Alison Stewart (2:26)

When did you realize that you wanted to be a writer?

Maggie Sue (2:30)

I always wanted to be a writer. I didn't always think that it would make me any money. So I, you know, I. I was kind of in the sciences for quite a long time. I was actually one class away from A chemistry minor. So maybe I'll go back and do that one day.

Unnamed Interviewer (2:47)

But that's really interesting to go from chemistry to writing. Was it.

Alison Stewart (2:53)

Was writing something you did on the side?

Maggie Sue (2:55)

Writing was something I always did on the side. My mom ran book clubs and writing groups through the library, and sometimes I was actually the only member of the club, but it was always part of my life.

Unnamed Interviewer (3:07)

So when did you switch over that writing became the main theme of your life?

Maggie Sue (3:11)

Yeah, I always took English literature courses. And then one day in college I took a writing class and I just, you know, I had, I had written my whole life, but I never had that kind of intense contemporary fiction. I haven't been reading living writers too much. And so once I took that workshop, I was just hooked.

Unnamed Interviewer (3:32)

Tell me about a teacher who changed your view on writing from when you were, when you were learning about writing.

Maggie Sue (3:40)

Yes, Michael Madonna at the University of Illinois. He passed away, but he was just such a force there. And he taught a lot of young students just how exciting contemporary living authors can be and exciting things happening in poetry and in fiction. And I just remember him, him kind of coming to me and saying, you've got something here now, you know, And Ted Sanders as well was like, just wait until you're 40 and you'll really have something.

Unnamed Interviewer (4:14)

Well, when did your interest in sort of speculative fiction start?

Maggie Sue (4:20)

From my earliest short stories. I was playing speculative. Maybe it came from my mom loving fantasy novels and kind growing up around.

Unnamed Interviewer (4:29)

Kind of the magical, the Lord of.

Maggie Sue (4:30)

The Rings had a big impact on me. As a kid, I would wear a little ring around my neck. It was a very cool child. And so just growing up with that and also reading short story masters like Amy Bender in the mfa, Kevin Wilson, and seeing how many Asian American authors are kind of using speculative fiction in these new and exciting ways really inspired me.

Alison Stewart (4:57)

You read it as a fan of speculative fiction, but when you read it as like a manual. So like how, how to write speculative fiction, what did you learn that you, you need to have speculative fiction be successful?

Maggie Sue (5:13)

I think you need to jump in.

Unnamed Interviewer (5:15)

Headfirst and not treat the speculative element.

Maggie Sue (5:19)

As kind of a one to one metaphor for anything. You kind of have to treat it as its own living creature. I don't want the blob to stand in for.

Unnamed Interviewer (5:28)

I want it to exist on its own terms.

Maggie Sue (5:30)

And that's the kind of work that I think expands our ideas rather than kind of just puts them in different packages. So that's what I really love about speculative fiction, is that it can Kind of explode what we think. When we think of metaphor or imagery or just a conceit, we can kind of go beyond that if it's successful.

Alison Stewart (5:51)

I'm speaking to Maggie sue about her debut novel, a love story about a 20something woman who finds a blob and turns it into her ideal partner. Until Bob the Blob realizes he has his own life. It's part of our day long celebration of debut novels. Okay, so this wasn't a novel first first.

Unnamed Interviewer (6:08)

It was a short story.

Maggie Sue (6:10)

Yes, it was a ten page short story.

Alison Stewart (6:12)

Ten page short story.

Unnamed Interviewer (6:13)

What was the plot?

Maggie Sue (6:15)

It was the same. It had the same plot points. So the main character, Vi has this frenemy Rachel who she works at the hotel with. And you know, Bob the Blob was, was a big part of it as well.

Unnamed Interviewer (6:31)

And then it became a play, a.

Maggie Sue (6:35)

10 minute play that was only performed once.

Alison Stewart (6:40)

Okay, wait, that's kind of funny. What was the reason?

Maggie Sue (6:45)

Oh, well, it was part of a workshop. So it was sort of just like a put on end of the end of the workshop play put on by the really wonderful actors at the conservatory in Cincinnati. And it was, it was really fun to watch.

Unnamed Interviewer (7:00)

When did you decide?

