Stacked Up’s radical education

Agit-prop from Paris, 1968 hangs above David Goodwillie's desk.

As a newcomer to the book media scene, Stacked Up TV has learned that the best way to persuade authors to be on our show is to approach them as a fan. In turn, it was a pleasant surprise when we met David Goodwillie at a book party and he told us that he was a huge fan of Stacked Up.

We were at Rebecca Skloot’s celebration for her book, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks. (By the way, Skloot is another author we’d love to interview.) David asked us if we would consider letting him show off his shelves and talk about his new novel, American Subversive. He promised a wall-to-wall book collection. And while he humbly stated that his Chelsea apartment wasn’t exactly “Cribs” material, he said it was nice.

We spent over two hours with David as he showed us hundreds of his favorite books, including his collection of first editions. As a journalist and a reader he’s unashamedly New-York-centric in his tastes. Some of his favorite stories about the City include the works of Gay Talese, Tom Wolfe and Jay McInerney. Not surprising for a young journalist, he has an affinity for the New Journalism movement of the 60′s and 70′s. Besides Talese and Wolfe, his shelves are filled with the likes of Joan Didion, Norman Mailer and Hunter S. Thompson.

He also showed us books about domestic terrorism that he read as research for American Subversive. Too numerous to mention in our episode, the shelf included Eat the Document, Direct Action and Fugitive Days.

By the end of the afternoon, we learned that not only does David have a great book collection, he doesn’t shy from research. Admittedly, he’s a former private investigator, so he’s good at finding things that others might have difficulty tracking down. But when it comes to literature, his advice is straightforward: “There are tons of novels being written. It’s up to readers to find them.”