We are very happy today to share an interview from Cara Chow, author of Bitter Melon. Jessica asked Cara some questions about her writing her novel, and here they are for your reading pleasure!
Jessica: What was your biggest factor in inspiration for Bitter Melon?
Cara: My mom. For those who have read Bitter Melon, that may sound like a back-handed compliment, but I don’t mean it that way. Though I have a very positive relationship with my mother today, we struggled a lot when I was a teen. My mother wanted me to be the best, and her way of motivating me was by being very hard on me. Unfortunately, I was a sensitive kid, so I took my mother’s words and actions personally. This not only strained our relationship for many years, but it also affected my confidence and self-image well into my twenties. As I got older, I felt compelled to understand how we became the people we became and how our relationship had gotten so bad in my teens. Bitter Melon, in part, reflects that journey of understanding.
My mother was also a source of inspiration because she really supported my writing. Not only did she supply me with good cultural information, she was also an endless source of encouragement. Many times she said to me, “There are two things I want for you. I want you to have a baby someday, and I want you to finish and publish your book.” She respected my writing so much that she could mention it in the same sentence as a baby. Many times she flew down from San Francisco to my home So Cal to babysit my son for weeks at a time so that I could do revisions for my editor.
Jessica: How often did you find yourself drawing real life experiences into the book?
Cara: All the time. Emotionally, I drew upon the tumultuous feelings I had as a teen, like the times I was upset with my mom, or the crushes I had on boys. Geographically, the book is set where I grew up, so I was constantly running the mental version of Google Earth as I plotted each of Frances’s moves. I also drew on real events, like the Loma Prieta earthquake and the publication of the Newsweek article “Asian-American Whiz Kids.”
Jessica: Who was your favorite character to write?
Cara: I loved writing all of my characters, but perhaps my most fun character is Nellie. I love her loud, friendly voice, her Afro perm, and her hot pink, leopard jogging suit. I love her inability to be subtle and sophisticated, e.g. the way she whistles for Theresa after she delivers her speech, and the way she nods and winks as she hints to Frances—in Gracie’s presence—that she is keeping Frances’s secrets. What makes her so frustrating and embarrassing is also what makes her so lovable.
Jessica: What is your least favorite part of writing in general?
Cara: When I’m feeling stuck, uninspired, and sleepy. Suddenly, running errands, baking banana bread, and surfing the internet become very urgent matters I must attend to right away!
Jessica: Are any of your characters based off real people in your life?
Cara: All my characters are composites of various people, real and imagined. For example, Ms. Taylor was inspired by my own high school speech coach, Mrs. Willson, but if the two were standing next to each other, they would not resemble each other much. Ms. Taylor is in her late twenties and is single, where
Frances' whole life has been mapped out for her. She needs to get good grades, go to Berkeley and become a doctor so she can help out her mother. Frances doesn't question her path until she ends up in a speech class and finds that she's a natural at debate and public speaking. She knows she should drop the class but finds she doesn't want to. She ends up hiding this from her mother who considers speech 'fluff'. Along the way Frances starts to question what she wants out of life even if that disrupts her mother's ambitions for her. Bitter Melon is an incredible tale that is sure to inspire readers.
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I’ve been trying to figure out how to separate my personal reaction to Cara Chow’s Bitter Melon from the book itself and actually, you know, review it. I’m not sure I’m capable of this, though, because the book includes practically every single pet peeve of mine concerning Asian-American YA literature. But the fact that I still think the writing is quite good, despite the plot, counts for something, right?
Frances Ching has been raised by a single mother who emigrated from Hong Kong and sacrificed almost everything so that Frances can get into UC Berkeley, go to medical school, become a doctor, and take care of Mrs. Ching. This is not Frances’s goal—she’s not sure what she really wants to do—but it is a path she was willing to follow, believing it a better option than uncertainty and not wanting to incur any more of her mother’s wrath.
It is not until her senior year of high school, when Frances is mistakenly enrolled in a speech class, that she begins to rebel against her mother. First by not admitting that she is taking speech instead of calculus (because, her mother says, she needs to take calculus to get into Berkeley), then lying to keep her speech competitions a secret and to pursue her feelings for Derek, a guy she meets at her first competition. Her accomplice is Theresa, daughter of her mother’s best friend and a classmate at school—a girl Frances has never liked. Until they’re in speech class together and Frances realizes that Theresa is not as bad as she thought, and being friends with Theresa is very convenient.
Theresa is a paragon to Frances’s mother, who thinks Theresa is what all Chinese daughters should be like and Frances will never be. Frances’s mother is not shy about sharing her opinion on this and shaming Frances, either. This isn’t just putting down herself and Frances as false modesty while interacting with others. As Ari points out in her review, this is full on verbal abuse, in public and in private, and sometimes physical abuse, too. So when Frances starts putting her own interests and desires ahead of her mother’s, you know a confrontation is coming and the results won’t be pretty.
Let’s get my thoughts about the plot out of the way first: it’s nothing new, but simply takes the stereotypical Asian-American storyline to an extreme + speech. I mean, you’ve got
- a first generation/second generation conflict between parent and child
- as well as an extremely demanding parent with high academic expectations for their child
- and therefore the parent won’t let their child do anything but schoolwork and perhaps some extracurricular activities that would look good on a college application*
- (because to the parent, it’s admission to an elite university or bust)
- so the child must go to extreme lengths to lie and hide things from the parent
- not to mention the mother could win an Asian parent guilt trip competition, which is saying something.
Moving on, the novel is set in 1989-1990 San Francisco, and I’m not sure this is completely necessary. The time period is really only evident when 1) the earthquake strikes and 2) you realize the main reason Frances can get away with some of what she does is because there are no cell phones, computers, etc. Which I found problematic because if a story is set in the past, I want atmosphere and I want there to be a reason for the setting besides giving characters a somewhat easier way of disobeying their parents. And outside of Frances and her mother, I never got a real sense of the other characters. Although they are the two most i
Oh this sounds like a great read. So many kids have their paths mapped out for them and never complain. I just always wondered why a person can't just have it all? Why does anyone have to chose just one thing to do with their lives?