Loading summary
Transcript68 lines
- [00:03]
Arc Raiders Announcer
As a raider scavenging a derelict world, you settle into an underground settlement. But now you must return to the surface, where arc machines roam. If you're brave enough, who knows what you might find. Arc Raiders, a multiplayer extraction adventure video game. Buy now for PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X and S and PC rated T.
- [00:29]
Ross Holiday Magic Announcer
For Teen Every holiday shopper's got a list. But Ross Shoppers? You've got a mission like a gift run that turns into a disco snow globe, throw pillows and PJs for the whole family. Dog included. At Ross Holiday Magic isn't about spending more, it's about giving more for less. Ross, work your magic.
- [00:45]
Nespresso Advertiser
This episode is brought to you by Nespresso Gift Magical Mornings with Nespresso Vertuo Pop Compact and stylish, Vertuo Pop is made to meet every morning coffee craving, from espresso to coffee, hot or iced at the click of a button and celebrate the season with Nespresso's limited edition coffee flavors sweet almond and hibiscus, cinnamon and candied tamarind and festive double espresso Magic in the making Shop the Holiday Gift collection exclusively@nespresso.com.
- [01:16]
Stephanie Wambugu
Welcome to the new Books Network.
- [01:21]
Chris Holmes
I'm Chris Holmes, and this is Burned by Books. Here you'll find interviews with writers you already love, like Jennifer Egan and Rebecca Mackay, mixed in with up and coming voices like Alexandra Kleeman and Roman Alam. You'll find us wherever you listen to podcasts, but check out previous episodes@burnedbybooks.com and on Instagram and Twitter at burnedbybooks. Let's start the show. Ruth's upbringing in Pawtucket, the only daughter of a family recently emigrated from Kenya, is one where suffering is always at the heart of any conversation. Her father keeps suffering close, believing it to be the fundamental experience of life, while her mother tries frantically to keep it at bay through a regime of proper womanly behaviors, a litany that she turns into a daily harangue for her daughter, Ruth. Into this world comes Maria, a girl abandoned by her father after her mother's suicide and raised by a fragile aunt suffering with bipolar disorder. Maria soon becomes part of Ruth's family, claiming an enormous amount of Ruth's interior life and imagination. The girls will go off to the same college together, seeking out careers as artists that will take them away from provincial Rhode island to the maximalism of New York City. Such are the stakes of friendship and obsession in Stephanie Wambugu's tremendous debut novel, Lonely Crowds. As Ruth and Maria's lives continue to intertwine, the line between friendship and desire blurs with each, crossing boundaries from which return is impossible. As they pull against the gravity of family and childhood trauma, Seeking an escape velocity, Ruth and Maria will test their dreams against the uncertainty of lives, not revolution. Buoyed by wealth and privilege, that struggle will bring them back into each other's lives again and again, prompting the question of whether they can exist as a complete person without the other. Written with a delicate care for her characters and a deep reserve of empathy for a world that often seems not to deserve it, Stephanie Wambugu has given us a coming of age story in which interconnection is both the driving force and, and the thing that must be untangled. Stephanie Wambugu was born in Mombasa, Kenya and grew up in Rhode Island. She lives and works in New York. Stephanie is an editor at Joyland magazine. Welcome to Burned by Books. Stephanie Wambugu.
- [04:02]
Stephanie Wambugu
Thank you so much for having me and thank you for that wonderful summary. I almost think like I, I should be sending other people around to summarize the book for me. Whenever people ask, what is your novel about? It's like other people do it so well. And that one, that was a, that was an especially good summary of it. Thank you.
- [04:17]
Chris Holmes
Thank you very much. So I want to start in with this incredible pair, Ruth and Maria. They're, they're really inseparable, at least for a time. And their obsession with one another, which it, it sort of becomes that way we experience through Ruth's first person perspective. And it looms over every decision in their young lives. Where did Ruth and Maria come from for you? And were you always interested in writing about a friendship that was both life saving and destructive?
