As the publication date nears (June 18) for the paperback edition of The Map of Lost Memories, I have been working on a book club guide with my publisher, to be included in the back of the book. I was just sent a final version and would like to post it here.
NOTE: The guide assumes you've read the book, so there are spoilers in it.
THE MAP OF LOST MEMORIES
Kim Fay
A Reader’s Guide
A Conversation with Kim Fay
Random House
Reader’s Circle: The Map
of Lost Memories takes place
in Shanghai, Saigon, and Cambodia. What inspired you to set a novel in these exotic
places?
Kim Fay: When I was a child, my grandpa would tell my
sister and me stories about his life as a sailor in Asia in the early 1930s. He
loved that part of the world, and we would pore over his photos from that time,
most of which were of Shanghai and captured images of rickshaws and sampans against
a backdrop of imposing European buildings. As I grew up, my fascination with Asia
simmered until I graduated from college and made my first trip. I was instantly
smitten by the magical combination of foreignness and familiarity from the
stories on which I had been raised, and I continued to travel to the region
until, in 1995, I moved to Vietnam to teach English. I had no idea how at home
I would feel in this country. I ended up living there for four years, and I
have spent the past eighteen years writing about it in articles, guidebooks,
and a food memoir. As a fiction writer, it felt natural for me to set a novel
in the region.
RHRC: Why did you choose to set your novel in 1925?
What was it about this time period that suited the story you wanted to tell?
KF: Again, my grandpa can take partial credit,
since that was the era when he was traveling in Asia. But beyond this personal
note, The Map of Lost Memories needed a time in which there were not black-
and- white attitudes about the morality of trafficking and owning art. This
era, the 1920s, began forming in the late nineteenth century, when the advent
of mass tourism and the lack of laws protecting cultural relics meant that
average travelers could simply purchase rare artifacts and take them home as
souvenirs. At this same time, the birth of art dealing as a profession was
fueled by robber barons and industrialists who pursued collecting with the same
determination that they pursued their business interests. In addition,
colonialism (and its hubris) was at its heyday in Asia, China’s fledgling
Communist party was experiencing a pivotal moment with the death of Sun Yat-sen,
and just to travel in a foreign land was an adventure in and of itself. The
novel also takes place in a kind of golden era, between the atrocities of WWI
and WWII and before the Great Depression and the Communist takeover of China,
an era when many people felt an unprecedented freedom that was reflected in
their actions. Given all of these elements, I can’t imagine another time period
in which The Map of Lost Memories could take place.
RHRC: Your novel incorporates China’s revolutionary
politics, the vagaries of colonialism and ancient Cambodian history. How much
of the book is based on fact?
KF: One of my main goals with the novel was to
make it as historically accurate as possible, especially in regard to Khmer
history. While I knew a bit about the Khmer temples when I moved to Vietnam,
most notably Angkor Wat, my real interest in them came when a friend gave me Silk
Roads by Axel Madsen, a nonfiction book about André and Clara Malraux. In 1923,
this young French couple lost their small fortune, and in what can only be called
a moment of sheer audacity, decided to loot a Cambodian temple and live off the
sale of a few choice artifacts.
The Malrauxs set
sail from France to Cambodia, and with the help of a fellow adventurer and
local laborers, they managed to pry a seven-piece, 1,000-pound bas relief from
the abandoned temple of Banteay Srei. They were caught almost immediately and
put under house arrest in the capital city of Phnom Penh. While awaiting trial,
they had the freedom to roam the city. During this time, they witnessed the
injustices of colonialism, and this experience changed their lives, launching
their involvement in the revolutionary politics of the region.
The deeper I dug,
the more fascinating these two became. I read Clara’s memoirs and André’s The
Royal Way, a novel about an expedition to find a hidden temple in Cambodia.
In the end, the Malrauxs inspired my characters Roger and Simone Merlin, and
their experience sparked The Map of Lost Memories, as well as my own
interest in Cambodian history. As a novelist, I wanted to weave this history
into a story in a way that didn’t feel like a dry academic lesson. This
resulted in the lost temple and scrolls. While these are fictitious, the
premise they support is not. In 1925 little was known about the rise
and fall of the ancient Khmer civilization. Even now there are conflicting
theories and missing puzzle pieces. But back then, the day-to-day history and
fate of the Khmer were genuine mysteries, making it the perfect subject for a
novel.
