Julie Buntin’s superb new novel complicates the conversation around literary celebrity.

On this episode of Fully Booked, Julie Buntin joins us to discuss her stunning sophomore novel, Famous Men (Random House, July 14). “A personal and professional entanglement with an acclaimed writer shapes a young woman’s life,” Kirkus writes in a starred review, calling it“a searing, brilliant novel about power, and stories, and who gets to tell them.”

Buntin‘s debut, Marlena, was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle’s John Leonard Prize. She is the co-editor of the forthcoming collection, Notes to New Mothers(Norton, Sept. 1), consisting ofdispatches from postpartum life by 60 writers and artists. She is a former editor and director of writing programs at Catapult and is now an assistant professor at the University of Michigan. She lives in Ann Arbor.

Famous Men is narrated by Wilhelmina (Will) Miles, a talented writer and devotee of famous poet Nathaniel Fellow, who hails from the same small Michigan town as she. In 2010, Will, in her early 20s, matriculates at a college in New York City near the tony university where Nathaniel, in his 60s, teaches. Through a series of discomfiting meetings, she becomes his literary assistant; over time, they become intimates.

Here’s a bit more from our starred review: “Buntin’s premise may be familiar, but the novel pays masterful attention to complexity, presenting events and relationships in all their strangeness and contradictions. Her language is superb; for all Will’s self-assuredness, the precarity of her situation, tied so inextricably to Nathaniel, is rendered in such exacting and heartrending detail as to make the reader’s teeth ache. The structure of the novel allows for heightened poignancy as Will reflects on the consequences of the choices she made over the years, as well as the ones she didn’t.”

In an intriguing conversation, Buntin and I talk about prepublication reviews, MacDowell, imposter syndrome, and bringing new versions of old characters into current work. We consider Philip Roth’s Zuckerman Unbound, Saul Bellow and the “Great Man” archetype, and the different experiences of writing her first and second novels. We discuss class, ambition, self-determination, and much more.

At the end of our interview, Buntin recommends a novel about ambition and motherhood. Follow @kirkus_reviews on Instagram, DM us the title of that book, along with your email and location, and you’ll be entered in a drawing to receive a $100 Visa gift card, courtesy of Kirkus. The giveaway is open to legal residents of the U.S. who have reached 18 years of age or older at the time of entry.

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Fully Booked is produced by Jessica Lockhart and Megan Labrise.