Lisa See, LADY TAN'S CIRCLE OF WOMEN
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[1:03]Lisa C is the author of Lady Tans Circle of Women.
[1:06]Lisa is the New York Times best-selling author of the Island of Sea Women, The Tea Girl
[1:10]of Having Bird Lane, Snowflower and The Secret Fan, which I loved, P&E in Love, Shanghai
[1:15]Girls, China Dolls, and Dreams of Joy, which debuted at number one.
[1:20]She is also the author of On Gold Mountain, which tells the story of her Chinese-American
[1:24]family's settlement in Los Angeles.
[1:26]She was the recipient of the Golden Spike Award from the Chinese Historical Association
[1:30]of Southern California, and the History Makers Award from the Chinese American Museum.
[1:35]She was also named National Woman of the Year by the Organization of Chinese American
[1:40]Women.
[1:41]Welcome, Lisa.
[1:42]Thank you so much for coming on Momstone.
[1:43]I have time to read books to discuss your latest novel, Lady Tans Circle of Women, Beautiful,
[1:49]Beautiful, Cover, Beautiful Book.
[1:50]Thank you so much for having me.
[1:52]I'm just really delighted to have a chance to talk to you too.
[1:56]I have been a fan since Snowflower and The Secret Fan.
[1:59]You must get tired of having everybody say that to you.
[2:01]Sorry.
[2:02]I'm sorry.
[2:03]I'm sorry.
[2:04]Never get tired of it.
[2:05]Jump on the bandwagon, but it was so excited when this novel came out and everything.
[2:10]So let's start by telling listeners a little bit about what Lady Tans Circle of Women is
[2:15]about, and congratulations, by the way, end up being a Sarah Slex title.
[2:19]I really love that book club as well, so that's great.
[2:22]So it's based on the true story of a woman doctor in the Ming Dynasty.
[2:27]So 500 years ago, right there was really amazing to me that such a woman would even exist
[2:33]and be practicing medicine.
[2:34]But what was amazing about her is that in 1511, when she turned 50, she published a book
[2:41]of her medical cases and all of her cases were women and girls.
[2:46]And so this is actually the first time that I've written a novel that is actually about
[2:53]someone as opposed to Snowflower and The Secret Fan, where it has the secret writing as
[2:59]the historic backdrop, where it's more of a general idea of a historic backdrop, island
[3:05]of sea women, the diving women of Jeju Island.
[3:08]So this was really inspired by her.
[3:11]She was a remarkable woman in her time.
[3:14]I think she would be considered remarkable even today.
[3:18]One reason that her book is still in print.
[3:20]500 years later, we should all be so lucky, is that many of her remedies are still used
[3:27]in traditional Chinese medicine today.
[3:29]Amazing.
[3:30]And it was so interesting to see, even, to get the frame of view of what they were doing
[3:35]medically and how things like leeches were just so common and just how you set the stage.
[3:40]No.
[3:41]Actually, they didn't use leeches.
[3:42]I think I used that as a comparison, is that, you know, many people don't really know
[3:47]about traditional Chinese medicine.
[3:50]But if you think, if you're reading it and think, oh, this seems backward, if you think
[3:54]where we were, the West was in terms of medicine at that time.
[3:58]It really was things like leeches and, you know, sawing people's arms off with no anesthesia
[4:04]and stuff like that.
[4:06]So they were really far more advanced in how they were looking at medicine than we were
[4:12]here in the West.
[4:13]Sorry.
[4:14]I mixed that up.
[4:15]It's okay.
[4:16]It's early.
[4:17]I know in the morning.
[4:18]Thank you.
[4:19]Well, tell me where this idea came from.
[4:22]And I know this was a pandemic, I read this was a pandemic book of yours and something
[4:26]on the bookshelf caught your eye, tell me the story behind the whole thing.
[4:30]Yeah.
[4:31]So I had thought I knew what the next book was going to be.
[4:34]I'd been quietly doing research on it.
[4:36]And then when the pandemic hit, I, you know, I couldn't do that because it was going
[4:40]to require a trip deep, deep, deep into a very, very remote part of China.
