Susie Yang Biography, Books, and Similar Authors

Interview

Susie Yang discuses her debut novel, White Ivy, about a young woman's dark obsession with her privileged classmate.

White Ivy has one of the most memorable lines in contemporary fiction: "Ivy Lin was a thief but you would never know it to look at her." How did this line come to you?

I knew I wanted to create a protagonist whose outer appearance was incongruous with her personality so she would be underestimated and misjudged upon initial impression. When I had the idea of Ivy shoplifting as a teenager to acquire the things her parents wouldn't buy her, the first line came to me.

Ivy Lin subverts the "model minority" stereotype in countless ways, especially as an anti-heroine who dismantles its tropes. What is your relationship to her character? What emotions did you hope she would evoke in readers?

I both pity and admire Ivy. I think her admirable qualities include determination, adaptability, and resilience. She is a person who has a hunger for life in a way that I envy! But I also pity her because the very things she wants so badly in life—to be a part of a very white, very exclusive patrician world—are in fact self-delusions and ultimately things that will make her miserable. This is the tragedy of Ivy's character, and I hope readers will both understand her motivations and also see how her assumptions are misplaced and lead her to...