St. Vincent offers tension, release and sonic 'jump scares'

DAVID BIANCULLI, HOST:

This is FRESH AIR. I'm David Bianculli. St. Vincent is a singer, songwriter, guitarist, multi-instrumentalist and a multi-Grammy award winner. Her guitar playing can be shredding, and her songs often can be dark, but her lyrics typically read like poetry. She's been making music as a solo artist for 17 years across seven albums. New York Times music critic Jon Pareles described her as, quote, "a grown-up fascinated by personas, gender roles, connections, obligations, self-destructive behavior and looming mortality." In addition to her own albums, she co-wrote the Taylor Swift song "Cruel Summer" and the Olivia Rodrigo song "Obsessed" and recorded an album of duets with David Byrne. On her new album "St. Vincent: Live In London!" she's backed by the 60-piece Jules Buckley orchestra onstage at London's Royal Albert Hall. It was recorded last September. Let's listen to a track from it. This is "Los Angeles" (ph).

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "LOS AGELESS (LIVE)")

ST VINCENT: (Singing) In Los Ageless, the winter never comes. In Los Ageless, the mothers milk their young. But I can keep running. No, I can keep running. I - oh, I. The Los Ageless hang out by the bar, burn the pages of unwritten memoirs. But I can keep running. No, I can keep running. I - oh, I. How can anybody have you? How can anybody have you and lose you? How can anybody have you and lose you and not lose their minds, too? How can anybody have you? How can anybody have you and lose you? How can anybody have you and lose you and not lose their minds, too?

BIANCULLI: That's St. Vincent on her new album, "Live In London!" Terry Gross spoke to St. Vincent in 2024, upon the release of her album that was titled "All Born Screaming." Two musicians featured on that album played in bands that influenced her in her formative years, Nirvana and David Bowie. Dave Grohl, who was Nirvana's drummer and later co-founded Foo Fighters, is featured on drums. Mark Guiliana, who played on Bowie's album "Blackstar," also is featured on drums on some tracks. Here's a song from St. Vincent's album "All Born Screaming." It's called "Broken Man."

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "BROKEN MAN")

ST VINCENT: (Singing) On the street, I'm a king-sized killer. I can make your kingdom come. On my feet, I'm an earthquake shaking. So open up, my little one. Hey, what are you looking at? Who the hell do you think I am? And what are you looking at? Like you've never seen a broken man. Lover, nail yourself right to me. If you go, I won't be well. I can hold my arms wide open. But I need you to drive the nail. Like, what are you looking at? Well, who the hell do you think I am? Hey, what are you looking at? Like you've never seen a broken man.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED NPR CONTENT)

TERRY GROSS: St. Vincent, welcome to FRESH AIR. It's such a pleasure to have you on the show. This is a terrific album. The song that we just heard, those lines, what are you looking at, who the hell do you think I am - so were you looking at someone or was someone looking at you?

ST VINCENT: You know, I think that there are these kind of frequencies that we can tune into in our brain that are, like, you know, whether it's deep ego stuff that underneath that is really just a whole lot of pain. And you're walking down the street and you feel like you could fall in love with somebody or kick over the trash cans, and if someone looks at you the wrong way, you just could explode. I just - I have that feeling. I mean, not every day. Like I said, it's a frequency you can kind of tune into when life takes you there. But art luckily is a safe place to explore all emotions, all ideas, no matter how dark or complicated.

GROSS: And you're not saying haven't you ever seen a broken woman; you're saying haven't you ever seen a broken man.

ST VINCENT: Yeah. Why did I say it like that?

GROSS: Was it because of the number of syllables you needed, or was it...

ST VINCENT: You know what?

GROSS: ...Something deeper than that?

(LAUGHTER)

ST VINCENT: You know, sometimes it really is as - well, that's - just sings better. It sings better, and it makes me feel a certain kind of way. And so, therefore, that's what it should be.

GROSS: The chorus of the song after what are you looking at - and I think this is on the second chorus - there's this really buzzy, dirty chord, and I'm not even sure if it's your guitar or are you playing synthesizer or what. What is that?

