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Photo by Nancy Mundo
You read it in almost every interview with successful writers. "Write about what you know." For Los Angeles writer Lisa See, this is not some empty mantra. It's clearly the secret to her success.
For years now, See has been writing about what she knows: sisterhood, her Chinese-American culture, and kick-ass women who, despite all odds, are determined to control their destiny.
And boy does she know her stuff:
In On Gold Mountain, she wrote about her great-grandfather, Fong See, and the development of LA Chinatown; In Half and Half, her grandmother's funeral became the setting for her essay on growing up a Chinese-American with red hair and freckles; In Dragon Bones, she discussed the Yangtze River gorges near the edge of the Tibetan plateau, "the roof of the world": the Qutang, Wuxia, and Xiling Gorges, known collectively as the Three Gorges: a wonder of nature with walls and cliffs as steep as 3,000 feet. In Snow Flower and the Secret Fan, she wrote about nu schu, a phonetic, gender-based language used by women in Hunan Province in China; In Peony in Love, she wrote about foot binding and The Three Wives Commentary, the first book ever written and published by women anywhere; Through triumphs and tragedies she’s shared ghost stories, spells, remedies, anecdotes, fiction and nonfiction in amazing detail that all ring true in all of her writing.
In her latest book, Shanghai Girls, See brings all of it together for what has to be her most personal book yet. We meet Pearl and May Chin, beautiful sisters, who are models in Shanghai, the Paris of Asia in the late 1930s. But when their father loses all of the family’s money, he sets his daughters up in arranged marriages to Chinese-American brothers who’ve traveled from Los Angeles to Shanghai looking for brides.
This is just the beginning of an adventure of a lifetime that will take these sisters through a war-torn China, across the Pacific to an America you never knew existed: Angel Island, Hollywood, Los Angeles, Chinatown, and China City. What follows is their powerful struggle to find their place as wives, sisters, and Americans amidst discrimination, Communist paranoia, and the old ways that rule their new community.
Shanghai Girls is Lisa See at her best. Her tireless research and all of the interesting facts and tidbits aside, Lisa See continues to find success because she writes about what she knows best: sisterhood, her Chinese-American culture, and strong, determined women. The rest is just a bonus.
Shanghai Girls by Lisa See is a New York Times bestseller and is available now at Barnes & Nobles and bookstores everywhere. To read the first chapter of Shanghai Girls for free, visit Lisa See’s website.
I met up with Lisa See the other day at the Malibu Performing Arts Center and again at the Barnes & Nobles bookstore in Encino where I had a few questions for her:
Q. You must have an entire team of researchers. Your stories alone seem so authentic, but you always manage to throw in something extra, some tidbit of Chinese culture that adds something special to the mix. How do you research this stuff? And when you make an interesting discovery, like The Three Wives Commentary, how does it affect your writing process?
A. I love research. I'd go so far as to say I'm a research fanatic. I also over research. In some ways it’s my favorite part of writing a book. Some writers hire people to do research. I could never do that, because I never know what I’m going to find that will completely change the course of a book. I live close to UCLA and I love to spend time in the Research Library stacks. But the real excitement comes from going places—I go to every place I write about—and from talking to people. Then, when I come across something amazing, I think to myself, “Oh, I’ve got to use this!” I felt that way when I first read about ghost marriages. I felt that way when I first learned that unmarried women in China were left outside to die. Sometimes some little fact will trigger my imagination.
Q. Your work has been optioned for films and even adapted into an opera. Do you embrace these other storytelling opportunities or are you concerned about how your work will translate into other media?
A. I loved writing the libretto for the opera for On Gold Mountain. The whole experience was incredible. I loved the composer and the director. It was a true collaboration – my first. I also curated an exhibit based on On Gold Mountain for the Autry Museum of Western Heritage, which then moved to the Smithsonian. These two projects changed the way I approach writing. Opera tells stories through the pure emotion of music. An exhibition has to tell a story purely visually. I’ve tried to incorporate both of those things – pure emotion and being more visual – into my writing. I don't know how I'll feel if one of the novels gets made into a film. I go to the movies just like everyone else. How many times have you come out of a movie and said, "But the book was so much better"? I have high, but cautious, hopes.