[4:46]No way I could have done that in 2020.
[4:48]And even now I'd be a little reluctant to go anywhere that remote in the world.
[4:53]I mean, this, for this particular book, it was just a very, very remote part of China.
[4:57]Anyway, I then was spent the next few months of the pandemic moping around.
[5:02]Oh, my life is over and I know I like to do it because also all of the research libraries,
[5:10]all of the archives, everything was closed.
[5:12]So, you know, not only could I not go to where I write about, I couldn't do research on
[5:17]where I write about.
[5:18]Anyway, it wasn't until October of 2020.
[5:21]So you can see I spent quite a few months just at loose ends, like all of us are many of
[5:27]us.
[5:28]And there was a day I was just walking right here.
[5:31]And you can't see this, but these are my research books and there are another three
[5:35]days of them.
[5:37]And the spine of one of them kind of jumped out at me.
[5:40]I really don't know.
[5:41]I feel like this must have been fate or destiny or something that it just, you know, all
[5:46]of a sudden out of that shell popped out.
[5:49]And it was a light gray jacket with slightly darker gray lettering.
[5:53]No reason for it to jump out, but it did.
[5:56]And I pulled it down, reproducing women pregnancy and childbirth in the main dynasty.
[6:02]I had had that book on my shelf for 10 years and had never opened it.
[6:06]And I thought, oh, well, you know, here we are in the middle of a pandemic.
[6:10]My life is over.
[6:11]And I might as well sit down and start reading right now, which I did.
[6:16]It's that down right over there.
[6:18]And on page 19, there was a mention of Tanya and Shen.
[6:22]And I looked her, you know, I just thought this is so amazing.
[6:26]I came to the computer.
[6:27]I looked her up and within, you know, 26 hours I knew that she is, I was going to be writing
[6:34]about her.
[6:35]And that was so completely different than any other book that I've written.
[6:40]Usually I think about something, you know, for five, 10, 15, even 20 years to grow a
[6:46]hummingbird lane.
[6:47]I had that idea in my head for 20 years before I finally found my way in to that story.
[6:55]So this was completely different.
[6:56]And then the research was completely different because, again, I couldn't go to China to
[7:02]do the research.
[7:03]I couldn't go to any of the research libraries.
[7:06]So all of the research was done in a completely different way, new way for me.
[7:11]So mostly online, I'm assuming lots of, well, there was some stuff that was online.
[7:17]You know, there were certain books that I was looking for that ordinarily I might be able
[7:22]to get them from one of the research libraries at UCLA, but I couldn't.
[7:27]So I actually set aside some money that I thought, well, this is the money I would have
[7:32]spent going to China, you know, on the airfare and hotel and food.
[7:36]And so I used that to buy books that I wouldn't, I couldn't get otherwise.
[7:42]And some of these were pretty rare.
[7:44]So more than one usually spends on a book, but I felt like I had to do that.
[7:50]The main thing was that I reached out to different scholars.
[7:55]And ordinarily, I just read their work, but this time I just felt like I really needed
[8:01]to talk to people.
[8:03]And these scholars, you know, around the country, but also around the world were unbelievably
[8:09]helpful to me.
[8:13]So giving of their time, there was one professor at Harvard who, you know, in this field,
[8:22]he's kind of the God of Chinese studies, you know.
[8:26]And he just talked to me, you know, many, many times, it was only recently that I had
[8:32]the thought that, oh, maybe they were feeling as, at loose ends as I was, you know, that
[8:38]they couldn't do the thing that they do.
[8:41]And that here I was, you know, sending them a note, saying, would you talk to me about
[8:47]how would you send a letter in the Ming Dynasty, you know, that I couldn't find that
[8:52]or how long would it take to travel from here to there in 1496, you know, these very,
[8:59]very specific things, but there are people out there who have spent years doing research
[9:04]on things like that.
[9:07]The funny thing is, like, nobody would be able to notice if you were wrong, like, let's
[9:12]say you said it was two weeks instead of a week to get from point A to point B. It's not
[9:15]like the average reader would be able to say something, but clearly you are just dead set
[9:20]on having it all be just right, which is amazing, but you're absolutely right.
