Author Katie Yee on the power of mythology and milkshakes

In author Katie Yee's debut novel, the main character finds out her husband is having an affair. Then she’s diagnosed with breast cancer.

"If you were to describe this to someone in real life, they would be like, 'That would never happen that way,'" Yee told IPR. "But I think in real life it really is an onslaught of the good and the bad."

When Yee began writing "Maggie; or, A Man and a Woman Walk Into a Bar," she envisioned a short story. But she soon found more to say about this story and the book took her to some surprising places.

She'll talk about that at the National Writers Series on July 25, in a conversation with IPR's Ellie Katz. Here, Yee talks with IPR's Ed Ronco in advance of her visit.

Listen to their conversation in the audio player above.

Interview transcript

Fiction authors probably get this question a lot, but is your story taken from real life in any way?

I think people usually expect debut novelists to write a little bit of autofiction. And I mean, absolutely, I love so many fantastic books that have come out recently that are based on the facts of an author's life. But for me, breast cancer, divorce, motherhood, these were not things that I personally have experienced firsthand, but I've seen so many loved ones go through all of these things. And I wanted to kind of honor their stories with this one.

You have done a lot of short story work, and this book started that way. Is that? Right?

Yes, she started as a short story that kind of just got a little bit too big. She kept rolling away from me.

I've heard authors say that they get to know their characters. They get to miss their characters when they stop writing them, they want to spend more time with them. Did you feel that way with this process versus, say, a short story?

I definitely did. I mean, I was working on this book on and off for the past like five years. Definitely, when she started, it had way more to do with the divorce and with the cancer. The kids were actually like a real surprise to me when I was when I was writing it, I was surprised at how much I enjoyed, kind of embodying the experience of motherhood on the page.

When I was taking this novel pretty seriously, two pretty major things were happening: The first being that I entered my late 20s and moved in with my boyfriend, who, by the way, is from the Midwest. He's got family in Michigan. Everyone's very excited that we're coming to Traverse City. We moved in together, and I started to get all these questions about when we were going to get married, if we were going to have children. And then the second thing that happened was the pandemic, and with that came all this violence that was happening against Asian Americans.

The completion of these two things made me really think about what it would be like to bring children into the world who even half looked like me, who I couldn't protect from these larger wounds of racism or diagnosis or heartbreak.

Did writing the book teach you any lessons as you look forward to your future?

I'm not sure. I'm still not sure. I think the way that I process a lot of life is through writing is on the page. So I think this is, this is a question that I might keep returning to. But I had a lot of fun writing the kids, right? Like, I think when you're young, before any of your friends have had kids, you're maybe thinking about motherhood in terms of, can you afford childcare? Or, does childbirth hurt? Things like that.

And I think this book was really an opportunity for me to sit with, like, the day-to-day of it right, to be like, what would it be like to be checking their homework at the end of the day and watching the way that they cross their t's and dot their i's. Like, how does that change?

Do you remember when you first realized you liked writing? Maybe not, when you decided I'm going to be a Writer with a capital W, but when was the moment in your life where you were like, "Hey, I like this, and I'm kind of good at it?"

I have never wanted to do anything else. I went to my dad's house recently, and I found this old diary from elementary school, and I had a list of career options for myself. Number one was writer. I think number two was pop star. I'm a horrible singer so that was a non starter. I think three was gardener, which, I mean I do love flowers, but I think I had the priorities, right from a young age.

But I credit so much of my love of stories to my mother. We had this fantastic ritual when I was in preschool where on Mondays, she would take me to this diner that is no longer around — the Seaport Diner. It was like a five minute walk from our house, and we would sit there after after preschool, and I would have a plate of french fries and a vanilla milkshake.

My mother was a classics major in college, so she loves mythology. She loves Greek myths in particular. And she would just sit there and tell me stories while I was eating my french fries and and then she would kind of turn it around. 'Hey, you tell me a story now.' And that is completely where my my love of writing came from.

We tell stories in journalism. You're telling a story as a novelist. We're in a society right now that feels like it's moving very fast, and there's all this stuff happening. Do we spend enough time with story, doing the things that you just described at the diner, sitting and telling each other stories, whether that's through a book or a radio broadcast or over a milkshake?

I'm an optimist, so I'm gonna say yes. I mean, I think in the age of social media, there's so much about the clickbaityheadline, About the quick one liner, that hook. But with it, I do see a deep love of like, sharing bits of your day, sharing, sharing funny tidbits on Tiktok. And especially because I think we've been gravitating so much away from text again, back into podcasts, back into radio, you know, Tiktok or Instagram reels being like a visual, video-first medium — I kind of think we're coming back to an age of great orators, and I'm really excited about that.

Everybody experiences books in different way, but for you as the author — how would you recommend people read this book? Is this a curl up on the couch book? Is this a go to a coffee shop book? Park bench? Vacation read? Right before bed? What's your ideal setting for somebody to experience your work?

I love this question. I think this is a buy a copy at a bookstore with your best friend, and maybe both sit down with a big spicy Margarita.

That's a fantastic answer.

This transcript was lightly edited for clarity.