Poured Over: Lisa Ko on Memory Piece

By Jenna Seery / March 30, 2024 at 6:00 am

Memory Piece by Lisa Ko is an unforgettable story of art, friendship and coming-of-age that cuts across decades from the 1980s to the 2040s. Ko joins us to talk about forming the characters of the novel, writing through a large span of time, her artistic influences and more with Miwa Messer, host of Poured Over. We end this episode with TBR Topoff recommendations from Marc and Jamie.

This episode of Poured Over was hosted by 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):
Memory Piece by Lisa Ko
The Leavers by Lisa Ko
After Kathy Acker by Chris Kraus
Trust Exercise by Susan Choi
Asymmetry by Lisa Halliday
The Gangster of Love by Jessica Hagedorn

Featured Books (TBR Topoff):
Set for Life by Andrew Ewell
Bliss Montage by Ling Ma

Full Episode Transcript

Miwa Messer

I’m Miwa Messer, and the producer and host of Poured Over I’m so excited to see Lisa Ko. It’s been a minute since we got to hang out. And of course, we’re doing it virtually because Hello, this is the world we live in now. But Memory Pieceis her new novel. She was a finalist for the National Book Award with The Leavers which was also a discover pick and a finalist for the Discover Great New Writers Award, which doesn’t really exist in its old incarnation anymore. But it was really fun to do a lot of yelling about The Leavers when it first came out. And obviously we weren’t alone about that. But Memory Piece, tightly written starts in the 80s hits the 90s takes us into 2040 the friendship of three women, Giselle, and Jackie and Ellen and I love the structure of the book. I love these women. We’re obviously not going to have spoilers in this conversation, because that would be no fun. But there’s plenty we can talk about. But Lisa, it’s so good to see you. How are you? How are things?

Lisa Ko

It’s been so many years. So glad to be able to talk to you. Thanks for having me.

So when did you start writing Memory Piece? Because I mean, The Leavers came out. And it was kind of nonstop promotion for a couple three years. I mean, you were just doing the thing.

Yeah, it was it all seems very long ago. But I started writing Memory Piece in the fall of 2016. So it was actually in the gap between when I sold The Leavers and when The Leavers came out in Spring 2017. So I think at the time, since The Leavers are taken, like seven years, I was like, Well, I want to I want to whip this out in like two years. Like I know how to write a novel. Now this is gonna be you know, Famous last words, so 2024, and like, it’s finally coming out.

All right, so we’re in New Jersey, it’s…

84, 83.

And fourth of July, which I appreciate the setting. And we meet these kids, just as they’re meeting Ellen and Giselle and Jackie, just as they’re meeting each other. And I’m wondering why we’re in New Jersey first. I mean, obviously, New York is where the bulk of everything happens. But we’re across the Hudson we are.

I mean, well, personally, I grew up in New Jersey, also, during the 80s characters are maybe about like five years older than me, I felt, you know, it’s, it’s sort of their arc sort of mimics mine. And I really wanted to write about these, these sort of lifelong friends that are sort of accidentally meeting just because we’re part of this larger, Chinese diaspora sort of coming in and out of their lives, like throughout their whole lives, like those kinds of you aren’t super close to what you really are, and like, they influence your life in ways that you can’t even you don’t even realize until much later. So, you know, the book, in a way both looks back, as you mentioned, and also looks forward and I kind of wanted, I wanted to structure to sort of mimic that experience of, you know, just like waking up now and waking up, you know, in 20 years, it’s been like, you know, how do we get here? I don’t, you know, you know, it’s sort of going from this very conventional, like, mundane, suburban childhood, which to me is very much represented by New Jersey in the 80s. That sort of, you know, Reagan era, American exceptionalism that I grew up being said, By TV and other propaganda and then, you know, slowly kind of simmering through the 90s and into the future.