ST VINCENT: Oh, Terry, that's a combination of my guitar completely blown out and then also, just white noise going, (imitating white noise).

GROSS: Oh. I love that because that is the about-to-unravel, explode feeling that you're conveying through the song. I just think that chord gets it perfectly. And I love that it's used as punctuation. It's like the exclamation point in the song. And it's not happening throughout, so it's so effective because you use it so sparingly.

ST VINCENT: Thank you. Yeah. I look at music sort of like architecture - you know? - and call and response and tension and release. That's the whole game - right? - in music is tension and release. So you get these little just explosions of release, and then it goes back to tension, and then an explosion of release and then tension. But it's this simmering, creeping dread, I guess. I - on this record, I swear, I - some moments are almost like horror movie jump scares. Like, I think...

GROSS: Yeah.

ST VINCENT: ...Of that chord...

GROSS: No, definitely.

ST VINCENT: ...As, like, a jump scare. Yeah.

GROSS: So I mentioned that, you know, Dave Grohl, who was in Nirvana before co-founding Foo Fighters, is on drums and that you played at the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame - that you sang at the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame induction of Nirvana. What did Nirvana mean to you in your formative years? How old were you when you first heard them?

ST VINCENT: I was 9 years old. I was in my best friend Doug's (ph) front yard. He and his brother Paul (ph) had built a half pipe. We were learning how to skateboard. And Paul, who always had cool taste in music, you know, who was, like, on to D.C. punk from an early age was like - brought out the boom box, put in Nirvana "Nevermind" and played it for us for the first time, and we were floored. And it was the first music that I heard that I went, this is my music. This is the music of my generation.

GROSS: I'm wondering if Kurt Cobain's suicide had a big impact on you. You reference suicide in some of your songs. I think it's fair to say you've done - you know, you've dealt with anxiety. Judging from your songs, you've dealt with anxiety and panic. And I'm wondering if his suicide was a kind of frightening thing for you, and also a kind of wake-up call that, like, really talented people could go that far, could be in such a state of despair that - you know, end their life.

ST VINCENT: Well, I've certainly dealt with a combo platter of depression and anxiety in my life. You know, I had my first panic attack when I was 8. So I'm - that was always part of my consciousness, you know? But I certainly remember the day he died. And I remember me and all my friends getting together and writing Kurt lives on our faces. And, I mean, we were children. I mean, I was 12.

GROSS: So moving on to another influence...

ST VINCENT: Sure.

GROSS: ...I want to ask you about David Bowie and the influence he had on you. And I'm wondering what it meant to you when you first heard him or over time that he performed in persona, like you sometimes had, and that he - you know, we didn't use the word then, but he was genderqueer. And he was called androgynous in his time. So as a performer, what influence did that - what impact did that have on you?

ST VINCENT: Well, I think Bowie even went so far as to say that he was bisexual in the '70s, which, I mean...

GROSS: And that was shocking in his time.

ST VINCENT: Right - mic drop. Like, that...

GROSS: (Laughter) Yeah, I know.

ST VINCENT: ...Was dangerous then.

GROSS: Yeah.

ST VINCENT: You know, now that's a feather in your cap. Then, that was - you know, daggers were out for him. So...

GROSS: (Laughter) Yeah.

ST VINCENT: Yeah, you know, I'm queer. So I've always felt like gender and identity were a performance. I've been aware of that since I was a young child and learning how to code switch growing up in Texas and everything. So it kind of makes sense for me to deal with all of that, to deal with persona, to deal with identity in my work. And as far as David Bowie, I mean, gosh. He was just an artist. He was just an artist with a capital A. He took us so many places.

GROSS: In terms of persona and David Bowie and yourself as a performer, did or does performing in character or in persona liberate you in a way? Is it easier to do certain songs if it's not you? I mean, even having the name St. Vincent, which is clearly not your birth name...

ST VINCENT: (Laughter).

GROSS: But, you know, even having, like, a stage name, is that - like, some people might think, oh, she's hiding behind that. But is there something actually liberating about it?

