Tanya Mosley

Maureen Corrigan is a professor of literature at Georgetown University.

She reviewed Vigil by George Saunders.

Coming up, rock critic Ken Tucker on Stephen Wilson Jr., a rising country musician who he says is writing some of the most intricate and compelling songs around these days.

This is Fresh Air.

One of the more distinctive recent sounds in country music comes from Stephen Wilson Jr., according to our rock critic Ken Tucker.

Recently nominated as Best New Artist by the Country Music Awards, Wilson is a former microbiologist who is also a Golden Gloves boxer, who's also, says Ken, writing some of the most intricate and compelling songs around these days.

And he's broken through not with huge record sales, but viral clips on social media.

Here's Ken's take on Wilson and his growing career.

Ken Tucker is Fresh Air's rock critic.

Stephen Wilson Jr.

's most recent release includes the EP Blankets and a new edition of the debut album, Son of Dad.

If you'd like to catch up on interviews you've missed, like our conversation with historian Heather Ann Thompson about how the 1984 subway shooting of four Black teenagers by a white man tells the story of how fear is weaponized in America—

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Nesper.