Rachel Khong's 'Real Americans'

Summary

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Podcast Summary

Podcast: All Of It (WNYC)
Host: Kusha Navadar (in for Alison Stewart)
Guest: Rachel Khong, author
Episode: Rachel Khong’s ‘Real Americans’
Date: May 28, 2024

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Episode Overview

This episode delves into Rachel Khong’s latest novel, Real Americans, a multi-generational story of a Chinese American family, exploring themes of family, race, identity, secrecy, and the meaning of being “real Americans.” The conversation covers Khong’s writing process, the inspirations from the sociopolitical climate post-2016, and nuanced insights on generational cycles, cultural assimilation, and hope for connection.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

The Birth and Structure of Real Americans

• Conception of the Novel:
  • Khong initially began writing the story in December 2016 after the U.S. presidential election, intending for it to be a short story.
  • The novel spans three generations, emphasizing how family history and secrets ripple through time.
  • The story opens in 1999 Manhattan with Lily, a listless, 22-year-old Asian American woman, and unfolds across decades and states, culminating in the journey of her son, Nico.
  • Quote:

    "I started writing this book in December of 2016, right after the presidential election, and was feeling a little strange... The themes that were in the air were things like power, identity, race, who gets to be called a 'real American.'" (03:17)

Character Deep Dive: Lily and Her Family

• Lily:

  • Portrayed as aimless and adrift, feeling societal and parental pressure, especially from her immigrant mother.
  • Struggles with a sense of belonging as a “fully American” who is often not perceived that way due to her appearance.
  • Raised without the Chinese language or traditions because her parents deeply assimilated.
  • Quote:

    "She's a little bit of a slacker, this Y2K slacker... she feels that she is lacking ambition in part because that's a story she's always been told — that you need an ambition, that you need to become something when you grow up." (05:18)

  • Khong shares that Lily's lack of ambition was "aspirational" for her, contrasting with her own upbringing.

• Lily’s Mother (Mae):

  • A biologist who fled China during the Cultural Revolution.
  • Avoids discussing the past, perpetuating a sense of cultural absence in Lily’s life.

On Parental Expectations & American Narratives

• Khong reflects on the broader societal expectations tied to American identity — the mandate to be productive and “make something” of oneself, and how these narratives intersect with immigrant family dynamics.
  • Quote:

    “It's her mom. It's definitely a sort of tinge of immigrant parent expectation. But it's also just a narrative America imposes on us... As an adult I now see how in service of capitalism that is — these so-called ideals.” (06:19)

Secrecy, Family History & The Cycle of Silence

• Cycles of Silence:
  • The novel scrutinizes family secrets handed down through generations, especially as Lily, like her mother, keeps history from her own son, Nico.
  • Khong suggests total transparency is elusive, and every family harbors unknowable parts.
  • Quote:

    “It's inevitable... It's impossible to share the entirety of who you are to somebody else. I think it takes a lifetime... people are always changing.” (14:34)

  • Efforts to break such cycles are fraught; even with good intentions, patterns repeat, sometimes fueled by cultural divides and miscommunication.

The Hope of Connection & Communication

• Despite inherent barriers, Khong maintains optimism about moments of connection, describing fleeting but precious episodes where individuals truly “see” each other.
  • Quote:

    “There are these moments of real connection... moments of respite and moments where it doesn't matter so much maybe whether you're fully understood and you can just sort of exist in this other person's company.” (16:35)

  • Even imperfect, incomplete connections have value.

Personal Reflections and Navigating Cultural Difference

• Khong relates her own family experience to her characters, reflecting on longing for stories from her parents, who express love differently.
  • Quote:

    “I'm trying to understand them better through writing a story, right? And we just have these very different languages — not literally, we all speak English, but it's just in the sort of cultural language.” (19:19)

  • Making peace with unbridgeable distances, she suggests, is sometimes more realistic than dreaming of a “perfect” generational breakthrough.

