Yesteryear with Caro Claire Burke | Trad Wives, Secret Lives & Twist Ending (Spoilers)

This week, Kate sits down with Caro Claire Burke, author of the hit debut novel Yesteryear, the trad wife time travel thriller that triggered a publishing bidding war, has already been optioned by Anne Hathaway, and is Good Morning America's April book club pick. They discuss a variety of topics within the book (with spoilers, FYI), including how you write an unreliable narrator whose worldview fundamentally opposes your own, the layers of performance that start with God and end with the algorithm, why Natalie is deserving of sympathy as both a victim and a bad person, the Ballerina Farm and Ruby Franke parallels, Caleb as a vacant vessel, why the twist ending had Kate pacing at 2 AM rethinking her life choices, and how the epilogue reframes everything. They also detour into Secret Lives of Mormon Wives and the Taylor Frankie Paul of it all, plus sleepover discourse against Caro's will, how they both relate to Natalie's experience with being publicly perceived, and Caro's experience selling the book and film rights before the book was even finished. Spoilers throughout. Enjoy!

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TIMESTAMPS (SPOILERS BELOW):

0:00 Intro, Kate's reaction to Yesteryear

17:30 Interview begins, creating Natalie's voice, writing an unlikable unreliable narrator

22:00 Layers of performance: God, family, social media, the surveillance of being watched your whole life

35:00 Ballerina Farm, Ruby Franke, who Natalie is based on, how much influence trad wives actually have

47:30 Caleb and the manosphere, the breeding contract, selling a trad wife novel when everyone thought Kamala was going to win

55:00 The liberal feminist case for the trad wife, the failure of lean-in feminism, women sharing survival tips

1:01:00 The ending explained: the twist, the psychosis, what's real, and the epilogue

1:21:00 The meta conversation: parasocial relationships, being a public person, deification to dehumanization

1:28:00 Secret Lives of Mormon Wives: Taylor Frankie Paul, justice for Whitney, Connor vs. Zach

1:58:00 Anne Hathaway, how book-to-movie deals actually work, and what Caro wants readers to walk away with

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