In Off the Books, Soma Mei Sheng Frazier draws readers into a classic road trip novel and then surprises us with a geopolitical twist. Protagonist Měi, an Ivy League dropout, drives a taxi off the books and is transporting her new client Henry across the country. Henry is handsome, witty, and oddly solicitous about an enormous suitcase he keeps beside him. Halfway to New York, Měi discovers the contents of the suitcase and its connection to China’s genocide of the Uyghur. Alongside readers, she learns about reeducation camps and cultural erasure.
With her life potentially in danger and her feelings for Henry careening between anger and attraction, Měi ruminates over her own family mystery. The trauma that has stalled her ambitions has also alienated her from her mother. As she drives through the American heartland, she discovers what she cares about and what she will do to protect those who matter.
Off the Books is a gorgeous, ambitious novel. It’s the sort of book that makes you long to speak to other readers, and particularly to the writer. Over a series of emails and Google Docs, Frazier and I conversed about the dangers of writing this novel, the secret she embeds in all her large projects, and how being a parent has made her a better writer.
Sari Fordham: Off the Books directly takes on China’s genocide of the Uyghurs, a tragedy I was aware of, but hadn’t previously encountered in literary spaces. What motivated you to write on this topic?
Soma Mei Sheng Frazier: My mom grew up in China before she was naturalized (a thought-provoking word) in the States. Yet she didn’t know much about the Uyghurs. And if most Americans are even less familiar, no wonder. I mean, China is our number one trade partner. Someday, despite their aging population and all our defensive parries, they’re likely to gain regional hegemony and become a superpower. So, even as pundits rail against atrocities in Palestine, Israel, Ukraine, we don’t exactly put China on blast. All the things that keep us relatively quiet about this genocide (greed, fear and a false sense of distance from the Uyghurs’ problems) are what drove me to write about it.
SF: Your novel also touches upon China’s backlash against authors who criticize their government: did this make you nervous as you wrote?
All the things that keep us relatively quiet about the Uyghur genocide (greed, fear and a false sense of distance) are what drove me to write about it.
SMSF: Hellz yeah. The FBI has deemed China’s authoritarian government a grave threat to our democratic values. And have you heard of Uyghur writer Perhat Tursun? His poems are famous in China. He went to college on a government scholarship, studying Chinese translations of Western literature. He’s certainly no radical extremist. In fact, conservative Muslim Uyghurs have fiercely denounced his secular writing. But his latest novel, The Backstreets: A Novel from Xinjiang, unveils racialized social disparities. I would’ve loved to connect with him about it, maybe bring my kid to Beijing and head west to interview him. Except, he and his Uyghur translator have been “disappeared.” Poof. Muted like a side conversation at a webinar. He’ll be in prison until 2034.
American writers who criticize the Chinese government have also been hacked, threatened and harassed—especially if they’ve got a mainstream Chinese following. I’d love to see my books translated, and it’s sobering to think a larger readership might make me a target. Nowadays, I’m no longer planning to bring my son to China.
SF: As Měi learns about reeducation camps in China, she is also grappling with America’s racism. She has a reoccurring memory of being called “chink” as a child and then later witnessing a racially motivated sexual assault. Can you talk about the underlying connections you make between what’s happening in China and the structural racism embedded within the United States?
SMSF: Racism is something we still discuss openly in the States—attempts to censor classroom conversations notwithstanding. What a gift, right? Because in order to address systemic injustice, we’ve first got to acknowledge it, which is simply not allowed in China and many other countries. Měi’s beloved grandfather is the first to acknowledge her race. Before she gets called “chink” at school, he prepares her, teasing her about being an Oriental cracker mix “like they sell at Trader Joe’s.”
While Měi lacks white privilege, these direct experiences grant her the privilege of sight. Once structural racism is pointed out, she’s able to see it. Like African Americans, China’s Uyghur population has been exploited for its labor and culture, surveilled and policed, while excluded from certain rights, privileges and jobs—creating socioeconomic disparity. The faces of the oppressed may differ from region to region, era to era—but the face of racism is always the same: an all-too-familiar sneer of derision that allows us to do horrific things to one another. That Black guy on the corner isn’t a person. He’s a risk that must be policed. Those Uyghurs with their beards and strange names aren’t people. They’re a threat to be contained.
SF: While your novel tackles serious subject matter, it’s also quite funny. One of my favorite details is that Měi creates these earnest Fact Sheets for the obscure towns they’re driving through. How did you choose which towns and trivia to feature?
