Tuesday, July 18, 2017

Interview with Ed Lin, author of This is a Bust







Set in New York’s Chinatown in 1976, this sharp and gritty novel is a mystery set against the backdrop of a city in turmoil
Robert Chow is a Vietnam vet and an alcoholic. He’s also the only Chinese American cop on the Chinatown beat, and the only police officer who can speak Cantonese. But he’s basically treated like a token, trotted out for ribbon cuttings and community events.
So he shouldn’t be surprised when his superiors are indifferent to his suspicions that an old Chinese woman’s death may have actually been a murder. But he sure is angry. With little more than his own demons to fuel him, Chow must take matters into his own hands.
Rich with the details of its time and place, this homage to noir will appeal to fans of S.J. Rozan and Michael Connelly.





January 20, 1976. The Hong Kong-biased newspaper ran an editorial about how the Chinese who had just come over were lucky to get jobs washing dishes and waiting tables in Chinatown. Their protest was making all Chinese people look bad. If the waiters didn’t like their wages, they should go ask the communists for jobs and see what happens.

Here in America, democracy was going to turn 200 years old in July. But the Chinese waiters who wanted to organize a union were going directly against the principles of freedom that George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and Abraham Lincoln had fought for.

Those waiters were also disrespecting the previous generations of Chinese who had come over and worked so hard for so little. If it weren’t for our elders, the editorial said, today we would be lumped in with the lazy blacks and Spanish people on welfare.

I folded the newspaper, sank lower in my chair, and crossed my arms. I banged my heels against the floor.

“Just a minute, you’re next! Don’t be so impatient!” grunted Law, one of the barbers. A cigarette wiggled in his mouth as he snipped away on a somber-looking Chinese guy’s head. When he had one hand free, he took his cigarette and crushed it in the ashtray built into the arm cushion of his customer’s chair.

He reached into the skyline of bottles against the mirror for some baby powder. Law sprinkled it onto his hand and worked it into the back of the somber guy’s neck while pulling the sheet off from inside his collar. Clumps of black hair scampered to the floor as he shook off the sheet.

The customer paid. Law pulled his drawer out as far as it would go and tucked the bills into the back. Then he came over to me.

Law had been cutting my hair since I was old enough to want it cut. He was in his early 60s and had a head topped with neatly sculpted snow. His face was still soft and supple, but he had a big mole on the lower side of his left cheek.

You couldn’t help but stare at it when he had his back turned because it stood out in profile, wiggling in sync with his cigarette.

He looked at the newspaper on my lap.

“We should give all those pro-union waiters guns and send them to Vietnam!” Law grunted. “They’ll be begging to come back and bus tables.”

“They wouldn’t be able to take the humidity,” I said.

“That’s right, they’re not tough like you! You were a brave soldier! OK, come over here. I’m ready for you now,” Law said, wiping off the seat. I saw hair stuck in the foam under the ripped vinyl cover, but I sat down anyway. Hair could only make the seat softer.

“I don’t mean to bring it up, but you know it’s a real shame what happened. The Americans shouldn’t have bothered to send in soldiers, they should have just dropped the big one on them. You know, the A-bomb.”

“Then China would have dropped an A-bomb on the United States,” I said.

“Just let them! Commie weapons probably don’t even work!” Law shouted into my right ear as he tied a sheet around my neck.

“They work good enough,” I said.

When Chou En Lai had died two weeks before, the Greater China Association had celebrated with a ton of firecrackers in the street in front of its Mulberry Street offices and handed out candy to the obligatory crowd. The association had also displayed a barrel of fireworks they were going to set off when Mao kicked, which was going to be soon, they promised. Apparently, the old boy was senile and bedridden. 

“Short on the sides, short on top,” I said.

“That’s how you have to have it, right? Short all around, right?” Law asked.

“That’s the only way it’s ever been cut.”

If you didn’t tell Law how you wanted your hair, even if you were a regular, he’d give you a Beefsteak Charlie’s haircut, with a part right down the center combed out with a Chinese version of VO5. I was going to see my mother in a few days, and I didn’t want to look that bad.

“Scissors only, right? You don’t like the electric clipper, right?”

“That’s right,” I said. When I hear buzzing by my ears, I want to swat everything within reach. Law’s old scissors creaked through my hair. Sometimes I had to stick my jaw out and blow clippings out of my eyes. The barbershop’s two huge plate glass windows cut into each other at an acute angle in the same shape as the street. Out one window was the sunny half of Doyers Street. The other was in the shade. How many times had I heard that this street was the site of tong battles at the turn of the century? How many times had I heard tour guides say that the barbershop was built on the “Bloody Angle”?

