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| Christina Li (photo: Therese Santiago) |
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Christina Li is the award-winning author of such children's and young adult books as Ruby Lost and Found and True Love and Other Impossible Odds. In The Manor of Dreams, Li's chilling adult debut, five women face down each other and the haunted estate they are set to inherit after the death of Vivian Yin, once known for being the first Chinese woman to win an Oscar. The Manor of Dreams will be published by Avid Reader Press/Simon & Schuster on March 11, 2025.
What was it about the classic haunted house trope that interested you in the context of this story?
I love a good haunted house story--the hidden tragic backstories, the spookiness of the house itself, the confined nature of it all. There is something compelling about the home, a traditional source of comfort and protection, being inverted into something sinister and destructive. I included the inheritance element as well to bring a new twist to it: What if people are fighting to inherit a house they don't know is haunted? That ultimately formed the first kernels of inspiration for Manor.
How did you thread these different characters and generations together?
The book is narrated by three generations of women--each character has been affected by their family history in a different way. I wanted to write the story over these generations to show exactly how each person inherits and passes on the trauma and expectations they've experienced, and how silence is reinforced over and over again. Each person, too, holds particular clues around what they know about Vivian Yin, the recently deceased matriarch--and about what happened in the house over 30 years ago. How do they all individually react and grieve Vivian's death when they reunite for the will? What secrets are they hiding from each other? What must I reveal in the past timeline to shed light on what's happening in the present?
As for a voice that I became surprisingly fond of, I really adored Lucille, one of Vivian's daughters, a lawyer who is firmly determined to fight to inherit the house and uncover the potentially suspicious circumstances around her mother's death. She's principled but doesn't always make the best--or kindest--decisions. I love writing complicated, deeply flawed, and ambitious women. She was one of my favorites.
What made Nora the character you wanted to start the novel with?
Starting the novel with Nora was an intentional choice--she is a character that almost seems "external" to the history of the house at first. She doesn't know anything about the house, or why she's even been summoned for the reading of the will, or what Vivian Yin has to do with her. Her receiving those two vague, ominous warnings from her mother--don't talk to Vivian Yin's family, and don't go into the garden--is her first introduction to the Yin family and to the home. I wanted her to almost be a proxy character for the reader at the beginning, so it feels like she is experiencing the story as we are.
Were there any particular images of the house's hauntings that came to you early on?
Yes! Not to spoil the book too much, but there is some creepy imagery with the roses in the garden that was actually one of the first things I imagined for this book. I loved the idea of a haunted garden. This novel conceptualizes hauntings as an extension of grief, and so I took care in making sure that each person is also haunted by something deeply personal to them--and that compounds with the horrors of the house to make for an even more foreboding experience.
What inspired you to want to write about a certain "golden" era of Hollywood?
The '70s and '80s are said to have been a very exciting and very inventive time to be in Hollywood, but I think the ultimate question is--for whom? Who was given the chances and resources to succeed? One of my research books was Hollywood Chinese by Arthur Dong, which discusses the trajectories of Chinese stars in Hollywood, and the general story there is it was difficult to break into Hollywood, and the roles that Chinese American actors got were often relegated to minor roles that played into the same stereotypes over and over again. And if they got one opportunity to succeed, it would still not be easy to get another. I wanted Vivian to experience the glamor and decadence and the novel energy of the '70s and '80s Hollywood renaissance, but also endure the very real marginalizations and limitations of the American movie business at the time.
What would you consider some of your tuning fork texts while you were writing this book?
There was a lot of media that really influenced me when I was writing this book, and "tuning fork text" is such a great way to describe it! I was particularly inspired by the Mike Flanagan Haunting series--The Haunting of Hill House and The Haunting of Bly Manor. I was also inspired by Silvia Moreno Garcia's Mexican Gothic; it is so beautifully written and taut and tense and examines the horror as grounded in the contexts of history and colonialism. For music, Phoebe Bridgers's "I Know the End" and Conan Gray's "Family Line" were on repeat when I was drafting the book. In terms of other inspirations or conversations, too, I feel like I was loosely in conversation with two other texts: The Dream of the Red Chamber by Cao Xueqin, which is a famous Chinese classic detailing the rise and fall of a prestigious family amid a doomed love affair; and The Great Gatsby, which perfectly enmeshes the promise with the shortcomings of the American Dream, a thematic touchstone of my novel.
What was the biggest challenge of writing The Manor of Dreams?
Writing a book across three generations, told in dual timelines, with several POV characters definitely made for a very intricate process! Part of this book is also a murder mystery of sorts, and so it was important to ensure that I gave the characters distinct voices, stories, conjectures, and that all the details would line up at the end. I had a couple of spreadsheets going on. But I have always wanted to write a sprawling, multigenerational book, and so this was a challenge that I took on giddily. This book bent my mind. I loved it.
How did the process of writing The Manor of Dreams differ from working on your previous books?
I have a unique process for each book I've written, and I love how each book's journey differs depending on the demands of the story. I knew from the moment I ideated The Manor of Dreams that it would be an adult literary. I've previously written middle grade and young adult contemporary/historical, and so I think the shift in genre as well as age category--as well as the logistical requirements of the story itself with the dual timeline format and close third POV structure (something which I've never done before as I've always written in first-person POV)--made for a very singular writing experience. --Alice Martin