The Center for Fiction Presents Kyle McCarthy on Immersions with Leslie Jamison

Step into the Gothic world of Immersions with Kyle McCarthy, author of Everyone Knows How Much I Love You, and Leslie Jamison, author of The Empathy Exams.

Praised for its visionary and intoxicating power, McCarthy’s Immersions is a modern Bluebeard tale steeped in the shadows of New York City and the cloisters of rural France. It traces the mysterious disappearance of a rising dancer, Charley, who abruptly abandons her company to enter an enclosed convent in France. Her younger sister Frances pursues the truth, convinced that Charley’s enigmatic ex-husband Johnny holds the key—only to get drawn into a dangerous intimacy that blurs obsession, desire, and fear. What follows is a spare, propulsive tale, by turns Gothic and contemporary, about the bonds of sisterhood, the pull of artistic life, and the ways love can both make and unmake us.

McCarthy, a dancer herself, brings an insider’s sensibility to Immersion’s charged world of performance and self-invention. Her conversation with Jamison—a writer celebrated for her piercing explorations of art and addiction—will explore the dark currents of love and loyalty and the stories we tell to understand the people we leave behind.