Share

cover art for 🐇On Transcendence, Parental Failure & writing Indiana, with Tess Gunty🐇

The Shakespeare and Company Interview

🐇On Transcendence, Parental Failure & writing Indiana, with Tess Gunty🐇

This week's guest is Tess Gunty, winner of the 2022 Waterstones Debut Fiction Prize for her novel The Rabbit Hutch.


*


The Rabbit Hutch is a low-cost housing complex in the post-industrial town of Vacca Vale, Indiana. It’s home to a mix of generations and familial constellations—couples, singletons, roommates—whose lives ebb and flow according to the economic and social forces that surround them, as well as the deeper-flowing currents of their pasts.


It’s also home to Blandine who, we learn at the beginning of Tess Gunty’s novel—isn’t like the other residents of her building. How and, crucially, why this is the case are the questions at the heart of the book.


But beyond the Rabbit Hutch, beyond Vacca Vale Indiana, beyond the United States even, The Rabbit Hutch is also a book about how our lives intersect, how our actions impact upon the lives of people we didn’t even know existed, and how a little bit of human cruelty, can go a long way but how human tenderness can go even further.


Rick Moody called Tess Gunty a writer of “uncommon originality, both in terms of voice and vision” while Jonathan Safran Foer described the Rabbit Hutch as “a profoundly wise, wildly inventive, deeply moving work of art.”


*


SUBSCRIBE NOW FOR BONUS EPISODES


Looking for Friends of Shakespeare and Company read Ulysses? https://podfollow.com/sandcoulysses


If you want to spend even more time at Shakespeare and Company, you can now subscribe for regular bonus episodes and early access to Friends of Shakespeare and Company read Ulysses.


Subscribe on Patreon here: https://www.patreon.com/sandco

Subscribe on Apple Podcasts here: https://podcasts.apple.com/fr/podcast/shakespeare-and-company-writers-books-and-paris/id1040121937?l=en


All money raised goes to supporting “Friends of Shakespeare and Company” the bookshop’s non-profit, created to fund our noncommercial activities—from the upstairs reading library, to the writers-in-residence program, to our charitable collaborations, and our free events.


*


Tess Gunty was born and raised in South Bend, Indiana. She received a B.A. in English with an Honors Concentration in Creative Writing from the University of Notre Dame, where she won the Ernest Sandeen Award for her poetry collection. She holds an MFA in Creative Writing from NYU, where she was a Lillian Vernon Fellow, and her work was nominated for the PEN/Robert J. Dau Short Story Prize for Emerging Writers. Her fiction has appeared or is forthcoming in Joyland, The Iowa Review, Freeman’s, and other publications, and she lives in Los Angeles.


Adam Biles is Literary Director at Shakespeare and Company. Buy a signed copy of his novel FEEDING TIME here: https://shakespeareandcompany.com/S/9781910296684/feeding-time


Listen to Alex Freiman’s Play It Gentle here: https://open.spotify.com/album/4gfkDcG32HYlXnBqI0xgQX?si=mf0Vw-kuRS-ai15aL9kLNA&dl_branch=1

More episodes

View all episodes

  • Katie Kitamura on Fiction’s Shifting Realities

    55:22|
    Katie Kitamura joins Adam Biles to discuss her remarkable novel Audition. Centred on a middle-aged actress whose settled life is upended by a young man claiming to be her son, Audition blurs the lines between performance, identity, and narrative certainty. Kitamura reflects on the novel’s dual structure—a “rabbit-duck” ambiguity—and her fascination with roles we perform in relationships, particularly within marriage and family. The conversation explores the mutability of identity, the ethical power of embracing contradiction, and the unique capacity of the novel to hold multiple truths simultaneously. Kitamura also discusses craft, genre, and the challenges of maintaining ambiguity without sacrificing narrative tension. An essential listen for readers drawn to fiction that resists easy answers and revels in complexity.Buy Audition: https://www.shakespeareandcompany.com/books/audition-3Katie Kitamura is the author of five novels, including Intimacies, named one of the 10 Best Books of 2021 by the New York Times. It was also one of Barack Obama's favourite books of the year, and was longlisted for a National Book Award and a PEN/Faulkner Award and was a finalist for the Joyce Carol Oates Prize. Kitamura's novel A Separation was a New York Times Notable Book. Her work has been translated into more than twenty languages and is being adapted for film and television. A recipient of the Rome Prize in Literature and other honours, she teaches in the creative writing programme at New York University.Adam Biles is Literary Director at Shakespeare and Company.Listen to Alex Freiman’s latest EP, In The Beginning: https://open.spotify.com/album/5iZYPMCUnG7xiCtsFCBlVa?si=h5x3FK1URq6SwH9Kb_SO3w
  • Renton Returns, Sick Boy in Love: Irvine Welsh Reimagines His Antiheroes

