[00:00:00] Jane: Welcome to Historical Happy Hour, the podcast that explores new and exciting historical fiction novels. I’m your host, Jane Healey, and in today’s episode, we welcome debut novelist Karissa Chen to discuss her beautiful new novel, Home Seeking. Which was just a Good Morning America book club pick. The Pittsburgh Post Book Gazette called this book sweeping and epic, an impactful love story told against the backdrop of historical events, one of the best debut novels of the century.
Amazing! Thank you. I’m going to do a quick bio and then dive right into questions. Carissa Chen is a Fulbright Fellow, Pendamon Fiction Fellow, and a Vona Voices Fellow, whose fiction and essays have appeared in The Atlantic, Eater, The Cut, NBC News Think, Longreads, Pen America, among others.
She was awarded an Artist Fellowship from the New Jersey State Council on the Arts. As well as residence at Malay Arts, where she was a Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation Creative Fellow at the Virginia Center for Creative Arts, Kimmel Harding Nelson Center for the Arts and Ragdale Foundation, and Willoughby Bay AIR.
She was formerly a Senior Fiction Editor at The Rumpus and currently serves as the Editor in Chief at Hyphen Magazine. She received an MFA in Fiction from Sarah Lawrence College and splits her time between New Jersey and Taipei, Taiwan. Again, welcome! Thank you so much. Thank you. We were, I was just already gushing about this novel.
It’s beautiful and it was inspired by a photograph you found of your grandfather. So talk about the inspiration and the overall premise for the story.
[00:01:44] Karissa: Yeah I’ll start with just the premise so that, people who haven’t quite read it yet, the book is about two childhood sweethearts who grow up in Shanghai during the Sino Japanese War and they fall in love and, they Amidst the Chinese Civil War, and then, because the Chinese Civil War breaks out, they don’t actually, they’re not able to, get married they’re separated because of this war, and one goes to Taiwan, one goes to Hong Kong, they meet again in their 70s and so the inspiration behind this book was really, like you said, because I saw this photograph of my grandfather, he passed away in 2005, and shortly after, We were going through his things and we found this photograph of him crying in front of his mother’s grave in Shanghai.
And, I’d never seen him like that before because he, didn’t really show his emotions that much. So I was really moved by it and really haunted by it. And I decided, I wanted to know more about the situation. What, why was he crying? What led to this? And I found out that for my grandfather, he had left Shanghai when he was 19 years old.
He went to Taiwan and he was never able to go back to Shanghai. He went. On what he thought was going to be a vacation. But his mom was still there. His father, his brother were still there and he was never able to go back while his parents were still living. It was decades later. And what I wanted to do then was like, okay, I now know what my grandfather went through.
Why? What was the bigger context of this? And that’s when I found out that his story actually wasn’t that unique. There were 2 million people who left China and went to Taiwan. In the wake of the Chinese Civil War, a lot of them were soldiers. My grandfather wasn’t, but a lot of them were soldiers or part of the military, part of Chiang Kai shek’s nationalist government.
And they went to Taiwan thinking that they would be able to return in, a couple of years, it would regroup, they would win the war and then they would go back home. And so they left behind people, they left behind families, children, wives And they didn’t go back for decades or in, obviously in the case of elderly parents, you might have never seen them again.
So that’s really what inspired me to start writing about this particular history because I was like, Oh my God what must it be like to be separated from your loved ones in such a way and have that sort of homesickness and heart sickness for the rest of your life?
[00:04:07] Jane: Yeah, amazing. And I I love when I learn about an aspect of history.
Kind of vaguely familiar with but not really and yeah, and you covered it. So well, I want to talk about the main characters sushi and Sushi is an high one. I want to make sure I’m pronouncing it right their childhood friends turns teenage Sweethearts, they’re pulled apart by the war But you develop these characters from like little kids to their 70s And like how did you develop such richly drawn characters over the course of their lives of decades?