ST VINCENT: Well, I mean, so my name is Annie Clark, which, you know, it's a lovely name. It's a just fine name. But there's also - there was already an Anne Clark, who's a great artist, and so that name was sort of taken. So I thought, OK, I need to - I want to have a moniker, because I felt like it would give me license and freedom to do - to be bigger than Annie Clark, I guess.

I think there is a tendency to look at, you know, people performing with theatricality and think of it as inauthentic. But I find that, you know, sometimes people who are selling you authenticity are - (laughter) you know, are lying to you. You know what I mean? It's like art, to me, is a place where I get to take everything that's happening in my life at that moment in my internal world, in the external world and play with it and make sense of it and go, there's chaos, but somehow, if I sit in my studio for long enough, I can alchemize that chaos into something that makes sense to me.

And so whether it's putting persona on top of that or getting at truths through exploring identity, sure. I will say on this record, "All Born Screaming," I'm not playing with persona. It's really a record about, like, life and death and love. That's it. That's all we got.

BIANCULLI: St. Vincent speaking to Terry Gross in 2024. More after a break. This is FRESH AIR.

This is FRESH AIR. Let's get back to Terry's interview with singer, songwriter and guitarist St. Vincent. She has a new album, "Live In London!" recorded onstage at London's Royal Albert Hall.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED NPR CONTENT)

GROSS: So your style of guitar playing - I mean, you have many different styles, but you do some great, you know, dirty-sounding guitar, like - and you played in a noise band. That kind of shredding guitar style has mostly been associated with guys, especially before the riot grrrl feminist punk movement. What kind of bands were you in as a teenager? And did you play with other girls, or did you play with guys?

ST VINCENT: There weren't many girls who were playing instruments back in Dallas, Texas, in my little neighborhood in the '90s. So - but my friends and I were all very, you know, culture vultures in that way, very into music. I played bass in a metal cover band as a junior high student. So that was like Metallica, Iron Maiden, Pantera. That was that kind of music. And I've always really liked heavy music. But a lot of my time, being about 14 on, was kind of spent in my room recording myself. First, it was, like, TASCAM, four tracks and stuff like that. But then - my uncle and aunt are a jazz duo called Tuck & Patti, who - my uncle's one of the best guitar players in all of the world. He's a finger-style master. But he's also an engineer, and my stepdad was an engineer, and saw that I was really into recording myself and music and with the help of my Uncle Tuck and my stepdad, you know, facilitating it on the ground in Dallas, he helped build me a little early digital recording studio in my bedroom.

GROSS: Wow. That's amazing.

ST VINCENT: Yeah. So - and it was PC-based. It was called Cakewalk Pro Audio. I'm not sure if it still exists. But I could close the door to my bedroom and record myself. I could sing along to Billie Holiday, and I could try to learn how to arrange and try to write songs. And I had this mirror, which is recording, to kind of listen back and go, ooh, I know how my heroes sound, and I don't sound anything like them yet. I better keep going. And that was really, really helpful, I think, for me in finding my voice, getting better, learning how to arrange, learning how to think about music. And I'm so grateful to my stepdad - rest in peace - for seeing that and supporting those dreams, even though he didn't know anything about music. You know, he called himself a cultural desert, but...

GROSS: (Laughter).

ST VINCENT: ...He - you know, which I mean, was not wholly inaccurate, right? He'd drive me to school and we'd listen to Rush Limbaugh, and then my mom would drive me to school, and we'd listen to you, you know, so it was a very, very...

(LAUGHTER)

ST VINCENT: ...Very different kind of experience, right? But I do - I credit him with really giving me the tools to learn how to be an artist and giving me the space to do it.

GROSS: I want to play another song of yours. And this goes back to an earlier album, and the song is called "New York." And it's among your best-known songs. And before we hear it, I want you to say a few words about writing it.

