Kim Fay's Blog: Literate in L.A., page 2

The Map of Lost Memories Debuts Today!

This is it … the day … the BIG day! Today my novel, The Map of Lost Memories, is officially published by Random House. Wow, it feels amazing to write that!! I’m so thrilled to share this news!

This post is a shout of joy at my dream of being a published novelist (finally!) coming true, as well as a thank you to everyone who has supported and encouraged me for so long (decades, in many cases!!). It's also to share that The Map of Lost Memories (the old-fashioned hardcover version, the e-book and the audiobook) can be purchased at your local indie bookshop, online and numerous other places. You can also pick up copies at events I’ll be doing up and down the West Coast this year. More information about all of this and more (such as reviews, upcoming interviews including one with Bob Edwards!! and a sample chapter) can be found at:

My website: www.kimfay.net

My Facebook author page: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Kim-Fay...

My Twitter page: https://twitter.com/kimkfay

My Goodreads page: http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/12...

Thank you so much for your support, and happy reading!

ADVANCE PRAISE FOR THE MAP OF LOST MEMORIES
By Kim Fay

“Fay’s extraordinary first novel has everything great historical adventure fiction should—strikingly original setting, exhilarating plot twists, and a near-impossible quest . . . Every word of this evocative literary expedition feels deliberately chosen, each phrase full of meaning.”
–Booklist, (starred review)

“Thrilling and ambitious, this is a book to get lost in, a book that homes in on the human drama of the quest and never lets go. The Map of Lost Memories is a rich debut.”
–BookPage

“[The Map of Lost Memories] is a thrilling mix of adventure and personal discovery set in Southeast Asia in the 1920s . . . Fay crafts an intricate page-turner that will keep readers breathless and guessing.”
–Publishers Weekly

“In The Map of Lost Memories, Fay updates the archaeological adventure tale with an ambitious heroine and a cast of morally ambiguous characters in a race to discover an ancient temple in the jungles of colonial Cambodia. Fay's assured, absorbing prose will compel readers with its lush detail, multiple plot twists and keen insight into this politically combustible period of history.”
–Aimee Phan, author of The Reeducation of Cherry Truong

“In The Map of Lost Memories, Kim Fay draws us into a universe as exotic, intense and historically-detailed as the ancient artifacts her unforgettable heroine seeks. It's a deliciously unexpected journey: Indiana Jones meets Somerset Maugham meets Marguerite Duras; all culminating in a glorious traipse through a forgotten Asian world. This novel will stay with me for a long, long time.”
–Jennifer Cody Epstein, author of The Painter from Shanghai

“Kim Fay's engaging debut novel, The Map of Lost Memories, not only weaves together a smart, compelling story of a quest for scrolls believed to contain the lost history of Cambodia's ancient Khmer empire, but also gives us a glimpse into 1920's China and Indochina during the time of transition from colonialism to the beginnings of communism. With deftness and clarity, Fay brings her world to life and gives us a captivating read.”
–Gail Tsukiyama, author of A Hundred Flowers

“Kim Fay breathes new and original life into the Westerner-in-Asia novel with The Map of Lost Memories, going beyond the intrigues of 1925 Shanghai to the remote reaches of the Cambodian jungle. An enchanting, absorbing first novel, all the more remarkable for its effortless portrayal of a bygone world, now nearly forgotten.”
–Nicole Mones, author of Lost in Translation and The Last Chinese Chef

“The Map of Lost Memories is the best book I have read this year. Exotic, thrilling, and brimming with fascinating historic detail, it had me hooked from page one and sent me to a world I knew existed, but never really understood, never really felt, until now. Kim Fay is a wonderful storyteller who truly masters the art of crafting a riveting story with heart and elegance. The result is utterly mesmerizing.”
–Anne Fortier, New York Times-bestselling author of Juliet

“Kim Fay writes with such mesmerizing authority that it's hard to believe The Map of Lost Memories is her first novel. Rarely do we find a book that combines gripping adventure with exquisitely crafted prose, but Fay's novel does just that, bringing together the beauty and complexity of Marguerite Duras' The Lover with the thrilling breathlessness of Indiana Jones. The result is breathtaking.”
–Dana Sachs, author of If You Lived Here

The Map of Lost Memories Debuts Today!

This is it … the day … the BIG day! Today my novel, The Map of Lost Memories, is officially published by Random House. Wow, it feels amazing to write that!! I’m so thrilled to share this news!

