Jane Pek, THE VERIFIERS
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[0:58]Jane Peck is the author of the verifiers
[1:01]Jane was born and grew up in Singapore and holds a BA from Yale University
[1:05]A JD from the New York University School of Law and an MFA infection from Brooklyn College
[1:10]Her short fiction has appeared in the Brooklyn Review, Witness, Conjunctions, Literary Hub, and Twice in the Best American Short Stories
[1:16]She currently lives in New York where she works as a lawyer at a global investment company
[1:20]Welcome, Jane. Thank you so much for coming on moms. Don't have time to read books to discuss the verifiers
[1:26]An novel. Thank you for having me. It's great to be here
[1:30]Thanks for joining me. As I mentioned your agent is like has the best taste in books ever
[1:35]Julie Barrett the book group so how did you connect with her by the way?
[1:39]Yeah, so it's funny because I actually did it the really old school way
[1:43]Which is that I just submitted through the slush like I had zero connections to Julie
[1:49]As she had never talked like me I was like she's not even going to open my email
[1:55]But then she did and I sent it in like late one night and she wrote back the next morning
[2:00]And she was like oh, I really liked your pages
[2:02]Can you send me the whole thing and then she read it in like two days
[2:06]And then she was like, you know, I would love to represent you and then my hit like exploded
[2:13]It's like that whole that whole four days. It's just kind of like seared in my memory
[2:18]Like just that first time when someone
[2:21]Who didn't you really respect and it's like really up there in the publishing industry was like
[2:26]I think this could go somewhere and it was just a huge just kind of like boost and and validation and yeah
[2:33]But and then so I you know, I
[2:35]Like sometimes the the slush pal does work. Yes
[2:39]Well, wait
[2:40]So what was your life like before like set the scene for where you were when you press in on the email to her to begin
[2:47]How long had you been working on this book the verifier's how long had you been writing?
[2:51]Where were you living at the time like give me that set the whole scene for me? Okay, sure
[2:56]So I guess a bit of background is that um, so I'm actually a lawyer and I kind of went to law school
[3:02]And I worked as a mergers and acquisitions lawyer at a big New York law firm for
[3:08]Like I guess several years and then I've always wanted to write and I'd always been trying to write on the side
[3:14]But it was really hard because I didn't really have a community
[3:18]I had no sense of whether or not anything else writing was good
[3:21]if it would ever go anywhere and
[3:23]You know, I'm sure you know like writing is a very solitary process and there's a lot of self doubt involved
[3:29]And so that was totally happening to me. So I guess I kind of took a bit of a break from the law
[3:34]I
[3:35]Got an MFA at Brooklyn College
[3:38]and then that was like I think around that time
[3:41]I got that first idea for this novel and I started working on it
[3:45]I think right before I started the MFA during my time at the MFA while also working on short stories
[3:51]And then after I graduated from the MFA
[3:53]I went back to law because I started worrying about the flips. I which is financial security
[3:59]So I just ran right into the arms of the law
[4:03]And I'm now working as an in-house counsel at an investment company
[4:09]And so that was kind of where I was like I had an MFA under my belt
[4:12]I had a bunch of good writing friends and we did a writing group for a while
[4:17]I've been working on this novel for better points several years and
[4:22]It was like it actually took quite a few iterations because I think I just had
[4:27]Just as a first time as a person trying for the first time to write a novel
[4:30]I had issues with plotting I had issues with stakes with pacing
[4:35]And just kind of figuring things out like who my protagonist was that took me a long time
[4:41]And so at the time that I sent it off to Julie
[4:44]I had actually it was actually nine months after the first time that I had kind of started querying agents
[4:50]And then I realized that there was just like
[4:53]Like I that I just needed to rewrite the whole thing
[4:56]So then I pulled that process and then I spent the next nine months rewriting it
[5:00]And then I went out again and this time
[5:02]I got really lucky because Julie was I think one of the first few agents I contacted
[5:08]And then of course when she said she went to represent me, I was like okay
[5:11]So yeah, and did you then edit the manuscript again before she sent it out
[5:16]Or did she send it right out to publishers?
