By Honora Quinn ‘27

Staff Writer

According to her biography on Penguin Random House, “Jen Sookfong Lee was born and raised in Vancouver’s East Side and she now lives with her son in North Burnaby. Her books include ‘The Conjoined’ (nominated for the International Dublin Literary Award and a finalist for the Ethel Wilson Fiction Prize), ‘The Better Mother’ (a finalist for the City of Vancouver Book Award), ‘The End of East,’ ‘The Shadow List’ and ‘Finding Home.’ Sookfong Lee acquires and edits for ECW Press.”

Her latest novel “The Hunger We Pass Down” — published by Erewhon Books, an imprint of Kensington Publishing Corp. — comes out on Sept. 30. Pitched by Kensington as Jordan Peele’s “Us” meets “The School for Good Mothers,” the novel follows a single mother living in present-day Vancouver who, when faced with a doppelganger of herself, is forced to reckon with the intergenerational cycles of trauma and violence that haunt her family.
oke News had an opportunity to conduct an interview with Sookfong Lee ahead of the publication to ask about her return to fiction, what she’s done in the meantime between novels, and advice for aspiring writers on college campuses.

Q: What’s one word you’d use to describe this novel? What’s one word to describe yourself as a writer?

A: That's hard! How can I choose one word for a whole novel? Okay, perhaps I would go with "atmospheric," which doesn't seem scary enough, but here we are. As a writer, I would say I'm "efficient," which is the most unromantic thing in the world, but I do feel my strength is in knowing what's possible with the time and energy and skills that I have. Trying to do more is just, well, inefficient.

Q: “The Hunger We Pass Down” is your return to adult fiction after almost a decade. Why did you feel it was time to return to fiction now?

A: I published three novels in nine years (“The End of East,” 2007, “The Better Mother,” 2011, and “The Conjoined,” 2016), which left me feeling pretty burned out when it came to fiction. Novels take a lot of work — the kind of immersion that is really fulfilling but also takes a lot of intellectual and emotional energy. I had written a lot about Vancouver's Chinatown and the immigrant experience and I didn't know where else to go. When I first had the idea for “The Hunger We Pass Down,” it really excited me to explore this haunted single mother and her ancestors, in a way that I hadn't been excited in a very long time. This is partly because I am a horror fan and the genre is just inherently exciting, but also partly because I had found a new way to discuss migration, intergenerational trauma and motherhood — topics I have been interested in my whole life. But this time I got to add demons and ghosts!

Q: In the interim between novels, you’ve written and edited a lot of nonfiction works, including your own memoir, “Superfan.” How, if at all, do you think your time in this space has impacted your fiction?

A: Non-fiction forces writers to engage in a clarity of thought that fiction doesn't. In “Superfan” and all the non-fiction books I've edited, I always ask the question: what is the thesis here and is it visible on every page? This is harder to do in a novel, of course, but I really wanted “The Hunger We Pass Down” to be sharp and incisive — to make the point very clearly that trauma that is hidden or ignored will always come back to haunt you, and that women are the ones to carry the stories and warnings on their backs as they move countries, give birth and parent. I am not sure I am capable of just exploring themes anymore; I have to stab them!

Q: Your fiction work has time and time again delved into the relationships between mother and child, and generational sagas. “The Hunger We Pass Down” also plays within this space, but unlike your previous work, this novel expands into and explores the more speculative with and through the horror elements. Why did you want to explore this genre space? Do you think you’ll venture further into genre in the future?

A: I love different genres of fiction! “The Conjoined” was a crime novel, so I had dabbled in something other than literary fiction before. But I think here I wanted to write a story where trauma becomes visible and is something (or someone) you can see and talk to and fight, and in that case, it makes sense for that trauma to be a demon. I mean, trauma isn't going to just saunter in and smile at you like Pedro Pascal (although might be nice). I think switching up genres has been a hallmark of my career for a while now, and I have no intention of stopping.

Q: Do you have any advice for the students and readers in terms of writing, editing and working in publishing?

A: I think it's really important, when you're thinking of working in books in any capacity, to really hone in on what your motivations are. So for me, as an editor, what gets me up in the morning is making space for stories we haven't heard yet, from communities that haven't been given the opportunities to express themselves freely and creatively. If you can figure out your purpose — something that really speaks to who you are at your core — then it makes every decision really clear. I'm not saying that publishing is always fun-times for non-masc people, particularly if you're racialized or queer as well, but your purpose can be greater and more important than what is going on around you, and that is both comforting and inspiring.

Karishma Ramkarran ’27 contributed fact checking.