After losing her sons, Yiyun Li learned to ‘suffer better’

0:00This message comes from the UPS Store. Open this holiday to help with all your small business needs. Find a store near you at the upsstore.com. Most locations are independently owned. Products, services, pricing, and hours of operation may vary. See Center for details. This is Fresh Air. I'm Terry Gross. The words grief or the grieving process are not words writer E. Yun Lee chooses to describe her own feelings. To her, those words make it sound that at some point you emerge from grief. She prefers to use the word abyss, which is where she expects to be for the remainder of her life. That doesn't mean she's incapable of laughter or even joy, but she expects to return to that abyss.

0:41Her teenage sons both died by suicide six years apart, Vincent at age 16 in 2017 and James at age 19 in 2024. She wrote an eloquent memoir about that published last year titled Things in Nature Merely Grow. It won a Pulitzer Prize. That's among the many honors she's received for her fiction and nonfiction, including the Penn Faulkner Award, the Penn Hemingway Award, and a MacArthur Fellowship popularly known as the Genius Grint. Her new novel, Music Against the Night, is set in the late 1700s and early 1800s. It's about two music prodigies, Adelaide, who's known as Peshorette, and John. He wants to be the next Mozart and become rich and famous.

1:28She wants to find her place in the music world and be recognized for her talent, in spite of how music is a place largely for men. Women can be wives, muses, or mistresses. John and Adelaide are brought together by music and drawn apart because of their musical aspirations. Ian Lee grew up in China, served a year in the Chinese military, came to America to study immunology, and left her PhD program to become a writer. She's a professor in the creative writing program at Princeton University. I want to let you know in advance that our interview will include a discussion about suicide. If you or someone you know may be considering suicide or you're facing mental health struggles, you can call or text 988 to reach the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline.

2:18That's 988. Ian Lee, welcome to Fresh Air. And before Before we start the interview, I just want to say I'm really sorry about your sons. Well, thank you. Thank you for having me. Of all the novels you could have written after your older son's death and your younger son's death, why did you write this one? What was it you needed? My impression is you wanted to get out of the now and go to another time and another place. The story in this new novel, it's set in Paris, in India, in Russia, not in the U.S., not even in this century. Yes. Well, I would say I started a novel, and I was in the middle of the novel when James died.

3:13But you're right. This is a novel far from my usual interests or concerns. And the reason I think I went back to history is I would like to live again through history, through historical figures, through my characters living in the late 18th and early 19th century. Some of the concerns, confusions, and just thoughts and feelings I have experienced in my life and other people have experienced in their lives. So you're right. I'm going away from this now. But I'm making the past into a new now for myself and possibly for my readers. I have to say there's so much death surrounding everybody in the story because of the era that it's set in.

4:13I mean, death is eternal. There's no century that doesn't experience death. But it's especially, it's like very common in this period in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. There's a lot of death by childbirth. Adelaide's mother dies in childbirth. There's infant death. There's fevers for which there was no medication. There's war. There's the guillotine, and the characters have friends who are killed by the guillotine in Paris. Did you consciously want to go back to a time when death was something very common? Well, I didn't go back as a decision to explore death then. I think I was more curious about the characters.

5:00But as you pointed out, back then, death was prevalent. You know, illness, childbirth, childhood illness, and revolutions in several countries, and wars across the globe, different wars. So death was a subject one could not avoid writing about the time. Are these characters based on real people? Yes. So John Field was an Irish virtuoso who spent most of his adult life in Russia. He invented the nocturne form, which was taken over by Chopin, and Chopin made that form popular. But John Field was the first one to write nocturnes, and he was considered the grandfather of Russian music. and Adelaide was his wife and, again, a historical figure, but we did not know much about her.

