Tessa Hulls' grandmother, Sun Yi, was a dissident journalist in Shanghai who faced intense political persecution during the Chinese Communist Revolution; she suffered severe mental distress after fleeing to Hong Kong. In today's episode, Hulls tells Here & Now's Scott Tong that her grandmother's trauma often cast a shadow over their family – one she had been running away from for years, and one she decided to finally face in her new graphic memoir, Feeding Ghosts. It's a reexamining of Hulls' matriarchal lineage, of Chinese history and of generational love and healing. 

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'Feeding Ghosts' is a graphic memoir grappling with generational trauma

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In 2022, WNBA star Brittney Griner was detained by Russian authorities, convicted of drug charges and given a nine-year prison sentence. Her new memoir, Coming Home, details the conditions she was held in and her eventual return to the U.S. following a swap deal. In today's episode, NPR's Juana Summers asks Griner about the mental and physical toll she's still grappling with, reuniting with her wife and trying to forgive herself for what happened. 

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Brittney Griner's memoir recounts her detention in Russia and finally 'Coming Home'

As a parent, how do you navigate – and feel hope – raising kids through a pandemic, a climate crisis and with police brutality in the news? That's the question at the center of Emily Raboteau's new book, Lessons for Survival: Mothering Against 'The Apocalypse.' In today's episode, Raboteau tells Here & Now's Celeste Headlee what she learned about radical care, resilience and interdependence through the people she met in her community and in her travels, and how she thinks about parenting through personal and global hardships.  


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'Lessons for Survival' thinks about parenting through social and environmental crises

The writer Colm Tóibín says he never meant to write a sequel to his 2009 novel Brooklyn. But an image came to him years later, of his protagonist from that book suddenly finding out her husband has had an affair that resulted in a pregnancy — and so he followed the story in Long Island. In today's episode, NPR's Mary Louise Kelly speaks with Tóibín about revisiting Eilis Lacey in her 40s and upending her domestic life. 

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Colm Tóibín's long-anticipated sequel to 'Brooklyn' is 'Long Island'

Chanel Miller's first book was a critically acclaimed memoir about her sexual assault and the following trial. But she always wanted to write and illustrate books for kids. In today's episode, Miller tells NPR's Andrew Limbong how moving to New York City and ingraining herself into her community inspired Magnolia Wu Unfolds It All, a new book about a young girl and her BFF traversing their neighborhood to return socks that were left behind at the laundromat to their owners. 

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Chanel Miller's new children's book follows lost socks in New York City

Real Americans, the new novel by Rachel Khong, spans generations and decades within a family to understand the ongoing struggle to make sense of race, class and identity in the United States. Like with any family story, there are secrets and confrontations and difficult conversations, too; that desire to fill in the gaps about where we come from and how it has shaped our lineage is at the center of today's interview with Khong and NPR's Juana Summers.  

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'Feeding Ghosts' is a graphic memoir grappling with generational trauma

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