This post is a shout of joy at my dream of being a published novelist (finally!) coming true, as well as a thank you to everyone who has supported and encouraged me for so long (decades, in many cases!!). It's also to share that The Map of Lost Memories (the old-fashioned hardcover version, the e-book and the audiobook) can be purchased at your local indie bookshop, online and numerous other places. You can also pick up copies at events I’ll be doing up and down the West Coast this year. More information about all of this and more (such as reviews, upcoming interviews including one with Bob Edwards!! and a sample chapter) can be found at:
My website: www.kimfay.net
My Facebook author page: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Kim-Fay...
My Twitter page: https://twitter.com/kimkfay
My Goodreads page:http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/12...
Thank you so much for your support, and happy reading!
ADVANCE PRAISE FOR THE MAP OF LOST MEMORIESBy Kim Fay
“Fay’s extraordinary first novel has everything great historical adventure fiction should—strikingly original setting, exhilarating plot twists, and a near-impossible quest . . . Every word of this evocative literary expedition feels deliberately chosen, each phrase full of meaning.” –Booklist, (starred review) 
“Thrilling and ambitious, this is a book to get lost in, a book that homes in on the human drama of the quest and never lets go. The Map of Lost Memories is a rich debut.”–BookPage 
“[The Map of Lost Memories] is a thrilling mix of adventure and personal discovery set in Southeast Asia in the 1920s . . . Fay crafts an intricate page-turner that will keep readers breathless and guessing.”–Publishers Weekly
 “In The Map of Lost Memories, Fay updates the archaeological adventure tale with an ambitious heroine and a cast of morally ambiguous characters in a race to discover an ancient temple in the jungles of colonial Cambodia. Fay's assured, absorbing prose will compel readers with its lush detail, multiple plot twists and keen insight into this politically combustible period of history.”–Aimee Phan, author of The Reeducation of Cherry Truong“In The Map of Lost Memories, Kim Fay draws us into a universe as exotic, intense and historically-detailed as the ancient artifacts her unforgettable heroine seeks. It's a deliciously unexpected journey: Indiana Jones meets Somerset Maugham meets Marguerite Duras; all culminating in a glorious traipse through a forgotten Asian world. This novel will stay with me for a long, long time.”–Jennifer Cody Epstein, author of The Painter from Shanghai
“Kim Fay's engaging debut novel, The Map of Lost Memories, not only weaves together a smart, compelling story of a quest for scrolls believed to contain the lost history of Cambodia's ancient Khmer empire, but also gives us a glimpse into 1920's China and Indochina during the time of transition from colonialism to the beginnings of communism.  With deftness and clarity, Fay brings her world to life and gives us a captivating read.”        –Gail Tsukiyama, author of A Hundred Flowers
“Kim Fay breathes new and original life into the Westerner-in-Asia novel with The Map of Lost Memories, going beyond the intrigues of 1925 Shanghai to the remote reaches of the Cambodian jungle. An enchanting, absorbing first novel, all the more remarkable for its effortless portrayal of a bygone world, now nearly forgotten.”–Nicole Mones, author of Lost in Translation and The Last Chinese Chef
“The Map of Lost Memories is the best book I have read this year. Exotic, thrilling, and brimming with fascinating historic detail, it had me hooked from page one and sent me to a world I knew existed, but never really understood, never really felt, until now. Kim Fay is a wonderful storyteller who truly masters the art of crafting a riveting story with heart and elegance. The result is utterly mesmerizing.”–Anne Fortier, New York Times-bestselling author of Juliet
“Kim Fay writes with such mesmerizing authority that it's hard to believe The Map of Lost Memories is her first novel. Rarely do we find a book that combines gripping adventure with exquisitely crafted prose, but Fay's novel does just that, bringing together the beauty and complexity of Marguerite Duras' The Lover with the thrilling breathlessness of Indiana Jones. The result is breathtaking.”–Dana Sachs, author of If You Lived Here

Obsessions of a Soon-to-be-Published Debut Novelist

I went from being a writer obsessed about getting an agent to being a writer obsessed about whether or not my agent would sell my book. Turns out, though, once the book is sold, that’s when the real obsession begins. Who knew that after all of the editing is done and the book goes into production, there could still be so much to fixate on, especially in the few weeks leading up to the publication date?

1. My New Life
My publisher offered pre-publication copies of my novel on social networking book review websites. So I sit at my desk, with its view toward the hazy Hollywood sign in the distance, and click from site to site four million times an hour to see if anyone has reviewed my novel. They have. And while I calculate the average of the stars I’m accruing, what starts driving me crazy is the reader who offers a comprehensive and very positive review while calling my main character Lillian – her name is Irene! I drink some coffee and email my marketing person at my publishing house and ask what I can do about this. Her answer leaves no wiggle room: do not correct anything or challenge anyone. And welcome to your new life!

2. The Gray Lady
Dawn breaks and I leap out of bed, hoping to keep one step ahead of a panic attack. I turn on my computer to check if there’s anything new on the review sites and instantly realize my mistake. I should have changed my home page. It’s The New York Times book review. As I stare at it, my mind races. Will they? Won’t they? And if they don’t, why not? What do the others have that I don’t have? Which leads to …

3. The Others
Still at my computer on another overheated L.A. day, I reread the terrific magazine article that includes my book in a series of reviews about debut novels. Before I can stop myself, I’m Googling every one of the books and investigating where each is being reviewed and what lists it’s showing up on. Shaky, I switch from coffee to tea and ponder any and all reasons why the others might or might not be getting better coverage than mine. Walking my Chihuahua, I ignore my neighbors and try to figure out how to compete with the descendant of Melville or a Khmer Rouge survivor. Returning to my desk, I Google all of the names one more time, and the fixation takes on a life of its own, developing its own sub-fixation.

4. Her
I trade the black tea for decaffeinated tea, and feel not only childish but guilty. Among the others there is a specific other, one who is burdened with carrying the weight of all my attentions. In this case, she and I have the same agent and the same publication date. I like this woman, I’m sure I’m going to like her book, and I want her to succeed. But I agonize over why her forthcoming book brings up 72,100 Google results while mine only brings up 42,300. Then I open one of the pages and gasp in pain. She has been chosen as an Indie Next pick and I have not … me, a former independent bookseller!

