The Lure of the Process: Talking with Chang-rae Lee

Chang-rae Lee, born in South korea in 1965, immigrated to the United States with his family when he was iii years old. Afterward attending Phillips Exeter Academy and Yale, and so working on Wall Street, Lee enrolled in the University of Oregon's MFA programme, graduating in 1993 with the manuscript to his first novel, Native Speaker. The iconic novel, which addresses the immigrant experience from a language perspective and was published in 1995, catapulted Lee into the life he has now: a visible writer, and professor of creative writing at Stanford. After Native Speaker , Lee produced A Gesture Life (1999), Aloft (2004), The Surrendered (2011), and On Such a Total Sea (2014), all published by Riverhead.

Lee's latest novel, My Year Abroad, released from Riverhead last month, carries forward his signature themes of absorption, alienation, and identity conflict, only with new and delicious sensuality, peppered with light-hearted humor. Narrating the story is Tiller, a directionless twenty-something navigating his dubious adulthood. When Tiller meets the charismatic chemist and investor Pong Lou, he'due south remarkably inspired and latches on. Pong appreciates Tiller's sincerity, and uncovers Tiller's superpowers of taste and smell. He invites Tiller to accompany him on a business organisation venture trip to Asia, which becomes one sensorial celebration afterward another. Alternate between Tiller's recent by and his nowadays-day life, as surrogate family unit-man for single mom, Val, and her ten-year-former son, Victor Jr., the narrative becomes what Lee calls, "a chat with Tiller and the world." Filled with brilliant characters who alive, swallow, and potable bountifully, but are still oddly unsatisfied, Lee's novel poses eternal questions: Why are we so hungry? Why don't we experience fulfilled?

I talked with Chang-rae Lee via Zoom on the 2d day of his book tour (he had spent the previous day signing sixteen hundred books), and we discussed how the past and nowadays are in conversation, how characters get real, and his delicious moment-by-moment discovery of the writing process.

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The Rumpus: What has it like, releasing a volume during a pandemic?

Chang-rae Lee: Ordinarily, I would accept been in my first city terminal night, feeling excited. The whole point of a book tour is to encounter thoughtful people, interested in your piece of work, who ask questions. They make me feel inspired over again. Information technology's good to talk over with readers, other than your friends and family unit. [Laughs] Zoom events are usually the format where I get to see the person hosting or moderating, but no one else. I miss that connection to readers. On the other paw, information technology's kind of nice to exist home.

Rumpus: I love the new volume, especially Tiller, the narrator. Similar your previous work, the narrator drives the story, and we tin't encounter what'due south coming adjacent.

Lee: Specially in this novel. On the surface, it appears to be an take chances tale or travelogue, but it'due south so much more than. My connected interest in that class of storytelling started with my final novel, On Such a Full Sea. That narrator is too a grapheme who goes off into the world and meets a variety of interesting characters, and I really liked that. Part of the lure in that, for me, is the process: the excitement and curiosity and even a bit of fearfulness, not knowing where y'all're going to go. That keeps me coming back to my desk-bound every morning. Then much of writer'southward block is when the writer sees or knows also much. If the plot is all mapped out, or if yous know the characters too well, discovery and newness and feeling fresh might experience impossible. Information technology might be too much knowledge.

Rumpus: So, your characters lead yous?

Lee: They beckon that fashion. I'k curious, for case, with Tiller, what's the side by side sensation for him? What will he hear or see? Non just something fun or bizarre or interesting, but that which will betrayal still some other tiny piffling layer of him.

Rumpus: This was definitely a multi-sensorial novel. What led you to write it this manner?

Lee: Equally Tiller was going out in the world, I didn't want him to exist a detached observer, who just comments on everything. I really wanted him to plunge into the earth, and he does. He kind of gets a baptism past sauce. [Laughs] Gustation and flavors are interesting to me, but ultimately that'due south not what I care well-nigh. How practice Tiller and Lee, as bodies, savor this life? How do nosotros procedure the pain and pleasure that life gives us?

