The second episode of season two heads to Swarthmore College with Meg Wolitzer’s debut novel, ‘Sleepwalking’.

While Wolitzer is more famous for her more recent novels, ‘The Female Persuasion’ and ‘The Interestings’, we follow Claire Danziger and the other ‘death girls’ as they obsess over the work, life and suicides of three famed female poets: Sylvia Plath, Anne Sexton and Wolitzer’s creation, Lucy Ascher. As their personalities merge and darkness closes in under the study of their poets, and Claire’s relationship with upperclassman Julia, Claire must figure out when Lucy ends and she begins.

But it is dark academia?

In this episode we talk about:

• The sideline-ing of the female experience and female trauma and pain

• How a misleading book summary can change your expectations and experience of a novel

• How a small cast of characters creates an insular and almost claustrophobic reading experience

You can listen to it here:

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TEXTS MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE

• ‘Sleepwalking’ by Meg Wolitzer

• ‘Belhzar’ by Meg Wolitzer

• ‘The Secret History’ by Donna Tartt

• ‘The Maidens’ by Alex Michaelides