- [04:49]
Stephanie Wambugu
That's a great question. I mean, I think the answer as Ruth is it was much more straightforward with her because basically as soon as I moved to New York to begin grad school, I went to school in, upstate in the Hudson Valley and then I moved to New York City to attend a fiction program. And almost immediately, like the week before I started school, I started to hear the voice that became Ruth and immediately she, she sounded the way she did in the final, in, in the novel and she, I, you know, she always seemed older to me. She seemed to be like, to have come of age in a time that had certain parallels to the time that I grew up in and certain, like the, the relationship between like racial reckonings in the 90s and how that affected the art world and, and made it had caused this desire to like what we take for granted now. Is representation mattering? You know, I keep thinking about the fact that, you know, it's. It's legible to basically anyone to say, like, it's important to have representation. And if you go to a museum, it should represent the variety of, you know, racial groups and genders and, you know, nationalities that exist in any given, like, city or country. But I think that that wasn't. I don't think it can be taken for granted that that was an idea that had to be thought of and circulated and, like, normalized. And I think that she was coming of age at a time when those things were happening for the first time. And I think I was coming of age when there was sort of another reckoning in the late 2010s after Black Lives Matter and how that. That created these shifts in the art world. And so I. I sensed, like, I saw Ruth as someone who could maybe be, like, an avatar for certain things that I was thinking about in terms of, like, how fraught representation can be and someone who's, like, a little bit cynical about their own own success and what that's meant for them in terms of visibility. And so she. I. I understood her immediately. And I. And I also wanted to create some distance between some of the autobiographical details in the book, such as, like, her being Kenyan and being a woman and having this, like, artistic vocation. Like, I. I felt. You know, I felt I had all of those things in common with her. But because we're. We had. We're different ages, I felt like I could invent, and she was fairly easy to invent. Maria was a more minor character and existed kind of in, like, a scene that I was writing where Ruth was encountering this woman at openings. And she would see her over and over again, and the woman would pretend that she didn't know who she was, although they had this. This history and this. This past. And it was sort of just kind of, like, to illustrate someone kind of giving you the cold shoulder because they don't. Or, like, looking over your shoulder because they don't think you're important. And I thought, actually, I'm more interested in how you can shape a personality and a narrative by having you. You need. I. I think that you need to do that relationally. And so I. I thought, like, there's no better way to do that than to have these two people kind of, like, sort of like twins, you know, grow up with the same circumstance. Circumstances have the similar trajectories and kind of inform one another's personalities so that you understand, one by Understanding the other and by seeing their contrast. And they're like foils in a really traditional way. So the more I wrote Ruth, the more I wrote Maria and sort of. And, you know, vice versa.
- [07:49]
Chris Holmes
So since you, since you broached the question of art and, and representation, I'm. I'm gonna move to a question I had about that. So Ruth, you know, becomes a painter and pursues that line of study and. And later seeks to become a professional with a fellowship back at Bard where she went to school. And Maria is a filmmaker. And these are not jobs of typical economic security. And it's clear you wanted to represent the difficulty in choosing an artistic. Come from a place of little economic privilege.
- [08:23]
Stephanie Wambugu
Yeah.
- [08:24]
Chris Holmes
And this is in contrast to James, Ruth's college boyfriend, who's black, British, and from serious money. And Ruth sees how little he needs to worry about establishing financial security for himself. So what are you doing with art as a career and the place of privilege in that choice?
- [08:42]
Stephanie Wambugu
Yeah, I mean, I think that now it's. I. There's increased attention at least is in terms of like what I've been reading about the class disparities in art and how both, like, I think I read an article about it in the United Kingdom, but also in the United States. No doubt, like most people who become artists come from middle class or upper middle class backgrounds because, like, as you say it is, there's so much precarity and I think even like succeeding once or having the kinds of. The markers of professional success they have. Like, I think I. I wanted both women to have these kinds. These sort of like pivotal moments in their careers that you get to witness and then have the ascent sort of happen in the background. And, you know, Ruth has this fellowship she receives and that's not really spoiling anything because in the beginning of the novel, you know, she's ultimately teaching at Bard again. But Maria has, you know, a more rapid ascent and her star really is rising quickly. But we. You see her at this, this opening that seems to be a very important opening. And it was loosely based on the 1993 Whitney Biennial. And I think I wanted, at least when I, when I was writing those scenes, I think I hoped that by the time someone arrives there, they. They really see how far these women have traveled from their points, origin. And I think sometimes I think that's one thing that I in, in some ways it's like, it's not necessarily that the novel is prescient in terms of like, I don't know that will. It can really. It's not so, so, so it's not such a social novel. It's not so sociological. So I'm, I don't think that it can be used to, to make any assessments about like what the art world will be or like how someone might, how you know, any, a large group of people might fare in it. But I think it was, it's prescient personally for me because I've seen since like I wrote this book and when I wrote this book I was a student and I was working at a museum. It was, I was doing all sorts of jobs. Like I was just working to, to support myself essentially in a very expensive city. And I was writing this book. You know, no one, no one's paying you as you write the book and you don't know if it will pan out or become anything. But now it's become in large part my livelihood. And so I think now I'm starting to experience like what it might have felt like to have that first moment that they have. And I think that I, it's. And now finally that it's sort of all the dust is settling and it's slowing down a bit. I'm taking stock of like how different my life is now from how my life was as a child and that I didn't, I didn't know anyone who made a living as a writer. And it's not because I, you know, I, I came had a fairly like middle class background and you know, my family, I had immigrant parents. Without going into too much biographical detail, like, I think that the, the story that we've heard like many, many iterations of, of like immigrants who come to this country and are working class and then become upwardly mobile and are very industrious and like, you know, work very hard to just kind of gain a footing. That kind of entry into the middle class is very different from becoming an artist and then being part of a milieu that's like, about a lifestyle. And it's like your work is your vocation and if you make a lot of money, that's great. But the reward is in part the like the life you get to live and sort of like the conventions you don't have to adhere to. But it also, I mean as both women in the novel evidence, some of the reward is like the money or the security which doesn't come for everyone. And so I think I wanted it to seem fraught, but I think in both cases they end up being fairly successful but still dissatisfied. And I think it was important for me to, to to look at that too, like, not necessarily like that. There's. There are two kinds of struggles. It's the struggle to find stability and then also to process the fact that you're the. The way that you used to live is unrecognizable and that you kind of really can't return to your. Your origins and it alienates you from the way you grew up. And I think that's. That's the case for both women.
