Shze-Hui Tjoa : The Story Game

Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
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Sm Moss follows the story of 2 sisters

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in 19 eighties
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Sm moss is available now from Tin house.
I can confidently say that today's guest, show
t
memoir is like no other you've ever read.
And I say that with the highest praise.

(02:10):
So it shouldn't come as a surprise that
what she has contributed
for the bonus audio archive today is also
like nothing else as well.
For as long as it has existed, the
contributions to the bonus audio
archive have mostly been readings either of a
writer's own work outside of the main book
discussed or writers reading other writers that they

(02:33):
love, often with really interesting commentaries about them.
Less commonly, there have been kraft talks or
readings that sort of double as mini kraft
talks.
And the archive after that has largely consisted
of long form interviews with translators when a
guest comes on for a book.
That is either not originally in English or

(02:54):
only partially in English. For instance, with the
last episode with Cecilia,
The long form
conversation with Poet and translator
Daniel Bo,
who translated her book is in the Bona
audio archive.
But then last year,
Contributed that brilliant and bonkers and other worldly

(03:17):
extended sound experiment of Moan and g from
various cities on book tour, mixed with various
sounds recorded in space, whether
solar flares or black holes.
And
that mysteriously set off a a mini trend
of people
suddenly sending in sound contributions from Kin Lu
to Nam.

(03:39):
Similarly, very recently, Joy Mcs sw, was the
first person ever in the history of the
show to contribute a video, of video performance
from her Libre pis rex.
And lo and behold, should we try has
also contributed a video,
1 which oblique
deepens our main conversation about her memoir, a

(04:00):
memoir which circles some un things from her
childhood.
And also her life then in a piano
conservatory in Singapore.
For the bonus audio, should we
went beyond the beyond and her gift to
us.
She took 1 of the most formative picture
books from her childhood.
A book that is still deeply meaningful to

(04:23):
her as an adult and translated it for
us from Chinese to English.
First,
she orient us to this book.
Then she shares
a recording of 1 of her friends from
conservatory
playing a piece of music for us
to help bring us back to her childhood

(04:44):
before she reads
this translated book.
And then page by page of this picture
book, she na in English, the Chinese language
text, written along with the incredible
illustrations of Taiwanese illustrator, Jimmy Lia,
all of which we get to see because
it's video.
So this is 1

(05:05):
definitely not to miss.
The Bonus audio is only 1 possible benefit,
1 can choose from when joining the between
the covers community as a listener or supporter.
And you can find out about the many,
many other things from rare collectible to the
10 house early reader subscription
at patreon dot com slash between the covers.

(05:27):
Enjoy today's program
with Shi t.

(06:10):
Good morning, and welcome to between the covers.
I'm David Na, your host.
Today's guest, writer S T is from Singapore.
Studied literature at Oxford
and now lives in the Uk. She is
the non fiction editor at Sun dog,
and her own work has been listed as
notable in 3 successive issues of the best

(06:32):
American assays essays. 2021,
22 and 23.
Her work has appeared everywhere from the Southeast
review to the Colorado review to the quarterly
literary
review, Singapore.
She has been granted residences at the Vermont
Studio center and the green olive of arts
residency in Morocco,

(06:54):
done writing mentorship through the Aw p writer
to writer, mentorship program and the exposition review.
And done workshops with V,
short for voices of our nation's Arts foundation.
1 of the only multi genre writing workshops
for writers of color,
as well as at dis quiet

(07:14):
international and Portugal and the 10 House writers
workshop.
Her essay the story of body was adapted
to the stage,
publicly
rehearsed at Center 42 in Singapore
performed at the Adelaide Fringe festival
in Australia.
Show T is here today to talk about
her debut memoir, the story game.

(07:36):
A memoir really like no other before it.
Picked as a most anticipated memoir of spring
by publishers weekly
and a best book of May by Book
riot.
Lily Huang says of the book.
Shall we trust the story game is a
patient
excavation of selves?
Not the eye of today,

(07:58):
but the version before
and the 1 before that,
flawed and flying
all the way back to childhood,
reaching through history
and memory
to dust free so many cruel
reflections,
ardent,
exquisite,
show we try tenders aston

(08:19):
with blessing 10.
The Boston globe calls it a memoir that
challenges the genre
definition and function.
And writers Wendy Walters and Ja shakira diaz
join me in the experience of calling it
like No,
they have ever read.
Pass between the covers guest, Genie Von adds.

(08:41):
After reading it, I felt a new world
of creative possibilities opening.
The story game is hyper specific, yet ether,
serious
and funny. It's mesmerizing.
And finally, Tee care
says of this book.
The story game introduces a major debut work

(09:03):
from a most astounding talent.
Show who he
memoir,
not only challenges genre,
It up ends and splits it wide open.
In meditations on grief,
displacement,
mental health and family,
T will have you wondering how
and why we remember and what we can't

(09:25):
forget.
The story game is h not,
wise,
and thunder
innovative.
I will teach this book. I will treasure
it, and I will continue to learn from
its astute and hopeful
insights.
Welcome to between the covers. Should we t?
Thank you for having me. That was a

(09:46):
beautiful
introduction.
When we open the book,
we encounter 4 or 5 pages of dis
body dialogue in a place called the room,
a place we return to again and again
between each of these assays essays and sometimes
within each of these assays essays.
But I wanna delay talking about it for

(10:07):
1 moment
and talk about the first essay first,
the opening essay.
Which isn't representative of the book as a
whole,
but that's also something that's true about all
of the essays.
But this first essay represents your first conception
of the book, a book you didn't end
up writing.

(10:27):
It works
entirely on its own terms. It isn't a
draft
but I think nevertheless it represents a book
project that you conceived, but didn't complete.
So talk to us about the book
that never was
that the island Paradise essay was supposed to
be 1 of the anchors of.

(10:48):
You're so right. You're at a multiple level
like Chili.
Initially when I started this book product, I
I was by doing a book about politics
and I thought that the premise of the
book would be that
everywhere, I note I kept seeing this tech
that I found really rep repulsive. I would
see all these systems
that looked very beautiful. Our perfect outside but

(11:10):
inside something was wrong. So with that first
essay the Ballet essay sa, it was about
with experience I had going to Bali,
with my parents. My father is actually part
Indonesian, and he's not from Bali, but we
go to Bali often.
And
you know, because the tourism industry there is
really, really, like, the backbone of bali economy,

(11:31):
but it's also been very destructive for a
lot of local people in terms of the
ecological impact, particularly with the water scarcity problems
that vale faces at an island. But also
in terms of the wealth disparities that I
generated
by such a behemoth industry that is mostly
catering for, people from outside with a not

(11:52):
more money than the local people.
So it really exacerbate all those social
divides, and you know, for me, I was
like, oh, this is a perfect example. Of
the thing I wanted to talk about. That
is, you know, I want to... I want
to make it, like,
a case study, and it can fit into
this book I'm writing that's all about how
the whole world looks like is. Mh.

(12:13):
So that was initially when version of book
that I was hoping to write and didn't
end up writing.
But you're also right in another sense, which
I'm not sure if you already knew this,
but
Before I started at writing any of the
essays in this book actually, the very, very
first,
the very, very first thing that made me
think I even wanted to write a book
was that my father's family

(12:35):
told me maybe you should write a book
about your brand father's life.
And that's because my grandfather is Indonesia indonesian,
and he grew up in Sum.
But when he was a young boy, there
was a large
kind of, like, there many programs in Indonesia.
I'm not sure if that's a technical word
for it but I was ethnic cleansing and
my grandfather is a Chinese person.

(12:57):
When he was a young boy, he already
paid ethnic cleansing and had to, like ran
from his spinach
together with his family and seek refuge elsewhere.
And in 19 65,
there was a very, very large genocide of
Chinese people that happened in Indonesia, like, a
mask given
that until today is though not very much
discussed. Actually in Indonesia and in politics there,

(13:19):
but that was the event that pre my
families moved from Indonesia Singapore.
So I think because of that, there was
a very large part of our family's history
that just got lost in time because my
grandfather and grandmother don't ever talk about what
happened. And the insight never really even hold
their own children. The reason why they left

(13:40):
Indonesia,
I think, you know, in my father's mine,
at least, there was a big question of,
like, there was a big part of self
that he felt. He could only access if
Storyteller was able to write about it. So
he intact me with this? He was like,
why don't you write a book about your
life. And I think that's why the very
first and kona I had with this beam
was around Indonesia because I just felt like

(14:02):
there's something in this part of the world
that I need to go back through and
try and dig up again. But if you'll
see her a having red epi that didn't
happen l.
Do you think you'll ever
write this story of your grandfather? Is that
something you're considering writing?
I can't speak for, like, my future ourselves.
But for me, currently,

(14:23):
I don't think I do... I will write
that because I think in a sense, I
do think I have already written the book.
Because story game is that book, I in
a sense,
I was talking about this a little bit
just now, but
with the first essay, I started out trying
to write about my Family history and then
I gave up, and I wrote about myself.
It ended being an essay where I said,
you know, actually, I don't feel a strong

(14:45):
emotional connection to Indonesia. I understand that there's
a lot of trauma and pain had us
to this place, but I don't feel a
strong connection because I only visited a few
times. When I was growing up, I don't
really speak the language Fluently,
maybe the the part of it we kept
the most was the food, but from that,
You know, at my family is very much
integrated into Singapore.

(15:06):
And so I feel distant from this place.
And that was the final of the essay
sa. And actually with only many years later.
So after the story game was published by
10 house. And in fact I, it was
after the story games, already on the shelves.
Put, like, very recently like a few months
ago. I suddenly realize, I think that in
writing the story of myself, I completed the

(15:27):
task my father sent me. Because that was
what my grandfather wanted it with his silence.
He chose not to draw on his camera
because he wanted it his his defendant to
be able to have the new story, I
think.
Know, he might dad has have a better
line than the life he had. And he
worked really hard to to staunch his own
wound and, like, staunch that thing inside him
that was cashing full of stories. Mh so

(15:49):
that we could have that. And I think
my book is a very perfect.
And caps relation of is which it came
true. Oh, that's wonderful to hear.
Well, if someone were to ask
whether this were an essay collection or a
memoir,
I think the answer would be yes to
both,
but neither separately or together would be a
sufficient description.