ST VINCENT: Sure. It actually started as a text message to one of my best friends. I actually just, you know, texted him New York isn't New York without you. And I thought, oh, wait a second - I could use that (laughter). That's a nice sentiment but let me just squirrel it away and use it in a song. And I think - you know, I lived in the East Village for 10 years in a rent-controlled apartment. But, you know, when you're walking around the East Village, you're like, oh, man, that's where Arthur Russell used to hang, and, oh, that's probably where Patti Smith and Robert Mapplethorpe, you know, used to sit in Tompkins. And, you know, you're surrounded by not just the ghosts of your heroes, but also sort of the ghosts of your former selves, right? Like, oh, that's the bodega where I fell in love. Like, oh, (laughter) you know, that's the bar where we broke up - whatever. You're just completely surrounded by memories on every single street corner. So, yeah, that's New York.

GROSS: So on the unfriendly radio version, which we cannot play 'cause of the expletive, the expletive is - rhymes with sucker and begins with mother. So it's, you're the only mother-expletive in the city who can handle me. So let's hear "New York.".

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "NEW YORK")

ST VINCENT: (Singing) New York isn't New York without you, love. So far in a few blocks to be so low. And if I call you from First Avenue, well, you're the only other sucker in the city who can handle me. New love wasn't true love but to you, love. So much for a homerun with some blue bloods. If I last-strawed you on 8th Avenue, well, you're the only other sucker in the city who can stand me. I have lost a hero. I have lost a friend. But for you, darling, I'd do it all again. I have lost a hero. I have lost a friend. But for you, darling, I'd do it all again.

BIANCULLI: That's "New York" by St. Vincent. We'll continue her 2024 interview with Terry Gross after a break. Later, Maureen Corrigan reviews a new debut novel that she calls sly and morbidly funny, and I'll review the return of the TV sitcom "Malcolm In The Middle." I'm David Bianculli, and this is FRESH AIR.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

BIANCULLI: This is FRESH AIR. I'm TV critic David Bianculli. Let's get back to Terry's 2024 interview with the singer, songwriter and guitarist St. Vincent. She's backed by a 60-piece orchestra on her new album "St. Vincent: Live In London!"

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED NPR CONTENT)

GROSS: I want to talk about your aunt and uncle, who performed under the name Tuck & Patti, a jazz duo. Your uncle plays acoustic guitar.

ST VINCENT: My uncle Tuck plays a 1947 and 1948 Gibson L-5, which is an electric guitar, but it's kind of a hollow-body jazz guitar.

GROSS: OK. And your aunt sings.

ST VINCENT: Yes.

GROSS: And they're pretty calm performers. They're kind of on the other end of where you are as a performer. You toured with them, I think, after high school. I think you made sure they had what they needed in hotels, they had a decent room, they had food, they had tuned guitars. What was it like as a teenager being on the road with professional musicians who were also your aunt and uncle? So did that kind of dispel any ideas of how touring is, like, a really glamorous thing?

ST VINCENT: Oh, I would say yes. Touring with Tuck & Patti - and I don't mean this in any sort of slight to them - but just the amount of work that it takes to travel, put on a show, tech, all the gear, make sure that you've eaten - I - you know, I had stuff like a little head counter. So I would walk around and count heads in the room so that when the promoter would come back and say, oh, we sold this many tickets, I had a count (laughter) to compare it to. So I could find out if the promoter was trying to stiff them on any tickets 'cause I said - 'cause I had - well, no, actually, my count says we had, you know, 350, and you're only trying to pay us for, you know, 297. That's not - you know, so all this stuff, like, really learning the ropes of the road - and really, really caring about sonics, too. I want - they really care about sonics and taught me to care about sonics. And they really impressed upon me,\ not everybody has to like it. That doesn't matter, but you have to be excellent. You have to be excellent. You have to be as good at your craft as possible.

GROSS: Watching and participating in your aunt and uncle's tours, did it make you think - when you became a professional musician and got to go on the road, did it make you think, I don't want to do that? Like, I've been there.

ST VINCENT: (Laughter).

GROSS: This is, like, really hard.

ST VINCENT: No. No. I was hooked. I was hooked. I - the first tour I ever did with them was - I was 15. I'd never been anywhere, except maybe, I think, to New Mexico on a vacation and, like, maybe Cancun or something. They took me to Japan.

GROSS: Oh, wow.

