Fresh Air

Transcript

TERRY GROSS, HOST:

"Good evening, hello. I have cancer. How are you?"

That's how comedian Tig Notaro began her set at Largo in Los Angeles the day she was diagnosed with Stage 2 breast cancer. As she uttered those words to the audience, there was nervous laughter, weeping and total silence in response.

Comedian Louis C.K. was there that evening, and tweeted this about her performance: "In 27 years doing this, I've seen a handful of truly great, masterful standup sets. One was Tig Notaro last night at Largo."

The host of The Colbert Report returns to Fresh Air to talk about his new book, America Again: Re-becoming the Greatness We Never Weren't.

Critic-at-large John Powers has some thoughts on the British author and the publication of his new memoir, Joseph Anton, a chronicle of his time in hiding.

His new film The Master stars Philip Seymour Hoffman as a leader of a cult and Joaquin Phoenix as his follower. Anderson's other films include There Will Be Blood, Magnolia and Boogie Nights.

Critic David Edelstein reviews a film that may sound a lot like a campus-bound version of Glee, but has more to it than that label might suggest.

The Vanity Fair columnist wrote about his early career at the Village Voice in Lucking Out: My Life Getting Down and Semi-Dirty In the Seventies. (Rebroadcast from November 2011.)

His debut novel — The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao — won a Pulitzer Prize. He was recently named as one of the 2012 recipients of a MacArthur Fellowship. (Rebroadcast from December 2007)