Beijing Author's New Novel Named to BBC's 10 Books to Read in December
Well, look at that. The BBC just named Beijing-based author Carly J. Hallman's The Year of the Goose one of the 10 books to read in December, and it just so happens that we interviewed her for our December issue. Here's our talk with the author about some of her favorite books.
Which books on your shelf have the most sentimental value to you?
My signed books, especially those from authors I’ve met. There’s something magical about meeting a favorite author, although I’m usually too nervous to do much of anything besides stammer and sweat in the presence of greatness. Nevertheless, I cherish signed copies of Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim (David Sedaris), The House on Mango Street (Sandra Cisneros), Shanghai Baby (Zhou Weihui), Dancing Through Red Rust (Murong Xuecun), and Postcards from Tomorrow Square (James Fallows), among others.
What's the last book you read?
Fates and Furies by Lauren Groff. It’s the perfect solution if you’re desperate to meet your 2015 Great American Novel quota, but don’t want to fork over your hard-earned money to the likes of Jonathan Franzen. Fates and Furies is, as great American novels tend to be, about the oh-so-complex marriage of two beautiful, successful white people who live in New York.
Book you wish you had written?
Escape from Baghdad! by Saad Hossain. It’s this darkly funny, deeply imagined story set in wartime Iraq, with a wee bit of magical realism sprinkled in for good measure. The pacing is perfect and the dialogue is sharp as hell. There’s a corrupt American Marine who’s gone semi-AWOL, a top-secret society, two Iraqis who come into the possession of a war criminal from Saddam’s toppled regime, and plenty of explosions. Who wouldn’t want to have written that?
What is the book that changed your life?
Leonard Cohen’s Book of Longing. I’ve consulted it regularly for years, like a book of spells or a bible. I even got lines from the poem “S.O.S. 1995” tattooed on my arm: “let them off the hook/help them off the hook/recognize the hook.”
Book with the best beginning?
Yu Hua’s Brothers. Give me a disenchanted Chinese tycoon sitting on a gold-plated toilet while contemplating buying a USD 20 million ticket to travel to outer space, and I’ll give you my unwavering attention for the next 600-plus pages.
Tell us about The Year of the Goose. Was it written here in Beijing, and how much of it relates to the city?
Year of the Goose is a dark comedy set in China, where the era of the tycoon has reached its climax, and where the lives of a snack food heiress, a hair extension magnate, and the nation’s most cherished goose are about to collide. I wrote 99 percent of this novel in Beijing – in my apartment, at work, in cafes. However, most of the book is set elsewhere: in Wuxi, Shanghai, Lhasa, the Yunnan countryside. The novel’s setting is my own absurdist version of China, not “the real China.” For whatever reason, it was easier to go completely nuts making stuff up about places less familiar and immediate to me than Beijing.
What is the one book you would recommend to other writers in Beijing and why?
Sheng Keyi’s Northern Girls. This novel is so full of life that it practically pulses in your hands. It’s funny and incisive and also very sad. The characters encounter endless employment woes, relationship debacles, and sexual and socioeconomic discrimination. But they carry on. They sass. They laugh. Humor is present in every uncomfortable twist and turn. This is what they talk about when they talk about the “unbreakable spirit” of the Chinese people. And this is what we (Chinese and foreign) should all strive to achieve in our writing about China – nuance, stubbornness, vitality, wit.
Carly J. Hallman’s novel, The Year of the Goose, will be published by Unnamed Press in early December, and will be available at The Bookworm.
More stories by this author here.
Email: stevenschwankert@thebeijinger.com
Twitter: @greatwriteshark
Weibo: @SinoScuba潜水
Photo courtesy of Carly J. Hallman