The barbershop windows were probably the original ones, old enough so they were thicker at the bottom than at the top. They distorted images of people from the outside, shrinking heads and bloating asses. In the winters, steam from the hot shampoo sink covered the top halves of the windows like lacy curtains in an abandoned house.

In back of me, a bulky overhead hair dryer whined like a dentist’s drill on top of a frowning woman with thick glasses getting a perm.

The barbers had to shout to hear each other. The news station on the radio was nearly drowned out. The only time you could hear it was when they played the xylophone between segments or made the dripping-sink sounds.

If you knew how to listen for it, you could sometimes hear the little bell tied to the broken arm of the pneumatic pump on the door. The bell hung from a frayed loop of red plastic tie from a bakery box. When the bell went off, one or two barbers would yell out in recognition of an old head.

The bell went off, and Law yelled right by my ear.

“Hey!” he yelled. Two delayed “Hey”s went off to my left and right. The chilly January air swept through the barbershop. A thin man in a worn wool coat heaved the door closed behind him and twisted off his felt hat. His hands were brown, gnarled, and incredibly tiny, like walnut shells. He fingered the brim of his hat and shifted uneasily from foot to foot, but made no motion to take off his coat or drop into one of the four empty folding chairs by the shadow side of Doyers. He swept his white hair back, revealing a forehead that looked like a mango gone bad.

“My wife just died,” he said. If his lungs hadn’t been beat up and dusty like old vacuum-cleaner bags, it would have been a shout. “My wife died,” he said again, as if he had to hear it to believe it. The hairdryer shut down. “Oh,” said Law. “I’m sorry.” He went on with my hair. No one else said anything. Someone coughed. Law gave a half-grin grimace and kept his head down, the typical stance for a Chinese man stuck in an awkward situation. The radio babbled on.

The barbers just wanted to cut hair and have some light conversation about old classmates and blackjack. Why come here to announce that your wife had died? The guy might as well have gone to the Off Track Betting joint on Bowery around the corner. No one was giving him any sympathy here.

Death was bad luck. Talking about death was bad luck. Listening to someone talk about death was bad luck. Who in Chinatown needed more bad luck?

“What should I do?” the thin man asked. He wasn’t crying, but his legs were shaking. I could see his pant cuffs sweep the laces of his polished wing tips. “What should I do?” he asked again. The xylophone on the radio went off.

I stood up and swept the clippings out of my hair. The bangs were longer on one side of my head. I slipped the sheet off from around my neck and coiled it onto the warmth of the now-vacant seat. Law opened a drawer, dropped in his scissors, and shut it with his knee. He leaned against his desk and fumbled for a cigarette in his shirt pocket.

I blew off the hair from my shield and brushed my legs off. I pushed my hat onto my head.

“Let’s go,” I told the thin man.

What are you most proud of accomplishing so far in your life? 

I'm most proud of making my toddler laugh. I think it's important to have a core of humor to get through hard times that life can present at times. 

How has your upbringing influenced your writing? 

I grew up in a coastal area of Jersey and as a second-generation Asian American, I know a lot of from where cultures intersect. The town was a bit of a playground for losers from New York City to come down and pollute our shores. As a result, I'm really great at creating Asian, dirtbag and Asian dirtbag characters. 

When and why did you begin writing? 

I began writing in elementary school. I had a few second-grade poems published in the school's lit journal that my wife likes to recite from time to time. It felt natural to write, to tell a story in that way.  

Do you recall how your interest in writing originated? 

Maybe in a past life, because as soon as I knew how to write, I wanted to write. Stories just come to me, lodge in my head and could grow into horns if I don't write them down. 

When did you first know you could be a writer? 

I never had any doubt. Even if I weren't being published, I'd be writing. 

What inspires you to write and why?

I am incredibly motivated to write. Just the prospect that I won't be able to someday is enough to push me along. 

What genre are you most comfortable writing? 

I enjoy the mystery genre, particularly with a touch of humor. I've also written some YA stuff that I wish had been around when I was a kid. At some point, I want to write a horror book. 

What inspired you to write your first book? 

