Sigrid Nunez: Over the years, I’ve seen a lot of M.F.A. students who knew what they wanted from a graduate writing program. Weike was less certain about the whole enterprise, but she was clearly very talented and already had a distinct style. She came to see me and said, “Ninety pages for the thesis, how do I do that?” I mentioned a piece she’d shared in class, “Conversations With My Father.” I felt she could do more like that. I also suggested she look at my first novel [“A Feather on the Breath of God,” 1995], and out of her thesis came her first novel, “Chemistry” (2017). There are several similarities between those books. Our backgrounds are very different, but we both wrote about coming of age in immigrant families. Also, we both aim for clear, clean sentences and feel strongly about the importance of humor in our fiction. After her first novel, Weike immediately wrote a second one, and she just finished a third. That’s how I see her — as somebody who’s really fulfilling that early promise.
There was a period in my life where every single thing I wrote was bad Virginia Woolf. I hadn’t found my voice or my material. But I have no regrets about that period. I was learning, and I was getting something out of my system. Sometimes you have to go through a bad patch before you can produce something worthy.
Both Elizabeth Hardwick, who was my college professor and recommended me for a job as an editorial assistant at The New York Review of Books, and Susan Sontag, whom I met through working at the Review, were extremely powerful influences on me. I believed in them, and I believed in their way of looking at how a writer should be. And even though I shared an apartment with Susan Sontag for a time, for me they were both very much on a pedestal. My relationship with Weike, who’s become a friend, is much more equal and relaxed.
Weike Wang: In workshop, Sigrid told us to write to our smartest friend. So I thought, “I have to write to Sigrid.” She has a great presence on the page, and this playful, organic way of navigating storytelling.
I knew I wanted to write Asian characters in a way that wasn’t stereotypical, to build on the landscape of Asian American literature by creating stories that weren’t necessarily entrenched in the traditional immigration narrative. I was blown away by Sigrid’s first book. The first chapter is about her father, who was Chinese Panamanian, and I’d never read anything like it.
Sigrid made me feel hopeful while also being honest about what writing would be like — about the sacrifices required. We’ve also talked about how some writers run out of steam, which is my biggest fear, that I’ll fall out of what Virginia Woolf called the habit of writing. After I finished my first book, I didn’t think I’d ever write again. But then things come up — you have an idea, and you follow it. I came from a STEM background, and I think writing is actually a lot like research. You don’t know what question you’re asking. You’re in this open ocean, and you just go explore.
Interviews have been edited and condensed.