5. OMG, Another One?
Between Googling and fixating on fellow debut novelists, I Facebook and I Tweet. And just when I think I’m about to explode, the message comes through from my cousin: I must now Pin! Pinning is the only way to sell anything these days! Not only that (I can feel the muscles tensing in my neck as I read on) I must connect my Facebook and Twitter to my Pinterest and vice versa. And while I’m at it, I should perhaps post on my literary blog more than twice a year, and make sure to connect that to … well, you get the idea. As I reply to my cousin, I try to figure out how I am supposed to find the energy to Pin when I waste most of it clicking the bookmark bar to see if I have any new ratings on the review websites?

6. Say Cheese
Everyone tells me that my author photo is lovely. But as I attempt to go cold turkey on the Googling, I pull up the photo on my screen. Staring at it, I increase the resolution, just a bit and then some more. To my dismay I find that there is the slightest sneer in my smile, as if I am in my little house back in Vietnam downwind from the dried cuttlefish factory. I shift from decaf tea to chamomile and try not to think about being known as the author with the “she-smells-something-stinky” smile.

7. The Unmentionables
I have to sleep at some point, but when I do, it is punctuated with things I want to explain, things I want to denounce, things I want to declare. I toss and turn, shouting it all out in my head, because I hate people who need to purge so badly that they’re willing to hurt others’ feelings in the process. So #7 is for all of the things I can’t say. Enough said!

8. Making Peace
But before I go to bed, there are the evenings to fill, and I climb onto the sofa with my Chihuahua and the cup of calming chamomile, and while I watch Columbo on Netflix, I chastise myself for all of the time that I’m wasting obsessing when I could be productively promoting my novel or writing my new one. Unfortunately, I watch Netflix on my computer, and there it sits above Peter Falk, that darn bookmark bar. One more click, that’s all, I promise myself, just one last look to see if anyone else has reviewed my book. I click and then click again and then again and again, my fingers trying to outrace my thoughts.

And then something shifts inside me.

I’m panicked. I’m anxious. I’m obsessive. And I don’t care. I am about to become the one thing I’ve always dreamed of being: a published novelist! Defiantly, I make myself a strong cup of black coffee and Google to my heart’s content before going to bed, where I spend an hour or so shouting in my head before fidgeting through the night as I anticipate checking the review sites first thing in the morning.

Obsessions of a Soon-to-be-Published Debut Novelist

I went from being a writer obsessed about getting an agent to being a writer obsessed about whether or not my agent would sell my book. Turns out, though, once the book is sold, that’s when the real obsession begins. Who knew that after all of the editing is done and the book goes into production, there could still be so much to fixate on, especially in the few weeks leading up to the publication date?
1.      My New LifeMy publisher offered pre-publication copies of my novel on social networking book review websites. So I sit at my desk, with its view toward the hazy Hollywood sign in the distance, and click from site to site four million times an hour to see if anyone has reviewed my novel. They have. And while I calculate the average of the stars I’m accruing, what starts driving me crazy is the reader who offers a comprehensive and very positive review while calling my main character Lillian – her name is Irene! I drink some coffee and email my marketing person at my publishing house and ask what I can do about this. Her answer leaves no wiggle room: do not correct anything or challenge anyone. And welcome to your new life!
2.      The Gray LadyDawn breaks and I leap out of bed, hoping to keep one step ahead of a panic attack. I turn on my computer to check if there’s anything new on the review sites and instantly realize my mistake. I should have changed my home page. It’s The New York Times book review. As I stare at it, my mind races. Will they? Won’t they? And if they don’t, why not? What do the others have that I don’t have? Which leads to …
3.      The OthersStill at my computer on another overheated L.A. day, I reread the terrific magazine article that includes my book in a series of reviews about debut novels. Before I can stop myself, I’m Googling every one of the books and investigating where each is being reviewed and what lists it’s showing up on. Shaky, I switch from coffee to tea and ponder any and all reasons why the others might or might not be getting better coverage than mine. Walking my Chihuahua, I ignore my neighbors and try to figure out how to compete with the descendant of Melville or a Khmer Rouge survivor. Returning to my desk, I Google all of the names one more time, and the fixation takes on a life of its own, developing its own sub-fixation.
4.      HerI trade the black tea for decaffeinated tea, and feel not only childish but guilty. Among the others there is a specific other, one who is burdened with carrying the weight of all my attentions. In this case, she and I have the same agent and the same publication date. I like this woman, I’m sure I’m going to like her book, and I want her to succeed. But I agonize over why her forthcoming book brings up 72,100 Google results while mine only brings up 42,300. Then I open one of the pages and gasp in pain. She has been chosen as an Indie Next pick and I have not … me, a former independent bookseller!
5.      OMG, Another One?Between Googling and fixating on fellow debut novelists, I Facebook and I Tweet. And just when I think I’m about to explode, the message comes through from my cousin: I must now Pin! Pinning is the only way to sell anything these days! Not only that (I can feel the muscles tensing in my neck as I read on) I must connect my Facebook and Twitter to my Pinterest and vice versa. And while I’m at it, I should perhaps post on my literary blog more than twice a year, and make sure to connect that to … well, you get the idea. As I reply to my cousin, I try to figure out how I am supposed to find the energy to Pin when I waste most of it clicking the bookmark bar to see if I have any new ratings on the review websites?
6.      Say CheeseEveryone tells me that my author photo is lovely. But as I attempt to go cold turkey on the Googling, I pull up the photo on my screen. Staring at it, I increase the resolution, just a bit and then some more. To my dismay I find that there is the slightest sneer in my smile, as if I am in my little house back in Vietnam downwind from the dried cuttlefish factory. I shift from decaf tea to chamomile and try not to think about being known as the author with the “she-smells-something-stinky” smile.
7.      The UnmentionablesI have to sleep at some point, but when I do, it is punctuated with things I want to explain, things I want to denounce, things I want to declare. I toss and turn, shouting it all out in my head, because I hate people who need to purge so badly that they’re willing to hurt others’ feelings in the process. So #7 is for all of the things I can’t say. Enough said!
8.      Making PeaceBut before I go to bed, there are the evenings to fill, and I climb onto the sofa with my Chihuahua and the cup of calming chamomile, and while I watch Columbo on Netflix, I chastise myself for all of the time that I’m wasting obsessing when I could be productively promoting my novel or writing my new one. Unfortunately, I watch Netflix on my computer, and there it sits above Peter Falk, that darn bookmark bar. One more click, that’s all, I promise myself, just one last look to see if anyone else has reviewed my book. I click and then click again and then again and again, my fingers trying to outrace my thoughts.
And then something shifts inside me.
I’m panicked. I’m anxious. I’m obsessive. And I don’t care. I am about to become the one thing I’ve always dreamed of being: a published novelist! Defiantly, I make myself a strong cup of black coffee and Google to my heart’s content before going to bed, where I spend an hour or so shouting in my head before fidgeting through the night as I anticipate checking the review sites first thing in the morning.

