Katherine Lin

Katherine Lin is an attorney and writer based in the San Francisco Bay Area and a graduate of Northwestern University and Stanford Law School.

Her debut novel is You Can’t Stay Here Forever.

My Q&A with the author:

How much work does your title do to take readers into the story?

My agent and I went through tons of iterations of titles, and polled lots of friends and colleagues. In one brainstorming email, I threw out You Can't Stay Here Forever as a possibility–it was a line that one character in my book, Fauna, says to Ellie, the protagonist, near the climax of the novel. I thought it captured Ellie's journey: the yearn to run away in tension with the fact that everyone has to face their demons eventually. My agent took to You Can't Stay Here Forever and, happily, Harper Books liked it as well. The line was eventually cut from the book, but I am glad it got us the title.

What's in a name?

I am terrible at naming characters but two names came to me clearly and loudly: Eleanor Huang (aka Ellie) and Fauna. Ellie's mother is a striver, and she desperately wants her daughter to climb the social ladder–Eleanor was therefore a natural choice for what she'd name her only daughter. Since Eleanor can be a mouthful, especially for someone young, I thought it made sense for her to go by Ellie. And because Ellie is Taiwanese like me, for the surname, I asked my own mother about popular Taiwanese last names, which led me to Huang.

Fauna, in sharp contrast to Ellie and her mother, is wild and undomesticated, someone who lives life a little carelessly. I wanted a name that was a bit raw, and that was Fauna. Because she's unknowable in many ways to someone like Ellie, I never share Fauna's last name in the book.

Do you see much of yourself in your characters? Do they have any connection to your personality, or are they a world apart?

When I write, in order for any character to feel truly alive, I have to understand them. It's easier to understand people, I think, when you can relate to them, even if it's in some small way, and so I see a bit of myself in every character, even ones I might vehemently disagree with, or characters I would never want to associate with. Relatedly, I enjoy novels in which I find myself relating to characters I wouldn't have guessed. It makes me not just admire the author's skill and craft, but makes me more sympathetic and understanding of humanity, which is a lovely thing when books are able to do that. It reminds me of Kazuo Ishiguro's Nobel acceptance speech when he said, "But in the end, stories are about one person saying to another: This is the way it feels to me. Can you understand what I'm saying? Does it also feel this way to you?"

What non-literary inspirations have influenced your writing?

Without a doubt, television and movies have influenced me. I tend to bristle a bit when I hear people turn up their nose at them, as if they're some sort of lesser form of art–it's a different medium of storytelling, of course, but I can find myself inspired by my favorite TV and movies as much as my favorite authors and books. Good writing is good writing is good writing, kind of thing. I try to keep up with TV and movies as they come out, just like with books, and so I spend lots of time digesting stories in different formats. I am particularly delighted and intrigued when these two worlds intersect, like when Ang Lee adapted Sense and Sensibility, which I rewatch at least once a year. I am eagerly awaiting Sofia Coppola's adaptation of Edith Wharton's Custom of the Country.

I also find that the people around me–friends and family, mostly–get me thinking about relationships and interpersonal dynamics in a way that feeds my creativity. I don't base characters or storylines off of people I know but if, for example, I have a friend who is navigating a difficult relationship dynamic, their situation might prime me to be open to ideas that lead me to characters or stories.

Visit Katherine Lin's website.

The Page 69 Test: You Can't Stay Here Forever.

--Marshal Zeringue