Authors at Home: 5 Questions with Aimee Liu, Glorious Boy
By: Stephanie Elliot
Tags: Historical Fiction, Aimee Liu, Glorious Boy, The Reading Lists, Wwii Fiction

This week’s spotlight Q&A is with Aimee Liu, author of the new WWII historical novel, Glorious Boy, which Red Hen Press published May 12, 2020. Pico Iyer called the book “The most memorable and original novel I’ve read in ages.”

What are you currently reading, watching, listening to?

I recently finished the outstanding novel by Chigozie Obioma, The Fishermen. I’ve never read a book that weaves lore and superstition so seamlessly into plot, motivating the characters to irrational behavior that also makes perfect sense. It’s a heartbreaking and beautiful work.

I’ve just started Accidentals by Susan Gaines, the first book I’ve ever read with an ornithologist as narrator. It’s a family saga set in Uruguay, but its real focus is the linkage between politics and the environment. It’s beautifully written and intriguingly complex.

Aimee Liu in her garden

I’m also eager to plunge into the pile of new books on my bedside table, which include Jennifer Steil’s Exile Music, Kept Animals by Kate Milliken, and Coffee by Dinah Lenney.

As for watching, my husband and I recently inhaled the series Call My Agent! on Netflix. It’s a French series about a wonderfully idiosyncratic talent agency in Paris, each episode featuring a major talent, such as Isabelle Huppert or Juliette Binoche. The casting of this show is pitch perfect and the balance of soul and silliness sublime. I call it the Great COVID Escape Hatch.

Now, as we eagerly await the next season of Call My Agent! we’ve fallen back into Billions, which is as mesmerizing as rats chasing each other in a circular maze.

2. How are you spending your days in quarantine, other than writing? Cooking, exercising, reading/writing?

Because I have a new novel out, I’ve almost been too busy to notice any difference in quarantine. Most of my time has been consumed by the changes to my launch schedule, taking the book tour online, learning new social media platforms, etc. I’m afraid I wouldn’t be getting much writing done right now anyway.

I am grateful to be able to get out and walk. My release mechanism is photography. Ever since I started posting pictures on Instagram last fall, I’ve made a game of “collecting” images every day on my walks around Venice. Then at night, after dinner, I unwind by going through the pictures, selecting and tinkering with the best of them. I choose one to post almost every day and lately I’ve started titling them with a single word that reflects how I’m feeling about the pandemic. Enclosed. Absence. Beware. Transformation. I try to make the photographs look as much as possible like paintings, and I tag them #PhoPaintings or #PhotoPaintings. The best part of this is that I’ve discovered a community of writer/Instagrammers whose work I admire both on the page and onscreen. Sven Birkerts, Dinah Lenney, Sandra Tsing Loh, Janet Sternburg, and Elizabeth Rosner are all part of this magical “club” of visual and verbal alchemists.

3. What’s been the biggest challenge — and most surprising reward — for you while sheltering at home?

My answer would be very different if I didn’t have a new novel right now, but it took me 17 years to bring this book to the world, and it’s challenging, to say the least, to try to launch it without leaving my office. We were planning an extensive book tour with store readings, author lunches, book festivals, and book group visits when COVID-19 struck. Some of these have shifted online, and the good news is that geography is no obstacle to attending a virtual event. However, most of the platforms used for these events don’t allow me to see the audience, so it’s no substitute for meeting readers, signing their books as we chat, and having a human exchange. I especially miss the opportunity to catch up with old friends at readings, going out for a meal afterward, and hugging. I really miss hugging — especially hugging my sons, who live nearby but are scrupulous about social distancing.

The most surprising reward is the time spent with my husband. Even though we normally both work at home, the daily flow of errands and outings has now stopped, which means we’re together all day every day for every meal and every news flash. This has created a different rhythm to our life as we meet in the middle of our house or yard, read the paper together, walk the neighborhood together. There’s been more companionship between us as our rhythm has slowed over the past two months. This has gentled our relationship in a wonderful way. I know that all this togetherness has had the opposite effect for too many other couples, so I feel profoundly grateful that this is our experience.

4. Would you please describe Glorious Boy in one sentence?

Glorious Boy is a tale of war and devotion, longing and loss, and the power of love to prevail

when a mysteriously mute little boy goes missing on a remote Asian island amid the chaos of World War II.

5. Why do you think Glorious Boy will particularly resonate with readers during this pandemic?

Like the characters in Glorious Boy, all of us are separated from members of our families right now. We may not have lost contact with a beloved four-year-old, but we can’t visit grandparents in nursing homes, sons and daughters in distant cities. Many are stranded on the other side of the globe, officially prohibited from crossing borders or too afraid to risk traveling to rejoin loved ones. And all of us are struggling to function despite the constant specter of disaster that COVID, like war, represents. In such a situation it’s easy to become a catastrophist, believing that this is the worst of all possible times, that we’re doomed by current circumstances. So I think it’s important to read fiction that reminds us of our inherent power to prevail, especially the power that love and determination confer on us to connect and work together to overcome even obstacles that seem insurmountable in the moment.

Red Hen Press

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Visit her website at www.aimeeliu.net

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AimeeLiuBooks

Twitter: https://twitter.com/aimee_liu

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/aimeeeliu/