Poured Over: Nicole Chung on A Living Remedy

Jenna Seery

“It was going to be a story about American instability, and precarity, and what happens when we aren’t able to access the things that we need — and yet still have to try to care for each other anyway.”

Nicole Chung’s newest memoir, A Living Remedy, reflects on the tragic inequality of access to the American healthcare system and the way it directly affected her family. Chung talks with us about privilege and class, how writing this memoir changed her, her literary influences and more with Poured Over host, Miwa Messer. And we end this episode with TBR Topoff book recommendations from Marc and Madyson.

This episode of Poured Over was hosted by Executive Producer Miwa Messer and mixed by Harry Liang. 

New episodes land Tuesdays and Thursdays (with occasional Saturdays) here and on your favorite podcast app.

Featured Books (Episode)
A Living Remedy by Nicole Chung
All You Can Ever Know by Nicole Chung
How to Write an Autobiographical Novel by Alexander Chee
The Swimmers by Julie Otsuka

Featured Books (TBR Topoff)
The Anthropocene Reviewed by John Green
Seeing Ghosts by Kat Chow

Full Episode Transcript

Miwa Messer

I’m Miwa Messer, I’m the producer and host of Poured Over and I have been a huge fan of Nicole Chung’s for a really, really long time. So if I sound like I’m fangirling, I am. And her first memoir, All You Can Ever Know is a Discover Great New Writers pick back in the day when we did multiple selections several times a year kind of thing. And it was one of those books where everyone who was reading for the program said, oh, yeah, this one, this one. And you know, you don’t always get consensus on every single title that goes in. So it was a really great moment. And you may know if you know, Nicole’s story that she’s adopted, grew up in the Pacific Northwest. And here’s the thing, the new memoir, A Living Remedy, is just out. And just when I thought Nicole had put everything into the world that she had, here’s a memoir that I think is going to wake a lot of people up, Nicole, it’s so good to see you.

Nicole Chung

It’s great to see you Miwa thank you for doing this.

Oh, please, any excuse to hang out with you. Are you kidding me?

I guess wish it were in person, it’d be great if it were in person.

Someday, someday we will get to do that again. Would you set up A Living Remedy? Because this I knew what the book was when it was coming. But I think it’s going to surprise some people.

Yeah, of course. I mean, I should start off by saying this is really not the book I thought I would write. I sold it like right after All You Can Ever Know was published actually. And as some people might know, already, my father had passed away the year that book came out, several months before the tour. So I went on book tour, carrying this grief. And it was a strange experience. What I found that I could not move past in my grieving process was just this deep anger I felt, really at the injustice of how he had died, my father passed away at 67 of complications from diabetes and kidney failure. Like that’s, that’s the official story. But really, of course, it’s much more complicated than that. Because his death was really sped by years without access to the specialized medical care he needed. And that was caused by years of financial precarity and life without health insurance, and I just kind of couldn’t move past this. And I found I wanted to write about grief, yes, but also about how this had happened to my family, how it happens to so many families, it’s such a common, like American experience. Part of it was that I was I was kind of revisiting grief stories and really appreciating them for what they were but not seeing. What I knew was my experience, and what is the experience of so many other people, we don’t face illness, and the death and the suffering of loved ones with all the resources and support that we need. So we are set up by these systems to feel as though we have failed, or worse, that our loved ones have failed. When in fact, these systems just aren’t serving us because they’re fundamentally broken. That was a story I intended to write and then after I sold the book, and when I had started writing it, my mother was diagnosed with terminal cancer, like a year and a half after my father had passed, and the whole landscape of the book had to shift. First, I put it down for a long time. But when I picked it back up again, I realized her story was so important and was really going to be the foundation of the book. But it was going to be a story also about American instability and precarity and what happens when we aren’t able to access the things that we need, and yet still have to try to care for each other anyway, so that’s the book. And again, it’s not necessarily the one I expected to write, I’m really grateful to have had just such a supportive and patient publishing team. Yeah, it was really a book that was conceived of and written and then kind of rewritten during the pandemic, no less. So it’s been a journey.

It’s a lot. It’s a lot to process. But you know, I know I mentioned this to you before we started taping, but there are so many great lines in this book, the one that I’m sticking with right now is “if we were poor, wouldn’t I have known?” I knew the circumstances of your childhood as they were laid out, obviously, in the first memoir, but that line surprised me a little bit. Can we just talk about that piece of your background for a second, because it’s not something like it’s there in the first book, but it’s not there the way it is here.