Q. You've found success in non-fiction, in the mystery genre, and now in straight storytelling. Do you think about genre when you sit down to write? Is there one form you prefer more than the others? Are we going to see any more mysteries in the future?
A. I write what I'm interested in. Sometimes it's something I've thought about for years. Other times it's something that’s just come to me. All I can do is hope that other people will connect to the story too. Will there be more mysteries? Maybe. David and Hulan – the characters in the Red Princess series – have been through a lot. I like to think of them on a beach somewhere, sitting under a palm tree, and sipping drinks with little umbrellas in them.
Q. I know that Bob Dylan has been a major influence on how you write, but who are the biggest influences on what you write – or why you write?
A. My mom, Carolyn See, is the biggest influence. We write about completely different things: she writes in a very colloquial style about contemporary Los Angeles; I write – or try to write – in the style of the time I’m writing about in China's past. That said, my work habits come directly from my mom. I write a thousand words a day. She also taught me not to be afraid of editing. Everything and anything can be fixed. After my mom, I would have to say that Wallace Stegner's Angle of Repose has been a big influence on how I approach writing. I even used a line from that book as the epigraph for On Gold Mountain: "Fooling around in the papers my grandparents, especially my grandmother, left behind, I get glimpses of lives close to mine, related to mine in ways I recognize but don’t completely comprehend. I’d like to live in their clothes a while." I'm still trying to do that: linger in old papers and live in other people's clothes for a while.
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Photo by Nancy Mundo
Q. Like many Angelenos, myself included, you straddle two very different cultures. How do you balance how you see yourself and how others see you?
A. I really can't worry too much about how others see me. Chinatown today is not the Chinatown of my childhood. Today when I go there, I’m sure people look at me as a lo fan, but I feel completely at home. When I go to China, it’s just a larger version of Chinatown. I feel very comfortable there even though most people probably look at me and think "tourist." But sometimes when I go into parts of America, I look like I belong but sometimes I just don’t get it. So, as I said, I can't worry too much about how others see me. All I can do is live my life. But that sense of not quite belonging here or there is common for writers, don't you think? That’s why we're observers. That's why we write – to try to explain ourselves to others and to ourselves.
Q. What book are you reading right now? Is there a current writer who you feel is being overlooked or not quite getting the attention he or she deserves?
A. Right now I'm reading The Dreams of My Father by Barack Obama. (I think I’m the last person in America to get around to it.) I'm also reading A Single Tear by Ningkun Wu and Yikai Li. It's a memoir written by a married couple who returned to China in 1951 and suffered greatly. And Southland by Nina Revoyr. I read different things for different purposes during the day.
Q. What’s next for Lisa See?
A. A sequel to Shanghai Girls. I don't feel done with the characters, but more important they aren't done with me.
Shanghai Girls (Random House; May 26, 2009, 336 pages).
Read Lisa See's article on Chinatown.
For more about Shanghai Girls, check out a review by Tonya Irving, my colleague at LA Fiction Book Reviews.
For more info about Lisa See: go to www.LisaSee.com.
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Comments
Another great interview Frank!
Thanks, Alisa. My favorite one yet!
Hihi! A good interview! I'm looking for useful websites where I can read books. Do you have any recommendation?
Bluberrylan
Thanks. This site has 28,000 free books to read, and they're all classics. www.gutenberg.org/wiki/Main_Page
frank
Frank, a thousand thanks!
Blueberry
Hi Frank - great review. As a fellow writer, I'm very interested in the way you manage the review process - describing the book, then moving to the character, then circling back to your review again. You are clearly in control of the genre!
www.rivkahwrites.wordpress.com
Thanks, Rivkah, I really appreciate it. I've been doing this for a long time (about 14 years now)for all sorts of publications -- maybe I'm finally getting the hang of it. I just started following your blog this week and look forward to more.
thanks again
frank
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