ST VINCENT: And I saw the world. I mean, I was - music has given to me my whole life. And I - and, yeah, it was hard work. But it's worth it because every night, you get to spend 90 minutes with people and go someplace completely out of this world. And I saw them move people's hearts and - they moved my heart, of course - but move people to tears every night and really give people a place to lay their burden down. And it matters. And it's so beautiful. And so, yeah, of course, you're tired, and you're jet-lagged, and you're whatever. But the second - for me, the second it's showtime, it's like, let's go.

GROSS: So I want to play another song. And this is a song called "Smoking Section." And this is an example of, I think, how really good your lyrics are. And it's a song about - well, how would you describe it?

ST VINCENT: I would say that's a song about toying with the precipice. You know? I would say that's definitely - I was quite bereft writing that song, and it's about kind of just going right up to that edge and looking over and going, huh. What if?

GROSS: Yeah. And let me quote a couple of lines to call our listeners' attention to. Sometimes, I sit in the smoking section, hoping one rogue spark will land in my direction, and when you stomp me out, I scream and I shout, let it happen. Let it happen. Let it happen.

And later, you sing, sometimes, I stand on the edge of my roof, and I think I'll jump just to punish you. So let's hear the song. And here it is.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "SMOKING SECTION")

ST VINCENT: (Singing) Sometimes, I stand with a pistol in hand. I fire at the grass, just to scare you right back. And when you won't run, I'm mad. But I succumb - let it happen, let it happen, let it happen. Sometimes I go to the edge of my roof, and I think I'll jump just to punish you. And if I should float on the taxis below, no one will notice, no one will know. And then I think, what could be better than love, than love, than love? And then I think, what could be better than love, than love, than love? It's not the end. It's not the end. It's not the end. It's not the end.

GROSS: So that's the song "Smoking Section" from, I think, the 2017 album "Masseduction."

ST VINCENT: That is. And fun fact - that's my Aunt Patti singing. (Vocalizing).

GROSS: So she's singing with you on it.

ST VINCENT: She's - yes, it's my Aunt Patti singing on the little (vocalizing).

GROSS: Ah. OK. Yeah. You asked her to do it?

ST VINCENT: I did.

GROSS: What were you going through when you wrote that?

ST VINCENT: I had been just burning that candle. I - let's see. I started touring really hard at "Strange Mercy," which was 2011. And then I went straight from that into making and touring "Love This Giant" with David Byrne, which was one of the most joyful experiences of my life. And then I - the day I got back from being done with the Byrne tour, I started writing my self-titled record. And then from there, I went on a tour that just lasted forever. And I had breakups and new relationships and breakups. And I was just out of my mind. I was so just burnt, you know, and I had lost kind of my center. And I think when I said before that I'm so lucky I've always had my family, the other thing I've had and the thing that's always truly saved my life is music. I always had a place to go or a goal.

So making "Masseduction," for me, was like the train had finally ground to a halt. I was looking at myself and going, what am I? What have I become? What - where have I been? Where have I even been? And so I went totally sober. You know, I went sober in every sense of the word - you know, no sex, no drinking, nothing - just went full nun mode and was like, this music is going to save me. That was my lifeline. That saved me. I knew if I had a record to make, then I could keep going, you know.

But also, I - you know, I'll quote Brian Eno and probably misquote Brian Eno here, but, like, you know, music is a car that you can crash over and over again and walk away safely. Like, it's a place for me to explore and figure out all that is chaotic and brutal in life, but put it and make some sense out of it.

GROSS: Musically, and maybe lyrically, but musically, I think of it as being very influenced by Leonard Cohen.

ST VINCENT: Oh, I love Leonard Cohen.

GROSS: I thought you would.

ST VINCENT: Speaking of poetry...

GROSS: Yeah.

ST VINCENT: Yeah.

GROSS: And transcendent - oh, but also...

ST VINCENT: Oh.

GROSS: ...Really not. (Laughter) Like, he has the sins and the transcendence worked into his songs.

ST VINCENT: Absolutely. But I think you don't get one without the other. You know, I think that's - like, the human condition is so many things. It's - I just don't think you just get the joy without kind of knowing how lucky you are (laughter) to be joyful, you know? It just - it's - life is funny like that.

