A bumper crop of Steve Martins will be on display in a new audiobook coming out this spring from Pushkin Industries.
“So Many Steves: Afternoons With Steve Martin” will be published on May 2, 2023, by Pushkin, the audio production company co-founded by Malcolm Gladwell and Jacob Weisberg. The project condenses a year’s worth of conversations between Martin, 77, and his friend of more than three decades, New Yorker writer Adam Gopnik.
In the audiobook, according to Pushkin, Martin is “more candid than he’s ever been” about his many lives — as a comedian, actor, writer, musician, magician, art collector and more. Over several sessions, all recorded in Martin’s Upper West Side apartment, “So Many Steves” features commentary about Martin’s creative pursuits along with never-before-shared anecdotes from life on set. In their conversations, Martin reflects on his career, from his early days working as a magician to his rise to Hollywood stardom, and what inspires him to keep challenging himself as an artist. Martin, with banjo in hand, scores the audiobook himself.
As recounted in the audiobook’s intro, Martin during one of his sit-downs with Gopnik read an excerpt from a favorite E.E. Cummings poem: “so many selves(so many fiends and gods / each greedier than every)is a man / (so easily one in another hides; / yet man can, being all, escape from none).” That gave Gopnik the inspiration to call their project “So Many Steves.”
Pushkin touts the forthcoming audiobook as “a series of intimate conversations between old colleagues that reveals Martin’s thoughtful approach to both art and life. Guiding the conversation throughout, Gopnik brings you into the art-filled room with Martin and himself, sitting you on the couch across from them as they reveal new perspectives on the comedy legend.”
The audiobook, priced at $14.99, is available to preorder at this link. Martin and Gopnik will celebrate the launch of “So Many Steves” at a May 4 event at New York City’s Symphony Space (tickets are available for in-person attendance and via livestream and include a copy of the audiobook).
“So Many Steves” joins Pushkin Industries’ slate of audiobooks which includes “Miracle and Wonder: Conversations With Paul Simon” by Malcolm Gladwell and Bruce Headlam; Gopnik’s “The Real Work”; “Heartbreak” by Florence Williams, winner of the 2023 PEN/E.O. Wilson Literary Science writing award; a newly recorded version of Michael Lewis’ “Liar’s Poker”; “Inside Voice” by Lake Bell; and Joshua Cohen’s novel “The Netanyahus,” winner of the 2022 Pulitzer Prize in fiction.
Watch the video trailer for “So Many Steves”: