{"podcast":{"title":"Private Life: A New York Review Podcast","slug":"private-life-a-new-york-review-podcast-7689958","podcast_index_feed_id":7689958,"rss_url":"https://feeds.transistor.fm/private-life","website_url":"https://www.nybooks.com","image_url":"https://img.transistorcdn.com/gnQ-tYKkQUrf9KBbX-Lv2CitGexgv0Aij1cs3L5VRhY/rs:fill:0:0:1/w:1400/h:1400/q:60/mb:500000/aHR0cHM6Ly9pbWct/dXBsb2FkLXByb2R1/Y3Rpb24udHJhbnNp/c3Rvci5mbS8wODA5/ZGRiYmU0NTg3OTY0/Y2RkNDQzMTJhZjU3/NWUyZS5wbmc.jpg","author":"New York Review Podcasts","episode_count":22,"summary":"Private Life is a podcast from The New York Review, hosted by contributor Jarrett Earnest. Each episode offers intimate, in-depth conversations with distinguished voices from across the literary landscape—about their lives, their work, and the ideas that shape both. Along the way, they revisit pieces from the The New York Review of Books's robust sixty-year archive (some episodes of the podcast will feature newly recorded readings of these classic essays) to situate arguments within contemporary culture. The show also includes discussions of titles from our book publishing arm, New York Review Books, featuring talks with translator Mark Polizzotti on Andre Breton's surrealist masterpiece Nadja and musician Richard Hell on the re-issue of his novel Godlike. Other early episodes find Joyce Carol Oates ruminating on true crime, while Darryl Pinckney opens up about the perils of memoir and his formative friendship with essayist Elizabeth Hardwick. Private Life is a personable, expansive invitation for longtime subscribers and a new generation of readers alike to connect with the past, present and future of The New York Review.","last_synced_at":"2026-07-09T00:19:47.670598+00:00","page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/private-life-a-new-york-review-podcast-7689958"},"episode":{"title":"Richard Hell on ’Godlike’ and Poetry as a Way of Life","slug":"richard-hell-on-godlike-and-poetry-as-a-way-of-life","published_at":"2026-03-11T17:34:33+00:00","page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/private-life-a-new-york-review-podcast-7689958/richard-hell-on-godlike-and-poetry-as-a-way-of-life","show_page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/private-life-a-new-york-review-podcast-7689958","url":"https://share.transistor.fm/s/0113eb07","audio_url":"https://media.transistor.fm/0113eb07/d3e0b05d.mp3","summary":"In this episode of Private Life , Richard Hell joins Jarrett Earnest to discuss his novel Godlike (newly reissued by NYRB Classics), his creative process, the love of poetry, and the stories behind his work. Richard Hell is a writer and former musician best known as a pioneer of the punk rock scene in 1970s New York. Originally from Kentucky, he moved to New York at the age of seventeen and began publishing his poetry. In his early twenties, along with his friend Tom Verlaine, he started the Neon Boys, which later became the influential punk rock band Television. He went on to form the bands the Heartbreakers and Richard Hell and the Voidoids. In addition to Godlike , Hell has written several novels, poetry collections, and essay collections, as well as a memoir, I Dreamed I Was a Very Clean Tramp (2013). His most recent book of poetry, What Just Happened , was published in 2023. Godlike , which was reissued last month by NYRB Classics with a new afterword by Raymond Foye, was originally published in 2005. Crossing Hell’s experiences in the demimonde of 1970s New York City with the doomed romance of the nineteenth-century poètes maudits of France, it traverses the profane and the profound in the story of a poet perambulating downtown Manhattan and pining for a young poet who probably won’t love him back. To find Richard Hell’s Godlike and other NYRB Classics, visit our book imprint at nyrb.com. Subscribe to The New York Review of Books , which, in addition to twenty print issues a year, provides online access to our full archive going back to 1963.","meta_description":"In this episode of Private Life , Richard Hell joins Jarrett Earnest to discuss his novel Godlike (newly reissued by NYRB Classics), his creative process,…","key_points":[],"chapters":[],"topics":[],"duration_seconds":3490,"processing_state":"not_requested","actions":[{"name":"request_transcript","method":"POST","url":"https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/private-life-a-new-york-review-podcast-7689958/episodes/richard-hell-on-godlike-and-poetry-as-a-way-of-life/transcription-requests","description":"Idempotently request low-priority transcript generation for this episode."},{"name":"read_markdown","method":"GET","url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/private-life-a-new-york-review-podcast-7689958/richard-hell-on-godlike-and-poetry-as-a-way-of-life.md","description":"Read the agent-friendly Markdown representation of this episode resource."}]}}