Imagination on the Road

When I was an infant, my mom read novels aloud to me while my dad was at work. And when I was a young girl, I would tuck under the covers with my sister while our dad made up absurd stories about Raggedy Kojak (a pathetic Raggedy Ann doll that had lost its hair) and his faithful sidekick, Mousiestein. On the nights when our dad did not whip up one of his episodic tales, our grandpa sat on the side of our bed telling us exotic stories about his life as a sailor in Shanghai in the 1930s.

I was raised in a family that appreciated the imagination, and it’s no wonder that I wrote my first novel when I was ten, and half a dozen more by the time I finished college. But it wasn’t until I was 29 that I made a delightful discovery – the one thing more fun than diving into the depths of your imagination is taking your imagination out for a stroll in the real world.

I already had two “serious” (unpublished) novels under my belt when I moved to Vietnam in 1995 to teach English. Four years later, I was not only in the midst of my novel that is about to be published … I was living inside it. Inspired by Andre and Clara Malraux, a young French couple who looted a Cambodian temple in the 1920s, I had started The Map of Lost Memories, a novel about Irene Blum, an American woman obsessed with discovering the lost history of Cambodia’s ancient Khmer empire. As she traveled from Shanghai to Saigon to Cambodia in search of an elusive set of scrolls, so did I!

Hundreds of hours were spent at my desk in my little cave of a house in Ho Chi Minh City, tapping away at my laptop. But an equal number were spent out with Irene – traipsing through the back alleys of Shanghai in search of the reasons why Simone Merlin will not join our expedition; standing bewildered in Saigon’s Chinese district of Cholon, wondering how we are possibly going to keep the scrolls a secret now that Louis Lafont has become involved; viewing the Angkor temples for the first time after years of anticipation; and venturing up the Mekong River and into the jungles of Cambodia with the great hope of finally achieving what we had always longed for – she, the scrolls, and me, the publication of The Map of Lost Memories.

It was a strange feeling to return to Vietnam this past spring, since each place I visited was saturated with two sets of memories: those from my own life and those from Irene’s life in the novel. Each is equally real to me. Each has shaped my life just as much as the other. Was there any sadness in knowing that my experience in Asia with Irene could now be nothing more than a memory? A bit. But at the same time, I was already in the beginnings of a new relationship with Lena, an American woman born in Vietnam in 1937, who becomes a culinary anthropologist, studying and preserving Vietnam’s food culture, and feeding homesick soldiers during the war.

As soon as I arrived, I contacted friends in town and said, “I need an idiosyncratic house on the river for the last scene in my new novel.” The next thing I knew, Lena and I (along with my fiancé) had been invited to spend the day in a sprawling Thai villa on the Saigon River, owned by an “Irish aristocrat” and filled with ornate, mildewing European furniture. Then I told friends I needed an old French apartment for Lena’s confrontation with the man who stole her research, and lo and behold, we were taken back through the decades to a loft in the historic Catinat Building.

Each day Lena and I had a new mission, and we were succeeding until one day she informed me that she did not like where she lived. I understood her reasons, and I told my fiancé. The following morning, the three of us set off at dawn, walking the city until finally, behind the Marie Curie High School, we turned the corner into a dead end lane, and there, behind a fence, were three French villas in row. I knew, even before Lena whispered in my ear: “The middle one.” Once again, my imagination had found its way home.

Lena's house in Saigon

An Ode to My Typewriter (with thanks to Nora Ephron)

My agent sold my novel. My novel will be published in a few weeks. So, what’s a girl to do? (Aside from obsess about: Amazon rankings, Library Thing reviews, GoodReads ratings, will The New York Times book section give me any love?, is it bad form to stalk Carolyn Kellogg?, why does one of my agent’s writers who has a book coming out on the same day as mine have 495,000 Google results while I only have 47,000?, why haven’t the Weinstein brothers already snatched up the film rights?, and, and, and …)
The answer: write another novel!
Actually, I’m already five chapters into my next novel. Five … typed … chapters. Yep, that’s right. TYPED! On a typewriter. A Smith Corona Coronet Electric, to be exact, in that signature mint/olive green of the 1960s.