[9:25]I mean, that is true.
[9:27]And this is the novel that takes place at the furthest back in time of any of my books.
[9:33]And so that's great because people don't know, but I would know, yeah.
[9:40]And it's really important for me to get those facts correct, but I also find that some
[9:46]of that stuff is just really interesting.
[9:49]And because of how we live today, and even if we said 100 years ago or 200 years ago,
[9:56]we have a sense of how people lived 100 years ago.
[10:00]We've all read the great Gatsby.
[10:01]We've seen movies that take place in the 20s.
[10:03]We could imagine what it's like to be a pioneer
[10:07]in this country, you know,
[10:09]because we've all read Laura Ingalls Wilder.
[10:11]We can imagine Elizabeth in England,
[10:14]because we've all read or seen something written
[10:18]by Shakespeare.
[10:19]So we kind of have a sense of how their lives worked
[10:23]and what their clothes looked like.
[10:25]But to really think about that then,
[10:29]you know, that's a long time ago.
[10:31]And just certain basic things that then when you get to them
[10:37]and you think, oh, I mean, can we, I find it fascinating.
[10:40]So what were some of the things?
[10:41]No, I don't know if other people will,
[10:43]but I find it fascinating to see how people live their lives
[10:47]and how they got from here to there
[10:49]and what were the issues and what were the concerns
[10:52]and how did you get around certain kinds of things?
[10:56]And even just, you know, making a cup of tea, you know,
[11:00]that you're not just turning on a gas
[11:03]or something more behind it.
[11:06]Well, I think anyone who's interested
[11:08]in sort of human emotions and human behavior
[11:11]and wants to put themselves in someone else's shoes,
[11:13]you have to know what the shoes feel like.
[11:15]You know, like the finding of the shoes here
[11:17]and how much pain people are in
[11:19]and you need the context to get to the emotional truth
[11:22]sometimes.
[11:23]Exactly.
[11:24]And, you know, women in those days, especially elite women.
[11:27]So she was a doctor.
[11:29]So she was, you know, married to an internal elite family as well
[11:33]that women in those days in that class
[11:37]were, you would think on some level that their lives were better,
[11:41]but in many ways their lives were so constricted, you know,
[11:45]that they weren't allowed out into the world.
[11:49]And so everything just revolved around these women's rooms
[11:53]where they were every day, day after day
[11:57]with all of your husband's relatives and your sisters-in-law
[12:04]and the aunties and the concubines and the second, third wives
[12:09]and all of these people who may not have had your best interest
[12:12]at heart.
[12:13]But the novel is called by the tan circle of women,
[12:17]that circle of women part seemed really important to me
[12:21]that, and I think during the pandemic I really,
[12:25]because I felt isolated, I think we all felt isolated
[12:29]and it took us time to figure out things like Zoom
[12:33]where at least we could, you know, see each other a little bit
[12:36]and how important that connection is to us
[12:41]whether it's now or it was, you know, 500 years ago
[12:45]or 500 years from today, that we need to make those connections
[12:50]and it's not just the one on one,
[12:53]it is those circles of people who help us,
[12:56]who support us, who love us, who allow us to do the things
[13:01]that we love to do or see us through terrible times
[13:05]and that those circles can shift in our lives, I think,
[13:08]over time, but and sometimes we don't even recognize
[13:11]when we have them.
[13:13]And I just think, especially during those long months
[13:17]of isolation that I personally really thought a lot
[13:22]about friendship and what that has meant to me in my own life
[13:28]and how it gives women such comfort but also fortitude.
[13:33]What is telling about your own circle of women?
[13:36]Tell me about your good friend, like who is your circle now
[13:38]and how has that shifted?
[13:40]Like do you still have friends from college?
[13:42]Like where are your friends from now?
[13:43]What is your structure?
[13:45]Well, unfortunately most of my friends live in other places.
[13:49]So, you know, I have one of my oldest friends is in Dallas now.
[13:54]Another one is up in Santa Barbara.
[13:56]So they're further away.
