in years maybe. The aunt says, "Vincent's moved out, Vincent's so independent, I couldn't keep you here." She didn't even finish high school. She left. He tracks her down, finds Vincent living with her roommate.

• 16:33Anthony Jeselnik?

  I think it's the same girl who was with her when she drew on the wind, on the, on the glass window in high school, wrote, "Sweet me up." And they go out to a party and Paul is haunted. Paul feels like shit from killing a random keyboardist. And wherever they go, they go into a nightclub and he hears a remix of Balticica. And he's like, "I've gotta get out of here." He goes outside, he's just shivering in the cold because he can't go in. They go to another club and he sees Charlie Wu, the guy who died. He sees like the guy dancing in the club or just staring at him. He's like, "It's a packed club, is it him? It's not." This is like a theme throughout the book of just ghosts of the people that you're, either killed flat out or whose lives you have affected are haunting you.

• 17:15Anthony Jeselnik?

  That guilt kind of never leaves you and chases you down. We're gonna go back, go forward into the future to, uh, 2005. Uh, oh, and you know what? Real quick, while this is, while this story is being told about Paul, uh, you know, killing a guy accidentally with the wrong drugs and, uh, going to see his sister, fucking things up with his sister when he should have been looking out for her and she's vandalizing windows, he is talking to a therapist. He is talking to someone where it seems like he's on the other side of things. And you can't tell here how far on the other side. You know, he like gets away with killing a guy, but you don't know, uh, if it's taking place in like the far future

• 18:00Anthony Jeselnik?

  or just like a couple of years. But at this point, Paul is sober and is looking back with the clarity of someone who has gone through, uh, their addiction. So you can, and I like that, uh, when that happens in a book, because you know at least Paul gets out of this, okay? And it gives you kind of different perspective on the story that he's telling. We're gonna go to 2005 now. Okay, it's, it's, it's six years after Paul and Vincent have reconnected. And it's a tenuous reconnection. They are kind of envious, they, they don't really get along. I think Paul's dad cheated on his mom with a beautiful hippie. And the hippie had Vincent. So he kind of blames Vincent for kind of breaking up the marriage.

• 18:45Anthony Jeselnik?

  She's a half sister. She is beautiful and self-possessed and confident and these are things that Paul lacks himself. Uh, he probably thinks Vincent would be an amazing musician if she wanted to be, but he just can't believe that she doesn't have the insecurities that he has while he's taking heroin. And they don't really get a chance to connect as kids. I think they have one conversation where he tells her that he's been in and out of rehab for heroin and she goes wide-eyed, but he can't give her more. He's so ashamed that he just kind of leaves the room and they, they don't talk again until 1999 when they're all worried about Y2K and shit. But she is cool. And you go to 2005 and now Paul and Vincent are working in, oh, I gotta go back again. Vincent's mom dies.

• 19:30Anthony Jeselnik?

  Vincent's mom dies in a kayaking accident or possible suicide. Vincent's mom goes out in a kayak, she knows what she's doing, she lives on Vancouver Island. She goes kayaking all the time. And then one day she's gone. One day she goes out and they find the body like a day or two later. And she knew what she was doing, so everyone, it's a mystery. They really don't, can't say it's a suicide, but they can't say it's an accident either. And that really fucks Vincent up. And that's the reason that Paul is even there with her. That's the reason she's drawing on windows, like she's having a hard time because of the loss of her mother.

• 20:06Anthony Jeselnik?

  So now, we're in 2005, we are in the Glass Hotel. It has a name, doesn't matter, no one cares, everyone calls it the Glass Hotel. It's one of those places that's in the middle of nowhere. It's on this island in Vancouver that's almost impossible to get to. And they only have a few rooms. It's just like very, very rich people going into beautiful nature, but not really having to go into nature. They can go on hikes, they can go on boat rides, but they're just in this like ultimate luxury hotel uh in the middle of nowhere, where they have like a total privacy from the outside world. And in this night, uh Pa- Paul is uh is working there as kind of like a

• 20:47Anthony Jeselnik?

  a jack of all trades, I don't know what you would call the job, but he kind of just, he mops up, he cleans things. House manager is the wrong word, but he does a bunch of different odd jobs. Vincent is the bartender. Vincent is a babe and she's just like a high-end bartender at this job. Uh there's a guy named Walter who runs the hotel, who's in charge of it, and they had to talk him in to taking this remote job. But he finds that he loves it, and he loves the hotel. And uh there's a guy named Leon Prevent, who is a guy who works in shipping, who takes his wife there, I think it's their anniversary. He has kind of insomnia, he's up late at night. And uh one night, they're there, and all of a sudden, there's like, people are freaking out.

• 21:30Anthony Jeselnik?

  Walter's telling the side of the story, who runs the hotel. And Leon Prevent is in the, is in the lobby, having a drink, and he sees on the window all of a sudden, it just kind of appears. It just says, "Why don't you, why don't you swallow broken glass?" In giant letters on a luxury hotel, on this big glass wall almost, "Why don't you swallow broken glass?" Leon's horrified, Vincent sees it, she's crying. Uh Walter is horrified, like, "Someone fucked with my hotel, I can't believe someone would do this." And it's a horrifying message that no one understands yet. And some people will never understand. Walter's horrified, Leon's horrified, they're getting him a drink, Vincent's like crying, Paul comes in

• 22:15Anthony Jeselnik?

  and sees uh sees what's happened, they're already hiding it, they're very good at taping over the wall, putting up plants. And Paul walks in and Walter says, "Oh," uh Paul says, "What happened?" Trying to feign, uh you know, like he doesn't know what's going on, again, spoiler alert, Paul did this, you will find out shortly. Paul's the one who took an acid marker and wrote this. And uh they say, "Someone wrote, 'Why don't you swallow broken glass on the wall.'" And Paul's like, "Oh, did that guy see it?" Points to Leon, and they're like, "What? Wh- why do you care?" And he's like, um, Jonathan Alcides. Jonathan Alcides, didn't he see it? Jonathan Alcides is a guest, I think maybe even the owner of the hotel, who is visiting that night, but his flight gets delayed.

• 23:00Anthony Jeselnik?

  And so Paul's plan of writing this on the wall so that uh so that Jonathan Alcides can see it, is foiled almost immediately. He th- he confuses the two people, Jonathan Alcides never sees this uh this message that has been sent, you don't know who told Paul to write this, but Walter figures it out pretty goddamn quick and goes and confronts Paul and says, "I know you did this." Paul tries to say, "No, I I didn't do it," and he's like, "No, I know you did. You can either leave right now, pack your things and get on the next boat, or I can call the cops." And Paul's like, "No, don't call the cops," he's like, "Sorry, I had a lot of debt," like, it's meaning like someone paid him to do this. But Walter doesn't even care, he's just like, "Get out, we're gonna fix this."

• 23:45Anthony Jeselnik?

