The latest installment of the Hatchards Podcast is a global affair, recorded variously in Los Angeles, Paris, and North London and featuring our guest Tess Gunty, author of the phenomenal debut novel, The Rabbit Hutch.

Set over three sweltering July days in the fictional town of Vacca Vale in the American rust belt, the novel revolves around the residents of ‘The Rabbit Hutch’, a dilapidated housing complex that is home to a motley mix of the Midwest's forgotten and forlorn: damaged teens struggling to deal with the legacy of foster home abuse; an elderly couple besieged by falling rodents; a lonely online obituary editor; and Blandine Watkins, the heroine of the story and its unforgettable central character, upon whom a shocking act of violence is both the beginning and the culmination of this novel.

We spoke to Tess about the inspiration for the spellbinding Blandine; the influence of the German mystic, Hildegard of Bingen; the plight of real-life midwestern towns abandoned by the political class; and her own background in the Vacca Vale-esque South Bend, Indiana. Ryan also squeezed in the obligatory film reference in the form of a question about Harmony Korine.