Dirt Bag Novels: Lydia Kiesling in Conversation with Megan Ward

4 days ago 5

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“When I think about the novels that sort of shaped me as a younger reader, they're often books that I call the dirt bag novel, which is sort of a reformulation of the bildungsroman.”

Our partner podcast Novel Dialogue invites a novelist and a literary critic to talk about novels from every angle: how we read them, write them, publish them, and remember them. This season’s signature question is: If you could live anywhere in the world, where would it be, and why?

What does it mean for a novel to think globally? And can a global novel concerned with the macromovements of capital and labor still exist in the form of a bildungsroman? This conversation between Lydia Kiesling and Megan Ward takes up questions of form and political consciousness in the novel, globality and rootedness, capitalism and the yearning for things, optimization and wellness culture, and so much more. Lydia Kiesling’s first novel, The Golden State, was a 2018 National Book Foundation “5 under 35” honoree. Her second novel, Mobility, is the first book in a new imprint with Crooked Media. Lydia and Megan discuss seeing the world from a foreign service perspective, the damage wrought by cultures of individuality, and why more novels aren’t set in Azerbaijan. Lydia talks about how the close reading skills that she gained from an English major provide a way reading the world that is underappreciated by our contemporary culture of utilitarianism. From wet bun hairstyles to how we want novels to speak about progressive politics, this wide-ranging conversation wraps up with Lydia’s excellent answer to Season 8’s signature question.

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View a transcript of the episode here.