AILSA CHANG, HOST:
Would you give up 10 years of your life for $3 million? Well, for Maggie Wang, who's desperate to jump-start her career as a writer, the answer is, yeah, 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 NPR West. Welcome. It's so great to have you here, Kelly.
KELLY YANG: Thank you so much for having me. This is so exciting.
CHANG: 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.
YANG: 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 saying, hey, you know, I really have this great story. I want to write about my childhood. Like, do you think I could do it? And she's like, how old are you? And I said, 24. And she just looked at me, and she said, yeah, I don't - what could you possibly have to write about...
CHANG: Wow.
YANG: ...In your 20s?
CHANG: Oh, my God, so that interaction with Maggie and the author...
YANG: Yeah, it's based on that.
CHANG: ...Was modeled - wow.
YANG: Yeah.
CHANG: That burned into your brain.
YANG: Yeah. And you know what? I like, just melted (laughter) as a person...
CHANG: Yeah.
YANG: ...Just felt so mortified. But I also - I kind of understood what she was saying, but it set me back decades.
CHANG: That interaction, it gets at this idea that, yes, with age does come experience. And as women accrue experience, they can accumulate power. And when they accumulate power, they become gatekeepers - right? - of...
YANG: Yeah.
CHANG: ...Who's in and who's out. But youth can sometimes threaten that authority that those older women have, right?
YANG: Yes. Yeah, I think there's so much of this whole, like, have you paid your dues...
CHANG: Totally.
YANG: ...Culture.
CHANG: Yep.
YANG: And it comes from the fact that, like, we have been paying our dues. The previous generation had worked so hard and there was so much suffering. It's almost like, we can't just measure you by your ideas. We also have to measure you by how much you've sufficiently suffered.
CHANG: Exactly. So Ingrid and Maggie enter a deal, this medical procedure. And I'm so curious, Kelly. Why did you make blood transfusion the mechanism for the exchange between these two women, like one woman literally sucking the life out of the other?
YANG: Yeah, yeah.
CHANG: Why that metaphor?
YANG: Well, first of all, it's based on real research that's coming out of Harvard.
CHANG: Oh, my God.
YANG: They've been doing some experiments with rats. And they have found that when we join the two rats together in more than just a blood transfusion - it's a little more complicated - but essentially the older at de-ages and the younger rat ages.
CHANG: Wow.
YANG: Yeah.
CHANG: There are actually some scientific bases for this?
YANG: There actually - yeah, there is. There is. And it has been proven to work with rats so far. You know, and then we already have, like, Silicon Valley, a lot of tech billionaires using young blood plasma.
CHANG: Yes. Yes.
YANG: So it seemed to make sense in my mind, as an author, like, that this is only like five minutes into the future.
CHANG: Right.
YANG: This is coming.
CHANG: OK, but talk about, like, what are these two women actually trading here? Besides blood, what is the real barter that's happening?
YANG: Yeah, they're tempting fate, I think. They're trading the idea that we can rewrite, like, who gets to live without this discomfort, whether it's the discomfort of having to prove yourself experience-wise or the discomfort of, you know, being a little older now and having to still prove your relevancy.
CHANG: Yeah. You know, at certain points in this story, you make a declaration. Quote, "there are only two ways to get ahead in this world - you either make something or you take something." What does that mean, even? And how did you arrive at this conclusion?
YANG: Yeah. Well, first of all, it's a conclusion I don't agree with. I just want to say that. But when we see someone who's younger and doing super well and super ambitious, there is a feeling like, oh, my gosh, what does that mean for me? You know, and it's a way of seeing that this pie is only so big. There's...
CHANG: It's finite.
YANG: There's - finite, and there's only so many seats at the table, especially for women, which I think is a flawed way of thinking.
CHANG: Me too.
YANG: But it is the way a lot of people feel. And you know what? We don't talk about it enough because we want to subscribe to this idea that women help women. And I want to subscribe to that so badly, too. And often it is that case, but sometimes it's not.
CHANG: Some women treat it as a zero-sum game?
YANG: Yes.
CHANG: Well, this idea, a young woman in a hurry, as you mentioned, it applied to you. But maybe a lot of people listening right now don't know this about you as well, and that is you entered college when you were 13 years old...
YANG: Yes.
CHANG: ...Which is just astonishing (laughter) to me.
YANG: Ridiculous.
CHANG: And then you entered law school when you were 17.
YANG: Yeah.
CHANG: So let's not even talk about the point in your life later when you wanted to become a novelist.
YANG: Yeah.
CHANG: Did people judge you poorly for trying to accelerate your education like that? How did you feel back then?
YANG: Yeah, I always felt like I had to keep my age a secret because if it was revealed, then all of my ideas would be reduced.
CHANG: Interesting.
YANG: Yeah, 'cause...
CHANG: For being just inherently immature?
YANG: Just everything you said, it would be like, she said this, but she's 15, you know?
CHANG: What does she know?
YANG: Yeah, what does she know? What could she possibly - where is she coming up with this? This makes no sense. Let's just disregard her. And I was terrified of people finding out. And then when they did find out, eventually, I had all this attention on my age, and it was really cool, and it was fun. But it was also terrifying because I was worried - what if the most fascinating thing about me, the fact that I'm young, is no longer the case?
CHANG: Oh, interesting.
YANG: Right? Like, what if I...
CHANG: Yeah.
YANG: What's going to become of me when I'm just a normal middle-aged woman?
(LAUGHTER)
CHANG: With normal ideas.
YANG: Yeah.
CHANG: So let me return to that interaction you had with that author who told you - oh, what do you have to say? You're only 20-something years old.
YANG: Yeah.
CHANG: Like, you know, this book that you've just written, "The Take," it actually is your first adult novel, even though...
YANG: Yeah.
CHANG: ...You've been writing award-winning children's books for years. But now that you are on the other side of this adult novel, is there something to the advice that you should accrue more life experience before you write a literary novel? Is there any merit to that idea?
YANG: I mean, I don't think she meant it maliciously. I can see where she's coming from, but I am of the opinion if you have a story, go do it. Go write it. Do it now. You are never too old or too young to do something.
CHANG: There isn't, like, the right amount of maturity, the right amount of experience to be a storyteller, to have something to say.
YANG: Yeah. There's never the perfect age or the perfect circumstance. It doesn't exist. And don't wait for people to give you permission, either. I think that was the mistake I made in my youth. I tried to get a sign, you know, permission from someone...
CHANG: Yeah, yeah.
YANG: ...A nod from someone more experienced. And I was so devastated when it wouldn't happen. When in reality, we're not necessarily going to get that sign, but we can give ourselves that permission.
CHANG: Right. Turn on your own green light.
YANG: Absolutely.
CHANG: Kelly Yang's new book is called "The Take." Thank you so much for coming into NPR West today, Kelly.
YANG: Thank you so much, Ailsa. This was so much fun.
CHANG: It was so much fun.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC) Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.
