To say that Caro Claire Burke’s debut novel, Yesteryear (Alfred A. Knopf, April 7), has generated excitement ahead of its publication next month is to put it mildly.

The book, about a tradwife influencer, Natalie, who wakes up in what appears to be the pioneer-era past she’s been glorifying online, was snapped up by Knopf in a June 2024 bidding war for what Deadline called “big money.” Weeks later, the film rights were auctioned for more big money to Amazon MGM Studios, with Anne Hathaway to star and produce. In a starred review, Kirkus calls it “deliciously funny, topical, and fiercely intelligent.”

Burke, 32, who has an MFA from the Bennington Writing Seminars and worked as an editor at Katie Couric Media, says she’s “very aware” that nothing about the reception for Yesteryear was normal. “It was crazy,” she says over Zoom from her Virginia home. Our conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

What prompted you to write the novel?

In winter 2024, when the obsession with tradwives hit the zeitgeist, I’d been writing for 10 years and felt burnt out, so I decided to take some time offto chill. I started engaging in the conversation on TikTok about tradwives, approaching it through the lens of feminism and media literacy. One morning, I woke up with the word yesteryear in my head. I emailed my agentand said, “I have this idea about a woman who wakes up in an alternate time period.” It came quickly after that.

Do you think the writing break was necessary to find your way to this story?

Maybe. Yesteryear wasn’t the kind of book I ever planned to write. When the idea came, it felt like there were stakes, but also no stakes, because it was so different. Worst-case scenario, I’d have fun.

The idea came from your engagement on TikTok?

Yeah. The tradwife [phenomenon] is so rich—every intersection of womanhood is there, and class, race, economics. It felt like a synthesis of ideas I’d been thinking about for a decade, wrapped into a topicripe for a story. As a woman who doesn’t connect with the [traditional] vision of womanhood, I have always itched at these conversations. I’m feminine—but authoritative and brash. Where does that put me?

I was also interested in whether the fact that women were following these [tradwife influencer] accounts meant they wanted that life. There are parallels to the 1950s. Those images of 1950s housewives came only after women were pushed out of the jobs they’d gotten in the war and forced back into the home. Then this universe of reinforcement was created. We’ve mixed up cause and effect. The child care crisis, the wage gap—I think women are looking at [tradwife content] now because we’ve failed to provide not just solutions, but also the language to talk about it. Women are deciding between girlboss and tradwife? That doesn’t feel right. Yesteryear was cathartic for me, pushing these ideas to their conclusions.

Natalie is unlikable, yet I rooted for her. How do you feel about her?

I knew she’d [either] be an antihero or straight-up villain. I’ve never written a female character everyone likes. Natalie pushes that to the extreme. It was important to me that she doesn’t really grow, though she has small epiphanies.

I love how ambitious she is. And I feel empathy for her, because her moral framework is so clear. She genuinely feels like she’s going to go to hell if she doesn’t accomplish the things she is meant to accomplish, but she doesn’t want to do them. I relate to the feeling of pushing up against those walls.I detest so much about her, but I admire a woman who believes she has the right to remake the world, even in a way I detest.

Natalie’s husband is drawn into the misogynistic online “manosphere.” Your thoughts about it?

The book is inherently about America right now. Two years ago, we were talking about how we would position a tradwife novel under the first female president. So much has happened. The tradwives were a canary in a coal mine. The manosphere scares me less now than it did then. There’s a certain calm that comes with seeing things come to fruition and to be like, Well, we saw this coming.

Did you write thinking something was absurd only to see it actually happen?

Absolutely. Yesteryear is absurd—sometimes almost slapstick. But it feels a bit less absurdthan it did two years ago. I hope it still feels entertaining and cathartic.

What kind of research did you do for the book?

I spoke to a lot of Mormon and evangelical women to get a baseline understanding of therequirements in a fundamentalist Christian community. But I didn’t want Natalie to be a specific religion. It’s meant to be a little vague.Once I started writing, I stopped researching.

How can a novel help us contend with ideas in a way that, say, social media can’t?

I can get a bunch of people to share a TikTok video and deliver an argument. But a novel is not an argument; it’s an experience. Every person who reads Yesteryear has a slightly different view on it. Every reader will have an experience with the novel that has nothing to do with me.

Tell me what the auction was like for you.

Crazy. We did the book and film auctions all in one month. We got a [preemptive offer] like 30 minutes after we sent it out. It was like winning the lottery. And with the film auction, I was like, That’s my first draft! I thought 10 people would be reading that, and then it was hundreds. It was sort of embarrassing.

Are you worried about what comes next?

It’s terrifying. I’m working on a second book, which is a good balm. There’s a lot of anticipation. I also know it’s a privilege to worry—because people have given you attention, and that’s the rarest of commodities.

How important do you think having a social media platform was in selling the book?

I had a smaller social media platform at the time—probably 50,000 followers on TikTok—but for a writer, it was a lot. I think it made a difference that I had a platform on which I had gained followers [who] were directly relevant to what I wanted to write about and that I was comfortable being on social media.

How involved will you be in the movie adaptation?

The best advice my agent gave me was not to write the script. I’m an executive producer and give feedback. When you write a novel, you’re in total control. A screenwriter has to take into consideration the opinions of 20 to 50 people. I picked a team I trusted. They can make it however they want. The novel is my responsibility. The film is not.

How has writing this book changed your life?

I quit my job. I get to spend time working on a novel and not getting up at 5 a.m. Yesteryear taught me I could take a big swing. Readers can have their opinions. I feel like I pulled it off. That was transformative—to have confidence that I could write in a way I didn’t think I could. It’s made me think, Wow, what else could I do?

Amy Reiter is a writer in Brooklyn.