Vogue Interviews Sandi Tan!

With the release of Sandi Tan's debut novel, THE BLACK ISLE, Vogue has gone and interviewed her, diving deeper into the behind-the-scenes workings of the story itself.  Rest assured I still had the pleasure of hosting Sandi's first interview but Vogue's is pretty good as well.  I'd recommend it.   And the book too.  Can't forget that.

New BLACK ISLE Trailer!

The second trailer for Sandi Tan's THE BLACK ISLE has finally been released.  It's much more vivid and rich than the first and it's a good lead-in to an excellent novel.  And when you get a chance be sure to check out an article/interview with Sandi in the LA Times!  It'll give you some more insight into the book.  Just don't actually think it's another TWILIGHT knock-off.  It's not.  There aren't any vampires and I'm pretty sure the relation was made to sucker in more Twireaders because apparently not only are they ravenous for anything just like TWILIGHT but they'll buy anything that even mentions the word.  If it helps sell the book then hooray but the reality is it's nothing like TWILIGHT.  Read my review for proof.


The Black Isle from John Lin on Vimeo.

Author Bites - Sandi Tan and THE BLACK ISLE

While THE BLACK ISLE is probably more ghostly literary I do think it has some crossover appeal with YA in that it's a story about Cassandra coming of age and finding out who she really is.  The ghosts are all around her and held within her and she needs to manage her ability to fight them off on both fronts.  I fell in love with THE BLACK ISLE from the very first page and I knew even then I wanted Sandi to come by and chat a bit about her book.  Hooray that she agreed to do it!  Check out THE BLACK ISLE on its own website, read an excerpt from the novel and then go check out Sandi at her website or over on Facebook and let her know what you think.  Thanks for stopping by, Sandi!

What made you choose this island in the South China sea as the setting for THE BLACK ISLE?  Is there really an island in that area that bears this history or is it entirely fictitious?

The Black Isle is an entirely fictional place. I decided to set my novel afloat in that corner of the Pacific, midway between China and India, because it’s a fecund, festering tropical zone that hasn’t been explored much in international storytelling—and that’s a pity. This is a part of the world where the air is so dense you break into a sweat just by moving, where violent thunderstorms happen three or four times in the course of a regular day, where bugs and lizards abound—it is rainforest by nature and civilization only by nurture. Imagine the most humid New York or South Carolina summer and then imagine it year round. The Black Isle is a physical composite of several island- or archipelago-states in the region: Singapore, Malaysia, the Philippines, Hong Kong—all of which experienced a similar historical trajectory with colonialism, World War II and post-war independence; but the Isle also bears some resemblance to tropical cities in Latin America, like Recife in Brazil, and many others in Mexico. Near the equator, the conflict between man-made order and natural chaos is both everyday and eternal. On the Black Isle, this is also true of the conflict between the present and the past—and that’s where the ghosts come in!

Photo by Kathleen Clark via sanditan.com

To me, the Black Isle is as much a character as a place. Its coming-of-age from messy little port city to sleek international powerhouse is a kind of dark mirror of our heroine Cassandra’s own growth from plucky little girl to mature, powerful woman.

You make Cassandra seem at times both endearing as a character in trouble and someone not so innocent when it comes to blatant self-preservation.  Did you find it hard to toe this line and maintain a balance that ultimately tipped in favor of a likable character as opposed to not?

Not really. When I created a heroine who was going to fight to retain her legacy, to keep herself from being erased by history, I knew I had to make her even more vivid than the usual heroine. She had to be a super-real whispering companion you’d feel charmed by, concerned for, terrified of, one you’d ultimately—hopefully—admire, as you witness her gradual rise to power. Because Cassandra’s a sensitive soul—she sees the dead, after all!—I wanted to make her extra susceptible to the emotions that grip us all, bad and good: fear, envy, lust, love, and even unexpected jolts of great courage and compassion.

My hope was that if I tied Cassandra’s experiences in the supernatural realm to down-to-earth, everyday feelings, if I made her honest about her feelings (for example, romantic jealousy!), I would be able to take the reader to strange and exotic places, and still keep them on her side. This is what a “likable” heroine means to me—the character may not always be noble, and may not always do the “right” thing, but she should always be honest so we understand her motives for her actions—especially when these are linked to feelings. THE BLACK ISLE is as much the story of a young woman managing her supernatural powers as the story of a young woman harnessing her wild emotions.