6:01But was she a prodigy like she is in your book? One suppose so because she had an interesting story. She was an orphan born and raised in Pondicherry, French India, and when she appeared in history, she was a teenager in Moscow, and she was extremely talented. She wanted to become a virtuoso, as John Field was. But this was 20 years ahead. She was 20 years ahead of Clara Schumann, and women were not encouraged to go on stage. She became an important music teacher in Russia. Yeah, I mean, the beliefs about women that she's brought up with are that you need to learn to smile. you need to be pretty but the audience wants to feel more intelligent than you are and then once you're married you don't have to worry about music or poetry anymore yes and that was the time of her life and you're right they were encouraged to be intelligent just enough not too much not too much to be threatening yes and as her grandmother in Pondicherry said Too much knowledge would be like too much spice in the food.

7:16It would indicate not fresh material. I think it's interesting that you chose two people who are involved with music, not words. Because you live deep in the world of words, both as a reader and a writer. But music can have lyrics. But classical music, you know, piano music doesn't require words. Was that a choice that you made intentionally to write about people who aren't obsessed with language in the way that you are? Yes. In fact, I think I've had the feeling both times after my children's death that words often fall short. And falling short doesn't mean not succeeding. Falling short doesn't mean failing.

8:11But when I started a new project, I would like a subject that words naturally fall short. So music is that choice. You took piano lessons in preparation for the book. Do you still play? I do. I cannot really claim I play. I'm still practicing. I'm a young pianist on the piano. I have been taking piano lessons for two and a half years. I auditioned with my teacher with a book proposal rather than any skill on the piano. Because you'd never played before? No, I've never had any musical background. But I feel that if I wanted to write about two prodigies on the keyboard, I should at least know a few things.

9:00So you write in the book that Adelaide teaches her ward how to play piano. and she says it did not matter if the girl had talent or not. In fact, she turned out to be no more than a mediocre pianist. But piano was a good way for her to learn how to count, mark, and endure time. Did you take piano lessons in part for research, but in part to learn how to endure time after your son's death? Yes, I began my piano lesson at the end of 2023, purely to get to know how to play the piano. And James died in February 2024, so two months into my piano lesson. He died, and it occurred to me that piano or music is a good way for me to count time, because music is about time.

10:00It's about counting the measure, counting the rhythm. And also music is about to be engaged with something else. you can sit in your sadness all day long and doing nothing or crying. Or like me, I could just sit there and just play the same drill again and again as a way to know I was in a way staying in touch with the world. You've brought several themes that you've experienced in your life into the new novel. And one of them is about prodigies. Like your younger son was a prodigy. His gift was intelligence. And he was constantly like reading and researching and learning. Give us some examples of how like brilliant he was at a super young age.

10:56Right. You know, both my children could be called prodigies. But James, my younger son, our younger son especially, was extraordinarily odd and brilliant. So I remember when he was three and Vincent was seven or Vincent was six. And Vincent asked James, do you know how babies get born? And James gave his bigger brother a sort of lecture on how human beings reproduce. And of course, we were all shocked. And then he ended the lecture saying you can find that information on page 76 of the Encyclopedia of Human Bodies. And that's the kind of thing I think it was both lovely and odd. What was it like being the parent of a prodigy, being so much smarter than most adults in a lot of ways?

11:54In terms of his span of knowledge, I wouldn't say he had the wisdom of having lived many years. But he had like the facts at his disposal, facts that like most adults don't even know. They know about the facts of life. Yes. But he knew like scientific facts and physics and just like all kinds of things. So what responsibilities or what awe did that bring for you as a mother? I think it brought awe and bafflement. I would say we were greatly baffled. And also, I remember he was five or six. He said, Mommy, you will never see the world. I see it full of dots and squiggly lines. And that, again, was a strange perception of the world, as you say, we adults did not have access to.

12:55I have no idea what he meant by that whether that was like literal and if it was that's kind of disturbing I don't know I did not know either and I mean you did ask what is the responsibility or the difficulty of bringing up a child very brilliant and I think the decision some people would say well you really have to train him to be the next Einstein But we did not want him to be the next Einstein. We wanted him to be a normal, happy boy living an ordinary life. You said that you thought your older son was kind of a prodigy too. What was his gift? He was a brilliant painter. And we still had all his paintings around the house.