The first book, as you know, was so focused on adoption. And I remember, when I was drafting All You Can Ever Know, people have asked me was it hard to sift through those memories and decide what to include? And honestly, it wasn’t because I would sort of hold up these memories and think, do people need to know this to understand what it was like growing up as an adoptee, to understand why I decided to search for my birth family? And I just wasn’t writing my whole life story and so it actually wasn’t that difficult to sift through and choose the moments that were especially relevant to that very particular, very tightly focused adoption story. Like I had a chapter in that book about like leaving home and going off to school and the fact that I was like the first person in my family to go to college and get a bachelor’s degree and it didn’t fit in that book. It wasn’t like I was trying to hide it, but like it did not fit in the book, and it ended up being cut. So the only important part about college in that book was like, I was surrounded by Asian Americans for the first time in my life. I was not the only Korean for the first time. At the time I was doing that, I had no idea I’d write another memoir. To be honest, I thought the first was probably it, that then life happened. And in terms of that line that you mentioned, honestly, it was terrifying as a writer to approach that aspect of the story. I still remember going through marketing materials for the book and saying, I don’t know if I feel comfortable claiming that I was poor. You know, I don’t know if I feel comfortable saying, like, we lived in poverty, or my parents did. And it’s a strange thing to get hung up on. Like, there were times I write about them having us having no income, or no health insurance, or like my mother selling plasma to pay for my father’s medication. But at the same time, you know, when you’re growing up, there’s so much that you don’t see you are really, as a child and a young adult, you are learning about money, you are learning about class and about your family’s situation in the world. But it’s often through what is not said to you, like you’re trying to read the context and all of that. So I didn’t have language from my family to define our experience, when I was trying to assess in this book, and, also, at the time, growing up was just, oh, I have this part time job and I’m paying for like my lunches and my clothes and my college application fees. It didn’t even strike me at the time that that was abnormal, or that not everyone I knew did that. I was just honestly doing what I thought had to be done, because I was so focused on getting out of my hometown, and I didn’t really start to look at things like through a different lens till I was away from home. And so I still I don’t know, I don’t actually write in the book at any point that I felt like I was poor growing up, because the truth is, I didn’t. And also, I should note, like my family situation, like so many families was, it’s almost like a frog in a boiling pot of water situation where things happen. So gradually, by the time things get really bad, you don’t even really know when it started, you can’t pinpoint the moment it got really bad. But like, all of a sudden, I’m talking to my mother about the choice between rent and groceries. You know, I think especially when you grow up as loved and as protected and sheltered as I was in different ways. That type of thing until it’s like shoved in your face and made visible, you aren’t always aware. And so a big part of this story is just about how we learn about money about class about my family situation, you know, throughout our lives.

Yeah, family mythology is really powerful stuff. And there’s so much shame, and fear around money for a lot of people. And I think when you’re really comfortable, it’s hard to see that it’s hard to understand that, you know, it’s really expensive to be poor, like the fees that you end up paying, or like you don’t have a bank account, and you have to go to the check cashing place and stuff like all of these things that, you know, quite a number of us will probably never experience. And so I think it’s really important when we’re having these conversations, to recognize that there’s such a range of experience. And I think that’s part of what I appreciate so much. And A Living Remedy is, I didn’t expect this book from you. And I think you really dig in hard and ask some questions that are difficult enough, when you’re just sitting in your living room, and you’re asking it in black and white for people who don’t know you or your parents to read.

It was really hard. I don’t think I could have written this book 5-10 years ago, I think, also, I felt a lot of insecurity, to be honest, in writing it, I would kind of try and look at these moments head on, like from childhood or even the final years of my father’s life. And sometimes I would find myself wanting to back away or like issue these disclaimers, making it clear, I don’t know, almost like it wasn’t that bad. Or many people have it worse, you know, and I kept asking myself why that was. I just honestly never expected to tackle any of this in writing. And I don’t know why, I don’t know that I would have if it hadn’t ended up playing such a huge role in my father’s illness and death. I think too, we tend to think of stories from, like from the working class, I grew up very working class, I think I was worried people would think well, this isn’t the type of experience we expect to hear from you, individually. We don’t hear a lot about it from, or not enough about it from like non-white writers. I was just kind of worried about just like so many things. It was just a very scary process. And at the same time, I saw no way to tell the story without it. Obviously a really important piece. It was definitely like a process of figuring out and this is always the case with memoir no matter what type— like what really is most important? What do readers need to know to care? Like, I’m not telling, you can’t tell the entire story. Like how do I give them enough that they understand like how complex it was and what this experience was like and help them relate it to their own lives if they can, it was a really daunting task.