My childhood in that town in Jersey. My family operated a motel that in the fall, winter and spring housed poor people and families that had lost their homes. In the summer, our rates went up and all these maniacs came in from the city and partied all weekend. I was the guy who cleaned up all the beer bottles (many smashed), bottle caps, cans and other garbage left strewn across our rather extensive parking lot. 

Who or what influenced your writing once you began? 

I'm pretty much a guy who marches to his own drummer, sometimes off the beat on purpose. That said, in my early days, I really liked Dashiell Hammett, Charles Willeford, Norbert Davis, Lois-Ann Yamanaka, Herbert Simmons, Chester Himes and Paul Cain. 

What do you consider the most challenging about writing a novel, or about writing in general? 

It's all challenging. Making the time and actually doing it is the hardest part, if you're not motivated. People tell me they really want to write but don't have the time. To me, that's like hearing, "Hey I'm holding this ice-cream cone with a scoop of pistachio and a scoop of chocolate fudge, and it's covered in a butterscotch syrup, and I really want to eat it, but I just don't have the time. Eat the goddamned ice cream! Now! 

Did writing this book teach you anything and what was it? 

Writing This Is a Bust wasn't terribly instructive, but in terms of trying to get it published, I learned invaluable lessons about the industry and that a writer cannot expect someone else to set what one will find creatively satisfying. That is always up to you. 

Do you intend to make writing a career? 

I intend to do it my whole life. I took one career test in school. Based on my personality, it said that I should be minister or a college professor. Nothing else was close. Writing is a bit of a mix of both those professions, isn't it? 

Have you developed a specific writing style? 

If I have, I can't see it myself. You can't ask someone who works in a cool-ranch flavoring plant what cool ranch tastes like. Her senses will be too hardened to tell. 

What is your greatest strength as a writer? 

I think keeping at it, the writing. I don't get writer's block. People who hate my books think I should see a specialist for that condition. 

What is your favorite quality about yourself? 

I'm stubborn but I'm also open to change if it leads to something better and/or interesting. 

What is your least favorite quality about yourself? 

That I get tired and have to sleep X hours a night. What a waste! 

What is your favorite quote, by whom, and why? 

I have no idea who said this (and Google isn't helping out) but, "To move is to risk death. To be still is to be dead already."






Ed Lin, a native New Yorker of Taiwanese and Chinese descent, is the first author to win three Asian American Literary Awards and is an all-around standup kinda guy. His books include Waylaid, and a trilogy set in New York’s Chinatown in the 70s: This Is a Bust, Snakes Can’t Run and One Red Bastard. Ghost Month, published by Soho Crime in July 2014, is a Taipei-based mystery, and Incensed, published October 2016, continues that series. Lin lives in Brooklyn with his wife, actress Cindy Cheung, and son.


Connect with Ed at http://www.edlinforpresident.com or on social media at:





Monday, July 17
Book featured at Cheryl's Book Nook
Book featured at Chill and Read
Guest blogging at Mythical Books

Tuesday, July 18
Interviewed at I'm Shelf-ish
Book featured at Elise's Audiobook Digest
Book featured at Books, Dreams, Life

Wednesday, July 19
Guest blogging at Must Read Faster
Book featured at Diana's Book Reviews
Interviewed at Harmonious Publicity

Thursday, July 20
Book featured at The Writers' Life
Book featured at Stormy Nights Reviewing
Interviewed at As the Page Turns

Friday, July 21
Book featured at Lynn's Romance Enthusiasm
Guest blogging at Thoughts in Progress

Sunday, July 23
Book featured at T's Stuff
Interviewed at The Literary Nook

Monday, July 24
Book featured at A Title Wave
Book featured at Stuck in YA Books

Tuesday, July 25
Book featured at The Angel's Pearl
Book featured at Write and Take Flight
Book featured at The Bookworm Lodge

Wednesday, July 26
Book featured at Don't Judge, Read
Book featured at The Toibox of Words
Book featured at Comfy Chair Books

Thursday, July 27
Book featured at The Dark Phantom

Friday, July 28
Book featured at A Book Lover
Book featured at Mello and June

1 comment:

  1. I believe that this guy grew up in the Asian quarter)) He described the gambling typical for these areas so skillfully: craps, baccarat and so on .. I've seen such people in casinos before. They played as long as there was one dollar left. Now I no longer visit the casino and prefer to use no bonus casino. Online gambling is much more convenient for me. Although sometimes I wish I could see such colorful characters anymore)

    ReplyDelete