(16:11):
If someone were to call it a detective
story
or a meta meditation on memory and narrative
and the construction of self,
I don't think they'd be wrong on either
account
either.
And likewise, and perhaps most pertinent
to what makes this book stand out to
me.
If someone were to call it a fiction

(16:32):
or even fantasy,
they would also be
partially correct.
For me, the most mysterious thing about this
book is that it is the fictional
fantasy elements of the book.
That make the individual essays
into a memoir
that provide the glue or the connective tissue

(16:54):
between the essays
and somehow makes this not only,
not an essay collection or not a collection
of things at all, but a cohesive journey.
So before we start that journey, I wanted
to spend time with this fictional connective tissue,
both what it is in its own right,
and how it functions to bring the book

(17:15):
together.
The book opens, as I mentioned earlier in
a place called the room,
which is both a real place and an
imagined space,
and it's populated with
imagined versions of real people.
A place we return to and visit
many, many times in this book. So let's

(17:36):
start with a first
attempt to describe the room. How would you
describe
what we encounter. The room, its occupants,
and then the game that happens in it
as we start the book.
This is a very good question because when
I was the right thing to book... I
asked myself this question also
as I was writing. And maybe the murky

(17:57):
kind of quality of the room if we
related it through that because I myself as
the writer. I didn't know what this place
was. I just felt that I had a
strong desire to create it.
So in terms of how the room looks,
it's patent on a bedroom that I used
to share with my younger sister when we
watch children.
In our parents or house.
And it has a few elements of

(18:20):
the... I would say kind of, like, physicality
of the room. So for example, like, the
humidity of the end, Singapore, or, like, crickets
outside, and also the the ceiling fan that
turns and it makes a very, like, loud
wishing sound because the areas of humid and
also the smell of the movement eucalyptus.
So it has all those elements. But at
the same time, it's case that's missing a

(18:42):
lot. So
I think right at the beginning of the
book, the narrator of the book who is
sort of like me. She's gave the. I
don't remember what pictures are here, and I
also don't remember what furniture is here. So
it's a place with both present and I
would say, and it comes together. I you
know, to create us enough of a vibe
that the person reading the book understand

(19:02):
that, you know, it feels real like, a
person could live there and characters could live
there, but equally there some questions about how
real is real.
And in terms of the people who are
in the room, 1 of them is and
it girl, and 1 of them is me.
And,
the little girl
addresses me at has sister. So that's how
to book begin, and then we have a

(19:24):
chat, and, you know, she she had the
voice of a very young child right at
the beginning where she's saying, like, it's not
fun or like, you know, put more drama
and the stories Are, like, you're lying to
me, like, the kind of very emphatic things
with small tail with there. So I think
that's what I would say about the room.
Well, as we read this first

(19:44):
political essay about Bali,
we returned to the room several times before
the sa ends.
We do this because your sister
or the figure that represents your sister.
Is unsatisfied with your telling of it. She
wants a story, not an essay. She doesn't
want something scholar or imp.

(20:06):
She wants something personal and intimate.
So each time we return to the essay
from the room,
we return knowing that you are continuing to
write in the aura of this critique.
And this points to an element of non
fiction that is interesting, but usually not foreground
grounded, I think. That even when we're earnest

(20:26):
trying to quote unquote,
tell the truth,
sometimes we aren't able to.
Because of things we haven't sorted out inside
of us yet.
We aren't
necessarily trying to deceive, but what we write
is still ob
the truth even from the writer themselves.
In the Bali essay sa

(20:47):
itself,
there are questions of performance and truth that
are not explicitly
linked to these questions for you as the
memoir writer, but they sort of rhyme with
the questions in a way. We learn that
when the Bali royalty
commit mass suicide in 19 o 6.
In front of the invading Dutch soldiers

(21:10):
that the Dutch are so shamed in Europe
to such an extent that they vowed to
preserve
bali culture from time and from modern.
And even fake invented dances
get incorporated
into tradition and become part of the real
face of what Bali puts forth for the

(21:31):
tourist.
The illusion of glamour is maintained regardless of
the cost to the people on the land,
even if that cost is death or drought.
We also learn about the popularity of cock
fighting, and it's theatrical
nature, how it also creates
an illusion for the gamble that their positions
in life are mobile and fluid,

(21:54):
even if in reality, no matter what happens
in the game. Their actual positions in the
world are fixed and I mobile.
I have multiple questions I wanna ask you
about the fiction in this book. But first,
perhaps in the most general way,
what are your thoughts about fiction in relation
to the real
and fictional elements

(22:14):
and their role whether by design or
inadvertently within memoir or within non fiction.
This is such a good question.
But I don't wanna generalize realize, but for
me, suddenly, I feel like, fiction and non
fiction feel like they are the same thing
a lot of the time. Because as you
said, for me, like, my experience of the

(22:37):
world incorporate a lot of fiction. And if
I were to try and tell somebody what
it feels like to be me. The most
authentic thing to do if we did also
tell them about the many fantasies I have
in my head, and I'm bringing up all
the time
sometimes,
kind of without my own control or without
my own...
Without, like, consciously trying to do it. Know,
but they're always there, like, a parallel kind

(22:59):
of
stream of thought that's happening in my head.
I think the question you add is so
interesting because reason yeah, I've been thinking about
this how,
my sister actually works in reality tv. Oh
like. So big bad that is so funny
to me. Maybe to use the word test,
Like, it rhyme. Yeah. It's like a my

(23:19):
inversion of the the thing I do it.
I work in non fiction. I don't think
I would ever write a book of picture
fiction. I just don't have that inside me
plus I'm reason to desire to make a
product that's primarily thick fiction. I will always
wear non fiction. But the fix the predictive
elements are kind of, like incorporated into, the
biggest structure and the super structure is, like

(23:39):
authenticity basically. And I think it's funny because
maybe for is that the other way around.
The container that holds everything together is.
But there are elements of their real. And
maybe it's something about
the environment we came from where truth was
not directly addressed, and truth was always hidden
and the many layers of ob location creates
the way of approaching the world. Where the

(24:01):
fiction, the story is in reality. Right? Because
the story is technically what we lived through.
You know. The story that obscure the truth
was our lived in reality.
If that makes sense? Yeah. I love that.
And... And this notion of a writer maybe
not quote unquote, telling the truth without knowing
they're not telling the truth is really interesting
and fiction, but also even just formal decisions,

(24:23):
like, the most norma form of a memoir
which is not your memoir
of a 3 act
double timeline. Yeah. That's a fictional form I
mean, that's a form.
Like, that's not how anybody's life happens.
So to put to put your life in
a form,
seems also to be bringing and f elements.

(24:46):
I think also,
for me part of it probably comes from
growing up in Singapore, where there was a
lot storytelling telling around me all the time.
There was a lot of I guess you
might call it state messaging, not that other
countries don't have this, filing in Singapore it's
very explicitly messaging from this state that when
you go in public transport for example, they'll
be, like, stories that are circulating around you.

(25:06):
And so I've always been very aware of
that that
you know, these stories are about the reality
around it. But in some way, the stories
are constructed, and you can see quite clearly.
I think in singapore especially it very transparent.
And almost like, you can see the bones
of the story, and you can see the
people in the background. I putting elements together
to decide, okay, This is how we're going
to frame the current reality, our country in.

(25:29):
And this is the the way it comes
out as a beautiful story. That's easy for
people to grasp and follow.
So for me, I just... Yeah. I I
agree completely, but is that, like, even when
a writer
is trying to
tell the truth.
That ad of telling is fiction. Mh. Maybe
the the the part that involves using your
voice is imaginative, you know,

(25:50):
Well, in in the story game, we quickly
discover
that this sister figure who both asks for
stories for 1 story after the next,
She also inter each 1 1 to the
next.
And there's a way in which
this sister figure
is your first reader
but also almost like your editor slash critic,

(26:14):
almost like a therapist
relationship because she knows you
because as a sister, she has been a
witness.
You have shared lived experiences. And so she
can comment
on how you are or are not being
honest with yourself as you write,
what you're avoiding and more.
Maybe more than anyone else could.

(26:36):
In this sense, it feels vital that this
figure b your sister or an imaginative
version of your sister
but it's also really clear that it's not
your sister
that it's an imagined version and that you're
giving
words to this figure
that she probably has never spoken.
And I believe it was your editor

(26:57):
at 10 house Elizabeth D,
who called this book speculative non fiction, which
I really like. And
this imagine sister feels like it's at the
core of this element of the book.
There's always, I think
in any writing, a gap between a represented
person on the page and the actual person

(27:18):
in the world.
But I think that gap in your book
is really accent.
Which both calls attention to the art of
any
representation
through, I think an exaggerated
sense of art in your book,
but also actually
not trying to capture your sister on the
page at all.

(27:39):
Yeah. Even as it's important,
that it sort of, quote unquote, remain her.
In a way, it feels like your sister
is
in the end another aspect of you.
But talk to us about the parameters
given that she is a real person working
in reality Tv.

