12 6.12.
The odds are against making a career as an
indie musician. Finding success as a mem-
oirist is equally unlikely. Michelle Zauner,
improbably, has done both. Under the
nom-de-band Japanese Breakfast, Zaun-
er, who is 33, has released three albums
of dreamy alternative pop, including last
year’s critically acclaimed ‘‘Jubilee.’’ That
eff ort came close on the heels of her mem-
oir, ‘‘Crying in H Mart,’’ which was not only
an artistic triumph — artfully observed and
emotionally rich — but a surprise runaway
best seller. The book, about food and mem-
ory, the confusion that can come with bira-
cial identity, Zauner’s fraught relationship
with her hyper -demanding Korean mother
and then her grief at losing her mother to
cancer, has stayed on the New York Times
best- seller list for more than 40 weeks. ‘‘For
a long time, and maybe still in some part of
me, I felt like I had to have a backup job,’’
says Zauner, who is currently working on
the screenplay for a fi lm adaptation of her
book and will be touring with Japanese
Breakfast this summer. ‘‘This kind of vali-
dation makes life a lot easier.’’I read an interview where you said that
as a musician you tend to get a ton of
‘‘What’s it like to be a girl in music?’’
questions, but now, after ‘‘Crying in H
Mart,’’ the cliché questions are about
racial identity. What have those ques-
tions revealed to you about other people’s
assumptions about Asian Americans?
It’s such a diff use category. Well, I can
say that the most gratifying thing to learn
from other people about the book is that it
shined a light on a diff erent type of paren-
tal aff ection. I just did an interview with the
Korean press, and a lot of times they ask
me, Why do you think that your book is so
successful? I feel like part of it is that this
kind of relationship hasn’t been showcased
before. That’s why it was so challenging
for my mother and me to fi gure out. We
had no reference point for why we were
so at odds and how to manage our cultural
divide and probably not even realizing that
it was a cultural divide. I was so angry at
my mom for so much of my life, and I was
just starting to get to this wonderful place
with her when she got sick. It wasn’t until
after she died^1 that I was able to realize
how diff erent her love and aff ection was
from my peers’ parents’ love and aff ection.
What’s been less gratifying to learn
from people about the book? I think they
don’t even mean it, but I fi nd it off ensivewhen people think that the book has been
successful because of the attacks on Asian
Americans, because of anti- Asian hate.
There are some people who feel like woke
readers want to support Asians.
And so they’re buying ‘‘Crying in H
Mart’’ out of solidarity? Ye a h. I ’ m s u r e
there were a number of Black authors that
also experienced this during the Black
Lives Matter movement. There’s weird
guilt and heavy feelings about that. But
it’s also insulting, because I would like to
believe that the success of this book is
because I’m allowed to be a main charac-
ter for the fi rst time in the world. And this
book has universal themes about moth-
ers and daughters and grief and food and
memory. This doesn’t have to be a spe-
cifi cally Asian American story. This is a
story, and I happen to be Asian American.
You know the famous idea that musicians’
fi rst albums are good because they spend
their whole lives writing the songs and
then the second albums aren’t as good
because the songs all had to be written
quickly? Maybe this is a stretch, but are
you fi nding anything similar about the
prospect of writing a follow- up to ‘‘Cry-
ing in H Mart’’? Is there pressure to fi g-
ure out a follow- up? No, I’m dying to! My
creative life has been so raw and personal
that I would like to do something more
analytical. The most diffi cult part of writing
the book was that I don’t feel like I’m some-
one with a great memory, which you need
for memoir. So part of me is interested inwriting a book that’s rooted in the present.
A natural jumping- off point from ‘‘Crying
in H Mart’’ is to study Korean. I’d like to
move to Korea for a year and document
that process and the funny idiosyncrasies
of a specifi c language. Something like
Jhumpa Lahiri’s ‘‘In Other Words.’’^2 I love
the idea of just observing, developing lan-
guage skills. I’m looking forward to that.
It feels like a safe project for me.
Earlier you said your mom’s aff ection
was so different from the affection
shown by your peers’ parents. How? I
mean, she had this blunt honesty that felt
exquisitely cruel at times. She was over-
bearing and critical. I never witnessed my
friends enduring that type of thing. Like,
my husband’s^3 mom is a coddling kind of
mother. When I got fi red from a job, she’d
say something like: ‘‘That’s crazy. You
work so hard. They don’t deserve you.’’
My mom’s reaction would be: ‘‘What did
you do? Anyone can hold a tray.’’ Every-
thing was always my fault. But I don’t think
that’s a uniquely Asian thing. I’ve had peo-
ple from a variety of cultures express that
that’s how their parents reacted. It’s just
misplaced anger. The parents are so upset
that this thing is happening to you that
they accidentally direct their anger at you
instead of trying to fi x the situation.
It can be such a confusing thing to feel
real ambivalence about a parent. How
does that ambivalence make you think
about the kind of mom that you’d want
to be? That is, if you want kids, of course.1 Zauner’s mother,
Chongmi, died from
cancer in 2014.2 The novelist’s 2016
memoir about
moving to Rome to
learn Italian.3 Zauner is married
to the musician
Peter Bradley, who
plays guitar in
Japanese Breakfast’s
touring lineup.4 From Zauner’s
book: ‘‘What she
meant was that, no
matter how much
you thought you
loved someone, or
thought they loved
you, you never
gave all of yourself.
Save 10 percent,
always, so there
was something to
fall back on.’’5 As Zauner’s father
did, which she wrote
about in her memoir.6 Not just in the
details of his
philandering and
drinking, but in
his lack of emotional
understanding
of his daughter. ‘‘Over
time,’’ Zauner wrote,
‘‘our conversations
became a lot like
explaining a movie
to someone who
has walked in on the
last thirty minutes.’’7 Zauner’s father,
Joel Zauner, could
not be reached
for comment.Talk