Lydia Kang Reveals 'The Half-Life of Ruby Fielding'

Author and internal medicine physician, Lydia Kang, joins us to talk about her WWII, historical spy novel, The Half Life of Ruby Fielding. Her story follows the lives of brother and sister, Will and Maggie Scripps, both of whom work for the war effort in 1940’s New York City. “One of the characters, Will Scripps, in the book he is working kind of secretly for the Manhattan Project. So his work directly, or indirectly, impacts the development of the first atom bomb, and ultimately what changes the tide as far as WWII is concerned.” The Half Life of Ruby Fielding is a continuation of three previous books Kang has written, all set in New York City, all historical, spanning from 1850 to 1942. “…There are members of this one family, and they are all women, that are featured in every single book…I wanted that storyline, that… family history to evolve as the books went on.”

In the story, a mysterious character that Will and Maggie meet bears a peculiar obsession over things that are poisonous. Kang explains that her knowledge and interest of poisonous plants came from her own childhood fascination with plant life growing out in the wild. When she was younger, she enjoyed learning and making note of anything that grew around her. Later in college, she was drawn into herbology and the medicinal aspect of plants, which became especially important when she was studying to become a physician. It was amazing to her how simple, everyday plants found in the most common places could be used in medications as important as heart medicine and chemotherapy treatment. She said, “We’re surrounded by all these things, you know, yew trees, or yew shrubs, they’re these evergreens in people’s front lawns all the time…there’s a chemical in that that’s used in chemotherapy…so I’m always looking and seeing things and just fascinated by how plants feed us, and they cure us, and they poison us depending on what they’re doing. I just really love that relationship we have with that natural world.”

In addition to historical fiction, Kang has also written several young adult fiction novels. While many YA novels include characters that are younger than 18, she said that anywhere from a quarter to 50% of her YA readers are adults. There’s a common misconception that YA novels contain light-hearted, fluffy subject matters, however, Kang argues that teen books now are filled with serious and relatable topics, such as trauma, abuse, generational conflict, racism, and other relevant issues that people of all ages deal with. “I think that what ultimately matters is that if you can write a good story and it gets into the hands of readers, you’ve done a great job and we shouldn’t discount the fact that literature is literature and the more people read the better and so if it so happens that it’s young adult and this is a book or series that’s just sparking so much interest in a large readership, that’s better because we all get to experience other lives through books and I think that’s ultimately really good for everybody.”