Why, my writer friends have asked me, are you writing on a typewriter?
You see, I’m 45, and I started writing when I was 10, which means my writing life began on typewriters, the first one being a clunky manual in a big orange-ish case that belonged to my father in college. It was missing an “n,” requiring me to hand-write every single “n” into each of the mystery and/or teen romance novels I wrote until my next second-hand typewriter came along a few years later. I continued to write on typewriters into the early 1990s, when I was 22 and my grandma (who was toying with the idea of a desktop publishing business) gave me a massive, shades-of-HAL PC.
For more than 20 years, I pounded out stories on desktops and laptops around the world. But this January, when my soon-to-be-published novel was finally edited and off to the nebulous world of production at Random House, I found that my new novel – which had been clamoring for my attention for a while – did not want to emerge from my computer. It wanted a typewriter. This new book takes place between 1937 and 1975, and it informed me that a typewriter and only a typewriter could take me back to the pace and mindset of that time period.
So, in a manner not even imaginable during said time period, I hopped online and started shopping around. Google took me to Etsy, which I’d never used but which appealed to me solely for the cuteness of its name and the fact that it’s an outlet for so many individual craftspeople.
There were plenty of typewriters on the site, and I narrowed my selection down to two: one from avantgarage and one from cherryriver. As I corresponded with both – telling them how I intended to use the typewriter and asking their opinions on how well each of their items would meet my needs – I found cherryriver to be far more personable. I really wanted to buy a typewriter from her, but it turned out that the one she was selling was bigger than I wanted, while avantgarage’s was perfect, just as her response indicated:
This typewriter is small for an electric (15x13x6.5 in the case) and very comfortable to type on. Being electric the action is smooth and effortless and all systems seem to work well. You'll wish the keyboard on your laptop felt this nice. It would be a fine choice for your next novel and quite a bargain in the world of vintage typewriters.
It did seem nicely priced at $75. So I sent off my payment and then waited quite impatiently for the week it took my treasure to arrive. When it did, I could hardly contain my excitement, digging wildly through the foam peanuts to pull out a black case in near perfect condition. I opened it and there inside was my past and my future all in one darling little piece of machinery that looked as new today as it must have when it first came into the world in the 1960s.
I tested it. I sounded so … real. It felt so … real. I was a little scared of it. I set it up in my room, but it took a few days for me to get up the courage to actually start writing on it. And when I did, something happened that I’d forgotten all about. I typed three sentences. Then I pulled out that page and retyped those sentences, revising along the way before typing a few more. I then pulled out that page and retyped what I’d just written with a few more revisions and a new paragraph. On this went, until I had a full chapter and dozens of pieces of paper with fits and starts on them scattered on the floor around me.
But that chapter. It was solid. It was fully formed. I felt close to it, because I had felt my hands type every word, heard each letter as it touched down on the page. And still, I wondered: was I wasting my time (not to mention paper) reverting to this old-fashioned, lurching way of writing?
With this in the back of my mind, on I typed: chapters two, three, four and five. Every page continued to be its own reward. Each sentence, each paragraph, with its slightly imperfect letters and hand-written corrections, felt that it could belong only to me.
Then, in the wake of the death of the amazing Nora Ephron, I picked up my old copy of her collected essays and started reading. Yesterday I came to the end of the book, and to my surprise, in the last essay I discovered the following:
I learned to write an article a paragraph at a time … and I arrived at the kind of writing and revising I do, which is basically a kind of typing and retyping. I am a great believer in this technique for the simple reason that I type faster than the wind. What I generally do is to start an article and get as far as I can—sometimes no farther in than a sentence or two—before running out of steam, ripping the piece of paper from the typewriter and starting all over again. I type over and over until I have got the beginning of the piece to the point where I am happy with it. I then am ready to plunge into the body of the article itself. This plunge usually requires something known as a transition. I approach a transition by completely retyping the opening of the article leading up to it in the hope that the ferocious speed of my typing will somehow catapult me into the next section of the piece. This does not work—what in fact catapults me into the next section is a concrete thought about what the next section ought to be about—but until I have the thought the typing keeps me busy, and keeps me from feeling something known as blocked.
She goes on to say that for her 1,500-word essays for Esquire, she sometimes went through 300 to 400 pieces of typing paper, so often did I type and retype and catapult and recatapult myself, sometimes on each retyping moving not even a sentence farther from the spot I had reached the last time through. At the same time, though, I was polishing what I had already written …
And about this she declares: This is a kind of polishing that the word processor all but eliminates, which is why I don’t use one. Word processors make it possible for a writer to change the sentences that clearly need changing without having to retype the rest, but I believe that you can’t always tell whether a sentence needs work until it rises up in revolt against your fingers as you retype it.
Whether using a computer or a typewriter, I have always been a chronic reviser. I love love love the revision process. But as I returned to the typewriter I realized how lazy I had let myself become in regard to revision. Knowing I could just cut and paste my way through changes, I no longer wrote with care from the very start, since it was so easy to go back and fiddle around with the words on the screen at any given time.

On a typewriter, though, there is a different rhythm, a deeper relationship between the body and the machine, and I could feel the way my mind slowed, and more importantly, made choices. Yes, that’s it. When I write on a laptop, I don’t have to make choices. Anything can be erased or cut or pasted at any time. But with a typewriter that’s much more difficult, and so I write carefully, thoughtfully, respecting my abilities, trusting myself, and holding myself accountable to the words as they form on the page.
Over the years I have often been thankful to Nora Ephron for reminding me of something that’s important in life. Today I thank her for this. Nora, you will be greatly missed.

