Kyle MacLachlan was David Lynch’s ‘submersible’ into dark places

This is Fresh Air. I'm Terry Gross. Diane, 11.30 a.m., February 24th. Entering the town of Twin Peaks. It's five miles south of the Canadian border, 12 miles west of the state line. I've never seen so many trees in my life. As W.C. Fields would say, I'd rather be here than Philadelphia. 54 degrees on a slightly overcast day. The weatherman said rain. You get paid that kind of money for being wrong. Sixty percent of the time, it'd be working. The mileage is 79,345, gauges on reserve. You may recognize that as my guest Kyle McLaughlin in the first episode of the David Lynch TV series Twin Peaks as FBI Special Agent Dale Cooper recording a message as he drives. At the time, Twin Peaks was the strangest, most dreamlike series ever on TV. Like a lot of dreams, the meaning of the imagery and story were often elliptical. Hard to interpret. To everyone's surprise, Twin Peaks became a big hit. McLaughlin says he wouldn't have become the person he is without David Lynch. Just months after acting school, McLaughlin seemed destined for a meteoric rise. Lynch was making an adaptation of Frank Herbert's 1965 science fiction novel, Dune, and he cast the young McLaughlin as the lead. Along with the part came a multi-picture deal with its producer, Dino De Laurentiis. After the movie flopped, the deal was canceled. McLaughlin had to rewrite his plans and wasn't sure how. His next break came when Lynch cast him in Blue Velvet, which was a turning point in American film for its nightmarish imagery and threatening performances. Lynch and McLaughlin teamed up again for the TV series Twin Peaks and the return of Twin Peaks and for the Twin Peaks movie Fire Walk With Me. While McLaughlin was writing his new memoir, Lynch died. The memoir is called Fictional Selves. The title is a reference to who people think he is based on his roles and who he really is and how confusing that can be for him. You may also know Kyle McLaughlin from his roles including Showgirls, Sex and the City, Desperate Housewives, Portlandia, Overcompensating, and Fallout. Kyle McLaughlin, welcome to Fresh Air and congratulations on your memoir. I'm very grateful to be here and thank you for having me on the show. Thank you. In the scene we just heard, David Lynch was in the backseat of the car directing you as you read that message you were recording. Do you remember what kind of direction he was giving you from the backseat? Well, I don't recall the specifics of it, but I do recall that the distance that we had to travel because we were on a tow rig, basically, so my vehicle was being towed by a vehicle in front of me. Oh, sorry. So that you didn't have to really drive? I didn't have to really drive, which is very disconcerting, to be honest, because when you're behind the wheel of a car, you feel like you should be driving. And in fact, you're just putting your hands on the wheel. You're not really driving. It's a little different. It's a little distracting. After I got over that and just started in with the dialogue, the other challenge was that we only had a short distance to make this run. And so I had to basically just blister through the dialogue. Which I think was ultimately helpful in establishing the character. I've always said that that introduction is certainly the best introduction to a film or a television program I've ever had. And I think it ranks pretty high as an introduction for any character because you get so much of who he is about in a short period of time. And the eccentricities and the strangeness of who this man is, it just deepens the mystery. Is it reassuring to have your director in the book? In the back seat? Or does it make you more self-conscious? It's both. First of all, and we'll get into David in our relationship, but having him near always made me feel better. So that wasn't even part of it because I never felt there was judgment coming from David. It was always just joy and pleasure. You know, in a strange way, I think the pressure was really sort of self-delivered by me. And it's like, I want to do a great job. I want to do a great job here. And I want to, you know, I want to get everything the way I imagine it to be. And David's help and input was always to expand what I'd started and just more to think about more colors, more ideas, more suggestions about how to really deepen and enrich the character, the scene, the moment, whatever it might call for. You write that you didn't use your real speaking voice for the role. What did you change? Well, it was heavily influenced by David because I recognized that Cooper shared so many of David's quirks, I guess, personality, attitudes. So I tried to. Straight-laced but weird? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Just a little bit off, right? And I feel like the voice, I just sort of, I don't know. Oftentimes things come and I do them and I'm like, I'm not exactly sure why. I'm doing it this way, but I'm just going to trust it. But it was kind of a, more of a, you know, now listen, Sheriff, you know, and this kind of, and it had a little bit of an, almost a nasal quality to it. And David's speaking voice, you know, not all the time, but he can be, you know, he'd be, Kale, hey, you know, you know, sorry, I'm thinking, blowing out the speakers here, but it had a, it had a certain pitch and I just found myself kind of, kind of burrowing into that. David Lynch, who was your mentor, your director, and your good lifelong friend, died while you were writing the memoir. How did his death change what you wanted to say, change the mood of the rest of the book, change your mood while you were writing it? Well, yeah, at first it was a, a significant loss and obviously when someone passes so suddenly like that, it's, it's, there's a shock, you know, and, and you just, you just disbelieve. And the beautiful thing about a memoir is that you then can go back and say, and from that, I grew to this, or I learned this, or this changed in me. Um, obviously I, I, I, I didn't, I didn't know how he would feel about some of the stories that I tell, some of the difficult times that we went through, um, as friends and as creatives. He was such a private person, you know, that to share those intimate intimacies and those, those, you know, those moments, I felt like he would need to be okay with that. You didn't want to feel, you didn't want to feel like you were violating him. I didn't, you know, and I just said, I, I hope, um, that there's an understanding there. I don't know. You never know. Is there an example of one of those dark times that you refer to in your relationship with Lynch? Yeah, we, uh, during the course of the making of Twin Peaks, the original Twin Peaks there, which was actually a really a pretty short window, a small, short window of time between the first filming. And then the second season, we only had two seasons, but during that time there was a struggle. I felt I was, I was definitely trying to, you know, it wasn't the sinking ship necessarily, but I felt like I was trying to like keep something afloat that I didn't know how to keep afloat. I didn't have the skillset. I didn't have the knowledge. Well, David Lynch had left the series during the second season. Yeah. And he was the sensibility behind the show. So with him gone, there were new writers. And, um, you felt as like the person whose point of view we most often see. And as someone who was very close to Lynch, that you should be an anchor and you should help keep the ship afloat. I did feel that responsibility and it was difficult. And at the same time, I'm like, I'm, I can't blame anyone, honestly, knowing David, as I did and his personality and his creative self running a show is not what David wants to do. Every day is going to be a different place, you know? Um, so it was foolish of me to expect that he would remain in, in place and, and basically be there every day and do the writing and answer the questions and all the things that a, that a good show runner has to do. Um, so that, that wasn't the answer. Um, but there, so there was no answer. There was no, there was no, there was no, there was no, what can we do to bring back the, that essence you talk about that, that thing, you know, that made Twin Peaks so special, which is really David and Mark Frost, the co-creator, because it was sort of the combination of the two of them. But in terms of the direction and, and the unusual nature of Twin Peaks, the mood, um, the vibe, that's pretty much David. And it, it, came back occasionally when he was directing. directing because he came back to direct a couple of episodes in that second season um and you could feel the cast myself included just open you know it was like suddenly you know there was moisture in the air and everybody was like oh my gosh everything we can breathe the creative uh energy had returned you know and then it was taken away again you know and you're like oh you can't help but yearn for that when it's not there lynch had a way of getting to the dark underside of things the things that aren't necessarily visible the people who you don't necessarily know who are kind of crazy um and the danger that you may be attracted to in some way but if you're in the middle of it it's really dangerous that's not yeah it's like not fun so i'm wondering acting in so much of david lynch's uh work and being absorbed in his sensibility did it bring out a dark side of you of your personality of your inner thoughts that you hadn't been in touch with so much before you know i think there was only one instance in the newest season um the twin peaks return i played three different characters actually a few others but three main characters during the filming of that and one of those characters