"Catalyst"

Lydia Kang is an author of young adult fiction, poetry, and narrative non-fiction. She graduated from Columbia University and New York University School of Medicine, completing her residency and chief residency at Bellevue Hospital in New York City. She is a practicing physician who has gained a reputation for helping fellow writers achieve medical accuracy in fiction.

Kang's novels include Control and the recently released Catalyst.

She applied the Page 69 Test to Catalyst and reported the following:

From page 69:

I drive another few hours but stop frequently to check on Caliga, who sleeps most of the time and barely moves. When I move her limp arm to feel her pulse, I notice how fairy-like her hands are. The nails are symmetrical ovals on slender fingers. She has the hands of an innocent girl. I wonder if hands can lie.

I must be getting lonely and desperate, because I start talking to her and asking ridiculous questions. Things like, “Tell me what Cy used to eat for breakfast,” or “Did you kiss both of Wilbert’s heads, or just the one with lips?’ She never answers me.

This passage is really special to me. One of the things I explored in both Control and Catalyst is our perception of people, the notion of good and evil, and how every perspective changes if you can just step into the shoes of another person.

In this scene, Zelia is an outside observer, still with her own preconceived opinions and emotions as they pertain to Caliga, who has done destructive, horrible things in Control. But Zelia begins to see her with more humanity in this scene. Even the one-sided banter shows both Zelia’s treatment of Caliga like she’s this inanimate thing, but also as a keeper of information Zelia craves to understand. It also shows her terrible loneliness and isolation, which I think is the sadness beneath the bit of humor in the second paragraph.

Learn more about the book and author at Lydia Kang's website, blog, Facebook page and Twitter perch.

The Page 69 Test: Control.

--Marshal Zeringue