Upcoming events for The Map of Lost Memories

With the August 21 publication date of The Map of Lost Memories nearing, my publicist is setting up lots of great events. Following are the first confirmed readings, appearances, etc. I will post more details as soon as I have them.
September 9, 2012Book launch at Curve Line Space - details to comeLos Angeles (Eagle Rock), CA
October 7, 2012 - 2 pmReading at Elliott Bay Book CompanySeattle, WA
October 13-14, 2012WordStock - event details to comePortland, OR 

The Map of Lost Memories - Coming Soon!

My novel, The Map of Lost Memories, will be published in August of 2012. To learn more about it, go to my website or the book's page on the Random House website.


Advance praise for The Map of Lost Memories:
“In The Map of Lost Memories, Kim Fay draws us into a universe as exotic, intense and historically-detailed as the ancient artifacts her unforgettable heroine seeks. It's a deliciously unexpected journey: Indiana Jones meets Somerset Maugham meets Marguerite Duras; all culminating in a glorious traipse through a forgotten Asian world. This novel will stay with me for a long, long time.” – Jennifer Cody Epstein, author of The Painter from Shanghai

"The Map of Lost Memories is the best book I have read this year. Exotic, thrilling, and brimming with fascinating historic detail, it had me hooked from page one and sent me to a world I knew existed, but never really understood, never really felt, until now. Kim Fay is a wonderful storyteller who truly masters the art of crafting a riveting story with heart and elegance. The result is utterly mesmerizing." – Anne Fortier, New York Times-bestselling author of Juliet

“Kim Fay writes with such mesmerizing authority that it's hard to believe The Map of Lost Memories is her first novel. Rarely do we find a book that combines gripping adventure with exquisitely crafted prose, but Fay's novel does just that, bringing together the beauty and complexity of Marguerite Duras' The Lover with the thrilling breathlessness of Indiana Jones. The result is breathtaking.” – Dana Sachs, author of If You Lived Here and The House on Dream Street

"Kim Fay's engaging debut novel, The Map of Lost Memories, not only weaves together a smart, compelling story of a quest for scrolls believed to contain the lost history of Cambodia's ancient Khmer empire, but also gives us a glimpse into 1920's China and Indochina during the time of transition from colonialism to the beginnings of communism. With deftness and clarity, Fay brings her world to life and gives us a captivating read.” – Gail Tsukiyama, author of A Hundred Flowers

“Kim Fay breathes new and original life into the Westerner-in-Asia novel with The Map of Lost Memories, going beyond the intrigues of 1925 Shanghai to the remote reaches of the Cambodian jungle. An enchanting, absorbing first novel, all the more remarkable for its effortless portrayal of a bygone world, now nearly forgotten.” – Nicole Mones, author of Lost in Translation and The Last Chinese Chef

Happy All the Time: Traveling with the Lone Pilgrim

To my poor neglected Literate in L.A. blog, I am thrilled to post a guest essay by my dear friend Janet Brown, who originally published this piece on her terrific blog, Tone Deaf in Thailand . There are few greater literary pleasures in the world than sharing a love of Laurie Colwin ... many thanks to Janet for doing so with such talent and affection:

Traveling with the Lone Pilgrim
by Janet Brown

I have no idea why this book has accompanied me through my life. For over forty years, when I first read it in a novella form in Redbook magazine, then when the longer novel emerged in 1978, I have loved Laurie Colwin's Happy All the Time with a fierce and unconditional passion. I have bought and given it away more times than I can count. When I have lived without it for a few years, I have to buy it again--most recently at the beautiful new site of Seattle's Elliott Bay Book Company. I knew it would be there, waiting for me, under a slant of sun from the store's skylight, and it was.

I've read it as a young mother in Fairbanks, Alaska, as a woman living out a long-delayed adolescence in her forties, and as a sixty-plus expat in Bangkok. It has always absorbed me and delighted me and I have never asked why--until now. I don't love romantic novels that sparkle on the surface and have very little plot. I don't usually cherish characters who speak in short, crisp, almost utilitarian sentences. And I would detest any one of the four central figures in this book should I ever meet them off the page.

Guido Morris, Vincent Cardworthy, Holly Sturgis and Misty Berkowitz are all in their own singular fashions, perfect. They are physically attractive, accomplished and they can cook. They love fine art--in fact their lives are works of fine art. Each of them could be a small jade figurine. They fall in love and they marry and they "keep the ugly, chaotic world at bay." Their Manhattan is one of charming little restaurants and dark, genteel bars and the occasional museum. Even parenthood is perfection. Why are they not absurd? Or at least very, very dull?

Perhaps because Misty and Holly are perfect but they are difficult--and proud of it. "I am the scourge of God," Misty tells Vincent. "I was made for Attila the Hun." Holly, Guido comes to understand, is "Genghis Khan in emotional matters." And so is Laurie Colwin.

This is a writer who takes as her territory an entire Great Lake of thin ice and skates on it with aplomb and complete enjoyment. Her plot is romantic, her men would like to be, her women never are. In what should be a paradise of happily ever after, her heroines are equipped with a detached and loving irony that pervades and eventually takes over the entire book.

So does a gentle and laser-beamed satire. Although never focused upon the two couples whose book this is, the peripheral figures in their lives are fleeting and unforgettable. They are skewered and examined and put aside, without cruelty or caricature. Alive and indelible, they glitter in some undiscovered universe, waiting for their own novel.