RHRC: Did you use any particular methods for
organizing or planning this novel? Did you end up having a favorite (or least
favorite) part of the writing process? And were you ever surprised by where the
narrative took you while writing?
KF: I love plot, and because of this, plot is
always what comes to me first. With The Map of Lost Memories, the minute
I realized I wanted to write about the looting of a Cambodian temple, a plot
appeared, fully formed. I say a plot and not the plot because
although stories come to me whole, the story I start with is rarely the story I
finish with. I wrote a first draft of this novel in less than a year. Then the
real work began as I wrote another draft and another . . . and then another and
another! While some writers might consider this the revision process, for me it
is more of a layering process. I craft one layer over the next, writing myself
closer with each layer to the story I want to tell. I love this process because
it allows my characters to grow and evolve in organic ways, and I get to spend
this time getting to know them better and understanding them in the context of
the story, which also becomes richer each new time I work with it.
This said, my
least favorite part—or more accurately, the hardest part for me—is character
development. Characters are my weakness. Often, when I start writing, I have no
idea who my characters are, and I sometimes find myself forcing them to go
against their natures in order to serve the plot I’ve created. This is always a
mistake! Fortunately, characters usually have minds of their own, and if you
give them enough space, they will develop in incredible ways.
As for surprises,
I was definitely surprised when Simone and Irene killed Roger, because he was
supposed to chase them all the way to Cambodia. I was also surprised when Mr.
Simms decided to show up in Cambodia. But the most intriguing surprise was
Clothilde. She did not exist in early drafts of the book, and when she first
appeared, she was simply Mr. Simms’s nurse. But the more I wrote, the more she
demanded a life and story of her own. I think she was protesting the lack of
local characters in the book. I don’t blame her, but I was wary of including a
local cast, because I felt I had to stay true to the Western view of Asia in
the 1920s, and that viewpoint was so awful most of the time. Even Irene, who
loves Cambodia and its culture, has a pretty terrible attitude toward the local
population. Also, when it came to local women and their role in Western
expatriate society at that time, they were generally confined to being
servants, mistresses, or prostitutes. While Clothilde is indeed Mr. Simms’s
mistress, I hope that her reasons for this are sympathetic and that her
individuality comes through. I wish I would have developed her further, but she
has recently informed me that I am not done with her and she will appear in a
future novel.
RHRC: A historical novel obviously requires a great
deal of research. Is this something you enjoy doing? How did you go about
researching The Map of Lost Memories? And was there anything about the
process that caused difficulties for you along the way?
KF: For as many of the scenes in my book as was
possible, I visited the setting—every place from a hotel café in Saigon to a
remote wooded path along the Mekong River. I am fortunate to have lived in the
region where the novel takes place and to be able to travel back frequently. My
four years in Vietnam gave me a strong sense of the book’s physical setting,
especially since Saigon still contained many notable remnants of the French
colonial world that once inhabited it when I lived there. I could walk the
city’s streets, as well as those of Shanghai and Phnom Penh, and imagine myself
back into an earlier time period. This isn’t as easy to do today, since all three
cities have been greatly modernized over the past two decades. I also spent
time at Angkor Wat and the surrounding Khmer temples, which have remained
essentially unchanged over time. It was a privilege to be able to write scenes
set at the temples while actually being at the temples.
Along with
personal experience, I relied heavily on the Los Angeles Public Library and the
Internet. When I started the book in 1995, only the former existed . . . and
I’m glad! While I enjoy trolling the Internet, I appreciate the limitations, so
to speak, of access only to books. Without the endless distractions of the Web,
I was free to lose myself in obscure travelogues from the 1920s,
which offered insight into the attitudes of travelers during that era. And
books such as Pillaging Cambodia: The Illicit Traffic in Khmer Art; Museum
of the Missing: A History of Art Theft; Loot! The Heritage of Plunder;
and Plundered Past: The Story of the Illegal International Traffic in Works
of Art—combined with the Malrauxs’ accounts of their temple- robbing
experience—gave me a certain level of comfort when it came to writing
characters who felt at ease taking the cultural relics of another country.