[00:04:41] Karissa: Yeah, it’s interesting because when I started with the story, I started with when they were elderly, I had this idea of this story where two people meet again after many years, and they have all this history between them. And so I didn’t really know anything about them at that point in time, and it was only when I was like, okay I’m going to start.
weaving in their childhood that I was like, I need to really understand like who they are, who they were before the war, right? Like the people that they might have been if things hadn’t gotten in the way and, their personalities. And then, so then that way we would be able to see like the way in which history changed them having gone through these particular events changed them.
So it was actually really fun for myself because I, I’m not someone who has a really strong conception of what I’m going to write from the very beginning. I’m what I call a pantser, I am trying to excavate who these people are as I go along and I let them reveal themselves to me.
So it was really like, I’m writing and I was like, Oh, I guess he’s a violinist. That makes sense. And, it wasn’t something that I planned in advance.
[00:05:50] Jane: Amazing. I have to ask you, too, about the structure of their story, because it’s told from both of their perspectives. But Suu Kyi’s story is told from the past to the present, for the most part, and Hyewon’s is told from the present to the past, and I read an interview where you talked about how you had been struggling to figure out the structure, to figure out your way into the story, and you listened to the music.
About the musical, The Last Five Years. And I love that because it made me think about writing is not always writing. It’s a lot of times it’s like thinking and being in your car and hearing something and be like, that might work. And talk about how you figured out the structure. And it’s very unique and it totally works.
Yeah.
[00:06:30] Karissa: Yeah. Like you said I was really stuck. I’m someone who really needs to understand what structure I’m using in order for me to really move forward with a piece. And I had written bits and pieces of this, like, all over the place. I didn’t write this linearly at all. I wrote the 2008 chapters, and then I had some from 1934, and then I had, this middle section where I was like at the time, I didn’t know it was middle, but I had this section where I had written it from both points of view, and I was like, Why am I writing it from both points of view?
It’s such a waste of time. And I just didn’t know what I was doing. Like you said, I was listening to this musical the last five years. I was at a writer’s residency and every single day I was supposed to write, but I wasn’t, and I was just listening to this soundtrack over and over again, and for those of you who don’t know, like the last five years it’s a musical by Jason Robert Brown.
It’s about a couple that is getting divorced, but, when we start the musical, the first song we hear is a woman singing about the end of her relationship. And the next song we hear is about their first date. And it goes like alternates like that with one going backwards in the relationship, the other going forwards in the relationship.
They meet in the middle when they get married. And then the last song is, I think the second to last song is like the man singing about their divorce and then the very last song is like their first date and it’s like that. And I was listening to that a lot and I was suddenly like, wait, maybe I could try this structure for this book because not only does it work with the pieces I already have I have this.
dual, this one section where I have both points of view. I was like, okay, maybe that can be the middle. I had all these other parts, but also because it would work really well with the themes that I was trying to convey about what these characters are going through and how they how they deal with the trauma and deal with.
The aching that they have. So with one, with Tzu Chi, she’s someone who thinks very much the way to survive is by not looking backwards. We move forward, we don’t want to think about what could have been, what we don’t think about the past trauma, like just move forward.
And the other character, Hai Wen, is someone who’s the opposite. Who’s very nostalgic who’s mining his past for, could I have done something else? Is there a different decision I could have made? And also really dwelling on these, the people that he misses and like wanting to hold onto them.
And so it seemed like it would be the perfect structure and I tried it out and I was like, Oh, it works really well. And then everything else fell into place after that.
[00:08:53] Jane: I love that. And it’s, like I said, it’s really unique, but it, but it totally it worked. I don’t know how you did it, but I, there’s a note on languages that at the beginning of the novel, I’m going to read a little bit of it and about, it’s about how over the course of the story, of course, the novel, Suu Kyi’s and Hye Won’s names change over the decades.
Depending on the cultural context, and and so this is the quote from that part of the book, it’s it’s before the novel starts. For many people in the world, learning one language is a necessity either because of migration or because the place they live is a global one and survival dictates it.
It is a skill that requires an ability to adapt and challenge oneself, and for many immigrants, it’s one of the most difficult and humbling, Difficult, humbling, and uneasy parts of coming to a new country. If you the reader, find yourself confused, I hope instead of giving up, you might take a moment to imagine what it must be like for those who have to navigate this on a daily basis and then forge onward.