  Later on that night, Jonathan Alcides comes to the hotel. He talks to Leon Prevent, who's still freaked out about the window, but they talk about money. Jonathan Alcides is an investor, he is a Bernie Madoff, uh in every sense of the word. And that's like a spoiler and not a spoiler. Uh I couldn't name another financier other than Bernie Madoff. Uh but they start talking and Jonath- uh Leon's like decides he's gonna invest. Uh Jonathan Alcides starts, uh I think Walter i- invests with Jonathan Alcides. He just gives people confidence, and he lets them, when he talks to them about money, he makes it seem like he's doing everyone a favor, like, "Hey, we have like a tight-knit team of people we invest for,

• 24:28Anthony Jeselnik?

  but we do very well, and we'll let you in, you know, I like you, I like the cut of your jib, I'm gonna let you in." Whole thing's a pyramid scheme. Uh he starts talking to Vincent, tips Vincent a hundred dollars. The next day, Paul is gone from the island, and Vincent is gone from the island. Walter's like, "What the fuck, what happened to Vincent?" He knew they were like half brother, half sister. A year later, he sees in the paper that uh Jonathan Alcides and Vincent are married. Uh he is shocked by this, but I think he, Jonathan Alcides picks her up, like in a night, and convinces her just like, "Hey, let's get married," or say we're married. They aren't actually married, but Alcides like plays it up enough that I think they wear wedding rings.

• 25:11Anthony Jeselnik?

  And Jonathan Alcides's own daughter, whose name is Claire, believes they are married, like he lies to her and says, "We are actually married." Jonathan Alcides had been married previously to a woman, I wanna say her name was Suzanne. I got it right, thank you, Miss Kim. Uh her na- her name is Suzanne, she gets sick, uh it's like the love of her, a love of his life, she ends up dying. And I think shortly after her death, he's, his mourning period's over, he meets Vincent and he's like, "Hey, let's make this strictly transactional, I will take care of you, you will live in my place in Connecticut. You'll be like available to me, but you're kind of just kind of arm candy." He's thirty-four years older than her, I believe, which is problematic.

• 25:54Anthony Jeselnik?

  Uh but she's so rich that he's like, he's like, "I don't care." Vincent takes off, I don't know if she even knows that Paul got fired, like, they're just gone. Paul and Vincent don't really see each other again, ever. Uh or for a while. After this, uh now, we kind of cut to, we're away from the Glass Hotel. Now we're in the city, we're in Connecticut, we're in the world of the rich, where Vincent is kind of bored. She wakes up during the day, she goes into Manhattan, she works out, she gets a haircut, she goes shopping. She has a friend named uh Morella, who is married to a guy named Faisal, who's like a prince. Faisal uh invests money with uh Alcides.

• 26:35Anthony Jeselnik?

  And she hangs out with uh M- Morella mostly, and they talk about, kind of like what rich people talk about. How it's kind of boring to be rich, how you're just surrounded by people all the time who want things from you and serve you and do things. But she is enjoying herself and enjoying her new life. She buys a camera, and uh she will make home videos, like five-minute videos, something she used to do when she was a kid. But she now does it like from the rooftop of these amazing places. Now we are going to cut back a little bit, we're gonna go back to nineteen fifty-eight. We talk about guilt, we talk about family in this book.

• 27:15Anthony Jeselnik?

  Nineteen fifty-eight, there's a guy named Lucas Alcides, who is Jonathan Alcides's older brother, and he is an artist, and possibly a great one. And he goes around painting, but he's, he's a heroin addict, people kind of know he's damaged, they try to stay away from him. He meets a woman named uh Olivia, who is also a painter, and they decide to model for each other. I think she models for him, he models for her, and she paints like her masterpiece, her best painting of uh of Lucas Alcides. And but it's clear that he's a junkie from the painting. He takes his shirt off, she kind of shows the needle marks, and when they, when the uh, when the picture gets out there

• 27:55Anthony Jeselnik?

  and is put in a gallery, he's furious at her for exposing him, and he dies ten months later. He overdoses in an alley somewhere. There's a brief moment of uh Lucas Alcides and Jonathan Alcides, who's much younger, looks up to his brother, tries to bond with his brother, but his brother's so far gone. The parents are, it's clear to the parents that uh that their son's a junkie, and they try to save him, but they can't. Uh but now uh Olivia has this painting of uh of Lucas Alcides, and eventually it sells for two hundred thousand dollars. She meets Jonathan Alcides, now she's a much older woman, I think they might, she's not that much older than Jonathan, because Jonathan's already older.

• 28:40Anthony Jeselnik?

  But uh she sells this painting for like two hundred thousand dollars, she's been a broke artist her whole life. Uh Jonathan Alcides admits that he's the one who bought it, he loves his picture of his brother, and he's like, "And I'll invest your money for you." So they become friends, it's like his friend in the art world. And I kind of think it kind of just goes to show how Jonathan Alcides preys on everyone. He doesn't care if they're like a dear friend of his, or just some random guy he met at a bar, or an employee, he will take your money. Then we're gonna cut to 2009. Jonathan Al-Qaida is in prison. Something has happened. He's in there for 170 years in prison. And he starts going through something called counter-life. Like Vincent's gone, it's just Jonathan Al-Qaida in this prison.

• 29:26Anthony Jeselnik?

  That is a minimal security. He's an old guy who's in there for like white-collar crime. Even though he ruined many lives. He talks about people who killed themselves. When they found out about his fraud, when his pyramid scheme collapsed. In the financial collapse of 2008. Everything got exposed. He was bringing in new clients to pay to the old clients. And once it got exposed and they were overextended. He lost everything, everyone lost everything. Olivia finds out that, and again, I'm skipping around. But Olivia finds out she can only stay in her apartment for like two more months. And then she has to go and live with her sister. People, I think Faisal, his friend and husband of Morella kills himself immediately.

• 30:10Anthony Jeselnik?

  Some people have heart attacks when they find this out. People are furious, he's ruined lives. And in this counter-life.

• 30:19Anthony Jeselnik?

  Jonathan Al-Qaida sees these people walking around the prison. Sometimes they'll talk to him, he'll have conversations with Faisal. He will have fantasies in this counter-life of what if he had escaped that day? They kind of know this is coming to an end. He has a fantasy about opening up the windows and getting on with the window washers. Bribing them, putting on a white suit. Going down like James Bond and leaving the country. Then we cut to 2013. So we know, we know Al-Qaida is in jail. And then we cut to 2013, Vincent is now a cook at sea. She works on like a shipping vessel with a bunch of different guys and she's the cook. She just gets up, cooks them breakfast, lunch, dinner. And then has free time on the boat. She enjoys this life.

• 31:03Anthony Jeselnik?

  She's cut her hair, she looks different, she kind of tries to leave everything behind. They do a flashback of her life. Where when she tries to make, kind of stay in the city. After the crime goes down. And again, we're gonna find out all about this crime. In like a couple pages. But it just shows her, she tries to, she becomes a bartender in New York. Vincent is a bartender in New York. And doing her best to make ends meet. She's a normal person and fine with it. But Morella comes in. Morella, Morella, Morella. Morella comes in and pretends to ignore her. Like pretends like she is not there. Will not speak to her. As if she is complicit in her former husband, fake husband's crimes.

• 31:48Anthony Jeselnik?

  And Morella's like, okay, I gotta get the hell out of here. And wants to go to a life at sea. And is enjoying her life at sea. She even has a boyfriend on the boat. And I think she works like nine months. And then has three months where she goes away. And since she doesn't have a family, she doesn't go home like the other guys. She goes to Iceland for three months, she goes to Thailand for three months. The crew loves her, she's very popular and is enjoying her life.

• 32:14Anthony Jeselnik?

  Go back to 2015 now, go move forward to 2015. Al-Qaida is losing his mind in prison. He is older, he talks to a journalist who interviews him. He starts seeing more ghosts as more of these people are dying. He sees Olivia one day, he's like, what happened to Olivia? Asks the journalist and they're like, oh, Olivia, she died a month ago. So he's losing it more and more in this counter-life, regretting decisions. Thinking about the people that he hurt, his brother.

