The Tragic, Delicate Queer Love Story of The History of Sound

Little Gold Men by Vanity Fair

Conde Nast & Vanity Fair

Tv & Film

4.4 • 1.1K Ratings

🗓️ 10 July 2025

⏱️ 47 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In the first of this summer's Little Gold Men book club series, David and Richard are joined by VF's Hillary Busis for a discussion of The History of Sound, the queer period romance starring Paul Mescal and Josh O'Connor and hitting theaters this September. The hosts discuss the original short story by Ben Shattuck, who also wrote the film adaptation, as well as the fascinating choices made in the shift from page to screen. Later, Shattuck joins the show to give us insights into his process writing two versions of this story, and where the inspiration came from.

Our next Little Gold Men book club is Hamnet by Maggie O'Farrell. We'll be discussing the novel and its upcoming film adaptation on our August 14 episode. Read along with us and send your questions to [email protected].

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Transcript

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0:00.0	eBay, it's the place to fall in love with new, pre-loved vintage and rare fashion over and over again.
0:06.7	Your favorite designers, expertly authenticated.
0:10.0	Yeah, eBay.
0:11.5	Things people love.
0:18.0	Hello and welcome to Little Gold Men, Vanity Fair's podcast for film, TV, and awards lovers.
0:23.6	I'm David Canfield.
0:24.7	I'm Richard Lawson.
0:25.6	And I'm Hillary Busez.
0:27.1	Hillary is joining us for our first summer book club episode.
0:30.8	Today we are discussing the history of sound, a short story by Ben Shattuck.
0:34.5	It's been adapted into a film starring Paul Meskell and Josh O'Connor. You
0:38.1	heard us talk a little bit about it when it premiered at Cannes, and it's being released by a movie
0:41.8	in theaters this September. Richard and I got to see it back at Can, and we'll share more about
0:46.4	the film a bit after discussing the story. We are going to warn you up top that we're going to talk about the story pretty in depth.
0:54.8	So if you are wary of spoilers, if you have not read it yet, if you do not want to know what happens in it or in the film, I would recommend going back to the story and then listening to this episode.
1:05.1	You can Google this story and read it right now before you see the movie also.
1:09.3	And I highly recommend you do.
1:12.6	Hillary and Richard also got to speak with Ben Shaddock about his inspiration for the story,
1:16.6	his process of adapting it, and that'll close this episode.
1:19.9	But first, let's talk a little bit about the story, the history of sound written by Ben Shattuck.
1:24.7	What do you guys think about it?
1:26.4	It's sad.
	...

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