Laurie Colwin specialized in that. A short story would become two or three, all with the same characters, then a novella, then a novel. Her gift was to provide the full bodies for her characters within the first story. The details came later, and when they did, the people they embellished were remembered as old friends--"Now where have I met you before? You're the one who takes off your gloves with your teeth."

Her books sparkle and glisten and at first they seem all patina, no core. They're much like the novels of another woman who said of her own writing, "the little bit (two inches wide) of ivory." Yet hundreds of years later, Jane and Bingham, Elizabeth and Darcy, still pull readers to their pages again and again and again. So do Guido and Holly, Vincent and Misty, in a fairy tale with an edge, in a satire laced with deep and abiding love.

But there was a subversive side to Laurie Colwin. Six years after she idealized matrimony in Happy All the Time, she published a collection of short stories called The Lone Pilgrim. It's dangerous to speculate on any writer's life based upon their fictional output, but I think it's safe to say that only someone who was alive and young in the '60s could have written those stories.

These are dark little gems; they gleam; they do not sparkle. "The Achieve of, the Mastery of the Thing" is one of the funniest stories I have ever read; it's also the closest that Laurie Colwin ever came to cruelty. The page and a half that she allows for the speed-rap sales pitch of a drug dealer named Uncle Marv has the poetry and idiocy that many of us remember all too well from past lives. And as the narrator ends with "Suddenly I was full of optimism and hope for the future," Altamont and Kent State and Charles Manson peer out at her through that sentence.

This is a writer who refuses to believe in innocence, "that witless spontaneous affection, that hungry purposeless availability." For Laurie Colwin, there are people who plunge into the world straight on and others who approach it in baby steps; some girls have "money instead of imagination and complete self-confidence" and some, even in childhood, recognize the polished and seductive charm described in "Delia's Father." "One false move and you lose everything," says the girl who, with one kiss, "crosses over to my side of the street forever." And in "A Girl Skating," a poet mercilessly deflowers the child he loves without ever needing to touch her. "I was the child he loved best. There was no escaping him," but it was "the infant seriousness" that froze that girl into place in poems. Without her intelligence, she would never have understood that this attention kept her from having a life that was "entirely unremarkable and happy."

Happy is a word that Laurie Colwin uses a lot and as she shows who is truly happy in her fiction, Misty and Vincent, Holly and Guido take on an almost sinister luster. They are abandoned to what kind of a future, at the end of their novel when they "raised their glasses and, by the light of the candles, they drank to a truly wonderful life." The candles are beeswax, the glasses hold champagne and when it is gone, "they were suddenly sad." Thank heaven Vincent has an extra bottle--but will there always be enough champagne?

The final story in The Lone Pilgrim, "Family Happiness" shows what happens to smart people in happy marriages. So does "A Mythological Subject" and "Intimacy" and "A Sentimental Memory." Nobody has ever written so rationally about infidelity than Laurie Colwin. Her characters, with the fine emotional geiger counters that they have within their hearts, negotiate the hazards of adultery without damage and with few tears. An affair, Laurie Colwin suggests over and over, in short stories and in novels, is the secret to a successful marriage. It is simply another kind of love. It is not "full of the misery and loneliness that romantic people suffer in love."

Well-stocked pantries, well-ordered lives, well-placed objects, well-enjoyed meals: yet at the base of this glorious celebration of domestic living is a bullet aimed straight at the heart of monogamy. While making marriage look desirable, Laurie Colwin as much as anybody and more than most transformed it into an altered state, "a dark forest" filled with "a little chapel, a stand of birches, wolves, snakes, the worst you can imagine, or the best."

Waxing Nostalgic

I have always been a nostalgic person. Even when I was a little kid, I was nostalgic. For my grandpa’s days as a sailor in the Orient in the 1930s. For my parents’ sock-hop-letterman-jacket-1950s-youth in rural, small-town America. My friend Connie says that when she was a teen, all she could do was look forward into the future. When I was a teenager in the 1980s, I listened to Simon & Garfunkel and wrote poems about wearing flowers in my hair, or about my own childhood, which was, in my own words, about lilacs, kittens, and love.

Simply put, I have a thing for lost worlds, for what was, and this year the nostalgia is worse than ever. (I am not even counting how St. Elmo’s Fire, which I own, makes me cry, or my latest obsession with Thirtysomething.) This dangerous nostalgia started innocently enough, with picking up yet another Richard Yates’ novel. Then I discovered Mad Men and rented three discs at a time from Netflix so I could watch the episodes back to back. Finally, used book hunting in Tucson with my dad, I found Mary Cantwell, whose memoir, Manhattan, When I Was Young, is the true life version of “the good old days.” Cantwell was Mad Men’s Betty and Peggy all rolled into one.

In her job as an assistant at Mademoiselle in the late 1950s (a magazine, keep in mind, that once published the greatest literary writers in America), Cantwell wrote that all she ever did for her boss was “order theater tickets, make restaurant reservations, and type the occasional letter. The letters were personal, not professional.” And of her coworkers at lunchtime: “The copywriters and other literary types were eating saucisson at the French Shack, unless they were at Barney’s knocking back martinis.” The things that we think of now as clichés—martini lunches, cigarette smoking in offices and airplanes—were nothing remarkable. They were just part of daily life.

When I emailed my best book friend Janet to tell her I was reading Cantwell (and how much I was loving her), she replied, “When you are in NYC, do you feel the Manhattan of Mary Cantwell? I don't anymore but I did so strongly up until the mid-70's. Now I feel a huge surge of loss when I am there—but whether that's for the city or my younger self that loved it so, I won't know until I go back for more than a couple of days—whenever that might be.”