Alison Stewart (7:02)

I think this is more than a.

Unnamed Interviewer (7:03)

Ten minute play, than a ten page short story.

Maggie Sue (7:07)

Well, after that play I took a.

Unnamed Interviewer (7:10)

Year off where I was reading for my comprehensive exams for my PhD.

Maggie Sue (7:14)

So I took an entire year reading speculative fiction and Asian American fiction, which were my areas of specialization. And during that time it was just kind of marinating in the back of my mind the idea that I wasn't finished with this story. So as soon as I turned in those exams, I started writing. And I think it had kind of been building within me. I think the play and the short story were kind of treating the conceit.

Unnamed Interviewer (7:41)

As more of a thought experiment. And with the novel I was able.

Maggie Sue (7:44)

To really invest more, further, more fully into these characters.

Unnamed Interviewer (7:49)

Now the idea of a Blob outside of your book has been around for a while. I mean, there's been movies about the Blob. Have you ever seen a Blob movie?

Maggie Sue (7:58)

Yes, I saw the Blob, the original horror film, after, after I'd written it. And it was fantastic and fun to watch.

Unnamed Interviewer (8:07)

Oh, that's sort of interesting. So you saw it after you wrote the book. All right, well, this brings me to my next question. What is it about the idea of a Blob that appeals to you?

Unnamed Interviewer (8:21)

I really like the idea of giving.

Maggie Sue (8:22)

This character by exactly what she thinks she wants. She kind of wants a partner that she can mold, that she can control, that she, you know, can. Can be herself around. And I just thought of Blob.

Unnamed Interviewer (8:39)

It was just so amorphous and absurd.

Maggie Sue (8:42)

And I kind of feel that way about how people find each other in romantic and platonic connections. I just thought that absurdity fit well with my vision of what it means to kind of connect with another human. So that's kind of what the Blob drew me to. It was such a blank slate that I could play with it.

Unnamed Interviewer (9:02)

Let's talk about Vi. Where is Vi when we meet her?

Maggie Sue (9:07)

She's not in a good place. She's just gone through a really rough breakup. Dropped out of college, is really depressed. She's really not dealing with the issues that she's facing and not really understanding herself. And I think that's the biggest issue she has, actually.

Alison Stewart (9:29)

Phi is a Midwesterner. And why does that matter?

Maggie Sue (9:34)

I'm just so drawn to, you know, Asian American stories of the Midwest. And I just don't see them as often. And someone who grew up biracial, Taiwanese American in central Illinois. It's a very specific experience.

Unnamed Interviewer (9:48)

I think there's a lot of strangeness.

Maggie Sue (9:49)

There and there's a lot of kind of banality. And I think those two kind of intersections. I just wanted to capture some of those images of my upbringing and to kind of bring them to life in the book.

Alison Stewart (10:03)

So Vi discovers this Blob, and she's not. She's not exactly sure what to do with it. First of all, why does she bring the Blob home, of all things?

Maggie Sue (10:18)

I think, you know, she's carrying around. I explained that she, like, has had.

Unnamed Interviewer (10:22)

All these kind of strange pets that her parents carry, keep buying for her.

Maggie Sue (10:27)

And she keeps not being able to.

Unnamed Interviewer (10:29)

Take care of correctly.

Maggie Sue (10:31)

And so I think she carries around some guilt around animals and her own ability to take care of herself and something else. And so I think when she's feeling, you know, pretty tipsy and pretty lonely, she. She kind of is like, here's something I can do. Here's something that I can fix that I can save.

Alison Stewart (10:54)

I'm gonna ask you to read from page 59. This is about Bob getting. She's getting. Vi's kind of getting used to Bob being around the house. Before he's a man. He's still in his blob state. I should put for people. This is before he becomes human. Like, this is Maggie sue reading from a love story.

Unnamed Interviewer (11:14)

I eat another handful of pretzels and.

Maggie Sue (11:17)

Study the Blob he looks like he hasn't moved.

Unnamed Interviewer (11:21)

He's positioned exactly where I left him.

Maggie Sue (11:23)

On the couch, but I know it's a lie.