I was not confused. I thought I might be, and I was, but I, and I was thinking about that note throughout the book, and I’m glad you, you wrote that in the front, and what led you to the decision to include that.
[00:10:02] Karissa: Yeah I wrote that note probably, I want to say halfway through writing the book, because at that point in time, I realized that I was doing a lot of switching of names, and I’d made the decision to not define every single Chinese word that is in there is Chinese term that’s in there because I was like it wouldn’t make sense.
These people like to them these are just the words they live with. I wouldn’t, I wouldn’t translate teapot, this is a thing you use to like. So why would they do it, right? So I had made that conscious decision to do that, and I had made the conscious decision to represent the names faithfully as they would experience it moving from place to place.
And I realized that for some people who aren’t used to that, that it might feel very disorienting and very challenging and that it might be something that would put people off. And I was really conscious of that. But I also knew that this is a book that is about language and about immigration and about feeling unmoored and disoriented.
And so I wanted to address that head on and say Hey, for those of you that aren’t used to this I understand, I see that, but also If this is something that is uncomfortable to you maybe you can put yourself in the shoes of these characters because like part of I think what is great about fiction is the ability to allow the reader to imagine themselves in a different situation than they’re used to.
And this is part of it this is part of the experience of these characters and I. I didn’t want people to feel discouraged if they found it disorienting. I wanted to be like, hey, this is just part of the experience. This is like you’re experiencing what they’re experiencing.
[00:11:41] Jane: Yeah. Yeah.
No I really, I love that because it was one of those things rather than putting it in the author’s notes in the back, it had you thinking about it while you’re reading the story. So I thought that was really great. There was a beautiful review in the Washington Post. And and this quote, From it really touches the heart.
And one of the major themes of your story Regarding the lives of immigrants. Chrisa Chen sweeping, epic, home seeking centers on war, love, and family more than anything and spoke the immigrants, Phantom, Lynn, the longing for home and for the lives and loves left behind. I was like, Oh, that’s just captured it.
And so talk. About that theme and it’s this is about family and decisions and regrets and and And just a really beaut and really resonates today.
[00:12:27] Karissa: Yeah. Yeah, One of the things that I really wanted to talk about in this book was exactly that Feeling of longing that feeling of no matter where you go, you are leaving a part of yourself behind.
Through the course of my research, I was doing a lot of asking people about their I went to Taiwan to initially interview some of those older soldiers, but a lot of them had passed away by the time I got there. I was talking to their children. I was reading articles and, other oral histories.
And I was just hearing the most heartbreaking stories. I just really moved me and. For example, there was a story that I didn’t end up including in here, but I actually wrote a short story about it was, one boy, he, his mother was worried that the communists were coming. And so she put her son, who was around 13 at the time into a cart with some of the other students that were going to flee, their town and they were going to eventually go to Taiwan and And she wanted him to be safe and she gave him this pomegranate to eat for the road.
And that was a luxury. He’s eating this pomegranate, he’s like looking down, like peeling the fruit. And his friend was like, Hey look up, your mom is waving to you. But by the time he looked up from his fruit, the cart had turned the bend and he didn’t get to see his mother. And he became a lawyer and then a judge in Taiwan later.
And he gave interviews and he said, I’ve never eaten another pomegranate in my life because I just can’t, it makes me think about the fact that I missed the last chance I had to see my mother because of this fruit, and it was stories like that, that I was like, that’s what I want to tell. Like we can talk about the biggest circle forces that, you know, change geo, the geopolitics and change the landscape of, whatever.
But what it comes down to for me is all the thousands of heartbreaking stories that we don’t get to hear. And those people deserve to have their stories come to light. And for us to be able to empathize with what they’ve been through, the things that we can’t imagine, hopefully, if we’re lucky enough to never have these kind of things happen to us.
I, so that was that idea of longing for your home so much in these really specific ways was what really drove me to continue this book and spend 10 years reading it. Yeah.
[00:14:44] Jane: Yeah. That story is really heartbreaking. I can just picture it too.