[5:18]So yeah, so we spent the summer editing it and then after that then then we went out
[5:24]We went out to to publishers with it
[5:27]Yeah, I mean it was actually quite a few ups and downs because I think
[5:37]I mean, you know, like I had never I had probably seriously never seriously mentioned that
[5:42]I would end up with Julie Paris my agent
[5:44]And then we went out and then I think at the time the way that the manuscript was
[5:49]I think a lot of editors actually felt like it needed to be more finished
[5:53]Like it kind of ended on too much of a cliffhanger
[5:56]I'm not sure if I had the chance to read it, but it does still an on a cliffhanger
[6:00]But it was much more cliffhangery originally and everyone was like
[6:05]But then again, I think I think we really lucked out in that there was an editor at vintage
[6:11]Cano and a co-offman who is now my editor and it's absolutely wonderful as well
[6:15]And she just loved the book and she loved the characters and she loved the story
[6:19]I love everything about it
[6:21]And so she actually worked with me to edit the manuscript before she officially bought it
[6:26]And so that's how I ended up eventually selling the book
[6:30]Yeah, and it's been great
[6:31]And I think just the fact that she was willing to just kind of take that chance
[6:35]Like I think both Julie and Anna were just willing to take that chance on me and that has been you know
[6:40]Just like it's I'm very grateful. Oh my gosh
[6:44]So now not only do you have your book, but you also just got reviewed in the New York Times
[6:51]Oh my gosh, you do you have a hard copy, right?
[6:54]You already think yeah, I like ran out to get
[6:58]Wow, so what did that feel like after all this time and effort and whatever and now look at this
[7:04]It's like this is like hitting the literary jackpot
[7:07]I know I mean, it's yeah, it's it's pretty amazing
[7:11]And it's also funny because I feel like you know
[7:14]There will be like my my friends who do know that I've written a book
[7:17]But then there will be like oh my gosh, I just saw it, you know in like the New York Times
[7:22]And then yeah, I mean it is it is pretty incredible and I think as someone who
[7:27]Mean I you know, I do have an MFA and at this point
[7:30]I do know people some few people in publishing and everything
[7:34]But I'm not part of that industry
[7:36]And so I'm kind of like coming at it from the outside and and so you know
[7:41]It's just I think a lot of it is just very new and exciting and like oh this is how this is done
[7:48]And you know this is how that happens and yeah
[7:50]I mean definitely getting the New York Times review was yeah, I mean it was kind of surprised
[7:55]That it happened in the end and so I was just like super excited when it came out
[8:01]Well, I feel like everybody is coming in new to the
[8:04]Publishing in the shape, you know because new books are coming out all the time. I feel like it's one of the most fluid
[8:09]Places right new books come in new authors come in new like it's just
[8:13]I remember when I was growing up and I was debating where to live like after college or something like that
[8:17]My mother was like, you know a good place to live is always Washington DC because you know that people are always coming and going
[8:22]So, you know, you can never it's not too entrenched right? You can always like come in and out
[8:27]So I feel like it's almost the same with publishing
[8:29]But let's talk about your book more because all right
[8:32]I'm a little nervous about veracity as a concept
[8:37]Tell listeners about the pull what your book is about how you came up with all of this stuff
[8:43]And if you yourself have a mystery a mystery writer sort of alter ego passion for reading mysteries yourself like how this whole
[8:52]Piece of it came about sure
[8:54]So I guess the verifier is is on one level a modern mystery that kind of
[9:00]Takes a 21st century lens in terms of looking at how technology how we use technology today in our personal and social lives
[9:08]And how that affects the choices that we make and how we live our lives
[9:13]And I do this through
[9:15]Specifically online dating and our protagonist Claudia who is a young gay Asian American
[9:24]Who isn't out to her mother but otherwise comfortable with her sexuality
[9:29]Lucks into her job as a detective at an online dating detective agency
[9:34]Where her job is to figure out if the people who are clients meet online who have all these great photos and these wonderful hobbies and work
[9:42]At you know some prestigious job if they are really who they say they are and it's a bit whimsical because it's a bit of a
[9:50]Take on you know the classic detective agency stories
[9:53]But I also wanted to kind of make it like play around with the tropes of the genre
[10:00]And I think this comes out a bit because Claudia herself is a big murder mystery fan and so she's
[10:05]always referencing this fictional detective series that she loves in terms of trying to solve her own
[10:11]mysteries. And so eventually we find out that a client ends up dead and Claudia decides to go
[10:16]investigate on her own because she's like, I know how to investigate these things. I read lots
[10:20]of murder mysteries. And she like stumbles into a bigger conspiracy that raises questions around
[10:29]how we as a society use technology and how they might shape our choices. At the same time,
[10:34]there's also an Asian American immigrant family story in there because Claudia is at once
[10:40]close and also conflicted with her family. She has two older siblings and a mother who has
[10:46]written expectations of all of them and they have a complicated history in terms of how they came
[10:52]to the US and the different dynamics between the four of them. And so part of I think the story is
[10:58]as much an exploration of this one specific family and how they deal with their problems and
[11:04]their choices as much as it is an exploration of how we use technology today and how we meet
[11:11]and relate to people in today's digital world. It's also about how to keep your dry cleaning
[11:18]business. That's one way that she figures out some important clues are just going to all
[11:28]the dry cleaners near where the sort of target lives. And I was thinking to myself, oh my gosh, would
[11:35]my dry cleaner just give up all my information just like that, printing out receipts for anybody who
[11:40]asked. But then it's so smart too. I mean, anyway, I need to put up some guardrails I think in my
[11:46]paper. How did you come? How did you think about some of the little details that you put in? How
[11:53]did you come up with that? Is it from books you read or shows or just your crazy imagination?
