Podcast Summary: New Books Network – Stephanie Reents, "We Loved to Run" (Hogarth, 2025)

Host: Chris Holmes
Guest: Stephanie Reents
Date: December 12, 2025
Episode: Burned by Books: Interview with Stephanie Reents on her novel We Loved to Run

Overview

This episode features a rich conversation between host Chris Holmes and acclaimed author Stephanie Reents about her new novel, We Loved to Run, which chronicles the intertwined lives of a women’s college cross country team in the late 20th century. Their discussion dives into the novel’s unique use of a collective narrative voice, its sharp look at women’s athleticism, feminism, the personal and political complexities of young adulthood, and enduring themes about trauma, resilience, and community. The interview is filled with literary insight, personal reflection, and commentary on the enduring relevance of these coming-of-age stories.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

The Origins and Structure of the Novel

• Collective "We" Narrator

  • Stephanie reads from her opening, offering a taste of the immersive, plural narrative voice that suffuses the book.
  • [05:38–10:21]
  • The "we" voice is used to capture both the communal identity of a team and, in tension, the individuality of its members.
    • "I wanted this to be a we voice that was very interested in itself and interested in its members... But I also wanted to have the ability to kind of sink into the point of view of a few characters and to reveal things about those characters that the team couldn't possibly know." (Stephanie Reents, 10:47)
    • The team can sometimes speak truths the individual cannot, but it is also sometimes wrong.
  • Holmes notes the connection to The Virgin Suicides by Jeffrey Eugenides.

• Intimacy and Secrets in Teams

  • The team dynamic is marked by both shared and unshared secrets, creating an "organic" intimacy.
    • "If you can share a secret with another person, it makes it much easier to bear that secret. And I think that that's... what's happening among my characters, my runners..." (Stephanie Reents, 12:40)

Running as Metaphor and Lived Experience

• Running and Endurance

  • Both discuss how running, unlike some other sports, is defined by enduring pain, negotiating with oneself, and pushing boundaries.
    • "Competitive running is a deal with the devil in which you bargain with your brain to continue to let your body do something that feels horrible." (Chris Holmes, 13:36)
    • Reents responds, "That's why my novel is called We Loved to Run. That's why the first line of the novel is, you know, we hated. We hated running because I was trying to get at the kind of like the tension between... doing something that you love, but doing something that is also extremely painful." (14:49)
  • Holmes and Reents discuss the pre-race anxiety runners feel—how anticipating pain is sometimes worse than the pain itself.

• Team and Rivalry

  • The duality of running as an individual and team sport is explored through characters like Danielle (the collective-minded captain) and Kristen (the driven star).
    • "There's always this kind of push and pull, right? You're always chasing someone... But that also means you can lose to some of the people, you know, who you're closest to. And that's quite painful as well." (Reents, 16:33)

• Authenticity of Portrayal

  • Drawing on her own experience as a collegiate runner, Reents discusses the contrast between her own team’s struggles and the more ambitious, competitive world of the fictive "Frost Poets."
    • "I did not have the experience of being pushed by my teammates. Instead, I had the experience of coming to Amherst and being very disappointed that the team wasn't better than it was... But I did devote so many of my years, so many years of my life to running." (Reents, 21:24)

Setting, Feminist Awakening, and Social Commentary

• A Campus Novel of the 80s & 90s

  • Frost College stands in for small liberal arts colleges of the era; Reents captures the nascent stages of second-wave feminism.
  • Characters grapple with language, agency, self-policing, and the emergence of terms like "date rape" and "consent."
    • "I was interested in, you know, having my characters begin to think about, well, what does it mean to be a feminist? ...It's a moment where...people start to have slightly, a slightly better understanding of terms like consent." (Reents, 23:43)

• The Character of Harriet

  • Harriet, a budding feminist, is both strident and vulnerable—she polices language and ideology but also struggles with self-image and an eating disorder.
    • "Harriet to some degree is like policing everyone's behavior in the novel...But at the same time she's very tender... I wanted to show the ways that... you had to kind of at least that you might be expected to kind of perform your feminism in order to be a true feminist. But it was always...a lot more complicated than that." (Reents, 26:22)

• Women's Bodies: Power and Surveillance

  • The novel addresses both the potential and the constraints imposed on women’s bodies, especially in sports.
    • Scenes where coaches conduct weigh-ins and critique body size directly illustrate how this scrutiny is gendered, building on wider cultural narratives.
    • "I think where it is different for women is that that kind of surveillance intersects with a lot of cultural surveillance that happens around women's bodies... It's easier for women to get seduced by the idea of making themselves disappear, whether they're runners or not." (Reents, 29:53)

Trauma, Disappearance, and Control

• Disappearance and Coping

  • Harriet tries to disappear through shrinking her body; Kristen disappears physically and emotionally after trauma. The novel draws parallels between literal and metaphorical acts of vanishing.
    • "Kristen's trying to disappear or escape what happened to her over the summer. Kristen is trying to, I think, like, subjugate her feelings to a kind of like, promise she makes with herself..." (Reents, 33:52)
    • "It's a kind of act of disappearance...I'm going to ignore how I'm feeling by, you know, by doing this thing. Right. I'm going to pretend like that, like if I'm fast, it's going to make everything okay." (Reents, 33:52)

• Running from Trauma

  • Both protagonists, Kristen and Danielle, have been shaped by traumatic experiences with men. Their running becomes a metaphor for the attempt to flee or cope with these ghosts.
    • "Sometimes you cannot run fast enough to get away from...the things that happen." (Reents, 37:46)
    • Danielle copes through drinking; Kristen through making bargains and seeking control over her life via running.

