Uncorking A Story

S. E. Boyd is the creation of veteran journalists Kevin Alexander and Joe Keohane, and editor Alessandra Lusardi. All lightly damaged Catholics prone to extensive over-analysis, Alexander, Keohane, and Lusardi have, between them, authored four books, edited dozens more, and written for Esquire, The Atlantic, and The New Yorker, among others. Alexander also won a James Beard Award for food writing, a fact Keohane and Lusardi are both tired of hearing about. They joined me on Uncorking a Story to talk about their first novel, The Lemon. Key Topics: How our celebrity-obsessed culture influenced the book’s premise, and their particular fascination with what they call “the Celebrity-Death-Industrial Complex.” Their unique writing process, and why it has more in common with a TV writers’ room than typical novel-writing. Why the character at the center of the book is called John Doe: “In dying famous, he became the property of others; he is a cipher for whatever you want him to mean to you.” Their backgrounds