Conversations: "Slowest Hunter" by Swati Sudarsan

Blog Editor Chase Isbell interviews Shenandoah contributor Swati Sudarsan about “Slowest Hunter,” a dystopian short story about celebrity culture. Isbell and Sudarsan talk at length about the history of dystopia and Sudarsan’s thoughts on writing using genre, its many styles and tropes, and its approaches to politics. In addition to genre, they discuss gender and sexuality, feminism and queerness. Sudarsan rounds out the conversation with her critiques of celebrity culture and its relationship to capitalism and to womanhood, citing both Britney Spears and Jennette McCurdy as touchstones when thinking about her short story. “Slowest Hunter” was featured in Issue 75.1.

Your short story walks a delicate tightrope, at once fully realizing its own unique world-building (as in genre fiction) while also producing astute commentary pulled directly from contemporary American culture (as in literary fiction). It is your commitments at once to genre and literary fiction conventions that, I think, gives this piece its distinct uncanny quality, its combination of familiarity and foreignness that makes for such a compelling read. Can you tell me more about how you thought about genre when writing “Slowest Hunter”? Do the labels “genre fiction” and “literary fiction” mean much to you, and how should or shouldn’t they be applied to this story? How do you think readers should be approaching this piece as a work of fiction that so directly relates to and defamiliarizes our own time?

My piece is interested in how reality is constructed for us—what is unimaginable because it has been hidden away from us and what we believe that is actually false. I’m interested in the moment when we realize the worst possible reality, the one we convinced ourselves couldn’t be true, is happening. The story toes the line between the familiar and the unfamiliar to create a disorienting effect, leading the reader to question the solid ground of reality.

While genre conventions were not at the top of my mind as I was writing the story, these labels have value for marketing and recognizability. My writing experience included the challenges of both forms—I had to maintain a certain rigor of world-building, so a lot of effort was spent ironing out the logic of the story. However, my top priority when writing fiction is to entertain. Ideally you are upset when you have to step away from the page because you want to live in the story longer. In this way, genre does not matter to me. If you came to the work as a literary reader, and you loved the language and characters, then I am thrilled. If you were pulled in by the plot and the world-building, then I have done my job.

Following up that question, the parts of this story most indebted to genre read very much like dystopian fiction to me. It reproduces many of the genre’s most important tropes: adolescent protagonists, a deadly competition, and a mysterious and authoritarian social order. Do you think of this piece as dystopian, and, if so, do you see it as in dialogue with other entries into the genre? What texts did you turn to for inspiration? And finally, what do you see as the appeal of the genre, both as a writer and as a reader?

This story is about a dystopia that is marketed as utopia. I didn’t go into the piece thinking about how all these dystopian elements would be packed in. They emerged naturally as I was exploring the true nature of the BorderHouse alongside Reva. The appeal of genre is the opportunity to stretch reality in order to get closer to emotional truths.

As I see it, I had two worlds to build in this story. The world of celebrity, and the world of the BorderHouse. The BorderHouse was easier because it all came from my head. For vibe inspiration, I turned to Such Small Hands by Andrés Barba, Strega by Johanne Lykke Holm, and The Lobster by Yorgos Lanthimos. The world of celebrity was trickier. I hope it feels authentic; it took a lot of research to get it to this point. I read a lot of internet think pieces about pop culture in the 2000s and 2010s to learn the idiosyncrasies of celebrities from that era. I read Waiting for Britney Spears by Jeff Weiss to learn about the paparazzi, and I read I’m Glad My Mom Died by Jennette McCurdy and The Woman in Me by Britney Spears for the celebrity perspective.

While dystopian literature dominated American popular culture in the 2010s, I think there is some renewed interest in the genre today, with Suzanne Collins’s return to her famed The Hunger Games series as perhaps the most popular and obvious indicator of new relevancy. It’s impossible not to think that the rise of fascism writ large across the globe might, in some way, be revitalizing the demand for a literary tradition primarily interested in articulating the worst political structures imaginable. Do you see the dystopian genre as uniquely speaking to our current political and cultural moment? In your author’s note, you speak directly to the cultural milieu of celebrity, but do you also see the story engaging with the political zeitgeist as well?

