Susie Luo, PAPER NAMES: A Novel
[0:02]Hi, I'm Zippy Owens, and you're listening to moms don't have time to read books.
[0:06]This 30-minute podcast features a new author interviewed by me every single day, 365 days
[0:12]a year for about 30 minutes.
[0:15]I am also the publisher for Zippy Books, which publishes 12 books a year in fiction and
[0:21]memoir.
[0:22]Our books are already out now.
[0:23]You can check it out on zippybooks.com.
[0:26]And we have a magazine called Zippy Mag, where we have lots of wonderful essays and
[0:30]lifestyle features.
[0:31]That's at zippymag.com.
[0:33]We have classes, it's a B-Classist.com.
[0:36]And I recently opened a book store in LA called Zippy's Bookshop at 1113 Montana Avenue
[0:43]at 11th Street in San Monica.
[0:45]I hope that you are able to enjoy some of our other offerings.
[0:49]But this here podcast is the basis of all of it and started in 2018.
[0:54]And no matter what I do, this is basically my favorite thing.
[0:57]Enjoy.
[1:03]Susie Luo is the author of Paper Names, a novel.
[1:07]Susie is a writer based in New York.
[1:09]She graduated from the University of Pennsylvania and Cornell Law School.
[1:12]She wrote at night while working as an investment banker at Goldman Sachs.
[1:16]Paper Names is her first book.
[1:18]Welcome Susie.
[1:19]Thanks so much for coming on momstone.
[1:20]I have time to read books to discuss paper names.
[1:22]Of course, I'm so excited to be here.
[1:24]I love this because here I am on the upper east side, reading about the Rosewood on
[1:28]the upper west side and like the trips to the Hamptons and all of that.
[1:33]This is really wonderful.
[1:34]Thank you.
[1:35]Yeah, I definitely get inspired by what's around me.
[1:40]Are you in New York?
[1:41]Yeah.
[1:42]I live on the upper west side.
[1:43]Awesome.
[1:44]Well, why don't you tell listeners what paper names is about?
[1:47]Sure.
[1:48]So paper names is a story about two families who are on different tracks of the American
[1:52]Dream.
[1:53]And then they're set on a collision course with each other.
[1:56]One is a Chinese family who immigrate to the states.
[1:59]And the other is a white, wealthy family with a dark secret.
[2:02]And unexpected act of violence happens at the beginning of the story.
[2:05]And that ties the two families together.
[2:07]And then we follow the characters over two to three decades as they make decisions that
[2:12]both reflect on who they are, who they want to become.
[2:15]It's amazing.
[2:17]You are a great writer.
[2:19]And I feel like you immediately get us into the scenes.
[2:23]I am so rooting for Tony, even though I shouldn't be rooting for Tony, but you have like
[2:27]all these complex characters.
[2:29]And I've always wanted to read maybe this unsiliency.
[2:32]Just growing up in New York City, I always want to know more about the lives of the dormant.
[2:37]I even wrote an article about this for Quest Magazine, like a long time ago, like what
[2:41]your dormant must be thinking about you?
[2:42]I should send it to you.
[2:44]But you give the whole backstory of Tony's life.
[2:48]And even though he does things that we might not agree with, you also paint him in a way
[2:53]that we want to root for him and his family because here he is.
[2:57]It's like amazing engineer coming over and being a dormant and studying and like this
[3:01]image of him and the lobby with the dictionary is so amazing.
[3:04]And Tammy, you did nine-year-old girl talk very well.
[3:08]I have a nine-year-old girl, this is particularly interesting for me.
[3:11]I don't know.
[3:12]I feel like the way you paint people, where we see all their weaknesses, like all of
[3:17]our hiding out, not helping, but then make them sympathetic by like whatever's happening
[3:23]with his grandfather.
[3:24]I don't know.
[3:25]It's very cool the way you did it all.
[3:26]I really enjoyed it.
[3:27]Oh, thank you so much.
[3:30]And thank you for taking the time to read the book.
[3:31]I think honestly on this publishing journey, it's publishing such a black box.