    01:04:03|
    In this electric conversation, Irvine Welsh joins Adam Biles at Shakespeare and Company to discuss Men in Love, the long-awaited sequel to Trainspotting. Picking up moments after Renton's betrayal, Welsh dives deep into the aftermath—friendship, love, addiction, class, and the cultural hangover of 1980s Thatcherism. The pair explore writing authentic historical fiction, how ecstasy (both drug and emotion) shaped a generation, and why mobile phones are killing drama. Welsh also shares insights into masculinity, social mobility, and why Sick Boy might just be the tragic heart of this novel. Expect laughs, gallows humor, biting commentary—and a live reading that’s pure, unfiltered Welsh.Buy Men In Love: https://www.shakespeareandcompany.com/books/men-in-love-2Irvine Welsh was born and raised in Edinburgh. His first novel, Trainspotting, has sold over one million copies in the UK and was adapted into an era-defining film. He has written fourteen further novels, including the number one Sunday Times bestseller Dead Men’s Trousers, four books of shorter fiction and numerous plays and screenplays. Irvine Welsh currently lives between London, Edinburgh and Miami.Adam Biles is Literary Director at Shakespeare and Company.Listen to Alex Freiman’s latest EP, In The Beginning: https://open.spotify.com/album/5iZYPMCUnG7xiCtsFCBlVa?si=h5x3FK1URq6SwH9Kb_SO3w
  • Inside the Story Machine: Natasha Brown on Media, Power, and Fiction

    54:48|
    In this episode novelist Natasha Brown joins Adam Biles to discuss her daring second book, Universality. The conversation explores the novel’s structural audacity—opening with a fictional long-read article—and its thematic interrogation of class, race, media narratives, and the modern British middle class. Brown dives into her creation of Leni, a polarising columnist whose charisma masks deeper questions about power and identity. She explains the exhaustive research behind mimicking journalistic language and crafting complex, contradictory characters, all while reflecting on the fractured state of truth in the digital age. The conversation touches on the erosion of trust in traditional media, class performance, and the shifting role of fiction in helping us understand our sociopolitical moment.Buy Universality: https://www.shakespeareandcompany.com/books/universalityNatasha Brown is a British novelist.Adam Biles is Literary Director at Shakespeare and Company.Listen to Alex Freiman’s latest EP, In The Beginning: https://open.spotify.com/album/5iZYPMCUnG7xiCtsFCBlVa?si=h5x3FK1URq6SwH9Kb_SO3w
  • Making Sense of Gertrude Stein, with Francesca Wade

    01:05:38|
    In this rich conversation, Francesca Wade joins Adam Biles to discuss her biography Gertrude Stein: An Afterlife. Wade explores the complexities of Stein’s life, legacy, and literary innovations, foregrounding Stein’s long-overlooked partner, Alice B. Toklas, as a powerful and persistent force behind the myth. They dive into questions of biography, erasure, performance, and gender, as well as Stein’s fraught political affiliations during WWII. Wade’s approach is both formally inventive and deeply human, highlighting unpublished interviews and fresh archival finds that illuminate the tension between public persona and private life. Whether you're a Stein devotee or merely curious about modernism’s most elusive icon, this episode offers a fascinating entry point into the world of radical art, language, and love.Buy Gertrude Stein: An Afterlife: https://www.shakespeareandcompany.com/books/gertrude-steinFrancesca Wade’s first book, Square Haunting, was longlisted for the Baillie Gifford Prize and shortlisted for the RSL Ondaatje Prize. She has held fellowships at the New York Public Library's Cullman Center and the Harvard Radcliffe Institute. Her work has appeared in The New York Review of Books, London Review of Books and Granta, among other places.Adam Biles is Literary Director at Shakespeare and Company.Listen to Alex Freiman’s latest EP, In The Beginning: https://open.spotify.com/album/5iZYPMCUnG7xiCtsFCBlVa?si=h5x3FK1URq6SwH9Kb_SO3w
  • Geoff Dyer’s Homework: Family, Class, and Memory

