28 November 2010
I confess that the winter holidays are not my best time of year. They sneak up on me, and all of a sudden I realize I’m tense and furrowed in the brow. From now until January 2, I will, figuratively speaking, be closing my eyes and thinking of England. [Note: I'm not sure where this expression comes from, originally. I know that I took it from Aaron Sorkin/The West Wing and use it probably too often.]
A few years ago it dawned on me that somewhere along the way I’d allowed Rockwellian kitsch to get under my skin. That year, my family had exploded into chaos. On impulse, and with little in the way of better alternatives, I went straight to the source, a kind of exorcism: I spent Christmas at a bed and breakfast in Stockbridge, MA — Norman Rockwell country. We ate prime rib by the hearth, the whole deal. It was snowing buckets. We drove by Rockwell’s house, went to the Rockwell Museum, I even bought the monograph. I learned that Rockwell’s work had been misappropriated; that he was an artist of dimensional talents; that his life and vision were nothing like the weirdly placid winter-wonderland harmony Americans had internalized.
This year, Flavorwire offers us “5 Literary Families More Dysfunctional Than Yours.” Perhaps unsurprisingly, I’ve read each of these, and treasure them all. Enjoy!
Update (thanks, Wendy!): on the origins of the expression “Close your eyes and think of England” – hilarious!
9 November 2010
A former student, J., who lives in Mexico City, sent this delightful message to me on Facebook yesterday:
Hey Sonya, how’s everything?
Just wanted to drop you a line because last week a friend of mine (a writer himself, grandson of the great Mexican writer ________) said he had read your book. His comment: “This is the Korean-American One Hundred Years of Solitude.”
I should hire him as my publicist, no?
25 October 2010
In yesterday’s NYT Sunday Book Review, a review of Danielle Evans‘ debut story collection, Before Your Suffocate Your Own Fool Self, by Lydia Peele. I like the following, which goes out to all the writers and students who’ve said to me, sheepishly, “I feel like I’m always writing about the same people”:
Evans follows girls and young women who are intelligent, gutsy, and black… Rather than limiting the collection’s gaze this perspective amplifies the universal pitfalls of coming of age in 21st-century America.
Also, I’m thinking a lot about child and youth voices in fiction, stories told in the moment of romanticism, some degree of naivete, and limited perspective:
Told from a close distance, these stories lack the rich patina of hindsight, their pleasure coming instead from an immediacy and an engaging voice.
Looking forward also to Rose Tremain‘s new novel, Trespass – reviewed this week by David Leavitt.
9 September 2010
Flavorwire offers up 20th-century literary analogs to some hip-hop superstars. Har har. (Where are the ladies?)
4 September 2010
I enjoyed this piece from Inside Higher Ed by Terri Givens, an African American scholar, called “Why I Study Europe.” I came across it at Bookforum’s Omnivore, in a post called “Race and the Obama Era.“
The Givens piece caught my eye because I am someone who speaks French better than I speak Korean; and because the main character of my second novel is an African American Russophile.
The world is an interesting place.
21 August 2010
So this is what we do in the country: we go to the annual county fair. The pigs were huge, and noisy, and crowded together in small pens. But these two managed to find some repose.
What you realize when you’re around farmers is the very particular disposition that country people have toward animals — something between deep affection and all-business realism. Or more like a layering of the two. These pigs — and the baby goats and lambs and cows — were all waiting their turn to go up for auction. At the risk of stating the obvious: for several months, these animals are something like beloved pets; now, they are all meat. We city folks, we tend not to think too much about how this happens. These animals, by the way, were all raised via the local 4-H club, meaning they were raised by teens-in-training.
This photo was taken from the ferris wheel. We also rode that spinny-swirly thing in the center of the photo.
Good fun, lots of greasy food. Farewell, summer.
12 August 2010
Bookdragon’s Terry Hong has featured Long for This World in her annual “New & Notable APA Roundup” for The Bloomsbury Review. Details here at Bookdragon. Thanks, Terry!