- [12:14]
Chris Holmes
Yeah. I mean, you already touched upon, you know, questions of representation in art, and that is one of the conflicts of the. The novel and, and becomes a conflict between Ruth and Maria. I mean, Ruth feels a pressure to produce paintings that are imbued in some way with a postcolonial force and which express perhaps liberation politics while eschewing Western forms of art. Meanwhile, Maria essentially appropriates Ruth's and other stories without often without asking, stealing aspects of their lives for the pathos of her films.
- [12:53]
Stephanie Wambugu
Yeah.
- [12:54]
Chris Holmes
And I wonder if you could talk a little bit about that dilemma between the two and as they're thinking about representation.
- [13:00]
Stephanie Wambugu
Yeah. I mean, I think that it's. It's interesting to me that like, to. They. They both grew up so similarly and obviously, you know, I constructed it. So I'm not saying it's like. It's funny that they are so different, but I think that, you know, they both. One would think that they would both have similar complexes about self disclosure or like, you know, about self exploitation or even just like, their own authority or their own. Their own ability to, like, you know, represent not only themselves but others. But Ruth, it's. For Ruth, it's. Comes with so much baggage, and I think it's because she's really let someone else usurp her narrative so much that she. She really struggles to. I. I think she has a real. There. There's like a real ethical dilemma for her about painting, making black figurative paintings and making money from them because she feels like maybe not entitled to other people's stories or other people's likenesses. And, And Maria, on the other hand, as you brought up, is really, in a way that I think is like part of an artistic tradition of like, you know, like found footage or appropriating things from life or, like, using, you know, like. Like it's, you know, similar to like a Romana clay or like a novel that's pulled very closely from life and exposes people in the process. She has no qualms about that. And I think I, I, at least I hope that it feels. That feels like, allegiant to their personalities. That one person is. Doesn't really. I think that if. If Maria were to say, like, explain her kind of thinking about that explicitly, which she. She says it maybe in roundabout ways, or she says it by way of telling Ruth to not be so precious or like the. In. In the way that she feels so seemingly confident about her own work and. And her right to make it. She's. Anything that can be used that would be effective and that would be powerful, shocking, like, you know, et cetera, is. Should be used. And I don't think she has any problems with taking from life. And I think that's. It's. For me, that was an interesting question because it's the same thing with writing where, you know, I remember a friend asking me, do you think it's okay to really closely pull events from your own life that involve other people? And I think that my answer was yes. But of course, like I said that not having yet published a novel, and now I feel like I'm. In some ways I'm glad that so much of it is invented because you. You can't know how people will respond to being instrumentalized in that way. And I sure, yeah, think that maybe the relationships, the real life relationships are more important. And I always think of this line from Counter Life that the Roth novel, where he. He says, you know, this profession, I can. I curse. It has a curse in there.
- [15:33]
Chris Holmes
Oh, yeah, yeah, please, curse away.
- [15:35]
Stephanie Wambugu
He says this. This profession fucks up everything, even the grief. And I think it's. I feel like it's such a powerful distillation of the fact that, you know, you can be really suffering or like, experiencing someone else's suffering and kind of think like, oh, this is actually effective as a narrative. And that's like. That there's. There's something like, callous in that, I think, or something in that that makes you see other people as, you know, maybe potentially material, which Maria would say that's what a good artist would do. And, you know, people shouldn't be precious. And I think Ruth values her relationships or optics, maybe it's maybe both more than she values doing what would be most, maybe effective or striking in her work. Yeah.
- [16:15]
Chris Holmes
I want to move to what I think of as one of the fundamental questions of the novel, which is about desire and the limits on what a woman, and specifically a child of. Of immigrant parents who are economically struggling, is allowed to desire. And that includes, you know, directly desiring men and women wanting pleasure, also wanting to be able to buy things that you like.
- [16:42]
Stephanie Wambugu
Yeah.
- [16:43]
Chris Holmes
But it's also, you know, a desire to make art and live as you please. And I wonder if you'd talk about the kind of many formations of desire and its limits for Ruth and Maria in the novel.
