Susie Yang, WHITE IVY
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[2:35]a book on me. Susie Yang is the author of White Ivy, which is her first novel. Susie was born in China
[2:41]and came to the United States as a child after receiving her doctorate of pharmacy from Rutgers.
[2:47]She launched a tech startup in San Francisco that has taught 20,000 people how to code.
[2:51]She studied creative writing at Tinhouse in Second Street, and has lived across the United
[2:56]States, Europe and Asia, and now resides in the UK. Welcome Susie. Thanks so much for coming on
[3:01]mom's turn her time to read books. Hi, it's good to be here. Hello again. Hello again. I know
[3:07]we've just been chatting now and now it's official though so we can officially read
[3:11]make it sound very polished and awesome. It's very fun to be here. Okay. White Ivy, congratulations on
[3:18]this amazing novel. So great. So captivating from the very beginning. The main character you've created,
[3:24]I feel like I could spot her on the sidewalk at this point. You made her so real. And like even
[3:30]the way you describe her posture, the way she walks, like everything about her seems so real.
[3:35]But now of course I have to like keep my belongings close so she doesn't swipe at me.
[3:40]So tell me about well first of all, tell listeners what White Ivy is about.
[3:44]Yeah, so White Ivy follows the character of Ivy Lynn from when she's 14 to 27. She falls in
[3:50]love with a son of a state senator when she's a child and they reconnect again as an adult.
[3:54]And the entire arc, the story is Ivy trying to capture Gideon's heart and marrying to his very
[4:00]patrician wasp family. It's mostly said in Boston, but there are parts of her life where she
[4:06]goes to New Jersey and she spends a summer in China. And all of these experiences kind of inform
[4:10]her worldview and leaves her to make the decisions that she makes in the book as she strives to
[4:16]kind of get what she wants in life. My gosh, the scene where you have her entire family like
[4:21]storm into Gideon's house on that first sleepover. And they're all like waiting on the catch and
[4:26]her brothers like eating pancakes and it like it was so awkward and tense. I just was like
[4:32]recoiling inside myself. It was like, oh my gosh, this poor girl. I think awkwardness was an
[4:37]underused motion in books because it's such a common emotion in real life, right? Like second
[4:43]hand embarrassment. How did you come up with this story idea? Yeah. So when I decided to write
[4:50]the novel, I gave myself a year to finish the complete draft. And the first thing I heard the
[4:54]side was, what kind of book did I want to write? And I've always been drawn to anti-hero characters.
[4:59]So thank Becky Sharp, her or Tom Ripley. So I knew that I wanted to create pretty unique
[5:05]kind of strong female character who would go to great lengths to get what she wanted. And that
[5:10]would obviously involve moral compromises and manipulation. And then the first sentence of the book,
[5:15]Ivy Lim was a thief, but you would never know. It took a heard that came to me,
[5:18]kind of out of the blue. And then once I had that, the entire arc of her story came to me at once.
[5:23]So that hasn't changed from the very first sentence. I always kind of saw the whole vision of the
[5:27]book. And a lot of the revisions and the different drafts was just making sure that it was, you know,
[5:33]pleasurable read and getting all of the details correct and the sequence of events correct.
[5:38]Wow. Well, go back to when you decided to take a year to write a novel. How did that fit into
[5:43]your life? How did that fit into your life? Where did that come from? Yeah. Okay. I think the short
[5:49]story is that I've always, I've always written for fun. It was always a hobby of mine. But I mean,
[5:53]I come from a Chinese American background. And so my parents, you know, wanted me to be one of
[5:58]three professions, right? The doctor or lawyer, maybe an engineer. And so I always thought of writing
[6:02]as a hobby. I never thought of it as a career path. But I was running my own tech startup in San Francisco
[6:08]for around three years at that point. And I think something in me just changed. I think it was,
[6:12]I call it my quarter life crisis. Like, wait a second, is this really what I want to be doing for
[6:18]my life? So and I'd always been trying to write a novel just to make free time. But I mean,
[6:22]classic problem is I couldn't have a finished one. I mean, I have a hundred chapter one, you know,
[6:26]my computer. So I thought if I don't give myself that pressure to say, let me just put an
[6:32]arbitrary deadline on this to prove to to myself I could do it, then I'll never ever do this.
