Chris is joined by Jordan Castro, a novelist, essayist, and the deputy director of the Cluny Institute. They discuss Jordan’s new novel, Muscle Man, as well as the discontents of academia, Jordan’s literary influences, the place of fiction in contemporary America, and their favorite campus novels.

Show notes: 

• Jordan’s new novel, Muscle Man
• Jordan’s essay on weightlifting for Harper’s
• Jordan’s previous novel, The Novelist
• The Cluny Institute

Time stamps: 
1:52 – Portraying the embodied life
9:58 – Violence and the Gothic
20:18 – Mimesis in academic culture
29:31 – Writing complex characters
41:09 – Are men reading fiction?
48:08 – Genre and influences

Opening and closing music: Brendan Benson, “Spit It Out,” used with permission from the artist.

Produced by Sean Doolan.