The acclaimed author of ‘The Great Believers, a finalist for both the Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award, tackles a story set close to home.
Rebecca Makkai’s new novel, “I Have Some Questions for You,” takes place at a boarding school and involves the students and staff who live on its campus. It’s a setting that she knows well; the author of the acclaimed “The Great Believers” attended such an institution in the 1990s —and she didn’t stay away from it for too long.
An athletic trainer at the school was convicted in Thalia’s slaying, but in the years since, the murder has become a cause célèbre, with self-styled detectives on the Internet raising doubts about the man’s guilt. When Bodie is invited back to her alma mater to teach two short-term classes — one on film studies, one on podcasting — she finds herself drawn back into the case.
“There’s this weird romanticization, where it’s always October, the leaves are always turning, everything’s gothic,” she says. “That completely misrepresents the modern experience, which is tons of international kids, really diverse. And that’s just not what people want it to be. People want it to be this very old-fashioned, ‘Dead Poets Society’ thing, and that’s not what’s going on now.”
True crime, as a genre, is nothing new, of course; it’s been around for centuries. But the podcast format has caused it to skyrocket in popularity. Makkai, who grew up watching true-crime television shows like “Unsolved Mysteries” and “Dateline NBC,” has some thoughts about why that might be.
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