13:46He was an oboist. And when he wanted to learn the obo, the obo teacher said he was a bit young because he was eight when he wanted to learn the oboe. But he was certain because he was, like everybody else, was started on the piano. And he could articulate that piano was not his instrument. He wanted to play the oboe. But mostly he wrote beautiful poetry. He was a great poet. And he was a great reader. So, I mean, I wouldn't call him an outlier as James was. But he was brilliant and fun and interesting. Did you teach your sons to read before they were in school? I did not. It's interesting. I think I did not teach them.

14:38They pick up reading by themselves. And I respect their quiet reading time, especially James. James started reading when he was two. So I certainly did not teach him. And he just picked it up. I started reading early. We, I think, you know, this stereotypical idea of an Asian American parent or Asian parent being the tiger parent, tiger mom. I think I am, I was the opposite of tiger mom. I was sort of free range chicken, free range chicken mom. So I raised them as free range chickens. I'm trying to understand how a two-year-old can teach himself to read. I know. I mean, it's mind-boggling because his preschool teacher said, I worried at the time, I worried about his potty training, diaper training.

15:40And so I always talk with the teacher about potty training, and she was quite relaxed. She said, come on, you know, how many kids could read in their diapers? You shouldn't worry about it. Well, your sons were opposite in one way in the sense that your older son was like very emotional, deeply experiencing highs and lows. And your younger son withheld emotion. And, you know, I don't know what he experienced, but he apparently didn't express it. Yes, and I think, again, that, you know, having two children, having had two children, sort of quite opposite in many ways. As a parent, I could only say a lot of things were given to them, and they were born that way.

16:34And so, yes, I think Vincent was extremely artistic and emotional and joyful and sorrowful and also articulate. He could articulate all his feelings. And James, as you said, did not want to talk. And we could only just bring them up as who they were in a way. Do you feel that you were born with a gift too as a writer, that that was something innate? You know, that's a good question that I could never answer well. But I wouldn't say I was born with innate talent, but I was born with innate curiosity and also sensitivity to things that did not quite make sense. So I grew up in China. And for instance, when I was little, all the adults would say, you know, since you're a child, you have no right to decide who you want to be or what you want to do.

17:44And my mother even had a saying, something along the line that an adult decides and a child follows. I was quite young, you know, four or five. I just couldn't make sense out of all these teachings because I thought I was as capable of thinking as the adults. And why did I have to follow them? So I think that sort of sensitivity to things that are very, very nonsensical, I think maybe that's one thing that made me into a writer. What was one of the most upsetting things that your mother commanded you to do that you didn't want to? It's a perception of what mother would know about a child. So my mother's line was, I came from her body.

18:35So she knew me through and through without having to talk to me or without having to look at me. She already knew me inside out, which even as a child didn't make sense to me. It still doesn't make sense. It's almost like your mother claimed to have omniscience about you, which nobody has omniscience about anyone. Your mother was a teacher. But as a mother, she was emotionally and physically abusive. What did you learn as a mother from being mothered by someone who was abusive?

19:16I had, well, I think my, I mean, early on I said I raised free-range chickens as a joke. And I think mostly I raised my children with utter respect of them as individuals. And they always could say, or they always could say how they felt about a situation. and everything was not dictated from the parent's side. It was always a discussion and a negotiation sometimes. So I think if I did one thing right as a mother was that I did not put my wills upon them. My guest is Ian Lee. Her new novel is called Music Against the Night. Her Pulitzer Prize-winning memoir is called Things in Nature Merely Grow.

20:13If you're having suicidal thoughts or having a mental health crisis, you can talk with someone at the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline. Just text or call 988. That's 988. We'll be right back. I'm Terri Gross, and this is Fresh Air. Stay tuned for the following announcements and messages from our sponsors. This message comes from NPR sponsor Biori with the Halo Essential Wide Like Pant. Receive 20 % off your first purchase at viore.com slash NPR on any U.S. orders over$75 and free returns. Exclusions apply. Visit the website for full terms and conditions. This message comes from NPR sponsor Charles Schwab.