Why does Cassandra maintain such a strong sense of family when, time after time, they push her away, whether it's her mother favoring her brother or her father letting responsibilities fall to her while reaping the benefits?  Is this a draw on a more cultural dynamic or a more inherent familial need?  Or both?

It’s both and more—it’s primal. I think everyone feels they need the support of family (or the familiar) when they’re thrown into the wilds of a strange new land, as poor little Cassandra was—shunted as a seven-year-old from the known world of Shanghai to the mysterious Black Isle. As she discovers and gradually comes to terms with her own unique power, she’s able to shed some of the negative people and emotions that try to cling to her; yet her family remains her most persistent ghosts, probably because they are tied to her childhood past, and to deny them would be to also deprive herself of her own history. They are inseparable from her memory of herself. I think we are often shaped by the difficult relationships we have with people in our lives, if only because we are forced to chart our own destinies in reaction to them.

The relationship between Cassandra and her brother at times borders on unhealthy.  Is this a cultural dynamic manifested by their being twins (alluded to in the story) or a need to depend on each other due to their parents' shortcomings?

Yep, Cassandra’s got a troublesome relationship with her twin brother, Li! This is partly because he’s been through so many of the same dramatic situations she’s been through—the creepy voyage by ship to the Black Isle, the terror of the rubber plantation, the military invasion during World War II. They’ve seen each other at their worst, and there’s shame and embarrassment in it. Yet ironically, this shared experience over the years is what binds them, for better or worse, and makes them each other’s secret sharer, each other’s shadow witness. They understand each other on a cellular level, like two halves of the same person.

In the end, they are both survivors—they do the best they can, and help each other the best they can. It slowly becomes clear that Cassandra is much stronger and braver than her brother. And of course, it’s Cassandra herself, more than anyone else, who is the most surprised—and chilled—by this!

Watch The Black Isle Book Trailer!

If you haven't read my review for Sandi Tan's THE BLACK ISLE yet, you really need to.  Immediately.  It's a wonderful book that so rich and transcends so many dimensions that you can't help but fall in love with it.  The book trailer itself is just as haunting as the actual words are.

I'm working on an interview with Sandi and by the time it's ready to go up the new book trailer will be ready, willing and able and to be watched and loved.  So take this for now and get intrigued.  And let Sandi know what you think on her Facebook page.

The Black Isle by Sandi Tan

Pub date: August 7, 2012.

Author website.

Uprooted from Shanghai with her father and twin brother, young Cassandra finds the Black Isle's bustling, immigrant-filled seaport, swampy jungle, and grand rubber plantations a sharp contrast to the city of her childhood. And she soon makes another discovery: the Black Isle is swarming with ghosts.

Haunted and lonely, Cassandra at first tries to ignore her ability to see the restless apparitions that drift down the street and crouch in cold corners at school. Yet despite her struggles with these spirits, Cassandra comes to love her troubled new home. And soon, she attracts the notice of a dangerously charismatic man.

Even as she becomes a fearless young woman, the Isle's dark forces won't let her go. War is looming, and Cassandra wonders if her unique gift might be her beloved island's only chance for salvation . . .  (netgalley.com)

I was floored with THE BLACK ISLE from the second I started reading it.  Written in a voice that's so incredibly engaging that you can't take your eyes from the page, it sucks you into an old world China where women are barely second class citizens and, depending on your status, superstition rules your life.

Cassandra goes through an epic transformation throughout the book.  The story starts with Cassandra as an old woman both running from and to her past.  She relives the world of her island through an out-of-print book at the library.  When she find that "her" book has been desecrated, her world gets rocked.  And infiltrated, by a less-than-welcome guest that wants Cassandra's story.  The plot flips back to the present a few times throughout the book, reminding the reader that Cassandra is narrating the story to someone, that there's a reason for this recounting.

When the greater story begins, Cassandra is Ling, twin of Li, the latter the more favored child because of his male status and the fact that Cassandra hogged the goods in the womb.  So while she came out nice and healthy Li was a bit starved.  To see the dynamic between brother and sister based on the parents' behavior was, at times, horrifying to watch.  They're twins so they share the same birthday except Cassandra didn't get gifts.  Those were reserved for the favored son.  It's a cultural aspect that I had a hard time getting over and it really bothered me to read.

I'll admit, Chinese culture isn't something I'm crazy about but the ghost story aspect of THE BLACK ISLE drew me in and I actually learned quite a few things about the culture.  And it even answered a few of my questions about the people in general.  I'd like to believe that a story so rich in Chinese culture would, in the same breath, be accurate as well.  I believed everything I read without a blink but you'll have to ask someone better versed in Chinese culture just how close it all is.  Right now I have no reason to doubt any of it.

