Page 13 - Real Style March 2018

booKS
Carrianne Leung was shortlisted for the Toronto Book Awards for her debut novel e Wondrous Woo,
and her new novel is already drawing attention before its release. In at Time I Loved You, Leung takes us on a journey deep into a new 1970s Scarborough subdivision where we are given a closer look into the lives of the people who live there, including the life of June, a Chinese-Canadian who is quickly coming of age.
What's the di erence between at Time I Loved You and e Wondrous Woo?
e Wondrous Woo was a novel while at Time
I Loved You are linked stories. In the rst book, I followed a pretty linear format. I always knew its trajectory. When writing the second book, I had so many more characters that I delved into deeply and each had their own intentions, purposes, interior worlds. I felt overwhelmed at times and had to trust my own instincts and follow along with no clear sense of story in the conventional sense. ere was a lot of writing that never made it to the nal pages. I did a lot of writing just to get to know and understand the setting, the time period, the characters. I believe I learned a lot through this process of allowing myself to get really lost before nding the threads that ultimately tied this book together.
What inspired this novel?
Honestly, I do not know. I took myself back to childhood when I was living in this time period and in a similar neighbourhood. I remembered wondering about each house on my street and the people who lived in them. How do writers imagine or are inspired to write what they write? I have no clue. I think it's magic.
is June based on anyone speci c?
June is a composite of many people that I have known. She's maybe the person I wish I was as a kid and maybe even now as an adult. I love her earnestness.
How much research went into making your novel as authentic as possible?
I'm a sociologist by training,
so it was interesting to do
some surface research of the zeitgeist of that time and
place and re ecting on my
own memories. is was the era of Trudeaumania, o cial multiculturalism, the change
of the immigration system to a points system to make it a more equitable admissions process. ese policies really shaped
the world that I came to know as a child, and I wanted to shape this setting in
my book. e music of the time was my favourite things to research. I actually paired each story up with a pop song from the late ’70s. I have my own playlist for the book. It seems to be a thing for me. I had one for e Wondrous Woo too.
Why did you chose to set at Time I Loved You during the 1970s?
I believe history is present, and the issues today are the continuation and product of the ’70s. We didn't have the terms and vocabulary to draw on at the time but it didn't mean racism, sexism, transphobia, depression, etc., were not happening. My challenge was writing about all these things in a time and place that didn't have the language accessible to us now.
Which authors inspire you?
I see myself as rst and foremost a reader. I believe it's such an exciting time in CanLit, as we are being gifted by such rich writing. In the past year, I have been inspired by novelists Eden Robinson, Cherie Dimaline, David Chariandy, Catherine Hernandez. Poets like Canisia Lubrin, Gwen Benaway, Phoebe Wang and the elegant work of essayists like Alicia Elliot.
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