(28:00):
Talk us about the parameters of what if
there are parameters of what you would allow
for yourself
and how you portray your sister.
How far you're willing to travel from what
she would actually say or do as you
portray your sister in the room.
I feel like the only part of the
book the my sister is actually herself. There's

(28:23):
a slight overlap between the sister and the
book and the sister and the world.
Is maybe in the very last page of
the book where I have a phone call
with my sister in the real world.
And you have no idea how many times
I edit Peter. I edit them so much.
In fact, I think the very last edit
that I gave Elizabeth, my editor.
Before the book wendy to print was to

(28:44):
tell her to change a word in that
sentence where I'm describing the quality of my
sister's voice. But I said, okay. This is
not a right word. It's It's closed but
it's not exactly right, and I need it
to be exactly right because this is the
part where she's a real person.
I think that I have a lot of
risk respect for other people's sense of self.
Like I just always had had this, particularly

(29:04):
when it's someone who's close to me, like,
with my sister,
I find it almost impossible to tell lie
about what the person sit, or I feel
like very, very,
uncomfortable speaking on behalf of the other person.
Like, I would maybe transcribe out words directly.
If they gave them to me. But then
again, I feel like, even so there is
a power dynamic that appears

(29:26):
because my name is on the book and
they end up being a character in the
book whereas a more accurate kind of literary
for on maybe it has yet to be
imagine. What call us c creators. Right? Like,
memoirs is a c with every single other
the human being. Who appears in their pages
as a character.
And I feel like for me, it just

(29:46):
feels like a place I can't really go.
But equally, I love wanting that it's very
clear that this is not my because I
think that the person who appears in the
book is why I wish my sister was.
It's like all the elements of wish
about the relationship that we never had. Like,
we never got to have this relationship because
our relationship was 1 of silence for many

(30:08):
years. And so there's so much love that
was lost over the years. And I think
that for me I always have this question
about when does this stuff go? You know?
Oh, it's getting funny because I mean, just
be going attention a little bit. I recently
was at a reading for another writer.
I think Renal Kong. And then she was

(30:28):
talking about how for her she feels like
fiction is the way of exploring that. She's
like, you know, because there are so many
un realities in your life. It's, like, every
time you choose is a path, like, a
thousand other pass disappear, or, like, an unbelievable
number of disappear, you cannot count. I'm uncomfortable.
And then she's like, okay. So all that
daphne needs to go somewhere. And for her,
she puts it in fiction. And I think

(30:50):
I have that same heart actually. I have
that same emotional drive. Like, I need to
preserve everything. I've kind of like a hoard
when it comes to emotions.
Our experiences our abstract qualities. And I have
to keep everything. And so it has to
go in the book. But really for me,
it goes into a non fiction.
Yeah. Because it's such a shame to give
up an all that love or the love

(31:11):
that I could have imagined existing between ads.
I don't want it to disappear. I want
people to know that. This is what I
wish we had.
Well, before we leave the notion of the
relationship of
representation to the real, 1 1 thing we
learn in the book,
is that you have a memory gap in
your childhood,
where you can't remember

(31:32):
many of the years leading up to a
major scoliosis surgery you had in your teens.
You could say this is 1 of the
sources of suspense in the book. 1 of
the ways the book feels, I think like
a detective memoir or a psychological
excavation where we and you
don't know what we're gonna find as your

(31:52):
sister pushes you more word authenticity on the
page 1 essay to the next.
But 1 thing that jumped out to me
in 1 of your interviews for this book
is that when you attended
a theatrical
performance of your essay, the story of body
that it was only seeing yourself
being performed by another on stage

(32:15):
in a specific scene
that made you realize the gravity of what
you had been through in real life that
the theatrical
performance
had made your own life more real to
you, and I just wanted to
hopefully, give you a moment to talk about
that experience a little bit.
Yeah. That's another 1 of those things where
summer somehow the fiction is reload and the

(32:38):
real life
experience.
So my friend who performed that seeing Xi
1 of the choices he made was, because
I have a number of packing titanium screws
in my bet,
and I was unconscious while the screws are
being put into me. So I didn't experience
it It's almost like time folded in on
itself. Right? You know, you I was lying

(32:58):
there on the operating table, and then the
next moment, like, I was wait and, you
know, life goes back to normal. Nothing has
happened. It's almost like,
a chunk of time was bitten out of
my life. And I think that with She
performance,
because you were, you know, the you're using
your body. So the body lives in time.
Right? Lives in chronological
ordinary time. And he decided he would make

(33:20):
every for every single 1 of the screws
that went into my spine, he would make
a sound.
So because it became, like,
translator into this oral thing that I could
here.
I felt like I really understood how much
time went into fixing my spine. And that
was already You know, he was already shot
it. I was got a surgery was like.
It was a really, really long surgery. Took

(33:42):
at in an entire day by the surgeon.
And something about feeling like the the bread
and
the
kind of weight of time
I did have brought a new kind of
grief that At that point I had somehow
kept for myself because, you know, when I'm,
a book. Right? Things can happen so fast.

(34:02):
You can move from, like, 1 year to
the next year from sentence to sentence.
Time is just like a thing you play
with. It's like something you tackle, and then
you put it down, and then you you
move on to something else. But for people
who who are working with their bodies,
Time is it's like the limiting factor. It's
the biggest enemy of the body time. Time
is the thing I making me die in
the end, you know, Mh. And I think

(34:25):
as a writer, sometimes I forget about the
reality of time because I'm no master time
when at writing.
So
think working with that person, S, was a
really special experience for me. I feel like
almost he had a point of view of
my life that I was not able to
have
And because of, like, the clothes, I've hit
on relationship with his body, I could access

(34:45):
something that for my own self protection, I
had hidden away from myself,
Well, there are actual
fictional influences to this book. You've mentioned also.
You've mentioned the book here S by Susanna
Clark, and also
And also that at 1 point you binge
on both Ag Christie Books and Tv adaptations.
So how how would you speak to the

(35:08):
influences of of these other fictional books on
on this non fictional book.
So with Per,
the thing that I love about P is
the bowl building element. So for anyone who's
not ready people. I'll give a very quick
summary. It's just about a man who lives
in a giant house. It's a huge house.
And he wonders around room room to room
and there are lots of statues in the

(35:29):
house, but there also tidal waves, know, there
flock of boots, It's a house that basically
stands in for the entire world.
And this man is, like, a very innocent
man, and he just wonders around. He He
pray there's the house because it is his
world. It's his the god. You know? He
believes the house created him. And he he
gives a lot of respected at house, and
he generates the house basically.

(35:49):
But 1 day, a little bit of doubt
is cast and due this worldview because there's
another man in the house, and the man
calls him this named p.
And the character that it's like, I just
feel like this is not my name. You
just has an implicit feeling that this is
wrong. And I love that because I think
to then our o'clock is actually telling a
really
it's a very like universal experience of what

(36:10):
it feels like to be lonely
And also what it feels like do not
know who you are to live in a
world or somebody else making, and yet to
believe that that is normal the world.
You know, do do not have a grasp
or, like, what is yours and what is
the others? And what has been given to
you.
And I think that This is such a
a universal and also complex idea. I think

(36:32):
you could write like a thousand books about
this, but instead she built a whole world
rather than kind of dissect the idea, she
built something creative and a new thing to
represent an idea. She built a house, You
know, and I loved it. I think for
me,
that's something that happens in fiction that has
always drawn me to fiction. You can see,
like, I was talking about with the advertisements

(36:54):
on the public chats in singapore of the
exact same You see someone with a hammer
and nail and you said I'm like, building
they're building a wall and that's so, like,
intriguing to me. I love to see that
process. Yeah yeah.
It makes me feel like I'm living. And
I watch people for do it. Yeah. And
pretty detective stories, I think what I need
was comfort
while I get from those stories of comfort...

(37:14):
I hate the read them also when I
was a tile Actually,
I binge read the entire that I read
off, I get At could Facebook when I
at the child. I think the because there's
so much comfort built into the promise that
somebody knows where the story is going. And
even if it takes a lot of duncan,
you know that a detective almost always softer
and mystery.
And, you know, at the very last moment
and the right clue all led on his

(37:36):
lap. Should get before laid up, but he'll
be like, oh, I know who did it.
And I feel like When I was working
on this story game, I didn't have this.
I didn't have this feeling because I was
venturing out into the unknown, especially at the
dialogue section. I really didn't know if it
was for anything. And I also as I
said before, I didn't know who would the
characters were. I didn't know who the little

(37:56):
girl was.
And because of there, I just needed to
have this feeling of, okay, if somebody knows
what's going to happen. And I had to
believe that I could feel like Get christie
accuracy. If the thing, inside me that created
at the beginning,
what's the same thing that would end the
book, then, you know, I have to trust
it that knows where it's going?
Well, with the second essay, your
best American essays notable essay on being in

(38:19):
love with a white man,
we already see a little bit of shift
in how you write an essay.
It's still
intellectual and political
an exterior
in some ways, but it is also about
meeting your future husband.
We get your an anxiety idea about whether
you can even now talk about d

(38:42):
or be on the right side of history
if you're married to a white man.
And also choosing to live in Europe
about how you meeting Thomas,
sort of mimic
the fe Singapore meeting Sir Stamford Raffle, the
the man who founded the Port city in
its modern
incarnation.

(39:02):
And we're with you as you explore
this gap between
what you know you should want and what
you actually want.
So I was hoping maybe before we talk
a little bit about this essay,
if we could hear a little bit from
it. Yeah. Sure.
What I was thinking was
42
to 44.

(39:25):
Okay.
Nobody's ever asked for this section, But but
actually, a lot of Singapore and people have
told me this is their favorite section. I
know. Yeah. My friends are.
I ordered it.
Okay.
There is a template for how stories like
mine should and fall.
A white European men meets a southeast Asian

(39:45):
woman.
In life as in language,
subject and object, click neatly into place.
Man and women become the seeker and the
sore after
Europe and Asia, the explorer and the explored.
I grew up believing in the pre nature
of these roles,
As a school child in Singapore,

(40:06):
I had learned that these pairing were rooted
in history.
Our own nation had once been a mute,
but lovely island in Asia, waiting to be
colonized by an English man named Stamford raffle.
Before his arrival, might teacher's it. We had
the nothing more than a primitive fishing village.
For in some vital
existential sense that could not be ignored.

(40:27):
But in other ways, we had been hopefully
endowed with the right kinds of feminine traits.
A beautiful form for instance, and sun baked
slowness,
a dripping tropical for.
For centuries, we seem to do nothing but
sit pretty on the equator bid doing our
time.
Then 1 day it all paid off. A
European rounded the corner with a clinic in

(40:49):
his eye and delivered us to the world.
If pre colonial Singapore taught me a sense
of self,
Then Raphael furnished my earliest ideas about White
and what to expect from them.
Sitting behind my desk and sweating into my
school pin 4, I was captivated by the
legacy of his desire.
Here was the white man revealed as a

(41:10):
glut, or himself on the other. Sailing from
shore to shore and hopes of consuming the
world.
I thought about the force of this desire,
which had lifted us out of the darkness
and into the bright lights of modern statehood.
I thought about the little fishing village opening
her mouth for the first time and finding
out that she could speak.