[12:00]I mean, the dry cleaning thing had probably been it had just been my own imagination. I had
[12:06]probably just onto the dry cleaner at some point and saw the receipt that they printed out and saw
[12:09]how I had my name on it. I would say some mix. I mean, I think I think a lot of the little things
[12:16]that Claudia does is because I mean, I guess at some point I realize that we do actually trust
[12:23]other people a lot, which is a good thing. And I think in today's world, we have gotten very used
[12:29]to putting out large amounts of information about ourselves out there in various forums. And I
[12:36]do think it's easy at the margins to get information in that way because there's just so much of
[12:41]that. I think kind of on a murder mystery kind of set up and struck to level. I did grow up reading
[12:48]a lot of the classic murder mysteries and which I referenced shamelessly in the book as well.
[12:54]Sherlock Holmes and Agatha Christie. I think Agatha Christie and Poirot was probably my biggest influence
[13:00]then when I got a bit older, I did also read some other series. And I always loved genre, although
[13:08]I think, to be honest, like mysteries actually not my first love, I think that would be like
[13:13]fantasy and science fiction. And I think at a certain point, the verifies that maybe being a bit more
[13:19]futuristic than it ended up, but then just because of when I was writing the book through the 2010s
[13:24]and technology was just developing so quickly. And now we have all these deep fakes and, you know,
[13:29]like, kind of all the things around how we might have been influenced in terms of elections.
[13:35]And so I realized that this is actually happening. And I think also in my job as a lawyer,
[13:40]I do look at kind of those legal and regulatory implications of data collection and analysis and
[13:47]consumer protection laws and all that. And so I also put some of that into the novel because on
[13:53]various levels, it is happening that, you know, we are relying a lot on the technologies that we use,
[14:00]which is also definitely a good thing because, I mean, for instance, it allows you and me to talk
[14:06]today pretty seamlessly. But then it's something that we have come to take for granted. And so I
[14:11]kind of wanted to like, like pull back the curtain a bit and ask, you know, is there something
[14:16]that we're comfortable with? And how should we think about this going forward as these technologies
[14:22]actually get better predicting our behaviors? Like, is this a good thing or is there something
[14:27]we need to think about? And I don't, I don't really want to, you know, really have any answers
[14:32]and say, this is good or this is bad or right or wrong. But I think I just wanted to raise these
[14:37]questions out there because these are things that I've been thinking about for myself as well.
[14:41]Wow. Is there anything you would do differently to protect yourself? Like, what should I do
[14:46]that I'm not doing now? I mean, so one thing that I think I try not to do is to link all of my
[14:54]because they always say you can sign in with Google or you can sign in with Facebook.
[14:58]And I kind of don't do that. The other thing is, I mean, I'm actually not terribly on social media.
[15:03]I did basically get on it because of the book promotion and I was like, oh, this is important.
[15:08]But yeah, otherwise it's just kind of thinking about, you know, what, what I would share online
[15:14]and what other forum it could potentially end up in. I mean, but I will say, I mean, on another note,
[15:20]you know, I'm also not saying that like online dating is better or anything. And I actually
[15:25]did do online dating several years ago. And that was also what was the idea for the original premise
[15:31]of it, which was that I was meeting a lot of people and I actually had a very positive experience.