• 32:42Anthony Jeselnik?

  We go to 2008. And this is right before, right before everything gets figured out. Where Vincent and Jonathan Al-Qaida's marriage isn't going well, their relationship's not going well. But they're on a boat with Olivia. And Olivia mentions going to the Brooklyn Academy of Music. Vincent's like, oh, that sounds interesting. Goes and sees that her brother, Paul, Paul pops up again. Is now a composer of some renown. And is doing a concert at the Brooklyn Hall of Music. And she's like, a Brooklyn Academy of Music. And she's like, oh, I've gotta go to this. I'm excited to see my brother for the first time in forever. Goes, sits in the front row.

• 33:26Anthony Jeselnik?

  The brother comes out and he's playing Baltic, Baltic songs remixed. And he's showing videos that are Vincent's videos. From when she was a kid, her like five-minute videos. And she feels betrayed. She's not honored by this, she is disgusted that he would do it. And when, and Paul notices her right away. I don't think she notices that he notices her. But with the second song, she gets up and leaves. And never sees him again, is like furious that he would steal her stuff. He feels bad that he would steal, that she knows. But she wasn't doing anything with it, he like found it amongst her things. But is now like his guilt is leading him to just remix Baltic songs as a composer.

• 34:08Anthony Jeselnik?

  And play his sister who he let down videos behind him. Now, now it gets exciting. Now after this, now after Vincent never sees his brother again. We get to the night of the Christmas party in 2018. Jonathan Al-Qaida is very aware of what's about to happen. And he's trying to like pretend like it's not for as long as he can. But there are people in his office who are in on the scheme. There's like two floors of the office. His daughter, Jonathan's daughter Claire works on one. And he's got a bunch of people working on another. Claire has no idea that there's any kind of pyramid scheme going on. But she's starting to figure it out. There has been a journalist a while back named Ella Kaspariski.

• 34:54Anthony Jeselnik?

  Who one night Jonathan tries to tell about how good he is as an investor. And how his investments always make money. She looks into this, he thinks she's drunker than she is. She looks into it and is like, you're a fraud. Tells people that he's a fraud. Tries to go to the papers, they don't really believe it. Like it's before Bernie Madoff and people aren't as, it's not as sexy a story. So he kind of gets away with it just by reputation. Now that's coming crumbling down on him. All the people he works with in his office are like shredding documents. And they all have different reactions to it. I think Kasparitis is just, or Kasparitis. Al-Qaida is like just trying to keep his chin up. He's going through with the Christmas party. He's gotta tell Vincent.

• 35:40Anthony Jeselnik?

  They bring Vincent into the office, one of my favorite lines of Vincent's in the whole thing. They bring Vincent to the office, his second-in-command Harvey is there. And Claire is there, the daughter. And Claire's furious, Claire's just now finding out. They bring Vincent, they tell her, hey, this is all coming down.

• 35:57Anthony Jeselnik?

  This is a pyramid, this is a pyramid scheme. And the daughter says, they tell her what it is and it's like, oh, you're running a pyramid scheme? And Claire says, you better not have known about this. How do you know what a pyramid scheme is? And Vincent says, of course, I knew nothing about this. I never would have gotten involved with this guy if I knew. I know what a pyramid scheme is because I'm not a fucking idiot. And even Jonathan Al-Qaida is like, there she is. This is the girl that I, that I wanted to spend as much of my life with as I could. The different, the different employees all have different reactions. Harvey, there's like, there's Harvey, Joelle, Enrico, Oscar and Simone. Are the employees in the office and they all get their own little moment. During this collapse of the office during the Christmas party.

• 36:42Anthony Jeselnik?

  Where Harvey just starts admitting to everything. Writing down all of his crimes in a yellow legal pad to give to the FBI. Joelle denies it all, denies anything happened. The next day she takes her kids to like different toy stores around New York and buys them things. But clearly something's wrong and she's upset. So he tries to make it like one last day for her kids, like, isn't it special? We got hot chocolate? Isn't it special you got this giraffe? But the kids are gonna think of it as the worst day of their life. Because their mom's about to go to jail. And she tried to play it off without telling them the truth. It's a very tragic, very fun little tidbit in that story. Enrico leaves the country immediately. Enrico's like, fuck this, I'm not going to jail.

• 37:27Anthony Jeselnik?

  He goes to Mexico and just disappears, changes his name. Oscar does something a little different. Oscar fantasizes about leaving the country. Oscar does a lot of Google searches for countries that don't have extradition? Extradition? And then he follows Vincent out of the Christmas party. She's now left, she is mad at her husband. And leaves the Christmas party furious. Oscar follows her, seduces her and has sex with her before he goes to jail. Which I think is the coolest thing you can do if you are about to go to jail. Is seduce your boss's much younger, hot wife. And the next morning Vincent wakes up, Oscar's gone, he's about to go get arrested.

• 38:12Anthony Jeselnik?

  Vincent just takes whatever money she has in this apartment they have in New York. And beats it. And the next time you see her, she's a bartender. There was a secretary named Simone, who's just started there, who has no idea what's going on. They're having her by paper shredders. She's shredding things she knows she's probably something's up. She takes something and puts it in her pocket, uh, like a document to help the FBI eventually. And then Claire enlists her help. Claire, the daughter, enlists Simone's help to get things out of the office. So she's not have to go in there and deal with the FBI. And Simone's like, I don't know what I'm gonna do now. This is my job. And she's like, in 20 years, you'll be telling the story at every dinner party you go to. And everyone will love this. This will be the biggest story of your life. Like, this is a cool thing that's actually happening to you, even though it's ruining my life.

• 38:57Anthony Jeselnik?

  And that turns out to be true. Uh, so we've already gone through the victims of this. Olivia's ruined, moves in with her sister, eventually dies. Leon Prevent, the guy from the beginning, who's having a drink in a hotel, shipping magnet, the shipping company he's working with is kind of fucked because of the collapse of 2008 financially. He's got all his money with Al Qaida. He's screwed. He and his wife have a house in Florida they were planning to retire to. They have to, uh, they can't sell their house. Uh, the mortgage is killing them. They're behind in the mortgage. They have a camper that they had bought a few years earlier. And they just abandoned the house, take the camper. And they end up just driving around the country,

• 39:40Anthony Jeselnik?

  working in like Amazon warehouses, working in, at like carnivals, like seasonal workers. It's a terrible fate for someone coming from the corporate world. That they, and as they get older, their knees hurt more. It's more difficult for them. And I think they have one of the worst fates of anyone. And then, uh, Walter, who, uh, runs the hotel, he was invested with Al Qaida. He is ruined financially, finds out the hotel is going to close, but then figures out a way to talk himself into becoming the caretaker of the glass hotel. They're gonna try to sell this, but it's gonna be hard to sell. So for like literally 10 years of this book, he lives there by himself in the woods,

• 40:24Anthony Jeselnik?

  having the time of his life, not lonely, absolutely loves it. People check on him. He talks to friends and stuff, goes into the village. But he just lives in this glass hotel and takes care of it. And probably has the best fate of anyone in this book. Uh, now we're gonna cut back to the night of, why don't you swallow broken glass? And find out why that happened. Ella Kasparsky, the journalist, who figured out that, um, Al Qaida was, uh, was a fraud, is kind of fighting with him. Where he, they're, he's trying to trash her reputation. She's trying to trash his. And when Suzanne, or Susan, Al Qaida's wife, is like very sick. She doesn't really have her mind right.

