Spoken into the Ether

Remember DVD extras? Or maybe I should ask…remember DVDs? Those shiny discs that looked like CDs? (If you now ask what a CD is, then I’m really in trouble.)

Anyway, this is what I consider this episode to be — a DVD extra equivalent for my first novel, Everything Asian. Initially it was the second chapter, featuring a wayward mother and daughter team of shoplifters who ran into the Kim family. As you can imagine, hijinks ensue. This chapter was ultimately jettisoned, but now it lives on here on my Substack. I hope you enjoy it.

And now an extra of that DVD extra — the graphic below comes from an essay I wrote for The New York Times back in 2009, which you can see features a boy showing a pagoda to a customer. It is, believe it or not, a pagoda music box! The novel still has one, too, at the end of the first chapter, and it has a nonfiction counterpart. Confused? I think I am, too…

For this episode’s recommendation of an audiobook, I’d like to highlight the narrator Julia Whelan. She sometimes reads for The New York Times, and her performance of Taffy Brodesser-Akner’s essay on Val Kilmer back in 2020 is not to be missed.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit sung.substack.com

Welcome to the third episode of Spoken into the Ether. “Translation” was published in Hyphen, in its Fall 2008 issue. The artwork for this story was created by Chloe Bonfield, who’s done amazing things since!

When I first saw this illustration in print, I found it rather frightening and didn’t quite understand why Chloe had taken this dark path. But then I thought about this story from the mother’s point of view and it made startling sense. Before this art, I thought my story was mostly funny, but Chloe made me realize it’s actually mostly scary. But also funny! They go hand in hand, always.

Since I mentioned those excellent Philip Roth audiobooks last time, I’m thinking I’ll keep suggesting other audiobooks. I’m listening to Kaveh Akbar’s Martyr! right now, and although I’m only halfway through, I have zero reservations recommending it. Well, maybe not zero…0.5?

My biggest complaint is that when the book veers off the central story (where protagonist Cyrus talks with the dying painter/performance artist at the Brooklyn Museum), which it does just about every other chapter, I wish these ancillary parts hewed closer to the main narrative. I’m sure they will, eventually and retrospectively, but it’s a bit of a slow burn. And speaking of burning, I couldn’t help but recall the Seinfeld episode “The Burning” when the book begins, because that’s almost exactly the situation that Akbar depicts, where Cyrus is acting in front of medical students with a disease. Thankfully it isn’t Kramer’s gonorrhea, but I found the echo odd!

Huge, huge props to Arian Moayed, the narrator. I loved him in You Hurt My Feelings, and his portrayal of different voices, accents, and genders is masterful here.

p.s. I have finished Martyr! since writing the text above. My recommendation remains in place — I think the last chapter of the book could’ve been tighter, but it’s a remarkably well written work overall, especially for a first-time novelist. I have noticed upon reading reader reactions is that there is some uncertainly regarding the ending. I don’t want to spoil this, but there is no spoiler tag in Substack, so I’ll write my opinion in ROT-13, a rudimentary encryption method. You can simply go to rot13.com and paste the following to decrypt it.

Ur qvrf. V’z fhecevfrq guvf vf rira n cbvag bs qvfphffvba. Vg vfa’g rknpgyl pyrne whfg jura ur fgnegf qlvat, ohg ng bar cbvag va gur svany puncgre:

“Plehf jnvgrq, naq va uvf jnvgvat orpnzr vapernfvatyl njner bs ubj ubg gur tebhaq unq tbggra haqre uvf srrg.”

Plehf vf fvggvat bhgfvqr va gur pbyq ba gur orapu. Ur vf rkcrevrapvat ulcbgurezvn. Naq gura nyzbfg ng gur raq:

“Oruvaq gurz, n terng oynpx fgnyyvba, gjvpr gur fvmr bs gur erfg, jvgu na vyyhzvangrq evqre tevccvat gur ervaf qerffrq va n ybat oynpx pybnx.”

Guvf vf gur fnzr ubefr/evqre gung unf svtherq vagb gur abiry frireny gvzrf — uvf hapyr Nenfu, Bexvqru’f cnvagvat — fvtavslvat qrngu. Vg’f fb ba gur abfr gung Plehf fnlf gb Mrr, “Ernyyl?”