[00:14:48] Karissa: The first time I heard it, I cried. It was just.
Of
[00:14:50] Jane: course. Yeah I, and that actually leads me to my next question because you did an extraordinary amount of research for this book and you said that you came across many stories where you were moved did any of these stories change the narrative in a major way as you were writing it, writing the book?
Were there any things any big pieces that you found, discovered and you were like, Oh, okay that’s what’s next, or that’s how I’m going to structure it. That’s a great question.
[00:15:17] Karissa: There were quite a few things that I had not initially planned to be part of my narrative until I started digging more.
For instance there’s a chapter in which Hywin, learns about the death of Chiang Kai shek and he’s devastated. And, he cries and that actually came straight from an interview I did with somebody whose father had been a soldier. And he said one of his earliest memories was he remembers, the, that he’d never seen his father cry before, he was a much older man, like a kind of, old fashioned in that way, very, domineering in a lot of ways.
But the first time that he ever saw his father cry was the day that Chiang Kai shek died. And he said he, he was really young. He didn’t really understand like why, and so for me, that was like part of like me imagining I was like what, assuming that you’re not necessarily just So patriotic that you’re like, Oh my God, I’m gonna cry this, and that’s, it’s very possible that man was just like that.
But I was trying to dig deeper, right? What does this man symbolize for this soldier who’s given up, a lot to be for this man, for, following what, their general, basically the generalissimo. What does it mean when he finally dies? And with it, the hope of actually, all the things he promised, which was that they would go back to China, that they would win the war, and that would mean that they would be reunited with their families.
Like how heartbreaking is that? So that became like one entire chapter in itself. Once I had interviewed this man Another example was there is a big fire in Hong Kong that ends up making its way into this novel. And I didn’t know about those fires at first, but as I was doing research about Hong Kong at the time and the massive influx of mainlander Chinese that had come to Hong Kong I found out that Because of this, there are a lot of them who didn’t have money, didn’t have great jobs, whatever.
And there was a shantytown that they just built with whatever they could find. And, big fire broke out on New Year’s Eve, I think it was. And it burned down, what these people had. And these little moments that I was writing. I had done a lot of research before I started writing.
But then, obviously as I’m writing, I’m finding out Oh, I need a little bit more detail here. I need a little bit more, flavor here. Whatever. Things that I don’t know. And I would come across these things and be like, Oh, you know what? I think this needs to make it in here because this seems really important to what these people are going through.
[00:17:37] Jane: Fascinating. I have the next few questions. I asked all the authors who come on and then a couple of the end that I don’t because they’re specific to you, or at least one at the end. And. Everyone write questions in the chat or the Q& A, because after I finish my questions, as usual, I will share any questions you have for Carissa.
How do you strike a balance between fact and fiction in your storytelling? And was there, were there any strict rules? that you adhere to overall?
[00:18:06] Karissa: Oh, that’s a good question. Me, like I was really conscious of not wanting to info dump or like where it seems like you’re reading like a history book.
And so I tried my hardest to do, the research that I needed to be able to immerse myself in the world. And then and then not look at it while I was writing, right? So then it’s not okay, wait let me make sure that I have this information. It was like, I have this knowledge in my mind now, and I’m going to pretend I live in this world.
And like, how can I do it? Obviously sometimes you still have to like, set the stage, I think, especially because this is a lesser known history for, American audiences, if I was writing about like the Civil War, I probably wouldn’t have to like, say what the Civil War is about or whatever.
But With this, I still had to give a little bit of context, but then it was like, okay, how can I give this context in a way that doesn’t feel really jarring or out of place? So that it still feels natural. Yeah, I didn’t really have any rules. I think the one thing I did do was just like, if I found myself spending way too much time trying to find some detail, then I was like, it’s probably not that important.
Like I, there was one day, I spent the entire day trying to figure out like, what kind of beer was like popular. in Hong Kong, the 1960s. And then I was like, why am I doing this? He can just drink whiskey. It’s fine.
[00:19:24] Jane: I know the rabbit holes. It’s then it becomes this quest that you just have to figure it out.
