But the “he” in Famous Men’s opening line is not, in fact, the famous decades-older poet with whom the narrator eventually becomes entangled. She wants more than anything to become one of them; all she has to do to make that happen, it seems, is whatever Nathaniel wants. And if what Nathaniel wants ultimately gets Will what she wants, who’s really in control? “I felt like Munday intuited all the thorny nuance of the novel and captured it perfectly in visual form,” Buntin says. Because it’s impossible to look at this image and not come away with one burning question: ‘What does she see when she looks at us?’”Famous Men by Julie Buntin is out July 14, 2026, from Random House.