Rebecca Makkai, the author of this year’s New York Times bestselling I Have Some Questions for You, as well as the novels The Great Believers, The Hundred-Year House, The Borrower, and the short story collection Music for Wartime, spoke on Nov. 6 to Tulane University students and staff.
Each year since 1985, the Zale-Kimmerling Writer-in-Residence Program has brought a distinguished woman writer to campus. This year, Makkai was chosen as the Zale-Kimmerling Writer-in-Residence.
Makkai’s The Great Believers was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award, in addition to receiving the ALA Carnegie Medal and the LA Times Book Prize, among other honors.
I Have Some Questions For You, released in 2023, is a feminist boarding school mystery that centers around a film professor and podcaster, Bodie Kane, who grapples with a complicated past that she struggles to forget. When Kane is invited to teach a two-week course at The Granby School in New Hampshire, where she had previously attended boarding school, her life takes an unexpected turn.
Kane finds herself inexplicably drawn to a murder case dating back to 1995, in which her classmate, Thalia Keith, was murdered. As Kane dives deeper into the murder case and the possible wrongful conviction that followed, she wonders if she may have knowledge of her own that could help her solve the case. Kane’s journey takes her on a path of self-discovery and investigation, blurring the lines between her past and the present.
“I knew the plot really before I knew who Bodie was. There's this seemingly inherent need to reverse engineer the character who is going to be the most vulnerable to circumstances and susceptible to change,” Makkai said.
The narrator of I Have Some Questions For You, Kane, is a successful film professor and podcaster in Los Angeles. Kane’s new life in L.A. contrasts deeply with her four difficult? years at The Granby School, a boarding school in New Hampshire. Makkai details how Kane explores her tucked-away past and becomes aware of how she has changed over time.
“When she steps back onto this campus, she's pulled between those two poles. As she slipped back into the person she was, she was really shocked to see that she was [no longer] that same person,” Makkai said.
Makkai further elaborates on Kane and how she narrates the story. Though some readers may deem Kane as an ‘unreliable narrator,’ Makkai said that Kane is simply truthful about her fleeting memories of The Granby School, not purposely unreliable.
“I think she's being really honest. One of the things [that] she is honest about is the failures of her memory,” Makkai said.
Makkai argues that, despite having only her graduation date in common with Kane, it's still relatable to see how Kane comes to recognize her transition into adulthood.
"I think this is the book that I needed to write in my mid-40s. Like, God, a lot of time has passed. Not a ton of time, but a lot of time. You know, I still feel young, but, not that young. I need to start making sense of this,” Makkai said.