Gura: “Gur tbyqra yvtug penpxvat guebhtu gur tebhaq unq tngurerq vagb n infg naq qrrc cbby, jnez naq thetyvat nofragyl yvxr na hanggraqrq vasnag.”

Naq gur svany yvar bs gur abiry: “Nebhaq gurz, oveqf naq oevtug oybffbzf qebccrq yvxr svfgf bs fabj sebz gur fxl.”

Gur orqynz Plehf vf rkcrevrapvat vf uvf qrngu. V pna’g frr gur obbx raqvat nal bgure jnl ohg uvz qlvat, fvapr gung’f jung ur’f jnagrq fvapr gur ortvaavat bs gur abiry.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit sung.substack.com

Welcome to the second episode of Spoken into the Ether, the podcast disguised as an auditory delivery mechanism for my short stories. “Limits,” published in Carve Magazine, dates back to 2008, but its origins go back even further, to the early spring of 1990. It involves two seniors in high school, Joe and Chuck, and their collegiate futures. Hilarity and heartbreak ensue. And if you get to the end, you’ll hear a different kind of admission from yours truly.

On a slightly related topic, I have an audiobook recommendation: Philip Roth’s Goodbye, Columbus, his first book. There are two versions of this audiobook; the one I’ve listened to is the older one. Your local library may have it — the cover looks like this (via NYPL):

According to Audiofile, John Rubinstein narrates the titular novella. It’s a fantastic performance. Because I’m a petty listener, I’m always on the lookout for mispronunciations. The only miscue: U of Illinois’s Fighting Illini, which he pronounces as ill-ee-nye (should be ill-lie-nie). 😊

This was the second Roth I listened to. The first was American Pastoral, which also has two versions. I listened to the older one (NYPL, take two):

Narrated by Ron Silver, who recently passed away. I remember him from Reversal of Fortune, where he played the lawyer Alan Dershowitz. Petty mispronunciations: Booton (boon-ton, should be Boon-en), and Goethel (go-ethel, should be Gah-thal).

Listening to this later work of Roth’s in comparison to his first was an interesting experience. I found Goodbye, Columbus to be superior in every way — American Pastoral has this strange framing device where the story of the main character, Seymour “The Swede” Levov, is constructed by Roth’s alter ego, Nathan Zuckerman, you could say in real time. It’s a unique way to execute the plot, in a way giving Roth/Zuckerman absolute control over the character, but that also results in a kind of narrative vacuum. Because we know the story is being constructed, everything that happens feels less important than it should be — it’s all made up anyway, so who cares? Of course, every novel is a made-up story by the writer…so it’s kind of metafiction-y, what Roth is doing. For me, this hurt the book more than it helped.

One thing for sure, Roth’s dialogue was on point from the very beginning of his career. My favorite part of Goodbye, Columbus was Leo Patimkin’s monologue, where he details his exploits as a light bulb salesman. His speech goes on for pages, but I couldn’t get enough of it, and found it better than anything I encountered in American Pastoral.

Which made me wonder about my own career as a novelist — have I improved from my first book (Everything Asian, 2009) to my latest (Lines, 2024), on a purely writing level? Fifteen years is not a long time, but not short, either. I think my plotting skills may have gotten more complex, but honestly, I don’t think I’ve become a better writer, line for line, per se. That seems like bad news, but maybe not. At least I don’t think I’m getting any worse!

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit sung.substack.com

Today, my two mystery novels, Skin Deep and Deep Roots, are living their second lives with a new publisher, Datura Books!

To celebrate this grand occasion, I’ve decided to put out the first of a dozen of my short stories in audio form. It’s titled “The Suitcase,” and it was published in 2015 by The Margins, the magazine run by the Asian American Writers Workshop. The best way to do this was through here, Substack, via their podcast wing. I’ve decided to call the podcast Spoken into the Ether, because that’s literally what I’ve done. The hope is that the bits and bytes will make their way to actual human ears.

I hope to put out an episode a month. Fingers crossed I can abide by my very not-so-grand ambitions!

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit sung.substack.com