Podcast Episode Summary

Podcast: New Books Network
Host: Chris Holmes (Burned by Books)
Guest: Stephanie Wambugu, author of Lonely Crowds (Little, Brown and Company, 2025)
Date: November 15, 2025

Episode Overview

This episode features an in-depth conversation between Chris Holmes and debut novelist Stephanie Wambugu about her book Lonely Crowds. The novel explores the complex, intimate, and sometimes destructive friendship between Ruth and Maria, two Kenyan-American women navigating art, identity, desire, and class from the suburbs of Rhode Island to the art world of New York City. The discussion touches on representation, the difficulties of an artistic career, the immigrant experience, family expectations, and literary inspirations, offering listeners a nuanced look at Wambugu’s creative process and the powerful themes at the heart of her novel.

Key Discussion Points and Insights

Origin of Ruth and Maria, and Themes of Friendship

• Creation of Main Characters (04:17–07:48)
  • Stephanie describes how Ruth's voice emerged soon after she started grad school in New York, embodying concerns of representation and identity as they relate to both historical and contemporary reckonings in the art world.
  • Maria originated as a minor character but grew in significance as the relational dynamic between her and Ruth became central:

    "I thought, actually, I’m more interested in how you can shape a personality and a narrative... relationally... like twins, you know, grow up with the same circumstance." (06:12, Stephanie Wambugu)

  • Ruth and Maria serve as foils, with their friendship both life-saving and destructive, the characters’ personalities revealed through contrast.

Art, Privilege, and Economic Insecurity

• Artistic Careers and Class Disparities (07:48–12:14)
  • Holmes notes that both Ruth (painter) and Maria (filmmaker) pursue art careers from non-privileged backgrounds, unlike characters like James, who comes from wealth.
  • Wambugu highlights how “being an artist” often presupposes middle/upper class security, and even professional success for Ruth and Maria does not guarantee satisfaction or reconnecting with their origins.

    "There are two kinds of struggles. It’s the struggle to find stability and then also to process the fact that... the way that you used to live is unrecognizable and that you really can't return to your origins..." (11:36, Stephanie Wambugu)

  • The novel presents the precarity of art careers and the challenge of upward mobility for immigrants’ children in creative fields.

Representation, Ethics, and Appropriation in Art

• Conflicts of Representation (12:14–16:15)
  • Ruth is pressured to produce art with “postcolonial force,” while Maria is depicted as appropriating the life stories of others, including Ruth, for her films.
  • Wambugu discusses the ethics of self-disclosure and artistic appropriation:

    "Ruth... has a real ethical dilemma... painting, making black figurative paintings and making money from them... Maria, on the other hand, is really... appropriating things from life... She has no qualms about that." (13:45, Stephanie Wambugu)

  • The discussion touches on the blurry line between using one’s life in art and exploiting relationships, quoting Philip Roth’s line:

    “This profession fucks up everything, even the grief.” (15:37, Stephanie Wambugu quoting Philip Roth)

Desire, Gender, and Immigrant Family Expectations

• Formations and Limits of Desire (16:15–20:04)
  • Holmes asks about the limitations on desire—romantic, artistic, material—placed on children of immigrants.
  • Wambugu reflects on how religious/cultural frameworks valorize suffering over pleasure, leading Ruth to experience shame about fulfillment:

    “Ruth really internalizes this idea that... it’s maybe even actually wrong to have your desires fulfilled...” (17:34, Stephanie Wambugu)

  • Desire for art, love, and pleasure is portrayed as fraught, especially against backdrops of immigrant struggle and Catholicism.

The "Mind Your Business" Philosophy

• Ruth’s Mother and Cultural Transmission (19:01–22:56)
  • Holmes highlights Ruth’s mother’s prescriptive “mind your business” behavioral rules—strict, repressive, but protective.

    “Her mom has this... philosophy... people are to be quiet, iron their clothes, wash their skin... not call attention to oneself, not show weakness, not show love.” (19:12, Chris Holmes)

  • Wambugu unpacks how immigrant parents conflate conservatism, religion, and heritage—sometimes as a shield against perceived cultural dangers, sometimes unknowingly reinforcing U.S. norms.

