Marian Yee
Author Interview - Marian Yee
Author of 4 Janes
Through time, space, and the transcendence of maternal love, Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre is reimagined in the parallel lives of one soul searching for meaning, connection, and a place to belong.
Author Interview - Marian Yee
Author I draw inspiration from:
Virginia Woolf. In my book, I acknowledge how much I borrowed from Woolf’s fluid style and themes of time, identity, and memory. It was startling and thrilling to mash up Jane Eyre with inspiration from Mrs. Dalloway, Orlando, and To the Lighthouse.
Author Interview - Marian Yee | Author I Draw Inspiration From
Favorite place to read a book:
Any place with good lighting and a firm backrest. My favorite place to watch other people read books is on the subway. I can’t read on the subway myself because it makes me carsick, but when others do it, they always look mysterious, interesting, sophisticated, and sexy.
Book character I’d like to be stuck in an elevator with:
I think it would be interesting to be stuck in an elevator with Mr. Darcy’s younger sister (Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen). Younger sisters in books are often overlooked as minor side characters, but if they are intelligent and curious, I imagine they have a lot to observe and say about their older brothers who hog the limelight. I’d like to ask Georgiana Darcy how it felt to have her older brother break up her interesting romance with that scoundrel, Wickham, and of course, she probably already knew that he was a scoundrel. (And what she thought about getting that pianoforte from her brother, something to suck up her mental and emotional energy instead of brooding on the lost scoundrel.)
Author Interview - Marian Yee | Book Character I’d Like to be Stuck in an Elevator With
The moment I knew I wanted to become an author:
I think it was the moment I broke through into the world of a book, though I didn’t know it at the time. I was around 8 years old. It was a struggle to work through the words, to follow them one after another until they formed sentences that slowly strung together to weave a story of a group of outlaw friends who stole from the rich to give to the poor. By the time I made it all the way to the end of the adventures of Robin Hood, I was fully immersed in the world of Sherwood Forest. Wanting to make my own worlds was something that came later.
Hardback, paperback, ebook or audiobook:
Hardbacks look best on the bookshelf, though they tend to stay there and collect dust. Paperbacks are wonderfully portable. Ebooks are great when the physical book is so big and heavy that it sinks you into the bed when you try to read at night. Audiobooks are great for long car rides (as a passenger).
The last book I read:
The last book I read was Jennine Capó Crucet’s Say Hello to My Little Friend. I’ve been particularly eager to read books that riff off a classic source text, since that’s what I’m doing in 4 Janes. There have been many wonderful ones, such as Percival Everett’s James, or Barbara Kingsolver’s Demon Copperhead. Crucet’s book can be read as literary fan fiction about Moby Dick (and Scarface). It’s about a young man living in Miami, who is in search of an identity, but haunted by gaps in memories of his past, and connected by fate and force to an Orca whale at Seaworld. It’s funny, moving, and epic.
Author Interview - Marian Yee | The Last Book I Read
Pen & paper or computer:
Computer. My handwriting is illegible. People say that writing by hand slows you down, slows down your brain in a good way that benefits creativity. I’m sure that’s true. I find that I do go faster on the computer, but for me that also includes getting rid of things faster. Write, read, delete, re-write: the ease of that on a computer connects me to the flow of something taking shape under my fingers on the keyboard, helps maintain a state of fluidity until it attains a solidity that sticks.
Book character I think I’d be best friends with:
Charlotte Lucas in Pride & Prejudice (Jane Austen). I seem to have Austen on my mind a lot for this interview. Charlotte Lucas is Elizabeth Bennet’s best friend, and you can see why. She’s a keen observer, sharp witted (like Elizabeth), and smart. She’s also a survivor, and she survives through self-acceptance as well as a ruthless practicality. Why a friend who’s Elizabeth adjacent, why not E herself as your bestie, you might ask? E’s great, but you may have noticed, she’s a bit judgey. I am too, I suppose. But you can’t have two judgey people as best friends, they will escalate, and eventually turn on each other.
If I weren’t an author, I’d be a:
Artist. For a time, I was poised to either focus on writing or on art. I chose writing. They speak different languages, use different tools, but strive for the same goal: to capture some truth or vision. I still dabble with paint in an amateur way, but I’m constantly frustrated by my lack of knowledge, my inability to translate my vision onto the canvas. Actually, I have the same problem with writing…
Favorite decade in fashion history:
Any period that features a long, sweeping coat, from 19th century dusters to the cool, futuristic, black Matrix trench coats.
Place I’d most like to travel:
I’ve always wanted to visit China. When my parents left their homeland there, they never returned, and China always seemed a very far away and unknown place. Now that they have both passed, I feel a need and desire to see the place they never got to see again when they left.
My signature drink:
There’s nothing better than a hot cup of coffee taken outside on the porch first thing in the morning, especially in the middle of winter. Something about the scalding rich, bitter liquid and the cold, crisp air – a bracing contrast that slaps your brain awake.
Favorite artist:
It’s hard to narrow it down to one. I love Ansel Kiefer, a German painter, sculptor, and installation artist. He creates dark dreamscapes where history and myth collide. His work is terrifying, tender, transportive.
Number one on my bucket list:
I’d love to go to the Brontë Parsonage Museum house in Yorkshire and bury a copy of my book somewhere on the grounds as a tribute to Charlotte Brontë and to Jane Eyre. The Brontë Society people may not go for it, though. Also, they have a gift shop, so maybe it would be better to see 4 Janes there where people can pick up a copy after their tour, rather than my scrabbling about in the dirt, secretly burying books.
Find more from the author:
About Marian Yee:
Marian Yee
Marian Yee is a writer, scholar, and award-winning teacher. As a professor in the Liberal Arts and Sciences Department at Berklee College of Music, she teaches writing, literature, and visual studies to performing arts students. Marian’s published writings include poems, reviews, and scholarly articles. 4 Janes is her debut novel, inspired by a trip to Vietnam in 1995, where she met a street seller who was reading an abridged copy of Jane Eyre to learn English. The author lives in Brookline, Massachusetts, with her family.