[6:37]And I think I just, you know, decided to to to make that time to do it to see if I could.
[6:42]So you're very young, man. I'm 30 too. At the time I think I was 20, 26, 27,
[6:48]something like that. Oh my gosh. Oh my gosh. That's amazing. That's particularly amazing because
[6:52]this book is so good. I feel like sometimes you need more life experience to really inform a book,
[6:58]but maybe that's what I just fool myself to think myself. I think it's a bit of imagination.
[7:04]Yeah, maybe. Okay. Maybe that's part of it. Tell me a lot of the book was talking. So
[7:11]Ivy grew up at first with her grandmother in China and then tragically almost got sent across
[7:18]the world in an airplane by herself to reunite with her parents who she didn't even remember and
[7:22]who she was raised by until her grandmother eventually meets in there.
[7:25]So a lot of this is about a sense of place and identity and belonging and how out of place she
[7:31]feels in America and like even with her own family, she never really ever feels comfortable.
[7:37]Tell me about that sense. Is that something you are familiar with? You have family who's like first
[7:43]does that come from a personal place or just like a societal imaginative place?
[7:47]No, that's super personal. I mean, even I was born in China and I came to the US now as five,
[7:53]but even despite that, I moved around so much growing up. My dad changed jobs a lot and so
[7:58]I think I was talking to somebody about this and I think I've gone to eight different schools
[8:02]before college even. And so that feeling of always entering a new environment and observing people
[8:10]or adapting and always kind of looking at the scenes through an outsider's point of view.
[8:14]That's something that's very natural to me and I'm really drawn to that in books as well.
[8:18]So I love books that always examine, you know, a group or club or society from the point of view
[8:24]somebody who doesn't belong there because that's the point of view that I'm most comfortable with.
[8:28]So it was really natural for me to kind of structure the story of what I'd be around that
[8:32]perspective. And of course, yeah, I mean Ivy's experiences also kind of inform her feeling of
[8:37]being an outsider, right? She, you know, it goes to this very private school that's full of
[8:42]really wealthy people, but she's not wealthy herself. And then there's a fact that she's an immigrant.
[8:46]So all these factors are so contribute to her feeling of wanting to belong and wanting to
[8:50]understand what values her classmates have and trying to absorb them as her own.
[8:55]The way that you wrote about her first immersion into this new lifestyle when she's walking around
[9:00]getting in-house not to keep coming back to the scene, but and just looking as he is casually
[9:05]like that's our summer cottage and this is, you know, and her just being like, what?
[9:10]It's it's neat to see her. You feel like you feel her, her eyes widening and all of that.
[9:16]So what does it feel like to have this book coming out into the world? Like, this is,
[9:22]are you so excited about it? Like, what does it, how does it feel?
[9:25]Honestly, it's just a strange year. Like, I feel like in normal times, it would be very much,
[9:30]you know, you know, I'm about the world and I could, you know, hold the book and see people in
[9:34]real life, but I don't know. The series been so strange. So even all the feedback I'm getting,
[9:39]it really is just through the internet, right? Or Zoom calls and things like that. So it feels
[9:44]in a way. I'm isolated from the effects of it. It happened come out. I mean, it hasn't come out yet,
[9:48]but just from the early readers and reviewers. So in a way, I'm glad because I feel like it
[9:54]makes it feel less distracting. You know, it's like there's, you know, people who are like,
[9:58]I read, I really liked it. And that's,
[10:00]amazing but in a sense my life is still very much you know me going to pajamas to write book
[10:06]too and like taking these calls with you to talk about the book which is awesome.