GROSS: Well, St. Vincent, it's really been a pleasure to talk with you. Thank you so much, and thank you for your music.

ST VINCENT: Thank you so much, Terry. I'm a massive fan, and this was a real pleasure.

GROSS: It's such an honor to hear you say that, and I have become a big fan of your music.

ST VINCENT: Thank you.

BIANCULLI: St. Vincent spoke with Terry Gross in 2024. Her new album, "St. Vincent: Live In London!" recorded at the Royal Albert Hall, has just been released.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "THE STRANGERS (LIVE)")

ST VINCENT: (Singing) Lover, I don't play to win but for the thrill until I'm spent. Paint the black hole blacker. Paint the black hole blacker. And I threw flowers in your face on my sister's wedding day. Paint the black hole blacker. Paint the black hole blacker. You showed up with a black eye, looking to go start a fight. Paint the black hole blacker. Paint the black hole blacker. Playboys under your mattress, like I wouldn't notice. Paint the black hole blacker. Paint the black hole blacker. What do I share, what do I keep from all the strangers who sleep where I sleep?

BIANCULLI: Coming up, book critic Maureen Corrigan reviews "I Am Agatha," which she describes as a deviously plotted debut novel by writer Nancy Foley. This is FRESH AIR.

DAVID BIANCULLI, HOST:

This is FRESH AIR. A sly and morbidly funny debut novel called "I Am Agatha" by Nancy Foley has our book critic Maureen Corrigan thinking about the extremes some people will go to for love. Here is her review.

MAUREEN CORRIGAN, BYLINE: Agatha Smithson is that rare person who lacks the gene for self-doubt. Brash and brutally dismissive of anyone who disagrees with her, Agatha is the main character and unreliable narrator of Nancy Foley's deviously plotted debut novel called "I Am Agatha."

If you're one of those readers who prizes likability above all else in your fictional characters, you may be inclined to give "I Am Agatha" a pass, but that would be a mistake. This is a strange, fresh story about artistic ambition and personal autonomy willingly abridged for love. And all too unusually, the love affair here is between two women in their 60s.

Agatha's character is inspired by the real-life minimalist painter Agnes Martin, known for her canvases covered in graphs and stripes. Martin lived for years in New Mexico near Georgia O'Keefe. Diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia, Martin was a solitary person, although she had significant relationships with women. Nancy Foley, who grew up in New Mexico, says that her novel was inspired by rumors of such a relationship between a friend of her grandmother's and Martin.

"I Am Agatha" takes place mostly in the 1970s, with flashbacks to Agatha's rough youth in Canada and allusions to a hard time in New York, including a stint at Bellevue. New Mexico offers Agatha a new start and an austere landscape that jibes with her art and her own personality. Here's Agatha, in her typical brusque, pared-down manner of speaking, describing the view from the adobe house she built herself high upon a mesa.

(Reading) My house looks west out over a canyon that, although far from any ocean whatsoever, yet resembles one in scope and light. This ocean canyon heaves waves of shale and basalt, quartz and silt. Cloud shadows flit across its rock floor like ghost boats. There is no other place on earth like Mesa Portales. I have traveled to many places, so mine is not an uninformed opinion. The truth is that there is a hierarchy. Some places are objectively better, just as some people are objectively better than others.

The objectively better person Agatha wants to bring to live with her on Mesa Portales is her longtime secret love, a woman named Alice who's now declining into dementia. But there are two obstacles to Agatha's caretaking plan. The first is Alice's adult son, Frank Jr., who plans to move his mother into a care facility in Taos. At one point, Agatha and Frank argue over this plan, and Frank Jr. drops some bombshell news. I'm startled, Agatha tells us, but won't let him take my own breath away from me and puff himself up with it. It's hard not to root for a character who knows how to sling words around like that.

The other obstacle seems more immovable. It's Alice's daughter, Lorna, who's buried in the backyard of Alice's house. Years ago, Lorna was murdered by her abusive husband, and Alice likes to sit every day by her daughter's grave, planted with violets and lilacs. I'm not giving much away when I point out that Agatha's practical, if grotesque, solution to this dilemma is revealed in the cover art of "I Am Agatha." Metaphorically, that book jacket hits readers over the head with a shovel.

