Some people organize the books on their shelves by size or cover color. Others alphabetically or by genre. My system is based on how much I liked reading a book, each shelf an upgrade or downgrade in affection. My top tier selections sit on the small bookcase tucked next to our living room radiator. And that’s where you’ll find both of Jung Yun’s novels, soon to be joined by her third, All The World Can Hold.
As with Jung’s first two books, this one involves characters who seem fully alive in all their human complexity. It’s five days after 9/11 and a cruise ship sets out from Boston for Bermuda. Onboard are Franny, who has convinced her husband to stick with the plan of celebrating her mother’s chilsun, her seventieth birthday. In a cabin nearby, Lucy, an MIT grad student, has impulsively joined the cruise to avoid committing to a job at a tech startup. Meanwhile, Doug, a fading TV star, steels himself for a reunion with his fellow castmates and hopes that his past misdeeds won’t sidle up next to him at the bar. By the time the ship docks in Bermuda, all three characters have been forced to confront their bad decisions, secrets, and unspoken desires in the wake of a horrific national tragedy.
The idea of juxtaposing 9/11 with a cruise to Bermuda was immediately interesting to me. And I love a novel that takes place in a single setting. Did you know the story would happen on a cruise ship from its inception?
Definitely not. I actually fought the idea of a cruise ship as the setting for a long time. My family and I did take a cruise to Bermuda five days after 9/11, but I felt uncomfortable with the idea of taking a detail so close to a real-life event. I’m a fiction writer, after all. Usually, there’s more separation between my life and my writing than that. Of course, once I softened and set the novel on a ship, I wrote the book quickly, probably because I’d been thinking about the story, off-and-on, for so many years.
One of the things I enjoyed about the book is the range of notes it hits. There’s delightful absurdity in the scenes with Doug and in the generation-clash at the chilsun Franny organizes for her mother. But the reader also feels the devastation of 9/11 haunting each character differently. Can you talk about how you approached writing about an event of that magnitude?
Writing often begins with obsession, and I’ve been obsessed with this particular event for as long as I’ve been writing. Over the years, most of my attempts to write a 9/11-related story centered on the event rather than the consequences. In the novel that’s about to be published, the event isn’t the focus at all. It’s the impetus for the characters to look more closely at how they’re living their lives.
Each of your three central characters is so vivid and real. But I’m going to make you pick a pet. If you were going to be stranded on a desert island alone with one of them, which one would you choose and why?
That’s a hard one! I have a lot of affection for all three and miss them like people now that I’m not writing about them anymore. If forced to choose a desert island partner, though, I’d probably pick Lucy. She’s always in her head, so if she was having frightening thoughts about our situation, she’d have the sense to keep them to herself. Also, she’s in a Ph.D. program in a STEM field, so maybe she’d have some crafty MacGyver-like skills that would come in handy on the island.
She and Franny don’t consider themselves to be “cruise people.” Could you talk about how putting these two characters in a context that feels foreign to them brings out their complexities and struggles?
Franny mostly goes along to get along, so while she isn’t a “cruise person,” the fact that she ends up on a cruise to celebrate her mother’s birthday reflects her general passivity in relationships. Lucy, meanwhile, doesn’t understand how she ended up on the cruise at all—she’s not really the spontaneous type. She’s just responding to something wired deep in her brain that’s telling her to run. I think the strangeness and discomfort of their experiences on the ship force both of them to see the state of their lives more clearly than they do on land, and they don’t like what they see.
Let’s talk about Doug now. Who doesn’t love reading about a washed-up TV star? His chapters were fun to read, and his perspective contrasted so nicely with Franny’s and Lucy’s. I suspect you enjoyed writing those sections. Am I right?
One hundred percent. I wrote each chapter in sequential order, so every time I got to one of Doug’s, I was really excited. Writing about a Love Boat–like TV series and washed-up actors and lost love was a lot of fun for me. And despite Doug’s past misdeeds, I enjoyed spending so much time with him in my head. He’s a deeply flawed person, trying hard to be a better one.
This is your third novel. Did anything get easier with this one? Was anything harder?
Once I decided to set this book on a cruise ship and figured out who the characters were, it was my fastest book, by far. I wouldn’t say the writing came easily—nothing about writing ever does. But finishing a book in three years is pretty unusual for me (five is more the norm), and I’ve learned to just take the win whenever I can.
I love the expansiveness of your title. Can you talk about how it came to you?
The original title of the book was Wake. I liked how that word could mean the act of coming into consciousness or the way a boat leaves a trail in the water, but my editor immediately registered the funereal meaning, which wasn’t what we wanted. In our search for a new title, we tried to find something that spoke to the book’s themes of hope and possibility and eventually landed on an excerpt from a James Weldon Johnson poem called “Beauty That Is Never Old.” The poem is about the comfort of love, which was something I remembered from Kenneth Feinberg’s memoir about his work on the September 11th Victim Compensation Fund—how the sense of love permeated so many of his interviews with the victims’ family members.
Let’s talk about Baltimore. Could you shout out some local writers that you like to read? And what are your favorite literary hangouts?
How long can this piece be? Do you understand the floodgates you’ve just unleashed? In addition to present company, my favorite fiction writers include Danielle Evans, Laura Lippman, Don Lee, Kate Reed Petty, and Lysley Tenorio. For nonfiction, there’s Elizabeth Evitts Dickinson, Alec MacGillis, Cutter Wood, and Jeannie Vanasco. And for poetry, I really admire Lindsay Bernal, Thea Brown, Jane Lewty, Dora Malech, and Bruce Snider. Now I’m not going to be able to go to sleep tonight thinking about who I missed, which actually isn’t such a bad problem to have. We live in a city with so many wonderful writers.
As for literary hangouts, it feels like Baltimore has more bookstores per capita than any major city, which is great for the people who live here. Give me an hour to poke around Greedy Reads, The Ivy, or Atomic Books, and I’ll be happy. I also love a good café like the Bun Shop or Pitango, where I can read and not be rushed out. Last but not least—the Enoch Pratt Library. My local Light Street branch has everything and my library card unlocks so much online.
Do you ever write at these cafes? Or do you need to be trapped inside your house like Poe’s Fortunato? How do you organize your life to make room for writing?
I need total silence to write, so cafes are just for reading books and grading student papers. For actual fiction writing, I’m pretty much strapped to my desk at home with noise cancelling headphones on because even the birds distract me. When I’m actively working on a project, I write every day, usually from 5 AM to about 9 AM. I think of writing like going to the gym. If I leave it until the end of the day, I’ll probably convince myself not to do it. Better to get up with the noisy birds and try to bang out a few pages while I’m awake and alert.
One last Baltimore question. Earlier, I mentioned all the places you’ve lived. Since you teach in DC, you might have chosen to settle there. Why Baltimore instead? Because it’s so much better?
It IS so much better! A big part of the Baltimore decision for us was affordability. We knew we’d get a lot more for our money in terms of space here. And I love the compactness of the city and the character of its communities. I feel like I cross ten different neighborhoods just by driving five miles in any direction.
Baltimore Area Launch Events:
March 10, 7 PM – Enoch Pratt Library Launch: Info here
April 16, 6:30 PM – Hersh’s Cruise Ship Theme Dinner: Info here
April 23, 6 PM – Baltimore Banner Book Club: Info here
April 29, 7 PM – Greedy Reads General Book Club Discussion: Info here