I had possibly too much recognition for a lot of things. But I want to start with Giselle, because I love the way you structure it sort of Giselle is front and center in the first section, then Jackie, then Ellen, I understand exactly why you did that. But I’m dancing around it a tiny bit, just to avoid some spoilers, but Giselle ends up doing essentially what some people would call performance art. And I’m just going to use that because it’s a quick reference point. But I love her art. I just, I think it’s one. I mean, she moves into a mall for a year and only comes out at night. And I’m going to leave out some of the details and whatnot. But it’s that kind of, I’m going to write a statement and for X amount of time, usually a year but there’s a different piece where it’s a little shorter for different reasons. I love her path. And I love her family. And I love everything about this because also performance art like what like what can we talk about where Giselle came from? Because I feel like there’s a lot of your sort of personal feelings about art and being a creative in her work, but yeah, I don’t ever see you moving into a mall for a year.

Well, you know, if the novel writing thing doesn’t work out I hear you now yeah, you know to answer that question like I feel like that’s, that’s really that’s really true. And part of the seed of even reading the novel in the first place was just kind of just like thinking about what it means to make art under which, you know, still thinking, clearly, it probably will continue to. And I, you know, just sort of, I don’t know what’s thinking first about, like, these memories of my own childhood when pre career concerns like could just be weird as I could with my best friends and makeup, you know, strange performances, and it was fun, and we had joy. And, you know, so different from kind of thinking about like art as a career and all the things involved with that. But I’ve always I’ve also just always been very fascinated by performance artists, especially the work of the Taiwanese American performance artists who Gisele’s performances are sort of like a nod to is best known for these kind of year long endurance pieces in the late 70s. And early 80s. One where he lives in a mall, he doesn’t want to, he lives in a cage, by choice for a year. And another one, he’s outside only outside for a year. And there’s one where he punches a time clock every hour for a year, meaning he never sleeps more than an hour for at a time. So I don’t know, these, like extra weird words always kind of spoke to me because I feel like I very much had this child of immigrants anxiety about, like, wasting time, and like using my time well, and using my life well, and you know, what am I doing? And is it too late and you know, there are definitely anxieties that sometimes still keep me up at night. And here was this artist teaching Shay, who was literally making art out of wasting time. And he was also an immigrant, Asian immigrant, you know, and the work was about, like, you know, just kind of like, life is wasting time. And the art itself is about the passage of time. So sort of solves that tension of like, how do you how do you like, live your life and make the money you need to make the art in order to like live your life? And that I think Giselle is sort of grappling with, and her solution is sort of the satirical like, Well, I gotta pay rent. So maybe I’ll just squat in a mall, and that’ll solve the problem of like, needing a job.

I’ve really loved watching her evolve. There’s also a bad boyfriend that I’m going to skirt around a little bit too. But like, of course, Giselle ends up with a bad boyfriend, but also like, yeah, finding a place to live in New York, and all of those things where it’s like, it just reminded me quite a lot of sort of my adventures when I was in my 20s. And I just come back to New York and my friends and I were sort of figuring out how to be adults in the world. And oh, man, we had no idea. But like, you’ve got all these moments, sort of in Giselle’s timeline, where it’s like, and then they were at brownies, and then they were doing this and it was fun to revisit that. But I really, the idea that Giselle was always an artist first, right? Like it was less about her being Chinese American, it was less about her being the daughter of immigrants. I mean, yeah, there was a little bit of that tension. I appreciate it. But it really was always about the art. And that’s the piece where I was like, Yeah, we don’t always get that room to room, right, like in a story like this. And it’s a little bit like Daniel’s music, right in The Leavers where it’s like, Daniel needed a thing. And Giselle did some wild stuff. And I was like, oh, yeah, you were totally the weirdo that everyone was fascinated by because they didn’t know what to do with you. And then we sort of jumped forward a tiny bit, were in the 90s. And New York is changing madly. I mean, we’re in a moment, obviously, of significant gentrification here now. But the 90s is sort of when things started to break, like we still had like people living in squats. And I remember when tanks rolled down 13th Street because someone decided the squatters had to go. And I was just at the office that day, like New York in the 90s was still kind of the Wild West and there was still this amazing sense of serendipity and discovery that kind of we don’t have anymore, and I loved the way you capture that energy on the page, even though Jackie’s basically locked in her room coding. So I’m going to ask you how you pulled off that magic trick because really, like Jackie spends a lot of time like, Giselle is riding her bike and she’s making her and she’s doing and Jackie is kind of coding all the time, but you get this moment, right like the you just the whole thing was laid out and I was like, oh, yeah, and that was weird parties. There were so many weird parties. It was so it was so weird.