(41:31):
I am. I imagined her saying blinking into
the light. I am.
I am.
This story of Singapore
is over 2 decades all now.
1 rally encounters it in circulation anymore.
These days, the government's official line has shifted
so that the great are learning a very

(41:51):
different tale of how their nation came to
be.
The textbooks paint a picture that is 700,
not 200 years old.
They read that the kingdoms of the world
has been tracing through our island since the
fourteenth century
long before raf set sail.
Perhaps then, they are also absorbing different ideas
about desire.
What it is and how it comes to

(42:13):
be, who gets to wield it and who
merely suffers is it.
I have my suspicions though.
A few years ago, at the state funded
by Centennial to promote Singapore history, I seem
to recognize the previous story from my textbooks.
Lengthen by addendum, but otherwise unchanged.
Earlier explorers were mentioned with more emphasis than

(42:34):
usual. And other statues now rose to join
the sculpt to of raffle that stands by
the Singapore river,
But ultimately,
it was still raffle we reign supreme over
the activities.
Still
were proved impossible to criticized.
How could we the Gl z public exhibition
seem to ask with a ringing of their
hands,

(42:55):
How could we condemn the white man who
imagined our city and pointed it in the
direction of things to come?
The struggle is to denounce that which ultimately
I ushered in a good and present selves.
So we hold on to the white men
who in the midst of his greed ina
inadvertently showed us the way from third world
to first.

(43:16):
His landing is no longer a fiery re
dawning are the ancient beginnings of the world.
The white European man no longer declared the
fear.
Our new stories that he initiates are paris,
the land under his feet.
Releasing her into the life that she always
should have had in the first place.
His role has softened from that of a
god into that of a catalyst.

(43:37):
His presence figured as a necessary condition for
the village to grow up and blossom them
in her own tan skin.
In my own life, It is the second
story that has proven truly insidious,
difficult to announce for standing so dangerously close
to the true.
And listening to show we T read from
the story game.

(43:58):
So pretty early in the book. Having only
encountered the first several essays and been into
the room now many times within in between
them.
We not only understand that there's a memory
gap.
A place where
your character can't go within themselves that your
sister is pushing you toward.
But also that there are ways

(44:20):
you have learned to present yourself that aren't
true.
And I even wonder if some of these
ways you present yourself that are false might
be part of the mechanism of preserving the
the memory
space.
But either way, your sister sort of calls
bullshit on the second essay.
An essay that is

(44:40):
quite nuanced about questions of race and nationality
and about the ways theory,
and embody desire can be at across purposes,
but also 1 that completely
your marriage.
Which we learn
in the room
is actually in disarray.
Something we would never guess from the essay.

(45:01):
And similarly in the third story,
we get Singapore as a place, you love
to be from and to return to.
But later in the room, we learn that
in reality, you hated it. That it felt
so destroying,
authoritarian, hyper capitalist,
anti queer and more.
We discover
we're with an unreliable narrator

(45:23):
but 1 who is unreliable to herself ultimately,
and yet 1 who also has this
room of accountability.
So we have
Absences where language
can't yet be formed by the person speaking,
and we have someone also at odds with
how they use language

(45:43):
with regards to what they know about themselves.
And you've linked some of this explicitly
to trauma
but also some of it to cultural forces
and how these both
intersect.
In the book, you talk about how school
began at Sunrise and went to 10PM,
that at age 9 children

(46:04):
would be sorted into gifted,
express or normal
you've written outside of the book about how
at piano conservatory, they would physically and verbally
c you placing
thumb tax on the piano keys to punish
you when wrong notes were played.
In your interview with Claire Chi at electric

(46:25):
literature,
you talk about how being shu into the
gifted track in school
very early,
made you want to live up to the
label
that was given to you rather than to
figure out what you would want to authentically
be on your own terms.
And you've also talked outside the book about
how
humanitarian Singapore is, something you've alluded to today

(46:48):
already.
That lots of the messaging is through the
we pronoun.
Unlike the pledge of allegiance here that begins
with the word I, the pledge in Singapore
begins with we,
and it was from this place
that you started from and figuring out who
you were.
A structure that the book mimics and so
insofar as the essay start very exterior

(47:11):
and become less so.
Talk to us more about how you see
either the
culture of Singapore generally or its educational approach,
more specifically,
becoming an element
of the difficulty of presenting yourself,
failing or presenting yourself unhappy on the page.

(47:32):
This such a good question.
Especially now so many years have been leaving
home, Like, I moved to the Uk 12
years ago now. I feel like, I'm not
the best person tell you about what life
it's like there anymore. There are people who
can do it much better than me. And
so I guess I'm a bit wary about
speaking
about what it's like now. But for me,

(47:52):
in terms of the education system that, yeah,
it had a very
strong impact on me, and I didn't even
realize for many years.
There was a kind of national system that
assume that all people have the same kind
of intelligence. That's the first the first thing.
It does assume that there is 1 kind
of intelligence, and it's the kind of intelligence
that can be captured on a piece of

(48:14):
paper.
And then also that it makes a further
jump, which is to say that well the
level this kind of intelligence you have will
determine the role you play in society, for
the rest of your life, which I think
it's a really terrifying message. Not only for
anybody pick hear. But for a 9 year
old to hear because it feels like everything
you do rides on on this 1 piece

(48:34):
of paper that you're holding.
And
you know, I mentioned that particular streaming exam
because I think it's the most
unusual example, for an outsider to hear, but
this dynamic was something that was repeated constantly
in my childhood. There were always more and
more pieces of paper that you had to
get to prove your worthiness.
To, you know, rise up through their ranks

(48:56):
and get a powerful position in society
to put it very cool.
And I think that for me, for many,
many years, this actually prevent me from understanding
how my own form of intelligence works. You
know, like, actually, I had to go through...
As you said I study in But and
I also study in Cambridge actually, that is...
I'm not something I usually tell people, but

(49:17):
the reason why I don't usually help people
is because I think that going through those
2 academic institutions, The main thing it showed
me was actually that, like, the kind of
intelligence I possess is not really like academic
intelligence. Actually, it's not the kind of intelligence
that I was for and that I was
set to put this by this state when
I was young. I think I actually have
a lot of, like, intelligence from doing things.

(49:38):
But you see that in the story game
who because I am living the book in
real time while writing it. I have to
lift things to really understand them. I had
to do them with my hands. Mean I
was a pianist, so it kind of checked
out. I have to, like, live it with
my body, and then III
grasp the essence of the thing, But I'm
not good the fact. I'm not going with
rec cow. And I feel like,
The story game is so interesting because it's...

(50:01):
You know, writing a book, I am playing
into this tradition of academic excellence.
But I took many years do kind of,
like, extract myself wrong.
But
I guess that the story game, you know,
some people on good have fitness this. Is
that, like, it's not really a book not
a for people who usually like them. I
they're like, yeah. I don't usually like reading.
I don't usually like books. So I like

(50:21):
this book. And I feel like whenever I,
hear that I feel like that's such a
comfortable because that you authentic in my own
experience I'm writing this book. I thought I
was writing a really dense. A academic thing
that would, you know, be, like the final
stamp of approval that, like, Yes. You made
it. You are what you were promised that
you would be, and you have achieved your
potential. But it turned out to be a

(50:41):
completely different thing. I realized that the standards
I was trying to live do were not
standards that I like, and, you know, they're
not standard that make me happy.
Mh. I'm much more comfortable. Like,
finding my way through, like, real life experience.
And I think the book is a book
that kind of breaks the founder, you know,
between the text and life in that way
because of this

(51:02):
You you wrote this very moving essay
outside of the book about your experience doing
the Aw p writer to writer, mentorship program,
a mentorship you had under the writer Lily
Huang where she was really amazing at sensing
when
receiving feedback from her
could be potentially overwhelming or derail the writing

(51:23):
process.
And at 1 point, she tells you sort
of witnessing your I think your demeanor and
facial expression that
you should just hold on to the feedback,
not look at it and keep writing.
And her flexibility, her listening to and for
your response to her, the sort of
bidirectional nature of it. Where it was the

(51:45):
opposite of of a top down approach,
seemed to me as if it were revel
to you.
And there are qualities of how you describe
Lilly in the sister character too, I think,
as well as
as I mentioned earlier, qualities of a therapist
in the sister figure
where the critique of your work isn't based

(52:05):
on an external system, but rather from your
own relationship to yourself.
And in fact, you start to see a
therapist part way through the book as well.
And 1 way, I think you could view
this book
is as your journey toward
not just a sort of ind situation from
your family of origin and culture of origin,

(52:26):
but a journey toward
becoming a writer.
And I wondered if that felt right to
you. If you felt like 1 way you
could frame
the the journey we take with you is
the journey of becoming a writer.
Yeah. I think you heard the knee right.
And it also makes me think of your
previous question and what we spoke about there

(52:47):
because
I feel that when I started the book
I had a very
I had a very clear received notion of
what it means to be a writer and
to be a person who who has done
a book. I thought that, you know, it
means certain kinds of ways of, perceiving the
world. I mean to certain relationship to other
people to a public, like my readers, for
example,

(53:08):
And actually when I finished writing the book,
I became a writer, but I became a
writer on my tons. I was like, this
is the reason why I write, and it's
not funny things that people told me I
did get. Like for example buying a good,
maybe when 1 very clear example of that
in met own now is like my relationship
to prestige. When I started riding the book,
and I think you can see this reflect
in the tone of the essays also, so

(53:30):
I believe that I was doing it to
gain prestige. Thought that was the most important
thing. And in fact when I was sending
out those essays after there I wrote them,
I would send them to, like, the most
prestigious places I couldn't imagine like send it
like New York tech send a delay. You
know, all these things it it's like, you
know, like, the tell science, I don't read.
A lot a few things. But I was,
like, I feel like I stood because this
is what a writer would do. And I

(53:51):
think as the book progressed and my own
writing journey progressed, and so I I started
it, Like, you know, I think my relationship
with Prestige changed completely because I realized, like,
for me, the reason why I wanted that
prestige was because I wanted to be in
connection with other people who had accept me
and see me for whoever was.
And
Actually, like, you don't need prestige to get
there. Like their speech is not a da

(54:13):
necessarily have to walk through find connection. You
can find connections. Just my being, like, yourself
off.
And so by the end of the, I
was, like, submitting the differently is that, you
know, I... Like, my vision of what a
meant never a happy literary like, totally changed.
So I don't know if that really answers
your question. I do think my feeling of
what it means to be a writer has
changed very, very dramatically over the past 5

(54:34):
years.
Well, in your conversation with your editor, Elizabeth,
she talked about how many writers approach her
regarding how useful this book is to them
as writers,
and I can see why,
I wanted to read a couple of things
you said on your blog in this slide.
These are things you wrote before you had
a book deal.