[3:36]There's so many ups and downs, but something I keep trying to remind myself is I just never
[3:41]thought people would ever read.
[3:43]I wrote.
[3:44]So I just always want to be grateful and thankful for having that.
[3:48]Oh, well, it's fast-paced.
[3:51]It's easy to inhale the book, which I love for time-starved readers.
[3:56]But also, you just like can't help reading for everyone in different ways.
[3:59]Was that your intention or is that just what I'm taking out of it or tell me about
[4:03]where the even the germs of this idea came from and all of that?
[4:07]Yeah.
[4:08]And so I started writing paper names the first month of lockdown.
[4:11]So May 2020, we were all on pause, isolated, not seeing our family and friends.
[4:17]And during that time, it also struck me that I was missing the small daily interactions,
[4:22]like saying hi to my dorm man, saying hi to the security guard outside my office,
[4:27]like the cafeteria lady who I always saw.
[4:29]I've seen these people sometimes more often than my closest friends of family, right?
[4:34]And I'm sure everyone can relate to that.
[4:37]These are the interactions that really fill up the fabric of our lives.
[4:41]So that's kind of where the germs started.
[4:43]I want to explore a relationship between a dorm man and the residents of a wealthy building,
[4:48]just thinking about how do they interact?
[4:51]But past that, how do they actually think about how they're each interacting?
[4:55]And what would make their lives actually intersect more than just a daily, small talk?
[5:02]So yeah, that's how I came up with paper names.
[5:04]And I'm so glad you drew for all the characters.
[5:06]Because sometimes I think I worried that it'd be difficult to refer some of them.
[5:11]Yeah.
[5:11]But to me, they're so real.
[5:13]Like so real.
[5:14]Yeah, when I get into writing, it's like I actually dream like them.
[5:18]Like I think about them all the time.
[5:21]Like even when I go for a lot of runs in Central Park, I'm just always thinking about them.
[5:26]And what I do love is, even though the beginning of the book is always harder to write,
[5:29]because I'm trying to figure them out towards the end, I'm just like sprinting.
[5:34]Because I know exactly what they would say or wouldn't say.
[5:37]And that's a really rewarding part.
[5:40]I'm sure, you know, because you've written as well.
[5:42]Like everyone loves like when you get to that like kind of two, third juncture.
[5:46]You're like, okay, I know who these people are.
[5:47]Now I'm just going to be able to finish the story.
[5:51]Like knowing you can finish it is so satisfying.
[5:55]That is a good feeling.
[5:57]Yeah, Tony's immigrant experience.
[6:00]Also, I feel like highlights what we hear about so often.
[6:05]Oh, you know, so and so left behind his job as an engineer.
[6:09]And now he's a doorman.
[6:10]And here he's studying it.
[6:12]But this is so different because you let us, and this is like the joy of fiction, really.
[6:17]When you're in somebody's home and heart and mind, and you see what they're up against.
[6:23]And, you know, even when Tony is fantasizing that maybe after this class, he'll get a job at
[6:29]what Netscape or something.
[6:30]Yeah, I had the 90s.
[6:32]Yeah, I was like, what?
[6:35]Yeah, but yeah, it's just, it's the hopes.
[6:40]Everybody clings on these little dreams and hopes.
[6:42]And then you see their hopes dashed when like Oliver walks by and I think it was
[6:47]somebody was by.
[6:48]It was just like, oh, it's too late for him.
[6:50]Why is he even bothering with the dictionary?
[6:52]And it's so sad, but inspiring at the same time.
[6:56]And people's perceptions, like you say, are just, you know, often misaligned with what's
[7:02]really going on.
[7:03]So I appreciated that look into Tony's psyche, even though, I don't know, I don't know,
[7:09]I keep talking about him.
[7:09]I just found him to be such a captivating character.
[7:13]And obviously Oliver and all of his foibles too and even Oliver's mom.
[7:16]I mean, there's so many great characters.
[7:18]It was so fun.
[7:19]Yeah, I really enjoyed writing them.
[7:20]I think Tony came to me the easiest.