Rumpus: Tiller, has this baptism most accidentally, whereas the mentor, Pong, is very purposeful.

Lee: Aye. Pong is the guide and mentor, while Tiller is a neophyte of sorts. He'south about to be introduced to all these things in the world that will hopefully shake him out of his complacency, his sense of ordinariness, and his lack of confidence. I actually wanted this novel to exist a total-on bodily experience. People say I'm so interested in food, but information technology's so much more than that. Ultimately, that's non the signal. Food is a way of experiencing some spark of vitality that otherwise couldn't be seen before.

Rumpus: Nutrient connects u.s. to who we are.

Lee: Yeah, we can't avoid it. At the beginning of the novel, information technology'southward clear that Tiller is someone who feels like he has no talents, but all of a sudden Pong recognizes he's a super-taster, or a super-smeller.

Rumpus: Pong tells Tiller something similar, "The important matter is that you figure out what people want and then y'all give that to them, and sometimes they don't know what that is." It turns out, this is very important to Tiller's past and present story, isn't it?

Lee: It's both, right? The story is a conversation with Tiller and the world. He'south observing, he's tasting, he's savoring, he's experiencing, but at the same time, the world is asking things of him, and is exposing him. Then, I believe this is not merely virtually seizing the world; information technology's nearly letting the world seize y'all, for better or worse, and being in a position of vulnerability and wonder.

I was feeling like I had lost that. Here I am, and I'g established, and I have my life. Things are fairly orderly, simply of course the pandemic hitting us. It's an instance of the realm taking a chunk out of u.s.. Nosotros accept to accept that this is not dissonant. This happens all the fourth dimension. It's our asteroid that hit united states of america.

Rumpus: Yep, it had the audacity to hit us! [Laughs] Was Pong modeled after someone you know?

Lee: I've met a lot of people like Pong, particularly one fellow I befriended, simply Pong is kind of an constructing of all these people. The immigrant-striver, for whom the world is not a scary place. They really feel so energized past all the opportunity and chance for fortune. There's a certain kind of kind of pluck and zeal for the adjacent interesting matter. They don't desire to dominion the world, just they see it as their playground. That's the kind of immigrant mentality that I feel similar maybe I've lost. When I start came to this country, I saw my parents' generation beingness settled, established and privileged enough. So, the original inspiration for the book was non Tiller, only Pong. The more I thought nigh him, the more I wanted to tell his whole story. Then, an important question surfaced: Why am I interested in a guy like Pong? Why practice I discover him so highly-seasoned? That'due south where I came upwardly with Tiller: someone who needed to exist shaken and brought back to life.

Rumpus: Pong tells the story of a watermelon, which brings the reader into the terrible history of the Cultural Revolution in Mainland china, where the Crimson Guard destroys the artists and poets and elder sages, people China had previously esteemed. Pong's watermelon story tells how i leader [Mao] tin change the mindset of a whole country. This is still socially relevant today, isn't information technology?

Lee: Absolutely! I wrote nigh the Cultural Revolution and the scary things that came out of it, like the thought mobs that upturned all the intellectuals and artists, during the reign of Trump and his followers. It was one of the reasons why I was making sure that this role of the story came out. I wanted to prove something nigh Pong's background and where he'd come from, simply also the astonishing and scary power of believing a truth that's given to you. The Crimson Guard were zealots. They believed that everything they were taught was absolutely right and admittedly correct. In an instant—just like the Taliban did, bravado up some of their land'due south monuments—they erased the country's history and art. Pong's own father said something like, "I'm just a piece of dust or clay on the heels of a shoe." He felt and so small in the path of people with power. I wanted to balance out Pong'southward striving pluck with what was under-girding all that.

Rumpus: Pong is the lone survivor of his family unit, only carries the story of what his parents went through. Is this why he lives the way he lives?