was as you described very dark um psychopath and that was really the only time i felt during that journey that i felt like okay i am now going to enter into a dark world and that was a deliberate uh putting on of the character in the morning when i got to set and that would happen as i was getting my makeup done and then i would put on the wardrobe and as i put on everything i began to you know breathe like that character at the end of the day i was like i am now ready to get to let this guy go and it was such a relief i said i do not want to carry any of this energy back to my home back to my family and i left and put him away in the closet in the trailer when i would get undressed and get back into my regular regular clothes were you afraid that he was a dark side of you and you didn't want to live in that part of you like what was it that you had to put away and make sure you was it just because he was a bad you know an evil character or did you feel this personal connection that you wanted to put away to terry i've definitely felt a connection there because um i mean that i think that has to exist when you're working as an actor you really are you know um we carry around a lot of selves each of us but also did you feel like lynch saw something dark in you that you had not been that you'd been trying to keep i think your distance from yeah i think so i think you know when we did that we've known each other for 30 years you know so he had seen behavior from me and i'm pretty good at hiding hiding that but he had seen it you know as a good friend would and you know david has always said to me he really believed i could do anything which as an actor that's incredibly empowering because i often don't think i can do as i didn't think i could do mr c this is the character i was like oh boy okay i've never had to do something like this and it's not that i don't think i can't i think i can but i'm gonna need you know help you know and david was there for that and for me um but i had to go in there myself so that's opening up things inside of me and behavior and and that was both uh frightening and um very high intense high intensity but also kind of alluring um the rest of the time you know um thinking about blue velvet and particularly blue velvet and the first twin peaks and i talk about david you know he creates these incredible worlds incredible environments and and slightly separate realities and i recognized pretty early on particularly in blue velvet that i was tasked with the job of going into these worlds maintaining maintaining an innocence um which got singed let's say in blue velvet until i came back out again but ultimately i was the audience's guide into a very scary place and dealing with a scary situation and an extremely scary person and frank booth played so brilliantly by dennis hopper and i i understood that and i saw that and i said okay this is it's like i'm sort of david's um submersible you know it's not it's not alter ego it's not you know doppelganger whatever it's i feel like more it's more of a submersible so i'm tethered to the mothership right but then i'm i am now kind of on my own exploring this dark place that's a great analogy so you were 23 just a few months out of drama school when you auditioned for your first movie which was lynch's adaptation of the 1965 frank herbert science fiction novel dune which is set on a desert planet the movie is called the lynch's adaptation of the 1965 frank herbert science fiction novel dune the movie was released in 1984 you first read dune when you were 14 you used to write quotes from dune on the blackboard in high school and one of the quotes that you put on the blackboard it's a line it's a paragraph that you get to say at a key moment in the film adaptation of dune and just to set the scene for that you are being tested to see if you were that special person who can you can you can you can you can you can be an incredible hero or villain because you have all this special power and bravery and tolerance for pain so to test to see if you are that person she is testing you for your pain threshold and she says put your hand in this box and you're suffering but you're not taking your hand out so what was it like for you to actually inhabit the part with the quote that you put on the novel meant so much to you isn't it just the strangest thing terry i mean there's no way i could have ever imagined the love that i had for this book when i was 14 15 perfect age as a young man to read this heroic journey of a boy on the cusp of manhood who is unaware that he's been brought to this point through generations like thousands of generations of breeding to culminate in this basically a super being not unlike neil i guess in the matrix the one you know um and to have this such a strong connection to that character to the point where it really sort of sustained me through those