February 14, 2014

Except For That One Thing

Mike Anderson was 36 years old, married, a suburban father of four. He owned a contracting business and built his family’s modest, three-bedroom house in St. Louis from the ground up. He volunteered at church on the weekends and coaches his son’s football team. All pretty normal, right? Except for one thing … which surfaced one day two summers ago.

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Transcript

Prologue

When Mike and Sara bought their first house, they didn’t have much money for furniture. So they looked for bargains at yard sales and estate auctions and finally, Sara found the perfect piece of furniture on eBay. Great-looking at a great price, it was ideal, except for one thing. (7 minutes)

By

Ira Glass

Act One

Run On Sentence

Lots of us have things about us that we keep to ourselves. Mike Anderson had something like that, something he kept secret even from his wife, until the day the truth came out. Jessica Lussenhop reports. Her original story about Anderson appeared in the St. Louis newspaper Riverfront Times. (16 minutes)

By

Jessica Lussenhop

Story Update

Update: Mike Anderson Released

Act Two

Not Okay Cupid

A piece of fiction by BJ Novak called "Julie and the Warlord" that with his help, we’ve turned into a radio drama. It’s from his new book of short stories One More Thing: Stories and Other Stories. Alison Brie plays Julie; Tunde Adebimpe plays the Warlord. Alison’s on Community and in The Lego Movie. Tunde’s new project Higgins Waterproof Black Magic Band has an EP that's out now on iTunes. Details and tour schedule at hwbmb.com. (9 minutes)

By

BJ Novak

Act Three

Hungry Hungry People

Producer Alex Blumberg interviews the writer Jon Mooallem, who just wrote a story for the Atavist about a period in the early 1900’s when meat was scarce in the United States. A group of forward-thinking men had a plan to fix that problem. It was ingenious in every way except for one. Jon’s story is also an Amazon Kindle single. (12 minutes)

By

Alex Blumberg

Jon Mooallem

Act Four

Start Me Up

Comedian Tig Notaro tells an audience at the club Largo in Los Angeles about the day she tried to introduce a sixth grade class to the music of The Rolling Stones. Tig’s the host of the podcast Professor Blastoff. Her comedy CDs and tour schedule are at Tignation.com. (3 1/2 minutes)

By

Tig Notaro

Act Five

Happy Accident

Etgar Keret always had a good relationship with his dad, except for one thing. This was read for us in English translation by actor Michael Chernus. Etgar’s most recent book is Suddenly a Knock on the Door. (8 minutes)