Lee: Admittedly. That's i of the reasons. When you think nigh information technology, every immigrant has an amazing story, even if they come from a modest background. Some say it was merely dumb luck, or chance. Others say something dramatic happened to get them into this country. All of their stories are inspiring. That's the tragic thing well-nigh some people who are anti-immigrant, as they live their established, mainstream lives: they forget how virtually people in the earth have no safety net. Near people tin can't depend on any system of safety. They're balancing on a proverbial tight rope, and anything tin can push them off. I call back that's what drives immigrants when they come up to this land. I wish those who are anti-immigrant would call up why these people want to come, and what's really driving them.

Rumpus: Do you consider yourself a first- or 2d-generation immigrant?

Lee: Actually, I'm kind of i-point-five. [Laughs]

Rumpus: I ask because I'one thousand tertiary-generation, and it's piece of cake to forget how drastic life is in developing countries.

Lee: Information technology's easy to forget.

Rumpus: In the volume, Tiller is "one-eighth Korean" and nosotros observe out that Val is well-nigh the aforementioned, but their world has been suburban America. They have no real connection to another land. Their unlikely pairing, like many other couples in your body of work, reminds the reader to remember what dear actually is.

Lee: In the context of this volume, I wanted Tiller to have an aftermath, where his life is more settled. Not to have it exist blissful, or an anodyne, but fraught in a different manner. To me, that's the drama of love. Patently, it tin can exist explosive and super passionate, just actually what love is, every bit Leonard Cohen says, "…it'southward non a victory march." It tin can be a slog, a quiet and tedious walk. I wanted to have Tiller at a unlike pacing. With Val, he doesn't want to see pain or unhappiness in Val considering he loves her and so much and they get along. Through that, he has to face life and honey, but in a quiet way. At that place's no malignant graphic symbol out at that place, waiting to pounce. It's all phantom, it's all intramural, within the walls. That might be the scariest thing for him.

Rumpus: Tiller says, at i indicate, that he is going to be "the fuel for her depletions." I felt like that'south a 18-carat part of his love.

Lee: Well, that'southward a very hard affair to do. This is office of Tiller's maturation process, to learn how to love somebody. That'due south how you lot really grow up. To be loved? Yeah, you need that to have some kind of normal life, but to be a grown-up in the real world, you lot have to learn how to love somebody when it's non easy.

Rumpus: The story goes back and along between Tiller'south past and his present. Why did you decide to structure the book like this?

Lee: The two stories are having a conversation. Even though events happened in Tiller'southward past, I wanted the reader to experience the past equally nowadays, as if they were happening simultaneously. I thought information technology would be more than constructive than using flashbacks. I also wanted Tiller to take a conversation with himself across time. He'southward in these frenetic, sometimes garish moments, that could somehow inform or perchance give him wisdom for this moment now, which is of a totally dissimilar tenor, with a new gear up of problems.

In one earth, Tiller has no control. When he'southward traveling with Pong, he goes off into the world, and he's a pawn, he's a puppet. In his new world, present life with Val, Tiller sees that his volition tin can abide. The question is, does he take the stuff to make the right decisions, do the correct things, or to love in the right way? All those things are fifty-fifty harder, right?

Rumpus: His day-to-mean solar day life proves to exist harder. There's the absent Clark, Tiller'southward begetter, divorced from Tiller's mom and whipped around by life. Does Clark fuel Tiller's desire to have Pong in his life?

Lee: Oh, admittedly! Fifty-fifty though Tiller is not an orphan, he kind of feels like ane. He feels like he'due south been orphaned. He loves his dad, but they have more of a pleasant organisation than a father-son relationship. I retrieve Tiller is realizing yous know at that place'due south this whole chip about his mom disappearing, and a lot of missing parenting. There are missing parent figures. The volume is also about parenting and mentorship, and how those 2 things are sometimes aligned. Tiller latches onto Pong so readily, once he feels comfortable. Tiller even calls himself a tick because he'southward non going to allow go, and he'southward going to take everything he can from him. That's one of his depletions that he doesn't actually want to talk about. He doesn't actually go into it, merely we run into the scenes of his mother. In some other book, this might be all almost them, only I didn't desire to become into it that much. What I did desire to do is say this is the bassline of Tiller's vocal.