The Campus Novel Setting

• Depicting Bard College and Its Challenges (24:50–29:34)
  • Holmes observes that Lonely Crowds channels elements of the campus novel, with Bard depicted as a microcosm of elite privilege and artistic aspiration.
  • Wambugu approached Bard less as a setting and more as the space facilitating Ruth and Maria’s relationships, noting the ambivalence of privilege at such institutions:

    "...when you’re having a really beautiful moment or... really feeling like immersed in your education... sometimes you have this sudden awareness... that all of that is constructed and... available to you and it’s not available to any number of other people." (28:23, Stephanie Wambugu)

Return to Kenya: Family, Alienation, and Non-tourism

• Portrayal of Kenya as Family Space (29:34–31:52)
  • Holmes notes the Kenya trip is drawn with restraint, not exoticism.
  • Wambugu confirms this was intentional—Ruth experiences Kenya not as a tourist but as a family member attending to difficult events:

    “She’s... getting like snatches of... conversations... with unclear purpose... It’s not actually even pleasant. It’s unclear if it’s fun for anyone involved.” (31:05, Stephanie Wambugu)

Codependency, Intimacy, and Ambiguity in Friendship

• Psychology of the Ruth–Maria Bond (31:52–35:38)
  • Holmes explores the layers of desire, intimacy, and jealousy, noting the narrative's twice-removed perspective (from Ruth only).
  • Wambugu acknowledges Ruth may unfairly villainize Maria, and that both women harm each other—Ruth by demanding closeness, Maria by failing to reciprocate.

    “Ruth by making impossible demands, and Maria by... consistently failing to meet them because maybe they are impossible demands.” (35:29, Stephanie Wambugu)

Literary Influences and Reading Recommendations

• Ferrante and Other Friendship Novels (35:38–41:56)

  • Holmes draws parallels to Elena Ferrante’s My Brilliant Friend; Wambugu read it while writing Lonely Crowds, but intentionally limited exposure to avoid undue influence.

  • Book recommendations related to friendship and unconventional relationships:

    • Do Everything in the Dark by Gary Indiana
    • Horse Crazy by Gary Indiana
    • Sula by Toni Morrison
    • If Only by Avigdor Hameiri (referenced for its view on latent love)

  • Wambugu on Sula:

    “When I read Sula, I thought, oh, you know, actually it’s possible that the relationship that can define your life the most, it can be a friendship, and it can be as catastrophic and devastating as... a marriage.” (40:36, Stephanie Wambugu)

Memorable Quotes

• On Ruth and Maria’s relationship:

  "I think that you need to... do that relationally... two people... like twins... inform one another’s personalities so that you understand one by understanding the other."
  (06:08, Stephanie Wambugu)

• On artistic privilege:

  "Most people who become artists come from middle class or upper middle class backgrounds because... there’s so much precarity..."
  (08:47, Stephanie Wambugu)

• On self-exposure in art:

  "My answer was yes. But of course, not having yet published a novel… You can’t know how people will respond to being instrumentalized that way."
  (14:45, Stephanie Wambugu)

• On the force of suffering:

  "We... in Christian traditions... suffering is valorized and suffering is seen as... actually a good thing."
  (17:17, Stephanie Wambugu)

• On friendship vs. romance:

  "...The relationship that can define your life the most... can be a friendship, and it can be as catastrophic and devastating as... a marriage."
  (40:40, Stephanie Wambugu)

Notable Timestamps

• 04:17 – Chris begins in-depth questions about Ruth and Maria’s origins.
• 07:48 – Discussion of art, class, Ruth and Maria’s careers, Ruth’s boyfriend James.
• 12:14 – Representation in art and ethical concerns between Ruth and Maria.
• 16:15 – The theme of desire as limited by culture and religion.
• 19:01 – Discussion of Ruth’s mother’s “mind your business” philosophy.
• 24:50 – Discussion on the campus novel and representing Bard.
• 29:34 – On the Kenya trip and Ruth’s experience of “home.”
• 31:52 – Analysis of codependency and the limits of the Ruth–Maria relationship.
• 35:38 – Influence of Ferrante’s My Brilliant Friend and Wambugu’s reading habits.
• 37:58 – Stephanie’s recommendations for books about friendship (Do Everything in the Dark, Horse Crazy, Sula).

Episode Takeaway

This episode provides a rich, honest exploration of the tangled lives and bonds of young artists Ruth and Maria as depicted in Lonely Crowds. Through her candid conversation, Stephanie Wambugu reveals how her own background, cultural navigation, and literary loves informed a novel where family, ambition, love, and friendship are forces both constructive and destructive. Lonely Crowds emerges as a reflective, deeply empathetic portrayal of what it means to seek oneself through others—and of the costs and rewards that search entails.