very difficult junior high years and high school years um to you know get a call on my answering machine saying there's a casting agent coming to seattle and they want to meet you for the role of paul and dune and i thought for sure this was a complete joke you know he's been 40 years or something more years i don't think i have yet sort of figured out how maybe i don't think i'll ever figure out how that happened so i want to read the full quote here i'd rather you do it but do you want to do the whole thing i can remember it i'm not going to get it exactly right it starts with i must not fear i must not fear fear is a mind killer fear is the little death that brings total obliteration i will face my fear i will permit it to pass over me and through me and when my fear is gone i will turn and see where it has no i don't have exactly the last part's not exactly right but you basically turn and see where the fear is gone and only i will remain is the last line now i will point out that when you were in your teens when you were a kid you had a lot of fear and you were not a kind of very physical person you got beaten up you got beaten up you got beaten up you got beaten up you got beaten up in school you hated gym the worst part was the locker room i can laugh now but yes so you know like the character in the story is saying i must not fear and he conquers his fear but you had a lot of fear as a kid and in your teens and i'm not sure you conquered it so was this like an aspirational identification with the character that you wished you could conquer your fear i absolutely think so yeah it's an in yeah uncertain insecure place uh at least that was you know most of my you know grade school junior high and dune was a lifeline to me that character and that journey was a lifeline honestly and sustained me for the most part you know through those years i began to find another lifeline preserver whatever it is floating in the ocean that i grabbed onto which was performing, acting, started in late junior high, you know, 8th, 9th grade, and then carried over into high school. My guest is Kyle MacLachlan, and his new memoir is called Fictional Selves. We'll be right back. I'm Terry Gross, and this is Fresh Air. This is Fresh Air. I'm Terry Gross. Let's get back to my interview with actor Kyle MacLachlan. His new memoir is called Fictional Selves. He became known for his starring roles in the David Lynch film Blue Velvet and Lynch's TV series Twin Peaks. You may also know him from his roles in Showgirls, Sex and the City, Desperate Housewives, Portlandia, Overcompensating, and Fallout. When we left off, we were talking about MacLachlan's first film role in David Lynch's 1984 adaptation of Dune. So you had big expectations. You had a multi-picture deal with Dino De Laurentiis, with Dino De Laurentiis. Dune being the first, several sequels, and then other films as well. And then the film flopped, the deal was cancelled, and suddenly you were just floating. I mean, there was also a clause in your contract that there was a certain amount of time, two years, in which you wouldn't be allowed to be in any other movies. I guess they wanted, like, a fresh face. So, like, you not only. I mean, it wasn't even a question of not having auditions or not getting parts. You weren't allowed to. So you went to Europe instead. And, you know, had to figure out the next part of your life. And that changed when David Lynch sent you the script for Blue Velvet. David actually gave me Blue Velvet during the filming of Dune. So we were actually shooting, and he sent me the script that I found incredibly exciting. We were going to film that right after Dune was released. Dune was released, and we were meant to go film that in January or February of that year. When Dune was, sadly, you know, was not well-received, everything, as you said, fell away. Oh, was Blue Velvet supposed to be part of that deal, one of the pictures that you'd make for Dino De Laurentiis? It was one of the, yeah, what they call the non-Dune option picture, which I had in the first iteration of the contract. I had one, and then they added a second, and ultimately did indeed, would have been one of the non-Dune option pictures that I was required to do for the company. But, gosh. It was like the street with tumbleweeds going down. You know, there was nothing going on. And there was no way for me to hedge. Let's say I'd finished filming Dune, and then I was allowed to work. I could have used the potential, you know, of what Dune was going to be to maybe, you know, nail down a couple other leading-type roles in interesting films that I could have banked. So. Your mother sounds like a lovely person, interested in the arts, interested in drama, encouraging you to act, but also very cautious and very conservative when it came to pop culture. She did not approve. When you told her about Blue Velvet, she