It's not too long into the story that things take a turn for the strange and Cassandra starts being able to see ghosts.  It actually coincides with an incident in the park involving Li and their subsequent distancing.  That incident, though, I don't think is very realized.  It serves as a catalyst to get the twins apart (they were pretty much inseparable until that point) and then it comes back in at the end.  But it doesn't do much for character-building.  I thought it was going to have some greater impact on Li other than just a personality shift but there wasn't much.  He got cranky for a little while but that was about it.

When they up and moved to the Isle you get the full realization of just how incompetent Cassandra's father is and how reliant he is on his children to do his job.  I was flabbergasted by this and how long both of them actually put up with his ineptitude.  And it wasn't he just didn't have the smarts for it.  He just had better things to do with his time and it really angered his kids, especially when it was entirely their doing that got the plantation they moved to up and running and the workers in order.  Of course their job was thankless.

There was a tryst between Cassandra and Li that really bothered me and it's another aspect of the story that I'm not sure how relevant it is to the greater plot.  Like I said I'm unfamiliar with Chinese culture but the ease with which the siblings entered into a sexual relationship really took me aback.  Was this okay because they're twins?  They hid it from their father so there was some level of shame there; just not a lot.  I was bothered by it, by its casual attitude and then it's relevance was gone.  It served its purpose for the plot at the moment but, like the incident in the park, I don't think it served it's purpose to the greater story.

Cassandra is a character trying desperately to be her own person.  She breaks off from her father and brother and gets a job on her own after finishing her schooling.  That job brings her to her fiancee, the son of her school's proprietor, and she's elevated into a social strata that she wouldn't otherwise be in.  Of course the male members of her family resent her for it.  She's supposed to be subservient to her father and brother, not rise above them.  But she was determined to make her own way, albeit on the backs of wealthier others.  It's because of this that she officially changes her name from Ling to Cassandra.

As time progressed in the story itself it does come across, a bit, as Cassandra effectively whoring her way into the best possible scenarios for herself.  She does appear to have feelings for two of the three suitors in the story but their positions in society sway my feelings about her a bit and make her look a bit like a gold digger.  These were opportune matches.  She just happened to have feelings for them as well.  But I don't believe she would have entered into those relationships simply for the status.  I do believe she loved two of the three.  I just think the author wrote it in such a way as to make the reader see, just slightly, what other people might see in Cassandra.  She is not a woman that actually worked her way up from the dredges.  She was well-placed, well-timed and well-suited.  Not her fault but it is convenient.

The second suitor?  Well he's not really a suitor.  He was one of the occupying soldiers when Japan invaded and kept Cassandra locked in her fiance's house and raped her repeatedly and referred to her as his wife.  It was a very weird situation and Taro absolutely took advantage of everything he could about her.  He kept her compliant to his whims by dangling her would-be family and friends in front of her.  It was a horrible situation and throughout, since it's in first person, you know that she's doing it for other people, for Daniel and her brother although I don't doubt some level of self-preservation.  No one wants to die, not really.  So I don't begrudge her that.

It takes Cassandra a while to come into accepting her abilities.  Issa, a shaman of sorts, tries to teach her but she bails, afraid of what she's getting into.  Years later she realizes that there is a benefit to working with the damned, at a heavy price, of course.  The ghosts of the Isle become tools for everyone to use, from Cassandra to prove a point, to suitor number three to get the island where he wants it to be.  It's not until she's much older that she fully realizes the total repercussions of what she can do, what she can see and how it affects not just her but everyone.

THE BLACK ISLE is a story about growth fueled by ghosts.  Ling/Cassandra denies her true self for a long time but slowly she comes into her own, taking hold of who she really is and embracing it, at times not fully understanding what it is she's undertaking.  The ghosts are a prominent aspect of the story but I wouldn't necessarily call THE BLACK ISLE a ghost story.  It's a coming-of-age and moving past it.  It's accepting your past and knowing when revenge has already been paid.  I can't say enough good things about it.  The voice is PHENOMENAL, balancing an elegant prose with a relatable one resulting in a story that anyone can love and get drawn into.  I'm so glad I opted to read this.  It called out to me from the NetGalley list and for good reason.  There are some books in your life that will leave a lasting impression for any number of reasons.  THE BLACK ISLE is one of mine.

Ban Factor: High - A foreign culture and religion and ghosts.  Oh noes!