• 41:09Anthony Jeselnik?

  They go to a restaurant and he knows she's got like months to live. He's just trying to make her life happy. She can barely eat at dinner. And he says, oh, that's the journalist. That's the woman who's trying to ruin me and ruin us. And Suzanne's like, oh, I'm gonna say something. And walks by and as they're walking over, a, a glass falls nearby. And, uh, I think Al Qaida tries to be nice to the journalist and just say, you know, we, we don't like each other, but you know, whatever. Suzanne, the wife, picks up the glass, a piece of glass, and drops it into, uh, into Ella's wine glass and says, why don't you swallow broken glass? And that sticks with Ella Kasparsky. So Ella Kasparsky hates this guy.

• 41:52Anthony Jeselnik?

  I mean, I think probably feels bad about the wife, but like, really hates him that he's taking advantage of all these people. And right before he's finally found out, uh, goes to the hotel, gets drunk, finds Paul and says, you know, can you help me? I wanna do something to this guy. I want revenge. Would you? And gets, and he's like, oh, I think it's Paul's idea to use an acid marker. Gets him to write, why don't you swallow broken glass on the, on the, uh, on the glass? Even though Kaspar, Kaspar, I'm gonna say Kasparitis so bad. He was one of my favorite hockey players, but it does not apply here. Uh, Al Qaida. Al Qaida never sees it, but that's why.

• 42:33Anthony Jeselnik?

  And this journalist, uh, Ella Kasparsky, runs into Paul later on at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, I believe, where he's performing. She's like, my husband's a theater director. I'm here. I just, I remember you. I had hired you to do this thing. I've been following your career. I'm glad you're doing well, even though Paul is not doing well. He's still addicted to heroin. He's back on it, even though he's famous. She apologizes, explains why she wanted him to do that. Says that she was drinking at the time and feels bad that she kind of got him fired from his job. But hopes for the best for him. And when he's like, do you think I'm really doing well? She's like, I, she basically says, I can tell you're on heroin right now.

• 43:16Anthony Jeselnik?

  And, uh, and he leaves the party. He goes out into the streets of, uh, Edinburgh, of Edinburgh. And he's on heroin. He collapses in a stairwell. And he's not gonna overdose, but he's just really fucked up. It's late at night. He hasn't slept for two days because of travel. And he's thinking about his sister. And then he sees his sister Vincent just kind of appear at the end of the street. And you, and then you flash forward to, and he sees her for a second and then she's gone. He's like, I must just be fucked up. And this is kind of the end of the book where it goes back to, uh, it goes back to Vincent on the boat. And, uh, you find out this because Leon Prevent, who's been on, with his wife in this camper, gets a phone call from his old company

• 44:00Anthony Jeselnik?

  saying there's been a death on one of our boats or a missing person. And this woman Vincent has either fallen overboard or been murdered by her boyfriend. We need someone impartial who we can trust to find out. Uh, Leon pretends like he's like still with it, even though he's just in a, living in a fucking camper. Gets to New York, flies to meet this boat, wherever it's, it's in port. And he's with a cop, like a former cop. And Leon's, Leon's just there just to kind of watch. And they interview, the boyfriend's gone. The boyfriend leaves the boat. And he finds out it's just because he knows they would blame him. But it turns out Vincent, after an, uh, investigation, Vincent was just, would, uh, go to over the side of the ship in the middle of the ocean and film the waves.

• 44:43Anthony Jeselnik?

  Like film the dark water, thought it looked beautiful, but was very not safe. Wasn't tied down, was kind of leaning over the edge. These waters get rough. I mean, it's like a recipe for death, but she was into it, uh, and didn't think it was unsafe. I think Vincent was reckless with her life, probably because of the guilt of just being beside this Al Qaida guy while he did all this and benefiting from it herself. Still fucked up from her mom. And, uh, one night she's filming, uh, she's filming over the edge, uh, side of the boat. She and her boyfriend get in a fight because he's like, what you're doing isn't safe. But she goes, uh, to the side of the boat anyway, in a place where there's no real cameras. And all of a sudden Olivia's ghost shows up. And Olivia's ghost doesn't even mean her harm.

• 45:28Anthony Jeselnik?

  It's almost like when you die, you just get to say goodbye to some people. You know, that you're thinking about. And she's thinking about Vincent when she dies. Uh, Vincent looks up, sees Olivia's ghost, freaks out, drops the camera, tries to catch the camera and falls over the side. And that's curtains for Vincent. But Vincent kind of can go, she wants to see her brother. She sees her brother for a second. I think she goes and she sees, uh, Al Qaida in jail. He sees her one last time. And then she finally sees her mother on the beach. And that's the end of Vincent's life. It's the end of the book. I think it's probably the best, uh, ending Vincent could have gotten. She gets peace about her mother. I think it's almost a way of saying that her mother's death was an accident.

• 46:11Anthony Jeselnik?

  If Vincent's, Vincent's death was an accident. Then I think most of this book, of most of Vincent's story is trying to deal with her mother's death. And the only way she really can is to die herself. Uh, so I hope, I mean, listen, that's a lot. I don't know how long I've been talking, but that's a fucking lot to get through. If I had told the story in a linear fashion, it may have been easier. It may have been less boring, but that is not, uh, what made this book so fun to read the first time. You know, I really liked jumping around in time. I really thought the, uh, the part about, uh, the, the Christmas party and the, the Bernie Madoff of it all coming down was more interesting to me. Uh, I liked all these characters. And I liked finding out what was happening.

• 46:56Anthony Jeselnik?

  And at the very end of the book, I'm sorry, you find out that Paul is in therapy, apologizing for, uh, using his sister's videos. Is gonna do something on his own, is now clean of heroin and kind of comes out okay at the end of the book. And I think Vincent gets to see that moment before she goes into the afterlife. So it's like a nice ending, uh, even though everyone dies. I think that's the case. I hope I, I hope I was good at telling you why I like this book. I feel like I was just naming the same guy over and over again. And trust me, this book is great. Uh, it's just a tough one to describe to someone in great detail.

• 47:37Anthony Jeselnik?

  Hopefully the questions will get us, uh, more answers than me rambling did.

• 47:44Speaker 00

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• 48:00Anthony Jeselnik?

  So let's get to the first question. Now you're gonna see a difference in how we do things. Instead of just me doing questions, there's gonna be something over the screen that you'll you'll get to see. Question number one is the three parter. Vincent's superpower is that she tries without appearing to try. How do you do it? Great question. This is from Greg Rosenthal, my best friend. We put his question in whenever he gets one in. How do, Vincent's superpower is that she tries without appearing to try. How do you do it? First of all, you gotta be tall. Vincent's tall. You gotta be beautiful. I'm beautiful. People forgive a lot. And you specialize. You just kinda keep to your lane. I'm like, you know, a joke guy, a book guy. You just, you do what you do very well.

• 48:45Anthony Jeselnik?

  Vincent's a very good cook, you know, but she cooks french fries all the fucking time. And you just kind of keep to yourself. And if you're good looking and you're quiet, people will just think you know what you're doing. It helps. Rank the Emily St. John Mandel books. I think it's Sea of Tranquility and Singer's Gun at the top for me. You know, this is a tough one for me now. I would have said before I reread this book, that it was Glass Hotel, Station 11, Sea of Tranquility. I would have put those three. But now, after reading this again, I think it made me appreciate Sea of Tranquility more. What I'm gonna do, Station 11's my number one. That's the first book of hers that I read. I think that's number one for me just out of nostalgia.