did not want you to do the movie. And she had cancer at the time and didn't live long enough to see the completed film. You almost turned down. Actually, the first time you did turn down Blue Velvet, you told Lynch that you couldn't. You couldn't do it, and you explained why. But eventually, you decided to do it. Can you describe what kind of dialogue was going on in your mind when part of you really wanted to please your mother, or at least, like, not hurt her, especially considering how sick she was, but at the same time, wanting to pursue your aesthetic and personal relationship with David Lynch? What was the dialogue in your mind, or maybe the. What was the argument in your mind about.? Well, honestly, Terry, there was no argument. You know, I spoke to my stepfather at the time, and he said in a very gentle way that she was really upset by the script, you know? And my first mistake was giving it to her to read in the first place. But I wanted her to be included, you know? And she read it, and she didn't respond. He called me. She wouldn't have wanted to have stopped me. There was no question in my mind. It's like, well, then I'm not doing it. In this moment, at this place and time, this is not what I want her to have to think about, worry about, me being in this movie. And over the course of a few weeks anyway, maybe a month or so, a number of things were at play. One is there's no other film work at all. No one was interested in working with me. I was auditioning, but there was nothing. There was no other thing that was there. And the greater part of that puzzle was the fact that I really liked the script. And I'd worked with David, and I loved David, and I knew David. And I said, "You know, Mom, you can read in the script." As I say in the book, you know, she put her thing on it. You know, it's very, very descriptive. The script was very, very precise and descriptive, you know? And if you're reading that, and you don't. And you're talking about the sexual scene. Yes, yes. And as well as what happens with Frank and Dorothy, right? These are. My mom, she was very. This was not right, you know, in her mind. This is a territory you do not go into. And I was like, "But it's going to be more than that. There's more happening, and it's going to be okay. I just said it's going to be okay. I trust David. It's going to make it okay." And she said, "Okay." Oh, she said okay? Yeah. So I was like, "Okay, thank you." And I called David, and he said, "Kale, I never doubted you." And he must have trusted somehow that I would come around or. You know, I don't know. It just. It worked out. Was it frightening acting opposite Dennis Hopper? Because he is so scary in that movie. Yes. He's so, like, out of control. And he inhales some kind of drug from a gas mask, which makes him even more threatening. And he's so believable in the role. Yeah. And he puts everything into it. And he's doing it right in your face in some scenes. Yes, he is. So what was. Like, did you experience actual fear from him? Yes, I did. I did. It was so funny because Dennis was so charming, so lovely, so delightful, so soft-spoken, so much fun, you know, around the set and, you know, during filming and the trailers and stuff. And the minute we were getting into the environment to shoot, and he began to sort of descend into character, and he was like, "I'm going to shoot you." And I was like, "I'm going to shoot you." And he was like, "I'm going to shoot you." So charming, so lovely, so delightful, so soft-spoken, so much fun, you know, around the set and, you know, during filming and the trailers and stuff. And the minute we were getting into the environment to shoot and he began to sort of descend into character, I didn't need to do anything to him. All I needed to do was stand there in the scene and react, basically, to what he was giving me because it was incredibly frightening and manipulative. And I was truly in shock. And then we would cut and he'd, you know, do that great, gotcha on that, you know, with a hopper laugh, you know. And I was just like, oh, my God, Dennis, you were so frightening. He said, yeah, I know. And he, I think he really, really, he really loved the role. He really just, he played the heck out of that. In Blue Velvet, you have a love scene with Isabella Rossellini in which she asks you and then insists that you hit her. And you don't want to hit her. But she basically is so insistent, you actually hit her hard. What was going through your mind as you shot that scene? One of the great things about it was it's David and then there's Isabella and we're just the three of us. You know, we're just rehearsing this scene and maybe there's the DP is nearby. But we're talking through it very matter-of-factly. So, you know, this happens and then this happens and this happens and this happens. And I remember just going, okay, how do we get to the point