Where the Past Begins

by Amy Tan

  So, no table 52, but I was glad. Also, no swordfish, high mercury, but brussels sprouts are among my favorite foods.

  The movie was hilarious. The stranger on my left was “not entertained,” he said to a man on my right side. Before the movie started, they had sent barrages of film opinions back and forth with me in the middle. I did not know either of them, but thought the guy on the left was a pedant. The movie had a similar pedant, so I think he didn’t like how he was portrayed, i.e., as an asshole.

  I bought a large bag of popcorn as dinner after the screening.

  Stool 17

  * * *

  7/3/12

  TO: Dan

  FROM: Amy

  Hi Dan,

  You are too kind.

  I always recall something that Faith once said when I was in ruts—the usual reason is that the story is not “felt.” I have thrown out 100s of pages of bad starts that were not felt. They lie in plastic bins in the garage. I cannot bear to see them. I cannot reread the pages. They are like babies I cannot throw out.

  I do think that with this narrator I see her at a more cerebral level. As an example, there is something to do with romanticism—as in the romanticism of the 19th century in paintings—and to me, the notions are important to the way the characters differ and also how it governs their decisions later. Perhaps her cerebral (and self-centered) character makes her too unsympathetic. Yet, the chapters do concern her inability to love, or at least to show it, and her question as to whether she ever was truly loved, which is Violet’s question.

  Maybe I have told you too much already. You will be biased.

  As editor, you may be able to give me advice. You may tell me to get rid of her chapters, to start afresh with something else. I need the eviction notice, the tornado that destroys the house, arson, murder of darlings … all those things when you should let go and can’t until someone picks you up and puts you in recovery.

  xoox

  A

  * * *

  7/6/12

  TO: Amy

  FROM: Dan

  Dear Amy Tan,

  Too kind: Not really. I know this is an important book for you, and that along the way a lot of life has intervened. To respond to your notes. I don’t think you should reread old material at this point—the relevant residue, the distillate, certainly remains with you. But how to get a fresh, unjaded eye on what you have? (I mean your eye.)

  As for the notion of what’s felt, I don’t imagine you ever did not feel powerfully about these characters or their circumstances, their story. One might argue that a rut could also be caused by something being overly felt. Think of the rut we got ourselves into obsessing over an adolescent love (at whatever age). Think Salinger’s definition of sentimentality …

  Dry voice is something else, but can be addressed, with a little careful work and a sensitive ear. Happy to lend mine, bent and used as it is from exposure to great and horrible prose and poetry.

  If you’re worried about cerebral and cold, I’m sure there’s a way to show a crack in some of that affect, by showing us that the heat is really there—that is, allowing us readers to see something the character hopes to withhold, even from herself. Alas, I hope this doesn’t sound too abstract.

  As for the two chapters, which I haven’t yet read, let me read them now so that they’re not further filed down.

  Btw, I’m never biased, except in the service of the novel.

  Yours,

  Daniel Halpern

  * * *

  9/23/12

  TO: Amy

  FROM: Dan

  Amy,

  So here are my notes. An overview letter first, followed by Chapter by Chapter notes. You should have the line edits on Monday, sent to your home via UPS—if that package doesn’t arrive Monday, do let me know right away. I asked my assistant to combine all the notes in a clearer handwriting than mine, although I did add some further notes from my last read-through, in red. I think everything is obvious.

  As I’ve been saying, I love this book—I feel I’ve lived it for months, so that the characters are MY people, the landscapes those I’VE inhabited. In many ways, it’s a profound novel, with so many intertwining themes—family, mother-daughter relationships, diverse philosophies of life, the intermix of cultures, the subtexts around the arrivals and departures.

  It’s just a beautiful book, and I hope the suggestions here help pull everything together.

  * * *

  9/23/12

  TO: Dan

  FROM: Amy

  You had said so little before this, other than that quite wonderful praise that I needed to go on when I was stymied by precisely some of the things you said more coherently than what I sensed. And until I received these notes, I frankly wondered if you were a bit too easy to please. But I see now that all along you were thinking about those ways the novel could better realize its potential. More on that later.

  I’m also grateful to get these notes now. It is not just that they provide a clearer path through brambles that grew over six years’ time. They provide a constructive use of my days. I spent the first two days after Bombo’s death crying non-stop, not sleeping or eating. I cried out every bit of moisture that was not absolutely needed to sustain life. I think I am down to 102 and look simply awful. I played videos of Bombo, went through all photos I had taken of him, and there are many. I could not speak to anyone. I finally rose from bed two days later, and went outside into the garden at Lou’s insistence. It was a beautiful day, and I planted flowers and pruned all the dead leaves—obvious metaphor, but I did not do it for its metaphoric value. I looked for meaning in an orange cat who came into the yard, headed straight for me and nudged me to pay attention and scratch it—as Bombo did. The cat stayed with me for the two hours I spent pruning, and when I was done, it abruptly left. And now for the past 18 hours, I have done nothing but either post in Facebook, cry and watch videos of Bombo, or watch Downton Abbey reruns on Netflix.

