Interview with Gish Jen on Finding Your Own Narrative

“Writing chose me,” says writer Gish Jen. “It’s not like I sat down with four alternatives and thought, ‘Okay, which one of these things am I going to do?’ Writing chose me, and I do not see myself as having had any other option.” Born in Long Island, New York, to Chinese immigrant dad and mom, Jen has written 5 novels, two nonfiction books, and two brief story collections, together with her newest, Thank You, Mr. Nixon. Named a finest ebook of 2022 by the New Yorker, NPR, and Oprah, Thank You, Mr. Nixon seems on the fifty years since Richard Nixon’s groundbreaking go to to China, unfolding with Jen’s signature wit, empathy, and poignancy.  

In her writing, Jen explores household and cultural ancestry, present between worlds, and the way we determine—or don’t—who we’re. She’s unsure she would have turn out to be a author if she hadn’t grown up the kid of immigrants. “From an early age,” she says, “I was engaged in the activity of making a coherent narrative out of my life.” Her work has appeared within the New Yorker, the Atlantic, and the New York Times, amongst many others, and her tales have been chosen 5 occasions for The Best American Short Stories. Honors embody a National Book Critics Circle Award nomination and a Guggenheim fellowship; she’s a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and serves on the board of the MacArthur Foundation. 

From her house in Boston, Jen spoke with me about being between cultures and the way she grew to become the writer of her personal life.

*

I liked Thank You, Mr. Nixon! How did you come to jot down this ebook? I used to be sitting by a lake throughout COVID, and it was very quiet, and I had a bunch of tales I’d written through the years. All of a sudden, the tales began to coalesce in a means I hadn’t anticipated. 

Bardos embody occasions when the truth we all know ends and we’re in a state of suspension, like throughout a pandemic. How did COVID affect the writing of your ebook? It heightened my consciousness of contingency basically and sparked an curiosity in historic contingency particularly, particularly the way in which that one man, Richard Nixon, might go to China and unleash forces past something we imagined. 

American tradition tends to be much less accepting of contingency, in distinction to many Asian cultures. Is your view of impermanence influenced extra by Chinese tradition than American tradition? That’s an fascinating query. I’m from a background the place dynasties fall, governments come and go. There’s an assumption of flux. My buddies in America are shocked when an organization goes out of enterprise, however I assume issues are unstable. 

You grew up in ethnic isolation in Queens, Yonkers, and Scarsdale. Did you are feeling such as you have been “in between”—type of American however type of Chinese? It’s solely now that I perceive I used to be in limbo, in transit from one tradition to a different. I used to be conscious my dad and mom knew nothing. It was information that individuals used dishwashing detergent, that they drank issues iced as an alternative of at room temperature, that they’d a distinct thought of non-public area. We had a Volkswagen Beetle and we’d all crowd into it, my dad and mom in entrance, the three larger children within the center, and my two little brothers in again. We liked it, however being squished collectively like that will be unacceptable to the general public I reside with at the moment.

Was there a degree whenever you began to really feel completely different from your loved ones? I used to be ambivalent about my house life as a result of it was so isolating and folks thought the whole lot we did was humorous. The means we ate was humorous. The means we dressed was humorous. The means we thought was humorous. My feeling of disjuncture grew to become extra acute in highschool. I keep in mind driving in Chinatown with my boyfriend and my household, when my father bought pulled over. He began talking in Chinese, pretending he didn’t converse English. The cop stated, “You stay right here,” and went for assist, whereupon my father took off! Everyone within the automobile was laughing, however I used to be conscious we weren’t all laughing the identical snigger. My siblings have been laughing as a result of we’d gotten away with one thing. My boyfriend was laughing as a result of he simply couldn’t imagine it. He was like, did that basically occur? And I used to be laughing as a result of I felt uncomfortable—I used to be conscious my boyfriend was laughing another way, and in addition that it wasn’t OK to do what my father had simply finished. Not solely was my household life a bardo, however I used to be in a private bardo throughout the bardo. A meta bardo, if you’ll. You might see the author coming: I used to be changing into an intimate outsider, a part of my household however not. 

How do you are feeling about that? Today, I can really feel the lack of it, however I largely really feel the liberation. I’m completely satisfied to have turn out to be an individual who might depart. And I don’t really feel like I’m nonetheless in bardo. Or perhaps bardo has turn out to be a house for me?

The bardo teachings encourage us to face actuality so we are able to reside in a means that’s genuine to who we’re. After you graduated from Harvard, you went to enterprise faculty however dropped out. Did you get up someday and understand, this isn’t for me? When I completed faculty, I assumed, “I really need to do something,” so I utilized to enterprise faculty. I can’t imagine they took me, as a result of I used to be the least business-oriented particular person to ever set foot in Stanford Business School. As quickly as I bought there, I knew I used to be within the flawed place. Everyone was involved about issues I didn’t care about. By the second trimester, I’d stopped going to class. I used to be taking writing courses as an alternative and browse 100 novels that yr. 

