We’re obsessed with performance. Being performative has even become a performance. And self-awareness is now an aesthetic?
Audition by Katie Kitamura, our Open Book Club read for September explores performance. In the novel, two competing narratives unspool, rewriting our understanding of the roles we play every day—partner, parent, creator, muse—and the truths every performance masks, especially from those who think they know us best.
Katie joined us on Wednesday night to answer our questions: is there such thing as authenticity? Does authenticity even matter? Her answers were excellent.
Here’s a teaser from our conversation. The full conversation with timestamps and a few shorter clips are below the paywall.
The audio recording for this author talk is high quality — I upgraded our A/V set up, so the recording sounds like an actual podcast. No more voice memos.