And yeah, totally. And then, so you mentioned, my next question that I always ask is, are you a plotter or are you a pantser? So what is your process? You’re, you said you’re a pantser, so what’s your writing process like? Yeah,
[00:19:41] Karissa: I am very much a pantser. It works a little bit better for short stories than it does for a novel.
But I, I spent, Basically, I have an idea in my head and then I just start writing. And then I, from there, I can like figure out like what’s going to happen, like it unfolds on the page. I do get to a point where I have to like then sit back a little bit and be like, okay, what am I doing?
And draw like a very sketchy outline, like it’s very bare bones. And then I try to follow it and then it usually changes. So it’s like me, like having an outline that is actually changing as I’m going along because I’m not following that line at all. But then for this book, obviously, then once I had the structure, the outline was like me being like, okay, I think I want to do this year and this year.
And I think the major beat that I want to hit is in this chapter, like he meets so and or in this chapter, like Chiang Kai shek dies. And then now that I have a sense of what’s gonna, what the big thing is or the big premise of the chapter is then I just write it and see what happens as I go along.
But that’s only because it’s a novel and like I can’t like pants the entire novel completely, but . But I still pants a lot of it, which is why then I had to go back and revise it. And anytime I change the detail here, I was like, oh, now I gotta go back and change all this stuff.
Now Yeah. Not efficient at all. But the only, no.
[00:21:01] Jane: You like pull a thread and you’re like, oh god, now I gotta go back and Yeah. Probably . Yeah. Just out of curiosity, this isn’t even in my notes. Do you use Microsoft Word? Are you Scrivener Girl? What do you like? I use Scrivener. I just, this
[00:21:14] Karissa: would not have worked without Scrivener with all the moving pieces and I think especially like for the historical aspect of it.
Like I had the sidebar where you can like put notes. I just had notes about okay, what happens like historically. So I just know what the context is for this chapter and then. So that I can move pieces around. I could be like, okay, wait, do I want this chapter to be here? Or do I want this chapter to be here?
Like it was such a, the structure was so weird and like nonlinear that I had to be able to move things around. And I did write the first hundred pages in Word and then was kicking myself when I had to transpose it and move it around. I was like, why? Yeah,
[00:21:54] Jane: I’m a huge Scrivener fan. I think most people, because I talk about it almost every episode, but it’s a, it’s like a.
It’s like word on steroids, right? And it’s very visual and it allows you to move chapters and scenes and organize your research, which I find huge. Not that I’m like that organized, but like better than I would be.
[00:22:12] Karissa: Yeah. All the notes, like my timeline, my cast of characters, I had a list of songs that I was using.
Even like. Pictures like images of what Shanghai looked like at the time I had like just in like separate documents inside Scrivener and there’s just no, I guess in the past I would have just had a big like corkboard or something with all those things, but, this is a lot easier
[00:22:33] Jane: and photos and videos, all that stuff is so good.
Yeah. Was there one book that you read growing up that you adored so much that made you think, Oh, I want to do this. I want to write novels when I grow up.
[00:22:47] Karissa: When I was growing up. Wow. I am like, I think, okay the one that comes to mind that really first impacted me was A Wrinkle in Time.
Oh,
[00:22:57] Jane: me too. That’s oh my gosh. I say it like, that’s the, that’s my answer to that question. Every single time. That’s so funny. My daughter’s, my younger daughter’s named Madeline. By the way, same spelling as the author Madeline Lengel. Yeah. Oh, that’s so funny. That’s
[00:23:14] Karissa: so funny. Yeah, I was, I remember so clearly being in fourth grade getting to the end of that book and being so impacted by it.
I was like, the answer is love. I just remember and just feeling so blown away by it and moved and changed. As a an eight year old or whatever I was and yeah, I remember my mom even remembers it because you know when she Has heard me get this question sometimes she’ll be like it’s a wrinkle type.
And she remembers that I finished reading it and ran out to her and was like, Oh my God, mom, this book
[00:23:45] Jane: Loved it. Yeah. I think I still have my old tattered copy upstairs. Upstairs on my shelf.
[00:23:51] Karissa: The yellow cover with the. Yeah.
