Ten years ago, Ben Shattuck penned the first short story in his new collection, The History of Sound. Since that first short story, he got married, had a baby, published a book of essays that made it onto the New Yorker’s best books of 2022 list and bought a general store in his hometown of Dartmouth.

In short, a lot has changed.

One thing that hasn’t changed though is his subject matter. Mr. Shattuck said he still finds himself writing, again and again, about the New England of his boyhood and the generations that came before him.

Mr. Shattuck will discuss The History of Sound this Saturday at the Bunch of Grapes bookstore, in conversation with poet and Aquinnah resident Ron Slate, who also happens to be his father in law.

The collection’s 12 stories span nearly four centuries of New England history. They range from the wilderness of 17th-century Massachusetts, to the whaling days of Nantucket, to the present moment. The stories are “paired” or intertwined, in that objects or places that show up in one story often occur, weathered by the passage of time, in the pages of another story.

Mr. Shattuck said he likes to “strip away” the complexities of the modern world when writing fiction, which sends him, inevitably, to the past: “two people in a room lit by candlelight, exploring their feelings about each other and about themselves.”

His own past, growing up in Dartmouth, still bore many of the hallmarks of a simpler time. He attended contra dances, stacked straw bales, was entertained by a single channel on the television and rarely went to the mall. His writing allows him to revisit his own story, as well as those that preceded him.

Historical fiction “has just a beautiful, minimalist quality that I love to explore,” Mr. Shattuck said.

Mr. Shattuck’s reading and discussion at Bunch of Grapes begins at 7 p.m. on Saturday, July 20.