  So back to the notes. I heartily agree with most of the notes, questions, and suggestions, and those that I cannot say I agree with are simply those I don’t quite understand. Some of the remarks that were confusing to you were indeed related to changes later that were not made earlier.

  The obvious narrative flaws are ones I completely agree with—the major one about Violet’s character, those rather soap opera-ish ups and downs, the contrivances that obscure character, and the sins of narrative omission, some of which were parts once there and which I removed because they also headed toward detours and dead ends. I was humored by one remark you made about the Night Scholar. I recall my saying to you that there should be less sex and I had taken it out. And I thought you said the more the better—which made me think you had an appreciation for the prurient. So I put the Night Scholar back in. He is, by the way, based on actual research on the sexual practices among concubines, if one believes illustrations of the same and pornographic novels of the time. I am curious why you did not say he should be eliminated when you read the Byliner version. Were you being respectful of Walter’s position as the Byliner editor? Walter had a very, very light touch—only a very few number of line edits.

  Re: Forthright. As I mentioned in an earlier e-mail, I did think that early chapter of his could go, and that his meeting Violet as a boy be buried easily and quickly into Violet’s narrative. I wrote it early on to give myself a sense of the House. Later, I wrote more about the house in Violet’s earlier chapter, and so Forthright’s chapter became superfluous. But I left it in for fun, thinking you might find it interesting to see my imagination of a young boy’s near-defloration.

  I appreciate your comments on character. What has bothered me in the past is my tendency to make characters a bit too cartoony and stock, to go for easy but convoluted plot movement. It was a major flaw with my last book. In my head, it always starts off differently. I think what I should do in the future is dash out my story and send it to you in its natal flawed form so that I can get feedback very early on
before I keep wading through a muddle that becomes deeper and deeper. The chapters you found worked better narratively were those I wrote quickly—pretty much a straight shot.

  My plan now is, first, to get a new printer. I think I was afraid to look at what I had written and avoided doing so by having the excuse that my printer was broken. I am quite adept at avoidance, I’m afraid. I did it when Bombo was dying, when I knew something was seriously wrong. I would not look at the possibility, while also knowing it. Avoidance is different from ignorance.

  The second, which is simultaneous with the first, is to re-read the novel—gulp!—so I can then review your notes again with clearer appreciation and perspective, and not a foggy one of a hundred iterations.

  Third, I will outline a new narrative line using yours to indicate which of these questions might be answered in such and thus a way. And that, of course, would have parallels of character development and backdrop, be it historical or setting or societal norms, e.g., the way that mixed race children were viewed. I want to get rid of that episodic feel that lacks a stronger narrative pull.

  I think I mentioned before that I was stuck on Lulu’s chapter that comes later because it was stiff and she was so unlikeable. If you think she is unlikeable now, you should have seen her when you would have detested her and written her off completely. Perhaps by giving her a rest, I can see her again and see what I can do to make her more of a sympathetic character. However, she is so stuck in my head as that same character that I may find it proves difficult to rehabilitate her. Having her reactions to learning Violet is alive would likely contribute a bit. And sadly, my having lost Bombo would give me more to think about—what my feelings would be if I learned he was once again alive.

  I don’t know if I told you about my motivations for this story, and what I truly want to come out: It is my intense need to know of the influences of my character from the preceding generations of women. What of me did my mother pass on to me? That is an easier question to answer. But I am also pulled to learn more about my grandmother—her nature, personality, and attitude to opportunities and adversity—which were passed along, and given how different the circumstances of our lives were/are. I think there are bits and pieces that my mother never recognized because it was covered up. She had the photos, but never saw them as anything but photos of her mother. She believed her mother was raped. But was that a concocted story necessarily told in an era when a widow’s willingness to remarry was tantamount to digging up her dead husband’s grave? I have evidence that my grandmother had quite an influence in the household.

  So those are my initial reactions and the usual digressions.

  More to say later, I’m sure.

  Thanks again so much.

  A

  * * *

  9/28/12

  Hi Amy,

  Sorry to be slow in getting back on this one. As I said yesterday, I wanted to think about your response. So—first of all, start eating again. We can’t meet unless you’re north of 110. And I don’t mean Harlem. I hope you’ve kept in touch with the orange cat …

  Everything you say in your letter makes good sense—a good response to a lot of mostly minor things. As for the things you don’t understand, feel free to e-mail questions. And we can discuss when you’re here, when we meet. I figured, since you said so, that some of the confusion came from changes made later in the book that were not then addressed in the earlier chapters.