- [16:55]
Stephanie Wambugu
Yeah, it's, it's a great question. I mean, I think that. Because both of them are. I mean, it's, it's by their adult lives, they're not really religious anymore, but they're raised Catholic and they attend Catholic school throughout their lives. And I think that that's, it's, it's really, for me at least when I left home, like, I grew up religious, although I, you know, I don't think that my childhood was that insular. And I might, I, I don't. Certainly wasn't as like, repressive as this one. And you know, obviously it's just, it's just not about me anyway. It's, it's, it's invented. But I think that there's. It took a long a while for me to realize that like, not everyone actually had grown up with the religious framework that I had and that not everyone had a problematic relationship to desire or found it so sort of suspect or like found, I think, pleasure suspect. And I, I, I was attending. I attended a talk at the Buddhist center in London, and they, and the man who was speaking or like one of the interlocutor said that we. In. In Christian, like in Christian traditions or like, you know, you could say like in a. In the United States where it's like largely the culture is informed by majority. You know, being majority Christian, pleasure is. Or like suffering is valorized and suffering is seen as. That is actually a good thing. And it's, you know, I think it takes a lot of. It's really difficult to imagine yourself outside of that. That idea once it's, Once it's been handed down to you. And I think that they, that Ruth really internalizes this idea that to, to want something like that, you. It's, it's maybe even it's actually wrong to have your desires fulfilled or there's something about it that would be like. There's something edifying about suffering and not getting what you want. And so it's understandable why someone who really internalizes these ideas and feels a great deal of shame for wanting things would then pursue someone so unattainable. And, you know, I think, yeah, I'm, I'm still starting to think. Think of it now. And like, I think so many. You do so many things like, you know, people, you Go to psychoanalysis like you try to like you. Maybe making art is part of that about like indulging certain desires, like just doing all of these things in order to just convince yourself that it's okay to desire the things that you do.
- [19:02]
Chris Holmes
And I think, and she, and you know, you talk about Ruth's parents religiousness and, and specifically her mom has this, it's, it's so well described in the book. She has a philosophy of mind your business which states that people are to be quiet, iron their clothes, wash their skin until it feels raw, visit the salon every two weeks for a perm, attend mass three times a week, not be greedy, not call attention to oneself, not show weakness, not show love. That's a pretty difficult array of things to carry on your back as a onus about proper behavior. And, and, and seems like not only a kind of religious test, but a test of a woman, you know, her mother really trying to, you know, defend the house from a larger fear she has about what the, what the culture has in store for her.
- [19:57]
Stephanie Wambugu
Yeah.
- [19:58]
Chris Holmes
So could you talk a little bit about her mom and that kind of, you know, mind minding your business?
- [20:04]
Stephanie Wambugu
Yeah. She's one of my favorite characters to write because I think so much about like how you, you know, a person can like fall to parent for parenting in a way that they think is repressive or is not allowing them to like individuate or feel like self expressive or you know, whatever. But I think that genuine, generally it's well intentioned and I think that her mother is like, you're sort of like alluding to this. She's worried about the wider culture, the wider culture encroaching into her home and into her daughter's life. And I think that being afraid of something, even if you've sought it out and you've immigrated to a new country and obviously there are, there are reasons why people immigrate here and there, there, there are things that are improvements and there, there, there's something you desire unless you know, it's, you're, you're doing it out of, purely out of displacement. Like people come to the United States for, out of a. Generally a desire to be here for, for a host of reasons. But I think that even at the same time people do that and also then feel anxiety about what that, that cult, this culture will do to their children and want and you know, wanting to retain and like maybe even conflating like what their, their culture of origin and the culture they left behind is and maybe conservatism. And religion. And so for Ruth's mother, like she, she's never really self reflective about the way she parents and at a certain moment, she know, certain moments you see her really warming to her daughter and, and you know, suggesting that she understands that Ruth is, is, is having difficulty conforming. And I don't think she's callous or, or cruel. Like I, I think that she really does these things out of love. But she's not really, I don't think she's even aware and I don't think that most people are aware of whether she's saying these things out because it's, she was raised in a patriarchal culture and she's, it's internalized sexism. She's not sure if she's doing it because she has conservative values or if she's doing it because that's, that's what religious people do or if that's what Kenyans do. And all of these things become entangled and I think it's difficult to disentangle them. So that, you know, a person might say like I left home to get away from my parents culture. But really what you were trying to leave home to get away from was like generally conservative attitudes and outlook which actually maybe were not so out of step with the area where she grew up. I mean, I think, I mean I was, we were talking before we started recording about me growing up in Pawtucket and around Pawtucket in Rhode island and growing up in a small, fairly like insular working class suburb. It's like it was more conservative although it's in a blue state. And you know, I think there were really wonderful things about it and how diverse it was. But like it's completely, it's, it's night and day with how my friends were raised in major cities or raised by, you know, even raised like in countercultures or like in more like in a more bohemian way like how they, how they grew up and the values that surrounded them. So I think it's on one hand she's worried about the wider culture encroaching, but actually it might not be so different from what she wants for her child. So good, so good, so good.
