{"id":42526,"date":"2017-07-26T10:33:47","date_gmt":"2017-07-26T14:33:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/?p=42526"},"modified":"2017-07-25T11:15:25","modified_gmt":"2017-07-25T15:15:25","slug":"author-interview-don-lee-bloom","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/author-interview-don-lee-bloom\/","title":{"rendered":"Author Interview: Don Lee [in BLOOM]"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Q&A with Don Lee: False starts, being radical & letting go of the small stuff<\/strong><\/p>\n

More than four years have passed since I chatted with Don Lee<\/a> for Bloom<\/em><\/a>. The paperback version of his 2012 novel, The Collective<\/em><\/a>, was about to come out. We were talking about telling stories for the sake of stories, without having to include\/feature\/confront\/revolve around Really Big Topics like identity and race. Lee had explained to one of his book tour groupies \u2013 who\u2019d asked about having to write about being Korean American just because he was Korean American \u2013 that such expectations were no longer requisite. \u201cMy generation has to deal with those kinds of questions,\u201d he told his inquisitor, \u201cso the next generations won\u2019t have to, and you can just tell pure stories.\u201d<\/p>\n

Five years since The Collective<\/em>, Lee\u2019s new novel is lighter, funnier, yet still touched by Lee\u2019s signature seriousness. Lonesome Lies Before Us\u00a0\u2013 <\/em>out last month \u2013 returns readers to Rosarita Bay, the fictional California seaside town where two of his previous books were set, that bears more than a passing resemblance to the real-world Half Moon Bay on Highway 1 in Northern California.<\/p>\n

Certainly, when Lee\u2019s first book,\u00a0Yellow<\/a><\/em>, came out 16 years ago (he landed his publishing contract the week of his 40th<\/sup>\u00a0birthday!), he probably didn\u2019t know that more than half his writing career \u2013 three of five books \u2013 would be spent in Rosarita Bay.\u00a0Yellow\u00a0\u2013 <\/em>his wonderfully quirky short story collection \u2013 introduces us to the small town, and his third book, the novel\u00a0Wrack & Ruin<\/em>\u00a0(2008), features an artist-turned-Brussels-sprouts farmer and his estranged, money-and-image-obsessed movie-producer brother during an unplanned reunion there.<\/p>\n

Now in\u00a0Lonesome<\/em>, today\u2019s Rosarita Bay may be on the brink of bankruptcy. And yet it\u2019s 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 and dating the boss\u2019s daughter, his hearing is getting worse, though he still manages to write songs in his home studio. Then Yadin\u2019s old lover and music partner (who made it big) reappears in his life, showing what happens when loneliness and hope collide.<\/p>\n

What made you go back to Rosarita Bay?<\/strong>
\nI had a false start on this novel. Originally, I was going to make it a road book, where 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 that 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, 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 declared bankruptcy.<\/p>\n

Panic WORKED in this case for sure! And going back to what you call \u201cfalse starts\u201d \u2026 I\u2019m quoting from your recent piece in\u00a0Lit Hub<\/a>: \u201cI began to realize something alarming and dismaying: This is now my method, my process. I need to lose a year to a false start \u2013 to a crucible of panic and despair, anguish and self-flagellation, and the abject fear that I\u2019ll never be able to finish another novel \u2013 before I can actually begin the book I want to write.\u201d What happens to all those \u201cfalse starts\u201d? Do you save them? Might you rework them?<\/strong>
\nI wish I could recycle the material that I had to dump, at least for a short story, but I haven\u2019t been able to thus far.<\/p>\n

Ooooh, but YES, PLEASE do another collection!<\/strong>
\nI\u2019m thinking of working on another story collection next! I\u2019ve published a few stories in the intervening years, but I think tonally they\u2019re wrong for the next book. Overall, they\u2019re too harsh, and I\u2019ve arrived at a gentler, wiser me, mostly because I am older.<\/p>\n

Your latest protagonist, Yadin Park, also seems gentler, wiser, older. Do I detect other synchronous details? Could some part of Yadin\u2019s career be 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.<\/p>\n

So you\u2019re a\u00a0not<\/em>-wannabe musician who plays guitar. And any other fictional parts that might be autobiographical? I ask because you managed to ferret out details about everything \u2013 say, housecleaning in a hotel, photography, music recording, carpeting \u2013 all so incredibly accurately.<\/strong>
\nBetween college and grad school, I worked for a painting and construction company, so I was familiar with manual labor. In high school, I also bagged groceries and was a short-order cook in a snack bar. Although I came from a privileged background, I got a glimpse of the working-class life that I always wanted to portray. And I was a photographer in high school. But most of the stuff I simply researched on the Internet. I was able to get beyond Google because I could access LexisNexis through the university.<\/p>\n

You\u2019re also incredibly thorough in providing details \u2013 for example, descriptions\/symptoms of Yadin\u2019s hearing disease, Yadin\u2019s instruments, even how Yadin treats his acne. Dare I say, is there a bit of OCD-ish attention going on here?<\/strong>
\nWell, I fully admit that I am OCD, and that I tend to overdo the research. (The acne, though, I did not have to research; I had bad acne for a long time.) I was telling friends that if I had to do it all over again, I would have stripped everything and made it into a really slim book, say 200 pages. But the friends argued that it would have been an entirely different book, and I guess I have to agree.<\/p>\n