  For me, Violet’s character is the most important issue, because it IS her story and she still needs a lot of flesh. She is often just too vague, willing to swing in the wind. Unlike her mother, she doesn’t seem to know what she wants, making her motivations unclear.

  The ups and downs will disappear as the overriding narrative gets stronger and clearer. That repetition does detract from the impact of the writing and the various scene descriptions, which are spectacular.

  I’m going to reread the passage with the Night Scholar. I think it should be there, but just not so much of it. I agree the Forthright chapter can go.

  It is odd that you have a tendency to make the characters “cartoony and stock,” because mostly they are so not! Is this from over-revision, which has a planing effect that takes away the highs and lows of their personalities? Anyway, you’re aware of it. Maybe you should trust your first draft more, as you say. Not necessarily “dashing” it out, but not overthinking it, either.

  Your plan:

  Get a new printer! I can earmark the progress payment. I get the avoidance thing, but as Ali said, you can run but you can’t hide.

  It seems to me this is the best thing you can do, once you’ve printed out a clean copy on your new HP printer. Reading from beginning to end. Not sure if it would be more effective just to read it through, making some notes of your own, or to read the editorial notes as you go along.

  I like the idea of starting with an outline that addresses the new narrative arc. It seems the clearest way of moving forward in an organized way, with a skeleton to keep you on the path. Certainly this would help with character development and backdrop material (historical, societal, race, etc.). Getting away from anything that sounds episodic is going to help in many ways, and a stronger narrative pull will obviously do much to accomplish this.

  One thing I want to mention, and this is more complicated. Now that the book has gotten itself written, I’m wondering if your “intense need to know of the influences of my character from the preceding generations of women” is a useful concern at this point. Whether that material is really the narrative scaffolding that allowed you to write the book, but should now be discarded, now that the book has taken on its own life. Is it possible that the book you’ve written and the book you wish you’d written—“the true story of the gradual revelations and ambivalence of what I was finding and what I wanted to cling to of the family myth, and what of that I was overjoyed to learn as an illumination of who I am,” are at odds with each other? Or so it seems to me.

  Feel free to send me your “quick stabs” whenever you like, but not to the heart.

  Dan

  * * *

  9/28/12

  TO: Dan

  FROM: Amy

  Great. Enough of a response to delve into overall changes. Better-weighted characters but not equal page length.

  Good insight about getting away from the personal need-to-know that propelled the novel. I think it has made Violet have two motivations and not a clear one and resulting thus in a vague one. If I were to strip that away, there is still left my interest in identity, and of course, it brings in personal questions about identity: what we mean by identity, and what is set by circumstance, birth, what can be changed, how dramatic changes affect us, what we wind up believing as the way things happen in the world. How beliefs affect what we do, can beliefs be changed, what underlies them, what is impossible to undo, how does a dual identity imposed by society affect one’s perception of self. So that is on the psychological level, and the emotional level becomes a compass, an honest one, unreliable one, and a self-destructive one. How does age affect all of what we desire? What do we compromise, accept, give up, still hang on to in desire, yet know on a practical level is fruitless to pursue.

  * * *

  10/2/12

  TO: Dan

  FROM: Amy

  PS Non-miscellania—I keep asking myself how the hell I wrote such a long and bloated book. Too many pages. I think your printer printed out even more than I wrote. Plus, it formatted the pages differently—no para breaks. Huge margins at the bottom. I tried to fix the formatting and gave up.

  The story is so much better having V know early on that she has a father, who she thinks is dead and white, and then learns early on is Chinese and alive. But I am also trying to keep in control the new stuff, to not write more than I eliminate. Like a whole book on Chinese history of rebellions.

  The best part of this revision was throwing out whole chapters. So easy. When I cut them, I feel like I accomplished a lot. One keystroke, on
e delete button.

  Oh, one thing I should have asked about and then never did: Did you want me to write on the marked-up manuscript what changes I made? I started to do that, and it was impossible. I would have then had to write in those new sentences to replace blocks of stuff that was deleted. Tell me please that you did not need me to do that. The marked-up manuscript is a mess, as is. My scribbles of notes. Big slashes.

  * * *

  10/2/12

  TO: Amy

  FROM: Dan

  Wow, I guess so … I’ll get to mine later, and I do have a few. But I want to respond quickly to your question about the manuscript. I think the best thing to do is not worry about the hard copy, and just submit a clean copy, so I can read it again, fresh, from start to finish. I don’t need to see your edits, I’ll feel them as I read.

  * * *

  1/17/13

  TO: Dan

  FROM: Amy

  My mother, brother, and I took a boat from Spain to Tangier. The city has plenty of water. But I remember it had a desert, too. The tourist trappers there had imported some sand, a camel, a sleepy donkey and cobras, and set up a show by the fake souk to give us tourists the authentic bargaining-in-the-desert experience.