It’s weird.

All of it was bizarre. And it just like, the amount of money that was rolling through and then suddenly was gone. But yeah, so Jackie, Jackie in the coding. You knew you had to do that though, right? I mean, if you’re gonna count captured these women in their friendship, you needed something that was kind of wildly in contrast right with Giselle. And obviously we’ll get to Ellen.

I think definitely I also wanted to write, just like, right, these women really obsessed with their work. You know, like, Giselle was always an artist first, like, it felt very important for me to write like, these, I don’t know, like art monsters who are just like, I will do anything for my work, whether it’s, you know, making a website like Jackie does, or making art like Giselle does, or, you know, doing Ellen’s work with activism, like they’re constantly sort of be placed into boxes by other people who were like, doing like, you know, Asian American art, or your feminist or whatever. They’re just like, whatever it takes, you know, and that was sort of always very important for me just to write people write these characters who are just very obsessed with their work and those different projects.

It’s fun to read, though. It’s really fun to read.

So you know, I got like, I was talking to a friend today, he was like, Yeah, you know, like, it’s so hard to find a hobby that isn’t work.

I mean, everything’s work. But also when you work with words, it’s kind of hard to not be in the thing. Yeah, like reading. It seems like, I mean, yeah, it’s rare that I’m not reading for work. But even when I’m reading for pleasure, it’s kind of like, oh, right, okay. And then like, the brain goes off, and the hamsters on the wheel, and you’re like, I have an idea. And then sometimes it works. And sometimes it doesn’t, you’re like, Oh, right. And then there’s Ellen. And Ellen is the kid from Queens who is in New Jersey, because her parents are at this Fourth of July party. And she’s like, Where are the kids? Can I hang out with interesting people, please? And she’s actually yes, she’s really dedicated to her work, too. She’s an activist, but she also sees the world in a slightly different way. From Giselle, and Jackie, and I love the counterbalance between the three of them. How else do we get the sort of 360 of Lisa Ko’s brain, right?

Is that not what a novel is? Really?

It’s the interiority and the passage of time. Like, this is what a novel is designed to do. It’s really tightly written, though. I mean, this is what 250 pages.

Yeah, it’s pretty tight. I tried to like trim it down a lot.

Did you always know it was gonna be these three women?

It started off as Jackie and Giselle working title was Jackie Zell for several years. But Ellen was there, you know, she was she was a tertiary character. And then about two and a half years in, I had what I call, like, a lightbulb moment where I realized that she was like, the third protagonist and arguably like, kind of the narrator protagonist, in a way, and not just sort of like a wacky neighbor friend, who was who was there asserted herself into the story. So yeah, like, well, meaning like, I feel, I feel like fortunately, I solved a problem because I was like, something’s not working. I don’t know what it is. And then, unfortunately, I had to fix it, meaning I had to, like write a whole new third of the novel, and figure out what her storyline was, but it was, it was actually very helpful, because it like kind of gave that equal weight to like, you know, there’s like the art world. For Giselle, the tech world for Jackie does, how those things also work together, like with, you know, the political economy of New York and the US and the world. And then the third sort of missing piece at a time was like Ellen speeds around like real estate interests, and how those things sort of work like Michigan in a machine together, oh, especially in New York.

