Episode #55
A Plane Crash, a Gunslinger, a Ghost Town & Téa Obreht’s Complex Love of the American West (ep 55)
A ghost town with a secret history. A plane crash in the Wyoming backcountry. A small-town reenactor knotted up in his own masculinity and ego. Three timelines, one place, and a novel that dives into the myths the West was built on. Téa Obreht joins Scott to unpack Sunrise, her most audacious novel yet—a braided story set in the American West that follows Nina, a nanny and art history grad student fighting to survive after falling out of the sky; Anton Vargas, a fading dime-novel gunslinger returning to the town he helped mythologize; and Coll, a hometown historian who stakes his own identity on the myth of Vargas. Obreht also shares the deeply personal path that brought her from Belgrade, Yugoslavia as a child to Wyoming as an adult, her love and fascination of the American West, and her complicated relationship to it. If you love literary fiction that’s ambitious, atmospheric, and smart, this one is essential listening. Sunrise is a rich conversation about survival, regret, myth, ego and the West. Téa is the best-selling author of the The Tiger’s Wife, Inland, and The Morningside. She joins Scott for this discussion from Dublin, Ireland. Bonus: Téa also recounts what it was like to learn that Barack Obama read and recommended her book, Inland. TÉA'S LINKS: Instagram | Website SCOTT’S LINKS: Substack | Website | Instagram | Facebook | TikTo k MUSIC – Wilderado, “ Surefire (piano) ”