[7:23]Oliver actually came to me first.
[7:25]He was, I had written, just like, dabbled with a few short stories before,
[7:30]and Oliver was always the main character of those short stories.
[7:33]Because I think something I was always interested in was what I call, like,
[7:38]performative goodness.
[7:40]You know, like, why do we do nice things?
[7:42]Is this so other people can see it?
[7:43]What if, like, no one can see it?
[7:45]And then, you know, he transformed to this bigger character.
[7:49]The hardest to write for me was Tammy.
[7:51]I loved writing her when she was young.
[7:53]Like, it's, I'm so glad you liked that nine-year-old voice because that was so fun for me to,
[7:58]like, totally switch bodies and remember what it was like.
[8:02]And I remember Googling, like, you know, songs of the 90s, just like getting back into that era.
[8:08]But I thought it was actually really hard for me to write older Tammy because she's not me
[8:15]at all. But I felt like that would be the natural implication that's like, oh, I'm writing myself.
[8:20]And so I think I held her at arm's length for a long time being like, don't know how it's like,
[8:25]I know she's a lawyer, but she's not me. Like, I promise. And then finally,
[8:29]once I really felt like she was her own character, I was able to dive in more interesting.
[8:35]So what are like some of the messages you want people to take away from the book?
[8:39]Like, when you think about all of the scenes and how it all adds up to this wonderful story,
[8:44]when we put the book down, like, what are you hoping people take away?
[8:47]So one main topic I thought about the entire time while writing was identity.
[8:54]I feel like identity is so complicated and it's always in flux.
[8:57]Right. A lot of people say that your identity is made up of where you were born, who you were
[9:02]born to, what culture you're raised in, what your family values are. But I tend to see those
[9:07]things as more of your background. Those are things like you didn't choose. And to me,
[9:12]your identity is made up of your decisions, the choices you get to make. And I just want to explore
[9:20]what that looks like when you get to choose who you are because of or in spite of your past.
[9:27]I love that. Yeah. Even through all the generations too. I mean, you really showed that well.
[9:32]How did you get started writing? Tell me your whole story. Where'd you grow up?
[9:36]Who are you? Tell me about you. So I was born in China and I came over to flushing
[9:43]queens when I was three. Okay. We spent some time there, but I mostly grew up in the suburbs of
[9:47]of New Jersey. Okay. Then I went to Penn for undergrad and then Cornell for law school.
[9:54]And then I went straight to becoming a lawyer for three years in New York City. And then I
[10:00]left my job. I actually really, I didn't hate being a lawyer at all. And a lot of my best friends
[10:05]are still from that law firm. So I'll always be grateful to you. They would love her. I was
[10:09]at Sherman and Sterling doing M&A law. And then I left to actually travel to Europe for a while.
[10:15]So I kind of went on like a solo. I think it was five months journey through Europe. And
[10:20]I just like wanted a reset. It just felt like I had been on a track all my life, you know,
[10:26]like college law school law firm. And I just wanted to pause to be like, is this actually what I
[10:31]want? And then when I came back, I still remember I had, you know, my European like backpacking
[10:37]clothes. I was sleeping on a friend's couch in Brooklyn. And my parents were just like, so like,
[10:42]what are you going to do now? And I had a few friends who had worked at Goldman Sachs. And, you know,
[10:49]through my travels, I had realized that one thing I did want was to work at a place that was
[10:55]efficient and gave me a lot of autonomy and was comprised of very smart hardworking people
[11:01]because that would inspire me to be the same. But I wanted a creative job. So I actually searched
[11:07]the word creative on the Goldman Sachs career portal. And my job popped up. It was the number one
[11:13]search result. But I think the requirements were like MBA, you know, like three to five years,
[11:18]it's a financial analyst. And I had none, literally, I think none of the requirements. But I was
[11:22]like, oh, I have a JD that's like comparable, you know, like, I have worked as a lawyer. But I
[11:28]knew I'd never get through HR. So I actually just googled the team and found out who was leading it
[11:34]in New York. And I just cold emailed him. I'm just like, this is why I want to work on this team.
