Off-Label Use: The Millions Interviews Anne K. Yoder

I’ve long admired Anne K. Yoder’s writing, which I first encountered in a 2009 fiction workshop led by Lynne Tilman. Ten years in the making, Yoder’s debut is a stunner, which challenges readers to think deeply about the impact of pharmaceuticals on our mental, emotional, and physical health. A poetic dystopian text that blends multiple voices, The Enhancers has haunted me since I read it. I was so excited to catch up with Anne and discuss her work in greater detail for this interview.

Arielle Bernstein: The Enhancers is such a beautiful novel. I know that when we spoke more casually the other day you had mentioned this is a project that you’ve been working on for years, but when I was reading, I definitely saw echoes of recent events like the pandemic, so I was curious: how long have you been thinking about The Enhancers?

I’ve been working on the book for about 10 years, so it’s like time has caught up with the book. Thinking about illness and pharmaceuticals has been a large part of my life in terms of my work as was an endeavor to bring pharmaceuticals and that world that I know into my creative work, and to think about what roles pharmaceuticals play in our world. It’s such a large part of our lives and our nation’s GDP. This really become apparent recently, like with the Covid vaccine. I am totally pro-vaccination, by the way, and I think the vaccine is incredible, but we’re also aware of how much money was thrown at drug companies to develop vaccines. And now the companies have ownership of the patents and choose not to share that information to make a larger profit. And then, of course, climate change is also on so many people’s mind. It’s terrifying, and there’s an awareness that we’re not altering how we live or the larger systems that can have an effect. I wanted to look a little into the future at the possibilities of what this all looks like, and also what it’s like being a young person coming of age with these different forces at play.