[10:10]Yeah I feel like what does it tell me I didn't mean to get you up I wanted to hear about book
[10:15]two like right away so I had to interrupt you. Yeah I'm sort of like two-thirds in so I feel like
[10:19]I'm not going to describe it really well I'm still in the weeds but essentially kind of talks
[10:23]about the same themes like I realized I'm still really interested in the theme of reinvention it's
[10:28]about a couple in those systems around a decade and it's set between US and Beijing and it kind
[10:34]of tackles the Chinese entertainment industry and it talks about people's different agendas so
[10:39]those are the themes I find myself drawn to this constant you know identity politics and
[10:44]comedy of manners and observing a strange society with an outsider's eye yeah so that's
[10:52]I think that's the most big picture I can think of it right now. And now you're an American living
[10:59]in London and also in the UK and also temporarily in Florence so you've continued to put yourself
[11:05]in these situations I know you are not such a tease. Might I point out to you that you have this
[11:12]issue just saying you know I always tell myself yeah I'm going to settle I'm so tired of moving
[11:18]I just want to settle down but I seem unable to do that. Well at least you you know you come to it
[11:23]a fragile piece of it you know and it's good material if that's your central theme you know you're
[11:28]just getting more material. I'll tell myself. I feel good for the experiences right.
[11:34]We go back for a second to after you finished writing White Ivy and finished tinkering how long did
[11:39]that process take and then I want to hear about like how you've sold it the publishing. Yeah part
[11:44]of it. I feel like that was really where I learned to become a writer like when I wrote the first
[11:48]draft I truly had no idea about I didn't get an MFA I don't have writer friends like it felt
[11:54]like I was just writing it for myself to say I could do it I had no idea how it worked even
[11:58]and when I look back now I'm like oh god that first draft was horrible but I remember so I went to
[12:02]this conference called Tinhouse and that was in so it was in July and around that time it was in
[12:07]the year of me writing the first draft so I had around probably like 80 70 80% of the first
[12:12]draft done and they had agents come to Tinhouse and actually sat down next to Jenny who is now my
[12:17]agent but it was completely coincidental and she was like oh what are you working on I kind of
[12:21]I think I pitched my book as an Asian American like Edith Wharton type book or something like that
[12:27]and she's like great it's in between you're done and that really like with the fire you know under
[12:31]my butt I was like wow there's somebody waiting to read it and she's you know an agent so around October
[12:37]actually Halloween the few months later I sent her the complete first draft and I had done my
[12:42]research right it was like what to expect and I assumed that it would be would go back and forth
[12:47]and revisions but she read it in one day and she emailed me back the next day and was basically like
[12:52]oh my god can we meet up I was looking at her at the time she's in Brooklyn and she's like I'd love
[12:56]to represent you and she's like and I think it's ready to be still what yeah and I was like I don't
[13:01]know about this like are you lying to me can I trust you but she was basically like yeah I think it's
[13:07]ready I can't think of any revisions that I would want you to make and so I trusted her and then
[13:12]she so that was October so that was November and then yeah and then she sold the book I think in December
[13:17]so a month later yeah so let's have a sold but the next part is I think where I actually
[13:24]learned how to become a real writer so I went through six drafts of Edith's with my
[13:28]editor Mary Sue at Seminole and she's sure and wow I learned I learned essentially craft
[13:33]you know everything before that was just almost instinct and fumbling my way and kind of throwing
[13:39]words at the at the wall and seeing what's stuck but through the different drafts I feel like I
[13:44]actually learned you know why something was working and I'm writing that better so I have to say
[13:49]that those two years so it felt like I wrote it very quickly you know if I say one year but actually
[13:53]I consider it really for your project because it took two years of Edith's after we've
[13:56]met it or wow all right so now we don't feel as is shamed that you just whip this thing out
[14:01]now I'm ashamed I must have not like a first-off I'm like okay so step and how do your parents
[14:09]who wanted you to be a doctor lawyer or engineer feel about having a novelist as a daughter
[14:15]it's so funny so when I decided to do the one year to write the book I actually didn't tell
[14:19]anyone about it except for my husband I was like okay we're going to do this like you know
[14:23]and he was like I support you obviously but I didn't tell my friends I didn't tell my family
[14:27]we were still running the company and it wasn't until I think I got my agent and I told my family
[14:34]I was like oh guys you know I signed up an agent and they were like what does that mean I explained
[14:39]everything to them and then when the books sold I think that's when it became real and I remember my
[14:43]dad being I mean of course they were like can we read it can read it and I was like no not until it's
