Editions - Episode 1 - Ladies of the Rachmaninoff Eyes with Taìno Mendez

About this episode

The episode features a discussion on the novel 'Ladies of the Rachmaninoff Eyes' with insights into its themes and historical context.

In the debut episode of Editions, a podcast from Shakespeare and Company and Faber, literary director Adam Biles and Faber Editions curator Ella Griffiths are joined by novelist and performer Taìno Mendez to discuss Ladies of the Rachmaninoff Eyes by Henry Van Dyke, the twentieth title in the Faber Editions imprint. Published in 1965 and long out of print, the novel follows Oliver, a Black teenager spending a final summer before college in the eccentric Michigan household of his wealthy patron Etta Klein and his aunt Harriet. Witty, camp, and shot through with tragedy, it defies easy categorisation; a drawing-room satire, a coming-of-age story, and a quietly radical work of civil rights era fiction. The conversation covers the novel's Wildean wit, its oblique engagement with race and queerness, the role of photographer Carl Van Vechten in the Harlem Renaissance, and what it means to write against expectation. Buy Ladies of the Rachmaninoff Eyes UK: https://www.faber.co.uk/product/9780571391783-ladies-of-the-rachmaninoff-eyes-faber-editions/ Rest of World: https://www.shakespeareandcompany.com/books/ladies-of-the-rachmaninoff-eyes-faber-editions Buy Rainbow Milk…

People in this episode

Hosts: Adam Biles, Ella Griffiths

Guest: Taìno Mendez

Topics covered

• literature
• race
• queerness
• coming-of-age
• civil rights
• satire

Keywords

• Henry Van Dyke
• Ladies of the Rachmaninoff Eyes
• Taìno Mendez
• literary discussion
• Faber Editions
• civil rights era fiction
• Wildean wit

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Faber Editions, Shakespeare and Company

Books & works: Ladies of the Rachmaninoff Eyes

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