And you end up covering sort of 60 years in the history of this friendship, right. Like, I got to the end of Giselle section that I’m going through. And then I realized that you’ve given sort of each woman her own turn, without losing sight of the others, please don’t misunderstand me, but I just I love the structure. Like it’s just a very clean sort of three act novel, but three acts within each act of the end. The way it all comes together, it’s just like Hi, so can we talk about the structure because I’m not sure. I think this needed the slightly experimental structure that you gave it I can’t imagine it any other way.

Yeah, I mean, it took a lot of sort of tweaking I think really long and then cut you know so like you mentioned like they’re all they’re actually all like I was so compulsive about it but they’re all pretty much the same exact workout authors.

Like I was not playing like I didn’t I that Yeah, I did not catch that part.

Yeah, and so like, I think what I wanted the structure to do is like not only move through time and then through like, each of the characters arcs and each have each of the sections sort of be representative of certain time, as written like industry, but then also So have, I mean, I feel like I feel like Elon is sort of like the moral, the moral center in a way of the book. And she’s, you know, as a young person, she’s definitely kind of has that, you know, young activist vibe as being like, Well, you got to do the thing. And this is a way to do it. And like, you know, right or wrong. It’s kind of like a little binary. As she gets gets older, like, as one does, like, some of these things start to, you know, get more complicated. And yeah, so I feel like the structure is sort of like moving. Like, it’s, it’s both like, she’s kind of being, like, the theme of memories, so important. And for her, like, there’s so much that’s been forgotten both. Because people have been forced to, and both because people have chosen to because things are people in New Age. And so sort of, even if it’s not like literally her remembering the stories of Giselle and Jackie’s passing her past, it’s it’s kind of like being given those that access to the past and those memories sort of provides her with the direction she needs to figure it out.

But also time sneaks up on Ellen. Right. Like it’s and it sneaks up on all of us, but it’s actually having this conversation with someone offline. The other day hearts like I my sense of time has gotten really, really squirrely, very strange. Yeah. And watching Giselle and Jackie, but especially Ellen, because you know, with Ellen, we’re really in 2040. And there’s a lot that’s familiar, and you do that thing, like good. dystopians, right. Like, and it’s not that dystopia. It’s more like along the lines of say, Emily St. John Mandel, right. Like there’s way more familiar than not, I really, I just watching Ellen sort of figure out what was happening to her when she had gone from being so sure of everything, right. Like, just I was always kind of like, huh, I think I’m gonna do this thing. Not like totally had Bobby. But she and Jackie were a little less sure of their footing, kind of early on where Ellen was always like, no, up, up up, she had a plan, she knew what she was doing, she was committed to all these things. And then watching her get sort of soft, was unexpected, but it was nice. And I obviously, we’re leaving out lots of the passage of all of these things, but it really was a nice touch. And, again, like when you’re writing about this kind of friendship, though, right? 60 years, three women’s similar but not everyone’s you know, you don’t want people sounding exactly like each other, are you mapping this out as you go, you’re just letting yourself right, and then going back and just whacking it all until you get the thing that you want.

Mostly the latter. I always have aspirations to like, be the kind of author who’s like, I’m gonna outline and I’m gonna write, and we’re gonna read another draft, and then when we, but I just can’t I can’t do that. So I felt pretty certain about like, the style and tone I wanted for each of the characters. With Giselle, it was sort of this, I don’t know, like the aesthetic of a kind of artists biography, right. So you know, the development of like, the artist as a young person. And so I just really wanted these kind of very concise scenes that were just like, this happened, this happened, this happened, you know, and getting to that point in her career where she decides to do this. And I feel like it’s also evocative of that, like, certain childhood, like meandering, figuring things out. And then for Jackie, it felt very much like I wanted it to be more frenetic mimic the time where it’s a tighter time span, it’s like one year in the life of, you know, this dot com like just before the crash, you know, everybody’s just sort of like really tightly wound and obsessed with money and like, IPO and all this stuff. And all the drama is so is also so mundane, but it feels very life or death, you know, like, are we good? Are we gonna go public? You know, are you gonna like, this is gonna happen, you know, you know, it’s just really intense, like optimism at the time. That seems very absurd now, in retrospect.

