Rachel Phan
Authors Rachel Phan (Restaurant Kid, a memoir) and Su Chang (The Immortal Woman, a novel) recently interviewed each other about their new releases. Rachel was three years old when her Chinese-Vietnamese parents opened their family restaurant in small-town Ontario. Su was born and raised in Shanghai, the daughter of a former, reluctant Red Guard leader during the Cultural Revolution. They spoke with candor and compassion about their characters, truth-telling, and how to hold space for strong emotions in writing.
How did your relationship to your characters (or your real-life family) change as you wrote?
Rachel: Writing Restaurant Kid has been the greatest blessing. For most of my life, I felt like I never really knew my parents as people—they were always just busy restaurateurs who never really had time for me. Writing my memoir meant I was suddenly contractually obligated to actually connect with and get to know them. It gave us the opening we needed to ask the questions we’d always wondered about each other, to have conversations we would have put off for probably forever, and to actually start to heal from many of the things we’d repressed and kept silent about for years. It meant we finally went on a family trip to my parents’ home country, Vietnam, that we’d put off for years and years.
Writing the book deepened my understanding of my family—both their tenderness and their flaws. At first, I often found myself writing from a place of hurt, but as I continued, I found my perspective of them shifting and softening. Instead of writing them as my family, I wrote them as characters—and creating that distance allowed me to really see their complexities. The writing then became less about judgment and more about curiosity and compassion. Writing gave me a way to see my family not just through the lens of my experiences as their daughter or sister. I was able to see them as whole people shaped by histories, losses, and experiences that both predated and existed outside of me.
Su: Lin, the daughter character in The Immortal Woman, belongs to my generation and is an adult immigrant like myself. As a result, I thought I had a firmer gasp of this character when I started writing the book. In my early drafts, Lin’s perspective served as a point of departure -the novel was framed as a young Chinese immigrant discovering her family’s hidden past. That seemed like a good idea (if not slightly conventional). But as I wrote and rewrote, the historical parts grew increasingly complex, and the voice of Lemei – the mother character who came of age during the Cultural Revolution and endured many fraught times – became stronger and louder. That voice could no longer be confined in “flashback” chapters as if it were secondary. Having spent the decade after my immigration immersed in books and essays on Chinese history—and drawing from the hushed stories I heard growing up—I realized I had accumulated a lot of raw material and was deeply invested in writing about my parents’ generation. As Lemei’s voice called to me from the pages, I knew I had to overcome my self-doubt and restructure the novel, elevating her to a heroine on equal footing with Lin. Ultimately, the story of Lemei’s youth became the opening of the book, which hopefully would allow readers, even without acquiring prior knowledge of Chinese modern history, to enter the story smoothly. I’ve grown firmly attached to Lemei’s character – this is a case where a character keeps demanding the attention she more than deserves, and the only right thing for the writer to do is follow the character’s lead.
How do you hold space for anger or tenderness in your writing, especially when writing about trauma or family?
Su Chang
Su: Strong emotions serve as the initial spark for a long writing project. It’s important to preserve that energy – readers appreciate books written from the heart. At the same time, it’s crucial to create distance from the initial real-life inspirations, to do the hard work of reflection and trauma processing before diving into writing. Otherwise, writing becomes an act of revenge and it’s hard to imagine a mature, thoughtful book emerging from that mindset. The goal is to mold raw emotions into art. In the case of The Immortal Woman, the historical narrative was partially inspired by the experiences of my family and community, and the contemporary storyline influenced by my experiences and observations as an adult immigrant. But I sat with the raw material for many years before I began writing. If a character was based on someone from real life (however remotely and vaguely), especially someone I resented, I made sure to find true compassion before writing about them. I knew this was the only way to craft three-dimensional characters, even those who might fall into the villain category. Strangely, the act and process of fictionalizing revealed more emotional truth than would have been possible if I were to write a memoir. The more I altered the biological facts of the character from their real-life inspirations, the bolder I became in exploring their deep psyche. I was also compelled to examine my own hidden prejudices and unproven presumptions. By constantly putting myself in my characters’ shoes – experiencing their desires and fears, disappointments and impulses – I found my strong emotions gradually giving way to intimate dialogues about human nature.
Rachel: I try to let both emotions coexist without rushing to resolve them. Anger deserves to be named, especially when it points to injustice or pain that has been repressed and silenced for years. But I also didn’t want to write from a place of bitterness or vengeance, so, like Su, I made sure to create distance by treating my younger self as a character and the people who hurt her as characters, too. That opened up space for me to hold hurtful characters with compassion, empathy, and complexity.