(54:55):
Quote,
I've written on here before that for me,
The temptation has always been to erase the
past from my own artistic record
and present myself like a person who has
always been fully formed.
Instead of as someone
who has had to grow over many years
and discover what works doesn't work for them.

(55:18):
And then speaking about writing the story of
body an essay that comes late in this
collection you say.
This essay has made me reconsider what I'm
doing with my whole book project.
Once the story of body arrived on the
page, I knew with a hundred percent certainty
that this is what I wanted to be
writing about this topic,

(55:39):
this part of myself, which maybe wonder if
the other essays,
which I previously thought might be coming together
to make a book.
Were really nothing more than practice pieces.
Rote exercises and s up history in language.
This isn't a question that I've fully resolved
yet.
I wonder if there isn't some value after

(56:01):
all
in sharing practice pieces with the world,
something in it it has to do with
being real and vulnerable and human.
But what I think great about the story
game, contrary to your fear,
is that each piece does feel
complete. It doesn't feel like you're sharing

(56:21):
drafts
or incomplete pieces,
but you are sharing drafts of yourself,
and perhaps with this essay
this essay say the story of body, you
feel an arrival to something more fundamentally you.
But either way,
it feels super generous that we get to
travel

(56:42):
with you, practicing
you.
I I assume this journey across essays
was something that you
created through careful
ordering
and reorder and construction through that ordering.
And so I was really amazed to discover

(57:02):
that the essays appear
in the book in the order that they
were written.
I was likewise blown away that the last
thing you wrote was the room dialogue scenes
the aspect of the book that is most
essential to it. And the only way I
could imagine it working together as a collection

(57:22):
was the actual element you didn't have until
the very end, and then you took nearly
a year to figure out how to how
to do it. In in a what way.
So talk to us about the construction of
the book as book,
maybe about the book
before the room existed,
and how it arrives at its final form

(57:44):
over time.
Okay all, Thank you for reading from my.
I feel like that's very moving for me
because I feel like, the writing I do
on my blog is not listed in the
writing I do in a published book. It's
the same thoughts. It's me. So for This
is... Yeah. It's very moving. Actually, you do
hear you read from the 3 with
that as the words under the printed page.

(58:06):
So thank you. Mh. Yeah.
Yeah. The book was written in the exact
claim order as of it appears. And maybe
that also was taking a risk exposing something
that... Could be vulnerable to people because you're
not the first person to say this, and
and maybe I don't really understand. Actually, because
everybody is always very surprised by this But

(58:26):
to me, it feels like the book could
not work if I reorder the essay sa.
Like, the very chronology of the essays,
and the the order in which they appear
is me. You know, that was the journey
I went through
because I'm basically showing the reader different versions
of myself and getting that ordering
correct is important because I'm showing you the

(58:48):
journey of growth I went through. And the
way I changed from Sa to Sa
As you self mentioned, I think, like, earlier
on, you know, between the first and second
essay, you can see the way already I'm
healing my sense of self. Based on my
self protection after during the first essay, I'm
like, okay. I I realized I to academic
there, so I need to include more details
of my life. And then after that second

(59:10):
essay, I'm, like, well, I didn't include a
lot of details from my life, but they
were very dishonest. And they were they didn't
include the ugly thing. So I'm the third
essay sa is going to be very ugly.
It's going to be about depression. You know,
you can literally see the thought process of
the person moving from from draft the draft
of themselves.
In terms of how the book came together,
it was literally written that way, essay by

(59:31):
Essay sa. And as the blog that when
I got story of body, I was like,
oh, man. I think this is it. Like
the edit of days were just attempts to
get here, and this is the place where
the book actually has a form.
And it actually it contains something that's true
about me.
But then after that, I say, I had
a very strong feeling that

(59:52):
needed to write something about my sister.
And,
you know, I tried it really, really hard
to write the essay. But equally when I
was trying to construct this essay sa, Felt
like the Essay form was not the right
container. For I had to say about my
sister because no matter how much I tried
to talk. About her. I realized that it
was impossible for me to know what she
was thinking.
Our relationship when we were growing up was

(01:00:14):
so heavily
you wrote in terms of its control dynamics
towards me. I had so much control, and
she was so much, lacking an agency. I
think when we spend time together. That I
always knew what I wanted her to do
in every interaction that I could recall, but
I had no idea how she responded. Like,
my brain had just blocked that out because
it in summary, I guess it saw her,
like, a doll, rather than a human went

(01:00:36):
being and it was not possible to write
about her. And I remember, actually, when I
was going through this process, it took 8
months. This painstaking
of writing and writing and trying to worry
about my sister.
I actually had experienced a very, like,
I would say intuitive moment of grief that
1 day I just broke out and I
cried, and I had therapy that day, and

(01:00:56):
I home my therapist. I was like, I
feel like, in writing this essay I'm destroying
myself because I'm destroying the egg of storytelling.
This essay day is going to be the
end of all stories for me. Wow. Yeah.
It... I mean Very. I got heard domestic.
I looked I was like and no.
Like I
say cheapest was like okay. That's interesting.

(01:01:18):
But I feel like, that was something. 0II
kind of sense even before I got there,
maybe did.
You know, the traditional essay which contains the
story structure. Right? It's like, you know, there's
some sticks, and then there's some suspense, and
then there's a big even event that resolves
it, and then I learned something and I
changed. I become a new person. That was

(01:01:38):
not going to work for what I now
in the do it was to include a
subject video idea of another human theme.
Maybe it booked plus some other writers. But
for me, I just knew that what I
think of as a story
was actually an obstacle
rather than I help in terms of describing
my life and my relationship with this person
who I love.
And, yeah. It I was very sad for

(01:01:59):
you because I think I am quite good
at telling stories of, you know, the previous
essay essays. I enjoyed that process. Do I
enjoy creating a story. And I I don't
think a lot of my identity derive from
my ability to do this and practice the
skill. Do But that's also why I need
to grow. Right? It's that's so why I
used to grow. It try something that not
necessarily. Doesn't have a hundred percent success rate

(01:02:19):
guaranteed
and and then, you know, that was what
I think kind of processing that feeling of,
like, all the stories are disappearing. Your more
stories that I will was what bought me
to write a dialogue.
I I do think the daylight rep at
the end of story like, to be.
So you've talked elsewhere about
how
before you found your agent, who as an

(01:02:40):
aside, I think is another person who seems
to have some of the qualities of your
sister character in your book.
A person who was able to sense emotions
and you that were too sub textual on
the page and and push you to draw
them forward.
Before you found this agent, you had a
different agent reach out to you who was
curious if you had a book. And when

(01:03:01):
she saw your manuscript was interested
if you would remove the
experimental elements in it, the the room elements
in it. So it was actually interested potentially
in in the essays,
as an essay collection. And I wondered if
you could talk for a moment
about that encounter and that... And the series
of decisions to walk away from 1 agent

(01:03:23):
and look for another?
So she reached out to me at a
time when I was already
seeking Bed reader feedback on the manuscript,
and
she basically... She had read 1 of the
essays in the collection, which was called the
true wonders of the Holy land and she
really liked that essay.

(01:03:44):
So I think she was hoping that I
would produce for her stack of essays that
all kind of sounded similar and tone through
that. That's a particularly...
I would say it's a particularly chat essay
a It's a particularly, like, funny as they
with a lot of, like, human
character. Like it's a lot of, like, funny
new characters in the Essay. And I think
she was drawn through that, but I didn't
have that show her. I actually only had

(01:04:06):
this your script.
So I gave her A I hat, and
then she didn't really...
I think she she gave me a piece
of mixed feedback actually where she said that
she really
enjoyed the book, like, she read it really
quickly. She read it in 1 night, and
she she liked it, but she doesn't think
she can stand it. So that was a
bit... I think for me, I when I

(01:04:27):
received that piece of feedback,
I just felt like, because she wanted me
to try and rewrite the book. I felt
like of, I don't have it in me.
I don't have it in me because the
thing took 5 years. And, you know, as
I said, I was so careful even with
the ordering of the essays. I think For
me, it feels like the thing I'm showing
you is the evidence of my life. I
know? And I can really redo it. This

(01:04:49):
is actually how it happens because the book
of documenting the process are writing. I can
tell you allow about how the book came
to be. So I just wasn't really interested
in that. But at the same time, Alison,
my asian had also met me an offer,
and I felt that Alison saw to book
very clearly for what it was. She liked
the dialogue.
Said that that wasn't something thing that drew
her that the acid, to the book was

(01:05:11):
that it felt like eat as they was
digging deeper and deeper. So I thought we
were a good fit because the dialogue is
maybe, like,
you know, how people I would say, like,
when you're looking for new relationships, you should
leave it the rough edge of yourself. Maybe
not people are always. I have heard it
been it. And I think the dialogue is
the rough of me in the book. And
it's all very important whoever I worked with
was able to, like, not only

(01:05:34):
vincent tolerate that, but enjoy it and acetaminophen
benefit that.
Well, before,
I knew that you had read Jeannie and
as
before I knew that
Jean V had read you
that she has placed you permanently on her
teaching syllabus.
Before I knew that
2 would be doing various events around this

(01:05:55):
book together.
Back when I thought of you both entirely
separate from each other,
It was her book, the 1 that she
came on the show for, things we didn't
talk about when I was a girl
that I thought of while reading the story
game.
Not because they're similar reads, I don't think
they are. But because easily,

(01:06:15):
they're the 2 memoirs that first come to
mind in terms of how formally innovative they
are
and the degree of risk that they both
take formally,
but also personally,
Martha ba sells for Lit hub said of
Jean book.
It's Nuanced,
profound,
murky

(01:06:36):
morally complex,
truly uncomfortable in infuriating.
I'm so sorry I need to call it
brave,
I'm still out of breath, processing,
needing to discuss it. So please everyone, hurry
up and read it.
You're in her approach and motive beam within
the 2 books are very different. But 1

(01:06:56):
thing both book share is
that as you've already mentioned today,
the questions of the book's construction are very
much part of the book itself. Questions of
how to make the book
are asked and deliberate Did over within the
narratives of both books.
And when I discovered that she was a
huge champion of yours,

(01:07:17):
and that you you're going to be in
conversation with her as part of your tour.
She sort of became my undercover spy with
your blessing.
She went
she went to your conversation with Elizabeth Male,
and she recorded it on her phone,
including
a dog having a protracted
hacking

(01:07:38):
hacking fit very close to the phone's microphone
at 1 point.
You 2 also had an off the record
Zoom interview
as part of your development of your upcoming
conversation for Ba magazine of which I was
given access to and much more. So really
a ton of the intel
about today is thanks to Genie.