- [22:57]
Nordstrom Rack Announcer
Score holiday gifts. Everyone wants for way less at your Nordstrom Rack store. Save on Ugg, Nike, Rag and Bone, Vince Frame, Kurt Geiger, London and more.
- [23:06]
Stephanie Wambugu
Because there's always something new.
- [23:08]
Nordstrom Rack Announcer
I'm giving all the gifts this year.
- [23:10]
Stephanie Wambugu
With that extra 5% off when I.
- [23:11]
Nordstrom Rack Announcer
Use my Nordstrom credit card. Santa who join the NordicLub at Nordstrom Rack to unlock our Best deals. It's easy. Big gifts, big perks. That's why you rack.
- [23:23]
Rumchata Advertiser
This episode is brought to you by Rumchata, a delicious, creamy blend of horchata with rum. It's best enjoyed over ice or in your coffee. Rumchata. Delivering vacation vibes any way or anywhere you drink it. Find out more@rumchata.com Drink responsibly. Caribbean rum with real dairy cream. Natural and artificial flavors. Alcohol 13.75% by volume, 27.5 proof. Copyright 2025 Agave Loco Brands, Pojoaquee, Wisconsin. All rights reserved.
- [23:52]
Nordstrom Rack Announcer
The family that vacations together, stays together. At least that was the plan. Except now the dastardly desk clerk is saying he can't confirm your connecting rooms.
- [24:02]
Hilton Advertiser
Wait, what?
- [24:03]
Stephanie Wambugu
That's right, ma'. Am. You have rooms 201 and 709.
- [24:06]
Hilton Advertiser
No, we cannot be five floors away from our kids.
- [24:09]
Stephanie Wambugu
Eh, the doors have double locks. They'll be fine.
- [24:11]
Nordstrom Rack Announcer
When you want connecting rooms confirmed before you arrive, it matters where you stay.
- [24:16]
Stephanie Wambugu
Welcome to Hilton.
- [24:18]
Hilton Advertiser
I see your connecting rooms are already confirmed.
- [24:20]
Nordstrom Rack Announcer
Hilton for the stay.
- [24:24]
Netflix Advertiser
This episode is brought to you by Netflix from the creator of Homeland. Claire Danes and Matthew Rhys star in the new Netflix series the Beast and me as ruthless rivals whose shared darkness will set them on a collision course course with fatal consequences. The Beast in Me is a riveting psychological cat and mouse story about guilt, justice, and doubt. You will not want to miss this. The Beast in Me is now playing only on Netflix.
- [24:50]
Chris Holmes
Yeah, yeah, that's. That's such an interesting thing. I didn't think about that paralleling at all. I About a quarter of the way into lonely crowds, I realized that I was in campus novel territory. Ruth and Maria go to Bard to be artists, and they find a campus full of mostly the elite and the privileged, with some racial diversity, but very little economic diversity. I think it's a real challenge to set a campus novel at a real college, and I thought you were quite brave to do it. And I wanted to know about the challenges of representing Bard and whether you feel like you were drawing on any particular traditions of the campus novel in trying to think through Ruth and Maria's place at Bard.
- [25:37]
Stephanie Wambugu
It's a good question. I mean, you know, now it's funny because I think at the time I was reading many campus novels, but the campus novels that I read and thought about, it's almost like school is happening in the background. One of one of my favorite. It's a novella, but it's about someone at university. Is it pronounced Stefan Zweig he. The novel Confusion.
- [25:56]
Chris Holmes
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [25:58]
Stephanie Wambugu
Which I love. And I think it's, you know, he's at university and the idea is that his. His father sort of pulled him away from the school he was attending because he wasn't attending class. And he was sort of, I think, in danger of failing out and puts him in this new environment. And he's so enchanted by this professor whose class he walks by that he falls into this. What is potentially a romance or like, the subtext might be that it's romantic, but is a student teacher relationship, like, colored by. By deep devotion. And I think what's interesting about it is that you get some of the. A sense of what the school might be like or like what the. Maybe the homogeneity of the school or the insularity of it or. You know, I. I can remember a little bit about the university is the. Is the point I'm making. But what I really remember is the relationships that being at the university occasioned. And so I think that there's a bit of a. There's a bit of description of Bard. And I mean, I just. I know Bard because I went there and I know a little bit about its history just from, you know, hearing about like the. In. In a sort of like, you know, in like. Like an oral history of. Of the. Of the college and how, you know, when you go to a school like that, that's a small school that has a kind of. I think that when you. When you say Bard, people have these connotations of the school and like, I think I for sure. The sopranos and how Dr. Melfi's son goes to Bard, and that's kind of like a euphemism for him sort of being like a layabout and sensitive or something. I think that's the race. What did you say?
- [27:20]
Chris Holmes
That's amazing.