But also, the kind of year you’re writing about the Jackie has, it’s like, yeah, it’s a year on a calendar. It’s actually a year in dog years. I really, like when you look back at sort of the lifespan of some of these things, write some of these companies and some of these projects and whatnot, and then the things that actually survived, like, that’s the thing that Oh, wow, the Okay. The nine iterations of whatever goofy time saving thing it was supposed to, that’s the one that lives or that’s the idea and you’re just like, alright, and I say this is a person who’s, you know, actually contend to walk around with a supercomputer in my pocket, like I understand there’s a certain amount of ridiculousness that goes from having that kind of convenience, right? But I also like to think, well, I’ve turned off all the trackers and I’ve turned off all the microphones and I’ve turned off all the things. And yeah. Oh, and yet, then things pop up on your phone. You’re just like, oh, the robots are welcome to punt themselves into the sun.

Getting your eyeballs in the subways.

Please, I fly enough and somehow retina scan, retinal scans feel like a step too far, but you can have my fingerprints so I don’t have to take my shoes off.

I feel like okay, well, I still use a MetroCard. Even though I know it doesn’t matter. I’m still using my credit card, because I’m traveling. But for some reason, I’m just like, it’s a step too far.

I’m still on a MetroCard. I mean, it’s faster to whip out your phone. And yet, I’m just like, you know, and I just am…

Swiping like 10 times to try to get through.

It’s wild, but watching the evolution of our society through the eyes of these three women too. And the way you do it, I mean, performance art also was a flashpoint. Like if you think about it in the 80s. You know, Jesse Helms had lots of feelings about lots of things. Suddenly, suddenly, artists that none of us had really been exposed to, we all knew their names. And you know, the idea that you’ve got to defend your art, when in fact, it’s not like, you know, Karen Finley was on the side of a bus driving down Fifth Avenue, right? Like, there’s so many flashpoints in the last, like, 40 years, right. But again, I keep coming back to watching Giselle learn how to make her art. Right, and like, what does it for her and like, the sort of physical challenges she puts herself through, but also, like, there’s some mental challenges, but watching her figure out, like, what has meaning for her is kinda cool. Right? Right. It’s, it’s a wild coming of age, and yeah, you do mimic an artist’s biography. But at the same time, like, I don’t really feel like I’ve met a character like Giselle recently in literature. I just feel like she’s kind of a standout. Did you start with her? Like, was she I know, you said Jackie, and Giselle were sort of the start and then you had to fix the Ellen situation, but I kind of feel like Giselle is more of you than anyone. Yes. And I And I’m not talking, we’re not talking about fiction. I’m just talking about like, in the spiritual inheritance kind of thing of the character from the writer kind of thing, but I just, I feel like you’re closer to her than anyone else.

You know, it’s interesting. I did. So I started with Jackie, Giselle and always from the very, very early dress had two friends who were childhood friends, collaborators, and there was just tension in their friendship was somebody looking back from the vantage point of middle age. So that was always sort of baked in, along with like, all these tech anxieties, so clearly this, like, it’s never far from my mind, the internet always disappeared, like something happened. So I actually I feel like the I character was actually Jackie and Jackie was looking back at Giselle is fame, like, in this early iteration, which resembles nothing about the current book. Yeah, like the character kind of came to fame. And then the Jackie character felt a little resentful. And it was like, I also contributed to that and sort of this push pull in their friendship about one, like the smart techy one and one being the kind of like artsy weirdo and just how they’re seen by like, different friends. And by like the world at large,