• 49:29Anthony Jeselnik?

  Number two, I'm gonna put Exit Party. Maybe you guys haven't read it yet. It just came out a couple of weeks ago. It's her book that came out this month, which is one of the reasons I chose The Glass Hotel. Exit Party's a banger. I really enjoyed that. So I'm gonna go again, Station 11, Exit Party, Sea of Tranquility, and then The Glass Hotel. Not because I think it's the worst of the four, just because having reread it, I feel like I understand it better. And her books are so complex that a first reading is really fun. And again, I love these characters and they pop up again in, in Sea of Tranquility, in Exit Party. So they're all worth checking out.

• 50:12Anthony Jeselnik?

  And I have not read Singer's Gun, embarrassingly enough. And then he's got a question about a Ponzi scheme. What's the closest you've ever been to a Ponzi scheme? And this is when we tried to fake sue each other for a reality show. When Greg and I were juniors in college, we met a woman who ran a scheme where if you, if you sue someone in small claims court for $5,000 or less, it gets the attention in Los Angeles, it gets the attention of those court shows, like a Judge Judy or whatever. There was a show called Power of Attorney. And what you would get, if whoever wins, you get $5,000 from the show. You wouldn't have to pay. So this woman was like, Anthony, or Greg, you sue Anthony.

• 50:55Anthony Jeselnik?

  Anthony's gonna lose. The court will pay you five grand. You give me one grand and you guys each split two grand. We did it. It worked. We were like a week away from getting on the show. And it was like, well, we gotta delay it. And we would have rather have gone back to Tulane and seen all our friends than been on the TV show. So that's the closest I've been to a Ponzi scheme. Although I have almost bought like Apple gift cards for people and then realized that my lacrosse coach from high school was not in fact emailing me. Next question. Hi Anthony, I love how Emily St. John Mandel includes Easter egg character appearances across her novels. They feel less like direct sequels or prequels and more like separate events on the same

• 51:40Anthony Jeselnik?

  intersecting timeline. Are there any other authors you enjoy who use a similar technique? Stephen King's Dark Tower series is an obvious example for me. Best, Bobby. Um, yeah, I love that people call it the Mandelverse, that she uses the same characters. And I like what she's, she's talked about this and said that she writes individual stories. And if she sees an opportunity to drop a character in, she will do that. So you can read these out of order. You can read them like as if they were meant to be read. You don't really miss anything. And I think that's the best way to do this. I don't want homework. I don't wanna watch 12 Marvel movies and a bunch of TV shows to see the new one. I like to just be able to pick up the story and read it.

• 52:21Anthony Jeselnik?

  Like I was able to read Exit Party without reading Singer's Gun, even though there are characters that are similar to that. Brett Easton Ellis does this all the time. It's either the same character or like siblings of characters that I enjoy. Kurt Vonnegut did this a lot with people. I don't, I mean, I've read some of the Stephen King Dark Tower series, but I don't know what you're talking about with that. But I know he uses the same town and people that I like when people do it. It's fun, but I don't want it to have to be, you have to have caught up with everything. I like it just like a little shout out, a little, a little cool thing. But yeah, thanks Bobby. Next question. Hi Anthony, do you think Vincent intended to drown all along, presumably like her mother did, or was it truly an accident?

• 53:06Anthony Jeselnik?

  Thanks, Andrew Austin. I think it was truly an accident. I think it was probably an accident that her mom died. I think Vincent lived a reckless life. And I'm not saying that's a bad thing. No judgments. A lot of people live reckless lives. It's a cool way to go. I'd rather live a reckless life than be too safe. I think that Vincent was careless and, but I truly think that she thought she would be safe doing what she was doing. If the ghost doesn't show up, I think she's okay. She knows it's a mistake when she drops the camera and tries to catch it. She's not like, oh, finally. She doesn't embrace death, but I think that death by drowning in a cold ocean doesn't sound like the worst way to go. That I think that, I think she was just being a little reckless, but did, certainly did

• 53:51Anthony Jeselnik?

  not intend to kill herself. Hey Jessel Nick, I see you're wearing a Metric shirt for our September book reveal. A clever nod to characters in the Toronto music scene perhaps? Did you snag that shirt just for this occasion? Or are you surreptitiously a diehard fan of the Canadian music scene, trying to impress us with your musical cred? If you were to choose a song that encapsulates the essence of the hotel or the journey of a character, what would it be and why? Cheers, Sean Iskierski, Campbell River, British Columbia, Vancouver Island. Okay. When I chose to wear my Metric t-shirt, it was a pretty new one. I'm a big Metric fan.

• 54:34Anthony Jeselnik?

  I didn't even think about Emily Haynes, Emily St. John Mandel. That was not planned. I think Emily St. John Mandel is Canadian. I didn't even know Metric was Canadian. I know Metric because I once did an episode, I did stand up on an episode of Late Last Call with Carson Daly. And Metric was the band and they played Monster Hospital and it was fucking awesome. And I bombed and then had to talk to either Andy Dick or Metric. And I chose Metric. And I, I was talking to them, like you guys were great. They were like, oh, you were great, even though they were lying because I fucking ate it on that show. But ever since then, I've been a big fan of Metric. I don't have all their albums, but I like them. I got really into that Monster Hospital album and I've, I've listened to everything they've done since.

• 55:20Anthony Jeselnik?

  I think Emily Haynes is really cool. If I was gonna choose a song that encapsulates the essence of the hotel or the journey of a character, what would it be? The Macarena. I think you can't go wrong. Like anytime you're reading a book and you're listening to The Macarena, it syncs up. It's always gonna work. It helps you read quicker. I think the, probably The Glass Hotel inside was just cranking The Macarena. I think Baltic, the band, probably sounded a lot like the guys who did The Macarena. I don't know who they were. No one does. No one ever found out. But The Macarena for sure. Maybe if I had to pick another one, I would hear, my first thought was Sweet Dreams are

• 56:05Anthony Jeselnik?

  made of the, are made of this by Eurythmics. Any version, when they slow it down and do that weird creepy thing in movies, this was, I would see that, but that's the most cliche. But The Macarena, never cliche. I would go with that. Anthony and Miss Kim. In The Glass Hotel, a couple of the characters think of alternate realities. Al Qaida thinks about the counterlife, where he's in a Dubai hotel instead of prison. Oscar thinks of his ghost life, where he runs to the FBI when he first learns of the scheme instead of going along with it. Are these just fantasies to escape the turmoil they land in? Are they also acknowledging their guilt and knowing they took the wrong path? How do you feel about looking back on your own decisions and imagining if you went a different route than the one that you took?

• 56:48Anthony Jeselnik?

  Looking forward to the next pick, Andrew from Wisconsin. Um, I think they're both, I think they're both fantasies of what could have been if they had been different people. If you've been a little bit stronger, if money didn't mean so much, if you went to the FBI right away. I think it's interesting that Enrique or Enrico, the one guy who does not get arrested, who escapes, kind of regrets not, not just getting arrested. By the time, this book ends in like 2029, when everyone gets out of prison. Some people get it worse than others. But Enrico is like always looking over his shoulder for his entire life, can never use his real name again. Probably didn't get to keep that much of the money. That I think he, everyone has regrets, whether they got away or not.