• Historical Echoes and Present Relevance

  • Holmes notes the story’s resonance with the present—how little has changed in terms of women’s safety, agency, and the prevalence of assault.
    • "As much as this is a portrait of late 20th century life...it felt so eerily as though we were boomeranging back from any gains that had been made in how women might feel less afraid of their environments..." (Holmes, 38:56)
  • "People have called it an historical novel. But I also wanted to challenge readers to think about, well, how much has actually changed since the 90s." (Reents, 41:17)
  • Intergenerational differences in response to Kristen’s assault highlight shifting norms—older readers may minimize, younger readers express outrage.

Craft and Character Exploration

• Crafting the Pivotal Trauma Scene
  • The only extended section outside Frost—Kristen’s traumatic encounter in Idaho—is constructed to show universality of such events and the difficulty of articulating them, even among close friends.
    • "I wanted to convey the idea that things like what happened to Kristen and Danielle could happen anywhere...I wanted something to happen to her that it was going to be difficult for her to ever describe to any of her teammates." (Reents, 42:26)
    • "I wanted the reader to have this sense of sinking into that experience...and then to watch her try to explain it to people who really care about her and just to see that it’s almost impossible to capture what is so terrifying about what happened..." (Reents, 43:07)

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Opening Passage (Stephanie Reents, reading at 05:38):

  "We loved running because we loved repetition. Breathe, stride, breathe stride, breathe stride... We loved it because it was who we were... We loved to run and we hated it. To run you had to be willing to accompany yourself on long, lonely journeys..."

• On Team as Family (08:20):

  "...the concept of the teammate as perhaps the epitome of how women... might care for those who exist outside direct kinship but who are assuredly family." (Chris Holmes)

• On Feminist History (23:58):

  "I think it was very much nascent. Like late second wave." (Chris Holmes) "Second wave feminism. Exactly. So I wanted to capture a moment where it felt to me, at least during that time, that language starts to matter a lot, that you start to think about things like whether you're going to call yourself a girl or a woman..." (Reents, 23:58)

• On Women’s Athletic Novel (46:10):

  "I think that we need more novels about women athletes. And that's one of the reasons I wanted to write this book was just to kind of like, reflect the fact that there are so many women who are amazing athletes, but we don't have a lot of fictional depictions of them." (Reents, 46:10)

Book Recommendations (46:10–48:31)

• A Sharp Endless Need by Marisa Crane

  • A girls’ basketball novel that captures athleticism and includes a heartfelt queer love story.

• Stonyard Devotional by Charlotte Wood

  • A meditative novel about spirituality and community, recently named a New York Times Notable Book.

Timestamps for Important Segments

• Intro and Overview: 01:20–04:52
• Passage Reading (We Loved to Run): 05:38–10:21
• Discussion on Collective Voice: 10:21–12:18
• Intimacy/Secrets & Team Dynamics: 12:18–13:36
• Running as Endurance/Tension in Team: 13:36–16:33
• Rivalries and Roles: 17:55–20:26
• Personal Experience as Runner: 20:26–23:12
• Campus Culture & 1980s/90s Feminism: 23:12–28:14
• Harriet and Feminist Performance: 26:22–29:02
• Women's Bodies & Surveillance: 29:02–31:49
• Disappearance & Trauma: 33:16–36:07
• Running from Ghosts – Kristen & Danielle: 36:07–38:56
• Historical Echoes, Consent, and Social Progress: 38:56–41:18
• Crafting Trauma Scene / Kristen’s Experience: 41:41–45:14
• Book Recommendations: 46:10–48:31

Tone & Style

Throughout, the interview blends literary analysis with personal warmth and candor. Stephanie Reents speaks reflectively and analytically, often zooming into her characters’ psychologies and the broader implications of their experiences. Chris Holmes brings both empathy and pointed, thoughtful questions, regularly connecting the book’s themes to contemporary life and literature.

For New Listeners

This episode is deeply engaging for both runners and non-runners alike; it offers a window into the complexities of women’s lives, bodies, and friendships under pressure—set against a vividly recreated collegiate milieu. Stephanie Reents’ We Loved to Run is less about running itself and more about what it means to come of age in community, to navigate trauma, and to claim space—on the trail and in the world.