where he actually does slap her? I'm like, I don't know how to get there, you know. And we came upon the idea, like, that she kind of initiates, actually. She does, she slaps me first and then I, in a reaction, respond back like that. And then I see what it does to her. And cut to the next morning and I'm in bed and I'm like, who am I? You're weeping. Yeah, I recognize that I've descended into a place at this point. I don't know who I am. I do not know what to do. When you were in acting school, you had trouble exposing emotion. Yeah, boy, yes. And you didn't know if you'd ever be able to, like, cry on cue, which actors are often required to do. Was this the first time? That you had to weep like that with feeling that you violated your own self, your own principles in addition to, you know, harming Isabella Rossellini's character? Yes, it was. I think it was a different type of emotional response. But this was, yeah, this was one of a much deeper. And as you described, and I go into detail in the book again, just about. My struggle with this during acting school, and I just figured, you know, I'm going to be the comedian. I'm going to be the funny guy. I'm not going to be the emotional guy. It's not going to happen. Primarily because I recognize there's going to be a complete loss of control. And I said, no, I got to be in control here. That has been part of my acting journey. all the way through, which is basically letting go of control, letting go of the reins as much as I can. But David gave me the time, and I came out of it, and I was like, there was like a weight had lifted. Not lifted. It had lessened. It's like, okay, you can do it. It took a lot. I don't know if you can do it again, but you did it. If you're just joining us, my guest is actor Kyle MacLachlan. We'll be right back. This is Fresh Air. This is Fresh Air. He became known for his starring roles in the David Lynch film Blue Velvet and in Lynch's TV series Twin Peaks, and has since done a lot more. When you were young, I think you were young then, your father changed careers. Instead of doing what his father wanted him to do, which was be a lawyer, he was very unhappy as a lawyer, so he changed careers and went into finance. I think he became a stockbroker. Did that give you a sense of permission to pursue what you were really passionate about, which was acting, as opposed to doing something that had more security? Yeah. That was part of the deal. His father, my grandfather, wanted him to become a lawyer, which was of the time and place, and certainly the family history, was his. My grandfather wanted him to become a lawyer, and that was my grandfather's attempt to sort of have my father propel forward, you know, and never have to have the life that he had, which was very difficult, you know, traveling salesman kind of difficult stuff. And my dad went to law school, and he passed the bar, and he started working practice in Yakima. He changed careers when I was five or six or seven, somewhere in there, very young and not really aware of what was happening. That change affected. It affected his relationship with his father, with my grandfather, and there was definitely some icing that went on there. They didn't, you know, the story goes, they didn't speak for a couple of years when my dad did that. Then gradually that thawed, and everything was fine. But my dad was happy as a broker. He loved it. And I think from that experience, my dad never insisted that me or my brothers pursue a certain career. There was conversation. There was. Like, hey, what about, you know, this? But it was never, like, you do this, or we're disowning you kind of thing. Originally, you thought you might pursue opera. You starred in high school productions of musicals, including My Fair Lady. Have you ever sung on screen? Well, I did the anthem for Portlandia. Oh, okay. I don't think that's what you're referring to, Terry. Have I ever sung on screen? I don't think I have. Not like. You know, proper singing, proper song. But yeah, I studied with Gus Palialunga at the University of Washington when I was there in school. Musical theater was really going to be my thing. And I was classically trained, and voice lessons, and, you know, dance lessons, and all that stuff. And then when movies popped in, I just made, like, a right turn and dropped down to California instead of going across country to New York. But I haven't really ruled out the possibility. I just, I've not really pursued it. You've had two relationships with people who you were acting with. One was with Laura Dern when you were in Blue Velvet. That relationship lasted a long time. You fell in love while your characters were falling in love on screen. And you and Lara Flynn Boyle fell in love when you were doing Twin Peaks. You were both doing Twin Peaks. So, especially with Laura Dern, how did chemistry on screen. affect falling in