• 57:33Anthony Jeselnik?

  I think a lot of it is guilt of just the people that you fucked over for your own gains. And a lot of it is just kind of like fantasizing about the way his life could have gone. I've certainly done that with my life. It's like, oh, if I had taken this job over that job, what if I had gotten this audition? You know, how would my life would have been different? But I think it's something you think about for a little bit and then you move on. You know, it's not a, it hasn't been a big deal for me. Maybe some people have other decisions that are worse for them. If you're choosing between who to marry and you picked the wrong one, I don't know. I think it's, I think it's a healthy thing to do, especially if you're in prison, to have a counterlife and think about your sins.

• 58:16Anthony Jeselnik?

  Next question, Anthony, which character do you find the most interesting? It's a cast of flawed characters, as is life, but I'm wondering if there's one character's story you were drawn to more than others. Personally, I enjoyed Leon Preven. There's something endearing about how he adopts the circumstances after the Ponzi scheme and still finds appreciation for what he does have. Thanks. Leon's story was fascinating to me, which he was one of the main stories I remembered afterwards. Of a guy who like had it all kind of, and then ended up having to live in a camper with his wife. And just had like bad knees and dealing with things were going to get worse for him. Uh, my favorite, I really liked Ella Kaspersky, the journalist who has Paul Wright.

• 58:59Anthony Jeselnik?

  Uh, why don't you swallow broken glass? She never lets that shit go. She's doggedly determined to expose this pyramid scheme, never stops. I really liked Walter Lee. I thought Walter Lee had a cool story that he's running this hotel. And then when everything falls apart and he's got no money, he talks them into letting him stay in a luxury hotel by himself. And he's doing jobs, he's cleaning and stuff, but I thought he just had, seemed to have the best life afterwards. But you also can't forget about Oscar, who got to fuck Vincent right at the very end when it was all coming down. That seemed like a revenge fuck in this book seemed like very exciting to me. Anthony, I'd be interested in your take on why the book is called The Glass Hotel.

• 59:42Anthony Jeselnik?

  Be it the idiom of throwing rocks in glass houses, references to glass throughout the book, the idea that we're watching these people make poor choices as we are observing them in an aquarium, et cetera. Thanks, Kyle. I didn't give this a ton of thought. I thought it was more about how these rich people feel like they want these experiences, but they want to be separate from them at the same time. You know, they want to be in the middle of the wilderness in this Vancouver island, but also separate from it, that you're not really, it's ultra exclusive and you can like see the trees and the nature, but you're not really a part of it. That uh, kind of seemed like a metaphor for being ultra wealthy to me.

• 1:00:22Anthony Jeselnik?

  This book definitely does not look kindly on the ultra wealthy that seems like it would feel like living in a glass hotel. Even in a normal, like a really nice hotel, you're still meeting people in the lobby hanging out. A glass hotel just feels cold and remote and um, so tough to get into that uh, it's not even fun. That's why I saw it. I definitely not, I definitely didn't think of people fucking throwing rocks in glass houses. That had nothing to do with it. You were way off base with that, but um, and you're not observing them in an aquarium either. You were way off. All your guesses were wrong. It might just be the name of the book. Um, but I saw it as like you want to be a part of life, but not really.

• 1:01:07Anthony Jeselnik?

  You want, you want your uh, your, your own experience of it, um, without having to actually touch it or get dirty.

• 1:01:16Anthony Jeselnik?

  Hey Anthony, my question for you is about Morella's encounter with Vincent at the restaurant Vincent worked at. Do you think Morella didn't know that Vincent was working at the restaurant? Or do you think she willingly decided not to recognize her so that it wouldn't lead to an unwanted conversation? Also, was there a moment where you recognized someone from your past but refused to acknowledge them? If so, how did it affect your view on the relationship you, that you had with them? AJ. Ajay? Ajay? I'm gonna say Ajay. Uh, listen, I know, I've got inside information. Morella definitely knew that was Vincent. She's cut her hair. I think Morella's trying to embarrass her. I think Morella totally believed that Vincent knew about the pyramid scheme.

• 1:01:59Anthony Jeselnik?

  Morella has been ruined as well, that she's punishing Vincent by pretending she does not exist. I know this because in Sea of Tranquility, Morella pops up and tries to track down Vincent to apologize. Realizes from talking to friends that Vincent actually didn't know anything about it. They had actually were friends in real life. She tries to track her down and apologize, and of course, it's too late. This happened to me once. Uh, I once went on a date with someone, uh, early on in my comedy days. And then she ghosted me. And then I moved to New York for a couple of years. When I moved back to LA, I had a TV show. And I was at a table with a bunch of executives and she was the waitress. And I said hello and then it was very cold. And when she walked away, they were like,

• 1:02:43Anthony Jeselnik?

  she was flirting with you. And I was like, I am aware. But I was not going to give her anything because you don't ghost me and then get to wait on me and have me flirt with you. Doesn't happen. Hey Anthony, The Glass Hotel was a five-star read for me. I'd love to hear what you think of Paul's use of Vincent's videos for his career. We get his justification for why he thinks it's okay, but I'm curious to hear your perspective. As a comedian, what themes in this book overlap with your thoughts on the theft of intellectual property? Thank you for inspiring us to read more. Greg in Oklahoma. I was surprised that Vincent was so upset about him using these home videos. They're from childhood. I would have been like, oh, cool. You're using these. I think maybe they just,

• 1:03:28Anthony Jeselnik?

  if he had reached out and asked permission, she would have been cool with it. If she got credit in uh, in the program or if he credited her with it, like I'm sure he does later on, maybe she's okay with it. Again, like she wasn't using them for anything. They, they were found in the childhood home. I can see being a little taken aback by it, but to cut off all contact or leave immediately, maybe you come backstage and yell at them, like what the fuck? But I also understand Paul, it's almost like found art at that point, but I think you do, you should have given credit. Um, I'm okay with uh, with intellectual property, not theft, but like I really like girl talk.

• 1:04:08Anthony Jeselnik?

  You know, the DJ who mashes up different songs. I think it's so fun and you kind of know what he's doing. He's not stealing it. I, I think it's weird when like, when estates sue singers for having songs that sound too much like another song. I think it's all strange, but again, don't steal. Uh, if you're like fully lifting and plagiarizing, that's different than just kind of borrowing as part of a bigger project. And again, there were five-minute short films in the background of a music thing. I didn't think it was that big a deal, but I could be wrong. Maybe other artists would lose their goddamn minds at that. But I think if they got to go back and relive that moment, I think both Paul and Vincent would have handled it differently at the end of the book.

• 1:04:53Anthony Jeselnik?

  Hi Anthony, I love this book, but I have a thing against authors killing their heroes. As one of my lit professors in college said, it's a cop out. Do you agree or disagree? Thank you, Laura. P S, P S, I'm a librarian. Thanks for creating this book club. It's awesome. Okay, what I'm gonna say, it might be a little controversial here. Uh, I do think it can be a cop out depending on how they die, and I love a hero to die at the end of a novel. I love it. And again, a novel, a, a novel ends whenever you decide to end the story. Everyone dies eventually. Maybe you just play it out. I also think there's an argument, argument to be made that Paul is the hero of the story. I know he gets way less screen time, but he kind of goes through more of a journey

• 1:05:37Anthony Jeselnik?

  and comes out changed at the end, that you could see it as Paul being the hero. There is someone you can root for who has like come out the other side. And Vincent's journey, it's death, but it's not like, just like she snuffs out. She gets to say, see her brother one last time. She gets to walk away with her mother at the end of this book, which is an afterlife. So I kind of agree with you that it can be a cop out depending on how you use it. I like when they do it. Uh, but I, I don't agree that they really use that trope here. Cause I think, I think Vincent is like kind of still alive as a ghost at the end of the book. There's a lot of ghosts in this book.