On Universal Appeal of Family Sagas

• The conversation connects Khong's work to a growing body of contemporary literature tracing multi-generational immigrant and minority family journeys (e.g., Tommy Orange, Claire Messud).
  • Quote:

    “I only have this one life, this one body, this one perspective. I make decisions and then doors close behind me... and yet fiction is sort of the closest I can come to [witnessing more than I actually can].” (22:03)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Khong on her writing process and the novel's evolution:

  "I could have worked on it for another five years, let's say. But I think I was ready... I had taken this story and these characters as far as I could." (08:30)

• On the magic and limitations of love:

  "There's something kind of alchemical or magical about two people being drawn together... you can't just look at a list of what people are. You have to experience who they are." (11:59)

• On generational misunderstanding:

  “We can exist in these different ways and sort of find ... the places where we can make those bridges to some sort of connection.” (19:19)

• On why sprawling family histories resonate:

  “It feels almost primal, right? ... I want to know what happened when I wasn’t around. ... Fiction is sort of the closest that I can come to that.” (22:03)

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Key Timestamps

• 01:16 — Introduction to Khong and summary of Real Americans
• 03:17 — Origin of the novel: inspiration post-2016 election
• 05:18 — Lily’s character, her aimlessness, and family pressure
• 06:19 — Parental expectations and American ideals
• 09:34 — On cultural assimilation and silence about family history
• 11:59 — Lily and Matthew’s relationship dynamics
• 14:34 — The inevitability and repetition of family secrets
• 16:35 — Hope for connection and moments of understanding
• 19:19 — Khong’s personal reflections on familial communication
• 22:03 — Universal resonance of generational family stories
• 23:12 — Closing thanks and event information

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Tone and Style

The conversation is thoughtful, gentle, and nuanced, balancing literary analysis with personal storytelling. Khong’s answers oscillate between candid self-reflection and big-picture cultural commentary, always centered on curiosity and empathy for her characters (and herself).

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For more:
Rachel Khong’s Real Americans is available now. Khong appeared for a book talk at You and Me Books, Lower East Side, NYC, on May 28, 2024.

Transcript

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Listener Supported WNYC Studios.

[D]

This is all of it. I'm Kusha Navadar in for Alison Stewart. Rachel Kong's second novel, Real Americans tells the story of one Chinese American family across several generations. The book starts in New York. It's 1999, and Lily is an unpaid intern working at a magazine. At a work gala, she meets Matthew. He's tall, handsome, charming. He's also the heir to a major pharmaceutical company. The two fall in love, but to Lily, their love is fraught due to their racial and class differences. But after years of dating, the two eventually get married and have a son. Part two of the book takes place two decades later in Washington state. Lily's teenage son, Nick doesn't know who his father is. Lily refuses to share any details about him. But after taking a DNA test, Nico becomes determined to meet Matthew, and he soon finds a lot more questions than answers. Some characters in the story conceal family secrets from each other, while others go on a quest to fill in those gaps in their family story. Kirkus describes the book as bold, thoughtful and delicate. I found the book's themes of family, race and inheritance a compelling way to consider the diversity of Asian American experiences and the experience of trying to fill in the gaps of your own family's story. Rachel Kong will be speaking at a Book Talk tonight at 6:30pm @ you and Me Books in the Lower east side. But first, I am delighted to have her with me in studio to talk about real Americans. Hi Rachel. Welcome to all of it.

[B]

Hi. Thank you so much for having me. I'm just so happy to be here.

[D]

Happy to have you here. I want to talk about Lily. I want to dive right into this book. Lily is one of our main characters, really the crux of the story and the first character. I understand that you started writing and we learn that there is a generation before her and a generation after her. So when in your writing process did you decide that you wanted this to be multi generational?

[B]

It's funny, because I started this project thinking maybe it was a short story. I started writing this book In December of 2016, right after the presidential election, and was feeling a little strange, as I think many of us did back then. And I. I was writing this story almost as an escape, almost as this nostalgia to a previous time that seemed slightly more simple, you know, back when we thought that the zeros in the year 2000 would crash our computers. You know, doesn't that seem a little bit quaint at this point?

[D]

Y2K? So quaint.

[B]

Yeah. So I think I started it. Started it there, but then quickly the story sort of accumulated a lot of the. I don't know, just questions that I had at that time, you know, especially arising out of that election. You know, the themes that were in the air were things like power, identity, race, who gets to be called a quote, unquote, real American. And so I think from there, the other characters began to assert themselves and to say the story is much more complicated than what you originally thought.

[D]

So it really was an extension of the 2016 election that this came out of, because that question of who gets to be an American, it was felt really presently and continues to be at that time.