When The Leavers came out, I think I wasn’t the only person who picked up an early galley and said, Hmm, this is really interesting, like you were doing, you’re doing a lot in that novel, and it’s still it sells like crazy, still, which delights me to know, and you wanted to make a point, but tell the story in the, you know, tell it make the point in the context of the story. And you’ve got mom and you’ve got her son, and eventually he gets adopted. So you’re talking about, you know, immigration and home and belonging, and identity and all of these things. And I was very close to both Polly and Daniel. And Daniel’s parents, his adoptive parents are very well intentioned, everyone. Everyone is very well intentioned. It’s just systems are broken, right. But what did you learn writing that book that you needed? Because they are they’re different in tone, they’re different structure. I mean, you know, debut versus sophomore. Sometimes it’s harder to publish a sophomore book. But also, you were a finalist for the National Book Award, like critically acclaimed, we weren’t the only obviously, the Discover award wasn’t the only prize you’ve gotten. But a lot happened very quickly for a debut. And that doesn’t always happen. And now you’re following it up and it’s like, Oh, hi. Hello World. Can we talk about what that feels like? And what you what you learned from that first book that you’re going to bring to the second?

I mean, it’s true. It is a very, it’s A very different time, and it feels like a million years have passed. And definitely the act of kind of disappearing to write a novel and the years that have happened that have been very strange, obviously. So you know, for everybody, so, it definitely feels like being like, still alive. Here I am emerging from my cave. You know, I think when I look back on it, I started writing The Leavers in 2008, or 2009, which is, you know, shockingly, about the same amount of time between now that’s the same amount of time between now and Ellen section 2041 feels very far away, but 2008, like, you know, it’s far away. It’s not that, in some ways, like, that first book was written, like, against something like, there was definitely some part. And the first book is definitely like, almost like the accumulation of your whole life, because you’re like, carrying all that material with you, for like, for me for like, four decades, right. And I was really kind of riding against, like, I don’t know, against, like this dominant narrative of like immigration and assimilation, and, like, against the sort of mainstream history around those things. And I felt a little, like, maybe having done it, I felt that I no longer had to do it for this book, like, it was kind of out of my system. And, and instead, the challenge was trying to write, like, towards something. So I feel like a lot of the book was kind of me challenging myself to write something. I don’t know, that felt both, especially in the future section that felt both that made room for both, like the possibility of reality and also like, like, a sort of, like visionary hope feels kind of corny, but like, you know, a sort of survival, click to survival regardless. So there was like, more, it was less about writing against something and more like writing towards like, a form of love, I guess.

It’s hard to be hopeful, right? Like, there’s that lot that Emily Dickinson line that open hope is a muscle? It kind of is. So I mean, actually more than a kind of hope. And not because I read Emily Dickinson young, I mean, hope is a muscle. No, I like this idea, though. Challenging yourself. And I liked the idea too, of saying, Hey, I wrote what I wrote in the first book, and I don’t necessarily need to keep going back to that particular piece. I felt very connected to all three of these women, even though I didn’t, you know, I don’t necessarily share the same whatever with them. But I just I felt really plugged into them in a way that was just fun. Despite everything that was happening. Some good stuff happened some weird stuff happened some stuff or like, Yeah, I’m sorry, you went through that door. But influences Can We Talk About It influences to I mean, you’re pulling from art you’re pulling, I know, music is a huge thing for you personally, you know, literature, music, art, all of the things you pull from let’s talk about those influences for a second.