This reminded me of something I read in the memoir Leap Days, in which the author describes moving to New York in 2004, when she was in her forties: “Change is such a constant here that people have to become accustomed to it, if not inured. Novelist Colson Whitehead was thinking of the transitory nature of the storefronts and corners when he wrote that you become a New Yorker ‘when what was there before is more solid and real than what is here now.’ That fine newspaperman of the old school, Pete Hamill, calls New York the Capital of Nostalgia. In his book Downtown: My Manhattan, he tells us that the New York version of nostaligia isn’t just about buildings and the people who live in them: ‘It involves an almost fatalistic acceptance of the permanent presence of loss. Nothing will ever stay the same. Tuesday turns into Wednesday and something valuable is behind you forever. An is has become a was.’”

Something valuable, behind you forever. Our younger selves. The crux of it. Because my nostalgia is about more than just some romantic vision of a long ago New York that I never knew. That just happened to be the trigger, setting the stage for the very real losses that have overtaken me this year. When I heard that Gourmet magazine is shutting down next month, I sat alone in my apartment and sobbed. Then I received the news that my precious Elliott Bay Book Company in Seattle, where I worked—and lived, and grew up—during most of my twenties, is the latest casualty of the economic downturn, diabolic predatory tactics of superstores, and people who will waste their money on so much crap but not pay full price for a book (and therefore keep quality alive). Chances are in January the bookstore will be leaving the city’s historic Pioneer Square, where it has reigned, serving as a landmark, defining Seattle as a literary city, and reminding the world that words and personal service do matter, for more than thirty years.

Naturally, I’m feeling very selfish. Not only do these two losses gouge out great pieces of my past, they also intrude on the beauty of my future. My Vietnam food book, Communion, will be published in February 2010, and it will never know the pages of Gourmet, a magazine whose thoughtful commentary and literary tone put it in a class of its own. My novel, In Yellow Babylon, which I have faith will be published soon, may never be purchased from Elliott Bay—and I may never read from it there, an event I have dreamed of for years.

Am I a Luddite? No. Do I hate newfangled things? Nope. Do I wish we could return to a time when a female engineer or advertising executive was more than just a anomaly? She was dreaded and even loathed. Absolutely not. And in any case, I am not talking about the social changes the last few decades have given us. Those are another essay altogether. My kind of nostalgia may be rose-tinted, but I am a realist at the same time. What I miss, and see going away, and feel is the most tragic loss in all of this (beyond my own personal sense of loss), is a respect for tradition and quality. In an article about the end of Gourmet in The New York Times, Christopher Kimball (publisher of Cook’s Illustrated magazine) wrote:

“The shuttering of Gourmet reminds us that in a click-or-die advertising marketplace, one ruled by a million instant pundits, where an anonymous Twitter comment might be seen to pack more resonance and useful content than an article that reflects a lifetime of experience, experts are not created from the top down but from the bottom up. They can no longer be coronated; their voices have to be deemed essential to the lives of their customers. That leaves, I think, little room for the thoughtful, considered editorial with which Gourmet delighted its readers for almost seven decades.”

I miss the thoughtful. I miss the considered. I want more than one sentence at a time. I want ideas that are thought through (thank God for The New York Review of Books.) I want a world in which patience still is a virtue, rather than some outdated fuddy-duddy quality like manners or personal responsibility (AIG et al still blow my mind). Yes, the clerk at Whole Foods really did snap at me, “What, don’t you know how to read?”, when I forgot to push the “yes” button on the debit card machine. Clearly, patience and manners were not part of her makeup, as seems to be the case with so many these days.

Another great loss in my life this year was Cook’s Library, a decades old cookbook store here in LA. In this store, I sampled the most amazing pine nut tart and bought the least pretty of all the tapas cookbooks because Tim who worked there assured me it was the best—he was right. I met famous chefs, and also one of my dearest friends, Ann Le, when we were both scanning the shelves doing research. Without this intimate, neighborhood shop, we never would have encountered one another, and our lives would be less rich for it. That is another thing I feel nostalgic for. Human interaction. The real deal, not just Facebook quips, as much as I enjoy reading them.

It’s not that I want the new to go away. I just don’t want the old to disappear—how sad I was in recent years when my neighborhood lost Irna’s Corsetorium to a trendy shop selling $400 boots, and the eighty-year-old Hungarian baker at the Farmer’s Market, whose kalachi recipe came from his own family, shut down his shop, which was replaced by a chain that doesn’t bake a single loaf of bread on the premises. I’m glad people no longer smoke in restaurants, but it still makes me smile when a man opens a door for me, or my friend Pete walks on the outside when we’re on a busy street.

And so, just a few years past forty, I am becoming one of those people who clings to the “old ways.” To my fountain pen, and to the shortwave radio my dad gave me that pulls in the blues station from San Diego (even though I could just as easily listen to that station online). To those funny ads in the back columns of the New Yorker, for books by the foot and the $14 beret from John Helmer, est. 1921. I cling to hope (thank you, President Obama, for bringing that back) that integrity and independent bookstores and the ability (and desire) to discriminate are not one day twittered away. And as far as Twitter is concerned, I wonder if there will come a day when today's twenty year olds turn forty and find themselves longing for a simpler time of texting and tweeting and the iPod Touch. Remember all those crazy things we used to post on our Facebook walls! Man, those were the days ... So life goes on.