[15:36]Like, I met smart, interesting people who I wouldn't have met otherwise being just an
[15:42]overworked lawyer with not social life. Then instead of meeting artists and architects and people
[15:48]in theater and just people who are like out there in New York, who I might walk by on the street,
[15:54]but never otherwise get to know. And even when we didn't have a romantic connection, I always
[16:00]enjoyed the conversations and just finding out more about these people. But then there's always
[16:04]said that ground question like how much of this is true. And I think that question actually operates
[16:11]on two levels because it's are they consciously lying to you. But then the other thing is,
[16:16]I think in online dating and also in today's world where we so much of how we present ourselves
[16:23]is through profiles that we put together. The question kind of becomes, how well do you know yourself?
[16:29]You might say that you're looking for something, but are you really looking for something or
[16:34]you just feel like you should look for that thing? And so you say that you do. And so that was kind
[16:39]of how I came up with that idea. What if there was this online dating detective agency? And they
[16:44]were looking into whether people were lying or not. But then that second layer of it is what
[16:51]are these tech companies themselves are able to figure out what we want better than what we think we want.
[16:57]And then what happens here. Well, hopefully we're not there yet.
[17:05]You know, a friend of mine was just telling me that when she was on the dating apps,
[17:10]like she just didn't feel like she did a good good enough job. So she hired someone who did
[17:14]it for her. She hired someone to flirt for her, to put the right picture. She did a photo shoot.
[17:21]Like it's a business. It's like, I didn't know that. I did not know that.
[17:24]I think I had known that there were people who could coach you to kind of maximize your online
[17:30]dating. I don't know if I knew specifically that you could hire, but that's a really good idea.
[17:35]I mean, if I ever do a sequel, you know that. Well, there you go. I'll put you in touch with this
[17:39]friend of mine. Yeah. Turns out she met someone on the one profile that she was doing herself.
[17:45]Oh, that's so interesting. Yeah, which makes me believe in, I don't know,
[17:49]fake authenticity, all the good. But anyway, that's a really interesting story.
[17:55]Okay. So aside from taking my idea for your second book, what else? What else is in your future?
[18:00]What are you working on? Are you, you know, you must be inundated with the book promotion and the
[18:05]job and all the rest. But what are you writing? Oh, my gosh. Yeah. So, so yeah, the book promotion
[18:11]has been, I mean, the last couple of months have been pretty busy, but I think it's kind of starting
[18:16]to die down a bit now, which is also nice. And so I guess in terms of things that I'm working on,
[18:22]I do have ideas for more verifier's books. So, you know, I'm kind of like figuring out,
[18:27]like there are directions in which I would like the stories to go. For instance, I think,
[18:33]you know, if there were to be a second book, I feel like the first book kind of played on
[18:36]tropes of the murder mystery. And it would be fun if the second book played on the tropes of the
[18:40]spy thriller, so Marla, John, the car, and then you know, kind of making a bit of fun at James Bond,
[18:47]which I feel like it's also easy to make fun of. And then otherwise, I had been working on,
[18:53]you know, in the, because it takes a long time for a book to come out. So while this book was in
[18:57]the process of coming, I had started working on a book that's more science fiction-y, but that
[19:02]also looks into these questions of how technology figures into our lives. And, you know, what
[19:08]it means to be human in an age of like virtual reality and AI and everything. And then otherwise,
[19:14]you know, I always have kind of a short story, kind of going somewhere. It takes me a really,
[19:19]like I probably write one short story a year. And, but so, you know, kind of like go back to that
[19:24]every now and then. And then in your spare time, you bike. I see like, oh, you're biking.
[19:29]I do. Yeah, I mean, my protagonist is a serious biker on the city. And I am definitely like,
[19:36]I think one of the things I actually love most about New York is being able to cycle everywhere
[19:41]when the weather is corporate, which is, you know, not super often, but I feel like it's a great
[19:46]way to see the city. And it's like, I always feel like I never feel so alive as when I'm cycling
[19:53]in New York traffic. I was like, anything could happen. You know, I'm like in the car being like,
[19:58]what are these bikers doing? They have to be so.
[20:00]Careful.
[20:01]I know.
[20:02]Yeah.
[20:03]Careful.
[20:04]Oh my gosh.
[20:05]Oh my gosh.
[20:06]I actually just read this other book this morning called Delphine Jones takes a chance and
[20:10]the mother was killed early on while riding a bike.
[20:12]So now I'm like so worried for you by this.
[20:14]Oh my gosh.
[20:15]It's just death.
[20:16]It's ridiculous.
[20:17]Anyway, I have to get out of my novel.
[20:18]That's weird.
