Hey, it's I'm here's Book of the Day. I'm Andrew Limbong. I think I like hearing about artists' failures more than their successes.

Not in a weird Chaudenfreude way. I just think that the rest of us can learn more about the process of art making that way.

Tayari Jones is on the pod today. Her latest novel, Kin, is one of the most highly anticipated books of the year.

It's about two women, friends since they were babies, who end up on vastly different paths in life.

In this interview, she talks to Empires Aisha Roscoe about this book, but also about the novel she spent three years on before giving up on it.

That's ahead.

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In the new novel, Ken, two girls, Annie and Vernice, are cradle friends. The book opens

with Vernice as a toddler speaking her first word. Mother, I said softly at first, as I raised

my voice to a bellow, every heart in the house contracted,

vulnerable as a scalded tomato gripped into a tiny, greedy fist. Annie's granny says she heard

wonder in my voice like I gazed into the eyes of an angel. Aunt Irene said she understood

it as a command, her dead sister telling her that I was hers for life.

Only Mrs. Olame, the midwife, attended to me. Scooping me into her stout arms, she cooed,

I hear you, baby. Annie, who had been in the kitchen yapping away, toddled up to Miss Olomay,

arms raised to be held as well. We were both crowded

onto her lap. I kept saying my new word over and over, but Annie was quiet for once,

sucking my thumb as though it were her own. The two girls have both lost their mothers.

Annie's ran off, and Vernice's mom was killed by her dad in an act of domestic

violence. The story follows the girls as their paths in life diverge, and they discover the

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