Q&A:patricia park

JANE EYRE in korean queens

by Revital Aranbaev

“Bridges and Tunnels” is the third chapter of Patricia Park’s novel, Re Jane published in 2015.

There have been dozens of adaptations of Jane Eyre since its publication in 1847, but in Patricia Park’s novel--Re Jane—the author intentionally set out to change one pivotal line from the classic story: “Reader, I married him.” Park states that today we demand more from our heroines. Since women are no longer “confined to the same handful of choices that Victorian women had to face,” Park offers us a fresh and modern take on the classic narrative.
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In the novel, Park also stresses the significance of home—it is such an important theme that the book begins and ends on that word. For Jane, home is Queens, New York, where the author grew up. Park states that there aren’t many Queens narratives, which is what sparked her to feature sections of Re Jane in “Korean Queens.” In the interview, Park emphasizes that “Queens pride” doesn’t necessarily exist and that Queens, as well as the other outer boroughs, literally and figuratively lie in the shadows of  “the city.” The chapter featured in the anthology specifically highlights that.

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What was it about this chapter that you thought would be a good fit for the anthology?
​For me, I don’t think the Queens narrative has been written and I chose this excerpt in part to show that there is this other side to Queens, and that there are these stories that have not been told. The chapter shows the character, Jane, in literal transition—she is leaving what is home and venturing into a new world (even though she’s really traveling from one borough to the other). Queens is featured so heavily [in this book]. In that scene, she is literally passing through the wasteland—this is Fitzgerald’s literary legacy. That stretch of Queens with the T.J. Eckleburg sign and Wilson’s gas station—he calls this “the valley of ashes.”

In that passage, I tried to deliberately evoke more classic literary texts, there are allusions to T.S. Eliot’s The Waste Land—that violet light. Allusions to The Great Gatsby, and in leaning on some of that language, I’m taking these canonical literary works and kind of marring them through the dirt of Queens. To me, that was an interesting dialogue that I wanted my work to be a part of because Queens is so stereotypically unglamorous and uncool.

The novel has such a strong sense of place—when you were developing this book, what was your relationship to these cities or boroughs that you felt you wanted to put down on paper?
Being born and raised in Queens I always grew up romanticizing the city (Manhattan). All of our roads led to Manhattan as Jane tells us. It was only when I left Queens that I started to feel a weird kind of reluctant nostalgia for my homeland and that this borough that I had been in many ways trying to escape had a lot of richness to it despite the blue collar grit. I think all of the outer boroughs share this—we are thrown into the shadows of Manhattan’s bright sun.

Did you feel a pressure to depict the borough in a certain way because there aren’t that many written narratives of Queens?
It is always a pressure when you are like a single story, but as writers we have to strive for authenticity. Even if that’s portraying something, warts and all.

The Queens narrative is not one homogeneous thing; every neighborhood has its own culture, more often than not its own ethnic enclave. What would be ideal is to have many Queens narratives and none of them resemble each other, because that’s just how microcosmic Queens is.

Did you have a positive experience growing up in Queens?
I had a mixed one. There was no such thing as Queens pride—I would say that’s an oxymoron. We grew up in the shadows, literal and figurative, of Manhattan (aka the city). For me, being from Queens felt like I was a New Yorker with an asterisk. Just the same way it felt like I was an American with an asterisk—I had to be qualified. Whether it was Korean-American or New Yorker from Queens, it felt like I never quite belonged.

I think that kind of displacement, while perhaps awful for my own psychological development as a child (!), was important for my writing life and thinking about characters that feel like they don’t belong. And home is such an important theme in this novel—the novel begins and ends on the word home—so that was a journey that I wanted my characters to take and my readers to take alongside Jane.

Since Jane Eyre was published in 1847, it has inspired numerous adaptations. How did you want this story to be different or relating to current day events?
When I envisioned this novel, I thought: What would it be like for Jane to come of age in the world I knew? What drew me to Jane Eyre initially was that she was the ultimate underdog—she was scrappy, she was orphaned, she was considered, “wicked,” “mischievous,” “friendless.” Girl couldn’t catch a break. I’m more interested in fiction that depicts someone who is disenfranchised versus all of the conventionally beautiful heroines that I was weaned on. And though I loved Jane Austen, it’s hard to muster as much sympathy for characters that have been dealt a better hand in life—maybe it’s a question of privilege.

I connected with Jane Eyre, who self-identifies as “poor, obscure, plain, and little,” and I wanted to see how she would thrive and overcome [obstacles] in the Korean Queens that I knew. Where I departed [from Jane Eyre] was in the iconic line, “Reader, I married him.” That doesn’t translate into modern day. As fresh and modern as Jane Eyre was in its time, it does not translate to a contemporary readership where we demand more of our heroines. We’re not confined to the same handful of choices that Victorian women had to face. One thing I set out to do with Re Jane is to rewrite that “Reader, I married him” line and to show a rebuttal to that narrative.

How long did it take to develop/write this book?
Officially seven years, unofficially 10-12 years.

Have you read your book cover to cover since it was published?
I haven’t because as writers we are always fiddling—although fiddling is not going to write or rewrite a book. You often have to do whole structural demolition and rebuilding. But now as I am rereading sections for events, I have the copy that I read from and some lines are all crossed out—I’m basically editing my own published novel.
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I appreciate that you confirm that many writers feel the need to constantly edit their work—even after it’s published. Can you tell me a bit about the second book you are working on?It takes a very minor character from Re Jane—Juan Kim. He is an Argentine born ethnic Korean. He falls in love with jazz piano and that’s his form of expression against a very conservative community. The story is set in the backdrop of the Argentine Dirty War—from the late 70’s to early 80’s—and it was a time of huge political upheaval and also torture of citizens. Anyone suspected of leftist activity was sent to clandestine prisons, tortured—it was a horrible human rights issue and genocide.

What drew you to write that narrative?
I’m interested in the cultural confusion of people with names like “Juan Kim.” There’s a moment at the end of Re Jane, where Jane (spoiler alert) has mistaken Juan Kim for being fresh off the boat from Korea, but really he was fresh off the boat from Argentina. I’m fascinated by minorities within minorities—that’s a huge theme in my work. People who don’t look like mainstream America, it’s a given that they are not accepted by the mainstream. But when they don’t even necessarily find solace within their own ethnic community—that feeling of double alienation is very interesting to me. I think it is something that needs to be brought more to light.