#PouredOver

“It's a literary, feminist, boarding school murder mystery - everyone's favorite genre.”
I Have Some Questions for You is the thrilling and inventive new novel from Rebecca Makkai, author of The Great Believers, a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award. Part murder mystery, part timely take on issues that readers will connect with, this novel will keep you intrigued from cover to cover. Makkai joins us to talk about unreliable narrators, living on a boarding school campus, what keeps a reader turning the pages and more with host Miwa Messer. Listen after the episode for a TBR Topoff from Marc and Jamie. 
Featured Books (Episode)
I Have Some Questions for You by Rebecca Makkai
The Great Believers by Rebecca Makkai
The Westing Game by Ellen Raskin
Trust by Hernan Diaz
The Keep by Jennifer Egan
The Buddha in the Attic by Julie Otsuka
The Swimmers by Julie Otsuka
Madonna in a Fur Coat by Sabahattin Ali
Featured Books (TBR Topoff)
Vladimir by Julia May Jonas
Vita Nostra by Marina & Sergey Dyachenko
Poured Over is produced and hosted by Miwa Messer and mixed by Harry Liang. Follow us here for new episodes Tuesdays and Thursdays (with occasional Saturdays).

[@magdalenawojtenko6112]

I loved the book. Thank you for the interview. Great to listen to Rebecca and her some insights into her thinking process.

[@JayBaglia]

Just finished this book this morning. An absolute page-turner. As a New Englander, I recognized this environment. The prep schools in and around my own small hometown in Connecticut were intriguing to those of us who went to public school but knew the grounds. Makkai also takes this very specific time of the mid-90s to establish the coming-of-age of teenagers (some privileged, some not so much) and then fast-forwards to their early 40s with Trump, and COVID, and cancel culture. The main character and narrator, Bodie, utilizes a rare second-person "You" (as indicated as well in the title) to implicate an imagined and very specific would-be reader. While Makkai describes the genre as "literary, feminist, boarding school murder mystery" but I really want to stress the literary adjective because it might get lost in that litany of descriptors. The writing is exquisite -- she captures both youthful dialogue and adult dialogue exceptionally well but her descriptions of the New Hampshire woods, small towns, and ancient prep school buildings with stunning inventiveness. I loved this book. I'll be going to my local independent bookstore this weekend to pick up "The Great Believers." As a health communication professor in Chicago, I look forward to hearing how the AIDS pandemic unfolded here.