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21:32Go to mintmobile.com slash switch. Upfront payment of$45 for three-month,$90 for six-month, or$180 for 12-month plan required,$15 per month equivalent. Taxes and fees extra, initial plan term only. Greater than 50 gigabytes may slow when network is busy. Capable device required. Availability, speed, and coverage varies. See mintmobile.com. So you started your novel, correct me if I'm wrong here. You started your novel when your older son had already died, and then you completed it after your younger son died as well. I want to talk with you about how that changed your life, but first I want to hear how it changed your novel and what you wanted to say.

22:19Yes. When I started the novel, Vincent already died, but James was alive. and three quarters into the first draft, James died. Earlier we talked about playing the piano as a way of marking time. The day after James died, my best friend said, I suppose you're going to take a break from writing, but knowing you, I know you won't do that. And my answer to her was, you're right, I cannot take a break because writing is a way for me to mark time. So I finished the first draft before I started to think about writing a memoir because I wanted to get my thoughts through in a novel first before I turned to nonfiction.

23:13Many things in your novel made me think of your life even though it's set in another century, in other places. And this is an example of one of those sentences. All people die, not all have the patience to wait until old age. Yes, you're right. I think the novel, though it was about two musicians in another time, I would say I have written everything I've known about life into this novel. And I've known many people, old and young, and I knew two people who did not wait until old age to die. So I think all those thoughts and experiences came into the novel. If you're comfortable talking about this, you attempted to end your life before your sons died.

24:09Can I ask what you were enduring during that period? Yes, I think it's just a profound depression and really sometimes I think people have all sorts of thoughts about or against people who have chosen suicide. And people who have chosen or attempted suicide are often called selfish. But my experience is oftentimes people in great pain, whether it's great mental pain or great physical pain, And sometimes people in deep depression cannot tell the difference between mental pain and physical pain because everything is together is a great kind of suffering. I think it's not that people who experience that kind of suicidal urge, it's not that they want to die or they want to use this to hurt other people.

25:08is it feels, at least in my experience, it felt as though that was the only way to stop the suffering. But I also knew how that death would affect my children and my husband, you know, how other people would be hurt. Except I think there was always that fear that if you would go on living as this miserable mother, wouldn't that be even worse for your children? So there was that thought when I was in deep depression was I consider myself entirely incapable of being a good mother to them. Were you not a good mother at the time? No, I was. I suppose if you look from outside, I was a good mother. I cooked.

25:53I picked them up from school. I drove them to all sorts of activities. But I felt helpless. I think that helplessness, that kind of despair, knowing even as a mother you could not get rid of that despair, and that made me feel perhaps I wasn't a good mother. After trying to prevent your son's death, particularly Vincent's, because you knew that he was prone to such depressions that suicide might be a possibility. One of his teachers, when he was in grade school, I think, even warned you that that would be a possibility. And so, like, you did everything you could to try to prevent it, but he, you know, he did it anyways.

26:41He ended his life. And you write in your memoir that you respected his decision and you respected your younger son's decision to die by suicide as well. and I think that's not what people would expect a parent to say. So I'd love to hear you talk about reaching that conclusion that you were going to respect their decisions. Right. I know it's something that people could get upset with And I think I would have to be a little careful, you know, outlining my thinking, which I wrote about in the book. Yes, I think parents could do everything within their capacity. and sometimes children just because they were young, because they were not as experienced in enduring extreme pain and you could do all you could but they would still feel that despair, you know, whether it was an inborn, you know, intrinsic, innate despair.

28:05Also, just part of how the world was not a great place at this moment, when they were that age, or maybe at this moment the world is not a great place. And I think my experience with my own suicidal attempts and my experience with both Vincent and James and my experience with other people, I have friends who died from suicide, they have all struggled for a long time. So when I said in the book, and I still say I respect their decision, I respect their action, it's a statement of not blaming them, not calling them selfish or feeble-minded or emotional. and knowing they had done their best, and yet tragedies sometimes happen.

