ADRIAN MA, HOST:
New York City is thrown into chaos at the start of a new novel "Dwelling." The mayor has decided to turn all the city's available rental housing into glorified Airbnbs. And because of this mass eviction, the city's renters soon find all their stuff piled up on the sidewalks like garbage.
And that is where Evie Cavallo (ph) finds herself - on the sidewalk, sitting on a random couch with a cook who is, well, not a cook anymore because they're unemployed and homeless. Both of them are trying to figure out where to go from here when the cook says...
EMILY HUNT KIVEL: (Reading) I guess I also have a niece with a duplex in Wisconsin, and my aunt has a ranch in Texas near Gulluck. Gulluck - the name lodged in Evie's mind like a funny piece of glass. She said goodbye to the man, though he was already lost within himself, and walked towards the bridge that would take her to the city center. She stepped over a baking sheet and shower caddy that lay prostrate across the sidewalk. She turned down the street that ran parallel to the water's edge and stopped to sit staring at the skyline. She shared a bench with a rat eating out of a shoe full of wet Cheerios.
MA: Both of Evie's parents are dead. Her sister is in a mental institution. But Gulluck - turns out Evie has a distant cousin there. And wouldn't you know it, the cousin is a realtor. This is the beginning of Emily Hunt Kivel's debut novel, "Dwelling." And from there, Evie seeks shelter in the mysterious, yet whimsical town of Gulluck, starting over as a young woman who lives in a shoe.
KIVEL: It's essentially the only rental property that Evie can afford, basically because it's a novelty property that looks like a giant cowboy boot that's, you know, just rising into the sky. It was formerly a dance hall, and then it was a shoemaking studio, and now it's kind of just been sitting vacant for years, and, you know, now it's going to be Evie's residence.
MA: I couldn't help but wonder at this point, are you, like, a fan of fairy tales?
KIVEL: Yeah, I am a big fan of folk tales and fairy tales. And I also think that, for whatever reason, as I was kind of conceiving of the book and of this image I had of an old woman living in a shoe, I started becoming interested in that image. And I started becoming kind of amused by doing a thought exercise. Oh, why is this woman in the shoe? What brought her there? Kind of reverse engineering how she got there. So I ended up with this idea that, oh, she - you know, she has to be there.
Even in the old nursery rhyme, there's this element of, you know, she's kind of adult children. There's some, like, economic implications even to the nursery rhyme. And of course, that's in "Dwelling," but I also think that when Evie moves into the shoe, it's actually kind of a turning point for the better in her life. And so there was actually some kind of catharsis in writing the book as it is.
MA: You have a lot of comedy in the book, as well. Like, you have a running gag where all these people start coming up to Evie's boot house and asking for, you know, cobbler services. And then Evie eventually decides, well, maybe I'll start making shoes. You also have a running gag about buffets. What is it about buffets that you find so hilarious?
KIVEL: Oh, gosh, because they're physically quite awkward. You know, you're watching people take these gigantic spoons and slop, you know, pounds of some random dish onto their plates one by one. And so I loved the idea that we're seeing all these, like, esteemed people at this event, and yet they're at a buffet. And so there's this kind of unpolished quality that I wanted to always be in the novel, always be there to remind us that these people are human.
MA: Not to give away any plot points, but there are some secret societies. There are magical keys, magic shoes, and you don't do a lot of explaining in the story about all of these things. So I'm just wondering, like, how do you come up with them? Do you have some sort of, like, internal logic that you're following?
KIVEL: I was interested in allowing a book to have mystery that goes unsolved, not necessarily, like, you know, cliff-hangers or anything like that, but really allowing certain facets of this world to just be and exist. And I think in a world where we're so encouraged and so compelled to explain everything and solve everything immediately, there was something very liberating in creating a world that had mysteries that go unexplained, that people accept as mysteries.
MA: I read a description of your book that described it as a fairy tale of late-stage capitalism. I don't think I've ever just seen any book described as that. So I'm curious, like, is that how you see it?
KIVEL: Yeah, I think that, you know, fairy tales and folk tales always reflect the anxieties of their day. And so in that way, this certainly is a fairytale of late-stage capitalism, you know? It's a quest of one woman who's been made to feel valueless in her society, right? She has this kind of very removed work life. She has a living situation that she has no control over. And that becomes quite plain when she is, in fact, kicked out of the city that she lives in and was born in because it would actually be more efficient if a tourist came and replaced her. And that's an anxiety, you know - obviously, an extreme version of it - but an anxiety that we do all feel to some degree right now. And so I think with Evie, there's this kind of - there's an adventure that stems from a very deep collective anxiety that we're all experiencing, and I do believe that within that, that is a folk tale.
MA: And so how much of this story is aspirational for you? I mean, you live where this story takes place in Texas, right? I mean...
KIVEL: I do.
MA: ...I don't know if you live in Gulluck, but you do live in Texas, right?
KIVEL: I wish I lived in Gulluck. Yeah, maybe aspirational. I think that Evie's story is one of this kind of radical acceptance that I think is very difficult to achieve. And I came to Texas not because I had any plans to or even wanted to.
MA: From New York, right?
KIVEL: Yes, from - yes, exactly. From New York. And I came here, you know, kind of similarly. I didn't have any plans to, and I didn't particularly want to. And yet when I arrived, there was something expansive that happened to me and happened to my life, and especially that happened to my creativity. And so it was unexpected. It wasn't even my first choice, but there was this generosity of spirit and this kind of creative, imaginative world that opened up for me. And so I do think that there is a parallel, at least, between my own experience in making this move and Evie's.
MA: Without giving the plot away, I want to ask you about Evie's shoes. At some point in the story, she comes across some very special shoes that help her get where she needs to go. I wonder if I could ask you just to imagine if you had a pair of these special shoes that could take you where you needed to go, where would you go?
KIVEL: That's a great question. I think I would probably go somewhere where community is really, really easy to form. And I think, on some level, I have that here, which has been beautiful. But I do think that since moving, since writing the book, what I've really seen is that community is one of the only ways to resist this kind of alienation that society is foisting upon us. And so I think that that - places that are overwhelmingly expensive and exploitative to their residents make it very difficult for those communities to form - not impossible, but difficult. And so I think, for me, I'm always looking for places that allow for this kind of connection.
MA: We've been speaking with Emily Hunt Kivel. Her new novel is "Dwelling." Emily, thanks so much for speaking with us about it.
KIVEL: Thank you.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "RED RUBY BOOTS")
LEAH MASON: ...(Singing) All the hearts I'm breaking. There's no such thing as too far gone. I'm a different kind of woman when I got my red ruby boots on. When I got my red... Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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