Unnamed Interviewer (11:25)

He must have plugged the TV back.

Maggie Sue (11:27)

In and changed the channel.

Unnamed Interviewer (11:28)

There's no other explanation. Why did you do this?

Maggie Sue (11:32)

I ask.

Unnamed Interviewer (11:33)

I sit down on the middle couch cushion, the one right next to him on the tv. A lightweight fighter pins another to the side of the cage and pulls him close to punch him in the ribs. There's intimacy in the close contact. It almost looks like an embrace. Bob stares up at me and follows my movements. I'm surprised to find that I'm no longer scared of him.

Maggie Sue (11:55)

I carried this blob home in my sweatshirt.

Unnamed Interviewer (11:57)

I'm responsible for him now. You see this?

Maggie Sue (12:01)

I gesture to the two men who've.

Unnamed Interviewer (12:03)

Now split apart and are bouncing and jabbing in circles around the ring.

Maggie Sue (12:06)

You don't want this.

Unnamed Interviewer (12:08)

I hover my hand over the blob and pet the air directly above him. This is what being a human is like. It's beating another human to the ground in order to survive. Bob says nothing, but his mouth contorts into a round o. My fingertips are directly above the blob's new eyelids. One of the fighters gets a fast right hook in and his opponent's head snaps back. Blood wells from his upper lip. Bob's eyes have shifted from my face. The tv. You don't want this, I say. You need to listen to me for a second.

Maggie Sue (12:42)

I consider action.

Unnamed Interviewer (12:44)

I could push down my fingers and smooth out the blob's new eyelids.

Maggie Sue (12:48)

With one movement.

Unnamed Interviewer (12:50)

I could unmold him and stop his growth. Keep him a blob forever. What stops me is Luke's accusation, the one he left hanging between us when he left the violence inherent in my love. I move my hand away. I curl up beside the blob and fall asleep to the sound of flesh hitting flesh.

Unnamed Interviewer (13:11)

That was Maggie sue reading from a Love Story. It's her debut novel. It's part of our day long celebration of debut novels. We should talk about Luke a little bit.

Alison Stewart (13:22)

Yeah, Luke.

Unnamed Interviewer (13:24)

Describe Luke for us.

Maggie Sue (13:27)

Well, Vi's brother calls him the most generic white guy in the world and he, you know, I think he's someone that Vi never thought would find her attractive, that never thought she'd have kind of this quote unquote normal relationship. And so in some ways she's very reluctant to let go of him.

Unnamed Interviewer (13:46)

What do you see as the relationship between Luke and Bob the Blob once he becomes a man?

Maggie Sue (13:53)

I Think, you know, she. She sees Bob the Blob as the potential for, you know, if Luke. If she could control Luke a little more, if she could understand Luke a little. She has this kind of alien white man now that she can really. She thinks maybe she can have a.

Unnamed Interviewer (14:13)

Little bit more understanding of.

Maggie Sue (14:14)

So, yeah, maybe more pliable Luke.

Unnamed Interviewer (14:18)

You know, I'm getting ahead of myself. You know, he has to become a man. Let's start there. But she has to leave home. She has to go to sort of go to work at the Hillside Inn and Suites. I was curious about her place of work at the hotel. How was that useful to you as a writer?

Maggie Sue (14:36)

Yeah, so during my mfa, I did work at a hotel in the summer, and I just felt like, wow, this is the perfect place to people watch, to see people kind of at their best and worst. You know, I think when you're in a hotel, sometimes you forget you're not at home. So there's a lot of things that go on in a hotel that are.

Unnamed Interviewer (14:58)

Really interesting to observe, but it's also.

Maggie Sue (15:00)

A really monotonous job, and I wanted to play with that. Like, is she paying attention to the people around her, or is she so wrapped up in herself that she's just kind of getting through the day? And I think that kind of changes as the novel progresses.

Alison Stewart (15:16)

Which one of the customers at the hotel did you have to deal with?

Maggie Sue (15:21)

I definitely dealt with some interesting wedding parties. So there's a fiance in there, and those were always fun. There's always, like, a hockey. There was hockey tournament kids. I'm not sure if they made it into the novel or not, but those are always fun, too.

