The New Yorker Radio Hour
The Writer Katie Kitamura on Autonomy, Interpretation, and “Audition”
Tue, 8 Apr 2025
Katie Kitamura’s fifth novel is “Audition,” and it focusses on a middle-aged actress and her ambiguous relationship with a much younger man. Kitamura tells the critic Jennifer Wilson that she thought for a long time about an actress as protagonist, as a way to highlight the roles women play, and to provoke questions about agency. “I teach creative writing, and in class often ... if there is a character who the group feels doesn't have agency, that is often brought up as a criticism of the character,” she tells Wilson. Other students will say, “ ‘She doesn't have any agency,’ as if a character without agency is implausible or in some way not compelling in narrative terms. But of course, the reality is very few of us have total agency. I think we operate under the illusion or the impression that we have a great deal of agency. But in reality when you look at your life, our choices are quite constricted.” “Audition” comes out this week.
Chapter 1: What is Katie Kitamura's new novel 'Audition' about?
And this is also a character who's trying to figure out gender roles. You know, what kind of figure should she be to this young man? Is she a romantic interest? Is she a maternal figure? What are the appropriate gender roles for a woman? I think is one of the things that probably drew Katie Kitamura to the theater for this most recent novel.
The New Yorker's Jennifer Wilson spoke with Katie Kitamura about Audition, which comes out this week.
You know, this first scene in the novel kind of primes us to read the rest as being sort of about interpretation. And, you know, it struck me that your last novel, the main character, was an interpreter. So what is it about interpretation that's continuing to inspire you or nag at you?
I mean, I really wanted interpretation to be at the center of this novel. In a funny way, even more than in my last novel where the character is literally a simultaneous interpreter. Because I wanted that... feeling of interpretation to be very active for the reader as well.
You know, I wanted the reader to also be trying, alongside all the characters in that opening scene, to understand what is happening between those two central characters. And I'm very interested in characters, in particular female characters, who speak the words of other people. And I'm interested in passivity. And that goes a little bit, I think...
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Chapter 2: How does 'Audition' explore themes of interpretation?
against the grain or against what we're told to look for in fiction. You know, I teach creative writing, and in class often, if they're in workshop, if there is a character who the group feels doesn't have agency, that is often brought up as a criticism of the character. They'll say, oh, but, you know, she doesn't have any agency.
As if a character without agency is implausible or in some way not compelling in narrative terms, But of course, the reality is very few of us have total agency. I think we operate under the illusion or the impression that we have a great deal of agency. But in reality, when you look at your life, our choices are quite constricted.
Chapter 3: What role does agency play in female characters?
So I'm interested in depicting characters who maybe understand that passivity a little bit more than other people might and who are trying to grapple with what that means.
I'm curious how long you had been thinking about acting and how long you had been thinking about writing a novel with a central character who's an actor.
I've been thinking about it for quite a long time. I tend to sit with an idea forever. An embarrassingly long amount of time, I would say. You know, I can sometimes look back and think, oh, I first started thinking about this idea and it was a decade ago. I really came to see the degree to which performance is present in our day-to-day lives.
You know, even now as we're talking to each other, even in our most intimate moments, we're always playing parts of some kind or another. Yeah. whether that is a part of a mother or a daughter or a partner or a writer or a student or a teacher. There are all these parts that we play every single day, and they come with quite prescriptive scripts in a lot of ways.
And the thing that struck me when I was thinking about audition is how seamlessly we flip between parts without almost being aware of it. So, for example, I can be... talking to my husband about something and I will be using a certain vocabulary and a certain way of speaking and then my children can come in and literally my voice will almost go up half an octave. The vocabulary changes completely.
It's bizarre. And yet that is how the vast majority of people go through their day. And we're not even really aware of it. I think in audition, the central character is very much aware of it she sees where those cracks are and at a certain point she can no longer paper over them
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Chapter 4: Why is the narrative of middle-aged women often overlooked?
To what extent is this a novel about middle age? I was struck by the part where the main character is struggling with a scene in rehearsals. At one point, she becomes convinced that the playwright just got bored of this character and wished she could start over halfway through. And I was just curious to what extent is this, you know, kind of a midlife crisis novel?
There's kind of two narratives of creative development. development in the novel. There is The development of the younger man who has a very standard kind of coming of age story. In the beginning, he seems to not know exactly what he's doing. And by the end, he has emerged as an artist. And that is a narrative that I think we're very familiar with. We understand the shape of that.