One of my most literary reader friends recently commented thusly about you when I mentioned we were chatting today: \u201cI thought about all his books. How the Asian American men are accessible and (very) appealing and average (all in all, a kind of anti-Amy Tan\u00a0and against all the negative stereotypes of API men\u2026). How Asian American-ness of his characters is almost incidental and, to me, it just assumes a non-issue, which of course is highly political. An anthropology or lit professor should do a psycho-social or socio-cultural analysis of his books. Or an ethnic studies course based on Lee\u2019s books. The messaging is effing radical in its subtlety.\u201d Care to comment \u2013 on negative stereotypes, incidental-ness, being effing radical?<\/strong>
\nIn this book, I was trying to be subversive in not mentioning\u00a0any<\/em>\u00a0character\u2019s ethnicity. I did think that was a subtle but radical thing to do. It really began with my story collection,\u00a0Yellow,\u00a0<\/em>having Asian American characters who were pretty regular people \u2013 or at least not having their being Asian American central to their characterizations. At the time, some critics and readers found that to be revolutionary. But that\u2019s how endemic the whole ethnic literature box was back then, this expectation that any Asian American story deal with discrimination or identity or diaspora. It\u2019s still like that in many ways.<\/p>\n

Sometimes I think we\u2019re going backwards. Thankfully, though, you\u2019re getting some fabulous reviews coming in:\u00a0Washington Post<\/em><\/a>,\u00a0Wall Street Journal<\/em><\/a>, to name a few. Do you read your reviews? Do critics \u2013 especially those from different cultural backgrounds \u2013 \u201cget\u201d your books?<\/strong>
\nI do read the reviews, although I think it\u2019d be better for my psyche if I didn\u2019t! Thus far, the reviewers have been spot-on with what I tried to do with\u00a0Lonesome Lies Before Us,<\/em>\u00a0and maybe they were with\u00a0Yellow,<\/em>\u00a0but I recall thinking that a lot of reviews were off the mark with the other books. I think it\u2019s confusing to critics (and maybe readers) that my books are so radically different from one another.<\/p>\n

Have you ever read a review that made you change something about your writing?<\/strong>
\nI\u2019m trying to remember. I can\u2019t pinpoint exactly what it\u2019s been, but there have been times when reviewers have spotted a tic or tendency I have, and I\u2019ve been mindful not to repeat it or overuse it.<\/p>\n

A tic or tendency?<\/strong>
\nSorry, I can\u2019t recall. Perhaps I\u2019ve blanked it out on purpose! But I do know that I tend to rely on satire too much, and I wanted to avoid that as much as possible in\u00a0Lonesome,<\/em>\u00a0because I wanted this to be an honest book, like the type of music Yadin is trying to produce.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m reading a pattern of sorts with your fiction \u2013 more comical (Yellow<\/em>) in Rosarita Bay, more serious (Country of Origin<\/em><\/a>) elsewhere, more comical (Wrack & Ruin<\/em>) back in RB, more serious (The Collective<\/em>) elsewhere, not as comical but more comical than not (Lonesome<\/em>) again in RB. Is that coincidental? Or 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 be!<\/p>\n

Given this pattern, the next title to hit shelves is likely to tend more toward serious \u2026 care to give us a sneak peek?<\/strong>
\nAs I said, I\u2019m toying with writing a story collection, but I\u2019ve also been thinking about a short novel 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

And what about writing about race makes you \u201cget sick of it\u201d?<\/strong>
\nI think it\u2019s actually answering to publishing that sort of book, going out on tour and doing interviews where we talk about race but not about the actual book. Then 1) I feel like I am being asked to generalize about Asian Americans, and 2) I feel like a hypocrite, exploiting the whole subject just to sell some books. After I go through the whole process of promoting that book and talking\u00a0ad nauseam<\/em>\u00a0about race, I don\u2019t want to touch race again for a while.<\/p>\n

Speaking of touring\u00a0\u2013 book\u2019s been out a month already! How are your readers treating you out there on the road?<\/strong>
\nMy tour is over, thank God! I\u2019ve talked to you in the past about how tours fill me with anxiety and dread. I did seven readings, and the reception was good, though the crowds were smaller. I think this is par for the course these days. People don\u2019t go to a lot of readings anymore. That\u2019s why I didn\u2019t \u201cread\u201d that much, per se. I would say what the book was about, read for six minutes, and then I would be interviewed onstage by another writer friend who\u2019d read the book. People generally really liked that format, and I have to say, so did I, compared to the usual reading.<\/p>\n

You used to mentor a lot of folks when you were the\u00a0Ploughshares<\/em><\/a>\u00a0editor. Now you nurture them as a professor at Temple University. How different is that nurturing\/teaching process?<\/strong>
\nYou know what? It\u2019s not that different in that respect, I\u2019ve found. The job, of course, is entirely different, but the end result is the same \u2013 trying to help launch literary careers, and editing their work. At\u00a0Ploughshares,<\/em>\u00a0I used to get my yah-yahs doing geeky techy stuff, like typesetting the issues and programming databases, and when I take my turn being director of the MFA program at Temple (we rotate every few years), I get to indulge that side with spreadsheets and strategic planning again.<\/p>\n

So many writers teach on the side. Some are better writers than teachers. Some turn out to be better teachers than writers. Which might you be? What would your students say?<\/strong>
\nWell, to be honest, I think I\u2019m still a little stiff with my students. I intimidate them. But I\u2019ve worked at loosening up over the years. I\u2019m constantly learning to be a better teacher.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s the most important lesson you\u2019ve learned as a teacher?<\/strong>
\nTo have a sense of humor, and let go of the small stuff \u2013 just as in life.<\/p>\n

Author interview<\/strong>: “Q&A with Don Lee: False starts, being radical & letting go of the small stuff,” Bloom<\/em>, July 25, 2017<\/a><\/p>\n

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

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

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