As a memoir author, I can’t emphasize enough how critical it is to do the work in therapy! There’s no way I could have written such an honest, loving, and mature work if I hadn’t dedicated years to introspection and healing. Doing that work allowed me to be able to look back on myself and the people in my life with more tenderness—and to write about my trauma from a place of growth and maturation.
At the end of the day, I remind myself that it’s not my job to sanitize my own story, but to hold all our contradictions with honesty and care because that’s what’s human and true.
How do you balance truth-telling with the fear of being misunderstood?
Rachel: Before I started writing my memoir, I wrote down a few of my goals—and one was to “agitate the status quo.” I am raw and unflinching in my memoir about the racial abuse I’ve experienced in my life growing up in predominantly white spaces. I knew that was going to upset some people and that misunderstanding and outright dislike would be inevitable! That’s a natural byproduct of writing hard truths. I know that not every reader will bring the same context or lived experience to my work. I know that not every reader will be receptive to my story because of that. My responsibility, then, is to tell the truth as clearly and thoughtfully as I can—to ground it in specificity and to write with compassion—and let go of what is ultimately out of my control.
Whenever I felt anxious or scared about writing a truth, I would think about the readers I was actually writing Restaurant Kid for—fellow children of immigrants, third-culture kids, racialized women. That made it easier for me to write those hard truths. And for what it’s worth, I’ve been shocked to hear that so many people outside of my target audience are reading and loving my book! So maybe there’s an argument to be made about being bold and brave enough to share and not assuming readers will react one way or another. The reality is, as authors, we have no way of knowing how our work will be received once it’s out.
Su: In fiction, truth resides behind the “veil of fiction,” and by nature, fiction leaves a lot of room for interpretation and ambiguity. As a writer, I don’t ever want to prescribe feelings to my readers, and I don’t mind “being misunderstood.” I think it’s cool that individual readers find their own personal meanings in my story, based on their lived experiences. Those meanings may be different from my intention, but they can also open doors to genuine discussions and debates (and hopefully new understanding). I’d be really happy to know if my book stirred up conversations between fellow humans.
Do you feel a responsibility to document a specific history or experience?
Su: I do, up to a point, and it’s a self-inflicted pressure. My father had both the talent and motivation to be a writer, but censorship made it impossible. He hid his disappointment from me, but I could sense his feelings about a “wasted” life. When I was growing up in China, he repeatedly dissuaded me from becoming a writer, and yet I couldn’t steer clear. Now, whenever I sit down at my writing desk, I don’t consciously think about my responsibility to document history or experience, or to fulfill my father’s thwarted dream. But as I settle into a story, there is always this mysterious force that compels me to keep going. That, I suspect, is at least partly my subconscious sense of responsibility.
Rachel: My father also loomed large over my desire to share our family story! When he found out that I wanted to be a writer, the first thing he said to me was, “Rachel, it’s my dream for you to share the story of our family.” He didn’t put any pressure on me to do so, but knowing this was his great dream has always been in the back of my mind.
I write knowing that the histories and experiences of people like me—children of immigrants, Chinese-Vietnamese women, working-class Asian families—have often been overlooked, undervalued, or erased. While I don’t claim to represent everyone, I hope that by telling my specific story, I can contribute to a larger, truer record of who we are and how we live.
What would your younger writer selves think of where you are now?
Su: Little Su would be surprised and proud. Even though reading and writing was my first love, so much had stood in the way to prevent me from writing – transnational fear, censorship, parental pressure, a shift in adulthood from Chinese to English, immigrant struggles, work, motherhood, mental health, a competitive publishing industry. This book is out in the world against all odds. I want to high-five that little Chinese girl and tell her to chin up and believe in herself!
Rachel: I completely agree, Su. Despite the many odds stacked against us and our publishing dreams, we did it! I’m so unbelievably proud of us.
I think Little Rachel would feel three things. First, she’d be amazed and think, “Wow, I wrote a book?! What a lifelong dream come true!” As a lonely kid growing up on the sidelines of my family restaurant, I spent hours at the local library or holed up in the back room with a stack of books. Books were everything to me: comfort, escape, adventure, knowledge. It’s no surprise, then, that I’ve always wanted to write a book myself!
Secondly, I think Little Rachel would be super confused. “Wait, people actually want to hear about my life? Our restaurant? Why??”
And lastly, she would definitely be mortified and plead with me, “Oh no, please don’t share that!” Sorry, Little Rachel, but I did share! I wish I could give her a hug and let her know it’ll all be okay, that one day she’ll write the book that some readers have waited their whole lives for. I think her mortification would quickly transform into gratitude and pride to hear how strongly her work and life will resonate with people who have never truly felt seen in books before. What a gift!