[14:48]totally done but I think he I think his first question was something like so are you going to
[14:53]like write books like more books oh my course there's just a one-time thing that you really
[14:57]wanted to you know just try out that was really funny and then when I actually had the complete
[15:03]like the production copy that everybody's reading now I sent it over to him and he was like giving
[15:08]me real time feedback on all the chapters and things like that so that was definitely an experience
[15:13]never thought I'd have my parents read like a sexy that I wrote
[15:17]oh my god not high on the list when you're growing up you don't imagine the activity
[15:25]is your husband a senator son or did you have to do some research into making that
[15:30]depicting that character definitely did research I actually hate research so I'm like an extremely
[15:35]lazy researcher so my copy editor had a lot of work she would like that check fix me and be like
[15:40]I think that was actually one of the issues it was like there's a difference between a state
[15:44]senator versus you know just a senator and so had to change a lot of the details a lot of googling
[15:49]yeah and what was your tech company what did it do it's called face rail so actually top people
[15:55]had to build web apps so when I graduate from pharmacy school I also was like I hate pharmacy school
[16:02]I don't want to be a pharmacist so I actually moved out to San Francisco at the time to work in
[16:06]tech and I ended up starting a company because I taught myself how to code and then I understood
[16:11]the resource that were available so then I thought these aren't that great at the time and so
[16:16]yeah I started a company that essentially they do videos we did videos that teaches people how to
[16:21]build things like Etsy or Yelp so people could launch them and start up so cool well now I'll have
[16:27]to go and see that on the side I always am like frustrated I know how to do my website is on square
[16:32]space and so I've learned how to use that yeah sometimes I'm like oh but I'd really rather like
[16:36]only I knew how to do this I wouldn't have to wait for someone else yeah I like to do everything
[16:40]myself but yeah my daughter does coding classes now but I am I've like mystically coding boat I
[16:46]think but maybe in a site like years it helped but well not anymore I think there's a way better
[16:51]ones now I think this I still have but it's so out of date okay all right well I'll put that on
[16:57]the back burner of things I'm gonna teach myself to do you say oh my gosh what advice would you give
[17:03]to aspiring authors my gosh I don't know that I'm qualified you're qualified you you can't
[17:10]I'm sure you are an author and you sold it right I'm trying to think about what really helped me
[17:15]get through you know just the slumps I think one thing that really helps me get through because I'm
[17:19]this a person where like I always need to understand the vision of what I'm writing because that's
[17:24]what pulls me through the bad writing and I said when you get tired of certain things so I would
[17:29]say the advice was I find it somewhere which is right something only you can write and that was really
[17:35]like that was such a touchstone for me because I'd always think is this the most interesting thing
[17:39]you know was this worth writing is this you know going to be interesting to anyone but me
[17:44]so you know what I'm doing all those times about I would always think okay but at least nobody else
[17:48]can write this specific book you know with a specific vision and that minute worthwhile for me
[17:52]personally so I'd say that one really got me through a lot of the tar times and I think the other
[17:57]advice actually came from my agent which was just to think about writing as you know like the long
[18:02]term as a marathon not like a sprint I think I have a really I tend to work in really intense
[18:08]spurts where I just want to get it done and so I really I have a really impatient personality
[18:12]so for me it's like oh calming down and looking at it from a long-term point of view you know
[18:17]what kind of stories am I going to be interested in writing what ideas do I have in trying to
[18:20]go down so kind of not being in such a rush and not giving myself so much pressure to you know
[18:25]have it perfect the first draft or the first time around and to kind of look at it like a marathon
[18:29]get advice excellent awesome look thank you so much for chatting about your book and for the great
[18:36]book and the great read and you know I have expected you to look like your character but you
[18:41]don't at all you know you're very pretty thank you what are the questions I always get from my
[18:46]friends I was always like oh is that you on the cover I'm like no clearly you don't know me that
[18:53]well so I actually haven't seen the cover yet because I read it online I feel like the
[18:59]pre you know it's not me okay all right I'll tell you and I have inside information so what
[19:05]you really look like all right well I hope next time we see you or you'll probably be living in
[19:11]like five other countries and you know but maybe if you ever breeze during New York I'll cross paths
[19:15]with you hopefully when all this is over yes exactly having me all right thanks for coming bye
[19:22]good luck with lunch bye bye
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