[13:57]But I think that that also has meant that the time
[14:01]that we're together is all the more important.
[14:04]And I'm sure you've had this experience,
[14:07]the people who you have known you the longest.
[14:10]It's like you see each other and it's like instantly stripped
[14:15]away all of the stuff of who we are in the world
[14:19]and you're right back to being in the seventh grade.
[14:22]You know that you know each other in this very pure way
[14:26]before you became the person you became
[14:29]and that you can connect on that level right away.
[14:33]And I think that this is something pretty common
[14:36]with people, especially if it's a really old relationship.
[14:40]We have that praise, you know, they knew me when or I knew her when.
[14:44]But I think it's that when part, it's that it's stripped away
[14:48]of all of the things that we've added onto our lives.
[14:52]You know, I became a mother, oh, I became a writer.
[14:55]Oh, I play tennis and I like to hike.
[15:00]You know, all of those things that start to identify us.
[15:03]But once you get all of that off of you, then you're at your core person.
[15:08]And I think that that's where, you know, a really great friend
[15:12]sees through that to the core of who you are.
[15:16]The other thing about friendship and I'm sure you have experienced this
[15:21]yourself is that it is unlike any other relationship that we have in our lives.
[15:28]We will tell a friend something that we wouldn't tell.
[15:32]You know, our mother, our husband, a boyfriend, a lover, our children.
[15:37]It's a very, very particular kind of intimacy.
[15:41]And of course, whenever you have your heart open like that,
[15:45]you are vulnerable to being hurt.
[15:48]So I think it's fair to say that in my novels that I always,
[15:53]I do come back to friendship a lot.
[15:56]And it's for the reasons we've been talking about that.
[15:58]It's that love.
[15:59]It's that support.
[16:00]It's the people who give you the strength to keep going forward
[16:04]often very difficult circumstances.
[16:07]But there is that dark shadow side or the potential for those dark shadows.
[16:12]And it's like wherever I see those dark shadows, that's
[16:15]that's where I want to go.
[16:17]No, interesting.
[16:19]I feel like with friendships, it's so easy to say, well, I'm not going to make time.
[16:23]You know, I can't do that.
[16:24]I have to focus on this.
[16:25]I have to focus on my family or my work.
[16:26]And there's that like, of course, I would love to see my girlfriends,
[16:29]but that's hard to justify that time.
[16:32]When in fact, that is the time that sustains you and enables you to do all the rest of the stuff.
[16:37]Yeah.
[16:37]And sometimes just even being able to go for a walk with a friend.
[16:42]And you're grabbing time, you know, trying to grab this moment just so that you can
[16:47]connect in this very special way.
[16:49]And it gives us, it's fuels us.
[16:52]You know, it gives us so much.
[16:56]And like I said, it's just a unique relationship that we have in our lives.
[17:00]So sure.
[17:01]And I think very different than male friendship.
[17:04]You know, it's just very intimate.
[17:07]And it does so much follow the path of women's lives.
[17:11]You know, how it changes and evolves depending on where we are in our lives.
[17:17]You know, and when we're teenagers or when we're, you know, in kindergarten,
[17:23]or when we first have kids and actually some of my closest friends now
[17:30]are from my older son's kindergarten class.
[17:34]Because we all came together at this moment.
[17:37]And then it was like, okay, we're all going to go out, trick or treating together.
[17:41]And oh, well, let's all go do this together.
[17:43]And it was about the kids.
[17:45]But over time, it really became about the parents and about the moms especially.
[17:52]Okay, I have a, I have a great group from my kids.
[17:55]My twins preschool class was like a great class.
[17:58]We still get together for breakfast and this and that.
[18:00]And I know at any moment, I could text anyone of them and say, you know,
[18:04]and actually one of our core in that whole group ended up passing away.
[18:08]She had a varying cancer.
[18:09]And it was one of the most painful losses because it's not like she and I talked
[18:14]on the phone every single day.
[18:15]But we were all like this interlocked with and one piece fell off.
[18:20]And so I don't know, you know, these nets are what catch us through the hardest times.
[18:26]So I totally get it.
