Samantha Hunt on the Unbearable Flatness of Being
Samantha Hunt’s new story, “Go, Team,” will appear in the March issue of The Atlantic. To mark its publication, she and Thomas Gebremedhin, an editor at the magazine, discussed over email her thematic preoccupations, the elements of a good story, and the origins of “Go, Team.” This interview has been lightly edited for clarity.
Thomas Gebremedhin: In “Go, Team,” a group of mothers recounts the disappearance of a woman at a soccer game. The story is set almost entirely in dialogue, with minimal dialogue attribution—it’s a dazzling gambit. The effect is that of a Greek chorus. Did you arrive at the structure or the plot first? Why does the story necessitate the form?
Strange things happen at soccer fields. When I was a student, there was a coach who pointed to an empty hillside and
