'He’s on a revenge mission, which makes him feel at odds with all the people who come here to make their dreams come true…dreams which are often masking milder revenge fantasies, like, I’ll show everyone back home that I’m special if it’s the last thing I do.

It made sense to have him strip it all away and flee into the arms of his enemy: Los Angeles,' Kepnes explained as she discussed Joe's move to the west coast. He swoons there, he goes on his walks, he has his castle, his cage, his book dungeon. But it isn't long before he's Los Angeles bound on a revenge mission that changes the course of.well, just about everyone's story. When Hidden Bodies picks up with Joe, he's still in New York. I also think everyone involved in the show is exceptionally committed and passionate about the themes.' 'I think there’s genuine curiosity about this story because it takes place in the real world, right now, and it reminds you that everything you put out there is being consumed by people, people you don’t necessarily know. 'It’s exciting when others feel what you feel, right? The pilot had that special hypnotic power and I felt it the first time I watched,' she told us. dubs them “autodidacts,” barely masking her condescension.'For me, you start watching that first episode and you just can’t stop. When Shoddy points out neither Joe nor Wonder went to college, O.K. She shows up late, apologizing profusely, drinking a Dunkin’ Coolatta and wearing a T-shirt emblazoned, “They hate us ‘cause they ain’t us.” When Lou drops Saunders’ name, she doesn’t know who he is. She’s an NPR yammerer.”īut there’s one more student in the workshop: Wonder Parish. She hasn’t written much of anything, but she’s a gold-plated nepo baby ― of her famous mother Joe says, “as far as I’m concerned, Diane Janz’s real name is Not Joan Didion.

The insufferable Lou has all kinds of literary connections - grad school classes taught by “my main mensch, George Saunders” - and cool-guy Mats has a day job designing video games they both have novels about to be published. Sara Elizabeth Swallows is the author of a successful series of thrillers. What he gets is Shoddy showing up in bike shorts and talking incessantly about riding, not writing, occasionally humble-bragging about the Coen brothers’ screenplay for his book.Īnd Joe’s workshop fellows are hardly struggling. Joe envisions a bro-to-bro mentorship from Shoddy and a workshop experience full of struggling but brilliant writers. He’s over the moon, he tells us, especially because the workshop is run by an author named Glenn Shoddy, “the author of ‘Scabies for Breakfast.’ He knows what makes people tick - ‘Scabies’ earned him a Pulitzer - and he’s the anti-Franzen - over two million copies sold, almost no one ticked off about his success.”

Caroline kepnes you series book 4