Because I adore
research, it’s too easy for me to get sidetracked, especially since the
Internet enabled me to do things like buy a vintage map of Phnom Penh, download
dozens of postcards of the city from the 1920s, and practically reconstruct the
capital on my dining room table! But while I know I get carried away with
research, I don’t consider this a detriment. Research gives me as much pleasure
as writing. In fact, I consider it a part of my writing rather than a byproduct
of it, which is probably why I enjoy historical fiction so much.
RHRC: Irene is an ambitious and determined
character, but she is not always sympathetic, especially in the beginning of
the novel when she sets out to steal a cultural artifact for her own gain.
Where did the idea for Irene and her quest come from, and why did you choose to
write such an atypical female character?
KF: Some of the first books I read on my own when
I was a child were Nancy Drew mysteries, and I must confess: Irene Blum is a
grown-up version of Nancy Drew, albeit a version without moral boundaries.
Nancy was smart, strong, independent, and infinitely curious, and this
prototype instantly came to mind when I decided to write a book about the quest
for a priceless artifact that featured a young American woman as the main character.
I am fascinated
by readers’ strong responses to Irene. Many readers I have met love her but
struggle with liking her. We often talk about how this dislike is a result of
prejudice, because she is a woman. I’ve been told that if Irene were a man—feeling and behaving the same way—it would be much easier to accept and
forgive her actions. For me, though, Irene is an ambitious woman of
circumstance driven by two things: an obsession with the mystery of the Khmer’s
lost history and a need to restore her shattered reputation. These motives set
up a contradiction that blinds her to any harm she might cause in her quest to
get what she wants.
In addition,
Irene has been raised among self-serving men who feel a sense of
proprietorship when it comes to art—in an era when boundaries in the areas of
cultural entitlement and art ownership were blurred, at best. The majority
believed that art should belong to the person or institution that could best
care for and preserve it. As for her feelings about the Cambodians, Irene has also
lived her entire adult life in an academic world where Cambodians are subjects
for study, not flesh and blood people. Of course, not everyone in 1925 was a
potential temple robber, but given Irene’s circumstances, if I had made her
feel guilt- ridden about her attitude toward the Khmer people and about what
she intends to do with their history (or if I had forced her to have a complete
change of heart by the end of the book), then she would have become a modern,
PC character, untrue to the general attitudes of the time period in which the
book takes place.
RHRC: Many authors find that their characters are
extensions of themselves, in one way or another. Is that true for you? Which
character did you identify with most while writing? Are any of the characters
in The Map of Lost Memories based on people you know?
KF: Family and friends who have read my novel
insist that they can see many of my traits in Irene. While she is the character
most like me, I don’t think she is an extension of me. As I was working on the
novel, our similarity was in our shared sense of obsession—she with finding
her temple, and me with writing The Map of Lost Memories and having it
published. Funnily enough, if Irene
achieved her goal, then I stood a chance of achieving mine. In this way, I
identified with Irene—her desire for one thing more than any other in her
life, compounded with the fears and wrong turns that can accompany such a
strong desire. At the same time, I hope I’m not as cold as Irene. Writing that
aspect of her was hard for me, because my love for Vietnam is very personal.
When I moved there, I forged close friendships almost immediately; those
friends are now “sisters,” and I cannot imagine my life without them.
As for real (and
not-so-real) life influences on the other characters, Marc was shaped in part
by the Harlequin romances I read when I was a teen and named after a crush I
had in Amsterdam when I was twenty-one. Anne is a composite of the strong,
independent women in my life: Mom, grandmas, sister, aunts, great- aunts, and
cousins. Mr. Simms owes his puppet-master qualities to the fact that I had just
read John Fowles’ The Magus when I started writing The Map of Lost
Memories. And Clothilde owes her grace to my friend Huong, who is always
elegant, even in rainstorms in the middle of the jungle. Perhaps closest to my
heart, despite his small role, is Irene’s dad. He was inspired by my grandpa—a
sailor in the South China Sea, a night watchman at a museum in Seattle, and a
single dad raising the headstrong girl who became my mom.
