Episode 36 - Structural Tricks, Disintegration & Ghosts in Valeria Luiselli's "Faces in the Crowd"

The Casual Academic: A Literary Podcast

Episode 36 features Valeria Luiselli's "Faces in the Crowd," a novella we loved and can't recommend enough. Our discussion includes a bit of her non-fiction, especially her essay "Relingos," as well as various interviews in which she shares her approach to writing and structure. Luiselli allows shifts in point of view and temporality to intermingle and eventually blend together in a story of a writer writing of her days obsessing over a poet in New York City. The novella is both dark and funny, and subtly deals with the way in which our pasts integrate and thus disintegrate our presents, and how identities shapeshift when lost in foreign lands and art. Episode 36 concludes our miniseries on Mexican authors, but rest assured it shall be continued! Let us know what you thought of the episode and the novella via social media, or email us at [e-mail]. Stay casual, Alex & Jake