Honestly, you’ve said a couple of times in different interviews, that you wonder if being an adoptee is what made you settle on being a writer and your parents were always very, very supportive, of your desire to be a writer which, I love that part of it, you know, you’re talking about Anne of Green Gables with your mom and Pride and Prejudice. It’s a very sweet moment early in the new book, but I mean, is that the case like are, did you notice more because you were sort of, I guess, a perpetual outsider, even though you weren’t? I mean, you were surrounded by love and family and taken care… How do you navigate that space?

Yeah, I mean, so for listeners who like aren’t familiar, maybe with the first book, I grew up in a very sheltered, overwhelmingly white, Southern Oregon town. Like I was literally the only Korean I knew until I went to college. And so, it was like, total racial isolation. And balancing that with what you’re saying, I was always cared for, my parents made sure for the most part, I had what I needed, and had a lot of love and support in my life, I think I did grow up very watchful, just because I was used to being in spaces and trying to tell and you probably know what this is like a little bit just like, am I welcome here? Am I accepted here? Like, can I be here? Or do I have to be on guard the whole time? Who are my allies? Who do I have to look out for? I don’t mean to sound paranoid, but like, this is what it was like navigating. I was always in an all-white space until I left home. And I think that breeds in some people, at least in me, like a certain watchfulness, a certain awareness. I was obsessed, I wrote this in the book, I was like, what’s normal, and by normal, I just meant expected and accepted, who gets to exist here without being questioned? I was always really curious about those things. And so yeah, I was just a kid who noticed stuff. And then also, maybe it’s partly generational, right? Like, I grew up with working parents, and I was an only child. And I was on my own a lot. I was a latchkey kid, like, there was a lot of time to sit and think and write, and which my family was really supportive of. So I think that’s part of it. I didn’t think of it at the time as a super, super creative childhood. But I think I was always like, encouraged to not just notice things, but to think and talk about and ask questions about those things. And my parents, and I have very different ideological, you know, political views. But discussion was never discouraged in my household, and reading was never discouraged, like any type. And so I think those two things meant we had a lot of conversations.

And also, you did keep daily journals. I mean, that’s a pretty disciplined thing, especially for a young person. I mean, I luckily keep my calendar on the computer, but it’s certainly not a work of art. It’s just more a matter of this is where you have to be and when you have to be there. What’s it like though, going back and looking at 13 year old Nicole’s thoughts?

Nonstop cringe fest… I don’t look back at my old journals very much unless I’m trying to like write about a time period. And I didn’t actually have them all until after my mother’s death, like, boxes started arriving from her house. And in them were some of my childhood journals and then starting in high school, they were in a Word document. I have electronic files. It turned out to be great sources. But, not that I was thinking about that at the time. But yeah, I’ve journaled, pretty steadily, maybe not daily, but very steadily since I was like, six. I mean, I’ve been really glad to have those, obviously. And this will sound cliche, but it is very much like, like reading the journal of a completely different person. I don’t know, I’m struck by like, how hopeful I was, like at 13. I think, actually, I was fairly hopeful at times, very goal oriented, but at the same time, like, sometimes there’s this undercurrent, I can’t deny of real anxiety, and sometimes anger. You know, I think I’m trying to figure out, like I mentioned before, all the things that weren’t being said in my family, or in my community, trying to figure out what all that meant. I feel like there was so much that my family tried to protect me from knowing. And it just left me with a lot of questions and sometimes really deep anxiety as a kid.

What are some of those things that they weren’t talking about that you were able to actually identify?

Early on I write about the first time my mother had cancer. She was diagnosed with breast cancer when I was a freshman in high school. And I remember we did not talk about it. I mean, except to be told that it was happening, and she was having surgery and then hurray, she’s okay and it’s in remission. Like, there was no real discussion. I didn’t really realize how afraid and traumatized I was by this until years later. And I wanted to ask her, why didn’t we talk about it, we talked about a lot of other things we weren’t, a family that kept quiet about everything, just very certain things. But, you know, she was just like, I don’t have to talk about it, like I lived through it. I just remember thinking— I don’t know how to process this, because it did happen to her in a way and not to me. But as a kid, I would have had no way of figuring that out or dealing with my feelings about it other than talking. So that’s one example. And I would say, anytime there was a health emergency in the family, I would find out, when things got too big to hide, like, I didn’t know, my mother was having a lot of pain until a night, I drove her to the ER, you know, and, and that was very typical. And I think a lot of that came from them wanting to protect me. I just felt like all I could do was react sometimes to whatever crisis was happening.