The role of celebrity is the story’s mechanism to establish character, but the story itself speaks to something much broader. While there are some genres that speak directly to the current moment, like climate fiction, the dystopian genre emerged in the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries alongside industrialization, and it expressed the concerns writers had about the jagged edges of a “perfect society” kept in order through policing by ultra-powerful governments. Dystopian literature has evolved to fit the current times, and my story certainly exists far along this lineage. Today, we are dealing with oligarchic states that claim to be democracies. The United States has an unabashed president who openly uses brutal violence both at home and abroad. What’s not new is that we are all trying to survive and maintain our soft hearts despite imperialism. We turn to fiction to make the present more bearable. My story is not a map of the future, but a torch toward current truths.

One cannot speak about dystopian fiction without mentioning the romantic subplot. Here, your story does something subtle yet dynamic. The prospect of romance both disciplines the characters living in this society (the Hen’s weaponizing the prospect of the “perfect match” during the Match-Hunt), but also inspires resistance (Reva’s love for Talia making her reject The Hunt all together). Do you see romance as serving a dual role in this story? Can you speak more to the way this story is thinking about romantic desire, especially under authoritarianism and social repression?

In this story, romance facilitates an investigation of power. What is happening with power at the macro level, with the BorderHouse and the Hens, is also happening at the micro level between Talia and Reva. There are many ways to read what is going on between them. As we know in this story, there is rarely one straightforward truth. Reva was drawn into the Hunt because she felt she had no choice, but she also came in with an initial sense of security because Talia promised to keep her safe. When this unravels, Reva is scared, but she also finally has breathing room to explore her true feelings. Here she faces a constant push-pull—in order to see the truth she must let go of her narrative of Talia, but this narrative is hard to let go of. Is she holding on to the narrative because of romantic desire, or because the lull of false security is profoundly alluring?

I’m fascinated by the relationship between Reva and Talia and the way homoeroticism defines their friendship. We get the sense that queerness is socially impermissible in this society, and, while her desire is obvious, Reva’s feelings are expressed subtly. How is this story thinking through queerness overall? How does it comment on social stigmatization but also on illegibility? Is queerness in this story a site for resistance to the fascistic politics that run throughout the text, or is it instead another source of suffering in a heavily policed social order?

In my view, queerness is an intrinsic part of society and girlhood. Rather than stigmatized in the BorderHouse, it’s completely expected. Why else would they anticipate Hens sleeping with their celebrities, and have a pamphlet on that? Why else would they so stringently need to brainwash the girls into desiring a heteronormative relationship with their Ideal Mate? Thus, queerness could be read not only as a site of resistance or a source of suffering, but instead a fact of life that the authoritarian regime opportunistically weaponizes as they look for places to exert control

Finally, I think it is worth remembering that Reva’s story ends tragically on two fronts. One, her narrative resists the marriage plot, and her desires for Talia go unconsummated. And, two, she is unable to overcome the Match-Hunt and falls victim to it in the end. These two points feel intimately linked to me, or at the very least in conversation. How should we as readers understand the tragedy of this ending—especially in a political moment in which alternatives to fascism feel impossible to achieve? If the personal is indeed political, how does this text make us think about the relationship between pursuing political goals, but also our own personal desires, especially under authoritarianism?

At the end, Reva is being taken away, presumably turning into a Hen. This is not the moment she falls victim; that happened a long time ago. Instead, I see the ending as an opening. Let’s think about what her life was like at the BorderHouse, and what she just witnessed is happening to the girls going to The Match. They’re being literally brainwashed, and their personalities are being erased. When she is turned into a Hen, she won’t lose her mind (as Flaustine tells her). So, she has escaped a terrible fate. What will she do with this? How will Reva interact with The Hunt with her beauty taken out of the equation? What hope will she offer her celebrity protegé? Who will be her Husband Hench? Will she organize the Hens? As I see it, her story is just beginning.

