|
|
| photo: Angela Yuan | |
Jane Pek was born and grew up in Singapore. Her debut novel, The Verifiers, was a New York Times Editors' Choice and one of the Washington Post's best mysteries of the year. The Rivals (Vintage, December 3) follows up with Claudia Lin in a novel that blends the murder mystery genre with the espionage narrative. Pek's short fiction has appeared twice in The Best American Short Stories. She lives in New York, where she works as a lawyer at a global investment company.
Handsell readers your book in a handful of words:
An online-dating detective agency looks into a suspicious death and uncovers a far-reaching AI conspiracy. Spy tropes, dysfunctional family dynamics, and finding love in our digital age.
On your nightstand now:
I have a terrible habit of trying to read too many books at once. Right now:
Destiny and Desire by Carlos Fuentes--I was in Mexico City recently and love reading books set in places that I'm visiting.
Counter-Clock World by Philip K. Dick--I have been doing some research into time travel (in furtherance of writing about it, not inventing it), and want to see how he pulls off writing a world where time runs backwards(!).
Beyond Measure by James Vincent--the history of how and why we measure the world we live in. It's fascinating!
The Imposition of Unnecessary Obstacles by Malka Older--I love this series, which combines space opera, cozy mystery, dry humor, and sapphic romance; I'm in awe of how intelligent Older's writing is.
On Tennis by David Foster Wallace--tennis is my new obsessive hobby, plus I've been endeavoring to read more personal essays (a genre I'm not that familiar with): win-win.
Favorite book when you were a child:
I devoured massive quantities of literature about kids going on fantastical adventures, which were delightful and whimsical and also faintly wistful in the way British children's authors do so well (and, as an adult thinking about this in 2024, problematic in all sorts of ways). Perhaps the book that best encapsulates what I loved about those stories is The Enchanted Wood by Enid Blyton. Three siblings climb a gigantic enchanted tree, meet assorted magical beings who live in it, and visit a rotating series of lands in the sky.
Your top five authors:
I have way more than five, but I'll go with a few authors who have been formative or aspirational for me in one way and at one time or another: Virginia Woolf, Graham Greene, Michael Ondaatje, Haruki Murakami, and Tana French.
Book you've faked reading:
Any number of legal texts.
Book you're an evangelist for:
Who Is Vera Kelly? by Rosalie Knecht. A CIA spy and closeted lesbian finds herself trapped in Buenos Aires when the Argentine Revolution of 1966 breaks out. The novel is as much a coming-of-age story as a spy thriller, it's beautifully written, and Vera is a character I wish I could stay with forever.
Book you've bought for the cover:
Despite my penchant for superficiality, I can't think of an instance where I have!
Book you hid from your parents:
My parents never really paid attention to what I was reading, so I never had to.
Book that changed your life:
Annie on My Mind by Nancy Garden. I read it as a mopey 15-year-old in Singapore, and honestly until then I don't think I believed two girls could be in love with each other.
Favorite line from a book:
"Even a broken heart doesn't warrant a waste of good paper." I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith. That book helped get me through a heartbreak; and she was right.
Five books you'll never part with:
I Capture the Castle, again.
Breakfast at Tiffany's by Truman Capote
The Neverending Story by Michael Ende
Paper Girls by Brian K. Vaughan and Cliff Chiang
The Periodic Table by Primo Levi
Book you most want to read again for the first time:
There are so many. Possibly Code Name Verity by Elizabeth Wein, which is a YA novel about the friendship between two girls working for the British forces during World War II, although I'm not sure if I could take being emotionally devastated all over again.