29:07I remember I was doing this interview. This was after Vincent died. I was doing an interview with a psychiatrist from Los Angeles, and one question he kept asking was, are you angry with him? And I said, no. And he said earlier in his practice, he lost a teenage patient to suicide. 30 years later, he still felt angry. And I don't think I feel that way about my children. You write about how people would often just say the wrong thing, like the completely wrong thing to you. My favorite, if you don't mind me calling my favorite, was the person who came to you with an unpublished book and said, I've written a book.

29:55I've dedicated it to you. I would like you to read it and help me find an agent. Like, you're kidding me. Yes, one has to keep an open mind to how people are often or always putting themselves in the center of a story. and I mean this is also the total stranger it's not a friend but also a friend also did that to me so my thinking is I have my hypothesis is I think when you lost children it was sort of an unfathomable disaster to people and I think sometimes people have this intuition sort of instead of we, the parents, go into total denial. I think some people would go into total denial so they could go on, you know, asking for favors or saying things that are, to me, just mind-boggling, right?

31:02Yeah. Well, we need to take another break here, so I'm going to reintroduce you. Yeah. My guest is E. Yun Lee. Her new novel is called Music Against the Night. Her Pulitzer Prize-winning memoir is called Things in Nature Merely Grow. If you're having suicidal thoughts or a mental health crisis, there's someone you can talk with at the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline. Just call or text 988. We'll be right back. This is Fresh Air. Stay tuned for the following announcements and messages from our sponsors. This message comes from NPR sponsor Charles Schwab. When is the right time to sell a stock? How do you protect against inflation?

31:41Financial decisions can be tricky, and often your own cognitive and emotional biases can lead you astray. Financial Decoder, an original podcast from Charles Schwab, can help. Join host Mark Rebe as he offers practical solutions to help overcome the cognitive and emotional biases that may affect your investing decisions. Download the latest episode and subscribe at schwab.com slash Financial Decoder. This message comes from Mint Mobile. Unwrap huge savings this season. All plans, even unlimited, are$15 for new customers. Go to mintmobile.com slash switch. Upfront payment of$45 for three-month,$90 for six-month, or$180 for 12-month plan required, $15 per month equivalent.

32:28Taxes and fees extra, initial plan term only. Greater than 50 gigabytes Rides may slow when network is busy. Capable device required. Availability, speed, and coverage varies. See mintmobile.com. This message comes from Capella University. That spark you feel? That's your drive for more. Capella University's FlexPath Learning Format lets you earn your degree at your pace without putting life on pause. Learn more at capella.edu. I want to ask you about a question that your oldest son, Vincent, asked you when he was 10 years old. He said, you understand suffering so well. Why did you give birth to us?

33:07That must have left you speechless. Yes, I was speechless. And I was also, you know, I think any mother confronted by this question would think, did I make a mistake bringing these children to the world when the world is falling apart and burning down? I suppose there's no good answer to that. And I still sometimes think about that question, and I still think, oh, I don't have an answer for you, Vincent. What did you—he said you understand suffering so well. What did you tell your children about your own attempt at suicide? well they certainly they knew the fact but they also knew and uh and i think my then therapist had a good point is um i should not hide these things from them but i should work to i should work on getting better so they would see that someone could come back from this deep depression and suffering and could still have joy in life.

34:29And I think that's exactly what I believed in. So, I mean, after my suicidal crisis, we went on living, traveling, doing things together, working together, just as a way to say, yes, it's terrible to be in that much pain. But it's also possible to live on. Is that what you meant when you said you can suffer better? Yes. And I realized that's one thing I did not teach James was after Vincent died, we all suffered so greatly. But James' death taught me to suffer better, is to say I can do it and I can live with my pain and sorrow without ever wanting to stop feeling the pain. And in a way, I think I said I would be capable and I would be okay living my life out in an abyss, but still having fun and enjoying things and doing things and staying in touch with the world.

35:42I think that's important. Are you more resolved to live to keep their memories alive? Ah, yes. Clearly you hear the hesitancy in my answer. I would say someone put this to me and I think it's a good point. and someone said this very wise thing to me I said you know so long as you live you keep the children's memory alive and not to keep them alive because I don't believe you know you can keep people alive in your heart but there will always be me and my husband thinking about them every day and I think I would say yes that might be one reason I feel more resolved suffering with suffering and also finding ways to go forward.