It also sounds like there was a level of baseline anxiety for you. I mean, at one point, your mother was like, Nicole, you’re going to give yourself an ulcer, your mom said this to you. You obviously knew a lot more than you were letting yourself recognize, I mean, and compartmentalization all teenagers, most teenagers, I should say, do this. And but that kind of blew my mind where your mom was just like, no, I know what you’re doing. I see what you’re doing. And yet she was doing the exact same thing to you like, where did you learn it from? It’s pretty obvious where you learned it from.

It’s true. It’s true. My mother was like, I mean, one of the most anxious people I’ve known. What’s strange is she was always convinced I would be okay. Like, I think she just couldn’t imagine a world in which I wasn’t or like refuse to. And so even though she was very anxious, it did not usually extend to like, me, my health, my situation. She was like, I’m gonna be fine. She was very religious, too. So, she was always like, you know, I’ve prayed about this, it’s handled. And that’s obviously, that was not always reassuring to me. But the author lines, she really believed I put way too much pressure on myself, in high school, trying to, I knew I wasn’t going to college without scholarships, I didn’t know how college worked. There weren’t a lot of people in my life I could talk to like about it. And so, I don’t know, I just remember pushing myself really hard, because it seemed like that was gonna be my only chance to leave my very white hometown, but also, hopefully, do something with my life and be able to help my family. She didn’t want any of that to be my burden. It was just very much like, well, is this gonna make you happy? And I gotta say, that’s not how I thought about life as a teenager, like what’s going to bring me bliss? Somehow their steady support and encouragement still allowed me I guess, I don’t know, maybe the confidence or just the courage to try to choose the life I wanted, eventually. She definitely, like, it’s so strange to me like that balance of like, my mother worries about everything, my mother is sure that I’ll be fine. I don’t know where that comes from.

Do you do that with your kids, too, you have a couple of kids who are adolescents.

I worry about them, I think more than my mom perhaps worried about me, I do have a little bit of her. Like, I think one thing I write about in the book too, just briefly is, I think she gave me an understanding of the idea of what, of okay. I remember, when I first had my kids, I had this pretty narrow view, which I think is common of like, what their life will look like, like all and by that I don’t mean like, what they’re gonna do with their life or like, who they’re going to love or anything. I mean, like, they’re gonna have the things they need, they’re gonna get an education, they’re gonna go to college and have a life that they love, you know, basic things like that. The further you get into parenting, I think the more you just accept that there’s no guarantees, and there’s, there’s no control. And I am also actually pretty convinced my kids, both of them are going to be okay. But it’s just a long time coming to realize that, okay can look like a lot of different things. And one person’s okay, might, you know, be very different from another person’s. I have, my younger daughter is autistic, and needs a lot of support and it’s been just kind of an ongoing process of realizing like, you know, can try to get her all the support that we can and also, we don’t really know what’s going to happen because you never do with any child. And no matter what, I do believe that she’s going to be okay. It’s just, I think my definition of that has really expanded.

Yeah, I mean, one of the things this brings me to something you say in the book that also sort of made my eyes get really big, which is, you know, we talk about death being one of the great equalizers, right? It’s an experience that no matter what your financial situation is or who you are, what your background is. Everyone experiences this and yet that’s not an entirely— I mean, yes. In a very basic sense, yes, everyone experiences death, but what happens after death, and in terms of, you know, financial burdens and all this kind of experience, and I really do want to talk about the systemic stuff for a second, because your family, they just sound like terrific people, your parents and your kids and everyone else, but your experience of money is very different from your parents, your husband’s experience of money is really different from yours. All of this comes together and yet you’re all part of the same system and it affects everyone very differently.

Yeah, yeah. I think figuring out how to write this was challenging for me, because I grew up in a family where we did not really talk about money. Like, I didn’t have any idea, for instance, what my family made, or like how little honestly, we made until I saw my first FAFSA filled out. And it was like so much less than my freshman year cost. And I our expected family contribution was zero, because it was like 10s of thousands of dollars less than my freshman year. And I had no idea like I had grown up in this household with fairly open parents. But like, we didn’t talk about money, it was one of the things they were really private about probably a mix of not wanting me to worry and thinking, honestly, it’s none of your business, which isn’t wrong in a way and then moving into the world and figuring out like, oh, a lot of people who have very different, grew up in very different circumstances than mine, like they also maybe don’t want to talk about money in a really open way. And I just didn’t know how to navigate any of that. I feel like I’m still sort of learning. Because in my view. I’m like, well, you have money, why would you be embarrassed talking about it? Like, it just? I don’t know, it feels to me growing up with parents, I think sometimes were, I don’t think they were ashamed. But I think they, they were always stressed. And some of their hesitation around discussing finances was the fact that we just didn’t really have enough. So my feeling was like, well, like, if you have enough, what’s the problem? Like, why not talk about these things? That’s, of course, not how everybody feels. So striking a balance too, between like trying to be honest about where we were, but maybe not naming specific numbers at all. It was a kind of a negotiation with myself of like, you know, people need to understand sort of what the circumstances were, but the actual number also, isn’t that important. It’s, it’s kind of like, I mean, it is and it isn’t But the important thing is the experience like the results.