- [27:21]
Stephanie Wambugu
Yeah. And I think, like, I mean, I think that I went to school with a lot of serious people and I got a really good education, but I am aware of like the connotations when someone mentions Bard. And so I think some of it is like, that was. That's self. That's self mythologizing. And I think that people at Bard, like, on some level like that. And that's what attract. You know, it's what attracted them. And that's why they went to the school. It's. I mean, some people probably went not knowing that kind of about really about its history or what it kind of represents culturally. But I think, you know, a number of people went for that, that exact reason. And so I think that some of. I, I mean, I, I now I look back and I think it was such an, like enchanting and in some ways idyllic place. And that can't be separated from the fact that it's a very expensive school. And like there, there is, you know, that it is stark to, to encounter the kind of wealth you might encounter there. And, but it's, and you know, and I think when you're having a really beautiful moment or when you're like really feeling like immersed in your education or like you feel stimulated by the people around you and how, and how beautiful it can be and how it's like this kind of enclosure that's like, it's unlike any other place I've been in the world. And I, I loved that about it. But then I think sometimes you sort of peer over the, you know, you, you, you peer over like the, the edge of it. I actually don't really know how to put this, but you, you come, you have this sudden awareness of the fact that all of that is constructed and all of that is available to you and it's not available to any number of other people. And so, you know, it's like anything. Even as you enjoy like a luxurious or exclusive experience, you sometimes have this like, I think a wave of guilt or ambivalence or like. Yeah, it's, I mean, mixed feelings about, you know, what it means to, to enjoy that. Maybe not really at the expense of other people literally, but in some ways, you know, you, you have, some people have resources and others don't, and I think that I'm aware of that now. And anyway, I think that I tried to share details about Bard that I thought were funny and that were captured like some of the, how strange it could be and how strange it was and how unlike any other place it was to me, but also to just make it, to not feel like I had to share so much detail or just share the relevant details that would allow the relationship to be the most important part of the book. The relationship between Ruth and Maria.
- [29:35]
Chris Holmes
Hmm. So while this is very much a novel of the Northeast, in, in the US we have a brief departure to Kenya when Ruth and her mother go for what gets called a two week vacation. And Ruth will meet her uncle and cousins. But I, I felt as though you were very purposefully keeping Kenya lightly drawn. And I wonder if you were trying to give us a sense of how Ruth would have experienced Kenya inside the homes of family and not as an, you know, exotic sized vacation travel place, but as a place where you would go and have a very particular experience of, you know, her mother's home.
- [30:18]
Stephanie Wambugu
Yeah, I mean, it's also, I, I, that I, I'm happy that it came across that way because I think that, you know, when you go visit family or when like you, you, the occasion, you maybe call it a vacation, but it isn't a vacation. You know, you're going because there are things to attend to or like in this case there's been like an emergency, it's revealed and so you, maybe you tell a child, you know, we're just going for a trip and it's, it's meant to be pleasurable, but really it's like, it can be a really fraught return and it can be a return that's dominated by just like, you know, seeing people and catching up with people and attending to the matter at hand. And so for Ruth, it's really, she's, she's seeing these things in a kind of like, like oblique way or she's, she's getting like snatches of conversations, a conversation between adults and, or certain like pieces of information from her mother that she's actually not really, it's, that's not age appropriate, you know, about, about why they're there and what, what going home maybe means to her mother. But it's not a trip that's like meant to be. Like she's not going on safari. She's not having a luxurious time. It's not actually even pleasant. It's unclear if it's, it's, if it's fun for anyone involved.
- [31:22]
Chris Holmes
Like, it doesn't seem like it.
- [31:25]
Stephanie Wambugu
No, no, it's not. And I think that that's not, that's, it's not tourism is the, is. The point was the idea is that she's, the trip had a very clear utility. And you know, I think because it's maybe it's so expensive to go back and they were working class and because it's so far away and because they're beginning already to feel dislocated from the place they're from, the trip is fraught and short and confusing, I think, especially for the child. And so I wanted to depict it that way.
- [31:53]
Chris Holmes
Yeah, we really feel that. I think. So I want to dig in a little bit to the relationship that Ruth and, and Maria have. And it's, it's kind of layers of codependency that, that at times kind of spiral out beyond their control. It's a, it's a friendship that has elements of sexual desire, desire for other kinds of intimacy, and also, at times, deep jealousy. But because we live in Ruth's head, we oftentimes feel that Maria is at fault for various schisms and poorly timed intimacies. But I wonder if there's a sense for you as the author that we simply don't understand Maria's side of things as completely and is part of the pleasure of the novel realizing that we're living in mono when we should have stereo sound for the two months?