(01:07:58):
Here's a question for you from Genie V,
about another mystery in the book beyond the
memory gap. The many years when your sister
in real life
stopped speaking to you without explanation.
Hi, Shay, and hi, David. Thank you so
much for letting me be a part of
this
conversation.
So I keep thinking about the moment in

(01:08:19):
the story game. When we tell her sister.
The truth is that whenever I looked at
union,
there was a part of me that thought,
I am bad
I hate myself,
I shouldn't exist.
But because it was impossible to hold on
to those thoughts for very long,
I wished that you were gone instead.

(01:08:42):
I shouldn't exist, and I wished that you
were gone instead.
Our common thoughts among victims of the silent
treatment,
especially when a loved 1 inflict a lengthy
silence
and the silence goes explained.
As you know I'm writing a book about
my experiences with my mom silent treatments.
Which is why I'm so curious to hear

(01:09:03):
you talk about the silent treatments influence on
your writing process,
What I find so interesting in your case
is that your sister silence started years before
you pursued writing.
So I'm also wondering if you have any
sense of how her silence may have shaped
you as a writer.
Thank you again both of you, and I
look forward to your answer, She we.

(01:09:26):
Well, fifth of all, I'm so happy that
Jamie as the cushion because... Yeah. It do
that she's been such a huge supporter of
the book, and
I love her books so much. I think
that not only, you know, we're are similar
in the way you describe in terms of
like playing with form and the bravery to
trying new forms, but also from having worked

(01:09:46):
with her the un booked her, and it
also just from being a read of a
book. I think that, you know, this kind
of respect for the other,
and the other subject activity is something that's
really present and Ginny work, and that's always
been something I really really end my.
Because I think it's a very interesting question
to play with as a memoir. What can
you do
to write about another person and you you

(01:10:08):
recognize that they are exactly as real as
you are? And in that second book you
mentioned things we didn't talk about when I
was ago. I think she is exploring that
question in such a powerful way. And for
me, I was like so generative to read
that book for. Thank you but at a
under the show. In terms of how my
sister silence shaped me as a writer,

(01:10:28):
Think the funny thing is until I spoke
to Jeannie for that interview you referenced for,
a bond magazine interview, I had never thought
of what my sister did to me as
the silent treatment.
I had never really applied a label due
the way she treated me, maybe because, there
was an inability to acknowledge it for me,
You know? I prefer to live in my
fantasy where I was, like, this person really

(01:10:50):
loves me. So somehow, this silence must be
a manifestation of that love.
And the only way I could make that
make sense to me was to think that
maybe the silent was a game hence the
story game. Yeah. Because I was like, you
know, I can't believe that this person doesn't
like me because we grown up together. So
this must be some kind of fun game

(01:11:12):
that they have created for me to play
and maybe if I find exact right thing
to say to her or I move in
the exact right way or I cracked the
code somehow, like a detective. Right? I cracked
the code, and I find a key.
Then the sign will end. So I could
only perceive it as like, a fun exciting
thing because I guess my head couldn't hold
their reality that we are not that close.

(01:11:34):
So I think that that actually, maybe the
way in which the silence most profoundly affected
the way I write. It fact that this
kind of, dynamic in the book where it's
like 2 people dwelling. I think in 1
of the reviews that I read for a
story game, somebody said that my sisters are
worthy
adversary
ended exactly how I felt about her silence.

(01:11:56):
I felt like she's created this home victim,
I must win because she already appointed.
And maybe something about that.
Gave me some creative or generated energy. You
know? Because if it's a game, then there's
not the news. Right? You can keep playing
because you believe that deep Deepgram inside, the
person loves you.
Thinking
both about your sister's silence towards you over

(01:12:18):
the years while living under the same roof,
and you creating an imagined version of her,
but also how much we learned about your
husband, Thomas
and your marriage,
and perhaps most about your parents.
I wanted to ask you how you did
or didn't involve them in the making of
the book or in

(01:12:38):
preparation for the books
arrival.
When when you talked with Claire Chi, who...
I presume is from Singapore too, and she
says, quote,
Singapore adopt a pate
approach to governance that
compounded with common Asian dynamics of f pie
had produced a general cultural aversion to questioning

(01:13:00):
one's elders.
In the book you have to reckon with
how your parents,
who you assert are good people
could hurt you so terribly.
And your answer that being a good child
meant that 1 had to in order to
respect one's elders,
deny the parts of yourself that remember all
the ways they were made to feel small

(01:13:21):
or angry or afraid,
and you ask
what kind of love is this that will
fully denies the fullness of what we can
remember about another person.
And lastly, in a podcast
conversation that I particularly loved, A podcast called
writing stories. You you talk about how originally,
you worried about whether the stories would find

(01:13:42):
readers.
But now that you were on tour,
you were no longer worried about readers leadership
or connection, you were with your readers, you
were finding connection. But instead, you were worried
about how
family and people from your childhood
would potentially react to the book.
And in
anticipation

(01:14:03):
of loss or rupture. You re reminded yourself
of the new connections that were being made.
You mentioned in that pot podcast that your
parents were coming to an event at an
upcoming reading on your tour,
which by now has already happened, and I
it get the impression
there you don't say this explicitly that they
haven't engaged with the book much before this.

(01:14:25):
But what what conversations did you or did
you have?
With any of these people who are close
in your life and and who become portrayed
in a personal way because you're revealing personal
things about yourself in your own process.
How much or how little were you
willing to show them in advance of publication?

(01:14:46):
And if you're open to it, how how
has it gone in the end with family
and friends and now that the book is
out in the world?
Sorry I read this book last night.
It's called the words that remain by S
Ga.
And it's a book that my friend David
Martinez who's also a memoir. He recommended it

(01:15:08):
to me
because he was actually my first conversation partner
at the event So before my parents were
involved, not the event my parents went due,
but the only event preceding that, and we
were talking about our parents various reactions do
our book
It's actually not true that both my parents
haven't engaged. My mom has engaged very deeply
with the entire book. In fact, very, very

(01:15:28):
quickly. She read everything. And produce a response
instant instantaneously.
But my dad has not read the book.
And I think because of, you know, what
I was chair that this book. In some,
it's my attempt to write about whom and
about our family connection through that particular side
of my.
I think it was very painful to me
that he would not actually read the entire

(01:15:49):
book.
And so my friend, David, who I think
went through something similar, He recommended. Got to
me which is a a great story. I
quite continuously they are reading this book. It's
a story about how
there are 2 men and they're in a
relationship.
But
they get separated
because of, prejudice against, you know, that gay

(01:16:09):
relationships in Brazil, And then
1 of them
writes a letter to the other 1, and
the other person doesn't read it. So he
just carried this letter for his whole life
I know he an old man,
he doesn't read it because he's in the
and he doesn't... He kind of, like, visits
learning to read so that he never has
been reason to open this letter.

(01:16:29):
And, you know, they're are the entire book,
and the book has a story about him
kind of, like, going on this journey to
learn to read, Like, he goes to met
class, and, you know, he slowly picks up
the skills and kind of processes what happened
in enough, to generate the bravery to open
the letter,
and
throughout the in entire book, you're kind of
kept on tinder hooks because I was very

(01:16:50):
curious as a reader, like, what? This letter
says what in this letter
because this man has lived for, like, decades,
not knowing, you know, just keeping the material
the physicality of the letter under the body
and that's like his reminder of the past.
Don't wanna give it spoiler, but I think
suffice to say that that's not very important
at the end. The actual content of the
letter and not so important as much as

(01:17:11):
the gesture reading it.
And I think that something about this
this story
reminds me of, like, my feelings and how
my father not reading to book.
Because at the beginning, yeah. I think I
really wanted, like, a a certain response from
him, but
especially with him coming to my La even.
He may not read the book, but he

(01:17:32):
brought his body there. The story game is
a book about going from the mind to
body. By understanding that leader body is also
an equal and
equally at the side of expression
and of self, And I think something about
just his physical presence there because he doesn't
live in La. Right? He flew all the
everything singapore well, to La, but it... Not

(01:17:52):
only for this event, but he showed up
at this event event. And I think something
about that, accepting that debt is enough, for
me. It's kind of, like my equivalent of
opening the letter. You know...
Because I think it's for me, maybe he
has been trying to give me something all
my life that because I lived so much
in my own head and not in my
body. I was not able to receive this

(01:18:13):
gift.
I had to write the story.
To go back and do my buddy and
be, you know, your presence is enough. Thank
you for coming the date event. But yeah
was a long brief involved in this journey.
Yeah. No...
That's beautiful ref framing though, imagining
the
the presence of his body of of him
supporting you outside of language.

(01:18:34):
Shares exactly. And I think of, you know,
maybe also because of my background. Like, I
would have a lot a lot more highly
educated at my parents, like they also went
to university,
but in terms of the leap between the
generations, like, you know, a lot of people
in singapore about their grandparents might be illiterate,
for example. And then I went to, like,
a very procedures
overseas.

(01:18:54):
I think there is an extent to which,
like,
the older generations might not be able to
understand the medium of connection that is most
easy for me I'm more intuitive for me
personally,
and something about just, like, making peace with
that. Is a way of accepting them for
who they are.
Yeah.
Well, I want to preserve both the mystery.

(01:19:17):
Around the memory loss and the mystery around
your sister's silent treatment for the reader. But
I do think what makes this book richer
is that it isn't just the discovery of
1 oneself as a victim,
but take a more sophisticated look at what
victims of trauma do with trauma,
which not uncommon is to reproduce it.

