Read to Know Basis: R. O. Kwon
The author of Exhibit tells us about her impractical career aspirations and distrustful punctuation.
Read to Know Basis is a weekly interview series with authors. It features debut authors and established writers talking about reading, writing, and of course snacks. This series is free to all. If you like what you read considering subscribing to support the work of Unstacked, and of course go out and buy the book!
R.O. Kwon’s Exhibit, a novel, is out in May 2024. Kwon’s nationally bestselling first novel, The Incendiaries, has been translated into seven languages and was named a best book of the year by over forty publications. Kwon and Garth Greenwell co-edited the bestselling Kink.
What are five words to describe your book?
In a fit of self-consciousness, I’ll turn to five words my publisher used: exhilarating, blazing-hot, bold, powerful, moving.
What is the strangest thing you googled while researching/writing this book?
One pivotal scene has a character in the hospital for several days with a serious, life-threatening injury. The novel wanted her to be fully cogent, and not in pain, even with this serious injury—I say “the novel wanted” because that’s how it feels to me, as though I’m following the novel’s desires—and I tried any number of macabre google queries to figure out what kind of injury would fulfill these requirements. Eventually, at a loss, I asked Twitter if doctors had ideas, and they did; I also consulted with a helpful doctor friend, Asmin Tulpule.
Describe your ideal reader?
A reader who believes that every part of being human, including the parts often judged to be not quite fit for literature—the “shameful” aspects of existing in a body, sex, etc.—absolutely belongs in books and always did.
What book made your book possible?
Audre Lorde’s Sister Outsider, especially “Poetry is Not a Luxury,” “The Uses of Anger,” and “Uses of the Erotic.” It’s such a clarifying book.
What is a piece of writing advice that you’ve received that you think is really bad? What is a piece of writing advice that you think is really good?
I’m ferociously against the idea of killing one’s darlings. If they’re my darlings, why would I kill them? If a line or passage I especially love feels excessive or otherwise out of place in something I’m writing, I then want to bring the rest of the draft up to the level of that darling.
One bit of advice I’ve loved came from my graduate-school mentor, Michael Cunningham: We must love our characters as God does, and not more. In my writing, I avoid imposing my preferences and beliefs on characters; I try, instead, to ask them to live as they’d like, to lead as if with free will.
What is your favorite punctuation mark?
I feel about punctuation marks the way I do about cheese. Each punctuation mark, while I’m thinking about it, is my absolute favorite punctuation mark in the world. The love is almost undiscriminating: I love an aged chèvre, a crystal-pocked Gouda, a plain slice of American cheese. I used to distrust the ellipsis, but no longer—I love those little dots, too.
What are you reading right now? And what book are you desperate to read next?
These days, I’m rereading Aracelis Girmay’s The Black Maria, and am excited about Laura van den Berg’s upcoming book, State of Paradise.
What book are you an evangelist for?
The Taschen book of Ren Hang’s photographs is gorgeous, one I frequently revisited while writing Exhibit. The first time I saw some of Ren’s photos, I had the thought that I’d never previously, at least in photos, seen bodies like mine look so free. The nudity in his photos can seem prelapsarian, as though the people being photographed exist outside of shame’s confines. Ren’s work informed Exhibit and its narrator Jin Han’s self-portraits.
If you could write a retelling of a classic novel, which would you pick?
It’s not quite a retelling, and the model isn’t a novel, but I’d love eventually to write a book that takes place in a fucked-up afterlife, one inflected by Dante’s Inferno. In some ways, everything I write is about the Christian God I stopped believing in when I was seventeen—it’s the central grief of my life, one that shows no sign of abating. One day, maybe, I’ll take my argument with this loss straight to a made-up afterlife.
Who is your literary crush?
So many! But Marilynne Robinson is a longtime beloved. In late 2020, I had the great luck of talking with her about her novel Jack for a virtual event at Politics & Prose. It meant so much to me that I asked for a copy of the recording. Not even to rewatch it, but just to keep it in my laptop, to have it close by.
If you could not be a writer what would you do?
My ideal answers are about as impractical as being a writer: I’d have loved to be a composer, or an opera singer, or a dancer, or—as is probably obvious, I think a lot about the music and rhythm of language.
You’re invited to a literary potluck, what are you bringing?
I’m not much of a cook, alas, much as I love to eat! When I’m on my own, I turn kind of feral, barely subsisting on basics like lentils and avocados. So, I’ll bring alcohol: wine, champagne, whiskey, something along those lines. I often also bring a personal gift for the host, usually Korean skin care.
Connect with R. O.: Instagram | Twitter | Bluesky | Website
All caps incoming: I LOVE R.O. KWON!!! I sat next to her parents when she read us a sneak peek from this book at Vulture Fest (and told her parents not to read the rest 😂😂). I also love that she has the Ultimate Nerd Circle in the Bay with Lauren Markham and Ingrid Rojas Contreras. What a group of brilliant babes!
Punctuation marks as cheese!! SWOON. Can't wait to read Exhibit!