Podcast Summary: New Books Network

Episode: Emily Hunt Kivel, "Dwelling" (FSG, 2025)
Date: November 28, 2025
Host: Chris Holmes ("Burned by Books")
Guest: Emily Hunt Kivel

Overview

In this episode of "Burned by Books" on the New Books Network, host Chris Holmes interviews Emily Hunt Kivel about her debut novel, Dwelling. The conversation dives deep into the novel’s fairy tale structure, its exploration of architecture and institutions, contemporary anxieties about home and belonging, and the radical potential of kindness as a narrative mode. Kivel discusses her inspirations, literary intertexts, and the novel’s engagement with questions of scarcity, power, and hope.

Key Discussion Points

1. Why Fairy Tale? Genre Choices & Inspirations

• Setting: The story begins with Evie, who, after a dystopian housing crisis in New York, becomes homeless and relocates to the fictional town of Gullock, Texas. There, reality blurs with fairy tale—a shoe-house and talking animals among other wonders.
• Fairy Tales as Mode of Escape and Insight:
  • Emily Hunt Kivel (05:06):
    “At the time of writing Dwelling, it was 2021... living in my head and actually looking to art and interiority and books and texts to make the world feel expansive. And I think fairy tales and folk tales are some of the best at doing that... literature, the world feels guided by mysterious forces, both sinister and benevolent.”
  • Fairy tales allowed Kivel to merge her interest in the mysterious and imaginative with pressing real-world crises, particularly the housing crisis.

2. Gullock, Texas: Architecture & Magical Realism

• World of Gullock: A town in Northwest Texas, appearing conventional but full of secret, expansive interiors and surreal spaces (shoes for homes, magical key-shops).
  • Emily Hunt Kivel (08:06):
    “I was really, really interested in walking into places that from the outside don’t seem special. And yet when you walk in, you’re almost in a fun house mirror of the world, bending and being something stranger than you thought it was.”
• Comparisons and Intertexts:
  • Chris references House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski and Kivel mentions the influence of Calvino’s The Baron in the Trees (09:42), highlighting the fascination with hidden or impossible architectures.

3. Whimsy & Cruelty: The Fairy Tale Blend

• Contrasting Gentleness with Violence:
  • Chris Holmes (10:26):
    “What I love about fairy tales is... they’re equally defined by whimsy as well as cruelty. And it seemed that you very much wanted to exploit that melange in this novel.”
  • Emily Hunt Kivel (10:48):
    “I think I was quite interested in Evie retreating from a world that was spiritually quite violent... into a different world that was defined by kindness but also gentleness... focusing a book on gentleness and on the expansiveness that that can generate was quite interesting to me.”
• Politics of Kindness: Kivel wanted something counter to contemporary culture’s loudness and aggression, making gentleness and reciprocity central literary values.

4. Fairy Tale Intertexts and Subversions

• Classic Fairy Tales Reimagined: Obvious allusions to Goldilocks, Rapunzel, Old Mother Hubbard—themes and archetypes repurposed for contemporary resonances.
  • Kivel (14:43): “Even the old woman who lived in the shoe... the image is unique, but the idea of an old woman having to live in a really weird house because she’s economically addled is not.”
  • She also references Seven-League Boots and Princess and the Pea (15:09).
• Avoiding Tired Gender Tropes:
  • Kivel (16:07):
    “It’s a rather easy subversion of fairy tales to be like, the men are dumb and the women are great, and that’s not what I wanted to do... men, women, and animals are all a part of her journey, but it is still her journey. Reciprocity and kindness are at the core of Evie’s journey.”
• Into the Woods Comparison: Chris remarks on parallel themes; Kivel confirms similarities but notes she only saw the Sondheim musical after writing (17:46).

5. Shoes as Motif: Gender, Mobility, and Craft

• Allegory and Complication:
  • Chris notes: “Fashioning [shoes] both as an ancient and celebrated art form and a lightly magical means of adventuring... It could have been the case that this focus on shoes would be read as an allegory... instead, the magic is in the shoes ability to be both ornamented and practical.” (19:16)
  • Kivel (20:22):
    “That’s a line that’s been living in my head since I was maybe a teenager—the idea that... some of these shoes... there’s an inherent—It’s really hard to get anything done in them.”
  • On the Grimm’s Cinderella “blood in the shoe” motif: “Edie looks at Adidas shoes, and there’s blood in them. Right, which is a kind of... a reference to the original Grimm Cinderella..” (20:53)
  • Shoes become about agency—preparing oneself and others for journeys.

