AudioFile spoke with author Kyle Lukoff and narrator Will Malloy about their friendship and their collaboration on the audiobook of Lukoff’s newest novel for middle-grade listeners, A WORLD WORTH SAVING.

AudioFile: Kyle, why were you hoping to have Will narrate this audiobook? Can you tell us a bit about how you became friends?

Kyle Lukoff: Will and I first met when he was still a high school student. I was visiting to present on my picture book WHEN AIDAN BECAME A BROTHER, and we ended up chatting during the book fair/signing portion of the day. I was impressed by how smart and well-adjusted he seemed, glad to see how focused he was on an acting career, and it was also fun to see what cultural references we had in common despite being from such different generations. He stayed in touch after that day, and once he was a college student we slowly started becoming friends.

I decided I wanted Will to audition for the role after seeing him play the character of Max in Taylor Mac's play Hir. He was amazing in that role, which is a very complex one that requires a lot of careful work to make sure the character doesn't come off as a one-note, annoying caricature, and Will nailed it. I knew we needed to cast a transmasculine narrator, ideally someone younger, and Will fit the bill perfectly, with a very impressive audition.

AF: Will, have you recorded audiobooks or done other work in audio before?

Will Malloy: This was the very first audiobook that I have recorded! I do have some experience working in audio, in two adjacent but different contexts. I am the Senior Reporter for “Possibly,” a sustainability and environmental science podcast that airs weekly on The Public's Radio in Rhode Island and elsewhere on radio stations across the country. For that job, I do everything from recording interviews with scientists to recording scripts to mixing episodes. Also, I have some experience as a Foley artist and actor—I did the live sound effects for a play at the Gamm Theater. Doing an audiobook was new for me, but it allowed me to bring together my work as an actor and in the booth! I think my radio experience helped a lot with the technical side—I tried to read in a way that would be easy to edit because I know what it's like to be on the other side. That let me focus on the most important part of the job at hand: telling A's story.

AF: How did you prepare for recording this particular audiobook?

WM: I was very fortunate because Kyle had sent me an early draft of the book long before there was talk of an audiobook (at least talk that I knew of!). I had read the story and loved it, so as soon as I was offered the role, I knew the story, but I also knew that I had my work cut out for me! Of course, I read the book again, but it was a totally different experience when I was reading it with the intention of preparing to read it aloud. I really wanted to know who these people were, so I called Kyle to refine my understanding and interpretation of each of the characters and the project of the story overall. A, his friends, his rabbi, his family—these people are so rich and so different from each other. I think knowing Kyle personally helped me prepare, too. He has a wonderful and biting and often dry sense of humor that you can really hear when you're reading and I wanted that sound to come through.

AF: What part of A's story was the most joyful to write? And to narrate? What about the most challenging?

KL: The most joyful parts of this book for me are the ones where A gets to hang out with trans kids his own age, outside the control of their parents. It was so fun to see him bounce off of all these different people, and for them to get to be just teenagers hanging out instead of terrified, vulnerable kids running away from unsafe situations. My favorite thing about being trans is getting to know and love other trans people, and I hope that shines through.

 WM: I agree with Kyle that the parts where A is hanging out with his friends are so full of life and joy. The story also prominently features a golem, and I really loved reading those scenes. I thought of myself as reading in A's voice the whole time as the story is told from his point of view. Even when there are other characters speaking, I tried to imagine how to speak as those people, but filtered through A's sound, which was a fun challenge.

The book also features a good amount of Hebrew and Yiddish, which aren't languages I speak. Luckily, my roommate and friend wants to be a rabbi, so he was kind enough to sit down with me and help me figure out how to pronounce the prayers, phrases, and words I didn't know yet. I made a bunch of voice memos on my phone of him and me and often Kyle saying those phrases, which was a huge help to me in the booth! So if you catch any mispronunciations in the book, you can blame those guys, not me . . .

AF: Kyle, your story emphasizes the importance of working together with community, instead of fighting alone as a "chosen one.” What pushed you to write it that way?

KL: My political beliefs, frankly. I am against anything that prizes self-sufficiency over interdependence, and didn't want to write a story about a Most Special Boy who saved the world because that is never how it happens.

AF: What advice do you have for young people wanting to write their own stories?

KL: Do it! There will never be a better time. Which does not mean that now is a good time, but it is the time we are living in, which means that it is the time you have. Don't wait for a better time because you might never find it.

AF: Is there anything else you would like to share with us about A WORLD WORTH SAVING?

KL: This is the hardest book that I've written so far. And while I wish it weren’t so "timely," I do think it ironic that it is a book I deeply want people to read, and the full force of the federal government has made it clear that they want to keep it out of the hands of its most appropriate audience.

WM: While I love A very much and feel very connected to his story in certain ways, I want to be clear that his story and mine are not synonymous. I think it's easy to conflate the author's life or the actor's life with the character's life, especially when all three of us are trans men—or trans boys, I suppose (no spoilers about whether or not A becomes a bar mitzvah in this book!). Like A, I was a trans teenager, but our experiences of being trans teens were very, very different. There are many parts of A that I understand better because of that, but there are even other characters that Kyle has written to whom I feel more similar! It is my honor to help breathe life into this story, but my presence in it is as an interpreter and visitor to A's world, which I can only hope that I did with care and truthfulness.

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Kyle Lukoff photo by Marvin Joseph, Will Malloy photo by Nile Hawver