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The hosts introduce Orner’s background and focus on his recent novel The Gossip Columnist's Daughter, set around early-1960s Chicago, celebrity gossip, conspiracy theories, and a young woman’s suspicious death. The discussion emphasizes how the plot develops beyond sensational intrigue toward themes of family histories, lost friendships, and the emotional weight carried by vanished objects and remembered times. A spoiler-free plot summary and a short opening passage are included.","10.3 Just Slightly Outside the Circle: Peter Ornerand Sarah Wasserman (EH)  \nTranscript  \nEmily Hyde  \nHello, and welcome to Novel Dialogue , a podcast sponsored by the Society of Novel Studies and produced in partnership with Public Books , an online magazine of arts, ideas, and scholarship. I'm Emily Hyde, I'm one of the hosts and co-producers of this podcast, and this is season 10. We are here with the novelist Peter Orner and the critic Sarah Wasserman. Peter Orner was born in Chicago—I feel I really must start this introduction right there. He is the author of three novels, three story collections, and two books of essays, including most recently, Still No Word From You. Peter holds the professorship of English and Creative Writing at Dartmouth College. Today, we're going to start off talking about Peter's most recent novel, The Gossip Columnist's Daughter, a novel that is really about a lost pocket of time, the early 1960s, when Chicagoans partied in a kind of Midwestern Weimar, to quote the book. It was a distant time, it was a much more glamorous time, but one that perhaps could see its own end, as we do now. So this is also a book that really lands in our present much more immediately, because it's about conspiracy theories and celebrity gossip, and what happens when those two things intersect in the suspicious death of a young, beautiful woman. But I think the book is also trying to move past that material to say something about the weight of family histories and lost friendships. So Peter, welcome.  \nPeter Orner  \nThanks so much, Emily. I love that idea of a lost pocket of time. That's a gorgeous concept. And I've forgotten that Weimar line. It's sort of haunting—  \nEH  \nIt is very haunting now.  \nPO  \n—thinking about it today. [laughter] I was only kidding then.  \nEH  \nIn conversation with Peter today is longtime and much loved Novel Dialogue host, Sarah Wasserman, this time coming to you in the role of critic. Sarah, and again, I feel this credential  \nis very important to share, Sarah has lived in Chicago for almost four years. And she is a scholar of lost things and disappearing objects, and the emotions that attach to technologies in American literary history and culture. She is currently the inaugural assistant dean of faculty affairs at Dartmouth. Sarah, over to you.  \nSarah Wasserman  \nThanks so much. I'm really happy to be here with the two of you today. Peter, I want to begin today by asking you to read a passage from The Gossip Columnist's Daughter, but before we do that, I wanted to ask both of you if you think for the purposes of this episode, it might be helpful to have a brief summary of the novel without any spoilers? Emily, you did a pretty wonderful job of that. But it strikes me that if we're going to talk at all in depth about the novel, that might be helpful.  \nEH  \nI think you should do it because I tried and failed to think of all the different genres I could have listed of this novel, and I gave up. So, a plot summary might be good.  \nSW  \nThere are many. So I'll just start with a few sentences, a plot summary. This is not AI. This is my attempt at summarizing the novel without giving anything away. Okay, so the novel's narrator is named Jed Rosenthal, and he is a struggling writer and professor in, let's call it contemporary Chicago today, whose life is unraveling a bit. He becomes interested in, if not obsessed with, areal life cold case from 1963, the mysterious death of Karyn “Cookie” Kupcinet, who was the daughter of the legendary Chicago gossip columnist Irv Kupcinet. And Irv, with his wife, Essee, was best friends for years with Jed's grandparents until one day they weren't. So in the novel, Jed is digging into the past to try to solve the mystery of Cookie's death and the mystery of why his family and the Kupcinets fell out. That's just a kind of bare bones plot summary. But Peter, it would be great if you could start us off by reading a passage from the novel, and I think we've chose","cbCailDdW1JtNcny","https://ap.wps.com/l/cbCailDdW1JtNcny","pdf",165504,12,"English","en",105,"# Episode Introduction\n## Podcast Guests and Episode Focus\n## Spoiler-Free Plot Summary\n## Opening Passage Discussion","[{\"question\":\"What novel and setting does the episode focus on?\",\"answer\":\"The episode centers on Peter Orner’s novel The Gossip Columnist's Daughter, set in early-1960s Chicago with a look back at that era’s glamour and unrest.\"},{\"question\":\"What is the spoiler-free plot summary about?\",\"answer\":\"The narrator, Jed Rosenthal, is a struggling writer and professor whose life unravels as he investigates a 1963 cold case involving Karyn “Cookie” Kupcinet and the fractured friendship between his grandparents and the Kupcinets.\"},{\"question\":\"What themes does the conversation highlight beyond conspiracy and gossip?\",\"answer\":\"The hosts discuss how the book moves past sensational material to explore the weight of family histories and the emotional impact of lost friendships and disappearing connections.\"}]","Just Slightly Outside the Circle - 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