36:53As we talk about suicide, I don't want anyone to interpret what we're saying as a kind of encouragement of it. Do you know what I mean? Yes, yes, yes. And so can you speak to that, too? Because I feel a real sense of responsibility to anyone listening who is having a mental health crisis or is living with such despair or, you know, physical or emotional pain that they are contemplating suicide. And I do not want to be in a position where we're interpreted as encouraging that in any way. I think you as a writer is examining every kind of crevice and fold of mental anguish. But can you speak to my concern?

37:47Yes, yes, absolutely. I think it's something to be aware of is that despair. It may not be always like that. I mean, I say this from many, I say this from my own experience. I think, for me, I think the most important thing is to stay engaged with the world, both intellectually and physically. You know, playing on the piano is one very concrete thing. I'm also thinking about someone who I interviewed who wrote a memoir about his suicide attempt which he survived and his suicidal ideation and he said one advice he got from his therapist was wait a few days. Things may change and they did. And he's glad that he waited because things did improve.

38:51that's very good I think I would say something along the same line is I've come a long way in my life to know the importance of being patient just be patient yeah okay we need to take another break here so I'm going to reintroduce you if you're just joining us my guest is Ian Lee her new novel is called Music Against the Night her Pulitzer Prize winning memoir is called Things in Nature Merely Grow. If you're having suicidal thoughts or a mental health crisis, there's someone you can talk with at the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline. Just call or text 988. We'll be right back. This is Fresh Air. Stay tuned for the following announcements and messages from our sponsors.

39:39This message comes from NPR sponsor Charles Schwab. Financial decisions can be tricky. Your biases can lead you astray. Financial Decoder, an original podcast from Charles Schwab, can help. Download the latest episode and subscribe at schwab.com slash financial decoder. This message comes from Mint Mobile. Unwrap huge savings this season. All plans, even unlimited, are$15 for new customers. Go to mintmobile.com slash switch. Upfront payment of$45 for three-month,$90 for six-month, or$180 for 12-month plan required,$15 per month equivalent. Taxes and fees extra. Initial plan term only. Greater than 50 gigabytes may slow when network is busy.

40:22Capable device required. Availability, speed, and coverage varies. See mintmobile.com. This message comes from Capella University. That spark you feel? That's your drive for more. Capella University's FlexPath learning format lets you earn your degree at your pace, without putting life on pause. Learn more at capella.edu. Let's talk about growing up in China. because you didn't move to the U.S. until you went to, was it college or grad school? After college, grad school, yes. It was grad school that brought you here to Iowa. So did your parents grow up during the Cultural Revolution? Their youth were, I mean, no, they were already adults during the Cultural Revolution.

41:07So they were both born in the 1940s. So how did that change their lives? They were lucky enough. I think they were already in their 30s. And the other thing is my father used to be a nuclear physicist. So he worked for the nuclear weapon industry. Oh, he did? Oh. Yes. So we were protected by his status. So in a way, we live in this compound. You were protected by the weapon. We were protected by the weapon. A perfect way to put it, yes. So we live on this compound. And everybody's father was either a nuclear physicist or a mathematician. And so in a way, we were sort of sheltered by this special situation.

41:54That's so weird that you felt sheltered because your father was working on nuclear weapons. When I was growing up in the 50s and 60s, I was terrified about the possibility of nuclear war because we'd come pretty close with Russia. So were you afraid of the bomb? Never. For some reason, this is so interesting because I don't think I was afraid of that. Or maybe I should put it this way. I think when I was growing up, there were many more concrete harms done to children. So the nuclear weapons were really too far away from our lives. You spent a year in the Army. the People's Liberation Army, were women drafted?

