NPR's Book of the Day

In Sarvat Hasin’s novel Strange Girls, a Pakistani woman and an American woman meet at a London-based university in the 2010s. There, they quickly become close, bonding over a shared dissatisfaction with the definition of femininity available to them. In today’s episode, Hasin joins NPR’s Juana Summers for a conversation about the intense relationship that forms between the two protagonists, the way friendships can be strained in the post-college years, and what makes this novel a kind of “period piece.”

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Two new murder mystery novels let readers into hidden worlds: one underground and the other among the wives of serial killers. First, Ruby Falls begins in 1928 in Chattanooga, Tennessee when a man discovers a mysterious underground cavern and waterfall. In today’s episode, NPR’s Scott Simon speaks with Gin Phillips about the publicity stunt that sets her story in motion. Then, Lizzie Pook chats with NPR’s Ayesha Rascoe about The Secret Lives of Murderers’ Wives – published under the pen name Elizabeth Arnott – in which three women find each other after their husbands’ crimes are uncovered.

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Author Daisy Hernández grew up in New Jersey in a community she describes as “the United Nations of Latinos,” with parents from Cuba and Colombia and relatives from Puerto Rico and Peru. Her new book Citizenship uses her family story to trace the history of citizenship in the United States. In today’s episode, she speaks with NPR’s Emily Kwong about the concept of “social citizenship” and why American citizenship fails to fit into a fixed legal definition.

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Cara Bastone says she wanted to write a book filled with miscommunications that couldn’t be solved with a quick conversation. In her novel No Matter What, Roz and Vin navigate a changing relationship after the couple endures a traumatic accident. In today’s episode, Bastone speaks with NPR’s Juana Summers about developing characters who look like “normal people,” writing her husband into her work, and why there are so many contemporary novels about separation and divorce.

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After the death of her father, sociologist and law professor Dorothy Roberts decided to sort through his boxes. What she found was an archive of notes related to his research on interracial marriage, which he saw as a means to dismantle white supremacy. Roberts’ new memoir The Mixed Marriage Project chronicles her confrontation with her father’s research – and her role in it; she herself was the product of her parents’ mixed marriage. In today’s episode, she speaks with NPR’s Michel Martin about this trove of interviews with interracial couples and Roberts’ questions about her own family history.

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