This novel becomes even more deliciously weird as a pattern emerges. That is, whenever Agatha talks with Frank Jr. or other characters about Alice's welfare, Alice is never present. She's always taking a walk or a nap or just unavailable. And it becomes impossible to ignore that Agatha is estranged from a lot of people. She makes brief, enigmatic references to a falling out with Georgia O'Keefe and an academic colleague and a parasitic graduate student who's writing her thesis on Agatha's art. As a narrator, Agatha turns out to be no more forthcoming to us readers than she's been to any of these characters - former friends she now regards as antagonists.

In its ingeniously duplicitous narrative structure, "I Am Agatha" is reminiscent of Patricia Highsmith's magnificent Ripley novels. Not that Agatha is an amoral con artist like Tom Ripley, but she will do anything to safeguard Alice, her fading love. We are all of us hunted animals from the moment we are born, says Agatha, contemplating old age and death. None of us will outrun mortality, but watching brilliant and wily Agatha try is captivating.

BIANCULLI: Maureen Corrigan is a professor of literature at Georgetown University. She reviewed "I Am Agatha" by Nancy Foley.

Coming up, I'll review the brief return of "Malcolm In The Middle." This is FRESH AIR.

DAVID BIANCULLI, HOST:

This is FRESH AIR. Today, Hulu drops all four new episodes of an old sitcom, and it's a delight. The new limited series is called "Malcolm In The Middle: Life Still Unfair." Linwood Boomer, who co-created the original "Malcolm In The Middle" sitcom way back in the year 2000, is back for the reunion. So is almost all the original cast, in a four-episode plot that has Hal and Lois, the parents of this very dysfunctional family, struggling to mount a 40th wedding anniversary party. When the original "Malcolm In The Middle" premiered, Frankie Muniz, who played Frankie (ph), spoke directly to the TV audience about his anxieties growing up in this particular household.

(SOUNDBITE OF TV SERIES, "MALCOLM IN THE MIDDLE")

FRANKIE MUNIZ: (As Malcolm) My name is Malcolm. Do you want to know what the best thing about Childhood is? At some point, it stops.

BIANCULLI: The series sequel, with its "Life Still Unfair" subtitle, a shout-out to the original show's theme song, picks up right where the seven-season sitcom ended, with Malcolm still confiding directly to the audience.

(SOUNDBITE OF TV SERIES, "MALCOLM IN THE MIDDLE: LIFE STILL UNFAIR")

MUNIZ: (As Malcolm) Yeah, I look different. But hey, everything about me is different. I'm happy. I'm successful. I've learned to work productively with idiots. My life is fantastic now. You want to know how I did it? All I had to do is stay completely away from my family.

BIANCULLI: Thank goodness he doesn't maintain that level of separation because Malcolm's parents, Hal and Lois, are the best thing about any iteration of "Malcolm In The Middle." Lois is played with exasperated patience by the wonderful Jane Kaczmarek, and Hal, her goofy man-child of a husband, is played by Bryan Cranston. He played this cartoonish live-action Homer Simpson hilariously for years, then took a hard turn to play Walter White, the science teacher turned drug-dealing murderer in the drama series "Breaking Bad." But he never lost his sense of humor or how to play Hal's character.

When "Breaking Bad" ended, he and Kaczmarek filmed a playful scene just for fun and for YouTube, that was a callback to the famous ending of the TV sitcom "Newhart." Remember, at the very end of that series, Bob Newhart woke up in bed in his old bedroom with his old TV wife, Emily, played by Suzanne Pleshette from "The Bob Newhart Show." He tried to describe his entire "Newhart" series to her as a bad dream. And after "Breaking Bad" ended, Bryan Cranston, waking up as Hal in bed next to his former TV wife, had a similar experience.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

BRYAN CRANSTON: (As Hal) Wake up. Honey. Honey, wake up. Wake up, wake up.

JANE KACZMAREK: (As Lois) For the love of criminy, what is it? What's the matter?

CRANSTON: (As Hal) Oh, I just had the scariest dream.