6. Institutional Violence and Architecture

• Housing Crisis and Asylum:
  • Institutions in the novel—especially the mental institution where Evie’s sister Elena is held—are coded as oppressive through their architecture.
  • Kivel (23:04):
    “I wanted it to almost inhabit this iconography of the looming castle... but it’s also acting... it also looks like a prison... these places show you are not welcome here and it will be very difficult for you to inhabit this space.”
• Power Imagined and Real:
  • Kivel (24:44):
    “Part of the power of these institutions is the power we give them... part of Edie’s journey is reimagining society—not just society, but the way she reacts to society and where and the way she—what she does and doesn’t value and the spaces that she does and doesn’t feel she belongs in.”

7. Language for Horror & Social Critique

• Chris (26:02): Reflects on a moment when Evie can’t find the words to describe the horror of her sister’s institutionalization and posits that the novel seeks to give shape to such language.
• Kivel (26:33):
  “I think the inequities and horrors that we are seeing and experiencing can be... understood when we look to ancient texts sometimes. Framing some of these seemingly quite contemporary problems... in the folklore and fairy tale world... shows that these are problems that have existed for a very long time.”

8. Radical Generosity and Contemporary Fiction

• Rejecting Misanthropy for Hope:
  • Chris (28:00):
    “You’ve overridden... the location of people who are wrong or bad or villainous, and you’ve made even them deserving of kindness.”
  • Kivel (29:28):
    “I do think I was aware of this trend in contemporary fiction to lean into solipsism and misanthropy... In a contemporary fiction landscape where so much is about toxicity... there was something subversive in not doing that... It was a really fun exercise born out of that.”
• The book’s radical premise: even acts of theft or villainy are met with opportunities for community and empathy.

9. Politics, Housing, and Alternative Endings

• With Zoran Mamdani (a progressive housing advocate) elected mayor of NYC, Chris asks if Kivel’s novel reads differently now.
  • Kivel (32:04):
    “There’s also a version where people stay and fight, you know, and that is not what Edie does. She fights it personally...Dwelling covers one version, but I think that there’s a really, really beautiful version that we may well see.”

10. Emily’s Recommended Books

• Wise Blood – Flannery O’Connor (“not dwelling, but misanthropic, but also a demented journey, for sure”—34:04)
• Binstead’s Safari – Rachel Ingalls (“inspired me while writing Dwelling, about a woman, maybe a man-lion hybrid”—34:30)
• Once Upon a Time – Marina Warner (“literary theory on fairy tales...makes fairy tale analysis feel elevated and sophisticated and mysterious”—34:44)

Notable Quotes & Timestamps

• On the appeal of fairy tales:
  Emily Hunt Kivel (05:06)
  “Fairy tales and folk tales are some of the best at making the world feel expansive. The world feels guided by mysterious forces, both sinister and benevolent.”
• On writing gentleness:
  Emily Hunt Kivel (10:48)
  “I think that gentleness is something that is so rare to find right now...focusing a book on gentleness and on the expansiveness that that can generate was quite interesting to me.”
• On shoes as metaphor:
  Emily Hunt Kivel (20:22)
  “To wear some of these shoes, especially the shoes that I think women are encouraged to wear—there’s an inherent...it’s really hard to get anything done in them.”
• On institutions as architectural power:
  Emily Hunt Kivel (23:04)
  “These places show you are not welcome here and it will be very difficult for you to inhabit this space.”
• On contemporary fiction and hope:
  Emily Hunt Kivel (29:28)
  “There was something subversive in not [leaning into misanthropy]. It was a really fun exercise born out of that.”
• On the novel’s place in changing politics:
  Emily Hunt Kivel (32:04) “Dwelling covers one version, but I think that there’s a really, really beautiful version that we may well see.”

Timestamps for Key Segments

• Introduction to Dwelling and Kivel (explains premise, influences): 02:01–04:38
• Why Fairy Tale—genre and form: 04:40–06:53
• Describing Gullock, Texas and magical interiors: 07:02–08:25
• Architecture, parallels to other novels: 08:25–10:26
• Whimsy, cruelty, and gentleness in fairy tale: 10:26–12:51
• Fairy tale intertexts and subversions: 13:20–17:22
• Shoes as motif (gender, agency): 19:16–22:08
• Institutions, architecture, and power: 22:08–25:53
• Language, horror, and fairy tale as critique: 26:02–28:00
• Generosity as subversive literary value: 28:00–31:40
• Politics, alternate futures, and housing: 31:40–33:11
• Book recommendations: 33:24–35:30
• Closing remarks: 35:30–36:05

Closing Tone

Burned by Books remains thoughtful, deeply literary, and slightly whimsical, mirroring the tone of Kivel’s novel. The episode foregrounds the urgency of contemporary issues—housing, institutional failures—while celebrating the power of story and the radical politics of gentleness.

Recommended Reading from the Episode:

• Dwelling by Emily Hunt Kivel
• Wise Blood by Flannery O’Connor
• Binstead’s Safari by Rachel Ingalls
• Once Upon a Time by Marina Warner

Find more from Burned by Books at: burnedbybooks.com