42:42It was a special situation. We were not drafted. We were going to enter college, and this was right after 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre. So students who went to my university, which is Peking University, because Peking University was quite active during the pro-democratic movement, And the students entering the university would be sent to the military, to the army for a year of training. Mostly it's sort of a brainwashing experience. How were you brainwashed? We just learned. I mean, we went there in 1991, which was quite a striking time because Soviet Union just stopped being Soviet Union. So we would just be reading a lot of politics and world affairs, all from the communist point of view.

43:39It didn't work. And also, it wasn't easy to brainwash me, I would say that. Yeah, I get that impression. It wouldn't have been easy. So what role were you expected to play as a woman in the Army? We did a lot of just physical training, formation training and shooting. and it turned out I was a very good sharpshooter, which was so surprising because I was a peaceful, peaceful, peaceful, or I hated, I hated everything about weapons, but I was quite good at that. The other thing I was quite good at, which was also I did not take any pleasure or I did not feel proud of, was I was a good propaganda writer.

44:30Oh, you're a good writer. What was the propaganda like? Because your writing is so honest and with the perfect word to describe everything. Yes, but I was in the Army, and I remember my squad leader always assigned me. We have weekly assignment to write some sort of propagandas, sort of Army propagandas, And I always got that assignment. And so I sort of protested and I said, it's not fair. It's always me writing this. You have to assign someone else. And my squad leader said, no, you could do this or you could go cleaning the pigsty or cleaning the toilet. Which would you like to do?

45:15Of course, I wrote propagandas because I hated cleaning toilets. We've talked a lot about tragedy during this interview. What gives you the most pleasure now? Yes. Gardening. I'm an amateur gardener, but I love gardening. So gardening gives me a lot of joy. And, you know, taking a walk with my husband, we call it our daily constitutional. And then just talking with my friends and writing. You know, I do want to make a point. You know, I have experienced many sad things in life. But I always want to make a distinction. I am sad, but I'm not unhappy. And sometimes I think people forget sadness and unhappiness are two different things.

46:10What's the difference? I think sadness, oftentimes people are afraid of sadness as though it's something dark or heavy. No, sadness is just part of a life. I think sadness is just an inevitable part of life. And I'm fine living with my sadness. And sadness does not mean you're sad all the time, where you cannot find joy, where you cannot tell a joke. But unhappiness, I think oftentimes there's this discontentment and there's this eagerness to change for another life. And that kind of unhappiness is not healthy, I suppose. Ian Lee, thank you so much. I really appreciate what you had to say. Thank you so much for having me.

46:59Ian Lee's new novel is called Music Against the Night. Her Pulitzer Prize winning memoir is called Things in Nature Merely Grow. Tomorrow on Fresh Air, how the melting of polar ice has opened new sea roots and made the Arctic Ocean a new zone of superpower competition. We'll talk with writer Rana Faruhar. She got an up-close look aboard a Coast Guard icebreaker. She says China has big ambitions and some advantages over the U.S. Her new book is called Sea Change. I hope you'll join us. Fresh Air's executive producer is Sam Brigger. Our technical director and engineer is Audrey Bentham. Our interviews and reviews are produced and edited by Phyllis Myers, Anne-Marie Baldonado, Lauren Krenzel, Teresa Madden, Monique Nazareth, Dea Chaloner, Susan Yacunde, Anna Bauman, and Nico Gonzalez-Whistler.

47:48Our digital media producer is Molly C.V. Nesper. Roberta Shorrock directs the show. Our co-host is Tanya Mosley. I'm Terry Gross. Stay tuned for the following announcements and messages from our sponsors. This message comes from Google Workspace with Gemini. One subscription that does it all. personalized AI and premium business versions of Gmail, Google Docs, Drive, and more. Try it free for 14 days at goo.gle slash workspace with Gemini. This message comes from Jerry. Many people are overpaying on car insurance. Why? Switching providers can be a pain. Jerry helps make the process painless. Jerry is the only app that compares rates from over 50 insurers in minutes and helps you switch fast with no spam calls or hidden fees.

48:38Drivers who save with Jerry could save over$1 ,300 a year. Before you renew your car insurance policy, download the Jerry app or head to jerry.ai.npr.