    01:03:57|
    In this episode, Adam Biles speaks with acclaimed author Geoff Dyer live from Shakespeare and Company about his new memoir, Homework. Dyer reflects on growing up in 1960s Cheltenham, navigating family, class, and the formation of self. With characteristic wit and insight, he paints portraits of his quietly disappointed mother and parsimonious father, capturing an era that feels remote yet familiar. The conversation explores the power of memory, the weirdness of grammar schools, the ambient presence of war, and the subtle tyranny of the English class system. Dyer discusses how language, books, and music shaped him—and how the past persists in surprising phrases and daily habits. By turns hilarious and moving, this event reminds us why Dyer remains one of the UK’s most original and generous literary voices.Buy Homework: https://www.shakespeareandcompany.com/books/homework-3*Geoff Dyer is an award-winning author of four novels and numerous non-fiction books, including Out of Sheer Rage, Yoga for People Who Can’t Be Bothered to Do It, Zona and, most recently, See/Saw. A fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Science, Dyer lives in Los Angeles, where he is Writer in Residence at the University of Southern California. His books have been translated into twenty-four languages.Adam Biles is Literary Director at Shakespeare and Company.Listen to Alex Freiman’s latest EP, In The Beginning: https://open.spotify.com/album/5iZYPMCUnG7xiCtsFCBlVa?si=h5x3FK1URq6SwH9Kb_SO3w
  • Rebecca Solnit: Changing the Story, Changing the World

    01:05:08|
    Rebecca Solnit: Changing the Story, Changing the WorldIn this powerful in-store conversation, Rebecca Solnit joins Adam Biles to discuss her new book No Straight Road Takes You There — a rallying call for hope, justice, and the reimagining of our collective future. With wit, clarity, and courage, Solnit explores how stories shape our world — and how changing them can change everything. Drawing on decades of activism and deep historical insight, she challenges despair, celebrates solidarity, and reminds us that even in dark times, “we are always in the middle of the story.” From climate crisis to the power of protest, from Silicon Valley dystopia to unexpected beauty in community, this conversation is a galvanizing reminder: the future is unwritten — and it’s ours to shape.Buy No Straight Road Takes You There: https://www.shakespeareandcompany.com/books/no-straight-road-takes-you-there*REBECCA SOLNIT is the author of more than twenty books, including Orwell’s Roses, which was shortlisted for the Orwell Prize for Political Writing, Recollections of My Non-Existence, which was longlisted for the 2021 Orwell Prize for Political Writing and shortlisted for the James Tait Black Award, The Faraway Nearby, Wanderlust, A Field Guide to Getting Lost, River of Shadows and A Paradise Built in Hell. She is also the author of Men Explain Things to Me and many essays on feminism, activism, social change, hope, and the climate crisis. She lives in San Francisco and writes regularly for the Guardian. She lives in San Francisco.Adam Biles is Literary Director at Shakespeare and Company.Listen to Alex Freiman’s latest EP, In The Beginning: https://open.spotify.com/album/5iZYPMCUnG7xiCtsFCBlVa?si=h5x3FK1URq6SwH9Kb_SO3w
  • The Book That Refuses to End: Catherine Lacey on The Möbius Book

    53:30|
    In this episode of the Shakespeare and Company Podcast, Adam Biles speaks with acclaimed author Catherine Lacey about her daring new work The Möbius Book. Structured as a "Tête-bêche"—two intertwined texts printed back-to-back—the book pairs a memoir chronicling the fallout of a painful breakup with a novella that spirals into the psychological suspense of a possible murder next door. As the narratives bend and mirror each other, Lacey explores the porous boundary between fiction and nonfiction, faith and doubt, intimacy and estrangement.The conversation dives deep into Lacey’s creative process, her early entanglement with religion, the disorienting legacy of male anger, and how the pandemic shaped her understanding of confinement and rupture. Candid and philosophical, Lacey reflects on memory’s distortions, the ethics of writing memoir, and the liberating act of leaving questions unanswered. Buy The Möbius Book: https://www.shakespeareandcompany.com/books/the-mobius-bookCatherine Lacey is the author of the novels Nobody Is Ever Missing, The Answers, Pew, and Biography of X, and the short story collection Certain American States. She has received a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Whiting Award, the New York Public Library’s Young Lions Fiction Award and twice been shortlisted for the Dylan Thomas Prize, and was named one of Granta’s Best of Young American Novelists.Adam Biles is Literary Director at Shakespeare and Company.Listen to Alex Freiman’s latest EP, In The Beginning: https://open.spotify.com/album/5iZYPMCUnG7xiCtsFCBlVa?si=h5x3FK1URq6SwH9Kb_SO3w
  • Writing the Unspeakable: Neige Sinno on Abuse, Memory, and Language