Alison Stewart (15:36)

One of the things about Vi is that she's got a lot of problems. She's dropped out of school. She lies to her parents. And I know it was important. I read an interview where you said it was really important for you to move beyond the, quote, model minority version of what an Asian woman would look like in her life. Why was that important to you?

Maggie Sue (16:01)

Yeah, and I think so many Asian American writers and directors and filmmakers have, like. I think we definitely are moving past that. I think embracing the messiness is important. You know, I think for a long time, you know, Asian American women are these desirable, perfect, kind of pristine figures.

Unnamed Interviewer (16:24)

Instead of being kind of the messy.

Maggie Sue (16:26)

Bodily, human, sexual creatures that we are, just like everyone else. And especially kind of vise. Thinking back on growing up and feeling all of this kind of shame and guilt and pressure to conform to certain, you know, her feeling abnormal.

Unnamed Interviewer (16:49)

So I wanted to kind of capture.

Maggie Sue (16:50)

That, whether it was her race or kind of her own introvertedness, her own strangeness, I wanted to try to capture that kind of messy character that maybe goes a little bit against what we've.

Unnamed Interviewer (17:03)

Seen in the past.

Alison Stewart (17:05)

My guest is Maggie Sue. Her debut novel is called Blob A Love Story.

Unnamed Interviewer (17:11)

All right, this is hard to ask.

Alison Stewart (17:12)

But, like, how did you write from.

Unnamed Interviewer (17:14)

The perspective of a blob?

Maggie Sue (17:18)

There actually originally were chapters from Bob's perspective, but I had to cut them because they did not serve the story whatsoever. But I just.

Unnamed Interviewer (17:29)

But you get his perspective, though, occasionally.

Maggie Sue (17:32)

Yeah, yeah. And I. I love the idea of, like, what if someone could just soak up all of, like, the reality TV that I love to watch. Project Runway, Top Chef, like, all of that type of. Even some, like, the jeopardy. And also kind of, obviously he takes the remote control at some point. He. He, like, exerts his own will. But I just like the idea of someone who was just kind of made up of all of these pop culture influences that he doesn't really know where they've come from, but he's like a sp for them. And he also brings a lot of, like, naive, like, freshness to Vi's life. He's this new person who doesn't have.

Unnamed Interviewer (18:15)

All of her hang ups and cynicisms that have.

Maggie Sue (18:17)

Hasn't gone through the experiences that she's gone through. And so he has kind of a playfulness, a naivete that I think she really finds refreshing.

Unnamed Interviewer (18:30)

You know, at some point, before he becomes a human, Vi sort of has to realize he has emotions. Like, she knows something is going on with this thing on her couch. How did you develop that relationship between her and the thing on the couch before it's a human?

Maggie Sue (18:51)

Yeah. I wanted to think a little bit about what Vi's problems in relationships have been. And so much of her issues have been kind of with her family, with her brother. Is kind of an inability to see past her own hurt and see past her own kind of conflicts and trauma. And so I wanted, you know, her to try to understand someone else, to try to see past herself, see past all of that depression and anxiety and fear that she has. And I think through Bob and their connection, she's. She's kind of jostled out of her normal way of coping. Her snarkiness and her cynicism to really try to understand another person.

Alison Stewart (19:43)

Bob slowly grows into a real person, sort of step by step. How did you decide on how he would grow? How he. One day it would be an army. One day it would be torso. It was sort of interesting trying to feel like, how does, how does she decide what, what came next is tricky for me.

Maggie Sue (20:03)

I'm not really like a world building writer. I like, like the absurd, the speculative, but I'm not really, you know, as interested in the mechanics of, of it all. And so I thought, you know, what if someone who just didn't know anything about the human body was trying to, to create that? Like, what might they say? And so I just played with that. And I also played with kind of her putting the images of the movie stars and realizing after she's put them all up that they all happen to be white, that that's kind of the culture that she's in and that's what she seems to find desirable. And her kind of being like, huh, I guess I could change it, but whatever, it's fine. He'll have white privilege. That'll be good. And so I just, yeah, I wanted to say, like, what if someone who had no clue about anything was just like, grow this. So it wasn't, it wasn't very calculated at all.