love? And how did falling in love affect chemistry on screen? Well, Laura is just magical. She's one of our great actresses. And she's always been a great actress. Laura was so present. And the things that Jeffrey and Sandy were experiencing together, you know, Kyle and Laura were experiencing together as well. And, you know, there's your character life, screen life, and then there's your real life, you know. And these were definitely blending. And, honestly, I don't think, you know, David didn't necessarily discourage it either. He said, you know, you recognize that this is actually something that is going to be good for the film. And he really loved the idea that Jeffrey and Sandy were going to be a couple. And that's the crazy thing about David. The worlds that he creates are real, you know, in his mind. They exist. So. Well, the fact that this was happening was very pleasing to him. David Lynch and Isabel Rossellini, one of the stars of the film, they had a relationship, too. So that must have been just, like, so unusual. And I think you were all staying. I'm not sure about Isabel or Rossellini, but at least three of you were at the same bed and breakfast. Yeah. So Isabel and Laura were at the same bed and breakfast. I had a separate place, but I was over at Laura's place all the time. And then David had a place out. On the beach. He had a place out there. We were filming in Wilmington. And I don't, you know, I don't know. Everybody was pretty, you know, we were all pretty, I don't know if respectful is the word. But we were, you know, we were not running around, you know, making out every corner of the set. You know, it was like, we were like, you know, trying to keep it, you know, pretty, you know, pretty on the low, low down, you know, low key. But there was definitely a lot of love around on the set, which was kind of remarkable considering. The tone was quite dark and intense. And I think what happens sometimes on films, at least in this case, the positivity, the love, the joy that was there kind of carried us through some of the darker scenes, darker moments, of which there were quite a few. But we all just, we just, we were able to separate somehow, you know, who we were with, who these characters were. You know, in, I think, a very healthy way. Actors are afraid of looking older, I think, because it's sometimes harder to get roles, especially for women. I think that for a lot of people, when they're young, their face is still kind of unformed. Their personality and life haven't written themselves on their faces yet. I think your face has gotten more interesting with age. And I'm wondering if you agree. Thank you, Terry. I agree. And it comes back to the theater tradition, you know. That you start as an ingenue or a juvenile, you know, and you're playing the young roles, and you work your way through some of those roles, and then the middle roles, particularly Shakespeare, I think. And as you get older, then you're expected to do, you know, some of the other roles, the King Lear's, you know what I mean? These kind of things, the Iago's, you know, these kind of things where a little bit of age helps, you know. And granted, you know, I think men have an easier time with it, aging, over women. But I do feel like the face. I mean, it's really your tool, right? It's what you have to work with, your emotion, your face and your emotions. So, everyone has to make those choices and everything, but I'm pretty happy with the way things are going. And, you know, I've got added inspiration because my son is 18, so I darn well better stay fit to keep up with him. Colin McLaughlin, thank you so much for talking with us. I really appreciate it. Terry, it's just been a complete pleasure. I'm such a huge fan. Thank you for having me on. Thank you so much. Kyle McLaughlin's new memoir is called Fictional Selves. After we take a short break, Maureen Corrigan will review Min Jin Lee's new novel. Maureen says it's an overwhelming reading experience. This is fresh air. This is fresh air. Min Jin Lee's new novel, American Hagwon, is the third in her projected four-novel series about the Korean diaspora. Pachinko, the second in the series, was a finalist for the National Book Award. Our book critic, Maureen Corrigan, says she didn't think Pachinko could be topped until she read American Hagwon. Here's her review. Min Jin Lee's new novel, American Hagwon, has been nearly 10 years in the making. If it had taken 20, I'd still wonder how she held all these stories, these lives, such pain and love in her imagination for the time it took to find the words to embody them on the page. Simultaneously sweeping but intimate novel about the complexities of immigration, the fragile promise of America, and the purpose of education. American Hagwon is also a classic page-turner, populated by characters who are hard to leave behind at the end of 600-plus pages. It's