Sarah Manguso--award-winning author and one of the most acclaimed and genre-defying prose stylists working today—joined us virtually for the launch of her debut novel. At once an ungilded portrait of girlhood at the crossroads of history and social class as well as a vital confrontation with an all-American whiteness where the ice of emotional restraint meets the embers of smoldering rage, Very Cold People is a haunted jewel of a novel. Manguso and author Elizabeth McCracken discussed the crafting (and misnaming) of fragments, turning to fiction from poetry, and the particular frigid weirdness of New England in the late 20th century. (Recorded February 16, 2022)