Alison Stewart (21:02)

And once he reaches adulthood, he's pretty good looking.

Unnamed Interviewer (21:05)

Who would play Bob in real life?

Maggie Sue (21:08)

I don't know. Someone mentioned Timothee Chalamet to me and now I kind of see it.

Unnamed Interviewer (21:13)

I had been thinking someone more muscular.

Maggie Sue (21:15)

Like a Ryan Gosling.

Alison Stewart (21:16)

That's what I was thinking.

Unnamed Interviewer (21:18)

But Timothee Chalamet, though, fits a little bit.

Maggie Sue (21:22)

It's interesting. Yeah.

Unnamed Interviewer (21:24)

How does the world view Bob, given.

Alison Stewart (21:26)

He is this good looking man.

Maggie Sue (21:30)

He'S.

Unnamed Interviewer (21:30)

Welcomed with open arms in the world.

Maggie Sue (21:32)

I think there's a scene in the novel where he's playing Frisbee, playing Frisbee with some frat boys. And I remember writing that and just kind of having fun with that idea that Bob, you know, has no frame of reference for being a human and yet he can kind of walk into that type of situation where, you know, he's physical, he's muscular, he can jump run and jump and catch and kind of make friends. And I think Vyse is so jealous of that. She's confused and about how he could just immediately fit into this world that she's felt so alienated by.

Alison Stewart (22:14)

Vi has to decide if she'll be.

Unnamed Interviewer (22:18)

With Bob, but the question is, is that what Bob wants? Because he starts to have his own set of feels. What's the moral to that story?

Maggie Sue (22:34)

I think I wanted it to be ambiguous and I really enjoyed hearing people kind of say, like, oh, we weren't sure if it was romantic or if it was more of like a mother relations relationship or what type of relationship they had. But I do think like her loneliness.

Unnamed Interviewer (22:53)

And her desire for connection, whatever form.

Maggie Sue (22:57)

It takes, she recognizes, I think, that it's impossible to. To force someone to stay, to force someone to be with you. And I think even a blob, even someone that you've molded from nothing, you know, they have their own agency and they have their own feelings and thoughts. And I think her learning to give him space and respect, that is part of the trajectory for sure.

Unnamed Interviewer (23:29)

How long did it take you to actually write this book?

Maggie Sue (23:33)

I started in 2020.

Unnamed Interviewer (23:36)

Writing the full novel.

Maggie Sue (23:38)

Yeah. And then I think I finished the summer of 2021 and then revisions, revision, revision. So, yeah, I think total, you know, it's been five years.

Alison Stewart (23:51)

Wow.

Unnamed Interviewer (23:53)

Yeah.

Alison Stewart (23:53)

What was a difficult part of the story to move past? You got stuck.

Maggie Sue (23:59)

The middles are hard for me in general. I had a really great dissertation director who helped me. I did initially want to go Leah Stewart. I did initially want to go a little bit harder on vi, I think, and punish her maybe in certain ways. And I think so much of that was indicative of kind of where I was at with my own mental health and the pandemic and everything. And I wasn't letting VI grow. And so I think I had to get past that in order to. To write through the middle and ending.

Alison Stewart (24:35)

And what is your advice to a would be novelist?

Maggie Sue (24:41)

Just keep going. I think that's the hardest part, I think, is when you start to doubt yourself and when you start to lose momentum. I think novels are messy and they're.

Unnamed Interviewer (24:55)

Fun because they're so messy.

Maggie Sue (24:57)

I was used to writing short stories or plays where I felt like, oh, this is crystallized. This is perfect. And I think allowing yourself to be.

Unnamed Interviewer (25:05)

Messy in novels in the first draft is really important.

Alison Stewart (25:10)

The name of the book is A Love Story. It is by Maggie Sue. Maggie, thank you so much for making time with us today.

Maggie Sue (25:17)

Thanks so much.

Progressive Insurance Ad (25:21)

NYC now delivers breaking news, top headlines and in depth coverage from WNYC and Gothamist every morning, midday and evening. By sponsoring our programming, you'll reach a community of passionate listeners in an uncluttered audio experience. Visit sponsorship wnyc.org to learn more.