[11:38]This is why I think I'd be good for it. And then I emailed him at 8 a.m. on a Friday at 30 minutes
[11:45]later. I got a call from HR being like, can you come in today for interview? What? Yeah, and I
[11:51]tried to push that they were like one o'clock. I was like, I have no work clothes. You know,
[11:55]like I had nothing on me. And I was like, oh, how about like two o'clock? And I remember like
[12:00]running like into a taxi, like going to theory, like this amazing like store manager, like running
[12:07]around after me being like, oh, try this song. Like it was like a scene out of a movie. And I remember
[12:11]rushing into the office. And I think why my interview went so well. I was like, I didn't prep at
[12:16]all. I was just like, very much myself. And I was like, I want you to know, I don't know any finance,
[12:22]but I'm going to learn it. This is how life works. Like it's not just that like you come in with
[12:27]the knowledge. Sometimes like you do get some leeway to just learn it if you want. Yeah. So that
[12:32]was probably my perfect corporate job. If I had to stay in corporate, I would still work there.
[12:38]Wait, what was the job? Creative what? I was an investment banker, but for future technologies.
[12:44]So I would speak to big corporates and private equity about virtual reality or like smart cities.
[12:53]It was a lot of storytelling just like naturally built in like, oh, where are we now? Where do
[12:58]we think we'll go? Well, companies will lead us there. And my boss Brian was great, probably still
[13:04]the best boss I've ever had. So again, like I didn't leave because it was a bad job. But I think
[13:11]all of like my experience together somehow added up into writing. And I don't have any plans of
[13:18]leaving this writing job. I have. So now you're writing full time. Yes. Wow. That's so cool.
[13:25]So have you already written your next book? So I'm in the middle of it. Okay. I did write a whole
[13:31]another book before this second book I'm writing because I think like, you know, paper names,
[13:37]it's more character driven, right? There is a plot, but it's like, I wrote paper names totally
[13:41]without an outline just like one chapter at a time. I just like danced it. And I was like, looking back,
[13:47]I just felt like a lot of hooks for great novels have a more thriller or mystery like
[13:54]plot line. And I was like, oh, that's what I'm going to do next. So I actually wrote like 20 chapters
[13:58]that book. And then I just like, I just don't care about it as much. But I found three characters
[14:06]in that book who I did care about. And those are the three I focus on in the second book.
[14:11]I love that you said you found the characters. That's so, you know, our subconscious is so bizarre.
[14:17]Yeah. And the way that writing works that you create them in one, you're like, oh great,
[14:21]no, I'll just transport them over here. Well, I've often feel like I tried to not write about
[14:27]what I actually want to write about because like it's like too real. It's like hard to go there
[14:32]sometimes that I have to almost like write around it to be like, oh, I find like kind of convincing
[14:37]myself like we can go there. And then, you know, starting a new book, but with those three already
[14:44]and what do you really want to write about? One thing that sparks my writing is often confusion,
[14:50]you know, like why did that person do that? Or like why did this person say that to me that
[14:56]was so hurtful? Or, you know, like even if I'm on a third party when it's saying an interaction
[15:01]that I found just baffling, I just feel like every character or every person, whatever they're
[15:07]doing in their own world, it makes sense. There's like an internal logic. They're not actually
[15:12]just crazy or, you know, and that's what's so interesting to me. Like why did that person do something
[15:19]I just can't understand? And so in writing, I try to understand that person and I feel like
[15:26]that's provided me with a lot of self therapy, I guess. Because once you understand someone,
[15:32]you can empathize with them and forgive them too. Wow. So during the pandemic, you really missed
[15:39]the day-to-day interactions. You're a writer, which can be very isolating also.
