The perfect place to end a whirlwind book tour for New York Times bestselling author R.F. Kuang was her home in Boston. The venue was packed to the brim with fans waiting anxiously to hear from the author of a fantasy romantic comedy through a classics-inspired rendering of Hell.

R.F. Kuang celebrated the conclusion of her “Katabasis” book tour at the Crystal Ballroom in Somerville on Tuesday, Sept. 30, hosted by Narrative Bookshop. The author’s husband, Bennet Eckert-Kuang, joined her in discussion for the first time on the tour, a nod to the novel’s driving force of a love story. 

The event’s host, Mila Hossain, owns and operates Narrative Bookshop, located just down the street from where the event was held. Hossain also hosted Kuang’s first book tour stop in Boston on Aug. 26, and led the nationwide preorder campaign for “Katabasis.” The owner opened the event with words of heartfelt gratitude and immense pride for the support she has received in putting together multiple events for the book.

In the book, two graduate students of the practice of analytic magick at Cambridge University, Alice Law and Peter Murdoch, journey to Hell to save the soul of their dissertation advisor, Professor Jacob Grimes. The book is rooted in the highs and lows of academia, a world that both Kuang and her husband know well. Kuang is currently a Ph.D. student of East Asian languages and literatures at Yale, and Eckert-Kuang is a Ph.D. student in philosophy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

The book is steeped in philosophical study. While the author hasn’t concentrated on it herself, she absorbed her husband’s knowledge, going as far as to have philosophical “paradox parties” with him and his philosophy colleagues to learn more about the discipline. 

Her husband also inspired much of the character of Peter, Alice’s academic rival that she can’t help but be drawn to, both in his appearance and his experience with chronic illness. 

Kuang said she was incredibly influenced by T.S. Eliot’s “The Waste Land.” The stunning imagery of the poem brought about many of the large “set pieces” found in the book’s myriad of locations, both real and fantastical. Her further literary influences include books like “The Name of the Rose” by Umberto Eco, the short stories of Jorge Luis Borges, and the works of Vladimir Nabokov. 

“[The works] are these games of text, full of gusto and bravado,” she said. 

Kuang said she wanted to capture the feeling of an exhausted mind constantly thinking about numerous things it cannot let go of. “Katabasis” is crammed with references to classic texts by greats like Plato and Aristotle.

That philosophical struggle between Plato and Aristotle’s ideas of the relationship between the mind and body works as an extended metaphor for Alice and Peter’s journeys. They learn to understand how that relationship works in their lives, as they begin the novel espousing the supremacy of their minds above all, as they live and breathe academia. 

“In Plato’s view, the mind is separate from the body, as the body is a source of vice, and Alice and Peter at the start of the book are sort of trying to flee from their own bodies,” Kuang said. 

She then explained that Alice and Peter take on an Aristotelian view of the mind-body relationship by the end of the book, signaling that they have come to a healthier place. 

“For Aristotle, the soul is a verb and activity, a way and a motion of living,” she said.

While speaking, Kuang effortlessly balanced the heavy academic topics that make up her books with a level of humor and relatability that had the audience laughing with her. Her quick wit in speaking is evident in the dialogue of her books, one of her favorite things to write. She said she often leaves descriptions to the end of her writing process, as she doesn’t need to know those physical details to construct her plots. 

Getting out of Hell, for Alice and Peter, ends up being “an act of grace,” as Kuang put it. 

She didn’t say much about the ending, so as not to risk spoiling the novel, but she stressed that the element of sacrifice was present at the conclusion of the work. 

When asked about her inspirations for the novel, Kuang attributed “Oppenheimer” as one of the film influences for “Katabasis.”

 “Oppenheimer’s Cambridge days are like the world that Alice is trying to break into…the exclusive dream of the academy,” Kuang said. “The abstract scenes as well [were an influence] and being in that hidden world of ideas and the mind.”

Another film influence was that of “The Boy and the Heron” for its stunning visual beauty and its depiction of the experience of grief, as well as “Whiplash” for its exploration of a student’s obsession and toxic relationship with their teacher. 

While writing the book, Kuang said she listened to mainly film scores and classical music, as lyrics distract her writing flow. 

However, when writing certain ending scenes, she said she needed to feel as if she was “on crack,” given the wild nature of the plot at that point, as Alice and Peter descend further into the courts of Hell and scheme to find a way out.

“I listened to Ozzy Osbourne…I feel like Crazy Train is just Alice’s delusional mentality at the end of the book, so I listened to it over and over,” Kuang said. 

When asked about where she gets her ideas for new books, Kuang said that her works are manifestations of her hyperfixations at a given time, which are often introduced to her through films or books. At the moment, she said she was interested in the political and social relationship between the 60s and the 80s, as well as French philosophy and literature. 

“Sometimes I’ll write 10,000 words of something and I’ll realize I’m not interested in it or I can’t take the topic further,” she said. “It’s a process of trial and error and recognizing the good ideas.” 

One of those good ideas must have stuck. At the end of the evening, Kuang announced her upcoming book, titled “Taipei Story,” to be released next year. She described the novel as a literary fiction and coming-of-age story that details the “homecoming fantasy” people living in the diaspora often hold. 

The event offered a smashing homecoming for Kuang from the people of her city, who already anxiously await that next installment in this author’s oeuvre. 

“I was kind of nervous about holding an event this size,” said Narrative owner Hossain, “but it went so well in the end, I’m so glad.”