- [32:48]
Stephanie Wambugu
Yeah. I mean, I think that I hope by the end you realize that Ruth is. Ruth's subjectivity is fraught and that she doesn't. You know, just as like, there's. There are painful things happening to Maria that are destabilizing and shape some of the ways that she's maybe falls short as a friend or as a spouse or, you know, it. There's a. There's a fairly clear sense of why she might behave the way she does. But because Ruth is processing it as erratic behavior or an ungrateful behavior, it's not really. She's not really given. It's. We. We do, like, find her at fault. And I think we. We see her as. I think there. There's a part of the. There's a part of the novel where they're watching a student film and she sees. And. And Ruth says that she sees it's a couple arguing, and it's a reenactment of a couple's argument. And the man is really. He's really berating the woman he's speaking to, and he's being very cruel to her. And you. You get the sense that it's, like, verbally abusive. And it's. It's really. It has really escalated. And Ruth says that you have the feeling, watching that argument, that you actually, in spite of the woman being mistreated, you sort of root for the man because he's dominating her and because I think sometimes it's like that's what's effective about, like an antihero or about someone who's behaves badly. And. And I think that sometimes you begin to. You actually begin to, like, identify with the more powerful person or the seemingly powerful person. And I think that's what's seductive about Maria. But I think we get that. That impression because Ruth's narrating this and she feels at Maria's mercy. But I think that there's. Hopefully, it's like. It's ambiguous in that, like, Ruth has more resources than Maria does. She has an Intact family. She has all of the opportunity that Maria received. You know, she gets the same, very same education. She gets the, she's. It's suggested that, like, they're, you know, equally attractive, that one is not actually more, all that more attractive than the other. And you get, you know, there are people in the novel that suggest that to Ruth. And so you wonder why she feels so beleaguered and why she feels like she's really is being victimized by this person. And I also think that ultimately, like, it's, it's hurtful for someone to want to end a relationship or not want to be as close to you as you'd like to be with them, but everyone retains that right to at any point say, I don't, you know, I don't want to be that close to you. Right. I actually want the nature of our relationship to change. And I think in a way, Ruth not allowing Maria to do that and not allowing her the ability to, like, individuate and go off on her own without feeling this, like, guilt or feeling like that's, that's callous thing to do is unfair in its own way. And it's that, that it's like they both are aggressive, but I think they're sort of aggressive in different ways. Or maybe they're, they inflict pain on one another in different ways. Ruth by making impossible demands, and Maria by, you know, consistently failing to meet them because maybe they are impossible demands.
- [35:39]
Chris Holmes
That's a great way to put it. The novel I couldn't get out of my head when I was reading Lonely Crowds was my brilliant friend, the first of Elena Ferrante's Neapolitan novels. That novel, too, features an all consuming friendship that is centered around the desire to make art and to escape the poverty and violence of the two girls past in post Fascist Italy. I wonder, was Ferrante onto your mind?
- [36:03]
Stephanie Wambugu
You know, I had started the novel already when I read My Brilliant Friend for the first time in a seminar at Columbia. And then because of the overlap in subject matter, I never, I, I didn't continue the series because I thought it would loom so much over the writing. But now I think is the time for me to, to read it, to finish it. But I mean, of course, like, I think that what I found striking about that, like the first one in the series is that like, history and like social changes are they, they kind of like, they permeate the narrative even when they're children and you get a sense of what's happening politically and historically. And that it's so impressive that she can do that through the lives of children or through the points of view of children and, like, depict these social shifts and, like, write a social novel that's. That's ultimately like, friendship is the container for it. So, I mean, I was just. I was really impressed by the first book, but I didn't want it to loom so much over my writing. And so now I'm actually.
- [36:56]
Chris Holmes
Yeah, it is. It's an indomitable series. It's hard to. It's hard to avoid once you've. Once you've read it.
- [37:03]
Stephanie Wambugu
And I also. I think the comparison is incredibly flattering. And I mean, I. Even if it's just thematic, you know, I don't. I don't think it's like, about, like the. Necessarily any. Anything about like, the style of the book or what that those books managed to accomplish. But I think that, you know, it's just an evergreen theme. And there's so many other books about friendship I was reading as well, but of course that one has. Has, like, has a hold culturally on people now. And I think part of it is, I mean, that just. Just how evergreen that theme is. And I think in a narrative sense, like, you know, having two friends who follow one another through the course of their lives.
- [37:39]
Chris Holmes
Yeah. And I was going to ask you for some reading recommendations, and I wonder if any of them might be ones about friendship that you. That you found really impactful. I don't know. I'd be happy to hear any books that you're excited about, but if you have one that influenced you and. And dealt with that evergreen theme, that would be lovely.
