Lucy Tan's new novel is What We Were Promised.From her Q&A with Deborah Kalb:
Q: How did you come up with the idea for What We Were Promised?Visit Lucy Tan's website.
A: As an MFA student at the University of Wisconsin, I wrote a short story set in Shanghai about two hotel maids being accused of stealing a bracelet. The feedback from my workshop was that the story had promise, but was limited by the form.
When my professor suggested I try writing it as a novel, I was relieved and excited. There was so much more I wanted to explore about the characters in that story, and turning it into a novel would allow me the space to do that.
The short story I initially wrote became the basis for the first three chapters of the novel told from the point of view of Sunny, one of the housekeepers who...[read on]
--Marshal Zeringue