(01:19:40):
There are ways you reproduce sort of the
authoritarian environment that you are susceptible to in
the book. For instance, in in 1 great
essay about going to volunteer at an eco
lodge, in the Baltic,
only find yourself in an exploit
authoritarian scam where
the work you do not only wasn't particularly

(01:20:02):
ecological,
it was mainly funding the owner's vacations.
Or to a lesser extent you're volunteering at
a Palestinian
con in East jerusalem where your Palestinian coworkers
were my,
why you would fly across the world to
wash other people's dishes for free.
But

(01:20:22):
in ways that I won't go into here,
the book
also explores the way victims can be victim
mis.
The way victims can continue a chain of
victim.
Instead of talking about it in the book.
I wanted to talk about some of what
you've written about Palestine
outside of the book.
You've been very outspoken on social media on

(01:20:44):
behalf of Palestine and you've written
on your blog about your anguish
regarding the 8 months of d,
disposition and ind
destruction and death that
has been unleashed on an already confined civilian
population since October seventh.
Back in late November, you say that something

(01:21:08):
had died in you, watching Israel and western
governments,
genocide of the Palestinian people unfolding in real
time.
That you were so shaken that you couldn't
shut up.
And you say at the end of that
blog post, 6 months ago, quote,
I will probably feel it until the day
I die,

(01:21:28):
and will probably
live inside every piece of art or writing
that I make from now on.
Before I bring this back to the project
of your book.
Let's start exterior as your book does. For
instance,
where you talk in your blog
about the grief you felt
for a political system,

(01:21:50):
you thought you lived in
but now realized for certain that you had
never lived in, not for 1 second of
your life, and where you talk about how
how the prevailing notion and ideology in Singapore,
the 1 that you were raised under was
that leaders by definition were ben.
And competent.

(01:22:12):
You've c written an article with Amir Os
about
some slides
from Singapore
ministry of education that were meant to teach
students
about Gaza
and about the uproar and controversy that these
slides caused.
I wanted to make a space for you
to speak about Palestine,
but also perhaps

(01:22:33):
share with us about the
particular situation of Singapore in relation to Palestine
too? Yeah. This is another difficult 1, where,
I feel like I don't
I want to answer it in a evaluate
I don't speak on behalf of everyone
everywhere from Because there are many many people
and... And actually people have very different views
lenders.
So I think a lot of pets that

(01:22:53):
your pushed. Right? 1 of them is the
grief I feel, which
actually, for me the most interesting question
Arguably of the past 9 months
is why
is it that this grief and anger at
seeing the sites that I have seen and
I would say many people on Earth have

(01:23:13):
seen, why is it that this thing which
my body instinctively does upon seeing these horrific
horrific sites. But, you, I've I've seen, like,
a person's leak get shredded. I've seen, like,
you know, like, really horrible things.
Why is it that somehow
that
instinct of feeding does not translate into the
level of politics and into the level of

(01:23:34):
collective action.
I think for me of the question debt,
nor like,
profoundly disturb me, but also energizes me. And
maybe that's what I meant when I said
that... I think it will be there always
in my writing.
The level of d
that I see happening
in the media
at the moment.
I think there is a way in which

(01:23:55):
I understand for having written the story game
is not really possible to d another person
to that extent. Unless in some way, you
also believe. That you are not human. You
know, In some way, you... It's not very
positive Not very easy to d and another
person representative you yourself are d
because
as much as you recognize your own experience
of self but you are able to afford
that grace to another person, and you are

(01:24:17):
able to recognize that they probably feel that
same way about themselves.
Of, and I think for, I the status
and most like, troubling thing because I've realized
that many, many people around me.
In this industry, that was just like Social.
And also many of my friends, Right, who
are in this government menu mentioned, the singapore
about government moment it has done a lot,
actually the rep repressed. People who want to

(01:24:39):
speak up of who just want to voice
is how unhappy,
how shaken they are, even that voicing,
you know, it's something that's seen as a
threat security and must be stamped out.
And
perhaps this,
somebody who's is not from a social position
with find it very easy to print criticize,
You know, like, all government officials. I just,
like, homeless people who only care about, like,

(01:25:01):
you know,
efficacy and about material concerns of security indeed
have no hot, you know? But I cannot
say that... Because these are people Are went
to school with Beside the children who were
streamed with me at age night and do
this stream. And I remember what they were
like when we were 10 years or 11
years old I remember that, you know, we
used the play game, and I remember the
deaf feeling. I remember, like, yeah. Shame when,

(01:25:23):
like, the teacher called under, and they don't
answer correctly. I remember like Jeff is cash.
I just remember all these small thing to
such a huge extent that I cannot stop
seeing them as real people. And
something about reconciling debt
with the level of d denuclearization that they
are now executing makes me in some very
set it makes me feel very, very sad,

(01:25:44):
be left almost, I think for a lot
of my friends because I realized that Ne
feels such a great emptiness.
That they can also treat other people as
if they are empty containers with no soul.
And, you know, I I know only feel
be and set
as an outsider,
I think I also empathize because... When I
first started at writing the story review and
the person who I was at that time.

(01:26:05):
I mean, I think I would still have
been, like, this is terrible.
But the feeling would not have been so...
It would not have been so rude it
and so bone deep inside me. It would
not have been a feeling that I feel
every morning went out. Wake up, and I
look at the news, you know, it would
have just been like, yeah. This is the
thing that I should say. And so I
say it. Kind all. Like, a progressive person
I should say this thing so I say
Okay. Yeah. But it but no, I have

(01:26:27):
come from a real of, like, my stomach
hurts, like my my hair hurts, like, I
feel like this is turning, feeling and inside
me and feel like, I must say something,
You know?
I I really loved some of your engagement
with us and the questions that have come
up for you on your blog around it.
You talk about how you grew up in
a a zion Christian church,

(01:26:48):
and as a young adult left your faith.
Nevertheless in your blog post in October of
last year you talk about with your heartbreaking
over Gaza that you found yourself wanting to
play old songs from your Christian passed on
the guitar, something that my you because you
no longer held any of these beliefs.
And you even felt embarrassed showing

(01:27:10):
this side of yourself to your husband who
had never witnessed this part of you.
And you say, quote,
I needed to sing the old songs to
remember in a time where my feelings are
running particularly high
that the other
is not out there in the world.
As a thing to reject and smear and
direct immense amounts of hatred towards.

(01:27:33):
It feels uncomfortable to admit this, but the
other is in me actually, in some ways,
it is me is a part of me
that I can bring up every once in
a while and still have genuinely strong feelings
of connection and gratitude towards even though I
no longer identify with it.
And then later you say,

(01:27:53):
We have to accept that both these potentials
to dominate and be dominated,
l dormant in every single human heart, including
our own.
And when I look at the zion
rhetoric that is currently flooding our news channels,
what I see is a group of people
who have been
completely unable to accept the presence of this

(01:28:14):
duality within themselves.
Even though this is all from outside the
book,
It does feel like this spirit animate the
story game, a book that
you and others have var called
a book of self
situation or a book about loneliness,
but it's also a book about control and

(01:28:35):
power
where in becoming a self,
you also imp the self at the same
time. And I wondered if you see that
connection,
between the 2 that in some ways,
this book is also engaging
with the other in the self
I think that's what the the construct of
my sister represents. Right? Because

(01:28:58):
I think there is a way
where at the beginning of this book. I
am integrating this other into myself, but it's
not a true other. You know what I
mean? I think that I actually go through
the entire book without once touching my true
sister as you yourselves sit until the very
end of the book. That's the only moment
in which she is truly out, and I
truly have made a little space within myself
or someone who could, you know, really threaten

(01:29:20):
my worldview.
You know, it's very easy I think to
think you have a relationship with another person,
but actually you join. Is very easy to
think that you know who another person is
and what they believe and what they want
from you of what viewpoint they hold towards
you.
And kind of maybe not paradox because I
think it does makes sense that the further
away you actually are from the further it

(01:29:42):
is the easier and easier is to integrate
this kind of, like, false cell or like
your projection of the other person into you
and to think that you're engaging with another
person, you know, they really truly believe that...
Yeah. This thing that you have is wise.
Hey, Off, there's some kind of emotional energy
being exchanged between you. When, really, it's just
you exchanging emotional energy of yourself.
And I think the at the start of

(01:30:03):
story game. This was my relationship with the
other who, maybe my sister sends in for
the other
and with a sense of rich which, you
know, I can talk about all these people.
Like, you know, I can worry about people
in value. Just people in barely on masse.
You know Just like, as when Gigantic decor,
And I think that I have a relationship
with them. You know, I think that I
have very intelligent. And I do have very
intelligent news it and wealth formed parts to

(01:30:25):
say about them. But
It's not about them. You know, it's about
me actually the Every everywhere I go I
see me in the other person, and I
see my own insecurities and my own fears.
And only be at the very, very end
I'm, like, I have made in enough space
just, like, 1 person. Like, the person who
is closer closest doing me and, you know,
who I love the
to pick up that little speech. And in

(01:30:46):
terms of how relates to diana swift, I
guess,
probably affects years I know. But
I think that often I see people engaging,
you know what they say, like,
the other is like this. The other is
like that.
But
It doesn't feel like the person you're talking
about is a real person or real people,
you know, It feels like they're engaging often

(01:31:06):
with, like, protections. They have written. I think
as a sense, you can feel that you
can see that there is just 1
feeling that keep getting recurrent to in the
comments.
And I think in in in this case,
from what I've been reading on social media.
I lot yeah,
you know, A lot of, feelings of of
worry about being themselves of obliterated. And so
I must of literary other person. But actually,

(01:31:27):
how do you know, you know, how do
you know what the other person things unless
you talked to them?
Yeah. You you just never... You can never
know. And unless you... And as you take
that step out, do the real world, and
you may another person.
You you really, you know, they might be
completely outside of the framework of references
that you believe to be the whole wall.
Yeah. The world is update. Think that's why

(01:31:48):
would say. And there was a place composed
of genuinely
other people. Yeah. And without them, it's so
lonely. It's so lonely to live in a
wealth of your own making,
to be so no need that you were
in invent people, you know, to invent people
to dominate over, and then carry out that
domination against their flesh and blood.
Let a blood,

(01:32:09):
at the wall. It's so there. It's such
a lonely only position. Yeah.
Do you wanna talk a little bit about
some of the organizing and activism that you're
doing? I would actually.
So I've been organizing with a group in
the Uk called Fossil free books.
We are, like, a loose kind of collective
of many different