KACZMAREK: (As Lois) I told you not to eat those deep-fried Twinkies.

CRANSTON: (As Hal) No, you don't understand. You don't understand. I was - oh, I was this meth dealer.

KACZMAREK: (As Lois) What?

CRANSTON: (As Hal) Yeah, I was this world-class chemist, and I cooked, and I sold this ultra-pure methamphetamine.

KACZMAREK: (As Lois, laughter) You cooking anything?

BIANCULLI: In "Malcolm In The Middle: Life Still Unfair," the comic chemistry remains, though times have changed. Lois still shaves Hal's body hair at the breakfast table, shearing him like a sheep, but now Hal's hair is white. And at the table on this particular morning is a member of the family who is new to us, Kelly, a teenager who identifies in a way that Hal struggles to understand, at least in how to address her.

(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "MALCOLM IN THE MIDDLE: LIFE STILL UNFAIR")

CRANSTON: (As Hal) We're going to go shopping later. Do them want to come?

VAUGHAN MURRAE: (As Kelly) Him can't come with we. Us has homework.

KACZMAREK: (As Lois) Hey, he's trying. Don't mock him for it.

MURRAE: (As Kelly) I'm not afraid of you.

KACZMAREK: (As Lois) That's not...

MURRAE: (As Kelly) I get good grades. I help around the house. I'm your only kid without a file at the police station. I'm untouchable.

KACZMAREK: (As Lois) Yeah. Well, it wouldn't kill you to tell your father you loved him every once in a while.

MURRAE: (As Kelly) I love you.

KACZMAREK: (As Lois) Oh, that just sounds sarcastic.

MURRAE: (As Kelly) I love you.

CRANSTON: (As Hal) Now you sound annoyed.

UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR: (As character) Kind of do. It's your timbre.

MURRAE: (As Kelly) I love you. I love you. I love you.

CRANSTON: (As Hal) The middle one was nice. Thank you.

BIANCULLI: I've seen all four episodes of "Life Still Unfair," and they're full of laughs and surprises in equal measure. All but one of the former child actors are back for this sequel - there's a new actor playing Dewey - and other characters are added, including Malcolm's high school-age daughter, Leah, played by Keeley Karsten, who's as humorously anxious and observant in this show as Malcolm was in the original. And Muniz, as the grown-up Malcolm, is terrific. So is Kaczmarek as Lois. And Cranston, as Hal, goes through so many broad comedy pitfalls and pratfalls that he's like a Tex Avery cartoon character. Put it this way, what he did as the Hollywood executive in HBO's "The Studio," that's nothing compared to what happens to him here. And in both cases, coincidentally, massive amounts of pharmaceuticals are involved. Ken Kwapis, a director on the original "Malcolm," directed all four episodes of "Malcolm In The Middle: Life Still Unfair." And the final result is a show that's ultimately about family and tolerance and love. But most of all, it's about evoking laughter, which it does constantly.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "BOSS OF ME")

THEY MIGHT BE GIANTS: (Singing) Yes, no, maybe. I don't know. Can you repeat the question? You're not the boss of me now. You're not the boss of me now. You're not the boss of me now, and you're not so big. You're not the boss...

BIANCULLI: On Monday's show, Toni Morrison's books have been celebrated and banned, and her quotes are everywhere. But author and Harvard Professor Namwali Serpell has spent 30 years within Morrison's prose and says, what if we've been missing the point of her work all along? Hope you can join us.

FRESH AIR's executive producer is Sam Briger. Our senior producer today is Roberta Shorrock. Our technical director and engineer is Audrey Bentham, with additional engineering support by Joyce Lieberman, Julian Herzfeld and Diana Martinez. Our interviews and reviews are produced and edited by Phyllis Myers, Ann Marie Baldonado, Lauren Krenzell, Therese Madden, Monique Nazareth, Thea Chaloner, Susan Nyakundi, Anna Bauman and Nico Gonzalez Wisler. Our digital media producer is Molly Seavy-Nesper.

For Terry Gross and Tonya Mosley, I'm David Bianculli.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "BOSS OF ME")

THEY MIGHT BE GIANTS: (Singing) Life is a test, but I...

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