During my time at Stanford, I went to a funeral for the primary time and realized, “Oh, my god! We’re all going to die!” I used to be going to die, and if I didn’t attempt to turn out to be a author, I’d lie on my deathbed asking myself, “Why did I not try to become a writer?” You can’t lie on your deathbed with remorse of that order. At the identical time, I used to be the daughter of immigrants, and good Chinese ladies didn’t simply drop out of graduate faculty. It was a tough break to make.

I dreaded telling my dad and mom. You your self know what these Asian immigrant households will be like. My dad and mom had skilled a whole lot of trauma in China and had labored actually exhausting to lift 5 youngsters and ship all of them to school. So to have a daughter say, in any case that, “I’m going back into the pool of the hopelessly insecure” was upsetting.

How did they take it? They stopped chatting with me for over a yr. Eventually they accepted that I had turn out to be a author, however to the tip, they’d have liked to see me in actual property or medical faculty.

Being conscious of loss of life helps us do not forget that not solely are we finite but additionally that we don’t understand how lengthy now we have, so there’s no time to waste. Do you continue to really feel the consciousness of impermanence that struck you on the funeral? Absolutely. For each ebook, I ask myself, “If it’s only given to me to write one more book, would this be it?” And, “Would I rise up from my deathbed to finish this book?” People are all the time saying, “Why don’t you write for TV?” and I see nice work being finished on TV. But on my deathbed, I wouldn’t say, “Grim Reaper, wait one more minute. I have to finish this episode,” whereas with a ebook, I’d say, “You know what? I’m on page 275. Give me a little more time, I’m almost done.” 

That’s such an ideal picture. I can think about the Grim Reaper standing there. While I’m typing away…

In bardo, we’re the artists of our lives. We create our trajectory with the alternatives we make, such as you did whenever you dropped out of enterprise faculty and have become a author. You usually speak in regards to the significance of self-narration. Does self-narration imply being the writer of your individual story? Being the artist of your individual life is sort of a Western thought. The Eastern thought has extra to do with adjusting to no matter life brings. It’s about navigation quite than authoring. I credit score Western tradition for the diploma to which I do really feel just like the writer of my very own life. Today, I’m very a lot a hybrid determine, oriented towards lodging however uncomfortable merely accepting the whole lot that’s given to me, particularly as a result of what I used to be anticipated to simply accept as a lady was so ridiculous.

What sorts of expectations did you encounter? My dad and mom have been knowledgeable by a Nineteenth-century, premodern China, so I grew up with the ludicrous concept that I ought to attempt to make myself into somebody marriageable. My grandmother “kept in the background,” as my mom described it, a lot in order that she by no means laughed aloud. The entire concept that that’s the best, that it’s not okay so that you can train your voice in any form, means or type, is so excessive that I reacted towards it. You start to say, “Well, no, I don’t accept that. I cannot go along with that.” And if which means I’m the writer of my very own life, I suppose I’m! But it doesn’t begin a lot with this concept that my life is mine and I ought to have the ability to do what I would like with it as, “I don’t know what my narrative is, but I can tell you one thing: I reject yours.”      

When I left enterprise faculty and entered writing, I might by no means have stated that I used to be self-narrating. I used to be simply doing what was given to me to do. Grace Paley as soon as stated to me, “It’s your fate.” That made good sense. In “it’s your fate to self-narrate,” you’ll be able to hear the wedding of the outdated world and the brand new, each East and West. It’s not that it’s your proper to self-narrate, or that you must do it since you really feel prefer it. You do it as a result of it’s your destiny. 

When I say “East and West,” I don’t imply this stuff are monoliths. However, it’s true that many individuals from non-Western backgrounds are uncomfortable utilizing the primary particular person. Distinguished writers with this discomfort embody Yiyun Li, who has stated, “As soon as I use the word ‘I,’ my confidence crumbles.” And Salman Rushdie began writing his memoir about life below the fatwa, Joseph Anton, within the first particular person and needed to change to the third particular person. Lots of reviewers and readers thought that was bizarre, however if you happen to perceive something about non-Western cultures, it’s a lot much less stunning. 

Even if you happen to draw back from the primary particular person, although, you’re nonetheless the writer of your life. Right. Someone like Salman Rushdie is clearly the writer of his personal life, so it’s not like the other of a first-person orientation is passivity. Many folks from non-Western backgrounds see themselves as half of a bigger chain. They are born from one thing, and once they die, one thing continues. So the concept you’d inform a narrative that solely begins with you and solely ends with you appears unusual and flawed. That’s why you’ll see this discomfort with the autobiographical impulse because it’s practiced within the West.

For me, it isn’t a lot that I’ve wanted to inform my story, however that writing has been a means of creating sense of all of the dissonance I skilled as a baby. It’s been a means of grappling with the forces that made my dad and mom who they have been, the forces that make America what it’s, and the place I slot in all that. It’s been a means of grappling with the very other ways there are of being human. I’m grateful that I’ve a facility with phrases, and a means of addressing all of it versus merely marinating in it. It’s good to be the marinator as an alternative of the marinated.