The eternity one spends working on a debut is an amorphous, vulnerable space: nobody can guarantee that you’ll finish the book, and so it’s sustained purely by the stubborn, desperate belief of the writer. Long conception periods aren’t uncommon and can be very painful; often, while working on The Original Daughter, which is itself concerned with the formation of a self under immense pressure (ha!), I felt that I couldn’t catch a break with my writing. That I would labor without end. And yet what reliably got me out of that slump was writing more and reading literature that lifted me out of my immediate crisis (I can’t go on!) and into the world (and yet we must!).
The Original Daughter, my debut, took nearly a decade to write; I often joke about her being my firstborn but what I really mean is that she raised me as much as I did her. It took a long time and a lot of work to be the writer she needed me to be. Here are some books that nourished, widened, and shook up my vision in the writing, or that still reminds me, in difficult moments, of how literature can truly confer dignity, and be the deep well we drink from.
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For the secret sister: Silver Sparrow by Tayari Jones
The story of these two half-sisters living in the same town to a bigamist father, where only one knows of the other’s existence, was a powder keg waiting to go off. What does it do to a person and her relationships when her entire life has been warped around the knowledge that she’s a secret? This razor-sharp novel about girls growing up too fast at the mercy of adult machinations broke my heart into pieces.
For the deliberately absent sister: Forgotten Country by Catherine Chung
When your family’s legacy is losing a daughter every generation, one starts to question the nature of myth and how we accept or rail against it—as does the protagonist in Forgotten Country, who is searching for a sister who doesn’t want to be found. This exquisite story about the intergenerational silences that make and break us, forcing confrontation with our individual accountability in the face of crisis, is a masterclass in tenderness.
For delicious sisterly rivalry with stakes through the roof: The Other Boleyn Girl by Philippa Gregory
Historical accuracy be damned, this was one of the first novels I read and reread in my teenage years for the propulsive, interdependent, yet poisonous relationship between Mary and Anne Boleyn as they try to climb in a dangerous English court. Of course, we all know how this particular account ends, but the way these sisters’ lives were literally inscribed on two sides of the same coin wove love and competition together tightly in a way that was catnip for my story-driven brain.
For an incredible journey through a single character (and a persuasive look at the powers of the third person): The Wolf Hall Trilogy by Hilary Mantel
A far more accurate fictionalization of the same era, and an amazing one—I devoured the trilogy as I was revising my novel to completion, and was completely awestruck by Mantel’s ability to scan a scenario, character, and tension with a single turn of the phrase. Beyond the trilogy being an immense feat of literature, it reminded me of what a sentence could do, and the narrative galaxies one could make of existing historical material.
For navigating our relationship to creation myths: The Great Reclamation by Rachel Heng
How can I count the ways I love this novel? Rachel Heng, fellow Singaporean and friend, tackles a country’s relationship to its narrative in her gorgeous epic, The Great Reclamation, which tells the story of Singapore’s land reclamation journey through a mix of historical fiction and magical realism. The miracle of a country’s formation and the brutality of progress tango in ways that lead to a heartbreaking, pragmatic conclusion, and as a Singaporean myself, seeing this sensibility rendered in literature meant the world.
For a humane and dignified account of lived and perceived narratives of class and inequality: This is What Inequality Looks Like by Teo Yeo Yenn
This collection of ethnographic essays by sociologist Teo Yeo Yenn should be mandatory reading for all Singaporeans, or anyone interested in Singapore. Immensely readable and completely frank in its evaluation of inequality, policy, and national narratives, it’s guided above all by a quest for dignity and the value of each individual life.
For how a family can be fragmented through education, class, and immigration: Strangers on a Pier: Portrait of a Family by Tash Aw
I read this when it was a long essay commissioned by Restless Books in the UK, and was blown away, purchasing multiple copies and pushing it into the hands of everyone I knew. What a blessing, then, that an expanded version came out with Harper Collins some years later—although the book is very much about the nuances of Aw’s own Malaysian identity, the way it shows how one generation gives the next the tools to cleave themselves from their family through education is one that’ll resonate no matter where you grew up.
For the novel of ideas that can still make you cry: Heaven by Mieko Kawakami, Translation: Sam Bett and David Boyd
I love spending time in Mieko Kawakami’s mind, and Heaven, her first full-length novel, is my absolute favorite. This story of an unlikely friendship between two bullied schoolchildren contemplates the moral nature of suffering, power, and nihilism with all the adolescent clarity of being adrift in a world that seems indifferent to your arrival.
For tracking the way an artist’s mind develops through the course of a career: Intermezzo by Sally Rooney
I’d been a casual Rooney appreciator for the last decade, but her latest has turned me into a hardcore fan. Intermezzo takes a strained relationship between two brothers and through bestowing complicated dignity on these characters, maps the full spectrum of mess, rage, yearning, faith, and reaching for the unknown. The expansiveness and ambition of Rooney’s vision is on full display in Intermezzo, and I fall at her feet.
For an amazing study on voice and how effective narrative can drop you right into a whole other world: The Dutch House by Ann Patchett
In The Dutch House, a pair of siblings living in the grand eponymous monstrosity have their childhood interrupted by the arrival of their father’s new beau, stepdaughters in tow. Spanning an entire lifetime, the novel contemplates crisis, sacrifice, and the blind spots they render—all in an electric, wry voice that leads you through the story till her beautiful, devastating end.
For the structure of regret and self-discovery: Giovanni’s Room by James Baldwin
I reread Giovanni’s Room at least once a year, each time with renewed awe. There are a million reasons to love this book, and you can devote hours to studying a page alone. Yet one of the most helpful writerly things about reading Giovanni’s Room was learning that narrative structure can be an emotional fence from which your story unwinds itself, too.
For the long labor of writing and love: Beautiful Ruins by Jess Walter
I can’t mention Beautiful Ruins without also thinking of its companion essay, In the time of Galley Slaves, where Walter talks about the fifteen years it took to finish Beautiful Ruins. Reading this big-hearted novel about Hollywood, dreamers, and a 50-year love story proved 1. That time was the essential ingredient and that 2. It was all worth it in the end.