    01:09:14|
    Trigger Warning: This episode contains detailed discussions of child sexual abuse, rape, trauma, and the failures of the justice system.In this powerful and deeply affecting conversation, Neige Sinno speaks with Adam Biles about her landmark book Sad Tiger, recently published in English in a luminous translation by Natasha Lehrer. A searing literary interrogation of the years of abuse Sinno suffered at the hands of her stepfather, Sad Tiger explores the limits of testimony, the insufficiencies of language, and the deep societal denial that silences victims. Sinno reflects on the ethics and formal challenges of writing about trauma, the intellectual and emotional paradoxes of bearing witness, and how literary form can both expose and protect. The conversation touches on Nabokov’s Lolita, the myth of the “monster,” and how society colludes in refusing to see evil when it wears a familiar face. Courageous, lucid, and unflinching, Sinno’s presence and insights make this an unforgettable episode.Buy Sad Tiger: https://www.shakespeareandcompany.com/books/sad-tigerNeige Sinno is a French writer who has studied American literature in the United States and Mexico, and worked as a translator and literature professor. She is the author of two previous books, Le Camion and La Vie des rats. Born in France, she has lived in Mexico for the past 20 years. Her 2023 book, Triste tigre, won several of France’s top literary prizes and became the publishing sensation of the year. It will be published in English as Sad Tiger by Seven Stories, in a translation by Natasha Lehrer.Adam Biles is Literary Director at Shakespeare and Company.Listen to Alex Freiman’s latest EP, In The Beginning: https://open.spotify.com/album/5iZYPMCUnG7xiCtsFCBlVa?si=h5x3FK1URq6SwH9Kb_SO3w
  • On the Edge of the Real: Guadalupe Nettel on The Accidentals

    51:34|
    In this rich conversation, Guadalupe Nettel joins Adam Biles at Shakespeare and Company to explore the themes of her short story collection The Accidentals. They delve into the complexities of perception and the uncanny, the deep strangeness embedded in familial relationships, and the porous boundary between nature and human nature. Nettel discusses how her stories often begin with a striking image and unfold through a character’s voice, frequently taking shape in the liminal space between realism and the fantastic. The conversation touches on the lasting psychological and social effects of the pandemic, the emotional and moral ambiguities of parenthood, and the hidden influence of family histories. Nature—particularly animal behaviour—serves both as metaphor and mirror, challenging the illusion of human superiority. The episode also examines the short story form, translation as reincarnation, and literature’s power to illuminate the cracks in our perceived reality.Buy The Accidentals here: https://www.shakespeareandcompany.com/books/the-accidentals-2Guadalupe Nettel is a Mexican author of award-winning novels and short story collections. Her work has been translated into more than twenty languages and adapted for theatre and film. Still Born, her most recent novel, was shortlisted for the 2023 International Booker Prize. In 2008 she received a PhD in Literature from the EHESS in Paris. She has edited cultural and literary magazines such as Número Cero and Revista de la Universidad de México. She lives in Paris as a writer in residence at the Columbia University Institute for Ideas and Imagination.Adam Biles is Literary Director at Shakespeare and Company. His latest novel, Beasts of England, a sequel to Animal Farm, is available now. Buy a signed copy here: https://www.shakespeareandcompany.com/books/beasts-of-englandListen to Alex Freiman’s latest EP, In The Beginning: https://open.spotify.com/album/5iZYPMCUnG7xiCtsFCBlVa?si=h5x3FK1URq6SwH9Kb_SO3w