What inspired Chang-Rae Lee's new novel, his first since 2014?

Lee will be here to discuss his latest book, My Year Abroad.

Is the death penalty on the Wayne in America?

Maurice Shema will be here to talk about his book, Let the Lord Sort Them.

Liz Harris will have an update from the publishing world, plus my colleagues and I will talk about what we're reading.

This is the Bookerview Podcast from the New York Times. It's February 5th. I'm Pamela Paul.

Chang-Rae Lee joins us now. His new novel is called My Year Abroad.

Chang, thanks for being here.

My Pamela.

So you are joining us from Hawaii, which leads to an obvious question. What are you doing in Hawaii other than carrying out perhaps every quarantined person who's not in Hawaii's sort of quarantine fantasy?

Well, there are plenty of those people here, those ex-pats.

Well, we try to come every year, didn't come last year because long ago I was the writer and residence at the Poonhouse School.

Barack Obama's old school and a lot of other famous folks and we had a wonderful year, friends on the faculty and so we miss seeing them.

So we do the usual things. We see a lot of Asian food. I like to bodyboard.

Wow.

I think now any author or sparring author is like putting this on their list of aspirations now to like to be the writer and residence at Obama's old school.

So My Year Abroad is your first novel since on such a full C, which came out in 2014.

Did you start this book immediately after on such a full C? Do you tend to start your novels before the new one comes out? I'm curious how you kind of work that.

Well, I started it probably about a nine months afterwards. I tend to need a waiting period as it were before I start something in earnest.

Because I don't write short fiction. Sometimes I write short non-fiction essays about me and my family.

But with a novel, the commitment is so great and I know the road ahead will be difficult.

So it's really hard for me to get to committing to a book. I'll sketch three or four different versions of a book.

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