15 July 2010
Tonight, a rare thing happens: I put on a dress, I go downtown. It’s Opening Night of the annual Asian American International Film Festival. 33 years strong and still kicking. The staff (I happen to know) work their butts off, and it shows…
Films screen throughout the weekend into next Wednesday night: acclaimed features and shorts from all over the world, by and about people of Asian descent. At Chelsea Clearview Cinemas and the Quad, mostly, with a few programs at the new Museum of the Chinese in America (MoCA) in Chinatown. There’s a special “New Taiwainese Cinema” series that’s supposed to be excellent.
Check it out — remember, movie theaters are air conditioned!
11 July 2010
I’m not planning on or interested in jumping on the Nicole Krauss-bashing bandwagon with regards to her recent jacket blurb kerfuffle. I’m not even sure kerfuffle is the right word. I do think that Laura Miller‘s piece in Salon, “Beware of Blurbs,” in the wake of all that, is worth a read: she doth speak the truth, I think (although, if I may, let me just say that I have no personal relationship with either of the wonderful authors who wrote blurbs for Long for This World).
What I would like to draw your attention to, a year after Michael Jackson‘s death, are a few recent homages (of sorts) to him that warmed my heart: one at Conversational Reading — a kind of side joke aimed, I suppose, at Nicole Krauss, but giving MJ his due nonetheless; another at The Millions, as part of Jon Sands‘s terrific commencement address to the Bronx Academy of Letters; and finally Nancy Griffin‘s excellent article in the current issue of Vanity Fair, “The Thriller Diaries.”
What can I say. I was 10 years old when Thriller was released. My sisters were 12 and 13. MJ was our Beatles, our James Brown, our Elvis. To some degree, our JFK. From Griffin’s article:
To me, Thriller seems like the last time that everyone on the planet got excited at the same time by the same thing: no matter where you went in the world, they were playing those songs, and you could dance to them. Since then, the fragmentation of pop culture has destroyed our sense of collective exhilaration, and I miss that.
Me, too. RIP, MJ.
9 July 2010
A lovely review of Long for This World at the Asian Review of Books. Here’s an excerpt:
SONYA CHUNG’s debut novel LONG FOR THIS WORLD takes a familiar theme — the tensions within a family straddling new and old, modernity and tradition — and builds something… complex, detailed and illuminating…
The plot advances as much through a short paragraph about a singular memory as it does from an entire chapter told in present day. Chung uses both third and first-person narration, with Jane telling her story in her own voice: the narration switches are effective and transition with success and Jane’s life as a photographer and as a constant observer lend well to first-person narration.
Chung has written a moving debut, one that shows how hyphenated Asian fiction may make a greater penetration into the mainstream.
24 June 2010
A nice mention from Bethanne Patrick, host of The Book Studio, on her blog:
I love literary fiction.
There. I said it. I will no longer be ashamed! I love fiction that explores questions without necessarily giving answers, that eschews happy endings for meaningful ones, and allows characters to transcend archetypal roles.
Sonya Chung believes in literary fiction, too — and it’s what she writes. Her first novel, “Long for This World,” hits another thing that I love, however:
I love fiction about other places in the world.
Is it because my parents had stacks of National Geographic magazines in the basement? Maybe it’s due to my love of actual travel, which my parents also supported.
Chung has written a book that shows Korea and Koreans in a natural light. I so enjoyed speaking with her about “Long for this World,” and I hope you will enjoy watching us, too.
13 June 2010
The good people at The Nervous Breakdown invited me to be their featured fiction writer for this week; which means you have all week to catch me there.
The guys at TNB, led by intrepid founder Brad Listi, along with fiction editor Alexander Chee, are doing really smart and interesting stuff (they’ve even just launched a new publishing imprint); so I’m feeling very aw, shucks about being featured there.
I’ll direct you to their home page – because it’s very cool. The header image cycles through the content for the week, so click on the image of me (thanks to former student/photographer Chris for the photo), and it will take you to an interview — something a little different, as far as interviews go.
Or, here’s the direct link to the interview.
In the blog section, they’ve posted the Long for This World trailer. You’ll also see a link to an excerpt.
This feature reminds me how much of a team effort all this book marketing is. Thanks to Brad and Alex, Chris, Connie, Lisa P., and Terry; and of course Alexis and Amy.