[00:23:53] Jane: Yeah. Oh my God. And I wanted to be her. I wanted to be Meg. I, yeah, I loved it so much.
Me
[00:23:58] Karissa: too.
[00:23:59] Jane: Perfect for
[00:23:59] Karissa: every book nerd that felt a little bit like, outcast and didn’t fit in.
[00:24:04] Jane: Absolutely. Yeah. That’s so funny. I know we have some aspiring authors in the audience. This is your debut and this is a two part question. What’s the best advice you can give to aspiring authors about writing and about getting published?
[00:24:20] Karissa: Okay. This is not going to be specific practical advice, but my advice is always to be persistent and not to give up. I think that To me, writing is about perseverance more than anything else, because if you keep working at it, you keep, working on your writing, you keep submitting to things, you keep trying to edit and not give up that’s the way you get better, and that’s also the way that doors eventually open I had an early writing teacher who said if you keep knocking on the door, eventually someone will open.
And I truly believe that there’s so many times that I wanted to give up in this process, but also earlier when I was just writing short stories and things and I wasn’t getting published in big magazines and I wasn’t going anywhere or like a. story I really cared about wasn’t getting eyes.
And, I would question am I even a good writer? Should I even keep trying? And the only reason I kept going was because I knew that I couldn’t stop. And this is an industry where you the external validation is not frequent, so infrequent
[00:25:22] Jane: that
[00:25:22] Karissa: you really have to just hold it in your heart this is important to me, I am a writer.
And no matter what I’m going to keep going, because this is for me. And if you do your writing will get better, and it will eventually find its right readers, and you’ll get there. And that’s, that is my biggest thing is that it’s perseverance.
[00:25:40] Jane: And that, it’s funny in terms of advice, that, that is a theme across that’s, a lot of authors say that the only way you fail is if you stop trying and you stop knocking on those doors, that’s it and I think that the people that are successful in this industry are the ones that never, ever stopped and are still going, even though it’s a rollercoaster sometimes, the career authors just keep going in the face of sometimes rejection mid career or whatever it is, Yeah, I completely agree.
One, one question that I ask a lot of authors this, and this one in particular, this story felt very cinematic to me. And so is there any talk of it being made into a movie or a limited series, which I think would also work?
[00:26:19] Karissa: I would love that. I, it’s out with my film agent right now, I know these, the industry is a completely different thing.
The film industry, it’s. Slower. They just had all that stuff in L. A. and, I’m not holding my breath, but it would be a dream come true, of course.
[00:26:33] Jane: Yeah. Keep everyone posted. We talked about this a little bit before we got on the Zoom. I have to ask what was it like when you learned you were going to be a Good Morning America book club thing?
Because it’s one of the things that every author dreams of, right? You get that Reese Witherspoon or Good Morning America or yeah, what was that like?
[00:26:51] Karissa: Oh my gosh, it was like, I did not believe it. Like I was, it was so funny because I was out the whole day with my husband and my baby and, some friends and so I wasn’t checking my phone because we both have two young kids, so you’re not checking your phone.
And then I get back to my car and I like drive back and then I finally Park the car and I look at my phone and there is a text message from my publicist being like, Oh my God, check your email. Where are you? And I checked my email and it was like, this news that I had been picked by good morning America.
And I just was like, Oh, like freaking out.
[00:27:24] Jane: I love it. Are you ready to share what you’re working on now? I am not working on anything right now. That’s good for you. Yeah. You got a baby and you got a new book out. You’re good. Yeah. That’s good.
[00:27:37] Karissa: Hopefully, something will strike soon, but right now I’m focusing on spending some more time with my toddler and, I think that the living part of writing is really important.
And I want to do a little bit of living before I figure out what to write next.
[00:27:50] Jane: Excellent. And what’s the best way that readers can keep in touch with you?
[00:27:54] Karissa: Yeah I’m on Instagram, which is probably my most yeah, I use Instagram the most out of all my social media now. And yeah, and then I also have a contact form on my website.