I mean, you’d also talk about leaving for college and leaving this tiny, tiny, tiny town where you were the only Asian person for miles. But you talked about college being the start of an act of assimilation. And I think a lot of folks, when they think of assimilation, they’re thinking of recent immigrant, they’re thinking of, maybe a POC, trying to be more white, for example, like all of these different things. But class is also a matter of assimilation for some folks. And I thought that was really interesting that you chose that particular phrase, because you didn’t even know it at the time. You were just like, now that I look back, okay, I see it. But what was that experience like for you landing not just in a community where there were finally other Asian Americans, Korean Americans, you know, Taiwanese, Chinese, Japanese, but really in a situation where, you know, you suddenly had classmates who were probably a little more comfortable than you or had different experiences, because their parents had more capital than yours.

Yeah, I mean, I would say again, it wasn’t something we talked about a lot in college and many of my students probably, fellow students were probably like, as ignorant as I was of their families, actual finances, you know, I would see it again, it’s all about, between the lines, like my suite mate comes back with like 10 Armani Express shopping bags, or we’re going out to celebrate like our we did, like a Secret Santa gift exchange at the holidays. And like, everyone’s like, oh, we shouldn’t spend a lot. Let’s just spend like 50 bucks per person. I’m like, I don’t have 50 bucks in my bank account. At this point in the semester. I was always like, overdrawing my college account, like I just didn’t have enough. That was how it kind of showed up and like at the same time, like, it’s not like college is an equalizer. I mean, especially at an elite institution, but we all lived in the same place. I did feel like I fit in for the most part. I didn’t feel super self-conscious, like about the class differences, I don’t think. But it did start to like notice like people surprised to hear I have like some work study jobs. And like growing up in Oregon, I don’t know how to explain this to people who are not from like Oregon, and in particular, like small town, Oregon, but rich friends growing up with like swimming pools and like ski vacations. But like where I grew up rich people dressed and acted and talked just like the rest of us. And I think, I don’t know, I just think it was different, like coming out here to the East Coast, coming to college. In terms of the racial aspect, like I don’t know, in a way college was the first place where it didn’t feel so relevant because I was not I’m the only one in the room. To be clear, I did have a couple of Asian friends growing up. I didn’t know like any other Koreans. It was just like, I’m talking like I had like two Asian friends, ever my whole childhood. So yeah, I mean, when I wrote my first book, even I thought, oh, the reason college was important for me was because like, I went to school as 25% Asian and Asian American, and like, saw faces like mine, and developed actual friendships with fellow Koreans and Asians. And like, that was great. And I didn’t really think about, I wasn’t thinking about the class aspect. Until I started to write this book, and sometime between my freshman year and my graduation, like my parents and I are just in completely different worlds. The thing is, I think they knew that might happen. I think they knew that like, in a way, they were letting me go into this place, they couldn’t follow, but I had no idea that’s what leaving meant. And it’s really only looking back that I’ve seen it.

In theory, that is their jobs, right to make sure that we can do whatever’s next. And in theory, whatever’s next isn’t necessarily the thing that just happened in the generation above us. And I think it’s easy to take that kind of mobility for granted, in a lot of ways, and then there are times where you’re just like, how did I get here? And there’s a lot of you reckoning with, how did I get here?

Yeah. And also, like how much longer it took than I thought it would. Because I chose to pursue a career in editing and writing and publishing. I remember, like, my parents were so convinced the degree itself is like, it’s going to be your calling card, it doesn’t, they didn’t care what it was in, like, nobody blinked when I was like, I think I’ll be a history major, I think I’ll take a lot of English classes, they were like, great, fine, whatever. To them, it was like the degree is what’s important, that’s what’s gonna let you sustain yourself, as they didn’t have one. And so they thought, that’s what would happen. And of course, like, it takes time, I remember thinking, I was still buying into this sort of bootstrapping myth of like, I will work hard and pay my dues, and then I will be able to help my family in the way they just bide your time be patient. And like, of course, my family, like so many families, like we just didn’t have that time. I didn’t know it. Like, I’ve been incredibly fortunate. I have a lot of class and educational privilege. But I did not have the kind of money that my parents needed at the time they needed it, I could not pay for my father’s health care, like I couldn’t pay for all his prescriptions out of pocket, I was able to help my mother a lot more than my father. And that was mostly because of like book royalties from the first book. So, I don’t want to act like I was struggling the whole time, that stability has come kind of later than I expected. And I’m still one of the very, very lucky ones, but it just wasn’t in time for me to help my dad and I’m always gonna have to live with that.