SMSF: Every town in the book is a stop my kid and I made when we drove cross-country from California to settle in the Syracuse region. And the trivia is pulled from the sights we saw, the signs and brochures we read. Like, I’ve got a vivid memory of Adrian jumping out of the car at a rest stop in Utah, sprinting toward a salt flat, mistaking it for snow. Now that we live in New York, where snow gets delivered to our doorstep on the regular, he is no longer fascinated.
SF: Měi’s road trip begins and ends in the San Francisco Bay Area. Why this setting?
SMSF: I’m a New Yorker now. But Oakland, California, is another place I consider home, despite the way it slips its skin every few years–emerging bright and shiny, but still itself, its underlying form unshed. I spent three decades in the East Bay, met my partner on an Oakland sidewalk and gave birth to our kid in an Oakland hospital. When I drive down a Bay Area street, I know what it used to be called, which buildings once stood there or whether there were no buildings. Just an empty lot in a falling-down chain link fence. So I wrote from that familiarity.
In order to address systemic injustice, we’ve first got to acknowledge it, which is simply not allowed in China and many other countries.
I also wanted Měi to be worldly enough to grasp the basics of clashing cultures, oppression and militarization. Want yetsom beyaynetu for lunch? The Bay Area’s got you. Want chilaquiles? Bibimbap? Ravioli? Ribeye? It’s all just down the block. All the foods, made by all the people. A beautiful thing. But Oakland is also where the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act was first tested. And the Oakland Police Department now has military equipment. Did you know the OPD recently proposed deploying lethal, armed robots that can kill remotely?
SF: No! And I read the news pretty obsessively.
SMSF: Yup. But a city kid like Měi can still be sheltered, living utterly unaware of her neighbors’ struggles. We all can, right? Especially when we’re talking global neighbors. So, while the Bay Area forged Měi, it took leaving to open her eyes to what was going on outside her little, self-absorbed bubble.
SF: I loved Měi’s pot-smoking grandfather Lāoyé who knew his American history and delivered lessons to Měi “organically. Sneakily.” He has the best lines in the book. What was it like writing Lāoyé?
SMSF: In every novel, I cheat. I add a character who says the things I’m thinking. And Lāoyé’s swag is based on my 109-year-old grandma.
SF: Well, now I need to read the whole novel again. Speaking of great characters, Henry is fantastic. He’s complex, yes, but he’s also a sexy Asian American guy, and the possibility of romance, I think, catches Měi off guard and gives the entire novel an undercurrent of electricity. You write chemistry so well, and it made me want to know what you’re reading. What are some of your favorite novels that include romance?
SMSF: Ooh, I love love. But lately, I’ve had no time to read about it. Not in novels, at least. Instead, I’ve been reading Chaun Ballard’s poetry (some of which is incredibly romantic) and rereading short stories like Lauren Groff’s “Brawler,” Ken Liu’s “The Paper Menagerie” and Jamil Jan Kochai’s “Playing Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain,” which are more about familial love.
Can I confess something? New York winters lend themselves to binge-watching, and Henry’s character may have been inspired by onscreen hotties including Steven Yun, Simu Liu, Cora Lu Tran and, um, the possibly eponymous Henry Golding.
SF: I’m learning about these New York winters and welcome all survival tools. Onscreen hotties! Noted. This past winter, I read a lot of travel novels because they helped me imagine the sun, and what I observed is that the best summer books also included depth. Off the Books is a road trip novel, but it’s also about motherhood. Měi’s friend becomes a mother young, Měi discovers her own maternal instincts, and Měi learns more about her own mother’s choices. Did this thread on motherhood surprise you? How have your own experiences as mother and daughter informed your writing?
SMSF: It did surprise me. (How’d you know? Wait, are you a psychic? Will this conversation run me $1.99 for the first minute and $4.99 for every minute thereafter?) In fact, parenthood itself was a shocker. I have a loving but challenging relationship with my own mom, and my dad hurt me physically. So, while both parents encouraged my literary growth, growing into a parent “like them” was initially unappealing. Dogs are better than kids anyway, I figured. Plus,they’ve got fur! Thankfully, my son was born with a fuzzy back I could pet, and though he soon shed his fur, I think he’s aight. In all seriousness, he makes me care enough about this world to write. Being his mom is the thing that opens my eyes each morning and whispers in my ear at night, as I fall to my knees to give thanks, Do better. Write better. Be better.