- [37:58]
Stephanie Wambugu
Yeah. I mean, thinking about it now, I'm do Everything in the Dark by Gary, Indiana, which is. It's going to sound ridiculous to call it a book about friendship because everyone in the book hates one another. And it's like Ramona Clay. And you can fairly easily make out who the people are. And like, they. I would say generally, like the. You know, most of the friendships are antagonistic, if not like. I mean, there's just like, dysfunctional friendships. But I think that there's some. What's really wonderful about that book is that it has, like, these sort of. Some chapters are longer than others, but it follows a different person in each chapter. And so you kind of get this, like. There's like something like polyphonic. Polyphonic about it. And by the time you get to the end, you have a sense of like, a social circle or like a people. People living at, you know, how People lived at a particular time. And I think that that's. That's something that I wanted to do in this book, despite the fact that it's not. You don't have the same effect because it's all processed through Ruth's point of view. And so even what people say is sort of colored by her qualification of it or she's editorializing the things she hears. You know, it's not like letting everyone speak on their own behalf. But I think that book is fantastic. And I just. It's so well written. Gary, Indiana is a big influence of mine and I, you know, I've never.
- [39:13]
Chris Holmes
Read anything by him. Maybe this is the time for me to start digging in.
- [39:17]
Stephanie Wambugu
I'd really recommend Horse Crazy, as I mean, is one of my. Is my favorite of his probably. And that relationship is about. I mean, that novel, Excuse me, is about unrequited love. But you can see, like, how that might. That influenced my book as well. And then I also, of course, like Sula, which is one of my favorite novels. And I think it manages. I think when I read that book for the first time, first time when I was. Maybe I just started Undergrad, I was 18, 15 years old, I think. And I thought, you know, it's the time when you. The most important relationships in your life, for at least for me, had been relationships with my family or just the ones that take. Take up the most mental space, I would say, are the ones you think about the most or are. Define yourself by are, you know, relationships with family and relationships with friends. I don't think most people have really consequential or meaningful romantic relationships until they're a bit older than that. And so when I. But, you know, you're. You sort of spend your whole life. I think most people spend their whole life waiting for the. The romantic relationships that will be meaningful to them. And it's. It makes me think of this line from Avigdes Horth book, if Only, where she says, you can know that you. You have like, a great, like, capacity for love before you've even loved someone. And it's. It kind of lies dormant in you. And I think that that's the feeling you have maybe when you're on the precipice of, like, when you're a teenager and you're on the precipice of. Of like, young adulthood and you have this sense of, like, it's, it's. It could happen tomorrow or like, I. I know I have this. This desire, but it's just not been realized yet. But anyway, the point I wanted to make is that when I read sula, I thought, oh, you know, actually it's possible that the relationship that can, that can define your life the most, it can be a friendship, and it can be as catastrophic and devastating as, you know, a marriage. In that, in the case of Sula, where by the end you just think what Nell and Sula had is actually much more important than a marriage, or at least for them, you know, yeah, absolutely. It's. It's the most consequential relationship. And so I think that book, I returned to it as an, as an. A model. And I think it's just, you know, there's not as much language for what the kind of devastation you feel when you lose a friend or one friendship fails in certain ways. It's, It's. It's more taboo, I think, to talk about those things. Whereas you can, you know, you can bring like, a partner or a spouse or, you know, boyfriend, whatever, to therapy. But to say to your friend, I want to go to therapy because of what we're experiencing in our friendship would be. Is kind of insane being.
- [41:36]
Chris Holmes
Although. Although maybe we should be doing that.
- [41:39]
Stephanie Wambugu
I know, exactly. And I think, I mean, yeah, if you've known someone for, you know, in this case, in the case of, like the women in my novel, if you've known someone for decades and they're. There's something really painful and consistently painful about the relationship, you know, why not, if you wanted to continue, benefited from that. But anyway.
- [41:56]
Chris Holmes
Well, those are great recommendations, and I really want to recommend to my listeners Stephanie Wambugu's Lonely Crowds. It is a meditation on friendship that comes to be that most important, most foundational thing in the lives of two young women artists. And that importance is. Is both a powerful propulsion into their adult lives and also something that can be dangerous and. And destructive at times. But it's beautifully written in a wonderful debut, and it was such a nice thing to get to talk to Stephanie.
- [42:32]
Stephanie Wambugu
Thank you so much, Chris. This was wonderful. I really appreciate it.
- [42:35]
Chris Holmes
Thank you. Well, that's all for me for now. My thanks to Stephanie Wambugu for coming on to talk about her debut novel, Lonely Crowds. You can find links to purchase Lonely Crowds and all of Stephanie's recommended books at the website burned by books Dot Com. There you'll find all of our previous episodes, links to buy a podcast, T shirt, and ways to get in contact. As you listen, take a moment to rate the show on itunes, Spotify, and now YouTube or wherever you find your podcasts. Until next time, this has been burned by books.
- [43:43]
Hilton Advertiser
Everything feels a bit uncertain right now. A few months ago, you never would have expected eggs being factored into your monthly budget. New sources of stress equal more opportunities for breakouts to strike. Luckily, Mighty Patch original shrinks the look of pimples in just one use. We'd say that's a pretty good deal. Shop mightypatch at all major retailers.