Speaking of mothers, do you get a hard time from relatives or close friends who think they see themselves in your books? Any accusations of personal secrets being told or confidences betrayed?
I did, at one point. One relative felt that the story of my grandmother should not have been revealed. My grandmother was the woman (in The Kitchen God's Wife) who had been raped, forced to be a concubine, and finally killed herself. My mother, though, got equally angry at the relative and said, "For so many years, I carried this shame on my back, and my mother suffered, because she couldn't say anything to anybody." And she said, "It's not too late; tell the world, tell the world what happened to her." And I take her mandate to be the one that is in my heart, the one that I should follow.
In "The Hundred Secret Senses," you draw much more on the world of the spirit than in your previous books. Was that a theme that you had always wanted to tackle as a writer, or did more personal experiences compel you to address it?
It's been a part of my life for at least the past 20 years. I've had a lot of death in my life, of people who have been close to me. So I've long thought about how life is influenced by death, how it influences what you believe in and what you look for. Yes, I think I was pushed in a way to write this book by certain spirits -- the yin people -- in my life. They've always been there, I wouldn't say to help, but to kick me in the ass to write.
Yin people?
Yin people is the term Kwan uses, because "ghosts" is politically incorrect. People have such terrible assumptions about ghosts -- you know, phantoms that haunt you, that make you scared, that turn the house upside down. Yin people are not in our living presence but are around, and kind of guide you to insights. Like in Las Vegas when the bells go off, telling you you've hit the jackpot. Yin people ring the bells, saying, "Pay attention." And you say, "Oh, I see now." Yet I'm a fairly skeptical person. I'm educated, I'm reasonably sane, and I know that this subject is fodder for ridicule.
Does that worry you?
To write the book, I had to put that aside. As with any book. I go through the anxiety, "What will people think of me for writing something like this?" But ultimately, I have to write what I have to write about, including the question of life continuing beyond our ordinary senses.
You have a very optimistic way of looking at life and death. But these concerns have also been a cause for deep distress in your life, including bouts with serious depression.
Some of it is probably biochemical, but I think it's also in my family tree. I mean, my grandmother killed herself; she certainly had depression in her life. And anyone, like my mother, who witnessed her own mother killing herself, is going to be prone to the same disease. My own father died of a brain tumor when I was 14. My brother died of the same disease. I didn't do anything about it for a long time, because, like many people, I worried about altering my psyche with drugs. As a writer, I was especially concerned with that. A lot of writers believe that the trauma and the angst that you feel is an essential part of the craft.
And depression is still not respectable -- especially taking medication for it.
People look at me as this very, I don't know, Confucius-like wise person -- which I'm not. They don't see all the shit that I've been through (laughs). And going back to the question of being a role model, well, my life hasn't been perfect. I needed help.
What do you take?
Zoloft. I don't think it's made me a Pollyanna. I can still get angry and upset, but I don't fall into the abyss. I'm grateful that I have some traction now. It doesn't change essentially who you are, but it fixes things just the way insulin does for people with diabetes.
Next page: The genesis of Kwan