Jen Sookfong Lee, a Vancouver-born writer, is known for her books such as Superfan, named a Best Book of 2023 by The Globe and Mail and Apple Books; The Conjoined, a finalist for the Ethel Wilson Fiction Prize; The Shadow List; and Finding Home. She is also an editor and co-hosts the literary podcast Can’t Lit.
Superfan is an introspective memoir that delves into family, identity, and grief through the prism of pop culture. Jen Sookfong Lee’s personal journey explores the influence of icons like Anne of Green Gables and Princess Diana, highlighting the complexities of cultural impact on individual and collective obsessions.
Interviewed by Nikki Hillman
Nikki Hillman (NH): How did your engagement with popular culture influence your understanding of your own identity, and how is this reflected in your memoir?
Jen Sookfong Lee (JSL): Culture—whether that’s popular culture or what people often think of as “high” culture—has always been really important to me. It has truly been my most enduring love. Pop culture in particular has the unique ability to both shape the cultural landscape while also reflecting back to us the things that we are most preoccupied with. For me, as a Chinese kid growing up in Canada, the biggest puzzle of my life was identity. Who am I? Am I too Chinese or not enough? Am I too Canadian or not enough? I looked for answers to these questions in the thing that I loved most, which is culture, which in turn helped me feel included while also disappointing me. There were almost no Asian women on screens or pages in North America then, so it made me cobble together my own truth. Which is basically what Superfan is all about.
NH: Were there any particular challenges you faced while writing Superfan? How did you balance the personal and cultural elements of your story to create a cohesive narrative?
JSL: The biggest challenge is actually writing about the self. I joke a lot that I don’t like myself enough to want to spend the years it takes to write a book just thinking about my life. It’s not fun! Being truly honest about your decisions or mistakes or behaviours is really hard and I don’t think it’s a party for anyone. The structural part, blending the culture with the personal, was easy enough for me; I am a novelist at the end of the day and structure is something I am well-versed in. And anyway, culture is such a big part of who I am that it didn’t feel like writing about two different topics. They really felt like one and the same.
NH: Your memoir provides insight into the impact of popular culture on individuals and communities. What are some of the key cultural commentaries you hoped to convey, and why do you believe they are important in today’s context?
JSL: I think that culture inspires a lot of conversation, especially today, when someone who is interested in who Florence Pugh is dating can easily find all the other people who are also interested in her. However, I think what I tried to do is show that thinking about pop culture can actually be a path to finding out more about yourself. If we all examined why we love or hate something, if we thought deeply about our choices on what series to stream or what song to listen to, then we might learn more about who we are and how we fit into the world. It can only make us better community members.
NH: You’ve written about the culture of the 80’s and 90’s and how it influenced you. Are there any works or authors from that era who inspired you, and who are they?
JSL: Evelyn Lau and Amy Tan are of course huge influences and I write about that in Superfan. I really admire A.S. Byatt for the way she always brought together disparate ideas and topics to make a dazzling novel. On the non-fiction side, Jon Krakauer’s books Into the Wild and Into Thin Air were elemental in shaping how I think about how a personal story can shed light on a public one. And one of, I think, the best memoirs of the 1990s was Wasted by Marya Hornbacher, which gave such beautiful depth and consideration to the experience of girlhood in a harsh world.