[15:43]Yeah. Do you write at home or where do you go to work? And how do you make sure to keep those
[15:50]little moments in your life? So I do write at home. I have a great dog that she just
[15:56]curls up next to me as I write. And I love my home. I feel like I really try to make it a place
[16:04]that every night when I come home, it's like my little nest. So I do write here. But I, you know,
[16:10]I try to work out every day, whether it's yoga or like a run in the park. And you start seeing
[16:17]similar faces, you know, over and over again. And it's just like nice to have a community that's
[16:23]outside of writing as well. And then I also have to make a concerted effort to make sure I plan dinners
[16:30]and time with friends. With writing, it's so hard because I'm my own boss. So in a lot of ways,
[16:35]it's like, yeah, I'm supposed to write today. But sometimes then it's like 11 p.m. And I'm like,
[16:40]oh, okay, I have to still write today. You know, like I like wasted my whole day away. I don't
[16:44]even know what I was doing. And then you feel like you never have time to see people because you're
[16:49]always like behind on your schedule. So I think just keeping busy helps me actually be productive.
[16:55]Yeah. It's like that whole thing give a busy person something to do. Yeah, exactly. And I'm like,
[17:00]I have to do these three things. They don't get time. But when I have to do 300 things, they get done.
[17:05]Or like it's like always doing final season. You're all of a sudden like Uber productive,
[17:10]you know, like, and you've never seen yourself this way. But then the second it's over, you're just
[17:14]like a swag on the couch. Like what types of books do you like to read? I love to read books
[17:21]about complicated characters. I really love reading Zany Smith. I really love Gillian Flynn's
[17:28]gone girl. A lot of people say like, oh, I don't like books with unlikable characters. They have
[17:33]to be likable enough. Like, so I root for them. But I just feel like everybody's so flawed. No one's
[17:39]is going to like everybody. Right? Like, and that's what's so interesting about books. Like, I get to
[17:44]read about like people doing bad things, but in a way that I can understand. Yeah, I love that.
[17:50]So when you were thinking of like comps for this book, what were some of your comps just wondering?
[17:57]I don't think they were correct comps because because because because you know, I came from banking,
[18:02]I yeah, I Googled the 10 best agents to send it to. And then the comps I have for my book were
[18:08]actually the two authors who inspired me to write. They were Zany Smith and Gillian Flynn because
[18:13]okay, those are the first two books I read where I felt like the voice just jumped off the page.
[18:19]And it felt like so much their own voice that I felt like, oh my god, maybe I have a voice too
[18:26]that I don't need to just be a reader that I can put my voice on a page. So I think I
[18:32]comped it to like, I was like, oh, it's like the multi generational narrative of Zany Smith's white
[18:38]teeth and the character driven thriller elements of Gillian Flynn's gone girl. Looking back,
[18:44]I think it's hilarious because from what I've heard from other writers, most of them don't
[18:48]complex Zany's and Gillian Flynn. Yeah, I think they just know of more books that are more similar
[18:54]to theirs, but it worked, I guess. I think the real comp to my book from what I've heard from my
[19:00]publisher and other people who read it is Mary Beth Keene's Ask a Good Yes. Oh, yeah, I did
[19:06]read that. Yeah. I think our style writing is similar. Her's is all similar. It's like, you know,
[19:12]not so plotty, but a lot of character and switches points of view. Yeah, I love that book. So I'm happy
[19:20]that that's my comp. So great. Okay. Well, this is wonderful. I really love this story and I
[19:29]feel like these are characters. I'm going to keep thinking about for a while. And I just,
[19:34]yeah, hats off to you. It's really great. Thank you so much. And thanks for having me here.
[19:38]No, it's a pleasure. All right. How far paths can I assume? Especially right here in the city.
[19:43]Oh my goodness. You should again. Yeah, be good to meet up. All right. Thanks a lot. Bye.
[19:50]Thanks for listening to this episode of Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books. Don't
[19:53]forget to follow me on Instagram at ZB Owens and at Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books.
[19:58]Also sign up for my newsletter.
[20:00]at zibbowens.com and sign up for my virtual book club
[20:03]and meet lots of authors on Zoom every other week.
[20:05]Thanks so much to Steve and Ryan at Textures Sound
[20:08]for the Sound Editing.
[20:09]And thank you to Morning Moon Productions
[20:11]for providing this fantastic intro and outro music.