In today’s episode, we meet Lee Matalone, author of her debut novel, Home Making, published by Harper Perennial. It’s a story of three characters, woven together in a moving, beautiful narrative of home, identity, and belonging.

The New York Times Book Review calls the novel “[A] heady and somber debut” while author Scott McClanahan calls it “the debut novel of the year.”

Lee starts the show with a reading from the opening chapter, “War Child,” where we learn that an unwanted female baby born in Tokyo is signed over to the state and then plucked from the orphanage and adopted by an American officer and his wife.