RHRC: Along with presenting a straightforward quest
for a lost relic, your novel explores the moral dilemmas posed by that quest.
What inspired you to delve so deeply into the question of what is best for the
Cambodian people in regard to their cultural heritage, as well as their own
future?
KF: I have always been fascinated by colonial fiction
(Graham Greene, George Orwell, etcetera), and during the four years that I
lived in Vietnam, surrounded by remnants of French colonialism, my curiosity
grew about the Westerners who once came to Asia to claim a piece of it for
themselves. At this same time, I was surprised to discover the sense of
entitlement that existed among
certain expatriate groups, even in the 1990s. Sometimes it was subtle, but
other times it was appallingly blatant, and I found myself wanting to write
about this attitude in the era when colonialists held all the power and the
locals held none—a local population, in the case of Cambodia, that was once
one of the world’s greatest civilizations.
In regard to my
book, the questions I raise—or perhaps I should say, the way I have raised
them through my characters’ feelings and behavior—have caused debate among
readers. I think this is because many readers want to apply modern standards to
the 1920s. I too wanted redemption for my characters in
regard to the issues explored in the novel, but I eventually realized that if
they were going to be honest reflections of a certain kind of person at a
certain time, redemption in a sense that I understood was just not possible. As
well, it undermined the novel to try to explore the issues from a twenty-first-century
standpoint.
Essentially, The
Map of Lost Memories follows a prevailing 1920s mindset: because the
Cambodians had neglected the Angkor Wat temples and let them fall into ruin,
they were not worthy beneficiaries of their own heritage. The French, on the
other hand, having rescued and restored the temples, were their rightful
owners. Of course, while the French were restoring Cambodia’s
cultural relics, they were also taking items for their private collections and
museums in France. The irony is that this looting most likely saved many
precious artworks from disappearing in the 1970s during the Khmer Rouge reign
of terror. Countless invaluable objects disappeared during this time, and in
fact, Khmer relics and the Angkor temples are still at risk today.
At the time
of the publication of The Map of Lost Memories, the Cambodian government
was in dispute with Sotheby’s auction house over an ancient Khmer statue
believed to have been stolen from the country. And the Angkor temples, despite
being a UNESCO World Heritage Site, are still
victims of looters. My favorite temple, Banteay Srei—the temple raided by
André and Clara Malraux—is very different now from when I first visited it in
1997. The stunning faces of many of its celestial goddesses have been removed
for underground sale. While my book is certainly not intended to make a
statement, it’s gratifying to see how strongly readers feel about a country’s
right to its own cultural relics.
RHRC: This is your first novel, although it is not
your first book. Was the process and experience of writing The Map of Lost
Memories different from your previous works?
KF: The Map of Lost Memories is my first published novel, but not my first
novel. When I was ten years old, I knew that I wanted to be a novelist, and I
wrote the Nancy Drew–inspired Mystery of the Golden Galleon. This was immediately
followed by a romantic adventure called This Is the Life about two young
women traveling on the French Riviera, which I’d read about in National
Geographic. I went on to
write half a dozen more novels, mostly romances, in junior high and high
school, and when I was in college, I finally wrote a “serious” novel in a genre
that did not yet exist (chick-lit). Despite all that fiction writing, I was
still finding my way as a novelist, and after working for five years at an
independent bookstore in Seattle, I moved to Vietnam and found myself on the
path to becoming a travel writer. Although I was still working on my fiction, I
created my own guidebook series, which I continue to edit. And I eventually
wrote a food memoir, Communion: A Culinary Journey Through Vietnam,
which was published in 2010.
Because The
Map of Lost Memories is a novel, it allowed my imagination to run wild.
