Maxim Loskutoff on the Unabomber and the Myth of the American West

Novelist Maxim Loskutoff joins co-host V.V. Ganeshananthan and guest co-host Matt Gallagher to talk about his new novel, Old King , which is about Unabomber Ted Kaczynski, who moved to Montana to withdraw from society. Loskutoff, who grew up in Missoula, Montana, discusses the mythology that draws men like Kaczynski—who sought to be in nature, and to avoid technology and other people—to his home state; the gap between the imaginary American West and its reality; and how these connect to American settler colonialism. He also explains how he positioned the Kaczynski of his novel not as a hero or even an antihero, but as a symbol of this dark and unhealed facet of American society. Loskutoff reads from Old King. Check out video excerpts from our interviews at Lit Hub’s Virtual Book Channel , Fiction/Non/Fiction’s YouTube Channel , and our website . This episode of the podcast was produced by Anne Kniggendorf . * From the episode: V.V. Ganeshananthan: [After Loskutoff reads from a section from Kaczynski’s point of view] Gosh, it is so intense to be in that mind. I wonder if you could just talk to us a little bit about the writerly project of entering that interiority, deciding to do that via fiction rather than nonfiction, you use his real name. I wonder if you could just talk a little bit about some of the early steps of the decision making or exploration that you did as you were starting the novel, and just thinking about how this story would align with known facts, because there’s a lot of references in there to things that actually happen, and then also, of course, some really juicy wandering into things that I’m not sure if they did or not. Maxim Loskutoff: Well, to just finish my summary of Ted Kaczynski’s life and actions, once he came to Montana, he began from these acres that he bought outside of Lincoln. He first built himself this one room windowless shack, and then he set to work making bombs. And this was something he’d played with beginning when he was a […]

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