Yeah, I mean, definitely, definitely a lot of art. You know, teaching Tehching Hsieh I mentioned like, On Kawara is another artist, for 50 years, he would paint the date every day on a painting and it had to be a certain font, depending on depending on where he was in the world in the language anyway, I’m just obsessed with them. Like, I’ve always felt very moving. You know, I think also, I’ve also been a very diligent journal keeper, for better or for worse. So that’s something I think that Giselle’s art kind of speaks to like art as a way to like, measure the days and to sort of, like use time, you know, and definitely like the performance art of Adrian Piper, like she does these videos where she’s like, dressed up and sort of in public. You know, another kind of performance artists that Giselle is informed by. So a lot of those you know, book-wise. Yeah, uh, you know, I did, I remember reading like different forms of just like, artist biographies, just out of curiosity, like, what are different? We’ll do it like there’s a I think there’s a biography of Joni Mitchell like I’m not even really a fan, but it’s just like, how do you how do you write about artists? Like how people do it. The Chris Kraus After Kathy Ackerbook was definitely something that I you know, I was like, this is also really interesting like in terms of an unconventional way to tell the story artist through the eyes of many people Yeah, I feel like I was also drawn to like books that I was curious about like books that function in thirds. So like Trust Exercise by Susan Choi. What else came out? Oh Asymmetry by Lisa Halliday was another one that came out a few years ago around that time, like just different ways of structuring a book with different kind of points of view and kind of unexpected turns.

You’ve been writing basically, since you were a kid, if I remember correctly, right, not just journal keeping, but like, you’ve known since you were like five that this was going to be your thing. So I want to go back though, to some of the writers that, you know, help get us here to where you’re thinking, Oh, I should look at this after Kathy Acker. But like, yeah, we’re talking specifically about Murphy’s. But there’s a lot that goes into deciding to be a novelist. And you know, I know you’ve said this in other interviews, you know, you weren’t reading the New Yorker at home. And your parents wanted you to have a plan that didn’t really involve being a freelance writer. But yeah, so who are some of the really big, like, long standing kind of influences?

I definitely, I mean, I feel like the stories of Alice Munro really blew my mind when I read her and like, maybe early in college, like I really, and I still don’t know how she does it, you know, and I was sort of like, bleakness, and they’re all about the passage of time, you know, something like those themes really resonated with me, even if the landscape and the setting was was so foreign. That was definitely a very early influence. I, a book that I returned to recently was Jessica Hagedorn’s The Gangster of Love.

I have not thought of that…

I have it on my bookshelf. And I like I just saw it at some point, like, during the first year, the pandemic, and I was like, wow, you know, and I took it down. I had marked it up in the beginning that said, I read it in like, 1996. And it was such a great book to read. It’s about like a young woman artists moving to New York, you know, from California, and just having this like, wild time, you know, I was able to see, like, I completely forgot about it, and never thought about it while writing the Memory Piece. And, and when I reread it, I was like this book really influenced my life. I forgot, you know, I just unconsciously it must have really influenced like, moving to New York and making art, like just seeing that example, I think. And like the characters Filipino, you know, just like, how like, yeah, it must have, it must have had such an impact.

I love that I have not thought about that book in a minute. Do I have time to squeeze like, one of the next couple of weeks? Like, can I get away with squid? Because it’s I mean, it’s not crazy long either. Like I remember it being really kind of tightly written.

It’s a lot of like, vignettes kind of Yeah.

And I’m just also trying to remember where on the shelf. That’s all. So sometimes that’s kind of the have I possibly repurchased books that I probably aren’t out yet? Because sometimes it’s just faster. Sure, where that? Did writing Memory Piece change you though, because I feel like there’s so much more of you in this book than there is of you saying The Leavers like, it’s a really different feel, in terms of narrative voice. It’s a really different kind of read, still beautifully written, but it’s a different kind of read. And I feel like, it’s not just of the moment, right, like, you’re not speaking just to the social condition that’s happening in you know, 2017 is or as the book is coming out kind of thing, but that it’s a very specific pointed kind of reading experience. And this is somehow a little dreamier, a little loose, or probably because you did all those cuts. But can we just talk about holding the two sort of, in conversation with each other and structure more than anything, because it’s kind of wild to me that these are the two books that I’m talking to you about? And they’re both yours.

