Sarah Morcom (words) and Jane Ussher (photos) meet a best-selling author, 23 When we met for our interview, Chloe Gong wore the most badass earrings I’ve ever seen: little daggers stabbing through little hearts. Chloe told me she thought the earrings were very appropriate for an interview with the author of young adult fiction series These Violent Delights – and she was absolutely right. Filled with gangsters, monsters, romance, and betrayal, her two books in the series are an action-packed adaptation of Romeo and Juliet, set in 1920s Shanghai. The first book, which she wrote at 19, made the New York Times best-seller list. Now 23, Chloe lives in New York, and returns to visit her family on Auckland's North Shore every six months. Our interview took place at the Auckland offices of her publisher Hachette.
You were born in Shanghai, grew up in New Zealand, and then moved to New York. Are there aspects of New Zealand that you find yourself missing a lot?
I really love New York, which is why I live there, right? But it's nice to me that New Zealand is always just going to be here because it's home. Like my parents will always have their house. I'm just going to come in and out. My siblings are obviously still here, because they're much younger than me. My brother is 17, and my sister is 11.I'll go off and live my life and like write my things. But I can still pop back in. Everything will just be waiting.
When you were growing up, did you have little spots that you would go to after school?
I think I was a bit of a homebody. Like I would get home from school, and I'd sit down my book, or I would start writing because like my hobbies were really like reading library books or just sitting on my brown arm chair and writing. But I hung out at Brown's Bay a lot. It was the closest beach to me. And there's a playground there and we would just sit underneath it and gossip.
You say on your website that you devoured the young adult section when you were at school. Who were the writers that influenced you and inspired your work?
The first really big book series I got into was Cassandra Clare's The Mortal Instruments. I really got into it at the point where she had just put out the fifth book, and the final sixth book was awaiting publication. And I still remember like going to the Whitcoulls that was closest to me on release day and buying City of Heavenly Fire. I was like, "I need to know what happens."
I loved reading that series so much, which meant when I started writing my own, I was drawing off of the things that I love, like those tropes, the sense of adventure, the kinds of conflict, the way that characters would get together.
What are your top three young adult novels?
Oh my god. Okay, usually the first option I go for is Daughter of Smoke and Bone by Laini Taylor, because I think that was the first series that I really not only fell in love with for the story, but the prose was so good. Laini Taylor is such a magnificent writer. And it kind of it made me decide that I want to tell a really, really good story but I also want to tell it well.
I guess I have to put in Mortal Instruments cos it was just "Oh my god." And the Raven Cycle by Maggie Stievfater.
I think my favorites always ended up being one of those series that have that perfect mix between story and prose which just feels like delicious when you consume it.
You definitely do that in your writing. Does anybody else in your like family write?
No, my family is very much not a family of writers. My parents actually didn't even know that I wrote books until I had a literary agent. Not because I didn't keep it a secret from them. I think it's because I just grew up thinking of writing as like a hobby. Like it was just something I did for fun. Like it wasn't any big deal. It was kind of like, "I read books and I write books", right?
And then I finished These Violent Delights, I got an agent and then I said to my Mum, "Can you drive me to the post office?"
And she was like, "Why?"
And I was like, "Oh I need to send in the contract."
She was like, "What?"
And I was like, "Yeah, the contract I signed with my literary agency."
And she was like, "Okay."
So yeah. My parents aren't writers, but they very much encouraged me to be a reader. So in that sense, they really value the power of literature, like what that does for your brain development.
I think that also really shows that you really just did it for the love of it rather than any attention.
Yeah. I really just wanted to tell stories. And then eventually, I kind of realised I was like, "Oh, wait, this is like a career."
How many copies has These Violent Delights sold?
I actually don't know. That's really funny, right? I have a rough idea. Like the US side, the portal will tell me it's about like 150,000, right, something like that. But I don't know how much the UK side is selling. I don't know how many New Zealand copies are selling. And then there are like the translations, which are all handled by their own companies.
What's your advice for people who want to be successful as a writer?
I think to keep going, because it's so easy in writing to think, "Oh, well, I'm not good enough." It's just that it takes a lot of time and a lot of practice.
When I started, I was like, "This is not what I had in my head. Why is it not resembling it right?" And then the more I wrote, the more I found when I put it down onto paper, it got closer and closer and closer.
So yeah, I think anyone trying to pursue it, the only thing you can do for yourself is to just keep writing. And it will get to a point where it starts matching the perfect story you're envisioning.
You chose to set These Violent Delights in Shanghai. Why?
I think it's because I had been particularly fascinated with Shanghai growing up. Because it's one of those things, right? Where I think if you're an immigrant, you try really hard to kind of find that balance between two worlds, right? You don't want to be too different at school, if you don't look like everyone else, but then you don't want to completely erase it either. Because then it's like, well, why you are you denying your heritage, right?
And I think, in choosing the setting, I was inherently bringing like this second generation immigrant perspective to it, right? Because These Violent Delights was kind of reflecting this whole split between worlds thing that I had grown up feeling and that I felt a lot of other immigrant teenagers were experiencing, but didn't necessarily see in their stories, right? Because obviously, I'd grown up reading young adult fiction, and I really loved the adventures and the fantasies, but I was like, "I don't relate to it, but I'm still finding a lot of joy in it."
And I wanted to offer something where I was like, "What if people like me could find joy in it and also relate to it?" There's kind of like this instant spark of joy to see yourself.
I totally get that. Representation is really important. When you think about what the monsters in your books look like, do you have another fictional creature that you relate them to?
Oh my God, yes. Wait, that's such a good question. Yeah. Do you know the monster in the Guillermo del Toro film The Shape of Water? It looks like that in my head. The thing is, the water monster in that film is like sexy. Right? Because it's like the love interest. But my monster is very not sexy. I like how you're writing notes for that. Yeah. Monster is not sexy. Like, it's kind of what I envisioned, just like grosser.
Do you have any little rituals when you're writing?
I usually write at like a co-working space, and I'll always get a cup of coffee first. And then I'll put on my playlists and listen for a bit. I won't jump right into the writing. I'll listen to my playlist as I check my emails. Then I'm in that headspace, and I'm like, "Okay. Now we start writing."
These Violent Delights and Our Violent Ends by Chloe Gong ($19.95 each, Hachette) are available in bookstores nationwide.