The narrative that is much less clear even now is a narrative of what happens to a woman, particularly in the middle of her life. Right. Which is astonishing to me. I mean, one thing that was striking to me when I published Intimacies is that the central character in that novel is explicitly not a young woman. She is in her mid to late 30s, say.
But in a lot of descriptions of the novel, she was described as a young woman, moves to The Hague to start a new life. And that was really interesting to me because it was almost as if story and narrative only happens to the young. Which we know is not true.
And I think in this novel, we have a character who is certainly on a passage of discovery, but the narrative is not pre-established in the same way. She's not following something by rote. And so in a lot of ways, I think that's why it felt right for me. for the narrative to fracture in a lot of ways, for there to be kind of multiple possibilities that she might be exploring.
Whereas the narrative for the younger character, this young man, is much more linear. It's much clearer because I think it's something within our culture that is much more familiar.
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Chapter 5: What makes age-gap relationships between younger men and older women compelling?
Chapter 6: How does performance influence our everyday lives?
Chapter 7: What are the creative challenges faced by the protagonist?
I've been thinking about it for quite a long time. I tend to sit with an idea forever. An embarrassingly long amount of time, I would say. You know, I can sometimes look back and think, oh, I first started thinking about this idea and it was a decade ago. I really came to see the degree to which performance is present in our day-to-day lives.
You know, even now as we're talking to each other, even in our most intimate moments, we're always playing parts of some kind or another. Yeah. whether that is a part of a mother or a daughter or a partner or a writer or a student or a teacher. There are all these parts that we play every single day, and they come with quite prescriptive scripts in a lot of ways.
And the thing that struck me when I was thinking about audition is how seamlessly we flip between parts without almost being aware of it. So, for example, I can be... talking to my husband about something and I will be using a certain vocabulary and a certain way of speaking and then my children can come in and literally my voice will almost go up half an octave. The vocabulary changes completely.
It's bizarre. And yet that is how the vast majority of people go through their day. And we're not even really aware of it. I think in audition, the central character is very much aware of it she sees where those cracks are and at a certain point she can no longer paper over them
To what extent is this a novel about middle age? I was struck by the part where the main character is struggling with a scene in rehearsals. At one point, she becomes convinced that the playwright just got bored of this character and wished she could start over halfway through. And I was just curious to what extent is this, you know, kind of a midlife crisis novel?
There's kind of two narratives of creative development. development in the novel. There is The development of the younger man who has a very standard kind of coming of age story. In the beginning, he seems to not know exactly what he's doing. And by the end, he has emerged as an artist. And that is a narrative that I think we're very familiar with. We understand the shape of that.
The narrative that is much less clear even now is a narrative of what happens to a woman, particularly in the middle of her life. Right. Which is astonishing to me. I mean, one thing that was striking to me when I published Intimacies is that the central character in that novel is explicitly not a young woman. She is in her mid to late 30s, say.
But in a lot of descriptions of the novel, she was described as a young woman, moves to The Hague to start a new life. And that was really interesting to me because it was almost as if story and narrative only happens to the young. Which we know is not true.
And I think in this novel, we have a character who is certainly on a passage of discovery, but the narrative is not pre-established in the same way. She's not following something by rote. And so in a lot of ways, I think that's why it felt right for me. for the narrative to fracture in a lot of ways, for there to be kind of multiple possibilities that she might be exploring.
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Chapter 8: Why is the timing of 'Audition' significant in today's culture?
I think it's something that still feels transgressive, which is in some ways extraordinary. It's a very, very obvious thing to say that an age gap between an older man and a younger woman is something that is overly familiar. I think the inversion of it feels exciting. It feels like it's... centering female desire in a way that is new. And I think it still feels in some way transgressive.
There's a way in which we know it shouldn't feel transgressive because we all say, hey, if a man did it, nobody would say anything. But at the same time, it is about a desire that culture at large has told women not to have. I don't know about the timing. That is something really really interesting to think about. I mean, it's an interesting question. Why now? Why not five years ago?
Why not five years from now? That, I don't know.
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So Katie, this is your first novel set in the United States in New York City. Your prior novels were set in Mexico, Tijuana, Greece, The Hague. Why did you choose to come home now and for this novel?
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