[18:27]Tell me more.
[18:28]Thanks to the book.
[18:29]Tell me more about your, how you went about writing.
[18:33]You did all this research.
[18:34]How did you synthesize all the information and then pivot to the writing time versus the
[18:39]researching time?
[18:40]And how do you like get into that?
[18:42]How do you stay super creative and tapped into a character while integrating
[18:48]all of the different facts?
[18:49]And like how long did that whole thing take?
[18:51]And how many hours a day were you at it and all of that?
[18:55]Yes, so a book typically takes about two years.
[18:59]The majority of time is the research, the writing is actually the least amount of time
[19:04]and then the editing is somewhere in the middle when I'm, when I'm doing research, I love
[19:12]it so much to me.
[19:13]It's like a big treasure hunt.
[19:15]I never know what I'm going to find and I can spend hours and hours and hours every day.
[19:20]But when I'm writing, I only write a, I write a thousand words a day, which is just
[19:26]four pages.
[19:27]It's not very much, but I keep a notebook where I keep track of how many words I've
[19:33]written in a day and sometimes I'm at like 997 and I have to stay here until I get that
[19:40]final bit because I have to do the thousand.
[19:43]And so sometimes I can do that in about two hours, sometimes it takes me eight.
[19:48]I know if it's eight, it's probably not very good, but I will stay here until I get it done.
[19:54]And then with editing, I find that to be exhausting, but I really do, that's the most
[20:00]costing for me. And when I first start, you know, the first draft is just awful. I think most
[20:07]writers will say that. And so if I can do 10 pages in a day, I feel like I've really accomplished
[20:14]something. But then by the end, you know, several drafts in, I'm up at like 40, 50 pages a day.
[20:20]So it's just a long process. But for me, that's where I really shape the novel. I do right
[20:27]from the beginning to the end straight through. You know, you talked to a lot of writers. You
[20:32]know, there's no one way or a right way. Some people make the first sentence perfect and the
[20:37]first paragraph perfect and the first page perfect. I just go all the way to the end. And then I
[20:43]you know, then I shape it as I'm writing. The one thing I would say about that, there was some
[20:50]part of one of your questions. Now I forgot it that I thought, oh, I had an interesting answer.
[20:55]I can't remember the sizing research. Oh, yes. So yes, that was it. So I know when I'm ready to
[21:01]write when the first line of when the last line comes to me, I write the last line first. And
[21:09]once I have that last line, then I can, I know where I'm going, you know, and bad things happen
[21:17]in my books. I can't deny it. But when I know that what the ending is, it's like the emotional
[21:23]place that I want to end. That's to me, the light at the end of the tunnel. And so whatever is
[21:30]happening is I'm writing. I know that I'm writing towards that. And then the other thing I would
[21:35]say about the research is I, you know, I do it all myself. I never know what I'm going to find. I
[21:41]look at it like it's a huge treasure hunt. You know, I'm just so excited. But am I going to find one
[21:45]of my, and then I do find things. And I just, in their moments where I'll find something and I'll just
[21:51]think, oh, I've got to use that. You know, and so in this book, I don't think it gives too much
[21:59]a way to say that the scene with the worm when there's something written on the baby's foot
[22:06]and something that happens in front of the Empress, all of the, all three of those happened to real
[22:12]women. And when I read those stories of what had happened to those particular real women,
[22:20]I was just like, oh, yeah. Come on down, worm. I just, I just, it triggers my imagination,
[22:31]but it's also like, oh, I've just, so those things also inspire me along the way of something that
[22:39]I know that I want to use. But it comes out of the research. Like, I could not have made up that
[22:45]worm just out of from nowhere. As you got your career underway, and as it continues to go,
[22:54]who have been some of the most influential people, either like a first teacher who is supportive,
[22:59]or somebody who never helps you navigate being a best-selling author for the first time, or
[23:05]who are some of the people that stand out to you? Well, my fifth grade teacher Mrs. Bruin
[23:10]and she loved history. And this was when you'd learn American history, and she
[23:18]really felt that history was about real people. And she would have us do all kinds of plays,
[23:25]actually. And I have red hair. People who are just listening and can't see. And so I always
[23:30]got to be Thomas Jefferson. I know a lot about Thomas Jefferson, but that her feeling was that
[23:37]if you could stand in their shoes, then you could understand what they were doing. And of course,
[23:43]that idea, and you touched on it earlier too, that that's what I want to do is just be in their shoes,
[23:50]be in their clothes, and try to understand in the moment, like being in the room with those people,
[23:58]the people that I'm writing about. That's the goal for me. The other person who would have to be
[24:05]much bigger than Mrs. Bruin's lot would be my mother. And Carolyn C., my mother was a writer.