I mean, what’s kind of fascinating for me, too, is now seeing all of these conversations that we’re trying to have, you know, who can afford a house? Who can’t? Who can afford school who can’t? We’ve sort of lost that idea of helping people move forward, right? Or move in a different direction? Or get ahead, it’s just kind of like, well, you know, we did it, you should just be able to and it’s like, well, no, actually, you pulled up the ladder behind you. And there’s no space for anyone else. And it’s just, it’s kind of wild,

We’re also so obsessed with like the idea of who deserves it.

Oh, yeah.

You know, I’m sorry, but are you the kind of person who deserves a helping hand or not? And, you know, what type of people do we do we think really deserve that. And then too even if you are one of the very, very lucky ones who kind of slips through, then it’s like, well, then they want to turn your story into some kind of like performative “American Dream” story, like the temptation to do that is so great. And I honestly, like if I, if I didn’t have like, the, the really supportive publishing team that I have, for example. I wonder, I’m an Asian American and a working class person of color, okay, from that background, there could be a lot of pressure to try to turn my story into something like that, which could then be used to attack people who haven’t been as fortunate, right? Or who they don’t think are as deserving. And I really reject, like those narratives. But I know I know how popular they are. And they’re popular in this country for a reason. Right? And it’s because of what you’re saying. We’re like obsessed with the idea the meritocracy is real. And that if you’re deserving enough, you’ll get where you’re supposed to be and also that this is an opportunity. Conversely, that is open to everybody when it is not. So yeah.

Deserving is such a gross word.

And people will also always say it as a compliment, like, oh, that’s so deserved, and I know what they mean. Like I understand they don’t mean it that way. But I always kind of recoil a bit. Like because what does that really mean? I don’t know.

Yeah, deserving and also one of the good ones, like that just but that swings way more towards repulsive than gross. But you know, the language that we use to talk about all of this stuff and experience, and you know how we move forward. I just I think what you’ve done in this book is pretty cool. But I’m also not particularly surprised that you got to this book, I know, we’ve been talking about, you know, sort of the, the fear that came out of it a bit and whatnot. But you’ve been pretty upfront about your life for a really long time. I mean, you were the managing editor at The Toast, and you were the editor in chief of Catapult’s magazine, and you’ve been publishing this work on your own and other people’s voices as well, for a long time. And I love that honesty, but how did you get from your BA to the editing and writing and everything else? Because that’s not always how it works.

Yeah, I mean, I don’t even know how to describe it. Everyone has, then again, like I will say, almost everybody I know who does what I do have a very strange, like twisting path to it with a lot of surprises along the way. I’m not trying to be like self-deprecating, but I do think a lot of it in my case was like, a lot of it was luck, sometimes the right opportunity at the right time, my first editing job was with The Toast you mentioned. And I was in a position where I could take what was at the time a really low paying editorial job. Because I was also in grad school at the time and the primary caregiver to two very young children, it was going to be so hard to work a full-time job anyway. I just needed something that was flexible and that would give me editorial experience. So like a lot of people probably couldn’t have taken that job. It didn’t have health insurance, it started part time before moving to full time. But like for me, it ended up being like a like the right opportunity at the right time. So I did that for two years. And I went to Catapult after, and a moment of silence for Catapult magazine. But that was obviously like a really wonderful experience to you know, I wasn’t making much money at that point in my career, either and at that point, I’m kind of mid-career. So there was a lot of like privilege involved in being able to take those roles, like I will always kind of have some feelings or some, I’ll wonder, could I have helped my family more if I weren’t trying to be an editor in Indie media and publishing? Like, yes, probably I could have been more used. But I also feel like, in a way, I was really lucky to get to do those jobs to take them on. And to have like, institutional support at times I needed it and to be given like editorial freedom when I wanted it. And I know those are precious things. They’re so precious, those places don’t exist anymore, right. So like, I don’t regret that time. But it was very, there are choices that were made. I’m sure I could have been doing something more lucrative. And then I’ve always freelanced like all along. And so right now, like I’m a full-time freelancer, I freelance for different publications. But that too, feels really tenuous. Like I want to stress again, I know it’s a luxury in a way, but I don’t know how long I can afford to be a freelancer. It’s, it’s been like good in a lot of ways for me creatively. But what I always say is like writing supports me right now. And I don’t know if it will a year from now. And that’s truly like, just what it’s like.