[B]

I think it really did. Yeah. I think that I was. I was sort of steeped in so much news and rhetoric. Right. That. That it had to infuse my writing a little bit. Right. And I don't think that. I mean, I think that I approach it in a way that a novelist must. Right. In this. In this sort of wanting to ask questions, not providing answers, but really. Yeah. Just wanting to sort of chip away at what am I thinking about, what is obsessing me right now.

[D]

And tell us a little bit about Lily's character, because that's really where a lot of those questions come into play. Who is she? What are the questions that she's dealing with?

[B]

Yeah. So Lily is 22 years old at the time that we meet her in 1999. She is, as you mentioned, an unpaid intern at a sort of slick media company. She's pretty aimless in life. You know, she would say that herself. She's a little bit of a slacker, this Y2K slacker. And I think she feels that she is lacking ambition in part because that's a story that she's always been told that, you know, that you need an ambition, that you need to become something when you grow up. And I think Lily is struggling against that. When we meet her, we find her flailing a little bit, looking for that thing to do, and instead sort of encountering a different story of a way to be, which is she meets this very handsome man who sort of sweeps her off her feet and offers her comfort in a way that. Yeah, I think she finds both comforting and troubling.

[D]

Yeah. And a lot of that pressure comes from parental expectations. Especially her mom. Right?

[B]

Yeah. I mean, I think it's her mom. It's definitely, you know, a sort of tinge of like immigrant parent expectation. But it's also just a narrative that I think America imposes on. On us. Right. This sort of belief that we need to make something of ourselves, be productive. I think, you know, as an adult, I now see how in service of capitalism that is. Right. Like these so called ideals. And I think she really feels the pressure of that. She feels the pressure, you know, from her mom, definitely. And also, just straight up, America, when.

[D]

You were writing and evolving Lily's character, how much of yourself did you see on the page?

[B]

It's funny because each of these characters is both me and not me. Right. I think emotionally I've felt many of the emotions, if not all of the emotions that each of these characters have felt. But I think in a way that Lily is. The fact that she lacks ambition is a little aspirational to me. Like, I think I really identify with Mae, who is the sort of final character, the matriarch of this novel, who just feels. Yeah, she's a very ambitious person. She's someone who has very little tolerance for her own imperfections, let's say. And I think that's something that I was really raised with and I'm trying to learn to sort of shed.

[D]

Did writing this novel help you get closer to that aspirational goal or you still feel like you're kind of the same place as before?

[B]

It's funny, I think, a little bit, you know, in the sense that a novel, I think, is never perfect. It's this product of a human being. And so. And it's also just so unwieldy. And. And each novel, I think, because it's so singular and specific, it's going to reach readers in different ways. Right. And it is going to be something different to, to every reader. And so I think the imperfection of the novel helps me coexist with my various other imperfections. Perhaps.

[D]

You know, there's that quote. I'm going to butcher it, but it's the quote of like, good art is never finished. It'.

[B]

Yeah, exactly. I mean, that's how I feel. I could have worked on it for another five years, let's say. But I think I was ready to, ready to be done with it. I did the best that I could.

[D]

At what point when did you say, oh, I released myself. I relinquished this. Was it a deadline or was it just like it feels like it's fully baked now?

[B]

Yeah, no deadline. It was more my own sense that I had taken this story and these characters as far as I could take them. And I had really done my best. And yeah, I'm really proud of this book.

[D]

Yeah, that book is Real Americans. Just if you're just joining us, this is all of it on wnyc. We're talking to Rachel Kong, the author. Rachel is having a book Talk tonight at 6:30 at you and Me Books in the Lower east side. I want to touch on the mother character as well. Lily's mother, who is a biologist, she fled China during the Cultural Revolution to Florida. She's relatively reserved, rarely tells Lilly about her life in China. How does that silence, the lack of sharing, contribute to how Lilly understands herself?

[B]

I think Lily is just has been raised very much American. You know, she was born in America. Her parents have sort of assimilated so fully that they don't speak Chinese to her. They haven't raised her in any of her Chinese culture. So she feels like an American fully, but I think is reminded that she's not necessarily perceived that way when other people encounter her or remark on her appearance or whatever it is. Right. And so she has this. Yeah, it's, it's this disconnect between how she feels, which is, you know, like an American, and the sense that she doesn't quite belong where she should or where she believes she does. And I think that this phenomenon of immigrants coming to America and not wanting maybe to dwell on their past is a pretty common one, I think in part because it's again this promise that America makes that you can come to this country and sort of it doesn't matter where you came from. Right. You can make something new of yourself. You can change the future. It's this very future oriented nation, I think, and there's lots of great things about that. You know, it's really Beautiful, I think, to feel sort of agency over your life, feel in charge of your life. But there is also something that's lost in forgetting the past. Right. Or refusing to acknowledge where you came from.