Rumpus: At one point, Tiller looks at Minori, Pong's married woman, every bit she does yoga. He has a little bit of animalism and then he catches himself, and says, "This is what I remember my mom looked like…."

Lee: Correct. Tiller'southward mom is this veiled figure throughout his life. She appears through her singing and the records she had, and the fashion Tiller focuses on Val. I think his amore for his absent-minded mother moves over to Val, in a weird style. Everything gets mixed upwardly. That's Tiller's life.

Rumpus: You faithfully go to your desk-bound every day. How do yous do information technology? Go from novel to novel and continue to make something surprising and new?

Lee: Well, information technology's a kind of a mystery, to be honest. [Laughs] It takes me a long fourth dimension to settle on a project. I beginning past feeling my fashion into a character, and possible narratives. The mode of the language and the audio of it is very important to me. All those things have to align. I need to experience similar I can sustain the story. I try not to embrace the whole thing all the time. I'm sketching out one little, tiny corner. If I step dorsum and look at the bigger matter, it gets overwhelming.

I think that has allowed me to focus on the important things: who is this consciousness that I'm trying to expose and prod and coax? Because that's essentially what books are, or what literature is: these presentations of unlike consciousnesses in unlike circumstances. Information technology doesn't actually matter what it'south about; what matters is that we gain a new perspective, through this consciousness that we haven't quite heard from nevertheless. That singularity, that distinctiveness, only comes from really doing the work in the small. The story volition reveal itself, as you lot go through a living character. Information technology has to exist a moment-to-moment discovery.

Ane of the great lessons I learned from a instructor—his name was Ehud Havazelet, a wonderful writer who died in 2015—he said, "plot is graphic symbol in the moment." I love that. I tell my students this, especially when they worry virtually what'due south going to happen in the story. It depends on who that character is in that moment. We need to hear from them and through them, which includes everything: the globe in which they live, the place, the time, and their sensation of language. It might also include nods to other books, since we, as writers, are the consequence of our reading and learning. Not that nosotros're parroting anything, but all of this ends upwards existence in us. That's where we find our distinctive vocalism. You tin can't can't engineer it. You lot tin't fake information technology. You can't posture yourself into having a distinctive vocalisation. I tell my students, "The only reason we want to read you is that you are you. Y'all tin requite us something that we have not quite heard from anyone else." That's part of the mystery of how to get at that place.

Rumpus: Has this volume been influenced by specific authors?

Lee: For this volume, it's written in the great tradition of the youthful narrator. There are so many voices I've enjoyed over the years, but I don't think about those things when I"m writing. They're kind of in my bloodstream. Some people say that all my narrators have a certain cousin-ness.

Rumpus: [Laughs] Totally! I always say your narrators are on a quest to find peace.

Lee: You're admittedly correct. They're looking for that peace. I don't know why, considering I've had a peaceful life already. I don't know why they keep looking for information technology. [Laughs] Perhaps I'one thousand afraid that peace could be cleaved at any time.

Rumpus: Do you retrieve that you'll always write the story of your own family unit's journeying over? In a nonfiction or memoir format?

Lee: Well, I've written some shorter pieces of nonfiction for the New Yorker, only I think I might write the whole story of my family unit one day. Nosotros'll see.

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Photo of Chang-rae Lee past Michelle Branca Lee.

Janet Rodriguez is an author, teacher, and editor living in Northern California. In the The states, her piece of work has appeared in Pangyrus, Eclectica, Cloud Women's Quarterly, Salon.com, American River Review, and Calaveras Station. Rodriguez has also co-authored two memoirs, published in Due south Africa. Her work unremarkably deals with themes of morality in faith communities and the mixed-race experience in a culturally binary world. She holds an MFA from Antioch University, Los Angeles. Follow her on Twitter at @brazenprincess. More than from this author →