Recent Reading: Appearances

 

Goodreads does not seem to consider the possibility that a podcast could be considered a book. This oversight is something of a disappointment to me because I use that website/app to log my reading, and I consider the podcast Appearances to be an audiobook. If we define a story or narrative the way wikipedia does, then it is

any account of a series of related events or experiences, whether nonfictional (memoir, biography, news report, documentary, travelogue, etc.) or fictional (fairy tale, fable, legend, thriller, novel, etc.). Narratives can be presented through a sequence of written or spoken words, still or moving images, or any combination of these.

I would definitely say that Appearances qualifies using this definition of story. It is a multi-episode story sort of like what I imagine radio dramas were like before television came on the scene. I would also put two other podcasts in this category: Bronzeville and Homecoming. I would say that Appearances, Bronzeville, and Homecoming are excellent examples of multi-episode fiction podcasts.

The website that hosts the program describes the podcast as follows:

Appearances is a one woman audio show that straddles the line between fiction and truth. Appearances brings to life an Iranian American family and community through the real and fantastical mental machinations of Melanie Barzadeh. Melanie is in her mid 30’s and desires nothing more than to become a mother. The difficulty of finding the right partner seems to be directly connected to the struggles witnessed in her home throughout her entire childhood. As Sharon Mashihi voice-acts all the characters in one family, the depth of the love, pain, and struggle is felt with a visceral, profound compassion at every turn. Based in New York, NY.

If you enjoyed Twin Peaks, Fellini, Symbiopsychotaxiplasm: Take One, or, like me, you are a fan of Borges, Nabokov, and their progeny, then Appearances might be for you. But I can confidently say that the podcast is NOT for everyone. Emily Gould in Vulture has a very positive review about Appearances. Here is Gould's attempt to explain why she enjoyed the podcast.

To the extent it’s possible to take the podcast world by storm, Appearances has — impressive considering it was independently produced and had no marketing budget. News of its existence has spread mostly via word of mouth among the audio cognoscenti. Lydia Polgreen, who runs Gimlet Media, heard about it from the documentarian Lynn Levy, who compared it to both Sheila Heti’s novel Motherhood and the TV series BoJack Horseman. “It feels like a creative breakthrough for the form,” says Polgreen. Radio plays are as old as radio itself, and Appearances’ docufiction style will be familiar to anyone who has read Karl Ove Knausgaard or watched Kirsten Johnson kill off her father in Dick Johnson Is Dead. Yet the intimacy of audio makes combining fiction and documentary seem new, particularly when it features a magnetic voice at its center. Is it possible to be an art-podcast star? Mashihi has a knack — apparent immediately in the tentative “Hi” that begins the show — for exploiting the intimacy of hearing someone whisper in your ear. The only thing separating her from auteurs like Phoebe Waller-Bridge and Michaela Coel may be the medium. Despite its current financial boom, podcasting is still a cultural niche without TV’s reach or literature’s prestige.

Appearances, among other things, is very meta and breaks the fourth wall several times. In fact, it REALLY pushes the envelope in this respect. The podcast is also very much a feminist one and foregrounds gender, pregnancy and childbirth, and a woman's relationship to her parents and how that affects attitudes toward becoming a mother.

I first read about appearances in the New Yorker. In that magazine, Dana Goodyear has an article about Kaitlan Prest, the editor and producer of Appearances. The article also has some information about the creator and host, Sharon Mashihi.