[D]

Yeah. You know, part of that sense of isolation that you're talking about obviously comes through in the relationship between Lily and. And Matthew, who is the father of her son. It is so interesting to talk about the different layers of that relationship, though. I was really struck by one passage early on in the book, and I'm going to read a short piece of it. Lily says love irrigated everything with new meaning. I was used to an atmosphere of unease that traveled constantly with me. When I was with Matthew, it lifted. Both of us had been formed like stones in a river, washed over by our parents expectations, the forceful currents of them. No wonder we were drawn to each other. Can you talk about their bond a little bit?

[B]

Yeah. So these two people come together very much by chance, it seems, at this. At this holiday, this office holiday party. And it feels, especially to Lily, I think, a little mismatched at first. You know, she's this aimless, as I said, Asian American woman. He is in investment banking. He's tall and handsome and white, and unbeknownst to her is from this powerful family. And so I think initially she thinks, what could we possibly have in common? And through getting to know each other, it turns out they have a lot in common. And one of those things, one of those really huge things is sort of the way that they were raised under the shadow of their parents ambitions and expectations. And I think, you know, this is very much a book about how we become who we become and why we are the way that we are. And that's something that is endlessly fascinating to me. And I don't know that I've, you know, sort of found the answer through writing this book, but I think it's so impossible to just say what it is about a person that you're drawn to. Right. Like, you can't really just look at people's. I don't even. Can't look at a list of demographics or whatever. You know what I mean? Like, you can't just look at a list of. I mean, I guess this is why online dating is hard, right? Like, you can't just look at a. Like a. At a list of what people are. You have to experience who they are and you. And there's something kind of alchemical or magical about two people being drawn together. Right. And finding things either in common or not. But just having Some kind of bond. And so I think they find that in each other and. And I don't want to spoil anything, but it turns out there might be a reason to that, Right? There might be a reason. They feel so similar and they feel so bonded.

[D]

Yeah. And no spoilers. But later on in the book, not too much further, we discover that there is a son, Nico, that they have, but Matthew, at least in part of the book, is out of the picture. And what's interesting is that we see the cycle of secrecy repeat again with Lily, similar to her mother, shrouding secrets from her child. Makes for a thorny, complicated relationship. And, you know, this may be a big question, but to what extent do you feel like it's okay for parents to conceal part of their history, part of their identity for their kids?

[B]

I think it's inevitable. Right. I think it's. It's impossible to sort of tell. Yeah, it's. It's impossible to share like the entirety of who you are to somebody else. I think it takes a lifetime for, you know, people in, I don't know, you know, long marriages, for example. Right. And people are always changing, so there's not like one self that you're just communicating and then like, you can, you know, wash your hands. You're done. Right. It's just a constantly shifting ground. And I think that, yeah, that's something that I was so interested in this book is that these cycles sort of continue despite people knowing better. You know, you mentioned that there's. Yeah. The sort of cycle of secrecy and the children of parents who kept secrets should know better and not tell, you know, not keep secrets themselves, but they can't help it almost, you know, and I think that that's a big part of this book, is these intentions that, well meaning people have for their loved ones and decisions that they make on behalf of those loved ones. In this book, we see a lot of parents making decisions for children who don't have the full context of who those children are and can't, you know, because they just live in a different time, they're steeped in a different culture at times. There's just all these differences sort of keeping people apart. And so when you try to make decisions on behalf of someone that you only know half the story of, it doesn't. It doesn't often turn out well, I think. And yeah, it's not just true for parents, but I think also for these larger systems and for, you know, governments and their citizens and all sorts of other realms.

[D]

So do you feel like there's any hope in that? Because you used the word inevitable about five minutes ago. Is it possible to break that cycle? What would it look like?

