ASIAN AMERICAN PERSONALITIES






Shadow Novelist
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GS: Did you have any trouble interesting a publisher? Tell us about the process of settling on HarperCollins. What role was played by the size of the advance?
SC: The book very quickly found two potential homes. But the other publisher wanted to sign me to a two book deal and I didn't want to do that. With Harper it was less the advance, which I was happy with, than the no-strings-attached nature of the contract that persuaded me. As it turns out, I've stayed with them for book two and Iım very happy about it. Susan Choi

GS: The Foreign Student was published to critical raves on all sides, not to mention high praise from everyone who read it. Did the book achieve distribution and sales on a level commensurate with its critical reception?
SC: I think so. Harper was extremely supportive, considering that the book was a first novel and no one had any reason to believe it would do well at all. The Harper sales reps I met at that time were incredibly excited about the book and I know they truly pushed it. Which is great, because theyıre really at the front lines, selling to booksellers, persuading them to order.

GS: How did the publication of TFS change your life? Did it live up to your expectations?
SC: In many ways my life is the same; writing isn't any easier and I'm no more confident; you could argue that I'm less confident. But my life is certainly different, too. I know that I have a career, so long as I don't blow it. I write almost full time, and when I donıt write I teach writing.

GS: Why did you continue to work as a fact-checker at The New Yorker after TFS was published? Most novelists might have felt tempted to concentrate on writing the second novel.
SC: I stayed at The New Yorker for just a few months after TFS came out. It was comforting to have the routine, and, frankly, the income. The New Yorker is a hard place to leave. Even after I stopped checking, I went back to co-edit the Wonderful Town anthology. Besides, I didnıt have an idea for the second novel yet. I was still waiting.

GS: When did you begin work on your second novel (American Woman)? How did the process of writing it differ from TFS?
SC: I started real writing work in the fall of 99 after almost a year just of reading and thinking. The process was different in that I knew there were people expecting that book of me. TFS was written on the sly; no one ever needed to have known I was doing it. I was also much more rigorous with this book. I threw mountains of pages away. GS: What made you choose the Patty Hearst theme for your second novel? Were you aiming for a theme that was more accessible to the average American reader than TFS?
SC: I stumbled on a reference to Wendy Yoshimura while I was trying to develop something completely different. And no, I didn't think that a story about homegrown revolutionaries hating the government and blowing things up was going to be more accessible to average American readers than the story of a hopeful immigrant. I mean, it may not be. We'll see.

GS: What are some of your favorite novels and novelists? What writers have had the biggest impact on your own writing?
SC: I can't name favorites. I never can.

GS: On the strength of TFS many people would rank you at or near the top of the ranks of Asian American novelists in terms of manifest talent. False modesty aside, can you name any AA novelists who have written a better novel in your judgment?
SC: Iım going to take the fifth on this question, too.

GS: Do you think the American publishing world is seeing something of an Asian American renaissance, what with writers like you, Chang-rae Lee and others?
SC: A renaissance from what? I donıt know of a previous period of significant AA literary output, only of isolated books and writers over the decades. It is certain that there is more AA fiction now than ever before, as there are more Aas now than ever before; both good developments.

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"And no, I didnıt think that a story about homegrown revolutionaries hating the government and blowing things up was going to be more accessible to average American readers than the story of a hopeful immigrant."