With fiction, there is structure, but there are no absolutes. A writer can
follow any path a novel takes, just to see where it leads. Of course, there are
a lot of dead ends. But sometimes the path winds along to the most satisfying
place. For Communion, I was working with a story that already existed:
Vietnamese culture and history, which I was viewing through the lens of the
country’s cuisine. In addition, I was using a framework based in reality: a five-week culinary journey that I had taken through Vietnam. When I wrote Communion,
I felt as if I was putting together a thousand-piece
puzzle. The difficulty was that I had five thousand pieces to work with, so I
needed to find just the right ones to fit together. With The Map of Lost
Memories, on the other hand, if I got stuck I could create a brand-new
piece and give it a try. Sometimes it fit, and other times it didn’t. But it
was entirely up to my imagination. While it might seem that fiction writing
offers more freedom, I don’t think that’s the case. Fiction and nonfiction each
offer their own freedoms and their own limitations, which is why I am almost
always working on both at the same time.
RHRC: Who are your influences as an author? What do
you read when you’re writing? What is your all-time favorite historical novel?
KF: I was a reader at heart even before I knew
the alphabet—when I was an infant, while my dad was working, my mom would read
her books out loud to me. As I got older, my parents dropped me off at used
bookstores the way other parents dropped their kids off at video arcades, and
they always let me order as many books as I wanted from the Scholastic catalogs
that were distributed at school a few times a year. In addition, I come from a
family of storytellers. When I was a young girl, I would get under the covers
with my sister while our dad made up absurd stories about Raggedy Kojak (a
pathetic Raggedy Ann doll that had lost its hair) and his faithful mouse-monster
sidekick, Mousiestein. On nights when he did not whip up one of his episodic
tales, our grandpa told us his stories about life as a sailor in Shanghai.
I devoured books
as a kid and read all the usual suspects, from Beverly Cleary to Judy Blume.
But I was especially drawn to historical fiction (the Little House on the
Prairie series, Little Women) and female-driven mysteries (Nancy
Drew, Harriet the Spy). To celebrate the publication of The Map of
Lost Memories, my sister tracked down a copy of one of my junior high favorites,
Mystery of the Emerald Buddha, by Betty Cavanna. Rereading it, I was
astonished to come upon a passage about the ethics of taking artifacts from the
Cambodian temples! Who knows? Perhaps this issue was simmering in the back of
my thoughts for decades just waiting for a character like Irene to come along
and tackle it.
As for my most
favorite historical novel, hands down it’s Gone With the Wind. I was
captivated from the first line: “Scarlett O’Hara was not beautiful, but men
seldom realized it when caught by her charm as the Tarleton twins were.” I
bolted it down, all 1,024 pages of it, absorbed by the history, Scarlett’s
determination, and romance on an epic scale. When I was done, I immediately
started reading it again, and I read it half a dozen more times (at least)
before I graduated from high school.
After college I
worked in the Elliott Bay Book Company in Seattle, and that’s where my
education with serious literature began. During the five years I was there,
Michael Ondaatje taught me the poetry to be found in prose, Penelope Lively
taught me how to layer a plot, and Graham Greene taught me the art of literary
suspense. I discovered storytelling (and inspiration) on entirely new
levels, in the books of Muriel Spark, Anita Brookner, Mark Helprin, and many
other incredible writers.
When I’m writing,
I’m usually buried in research and making my way through whatever novels happen
to be on my “to read” list at the time. But there are moments when I need a
boost, and then I’ll reread passages from novels that have educated me as a
writer, such as The Quiet American, In the Skin of the Lion, Winter’s
Tale, and Moon Tiger. I also like to read poetry when I’m writing
fiction. Depending on what mood I’m trying to capture in a scene, I might turn
to Pablo Neruda or Raymond Carver or Mary Oliver. Reading poetry reminds me how
important every sentence is and how to craft sentences that have melody while
conveying meaning at the same time.
RHRC: At the end of The Map of Lost Memories,
the possibility exists for the story to continue on. Do you plan on writing
sequel? Can you tell us what you’re working on now?
KF: I do intend to write a sequel. And while it
will use the final chapter’s hidden treasure as a jumping- off point, it will
surprise readers, I think, by following an unexpected path, especially since it
will take place in Cambodia in the late 1950s and early 1960s, more than three
decades after The Map of Lost Memories ends. But I don’t want to give
too much away. And since I am still in the long process of plotting that story,
I am in the meantime working on another novel close to my heart.
