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| photo: Sonya Sones | |
Nicola Yoon is the author of the #1 New York Times bestselling young adult novel Everything, Everything; her second novel, The Sun Is Also a Star (Delacorte Press, November 1), is a finalist for the 2016 National Book Award for Young People's Literature. Yoon grew up in Jamaica and Brooklyn. She now resides in Los Angeles with her husband and their daughter. Here, she answers some questions for Shelf Awareness about her real-life romance with her husband; her admiration for Carl Sagan; and the ever-inspiring New York City, the vividly wrought setting of The Sun Is Also a Star.
Congratulations on being one of five finalists for the National Book Award for The Sun Is Also a Star. How and when did you hear the news?
Thank you so much! I'm still over the moon about it. When I found out, I was alone in an airport Starbucks getting ready to fly to a warehouse signing in Maryland. Lisa Lucas, the director of the National Book Foundation, called to give me the news. As soon as she said, "This is Lisa Lucas," I just started crying. I got a lot of pitying looks from the other customers.
The Sun Is Also a Star is not only an irresistible love story, it's a story about the nature of love. Daniel likes the Japanese phrase "koi no yokan," which he defines as "the feeling when you meet someone that you're going to fall in love with them. Maybe you don't love them right away, but it's inevitable that you will." The distinction between the notion of "love at first sight" and "koi no yokan" is interesting. Do you find both scenarios equally romantic?
I do find both ideas very romantic. I like the idea that some part of you knows and recognizes the other person before your more logical and rational parts have a chance to catch up.
The romantic leads in The Sun Is Also a Star are Natasha, a 17-year-old Jamaican American, and Daniel, a 17-year-old Korean American. How did you decide on those backgrounds for your characters? Was any of their story based on your own?
I'm originally from Jamaica and my husband is Korean American, so I might have had a little help in choosing the backgrounds. But the story is not really autobiographical. I will say that some of the conversations that Daniel and Natasha have--especially the ones about love and the meaning of life--I've definitely had with my husband!
Was it love at first--or second--sight with him? How did you two meet?
With my husband it was more "koi no yokan." I met him in graduate school when we had our first creative writing class together. I thought he was supercute. There was just something about him that made me feel elated and grounded at the same time. Alas, he had a girlfriend and I was just getting out of a relationship, so I ignored my instincts. We were good friends for two years before we finally got our acts together and started dating.
One of my favorite aspects of the novel is how poetic Daniel uses science to woo geeky Natasha, who doesn't like "temporary, nonprovable things" like love.
Yes, I think that we all tend to think of these things as separate--science vs. the arts. I don't think about them that way. Both science and art are trying to find the truth about the world, but they approach it in different ways.
What role has writing played in your life?
Writing has been important to me since I was a kid, but I didn't start doing it in any serious way until my senior year of college. I was an electrical engineering major and needed an elective outside of engineering, so I chose a creative writing class. I wrote terrible (VERY TERRIBLE) poetry about unrequited love, but I got hooked on writing. After college I worked for a few years and then went to graduate school to study writing.
Tell us about the title The Sun Is Also a Star.
I am a huge Carl Sagan fan, and I actually got a chance to see him lecture when I was in college. One of the things I really admired about him was his belief that the scientific could also be beautiful. So when I was trying to think of a title for the book, I went searching for Carl Sagan quotes. I found one where he's lamenting the fact that some of his undergraduate students didn't know that the sun is a star, and I knew I had my title.
Do you think The Sun will melt the hearts of cynics?
Yes!
The duo's entire romance unfolds in 12 hours in New York City. Tell us about your relationship with New York and how that helped shape The Sun.
I moved to New York City from Jamaica when I was 11 years old. We lived in the Flatbush section of Brooklyn. Before we moved to the States, my only impression of America was the two trips to Disney World that I'd taken with my family. I thought Brooklyn was going to be exactly like Disney World. It was not. I did eventually learn to love New York.
Natasha is an undocumented immigrant, about to be deported to Jamaica, and her desperation to find a way to stay in America is palpable. Both Natasha's and Daniel's immigrant family stories are nuanced and compassionately told.
I am an immigrant and my husband's side of the family are immigrants, too. I drew a lot from my own experiences, as well as theirs. Immigrants have the same hopes and dreams that people who are born in America do. To immigrate to another country is an extraordinary act of hope and bravery.
The narrative alternates between Daniel's voice and Natasha's voice in very short chapters. Was it difficult to keep their voices distinct, or did that come naturally?
The voices came very naturally. I basically channeled my scientific, engineering-major side for Natasha and my bookish, novel-writing side for Daniel.
I loved the interruptions of the omniscient narrator who projects into a character's future, provides the backstory of Natasha's troubled actor father, and discusses the history of African American hairstyles or the "half-life" of love. Was that a structure that evolved, or did you start writing the novel that way?
I had the structure from the very beginning. There's an educational movement called the Big History Project, started by a teacher and academic named David Christian. The idea is that you can't teach subjects in isolation. Astronomy influences religious studies, which influences poetry, and so on. In the book I wanted to explore the ways that we are connected to and influence each other, even if we don't know we're doing it.
Was your writing process different with Everything, Everything and The Sun Is Also a Star?
My writing process was the same for both novels. I write longhand into Moleskine notebooks. My first session is from 4 a.m. to 6 a.m., and then from 9 a.m. to noon.
Tell us about how the Everything, Everything movie came about. Were you involved in writing the screenplay?
MGM optioned the book just before it was published in September 2015. Since then it's been a whirlwind! J. Mills Goodloe wrote a wonderful script, and Stella Meghie signed on to direct. After that, Amandla Stenberg and Nick Robinson signed on to star, and then suddenly we were making a movie! I was not involved in writing the screenplay, but I did have conversations with the writer as he was working and gave notes. The entire movie team has been really inclusive and supportive.
Any advice for aspiring writers?
Read everything you can get your hands on. Let your freak flag fly. Writing is a muscle, and like all muscles, it gets stronger with exercise. --Karin Snelson