How can we retell the story of America? In the United States of Amnesia, why does the Western celebrate cowboys but not all people who built this country? What does a Chinese-American hero look like in the 21st Century?

Tom Lin is an American writer whose 2021 debut novel The Thousand Crimes of Ming Tsu chronicles the story of a Chinese American outlaw seeking revenge during America's railroad boom. The book won the 2022 Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction, making Lin the youngest Carnegie winner in the prize’s history. Tom Lin is currently pursuing an English doctorate at the University of California Davis.

THE CREATIVE PROCESS

I think The Thousand Crimes of Ming Tsu is an act of increasing representation, which I feel has become sort of a contentious word. In the US, I observed this growing awareness of representation of historically marginalized populations in fiction storytellers introducing these more diverse casts, but also on the other side, people are questioning this kind of "representation." Like there's the issue of throwing in characters for the sake of representation and superficial political correctness, etc. So as someone in the literary world, in the US, what do you think of the direction that representation and diversity in fiction are going in right now? 

TOM LIN

When I was growing up, it was all about representation. I think that was the thing that was being championed: we need more people of color in books, movies, across all media. And then I think what we saw was an extremely cynical and capitalistic-minded ruthless optimization of that, where someone said: Oh, you want representation? Then we'll just throw in token people of color into projects. And then we'll check that box. And I think that became so prevalent in so many pieces of media that that became what we thought of as representation. I think it's a salvageable concept because, I mean, when I encountered books growing up, they were all with white people in them. Front to back, start to finish. It was just white characters. And so when I started writing stories of my own in school as a middle schooler they - surprise - they had white people in them, right? There were just white people talking about other white people. I went to public school in Queens. I knew very few white people. And so I think what representation does at its best is that it informs the boundaries of possibility. By seeing yourself represented in media, you become able to imagine your own stories transpiring in media and being made available for everybody else to witness.

THE CREATIVE PROCESS

The story you tell portrays a world that was certainly not part of my American history books. So I'm wondering about your research process because even finding the record of that time that includes Chinese and Chinese Americans is difficult. So what were you surprised about in your research process and how did that inspire some scenes from your book

LIN

And so I did research to avoid writing. And what I would do is I would take these drives out into the desert, and I'd take notes. I went along the route of the Transcontinental Railroad east to west, west to east a bunch of times. And I went to all these history books and all these historical recovery projects that are being run.

There's the project of Chinese and America and all these history books and synthesizing this sense of being in a place and time where I was not. And I think some of the things and some of the experiences that I felt while doing that research, I felt was necessary to preserve in the text because I think the text is always produced out of confluence with the body.

And so in order to portray something in text, you have to pass it through the body and through the senses. And as a result, it was really important for me to go to these places and have that physical experience with the body in order that I would be able to put it down in the book and have it be true.

Images courtesy of Little, Brown and Company & Tom Lin

This interview was conducted by Mia Funk and Henie Zhang with the participation of collaborating universities and students. Associate Interviews Producer on this episode was Henie Zhang.

Mia Funk is an artist, interviewer and founder of The Creative Process & One Planet Podcast (Conversations about Climate Change & Environmental Solutions).