[B]

I think there is always hope. Right. And I think that I write from a place of hope. I mean, I think I often write about the miscommunications that happen between people because I'm so interested in the way in which. I mean, memory is faulty. Language itself is sort of slippery. Right. You can say something to someone and think you're being perfectly clear and they're receiving it in a totally different way. The experience of putting a book out into the world is very similar where you're like, I thought I meant this one thing. And then, you know, everyone is, you know, different people pick up different things. And so I think there is just miscommunication inherent in the sort of practice of communication itself. And I think that's something that I'm really interested in. But at the same time, there are these moments, I think, and I think they're fleeting, but I think they're definitely there. These moments of real connection where despite, you know, the sort of. Yeah. Despite the difficulty in truly connecting with someone, truly understanding someone, there are just these like moments of respite and moments where it doesn't matter so much maybe whether you're fully understood and you can just sort of exist in this other person's company.

[D]

What does that look like for your characters in this book?

[B]

Yeah, I mean, I think, you know, so Lily and Matthew's relationship is a great example because they are two people who feel, I think, a genuine connection. You know, we've talked about this sort of that feeling of being stones in the current. Right. They feel like similarly shaped. They feel that they have this sort of like soul based connection. Not to be too cheesy about it, but I think that there are all these outside forces conspiring to break that relationship apart. You know, there's so much baggage, I think, that comes with each person, aside from who you are, just like as an individual soul. Like there's all this stuff that you bring with you. You bring your family, you bring your past, you bring your trauma, like all of these things. And so I think they struggle to really just exist as two people sort of separate from all of that noise. And yet they do have, I think, these really beautiful moments together. And I think those matter. Even though there's a lot, again, no spoilers, but there's a lot that does break them apart ultimately.

[D]

You know, you said in the beginning that you kind of see yourself in all of these characters. And we've been talking about what breaking a cycle of generational either trauma or guilt or just habits looks like. What does that look like for you?

[B]

It's funny because I do agree that, you know, breaking the cycle is. It's important. I mean, I think that it's great not to keep secrets if you can help it. But I also think that, you know, for me specifically, I'm just sort of learning how to be in, you know, in my family, be in the relationship that I'm with my parents. And I think that they come from a different culture than I do. And culturally aren't big storytellers, for example. And here I am trying to understand them better through writing a story, right? And we just have these very different languages. Like these. Not literally, you know, we all speak English, but it's, I think, just in the sort of cultural language. Like, they don't necessarily know how to sit down with me and, like, just unspool their life stories, right? Like, I think that's something that I crave and wish that I had and I think will still continue to chip away at and try to get from them. But I don't think that that's necessarily their language or like, how. How they want to. To express their love to me, for example. Whereas I'm thinking that's how I want to. You know, I want to communicate in that way. I really want to hear those stories. I'm here. I am a person talking on the radio. And that's, like, so different from. From. From their sort of language and reality. And so I think what I'm learning is not that there's something in the cycle to break necessarily, but just that we can exist in these different ways and sort of find the shared. Like, the things that we actually share, right? Or just like the places where we can, like, make those bridges to some sort of connection.

[D]

That I think hits the nail on the head with something that stuck out or resonated with me while I was reading this book. I'm an immigrant. I come from an immigrant family. And I think that that element of discovering your family history, especially when you come from another country and you're being raised here, is not just cross generational, it's cross cultural, too. I think that's something that really makes the book universal. And we've had several authors and directors join our show recently whose books and movies kind of center one family story. In March, we had novelist Tommy Orange, the indigenous author who wrote a novel about Cheyenne family over several generations. I think Just like last week, we had Claire Massoud also join us about one Algerian family story through history. Why do you think audiences resonate with these, like, decades spanning family histories?

[B]

Yeah, I think it's, It's. It's something that's so. It feels almost primal, right? Like you really want to know what happened. You just want to. I think for me personally, I want to know what happened when I wasn't around. I just wish I could witness more than I can actually personally witness. And I think that, you know, I've been thinking about this a lot. Just the limits of my own life. I think I only have this one life, this one body, this one perspective. I make decisions and then doors close behind me. You know, life moves forward and not back. I can't time travel. And yet fiction is sort of the closest that I can come to that. You know, I can sort of travel through time. I can put myself in other minds.

[D]

Well, we'll have to pause it there just for time, but that was beautifully said. We've been talking to Rachel Kong, the author of the new novel Real Americans, which is out now, and she's having a book Talk tonight at 6:30 at you and Me Books in the Lower east side. Rachel, thank you so much for coming by.

[B]

Thank you for having me.

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