Hey there, I'm Melissa Adwarnie, and this is NPR's book of the day. Today, two novels

focused on vital connections between the young and the old. In a minute, we'll hear about

a story that focuses on friendship between a young boy and a middle-aged man, both a bit down

on their luck from working-class families. But first, in the book The Take,

an older woman and a younger woman agree to exchange 10 years of their lives through a blood

transfusion. Author Kelly Yang spoke about where the idea came from and its grounding in real

medical research with all things considered host Elsa Chang.

Would you give up 10 years of your life for $3 million?

Well, for Maggie Wang, who's desperate to jumpstart her career as a writer, the answer is yes, she would.

When she's 23, she agrees to an unusual transaction with a woman decades older, a prominent Hollywood producer named Ingrid Parker, who wants nothing more than to get her youth back.

The two women submit to a medical experiment, a blood transfusion that will accelerate Maggie's aging while reversing Ingrid's.

This is the premise for the new novel The Take,

a story about how age shapes power, especially for women. That's what author Kelly Yang argues,

as she joins me now at MPR West. Welcome. It's so great to have you here, Kelly. Thank you so much

for having me. This is so exciting. Oh, it's so

exciting to have you right here in front of my face because I want to talk about age. At the very

beginning of this story when we first meet your character, Maggie, she's actually talking to

another older woman, a very established writer who's telling Maggie that she's just too young

to write a novel, that she needs to live more life in order to say something interesting.

Tell us how you are setting up the relationship here between age and power.

Yeah. No, I mean, I remember being in my 20s and I'd always wanted to write, but I felt like I didn't know if I could do it. You know, and I remember

standing in the signing line of a very famous author and getting up there and talking to her and

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