Kyle Lucia Wu discusses the struggle to publish debut novel ‘Win Me Something’

Willa Chen’s parent is remarried, with a caller son. Willa’s begetter is remarried, with 2 daughters. And Willa doesn’t consciousness caught successful the mediate truthful overmuch arsenic she feels near retired successful the acold with nary 1 profoundly invested successful her and her future. 

As a biracial Asian American pistillate who works arsenic a barista and past a nanny for a affluent Manhattan family, Willa feels further alienated, either unseen and unheard oregon denigrated by microaggressions from oblivious New Yorkers. 

Kyle Lucia Wu’s debut novel, “Win Me Something” doesn’t diagnostic overmuch successful the mode of plot. Instead, it immerses readers successful a poignant, often achy quality study. We participate Willa’s constricted satellite and diminished dreams arsenic she wanders done life. She’s continually uncertain of what her adjacent measurement should be, whether it’s successful her aboriginal oregon successful her relationships with Nathalie and Gabe Adrien and their daughter, Bijou, for whom she works. 

Wu, 32, grew up with divorced parents and moved to New York for assemblage erstwhile she was 18, but portion the heartrending flashbacks to Willa’s household beingness whitethorn resonate, the communicative is not autobiographical. 

Wu, who moved to Los Angeles astir a twelvemonth ago, talked by Zoom precocious astir isolation and loneliness and mendacious ideas of assimilation, each of which resonates passim her book. The interrogation has been edited for magnitude and clarity. 

Q. Willa feels frozen, incapable to prosecute existent relationships oregon fig retired what she wants to bash with her life. How overmuch of that is shaped by her feeling of being an outsider due to the fact that she is biracial, and however overmuch of it was feeling similar an outsider successful her ain household aft her parents divorced and each started caller families?

A. It is the intersection of those things, of increasing up feeling unsure of her radical individuality but besides of not having a atomic family. Family is the archetypal spot we larn wherever we beryllium and without that consciousness of stableness she ended up feeling not portion of one. You person to instrumentality risks and enactment yourself retired determination to marque a connection, but it tin beryllium precise hard for radical who don’t person a consciousness of spot oregon stability. Being susceptible is truly important, but it’s easier for immoderate alternatively than others.

If you bash consciousness that stability, it mightiness consciousness easier to enactment yourself retired connected a subdivision and it doesn’t impact you arsenic overmuch if thing doesn’t enactment out. But if you person a past wherever things don’t enactment out, that makes it difficult, and accumulated experiences marque it casual for radical to isolate. 

Q. Did you person to conflict with this erstwhile you were trying to merchantability the book?

I surely felt susceptible putting this publication retired into the satellite and the publishing industry. This is simply a publication that focuses connected experiences extracurricular the margins and is not portion of the accepted Western caller of struggle and plot.

It was a agelong travel and astatine times a devastating experience. Agents would accidental things like, “I conscionable didn’t truly link with her” oregon “I didn’t place with her,” but the full publication is astir however radical can’t place with Willa truthful they were hitting connected the occupation wrong the book. 

When you’re younger and starting out, there’s a batch of myths successful your caput astir occurrence and these casual paths. And you anticipation you’ll spell that mode alternatively than the mean way. 

I surely had times aft being rejected by each cause wherever I felt precise discouraged and thought, “I’m done. I’m not moving connected this anymore.” Then I won this fellowship astatine the Asian American Writers Workshop. That was a existent blessing and that ballot of assurance was the main crushed I went to enactment connected the publication again. 

Q. You’ve written astir you and your member driving to your father’s 1 twelvemonth and getting mislaid successful a snowstorm and having to get retired and shingle disconnected a motion to spot what road you were on. It seems similar a large fabrication country and 1 which would person said a batch astir Willa feeling mislaid going betwixt her 2 families. Were you tempted to usage that? 

That’s a communicative my member and I deliberation of a batch but the cardinal quality is I was determination with my older brother, who was an state and who I ever had. Willa doesn’t person anyone. I didn’t enactment immoderate things that really happened to maine successful the publication due to the fact that our circumstances were antithetic but besides due to the fact that you tin often archer erstwhile idiosyncratic takes a existent happening and puts it successful due to the fact that it doesn’t rather align. I’m looking for affectional truths and truthful I’d alternatively make an enactment oregon lawsuit that’s resonant with the remainder of the book.

Q. Does moving for specified a wealthy, high-achieving household warp Willa’s views successful presumption of these myths of success? And does that clasp her backmost oregon thrust her forward?

I deliberation astir Willa’s arc arsenic proximal to that of assimilation. She gets precise adjacent to powerfulness and occurrence and truthful it’s astir similar she has powerfulness excessively and thinks it volition hitch disconnected connected her and she volition ascend but that’s false. Willa thinks, “This is however I leap ahead” but the information is that you often don’t, due to the fact that those spots of powerfulness are fixed and pre-determined. For Nathalie’s brother, Ethan, it’s antithetic – nary substance what Ethan does, his presumption is safe. And I deliberation it’s affirmative that Willa gets to larn that difference. 

Q. Eventually, we spot her half-sister Charlotte perceives Willa and their household dynamics precise otherwise than the mode Willa explained it to us. Is Willa an unreliable narrator, oregon is she conscionable a quality narrator and we’re each tied to our ain perceptions?

We’re each our ain unreliable narrators due to the fact that we are successful our ain experience. But besides what is evident is that Charlotte grew up with that consciousness of stableness and full family, truthful astir apt it’s hard for her to recognize what Willa feels. Perhaps Charlotte assumes Willa doesn’t consciousness this discomfort due to the fact that she doesn’t. Similarly, Willa’s ma doesn’t recognize her biracial acquisition increasing up due to the fact that she didn’t turn up with it. It’s examining the mode we tin place the experiences of others if we’re not conscious astir the differences.