The San Francisco Chronicle
Sunday, August 1, 2004
Not 'the next Amy Tan'
Korean American writers find their own voices in genre fiction
Annie Nakao, Chronicle Staff Writer
When he's not dodging bullets or fending off low-lifes in a dark alley,
Private Eye Allen Choice -- a.k.a. the Block -- loves to read Kierkegaard,
sip lattes
and run 5 miles a day in the Berkeley hills.
Unless he's brooding about his girlfriend's parents:
" The Block doesn't work well under pressure, and can already imagine himself
screwing up. He will say the wrong thing or underwhelm them in some way.
And he will be overtly self-conscious of his lack of ethnic ties. He can't speak
Korean, and knows very little about Korean culture. Serena says he is a gyupo,
an Americanized Korean. Serena, however, speaks the language and actually
studied
in Seoul for two summers, and this mere fact puts Allen at a disadvantage
with her parents. He is starting in negative territory. He is an ethnic dunce."
Choice, the philosopher/PI protagonist of Leonard Chang's mystery series,
is at it again in the Oakland writer's latest mystery, "Fade to Clear." With
his third Allen Choice novel, Chang has established himself as one of a cadre
of Asian American writers who march to a different drummer in a publishing
world that, for the most part, still hankers for "the next Amy Tan."
"
Leonard's such a talent and he's doing something very new," said Sally
Kim, an editor at Crown Publishing Group's Shaye Areheart Books, who worked
with Chang at St. Martin's Minotaur. "He's creating a space for Asian
Americans in genre fiction. It's a slow growth, but these authors are widening
the market."
Another case in point: Don Lee's "Country of Origin," a mystery-thriller
set in Japan, circa 1980, full of American ex-pats, CIA drones, Tokyo sex
clubs and young, mixed-race protagonists struggling with identity.
Two mystery novels by Korean American writers? Just evidence
that Kim may be right.
Chang has already drawn praise from mystery titan Michael Connelly,
who says Chang "works like a painter" to render his protagonist.
Fans might already know that Choice is an Americanized version
of Choi, a common Korean name. Chang got the idea from
a guy he met
in Seoul
15 years ago who
had Americanized his name to Choice.
"
I thought that was really fascinating," Chang says. "When I wanted
to come up with a Korean character who was very Americanized, I remembered
the name and thought, how emblematic!"
Chang, a New York transplant, via Dartmouth, Harvard
and a Peace Corps stint in Jamaica, lives near Lake
Merritt.
One
steamy afternoon,
he was cooling off under a patio umbrella at the Café Di
Bartolo on Grand Avenue.
"
I have no idea if that guy I met in Korea ever read any of my books," Chang
says, laughing.
He has a striking face, long and elegant, with high
cheekbones and dark, shoulder-length hair. Unlike
the hulking Block,
Chang is compact
and
lean.
He has published five books, not bad for
a philosophy major whose immigrant parents worried
about his survival
as a writer.
Chang's first novels, "The Fruit 'N' Food" and "Dispatches From
the Cold, " published in 1996 and 1998, were about race and ethnic conflicts.
The first Choice mystery, "Over the Shoulder" debuted in 2001 and
its sequel, "Underkill, " followed last year.
Though still under the radar screen of some
hard-core mystery fans, Chang appeals to
others as a genre-shifting
writer
whose novels
aren't just
about crime,
sex and violence. Choice, a philosopher trapped
in a PI's body, is a neurotic anti-hero who
contemplates race,
family,
relationships
and life,
all with
a noir sensibility:
" Perhaps in the future the Block will point to this particular moment in
time as the Recognition. He knows the ephemeral nature of relationships, the
quickness
with which lovers can split up; he knows the bonds of family are illusory,
that just because you are related to someone doesn't mean you are really
connected."
So Americanized he feels alienated from his
Korean roots, he's nevertheless confronted
by race all
the time.
Like the time he's trapped in a warehouse
and held at gunpoint by a thug who takes
to calling
him "Chin."
"
Stop calling me Chin, for chrissakes," Choice says.
"
What the hell you say?" the thug responds.
" Stop calling me Chin. I'm not Chinese."
Or when he shows up to case a party in Los Altos Hills and hesitates when
he realizes that "everyone at the party is white. I wonder if I'll be noticed."
Not that Chang intended to create
an Asian American character.
"
But how many mysteries have an Asian American protagonist?" Chang asks. "Not
many. Maybe the racist portrayal of Charlie Chan. So why not? What better
way to normalize the Asian American male than to have him deal with everyday
life?"