• 1:06:19Anthony Jeselnik?

  And I think there's an argument, argument to be made that Paul is actually the, the hero or the main protagonist in this book. I can't wait to hear what you guys think about that. Anthony, The Glass Hotel is told in a nonlinear fashion. No fucking shit. I just jumped all around, like playing hopscotch for an hour trying to describe this book. Beginning near the end of the timeline with Vincent falling from the ship, the structure reminded me of Stoner, which also opens by revealing the main character's death. Do you think revealing a tragic endpoint early on changes how the reader perceives the overall narrative? I can, upon second reading, I can get why. Honestly, I forget.

• 1:07:01Anthony Jeselnik?

  I'll read in the beginning that they die and then I kind of get locked into the story and I totally forget that they've died. And sometimes it's like right up until they die. So that book could have ended with Vincent getting pulled out of the water and getting mouth to mouth and spitting up water and being okay. That it puts someone in danger, but I forgot about it almost immediately. And I think the way Emily St. John Mandel wrote that scene is a lot different than Stoner, where they flat out tell you that he died and was buried. But even then, I still am so invested in the story that it doesn't really affect things for me. It didn't in Stoner and it did not in this. Sometimes I could see it bothering you or giving you comfort.

• 1:07:43Anthony Jeselnik?

  It gives me comfort to hear uh, Paul's story interspersed with Paul talking to his therapist after he's come through these uh, his, his drug addiction. So I can see it affecting you or not, but again, I forget, I get so locked into the story that I forget uh, immediately. Okay, we've got.

• 1:08:03Anthony Jeselnik?

  See how many we have left here. I picked a fuck ton. We've got like five. And I'm gonna read them all. Cause I'm at The Ringer now. If I was at home, I may have just been like, Ms. Kim, you finish this. I'm gonna go play with Rummy. Rummy's not here. So I'm gonna read all of these questions. Maybe we'll edit some out. Hi, the whole Ponzi scheme felt a little goofy to me. But what would you have done if you were implicated when everything came down? Mahalo, Mel from Hawaii. I didn't think the Ponzi scheme was goofy at all. Maybe I read it closer to the Bernie Madoff of it all. I read this book when it came out in 2018 and loved it. I thought it was fascinating to see the inside of things and people trying to get away with it. Knowing that they were fucked. How would I handle it? I'd handle it.

• 1:08:48Anthony Jeselnik?

  I don't think I would have the balls to actually flee the country. I think I'd handle it exactly like Oscar. I think I would Google ways out of it. Chicken out and then try to fuck my boss's wife. Or my boss's partner to try to get some sort of revenge before I went to jail. But I would definitely go to jail at the end because of my search history. That's how I would handle it.

• 1:09:17Anthony Jeselnik?

  That I think, yeah, some of them like Lucia or like the woman who took her kids out. Like tried to deny it the whole way. Whereas Harvey who just confessed to everything got the lightest sentence. I think Oscar fell somewhere in the middle. And I think I'd be an Oscar in that. Although I also like to think that the first time I heard my boss was running a giant pyramid scheme that I would call the feds. Where I would get the fuck out of there. I'd probably take the check he handed me the first time and then go. But I also would never work in finance. That sounds like pure hell. I'd rather be here at The Ringer. Hello. What do you think about the role of guilt and remorse in this book?

• 1:10:00Anthony Jeselnik?

  I'm really fascinated by the concept of guilt throughout the story and who feels guilty and who doesn't. Take Paul, who harbors so much guilt over accidentally contributing to the musician's overdose. But he doesn't follow the usual recovering addict trope. He doesn't really use that guilt to drive him to become a better person or anything. He keeps kind of stumbling along. And even the artistic success he finds is due in part to stealing Vincent's videos. He feels so guilty, but it kind of traps him. Best, Stacy. I think the role of guilt and remorse is all this book is. That's the driving force behind every single sentence in this book. And I disagree that Paul doesn't follow the usual recovering addict trope.

• 1:10:41Anthony Jeselnik?

  He takes fucking Baltic songs from the guy he killed and puts them into like his own art. And then his sister who he like could not help. He takes her videos and uses them. He seems helpless. And I think he's like the definition of a recovering addict. Trying to make up for past sins. Trying to make Baltic, you know, popular. Like maybe they could have been if he hadn't killed the fucking keyboardist. Maybe, you know, his sister could have been an artist if he had been there for her. Instead of falling prey to his addiction.

• 1:11:20Anthony Jeselnik?

  Disagree with everything. But yeah, guilt and remorse is all that this book is. All of it. Uh, next question. Did you notice that the painting, The Thinker? Reference in the book is used on the cover of the familiar edition of Stoner. I had no idea. I didn't know. I thought that was just a, that could have been an original of just some guy. When I hear about The Thinker, I think of the statue of the guy going like this. I had no idea. I don't really know art at all. Uh, why do you think 9/11 is never mentioned or alluded to? I don't know. That's my one knock on this book. That's my one knock on any book. I was mad in Stoner. I think any book, if they're not talking about 9/11, someone should be.

• 1:12:04Anthony Jeselnik?

  Like either they're not talking about it because it's about to happen. Or they're like, hey, remember 9/11? Or like, hey, wouldn't it be crazy if in a hundred years there was a 9/11? I know some, you know, someone on my staff reads fantasy books. If there's not a 9/11 in one of those books, you kind of want their version of 9/11. But yeah, it made me mad than the book that it was all over that no one talked about 9/11. I'm joking, obviously. I don't think everyone would have to talk about 9/11. Some of this is in 2008, 2019. I don't think rich people were like, hey, let's talk about 9/11 for a little bit. I'm okay with them not talking about 9/11. I don't know where they would have. Maybe Baltic had a song about 9/11.

• 1:12:48Anthony Jeselnik?

  That office chorus section switches into first person. Why and who is that? Michael F. I think it goes into a chorus because it's the easiest way to explain what a pyramid scheme is and who all was getting fucked and how many people are being affected by this. And how the guilt is spread around. Even though Al Qaeda is kind of the architect. I think the chorus talking shows him being from, at a cold remove. As it was all from his point of view, I think you'd have a different take on it. Uh, to show how many people are guilty. And also if I was gonna guess, I would say it's either the secretary telling the story. Like she does later on in the book, like 20 years later to her underlings. Or it's Harvey's confession that they're all reading.

• 1:13:33Anthony Jeselnik?

  That that didn't like bother me. I thought I was just like happy that you're not making me read too much about this, uh, too much about this Ponzi scheme. And when you could be talking about 9/11. And you know, stay tuned at the end of the episode when we'll go in depth more about 9/11. And what that meant to all of us. It's only been 25 years. We need to talk about it more on Jocelyn's Book Club. We haven't really gotten that deep. Uh, I don't know, I haven't announced next month's book yet, but we might go deep into 9/11. Hi, Anthony. Really enjoying the book club. I enjoyed The Glass Hotel, but until the last chapter, I felt like I was completing a Lego set without the box or manual. Do you think this is one of those books that's vastly better the second time you've read it? James.

• 1:14:18Anthony Jeselnik?

