{"id":42355,"date":"2017-06-14T11:33:32","date_gmt":"2017-06-14T15:33:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/?p=42355"},"modified":"2017-06-14T11:52:09","modified_gmt":"2017-06-14T15:52:09","slug":"lonesome-lies-before-us-don-lee-author-interview-booklist-reader","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/lonesome-lies-before-us-don-lee-author-interview-booklist-reader\/","title":{"rendered":"Lonesome Lies Before Us by Don Lee + Author Interview [in The Booklist Reader]"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"\u201cNope! I\u2019ve never had any aspirations to be a musician\u201d: Don Lee talks LONESOME LIES BEFORE US<\/strong><\/p>\n

When Don Lee<\/a>\u2019s first book came out 16 years ago,\u00a0he probably didn\u2019t know then that more than half his writing career would be spent in Rosarita Bay, a fictional California seaside town that bears more than a passing resemblance to the real-world Half Moon Bay on Highway 1 in Northern California. Of the five books\u00a0Lee has published to date, three\u00a0have been Rosarita-bound.\u00a0Yellow<\/a><\/em> \u2013\u00a0his wonderfully quirky debut \u2013 is set there, and\u00a0in\u00a0Wrack & Ruin<\/em> (2008), we meet a Rosarita-based artist-turned-brussels-sprouts farmer and his estranged, money-and-image-obsessed movie-producer brother in the midst of an unplanned reunion.<\/p>\n

Lee’s latest novel, Lonesome Lies Before Us<\/em> \u2013 out\u00a0last week \u2013 puts us back on\u00a0familiar ground.\u00a0Today\u2019s Rosarita Bay may be on the brink of bankruptcy, but it’s still the right place for former musician Yadin Park, who inherited a ramshackle house from a grandmother he barely knew. Currently in the carpet business\u00a0and dating the boss’s daughter, his hearing is getting worse, though he\u00a0still manages to write songs in his\u00a0pieced-together home studio. Then Yadin’s\u00a0old lover and music partner (who made it big) reappears in his life, showing what happens when loneliness and hope collide.<\/p>\n

Recently, I caught up with Lee for\u00a0an online interview, but I forgot to ask him about his obsession \u2013 windsurfing! We still\u00a0had plenty of topics to cover, however, including recessions, panic, golf course owners, (un)intentional plans, and K-pop.<\/p>\n

What made you go back to Rosarita Bay?<\/strong>
\nA false start, actually. Originally, I was going to make it a road book, in which a singer-songwriter was going on his last tour for his last self-released album, and he was going to visit four cities where his former bandmates lived. But I realized this wasn\u2019t a book I wanted to write, and I panicked! I decided it\u2019d be better to set it in one place, and at first I considered a facsimile of Marfa, Texas, where I\u2019d spent a few summers, and then I thought of Rosarita Bay. I wondered what had been happening in the town that\u2019s its inspiration, Half Moon Bay, California, and I learned all sorts of stuff had been going on there that aligned with what I wanted \u2013 namely, how it\u2019d been affected by the great recession. The city almost had to declare bankruptcy.<\/p>\n

Panic worked in this case for sure! So that golf course resort\/luxury hotel in Lonesome:\u00a0<\/em>Am I wrong in thinking Woody from Wrack & Ruin<\/em> had anything to do with it? And did I miss any other overlaps?<\/strong>
\nYes, that\u2019s the golf course and hotel that Woody was helping to develop in Wrack & Ruin<\/em>! I have other place references from that book and from Yellow.<\/em> In early drafts, I had recurring characters as well from the earlier books, but I ended up taking them out because they seemed distracting.<\/p>\n

I LOVE those details. I need to read all three in order now to see where the overlaps are!!<\/strong>
\nThe books do follow a trajectory in terms of the town\u2019s economic ups and downs.<\/p>\n

Are any parts of Yadin\u2019s career autobiographical? Were you\/are you a musician, too?<\/strong>
\nNope! I\u2019ve never had any aspirations to be a musician, like some people have already assumed. I do, however, play bad guitar. I mean, like, I will never become a good guitar player no matter how much I practice. I played in high school, then got back into it about three years ago. What\u2019s changed in the intervening time is the Internet. There are thousands of guitar tabs and YouTube instructional videos available, so it\u2019s much easier to learn to play songs.<\/p>\n

Given your love of not-Half Moon Bay, any plans to ever live there someday? <\/strong>
\nOh, I would love to have a place there or in that area someday! But it\u2019s very expensive, you know. Plus, I think I am now an East Coast guy. Though I will likely return to Rosarita Bay sometime in the future in another book.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m reading a pattern of sorts with your fiction \u2013 more comical (Yellow<\/em>) set in Rosarita Bay, more serious (Country of Origin<\/a><\/em>) set elsewhere, more comical (Wrack & Ruin<\/em>) back in Rosarita Bay, more serious (The Collective<\/a><\/em>) set elsewhere, not as comical but more comical than not (Lonesome<\/em>) back once more in Rosarita Bay. Is that coincidental? Do you have a master plan? <\/strong>
\nI think that has more to do with my moods than any intentional plan. For instance, I\u2019ll write about race in one book, get sick of it, and not write about it in the next book. The Rosarita Bay books happen to fall into the non-race rotations, so maybe that\u2019s why they\u2019re less serious. Not sure what the next visit will entail!<\/p>\n

Given this not-intentional pattern, the next title to hit shelves is gonna tend toward more serious. Care to give us a sneak peek?<\/strong>
\nI think it will be about an architect. I\u2019m really interested in mid-century modernism and minimalism. But for some reason, I want to throw in a K-pop star who is hiding from a scandal in there. And maybe something about a chef!<\/p>\n

Published<\/strong>: \u201c\u2018Nope! I\u2019ve never had any aspirations to be a musician\u2019: Don Lee talks LONESOME LIES BEFORE US,\u201d The Booklist Reader<\/em>, June 13, 2017<\/a><\/p>\n

Readers<\/strong>: Adult<\/p>\n

Published<\/strong>: 2017<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cNope! I\u2019ve never had any aspirations to be a musician\u201d: Don Lee talks LONESOME LIES BEFORE US When Don Lee\u2019s first book came out 16 years ago,\u00a0he probably didn\u2019t know then that more than half his writing career would be spent in Rosarita Bay, a…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":42290,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,4,6,38,6535],"tags":[84,6608,6668,7235,551,10,7321,13],"class_list":["post-42355","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-adult-readers","category-author-interview-profile","category-fiction","category-korean-american","category-repost","tag-betrayal","tag-bookdragon","tag-booklist","tag-booklist-reader","tag-don-lee","tag-family","tag-lonesome-lies-before-us","tag-love"],"yoast_head":"\nLonesome Lies Before Us by Don Lee + Author Interview [in The Booklist Reader] - BookDragon<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/lonesome-lies-before-us-don-lee-author-interview-booklist-reader\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Lonesome Lies Before Us by Don Lee + Author Interview [in The Booklist Reader] - BookDragon\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"\u201cNope! 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