And there’s a whole other conversation that we’re not going to have right now about AI and robots. We’re not gonna have that conversation right now.

Thank you, because I’ve been hearing so much about it, it’s deeply depressing.

That’s a whole different conversation. And also, frankly, someone could create an entire podcast series about the American dream, and what it means at different points in different places. Because it’s not that simple. It’s just not that simple. But I want to stick with you as a writer for a second, because you and I have talked about some of your influences in the past just over lunch, but let’s do it on the record. Let’s do it on the show. Can we talk about some of your literary influences and how we got to where we are now with you as a writer?

I mean, I have like, favorite, favorite writers and like books that have meant a lot to me. I will say part of being like a Korean American adoptee like is that I’ve never really had great comps. For the first book, I had almost none, I think and for the second book, the first book was the comp. And so I won’t say that means I haven’t been influenced by people like of course I have. But it’s just like, I’ve always been really aware that. And this is true of so many writers, it’s not just me, but like, my whole career has been about sort of doing something like different, trying to make my own way, which I know is the case for many writers. I mean, people who, whose work has just meant a lot to me. Like, I mean, you mentioned already some of the books I grew up with books that made me fall in love with literature. I mean, it was cliche, but Jane Austen. And in terms of like, recent books, more recent, like favorite essays. I love Alexander Chee’s book, How to Write an Autobiographical Novel, I actually read that every time I have writer’s block, just like it’s sort of like it does what reading poetry does for me., I love Julie Otsuka, her book The Swimmers. But like this past year, I read The Swimmers as I just finished writing my book. But you know, the storyline with, with Alice, the mother in the book, it was just such a poignant story to be reading at that time. Of course, the books are completely different, but I was just so moved. And I’m amazed at the way she plays with form and narrative and structure. I just, it’s just such a deeply human book. And it was what I needed to read at the time. Yeah, there’s so many I don’t know, I read a lot of poetry. And it’s kind of what I go to when I’m stuck as well. It’s just hard, I feel so— I read and love a lot of writers, I don’t know that I’m like, influenced by them. And when it comes to memoir, specifically, actually, when I’m writing memoir, I don’t read it. Like I’m trying to keep it other people’s memoir, voices out of my head. I’ll read a lot of fiction, and I’ll read poetry, but I usually take a break if I’m working on like, personal stories of my own. But now that this book is like done, like in the can, I feel like okay, I’ll start like really looking at memoir again.

Yeah, after you finish your book tour.

I’m gonna need books to read on book tour.

Yes, that but I mean, you get to go wander the stacks all over the country. So that’s kind of great. The other thing is to Julie Otsuka. Swimmers. I’m so glad you mentioned that. But because it does, it sits in conversation with A Living Remedy. I mean, the way you both talk about grief and the way you both talk about parenting and our experience of parenting and being parented. Yeah, the books sit in conversation, they really do sit in conversation. And I think also, I mean, Julie, God if we could, all write as tightly as Julie does, like, come on. 159 pages of perfect, is The Swimmersand I don’t usually describe books as being perfect. But that one really it does so much in such a tiny space. And I have to say you do a similar thing. A Living Remedy is not a terrifically long book, but it’s expansive, and it has a big heart.

Thank you. I mean, I think it clocked in it like maybe 63, 64,000 words. So it’s shorter than my first, when I got the final copy. I was surprised and like it looks longer than it is. But it was funny like because I definitely wrote like 80 some thousand words, and like a bunch of the revisions were just aimed at like trimming the fat. I had a friend I would text, like I just cut like another 1000 words. And she’s like, is it gonna be a 10 page book? Like tell me it’s not gonna be a 10 page book. But back to The Swimmers real quick. Like, I think what really moved me most from that book, actually, you know, obviously the grief and parenting and parenting stuff. But like the sense of regret and time you don’t get back with loved ones and the choices you make that take you far from them. Just like how you live with those, it doesn’t necessarily mean they were the wrong decisions, you know, life is not that simple. But like you still have to live with the fallout. And I found that a lot of those sections to be the most moving. Like the parts about the when the daughter is the narrator about leaving, and she writes on point like you broke your mother’s heart. And it didn’t seem like a big dramatic severing, right? It just seemed life choices, taking her farther.

But again, I just keep coming back to the fact that I think, well, at least in my experience, my parents were fully prepared for me to do whatever I was going to, they may not have been thrilled. But they knew it was going to happen. I don’t think that was necessarily their plan.

