Author Confessions: Jimin Han

Her new novel, stories that shape us and creating imaginary places we wish existed.

First, I need to say that novelist Jimin Han has been one of my greatest writing teachers. So it’s been no surprise that I’ve loved all of her novels—her empathy, voice and depth come through on and off the page. Today, her third novel, Dreamt I Found You, was released, but I read an early copy back in January and loved it.

Consider Dreamt a literary beach read, though there’s nothing light about it. The writing is elevated, the story full of insight and the characters gripping—but it’s all set in a fictional town on the Cape that had me daydreaming about summer.

I invited Jimin to Dear Fiction to share insights about Dreamt I Found You, which is inspired, in part, by a contemporary retelling of Korea’s Romeo & Juliet. Not only is the story behind the story fascinating but there are so many great takeaways when she talks about her writing process. Enjoy!

Welcome, Jimin! Happy Pub Day!

Where did you get the idea for Dreamt I Found You? What was the spark, and when did you know you had a story big enough for a novel?
I’ve always loved stories so this book is a love letter to how stories impact our lives, how stories surround us and determine the choices we make, whether they’re stories we hear from family and friends or those we read and watch on screens.

Many things came together at once for this book to be written. For one, a memory of my boyfriend in college who had a coffee mug with a scene from a Chinese version of Romeo and Juliet. I wondered then if there was a Korean version of that story. When I asked my aunt and uncle, they told me the Tale of Chunhyang. I had no idea it was as famous as it was in Korea and it made me wonder about all the versions of the same stories we share as humans on this planet.

The other part of this book came from my cousin Sherry, who has always been such a supporter of my writing. Her family is so different from mine even though our mothers are sisters and we grew up living together under one roof at various times in our lives. So the idea of sameness and difference helped me write this novel.

Sameness and differentness is a huge theme in this book, and I found your exploration of it fascinating. Another fascinating turn: You ended up writing their story as a mystery. Did you always plan on writing it that way?
I wanted the cousins, Dahee and Channing, in this novel to experience change in their financial fortunes based on the situation in their families. I was curious about how children live through those kinds of changes, when economic circumstances improve and when they decline. They’re held together despite the struggles in their lives as cousins so the mystery evolved out of that. I had to write an entire draft just about the mystery and then a draft about the love story between Channing and Minjae and then weave them together from Dahee’s point of view.

One aspect of your book I love is the way the Korean folktale of Chunhyang shapes the story. How have stories shaped your life, and is there a story you have returned to over time in terms of shaping your personality and moral compass?
Love stories are the same in so many ways. Why does society separate people? We love who we love. People are constantly interfering with that. We see it in so many ways.

My grandparents were of different social/economic classes so I grew up hearing how my grandmother was disowned by her parents because of who she loved and had to move to the northern part of the Korean peninsula. My father was eventually born and then the Korean War started and he and his father fled south on foot, leaving my grandmother behind temporarily—or so they thought.

My grandmother who left her family for the man she loved ended up living the rest of her adult life, most of her life if we believe the stories we heard that she died in her sixties, without the man she left her family for because a border was imposed at the 38th parallel. It should have been a cautionary tale, instead my grandmother was an example of someone who made a choice based on love, not on these artificial rules people came up with. It has stayed with me, this sense that sometimes laws and social rules are unjust.

The setting for the book is East End, a diverse community on the Cape, and there’s a tight knit community of Koreans summering there. Is this based on a real place? Why did you set this story at the beach rather than, say, Boston?
Great question. I think there’s something about a small community that insulates it from the rest of the country and the world in ways that cities don’t. My early memories of moving to the States from South Korea are all based in Providence, Rhode Island. I went to kindergarten and first grade there. And after we moved away my parents took us back every summer to stay with my aunt and uncle who lived there. Not just a few days. My brothers and I spent the entire summer. Every weekend my aunt and uncle took us to the beach and we stayed all day.

When I was in college my parents moved back to Providence for a couple of years before moving yet again. That was eye-opening. I added a whole new set of memories.

The other beachtown influence that continues to grow is that my writers group goes to Cape Cod every summer. We’ve had this annual retreat for over a dozen years now. And every time I go, all those childhood memories return and I get the most written during that week. My friend’s house is set right in the harbor and you can walk to the public beach down the road.

In terms of diversity, East End is entirely fictional but it’s possible for a place like that to exist because we have Martha’s Vineyard, of course. And Annandale, Virginia, where my parents retired and where my aunt and uncle and cousins currently live is such a great community with a large Asian community. I love visiting it.

I love that we can use our imaginations to create places we wished existed in fiction.

That is so deep, Jimin. I agree. On another note. What has been the single most meaningful moment in your publishing career? Why?
Probably getting the news when I was buying dog food after teaching a class at the Writing Institute at Sarah Lawrence that my editor had bought my first novel, A Small Revolution. Nothing compares to being catapulted to that start of the journey. I couldn’t believe it. I was stunned and walked up and down the aisle with all the huge 20 pound bags of dog food, saying over and over again into my cellphone to my agent, “Can you repeat that?”

What has been the single most challenging moment of your publishing career? What did you do to get over it?
After that first book was published, I set out to work on my second novel where a Korean American woman is having a great time at the W Hotel in Barcelona, partying on the rooftop pool, when she gets a call from a woman she used to babysit. The younger woman is desperate and begs the older one in Spain to come back to their upstate New York hometown to help her. I worked really hard on that book but I just couldn’t get it to work and had to put it aside. That was painful.

At the time, I had another idea based on the story of my grandmother that I was playing around with. I thought maybe it would be a memoir. Instead that one turned into a novel and my writers group loved the voice so much better than my mystery and so I pivoted and wrote that other one really fast. That turned into The Apology.

So though Dreamt I Found You is not that mystery, I’m really proud of myself for having come up with a mystery for that one. And I guess there’s a lot that’s similar to that story: It’s also about a woman asking another for help and one coming to the rescue of the other. This time, they’re cousins instead of a care giver at one point. But I have a babysitter in there! Channing is taking care of two little boys for the month of August. Fascinating how these ideas come back around again.

Lesson learned: Even if you think you’ve given up, all is not lost. Elements of that abandoned story will return in another version.

Thank you all for reading. Next week, I’ll update you about all of the fun stuff I’ve been up to. Also, I’ve been reading Yesteryear and LOVING it. What a cringe book—the narrator is so psycho in the most delicious way. I can’t put it down. What are you reading and loving lately? xo Happy week!