Rebecca Makkai On Plot Construction, Boarding Schools, And Singing Gorilla Telegrams

Now a film professor and host of a popular podcast, Bodie Kane has largely managed to move past the events of her tumultuous adolescence. As a teenager, Bodie had to navigate a deeply dysfunctional family, four years feeling like an outsider at a prestigious boarding school, and the shocking murder of her former roommate her senior year. Yet when her former high school, Granby, invites her to teach a two week course on podcasting, Bodie’s forced to reexamine her teenage years from an adult perspective. Two of her students begin investigating the now twenty-year-old murder, and their research leads Bodie to suspect that the wrong man might have been convicted. What follows is a suspenseful and disorienting reckoning with the past, where Bodie reconnects with former classmates, many of whom have their own reasons to deeply resist reexamining their high school years. I Have Some Questions For You marks Rebecca Makkai’s first book since her acclaimed The Great Believers, and her new work has received equally rapturous reviews. The New York Times Book Review hailed it as “a spellbinding work” and The Boston Globe called it “an irresistible literary page-turner.” Makkai spoke with us about creating the perfect hero for her story, what she had to leave out of her novel, and singing gorilla telegrams.