  Good question, James. I agree with you that it's like putting together a Lego set without the manual. I will tell you that I enjoyed it more the first time I read it. The second time when I know what's coming and I know what the manual looks like and what the pieces fit together. I didn't get as much of a rush out of it as I did the first time I read it. It made me appreciate her other books more. Uh, just, I couldn't even tell you why. I didn't like the book less, but I didn't enjoy it as much. And the first time I read it, I was really blown away by the way things were connected, by the way, uh, character beats hit. That the cold remove of a lot of these people that, I liked it more the first time I read it. I'll tell you that. And if you didn't like it, that's okay.

• 1:15:03Anthony Jeselnik?

  It definitely was a lot of puzzle pieces jumping around in time. But I found that to be very effective the first time that I read it and kind of showed me parallels in lives. You know, there's more than one heroin addict's son in this book. And I appreciated seeing different ones and the different outcomes of their lives. But I liked it more the first time. Last question. Hey, Anthony. I want to ask you about your ideal or preferred reading environment. You have mentioned reading primarily on a Kindle or e-reader. And of course you read a lot on airplanes and in hotels when touring. What about at home? Do you have a favorite chair or space where you sit and read? Do you prefer sitting in a comfy chair or lying down?

• 1:15:45Anthony Jeselnik?

  Also, are you able to read when riding in a car or train? I'm struggling with being comfortable while reading. I can't quite figure out the right space to be able to sit for an extended period of time. I'm curious what you do. Love the book club. Please keep it going. H in New York City. Uh, H, I've got a bunch of different ways that I read. Sometimes I want to be comfortable. Sometimes I want to be like lying in a pile of blankets as comfortable as can be. Sometimes I legitimately want to be a little bit uncomfortable. So I kind of have to pay attention. Like I want a good posture. I have an Eames chair in my room, in my bedroom that I'll sit in and read for a little while. I like to sit outside and read in different chairs, but I don't have like one reading spot.

• 1:16:30Anthony Jeselnik?

  Where I go to read all the time. But I'm always looking for comfort. That's what's great about an e-reader is you can just kind of like move around and do different things. I can read in a car. I'm in long car journeys. If I'm just by myself, I'm reading that whole time. I have anywhere that people would just be on their phone, I like to read. Uh, but I don't always need it to be super comfortable. Although I do like when I see like book nooks or reading nooks in houses. Where it's kind of just like a, like a conclave thing and they put blankets in there. That looks comfy to me. There's people who have like a giant raft and they put a bunch of blankets into it. And then get into that and float around the pool. That seems really comfy to me. That I think just throw a bunch of blankets down, like you're some kind of fucking hamster.

• 1:17:15Anthony Jeselnik?

  And laying it, I think that's good. But again, sometimes I want to read without being too comfortable. Cause then you almost like fall asleep and you're not paying attention. That I have in my office, the chair I read in my office isn't super comfortable. It's nice. You're lying down. It's like, it's a, it's a lounge chair, a chaise lounge. Uh, but I, it's not the most comfortable thing in the world. It's a vintage one. And I like that because it makes me feel like I'm kind of going to school. Okay, those were the questions and that was the recap of Glass Hotel. Again, this was maybe the toughest one for me to recap. Because it jumped around so much and Al Qaeda was not the most fun word to say.

• 1:17:57Anthony Jeselnik?

  I hope that I made the book sound as good as I thought it was. People seem to, people who wrote it seemed to really enjoy the book this month. I hope I didn't like ruin it for you by making it like too scholastic. By making it sound like homework. I swear to God, when you read it, it's fun. Emily St. John Mandel is fun. Jumping around in time is interesting. It's just tough to describe the book to someone, but I hope I did a good job. Uh, and I hope the editors here at The Ringer, which is a great staff. We had a great staff before, but we really leveled up here at The Ringer. And, uh, and I am, uh, I am happy to be here.

• 1:18:38Anthony Jeselnik?

  And I hope you guys enjoyed that recap of, uh, of The Glass Hotel. And again, I hope you felt a sense of accomplishment when you finished the book. If you like this, definitely read Sea of Tranquility. It kind of picks up where this ends, uh, with Paul and then it moves on from there. It's a completely different book after, uh, you get a little closure from, closure from Morella and Paul. Definitely read Exit Party that just came out this year. I think it's guaranteed to be in my top 10. I got a couple of months to go of reading. Uh, but I loved Exit Party. I will read anything Emily St. John Mandel writes. She's one of my absolute favorite living writers, uh, today. Absolutely.

• 1:19:20Anthony Jeselnik?

  Maybe, definitely top five, maybe top three. There's an argument that she could be number one. I have not met her. We're trying to get her on the book club. And now to announce October's pick. I wanted something a little bit spooky. I don't read a lot of horror, but I do like books that have a little bit of a scare in them. So for October's Jesselink Book Club pick, I have picked The Trees by Percival Everett. And now I will describe the cover of The Trees. It's black and it says Trees and there's a "the" in front of Trees. Uh, nailed it. Can't sue me now. The Trees is a great book. I think this is my first Percival Everett that I ever read. I've read a bunch of them since.

• 1:20:04Anthony Jeselnik?

  He wrote James, which I believe he won a bunch of awards for, maybe The Pulitzer. Definitely nominated for it. But Percival Everett's an incredible writer, wrote a lot of really funny books with, about serious subjects. The Trees is my version of horror where it's about like Medgar Evers becomes a zombie. The corpse of Medgar Evers rises from the dead and kills racists en masse in the South in modern day. And a couple of detectives are trying to figure out what the fuck is going on. Cause they keep on just finding like a bunch of dead white people. And then Medgar Evers like decomposing corpse at the scene. I'm telling you, it's awesome. I talked about it when I, I used to talk about it on my old podcast for months.

• 1:20:49Anthony Jeselnik?

  It was one of my favorite books. My first Percival Everett certainly will not be my last. Uh, the book is hilarious and has that horror tinge to it for October. It is, let me see how many pages we got here. We got just over 300 pages. Uh, you guys can finish this in a month. Get your questions in by October 26th. Get your emails to [email protected] and by October 26th, we will do another video at the end of the month here at The Ringer. And don't forget to tune in, uh, this next Wednesday. Uh, every Wednesday coming forward, uh, we will be doing a interview with, uh, with some people next week. I got Greg Rosenthal.

• 1:21:31Anthony Jeselnik?

  We're going to talk about Life of M, the book that is written about Natalie Portman and how much we either liked it or disliked it. Greg and I have a fun time sitting here in the Ringer offices. And maybe if you guys make it the highest rated episode in the history of The Ringer, we can get Greg to The Ringer one day. If you guys don't watch it, that's never going to happen. But, uh, I would love to have Greg here in the same company as me and Paige and Mags and Daniel and Noah. Those are all the names I know. I'm going to learn everyone's names. Everyone here is so cool. I'm the least cool person here by a mile. Everyone's great. So again, thank you for watching this episode of Jesselink Book Club in our new arena.

• 1:22:14Anthony Jeselnik?

  Uh, remember TV is bad, movies are bad. Uh, Ms. Kim, give me something else that's bad. Ponzi schemes are bad. Getting in a car wreck, Ms. Kim is bad. Ms. Kim got hit. She was not the hitter. She got hit, but she's got to deal with it. Those are bad, but especially Ponzi schemes and, uh, reading is good. Good. Reading is good. Get your, get your books. See you next time on The Ringer.

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