[00:28:04] Jane: Awesome, that’s good. Okay, so questions, if anyone has any questions, put them in the chat or the Q& A. Anissa Armstrong, hello, Anissa. What character changed the most from your first draft to your final draft? That’s a good question.
[00:28:17] Karissa: Oh, great question. Which character changed the most? Um, I’m trying to think.
Maybe the sun. Maybe Tsuchi’s sun changed the most. In that I ended up fleshing him out more. He was like a, originally like he was just a baby and then you just briefly saw him as an adult. And then I ended up fleshing him out a lot more. Like we get to see him as a five year old.
We get to see him as a teenager. We get to see him as, an older man and like the ways in which he protects his mom and is also like angry in a different way about what has happened. And so I think Maybe in that sense, he changed the most because he was not as fleshed out in the beginning.
[00:29:04] Jane: What was your favorite character to write about?
Did you have a favorite character to write?
[00:29:09] Karissa: I did. I besides Sushi and Hyewon, of course I love them. I loved his mother. I loved Hyewon’s mother. And I also love Sulan. And I think those two are my two favorites. Suji’s mother, or not Suji’s mother, sorry, Hyewon’s mother.
I just love because I loved seeing her from three different angles. We got to see her as this woman that these two girls are looking up to, and they have a girl crush on, and she’s really elegant and idealized and stuff. And then we get to see her as a mother, from Hyewon’s point of view.
And at the very end, we get to see her as herself, from her point of view. Yeah. And I, I loved being able to go on that journey with her and getting closer to her as a human. And just like imagining what it must’ve been like to be her, to be separated from her kid. So that was something that I loved.
And I also just love Su Len because she has this whole other life. I could have written a whole nother novel about her. And in my mind, she does, she has like a whole nother backstory. There’s whole other heartbreaks for her. There’s a whole nother, life that she’s living off the page that I couldn’t fit into this book because it didn’t.
A fit, but she was really fun for me to write because I, she was really like a fully fleshed out character for me.
[00:30:18] Jane: And I like the relationship between her and Tsuchi, like their sister bond was so endearing. I love that. Me too. So covers, do you, did you have much of a say in the cover design?
[00:30:31] Karissa: I didn’t have a lot of say. They showed me like a couple of covers and then they showed me this one at the end. They were like, I think this is the one we want to go for. Do you have any other comments? They sent it to me in like a different color way originally, but then they changed the color way.
And I was like, I think it’s beautiful. I love how it captures like the themes symbolically. And so they did a great job with that.
[00:30:50] Jane: It’s beautiful. Yeah, I know. Was it always called home seeking in your mind or did that come later?
[00:30:56] Karissa: I’m really bad at titles. So it was not called home seeking through all of my drafting.
I had no like in my documents, it literally is called high one and sushi because I just have no like a title. And I had another like working title that was really bad when I sent it to my agents. And then my agent was the one that came up with that. We were bantering on some ideas and then we came up with this idea together.
Yeah.
[00:31:24] Jane: Nice. Yeah. My, my new book, The Women of Arlington Hall is coming out in the summer and I had a, thank you. I had a working title that was terrible. And, so finally like marketing and sales were like, yeah, this is this is what we came up with. And this is your title. I’m like, fine.
You guys, as long as it sells books, that’s great. Yeah.
[00:31:41] Karissa: Yeah.
[00:31:42] Jane: Carissa, this was delightful. I am so happy for all your success. Thank you so much for coming on. I just hope this book soars. It’s one that, you, like I was saying before we got on the call, you put your heart and soul into it.
And I just, everyone should read this and tell your book clubs and your friends and your libraries and your bookstores. Next week on February 5th, we have Robert Dugoni and friends talking about his new book. Hold strong. The Woman of Arlington Hall, I just mentioned the new cover, finally got a new cover.
It’s on the website, on my website, janehaley. com and available for pre order. And again, thank you. This is amazing. I will send you the recording and I’ll, anyone who missed it tonight, we’ll get a call, we’ll see the link as well. I wish you everything like for this book. It’s so great.
Thank you. This is such a pleasure. And thank you everybody for coming. Thank you everyone for coming. And thank you for taking the time. Take care. Have a great night, everybody.