It took a while for publishers
to catch on.
"
A lot of them had trouble characterizing it," he recalls. "They'd
ask, 'Why didn't I play up the ethnic angle more?' So it was tough at first.
It helped that it was a mystery. But we had to fight not having an Asian
motif on the cover, to exoticize it."
It isn't just publishers
who have trouble with
the concept,
according
to Lee,
who lives in
Cambridge, Mass., and
is the longtime editor
of the literary
journal
Ploughshares.
"
When I was on tour for my first book, 'Yellow,' there were reporters who seemed
amazed that Asian Americans could be regular people," he recalls.
"
Yellow," a story collection of eclectic characters that was honored by
the American Academy of Arts and Letters, was the first release of a two-book
deal with W.W. Norton & Company. The second was "Country of Origin," his
first novel.
Despite being an
editor for 16
years, Lee found
writing
a novel
arduous,
especially since
its concept,
he now says, was "born out of stupidity."
The son of a
career State
Department
officer, Lee,
44, spent the
majority of
his childhood in
Tokyo and Seoul.
Like many
embassy kids,
he
went to the
American School in Japan.
He
left for America
at 18. But
the world
of FSOs
-- foreign
service officers -- ex-pats
and spooks
stayed with
him.
When he began
brainstorming
for a novel,
he recalls, "I said, I know
this world -- I won't have to do much research.''
Lee ate his
words. For
two years,
he buried
himself in
research,
studying
dozens
of books
and writings
by
numerous
Japan experts
such as celebrated
journalist
Ian Buruma,
a specialist
on Asia,
and
was inspired
by Anne
Allison's "Nightwork" and "Permitted
and Prohibited Desires" and Lisa Louis' "Butterflies of the Night." The
result: a dark thriller about an American woman, half African American and
half Asian, who comes to Tokyo in search of her roots and goes missing. There's
also a shallow, career-driven, half-Korean FSO assigned to find her, a neurotic
Japanese cop in charge of the investigation and a motley crew of denizens
of Tokyo's sex industry and hostess clubs.
At lunch
following
a recent
reading
at Stacey's
bookstore
in San
Francisco,
Lee said
he hoped
no one
mistakes the novel
for the
real Japan.
"
I didn't intend for it to be a comprehensive view of Japan," he says. "I
just created the context for my characters to live in. Sort of like 'West
Wing. ' "
But he's
acutely
aware
of
the danger.
Recalling
a
conversation with
a
Japanese distributor
about
his
novel,
Lee
says
he
was
told, "I hope it's not like 'Lost in Translation.' "
Sofia
Coppola's film
about two
alienated Americans
in Tokyo
has been
criticized for
its ham-handed
humor at
the expense
of the
Japanese in
an otherwise
remarkably subtle
work. "I can understand the Japanese's objections to it in the
same way I fear a backlash to my book," Lee says.
He's
aware as
well that
his ethnicity
-- he's
a third-generation
Korean American
-- might
be viewed
in a
political way,
given the
discrimination that
still exists
in Japan
against Koreans.
Lee
disputes any
such motive.
"
I loved my time there," says Lee, who said the only prejudice he experienced
in Japan was as a gaijin (foreigner) American. "So I hope people see
it as a novel and not a political indictment."
In
fact, Lee,
like the
rest of
the world
in this
era of
trendy "Japan
Cool," greatly admires the Japanese.
"
In some way, I felt weirdly conflicted -- I wanted to be as Japanese as I was
Korean," he recalls. "I thought they were pretty cool and fascinating.
I imagine that would be sacrilegious for a Korean to hear that from me."
This
conflicted identity
was made
even more
complex by
being a
TCK --
Third Culture
Kid, as
many military
brats call
themselves --
who have
to negotiate
not just
the Army
culture, but
those of
America and
their foreign
host country.
"
So I've always viewed myself as an outsider," Lee says. "For me,
that worked."
Now
Lee sees
young Asian
Americans who
are aspiring
writers.
" One came up to me after a reading and asked me, 'Do I have to write about
Asian Americans?'
" I told him, 'No. I'm doing that for you.' "
===
Leonard Chang will sign copies
of "Fade to Clear" from 6:30 to
7:45 p.m. on Aug. 24, at the Lakeview Branch Library in Oakland, located
at 550 El Embarcadero. For more information, call (510) 238-7344.
E-mail
Annie Nakao
at anakao@sfchronicle.com.
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2004/08/01/LVG3M7TC6H1.DTL