(01:32:30):
people in the books industries and some of
us at authors,
some of us out publishing workers or, you
know, they brand podcasts, for example, are reviewers
of people who were at literary festivals.
And then we've all come together to kind
of julie's our position as workers,
to try and get the books industry here
to play a role in a dives diverse

(01:32:51):
project,
from companies that sponsoring that is really gen
genocide at the moment and also companies that
have investment in fossil fuels. But I never
like to say about this. So for me,
they're very rare interesting thing that I have
found from organizing in this way is that,
you know, the thing that actually fuck free
book is asking for is we are asking

(01:33:12):
the literary festival, to utilize our relationship, the
relationship that they have with, for example, Bailey
Gif,
who is an investment firm to invest in
a lot of very problematic project, They're saying,
okay. You have this relationship with them. Right?
So for you use this relationship to try
and ask them to dives vest of know,
if we pull out our labor as workers
and as authors from the literary festivals,

(01:33:34):
can you use that as a bargaining trip
with, you baby give and see please. Either,
our authors are not coming back. But what
has happened actually as a result of that
is that baby gif while some festival cut
your has for baby give and then baby
give it themselves just drop all the festival
in the Uk including huge est like hay
and Edinburgh book festival,

(01:33:54):
they shut them down. No. They didn't shut
the festival down. The the... The festival was
going on, but then the company
has the decided to cut highest of the
festival, So they no longer sponsored their festival.
And as a result of that, there's been
a lot of, kind of like backlash and
the Uk media where people are, like, oh,
you know, you want your festivals to be
secure and clean And that's terrible because who's

(01:34:16):
gonna find out festivals all it. And I
find that this misleading of the entire campaign
aims is very interesting.
You know, we're talking about projections. Right? I
feel like this is not at all what
our campaign was asking for. We were saying
you let... You don't mind bailey gift like
leave. We want you to utilize the radiation
that you have with Daily give to ask

(01:34:36):
them to do something different. You know, because,
like, if festival I've gone around for you
they, you know, We love baby care. Like
we have a special relationship with a relationship
of closeness.
And this group not to read a cave
at all of good best sign of trouble,
really good at just cut in this. And
I feel like the public has chosen to
see this has chosen to read it in
a certain rate, Like, we want more purity.

(01:34:58):
By think that, you know, it often people
see you, and if they're seeing you, they
only see what they want you to be.
They only see that projection of you. Know,
you're just talking about it. Right With was
zion?
I think this is happening in the Uk?
Because I find it so interesting. Like, why
do why aren't people? You know chosen to
a situation in this particular way. Is it
because they feel insecure

(01:35:19):
about their period, like, the ability to have,
like, pure, a pure experience of of of
the arts, you know?
Because there's no ads for at all.
Just to go back at a story game,
kind of, like, the link because I feel
like fits the wavelength blank for me, You
know, and at the end of the story
as a part where I talk about my
relationship with my sister, and I see it

(01:35:39):
many years. I thought she was so selfish.
I thought she was a really selfish bitch
person. Like she was selfish bitch.
I felt I had no I had no
sense self. I didn't have this for this
thing inside me that was able to assert
and, like, stand out for myself. So when
I saw it in another person, it was
into. It was like, I felt
extreme resentment, and I was, like, you can't
have that quality, or, like, because you have

(01:36:01):
that quality, I can't have it. You know,
you took like, all the selfish that's in
the world, and then I have not for
myself, So I've left as a selfless person.
And sometimes when I see the public,
kind of response to fossil free books at
a wave a public has misread our campaign.
That's why I'm reminded of, you know, they're
like, you can afford to be morally pure
of your author. And then we... We had

(01:36:22):
no choice. You So we're a example. You
can't be morally pure because if we can't
be no I can be. And I feel
like, this for. That's a very interesting, Christian.
I guess are there any British lives on
it. Thank sure I would ask,
you know, why? Why do you think that
you can be more already pure? And that
that is the purview of authors. And then
you get said that you see when you
see others exercising the thing that actually a

(01:36:44):
very normal healthy human trait. You know, why
do... Is it because you feel like you
can't have that truth? And if so why.
Right? They're interesting to me.
Yeah. It's interesting to me too.
Well, as a final question, and in talking
about your
agent Allison,
and how she both identified anger, buried and

(01:37:04):
unspoken in your writing and how she wanted
to bring it forward.
You've said that your next manuscript will come
from anger,
but you've also said on your blog, the
following,
quote,
Lately, I've been thinking a lot about the
role played by the other in my creative
process.
I wrote the story game more or less
within the constraints of my own mind.

(01:37:25):
And to some extent within the constraints of
my own
system.
And the book needed that, it wanted it
because it was an exploration of the coping
mechanisms,
a person can come up with to deal
with extreme loneliness.
But this new book, this second book,
I think it wants something else. It wants

(01:37:45):
another
in a different way than the first book
did
something like
it needs other people in order to be
written in order to find its way.
Something that comes from the outside to un
settle the inside.
In the way that a single line of
dialogue from another person
can instantaneously un unsettled the entire world of

(01:38:08):
assumptions
you've built up
inside your own head
about who they are and what they want.
In light of that, I wondered if you
feel comfortable sharing anything about what you're working
on now or what you imagine you'll be
working on next.
Yeah. More that that 1 I think.
So you can confirm me I always see

(01:38:30):
the endpoint much, much, much. Earlier than then
I see the journey. So I see, like,
the final goal. Like, with the story game,
for example, very early on in a process,
I told someone. I think I'm gonna write
a book that will be
who thinks it's true and 1 that falls.
And I feel like this is the... I
need to write a book about this and
And then I had no idea how Was

(01:38:50):
gonna do it or what the vegan would
be or, you know, what journey would take
me to let point in, but many of
data Turned out I did write that book.
And at bigger of the second book project,
I feel like the final destination is motherhood.
It's like a book about,
See. Can't even say what it's about. I
just know that the final definition is something
about being a mom or, like, having a
mom, a mom's general role.

(01:39:12):
And also maybe about empire, you know, again,
I think I often have to go through
this political lens to arrive at myself. So
I feel like, the political side of that
that most appeals... Oh, I feel like it's
most analogous to the experience of motherhood that
I went through with my mom, it Empire
where 1 person,
1 person knows everything about the other person.
In in this case, I I felt like

(01:39:33):
I you a lot lot of things about
my mom, but she didn't really know or
see me.
I feel like something about that imbalance really
reminds me of the dynamic of Empire. Mh.
And so these 2 regrets are kind of
like weaving. And there was a a lot
of other things I think that might be
spinning with the book. For example, I've been
thinking a lot about female friendships that I
had, throughout my life. But and about how

(01:39:54):
in some ways they replicate it this dynamic
or, you know, they try to... Maybe they
try to break away from this dynamic, but
we're not so successful, and I'm curious about
why
And then another threat is that I feel
like they're going to be interviews in this
book. So 1 of the thing Why think
I'm saying about.
It's like learning how to listen. I think
I'm... This is actually an area where I'm

(01:40:16):
not very strong because all my life, I
have been able to give off this that's.
And the person of things I'm this thing.
But I'm just, like, constructing a story about
them in my head.
Finally, I think I need to know how
to listen. Like, really listen
Yeah. On the other person's terms in being
rather than my own, and that's the challenge,
I think of the next scope.

(01:40:36):
Well, the interview forum
sort of helps, I think create a space
for this other voice. Right? It's not the
imagined other voice. It's an actual other voice.
So other people's words are gonna be in
your book. I think so. And I feel
like that's the only way. I quit buy
another but we've imagine what. But then I
would just be writing this book again. I
don't want it. If you like deploy us

(01:40:58):
like you tried new things.
But, yeah. I mean, just to kinda derail
it little little bit, like, having had that
x... Be of you and the others this
podcast is so it interesting for me because
I feel like even if we're doing this,
I'm looking at you I'm learning how to
this. And, I'm trying to lay understand how
you are doing the thing you're are doing
and trying to, like.
I don't know. Yeah. It's just very interesting

(01:41:19):
think.
Yeah.
That's on that's an honor to hear.
Thank you for being on the show today.
S we. Thank you very much. But this
was really nice to feel like all your
questions were so deep end thought provoking, and
there were also questions that know many people
have asked me before. Oh, good. Yeah. That's
great to hear. I We've been talking today

(01:41:40):
to Show T about her debut memoir, the
story game. You've been listening to between the
covers. I'm David name and your host.

(01:42:06):
Today's program was recorded at the volunteer powered,
non commercial listener sponsored full strength
makeshift home office be David Na.
You can find more of S t at
her website,
t s dot com, TJ0ASHZEHUI

(01:42:27):
dot com.
For the bonus audio, she's recorded a, 30
minute video for us,
a page by page narration slash
translation of the Chinese language
picture book mister Wing,
accompanied by a piano performance from 1 of
her childhood peers in conservatory.
This joins many long form translator

(01:42:49):
conversations, readings,
sounds landscapes, and kraft talks.
The bonus audio is only 1 possible thing
to choose from by joining them between the
covers community. It's a listener supporter.
Every supporter can join our brainstorm
future guests and every listener supporter receives
supplementary
resources with each conversation.

(01:43:10):
Of things discovered while preparing for the conversation,
things that we reference during it and places
to explore once you're done listening.
Additionally, there are a variety of other potential
gifts and rewards. The bonus audio archive to
the Tin house early readers leadership subscription.
Getting 12 books over the course of a
year, months before they're available to the general

(01:43:32):
public.
To a bundle of books selected by me,
and sent to you.
If find out more at patreon dot com
slash between the covers.
Or if you prefer a 1 time donation,
you can do so my paypal
at 10 house dot com slash
support.
I'd like to thank the 10 house team,
Elizabeth Tom mayo and Lisa Og in the

(01:43:54):
book division,
best s New York department,
Becky Kramer and Publicity,
in Lance Cl, the director of the summer
in winter 10 house riders workshops.
Finally, I'd like to thank past between the
guest, poet, musician, composer,
performer, and much more.
Alicia Joe Robbins for making the intro and

(01:44:15):
the out for the show.
You can find out more about her work,
her writing, her music,
her film
at joe dot com. ALI
cia AJ0
dot com,

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