an overwhelming reading experience, one that appeals to the head as well as the heart. Pachinko's family is at the center of this teeming narrative, which spans the years 1992 to 2007. When we meet them, John and Helen Ko have just returned to Seoul, South Korea, from six years in Sydney, Australia, where John, a senior manager for a Korean conglomerate, had been stationed. Before Australia, the Kos were in the U.S., all three of their now-adolescent children, D.H. and Meadow were born in Paramus, New Jersey. But given their on-the-move family life, Korea doesn't exactly feel like home anymore, and 13-year-old daughter Mido, the shy youngest child, is having an especially hard time in school. Korea, however, will turn out to be yet another temporary post thanks to a cowardly betrayal by John's oldest friend and superior at his company. Tae-hoon Shin, we're told, was a man who was clear in his professional goals and muddy in his private life. Shin, a married man and exuberant cheater, has become besotted with a beautiful, sexually adventurous young employee named Donbi. Because Donbi is pressuring him, to leave his wife, Shin orders John to set up Donbi to fail at the company and then fire her. John, a man of integrity, objects, but finally must obey his best friend's orders. That's when Donbi, a femme fatale to the max, turns the tables and sets John up for a fall. The novel soon jumps to 1997, when the Asian financial crisis wreaks more havoc. Most of the Ko family, along with a multitude of other fully realized characters, wind up in Southern California. Even Shin and Donbi eventually land there. A network of family, as well as friends from school and the Korean church, help prevent the newcomers from going under, although the Kos must settle for less. John finds work in the kitchen at Shrimp Castle. A fish place in a Korean shopping mall. By the end of a long day, his hair was matted down with sweat and oil beneath the net, and his crisp white apron from the morning was spotted with oil and soapy disinfectant. Almost everyone else we meet works themselves to the bone. Late in the novel, our omniscient narrator surprisingly introduces another key character, Shin's estranged, wife Mary, who works in a florist shop in New Jersey. Mary pointedly reflects that, over the years at her church, poor men and women her age had died of different cancers, and sometimes Mary wondered if hard work alone could kill people. The Ko offspring, in whom all hopes for a better future reside, also work. All three of them, at one time or another, are employed. by a hagwon, an after-school private prep academy. Most hagwons, in Korea and here in America, prepare their students to excel academically, and preferably go on to Ivy League schools. But the hagwon the Ko kids work at is run by an idealistic Korean-American nicknamed Lion, who thinks differently. The bittersweet set piece towards the end of this novel, where Lion and the Ko are in a relationship, is a novel that is a bit more of a novel than a novel. where Lion addresses a gymnasium packed with some 500 parents, all ethnically Korean, and tells them education should be transformative, not just transactional, is so powerful it should be read by anyone called upon to defend a liberal arts education. Lee's style throughout American hagwon is striking, in that it counters the old show-don't-tell writing adage, instead, there's plenty of exposition in this novel, and yet not a page is workmanlike. In fact, Lee is so deft that she conjures epiphanies out of the simplest material. I wish I could read to you the very last sentence of American hagwon to demonstrate her mastery, but instead, I'll just say that the simple, possessive pronoun, his, unexpectedly appears in that sentence, and its effect is spiritually redemptive and emotionally shattering. What a novel. Maureen Corrigan is a professor of literature at Georgetown University. She reviewed American Hagwon by Min Jin Lee. Tomorrow on Fresh Air, our guest will be Mahmoud Khalil. He was the face of the pro-Palestinian protests at Columbia University when immigration agents arrested him, despite having a green card and no criminal record, and sent him to detention in Louisiana. He writes about it in his memoir, No Land to Stand On. I hope you'll join us. To keep up with what's on the show and get highlights of our interviews, follow us on Instagram at NPR Fresh Air. Fresh Air's executive producer is Sam Brigger. Our technical director and engineer is Audrey Bentham. Our engineer today is Adam Staniszewski. Our interviews and reviews are produced and edited by Phyllis Myers, Anne-Marie Baldonado, Lauren Krenzel, Teresa Madden, Monique Nazareth, Thea Chaloner, Susan Yukundi, Anna Bauman, and Nico Gonzalez-Whistler. Our digital media producer is Molly C.V. Nesper. Roberto Shorrock directs the show. Our co-host is Tanya Mosley. I'm Terry Gross.