[20:19]That's ridiculous.
[20:20]Okay.
[20:21]Okay.
[20:22]What advice would you have for aspiring authors?
[20:24]So I think a few things that have been really helpful for me.
[20:28]And I think one is that you do have to put in the time at the end of the day.
[20:33]And it's easy to think that, oh, I'm writing every day, but if you actually look at
[20:39]how much you're writing, like I think, especially with a novel, it's such a big project.
[20:45]And it can feel really daunting, but if you do put in the time, you will eventually get
[20:49]to the end.
[20:50]I mean, it's another question of how much work you need to do to revise it.
[20:54]You need that initial step, like, you just need to put in the time and be an accept
[20:59]that it's a marathon, not a sprint.
[21:02]And so it just, it takes a long time for some people.
[21:05]I think it takes less time.
[21:06]But for me, personally, it takes a lot of time.
[21:09]I think something else is, and this is what I think I have also come to learn along
[21:15]the ways to write something that you feel like only you could write.
[21:19]And it doesn't mean that it has to be autobiographical or anything.
[21:23]But it's just something, whether it's a perspective or an experience or a take, like
[21:28]the way that you view the world, that you feel like is kind of unique to you.
[21:35]And I feel like people will also respond to that.
[21:37]And they will feel like, oh, this is something special and this is something that I want
[21:41]to read.
[21:42]And then I think, I think the third thing is that it's also helpful to have perspective
[21:46]because I think it's very easy to get sucked into kind of just that literary world.
[21:51]And like you say, it's so fluid and there's always new people coming in and going out
[21:56]and things that are happening.
[21:57]And it can feel like all these things are happening, except like happening for you.
[22:04]And I think it's helpful.
[22:06]It's actually being helpful for me to have a job outside of writing.
[22:11]Because I can never like figure out that much of an novel when I'm like, oh my God, I have
[22:16]a meeting in two hours and I have to write this email.
[22:19]And while I might, you know, sometimes feel like, you know, I wish I had more time to write,
[22:23]I'm also grateful for the fact that it does just anchor you, your like, you know, like,
[22:27]you have your writing, but the world goes on outside of it.
[22:30]And so you do your best, but, you know, at the end of the day, the world will still go
[22:34]on to a good point.
[22:37]I feel like I always have these ideas and I'm like, I shouldn't do this.
[22:41]But what I really want to do is this, but you know, I'm like, you know, I just do the
[22:45]thing you really want to do.
[22:46]Right?
[22:47]Yeah.
[22:48]Because it always turns out better than the thing you're doing for some other reason.
[22:51]Even if it's not like the end result you want, like it'll get you there in some other
[22:54]way.
[22:55]That's my point.
[22:56]And I hope you're in peace of advice for the day myself.
[22:58]And I think also if you're doing what you really want, that's your motivation, cause it's
[23:03]such a long, you know, it takes so long, it's like you have to really want to do this.
[23:06]Or at some point, it would just kind of like, you're like, you know, fall off.
[23:11]Yeah.
[23:12]Amazing.
[23:13]Well Jane, it's so nice chatting with you.
[23:14]I thank you for coming on.
[23:15]Mom's time to read books.
[23:17]Congratulations.
[23:18]I'm excited for more verifiers or whatever you have obviously, you know, poking fun at
[23:24]every genre there is, you know, I'll shoot in for the like romance fantasy.
[23:28]That's a good one.
[23:30]Yeah.
[23:31]Yeah.
[23:32]I mean, thank you so much for chatting with me this morning.
[23:34]You know, I really appreciate you taking the time as well on your end.
[23:37]Maybe we'll meet while you're biking and I'm, you know, not, yeah, I'll miss you on the
[23:43]end.
[23:44]And I'll be like careful.
[23:45]Oh my god, that crazy cyclist.
[23:47]Yeah.
[23:48]Okay.
[23:49]All right.
[23:50]I'll see you.
[23:51]Have a good morning.
[23:52]Have a good morning.
[23:53]Okay.
[23:54]Bye.
[23:55]Bye.
[23:56]Thanks for listening to this episode of Mom's Don't Have Time to Read Books.
[23:59]Don't forget to follow me on Instagram, at Zebioans and at Mom's Don't Have Time to Read
[24:04]Books.
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[24:11]Thanks so much to Steve and Ryan.
[24:13]Check Texture Sound for the Sound Editing.
[24:15]And thank you to Morning Moon Productions for providing this fantastic intro and outro music.