Because of my
interest in Vietnamese cuisine, I have often been asked why food does not play
a role in The Map of Lost Memories. The first reason is that the main
character, Irene, is obsessed with one thing: finding the lost history of the
Khmer. She doesn’t care about local food. The second reason is that I knew I
could incorporate my love of cooking and eating into my next book, an untitled
novel about murder, political intrigue, family secrets, and a culinary
anthropologist in Vietnam during the mid-twentieth century.
Questions and Topics for Discussion
1. At the
beginning of the novel, Irene has strong feelings about her right to possess
the scrolls and the fact that her possessing them will be in the Cambodians’
best interests. How much of this mindset is justified by the era in which the
novel takes place, and could this mindset—art should belong to whoever can
best protect it—be justified today? If so, how?
2. In addition,
when the book opens, Irene is an ambitious—and arguably self- centered—character. Did you admire or dislike her attitudes and behavior? And if you
disliked her, do you think you would have found her actions and ambitions more
forgivable if she were a man?
3. Because of her
complexity and unpredictable irrationality, Simone is a “love her or hate her”
type of person. What traits do you feel make Simone alienating and what traits
make her sympathetic?
4. Perhaps Simone
deliberately killed Roger. Perhaps it was an accident. Which do you think it
was, and why?
5. From the
debauched streets of Shanghai to the humid landscapes of the Cambodian jungle,
setting serves as its own character in The Map of Lost Memories. How do
you feel that these environments shaped the characters? For example, the influence
of Shanghai on Marc’s childhood, and the influence of the Cambodian wilderness
on Irene ’s mindset as she treks closer toward her goal?
6. At one point
in the book, Anne talks about the importance of going to the other side:
“The place where one feels truly alive. Too many people surrender to a place of
safety. That place where all they do is long to sleep so they can dream about
living. Even if you don’t find what you think you’re looking for, darling, it’s
the going out and looking for it that counts. That is the only way you can
know you have lived.” Do you agree or disagree with Anne’s assessment of how
most people live? Do you think this is what both Simone and Irene were doing
over the course of the story, each in her own way? What about other characters
such as Marc? Is the idea that “it’s the going out and looking for it that
counts” a motto you would live by?
7. Although The
Map of Lost Memories is considered an adventure novel, it is not fast-
paced. Aspects of the era—lack of airplanes, freeways, mass communications
systems—contribute to how the story unfolds. Discuss how different this novel
would be if set in a later time period; for example, how the existence of
helicopters or the Internet would alter such a story.
8. The Map of
Lost Memories is primarily Irene ’s story, and as such is told from her
perspective. If you could ask the author to insert a chapter from another
character’s point of view, who would it be and why?
9. Both Irene and
Simone are motivated by their own ambitions to the point of betrayal. Do you
feel these women would have been better off had they been honest from the
start, instead of using each other to a certain extent? Consider a woman’s
position in the time period and the choices (or lack thereof) they had
regarding their futures. In that sense, do you think by keeping secrets
each of them were doing the best they could to protect themselves and their
futures?
10. To expand on
this, the novel is full of examples of blighted ambition and characters trapped
by circumstance. Do you feel that unhappiness excuses the scheming behavior or
betrayals of certain characters?
11. Although
there are unexpected revelations about all the characters in the novel, perhaps
the most surprising has to do with Henry Simms, Irene’s beloved mentor. Did you
find Mr. Simms to be a sympathetic character? Why or why not?
12. At the end of
the novel, Irene changes her mind about where she thinks the scrolls belong.
Was there a specific turning point for this decision, or was this decision the
result of an evolution in her thinking? Is her change of heart selfless, or is
she simply turning her initial selfish desires in a new direction?
13. Similarly, in
many ways, Simone is a very different person at the end of the novel than the
woman Irene first encounters at Anne ’s party. Discuss the path of her
transformation? Are there any ways she essentially doesn’t change?
14. What one
adjective do you think best captures the character of Irene? Were you surprised
by how others in your group perceived her? What are her strengths and her
weaknesses? How does your perception of Irene change throughout the story?
15. The title of
the novel is The Map of Lost Memories. Discuss the power of memories as
a theme throughout the novel. Why do you think the author selected this title?