The horror of Reva’s ending also comes from the literal violence done to her body. Beauty, not unlike romance, is likewise a double-edged sword in this narrative. To have it is to suffer, and to lose it is to suffer. How does this story think about beauty as a social commodity? Also, how does beauty relate to body horror, disability, disfigurement, and corporeal violence for these characters? How can the reader think about the body while reading not only of Reva’s debasement, but also of her fame?

In this story, beauty is both capital and a curse. In the Real World and in the BorderHouse, beauty has market value, but whoever can control your beauty can also assign and rescind your value. In this way, the body can be armor but also a site of demolition. We see subtle manipulations of beauty throughout the story. The first time is on the bus, when the girls show up without any makeup on, which highlights their individualism. This makes the girls immediately vulnerable to judgment. Then we see in the BorderHouse over time that they lose their luster, their vibrancy, their youth, and, eventually, intimacy with their own bodies. Their power is slowly taken away, even before the body horror starts. Yet, I wonder if there is a moment when beauty is so intractably destroyed, it no longer is the basis of power. What fills that vacuum, then?

Your author’s note makes plain your interest in critiquing popular and celebrity culture as a vehicle for right-wing ends; you name it as propaganda specifically. The victimization of characters like Reva and Talia to the fame machine is obvious, as I think is that of celebrities named in your author’s note like Britney Spears and Jennette McCurdy. However, I think as observers and consumers, our victimization is less obvious and more subtle. Can you speak more to how celebrity culture is itself a tool of propagandistic forces? And how is it that the audiences also find themselves victims under the “covert claws of propaganda”?

By nature, most humans want to feel a sense of belonging and community. We do this by virtue signaling through self expression, which is ultimately a way of replicating each other. It’s trickle-down taste making; trends predict the movement of money. The question is, who is making these trends and what are their interests? In the past, celebrities represented something unattainable. They were figureheads but kept at a distance. Nowadays, influencers do have political sway, but moreover, politicians themselves are a form of celebrity. I keep thinking about those iconic Vanity Fair photos taken by Chris Anderson in the White House. After taking them, he posted about how he had to rethink his role of celebrity photographer while on this new assignment. But it is interesting that a celebrity photographer was brought in for this job… I don’t have all the answers, but I see that the lines between celebrity and politician are being blurred. It makes me wonder what celebrity is distracting us from? What is the hyper-production of media (after the advent of social media and streaming services) keeping us from seeing?

Lastly, I think that feminist critiques of celebrity culture are often trapped in a double bind. On the one hand, women celebrities fall victim to the violences of celebrity at far greater rates—their exploitation is often more brutal and vindictive. However, at the same time, the consumers and passive drivers of this culture are often imagined as women. In this way, celebrity culture can often be (mis)characterized as a closed loop in which women produce and then police gendered expectations between and amongst themselves. In other words, culture produces a misogynistic problem (celebrity culture’s exploitation of women) and then offers misogyny as the answer (chastising women for their interest in celebrity women). Do you ever find yourself thinking twice about your criticisms of celebrity culture for the possibility that it might also be coopted into or unintentionally regurgitating misogynistic talking points? And how should we approach critique in such a way that does not wholesale condemn the spaces in our culture that do in fact center women and their interests?

Having an interest in celebrity is not just normal, but I think in some ways indicative of a vital instinct toward survival. To fantasize about celebrity is about the innate desire to feel belonging, to express oneself, to steep oneself in beauty. My story does not argue that women should not engage with celebrities, rather it highlights the effects of hysteria around and within celebrities. It is similar to religious hysteria, political fanaticism, and jingoism, where groupthink fervor has the potential to debase basic human ethical standards. Ultimately, the cult of celebrity is used to impose notions of morality and virtue that control how money is spent and where power is kept. In this way, celebrity is both a curse and a key. We can study it to understand how to protest it. We can engage with it with wariness. We can delve into its escapism and fun without becoming lost in it. All the while, it is wise to center our critiques on systems and those who build them, rather than on those engaging with them.