[24:12]And her father was a writer as well. So I feel in many ways, like I had a lifelong apprenticeship.
[24:20]You know, sometimes I joke around, well, it's a good thing. They weren't plumbers, but why could
[24:25]they have been brain surgeons? But when I was doing research for something, my mother's papers are at
[24:31]UCLA special collections. And I was looking through some of the old correspondence. And when
[24:38]she was in college, her father wrote her letter saying, you know, if you want to be a writer,
[24:43]if you want to be a writer, you need to write a thousand words a day. And of course,
[24:47]he wrote that to her when she was something like 20. It was something that my mother always said to
[24:52]to me, it was something that she taught in her classes. And so I think just the discipline,
[25:00]but also how you would think about editing and publishing. My mother, you know, she's gone now,
[25:10]but she was writing and publishing novels, but also doing magazine work in the 1960s. And if you
[25:18]think about it, they're just really weren't that many women writers who were doing who were
[25:25]journalists or who were writing fiction. And if there were some, they were mostly in New York,
[25:31]my mom was here in Los Angeles. And so there are many people who look at her as sort of the God
[25:38]mother of West Coast letters. She supported so many writers and influenced so many younger writers
[25:47]all the way to today. I get emails or, you know, I'll run into someone who will say, your mother
[25:52]meant so much to me and she's the one who helped me get published. And I, but she was their teacher,
[25:59]she was my mom. And the fact that I had watched her go through this process and people were mean
[26:09]to her, you know, could be very mean to her. And I can remember just sometimes she'd be on the
[26:14]couch on the phone with an editor and just weeping, but trying to be brave, you know, like she
[26:20]should be dabbing her eye view, couldn't, the editor couldn't see what was happening. But I could see
[26:26]it. Wow. And I, I think that, I mean, for sure that really stuck with me, there have been times
[26:34]when I've had editors that have been very difficult. You know, one editor was very mean to me
[26:41]and would write things in the margins like, what kind of an odious person would write a sentence
[26:48]like this? Not reading that. And it's like, well, the answer is me. This kind of odious person.
[26:57]He's kind of, I mean, and that kind of, there's no reason for that for an editor to ever write
[27:03]something like that. But they, they can. And they do, at some times. And so I never would have had
[27:10]the strength to get through the editing of that particular book if I hadn't watched everything
[27:17]that my mother had gone through over the years. I mean, she really gave me such strength
[27:25]to deal with, I think, the more business side of writing and publishing.
[27:32]Amazing. Lisa, I feel like we're only scratching the surface, but
[27:37]we'll have to do it another time. We'll have to keep it going in person and LA in the store.
[27:41]Yes, in the store. When, when you come out, you have to let me know and they'll come on down
[27:47]and visit you. I'd love that. Me too. I would love that. Thank you so much. And you know,
[27:53]just all your insight and all of that in the writing and the research, you're really, it's
[27:57]really inspiring. So anyway, thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you for having me. Of course,
[28:03]my pleasure. Have a great day. Bye bye. Thank you. Bye bye. Thanks for listening to this episode of
[28:09]Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books. Don't forget to follow me on Instagram at ZB Owens and
[28:14]at Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books. Also sign up for my newsletter at ZB Owens.com and sign
[28:19]up for my virtual book club and meet lots of authors on Zoom every other week. Thanks so much to
[28:23]Steve and Ryan at Texture Sound for the Sound Editing. And thank you to Morning Moon
[28:28]Productions for providing this fantastic intro and outro music.