Leading cultural critic and author Virginia Heffernan holds a conversation with writer Howard Rodman about his novel The Great Eastern (2019), which pits two great antiheroes of 19th-century literature, Captain Nemo and Captain Ahab, against each other in “a historical phantasmagoria and ripping adventure” (Jonathan Lethem). He is the the Past President of the Writers Guild of America West; professor and former chair of the writing division at the USC School of Cinematic Arts; and an artistic director of the Sundance Institute Screenwriting Labs.