I mean, I think I really consciously wanted to write a different book. Just you know, because why, I don’t know, it’s like, when you spent so long doing something, it’s like, you feel like you push it. Like, you might need to, like, grapple with whatever it was, I was asking and figuring out like, I’ve done it, like, I spent eight years of life doing it. And I’ve talked about it for another two years. Like, I think I can put it to rest for a while. And also the world is changing what we’re responding to change. So yeah, both that and both, like my own sort of overachiever kind of, you know, energy that’s like, but I need to challenge myself. Like, I got to work harder. I can’t just do the same thing. You know. So, yeah, so it was very, very much a deliberate decision. And I feel like they do have, you know, there is sort of like, thematically things in common that they have, you know, which I think they both are sort of, I don’t know, questioning some, some sort of, like myth about America. Yeah, they’re all, you know, that’s maybe like, that’s your work, right? That’s like, what I’m interested in sort of, like, taking that apart, you know, and, you know, like, how did we get here and like, what’s really going on? And, yeah, just from like, a different standpoint.

I mean, I’m all for a novel that’s going to entertain me, right like I’m there. plenty of times where I just want to read a thing and be entertained, you know, read a book, watch a movie, I, I’m going to choose the book, right? That’s just who I am. But I do really enjoy a narrative that is going to just poke me a little bit and make me question. Sort of, not necessarily everything at once. But I do love the idea that you’re sort of saying the American dream, you know, doesn’t necessarily work the way everyone thinks it to us. But there are a lot of ways to come to that. No, I mean, there’s so many different ways to come to it. And it’s not like you’re writing a history book. It’s not like you’re writing some sort of polemic, it’s just kind of like, well hear people doing the best they can with what they have. And that’s how we got here. I mean, that I like to engage with art. on that level, do you think writing Memory Piece changed you though, beyond the I like to challenge myself type A, like, do you feel like it changed you as an artist or freed you up to do something different next kind of thing?

I feel like it freed me up to do something different next. Because whatever I did with that I know how to do. It definitely satisfied my curiosity in terms of writing that kind of book, you know, kind of book is, yeah, I also feel like it changed me like, as a person, like, as any, anything you work on for a long period of time does. And in some ways, like so much of it, especially I feel like the Ellen section was written in some ways, like, in response to what I was trying to figure out, like, like, how do we, how do we keep going when things are bad, and, you know, even part of it was just me imagining, like, you know, I’ve been living here for 25 years, and I was having all this anxiety as friends really being, you know, the city. It’s being like, what, from the last one here. And so I just literally decided to make her like the last word like, you know, in a way, and imagine my way into that and, you know, inadvertently helped me prioritize like my own friendships and community because so much of the book centers around that importance.

Was figuring out Ellen the biggest surprise in the book for you, or was it a series of stuff? I mean, I know you don’t outline you said that at the top of the show. But I still think there’s a discovery piece. And a looseness. To reading memory piece that makes me think that maybe you were kind of pleasantly surprised in ways that readers were too, huh.

I mean, Ellen’s, Ellen’s presence, and like, role felt like a large surprise, also the day that the three sections move together, and then the structure as a whole felt like maybe, I don’t know if surprises are but maybe the like, most important thing for me to like, try to, you know, write like, that was the question. No, I know, I have these characters. I know, I, they live these lives, but also like, how is it working as novel? And so maybe that was sort of the answer, you know?

We are getting dangerously close to revealing some spoilers. So what I’m gonna say, Lisa is this I love Memory Piece. I love these women. I love what you’ve done. I’ve loved how tightly written this book is. I flew through it. But I am going to say, hey, readers, just go pick up Memory Piece because it’s really cool. And I do not want to spoil this book for you. I do not want to be responsible for that. So Lisa Ko thank you so very much for joining us on Poured Over. This was a real treat. Thank you.

Thanks so much for having me.