But yeah, I think I was raised like to not look back, because that was, and I write about this too. Like that was the example my parents set for me like they grew up in Ohio and left everything and everyone they knew. And they were like the pioneers in their family. You know, we were the only ones out on the West Coast. They lived in Alaska for a while, where other people would have seen like, I don’t know, whether people would have been scared, even my adoption in a way they approach it as like, just head on. Like, this is what we’re meant to do. We’re gonna do it. I don’t know, like, they never told me this is how you live a life. This is how you leave home. But I still had that like model. Like when I thought about their history and like thought about their story. That’s the pattern they gave me is like you do, you make these choices, and then you live with them. It doesn’t mean you’re guaranteed like a great ending, but that’s what it means. They didn’t really raise me to be cautious or to try to protect myself and I am really grateful for that.

Family mythology is wild. It’s completely, it is the wildest thing. I was just recently with some cousins, and we were comparing notes and not everyone has the same version of a story. Yeah, it’s wild. It’s completely wild. So, you know, the idea that my parents could have been surprised by anything is pretty entertaining to me, but okay.

People were like, shocked that my family was so supportive of me going to college on the opposite side of the country. Only and you know, some people knew that like my parents didn’t have college degrees so, like, I have friends whose parents wouldn’t let them look at out of state schools. And I don’t know, I was just that that was never a question. It was like, you know, go, it’s your life, you’re gonna go where you want and do what you want. And they wouldn’t have dreamed of trying to kind of keep me back from that. At the same time, I do think sometimes they were surprised at choices, and I never understood my career, they didn’t understand the writing entirely, but they really didn’t understand the editing. And so sometimes they would think it was volunteer work, they get confused. And like, none of this is actually my day job, I get why you think it’s volunteer, it’s not super well paid. But you know, or they would think it was like a hobby and I was never really able to explain my career in publishing to them. So when they were surprised, it was usually surprised and like, accepting, which I’m grateful for.

How did writing A Living Remedy change you?

I think it’s more that I had to change to write it. So like, until this book, I’d never missed a deadline. And like, I’ll just tell you, we moved it like, twice. I mean, part of it was pandemic and my mother passing away in the early weeks of the pandemic, but I really had to become a different writer, I think, to write this. And by that I mostly mean, I couldn’t treat myself like a machine, which I swear, I didn’t realize I was doing essentially my entire life. Now that I think about it, it’s wild that the day after my father died, I sat down, and I hit a manuscript deadline and turned that manuscript in. But like, that’s just what I did. That’s what I always thought I had to do. It’s like my humanity and caring for myself comes after I get all my stuff done. No, but like, that’s, that’s like, always who I was. And I actually have like a twisted pride in like, the fact that I can always work, I can always be productive, I’m always gonna get my stuff done, you can count on me. And this book, it just wouldn’t work. Like I could have forced myself to keep my butt in my chair. And like on days, when I was grieving, deeply depressed, trying to parent kids who are not totally okay, during a pandemic, you know, trying to balance work and school zooms. I could have like, just kind of pushed through. But it wouldn’t have been good book, it wouldn’t have been a book I was proud of, I don’t think it would have been the book it needed to be. And so just learning to show myself like a little bit of grace, which I’m still, I’m still learning and recognize, like, Oh, if I can’t write today, like, maybe that is okay, maybe I’ll write tomorrow. It sounds so basic. It was just not something I’d ever done for myself before. And like, honestly, I left Catapult mostly because I realized I couldn’t work a full-time job editing and finish this book. I loved my work there and my team, but when push came to shove, I was like, well, I am going to have to choose at this point. Instead of trying to do both, and like running myself absolutely ragged. Like that, too, was a decision I made to try to, yes, finish this book, but also recognize that I’m human. And like, take care of myself, I had to like really shift how I thought about, about myself my work like my self worth, right this and I don’t mean to sound like really woo, but it I couldn’t have written the book like without, without that shift. I felt it was a hard book to write. Like, sometimes I would cry writing, which doesn’t happen to me, usually. But I also felt really free, writing it, I felt like I gave myself permission, like to bring everything I am to this book. And like, I’ll be honest, I I brought a lot to my first book, but I don’t know if I was quite this free. Like I had that sort of debut experience as a writer of color and as an adoptee of like, I don’t know, I didn’t feel as free as I did with this book. So I’m really thankful for this writing experience.

That seems like a really good place to end the show. I was gonna throw in a question about Peggy but people can meet Peggy when they read, because I like following Peggy, but they can find out who Peggy is when they pick up the book, don’t you think?

I think if they follow me on any platform, also they will.

Nicole Chung thank you so, so much. A Living Remedy is out now. And if you haven’t read All You Can Ever Know.Well, you should get that too.

Thank you so much. Miwa this was wonderful.

Poured Over