Day 268 - From the Desk of...

...author Sang Pak!







My first novel, Wait Until Twilight, has been released this summer. It’s a southern gothic/coming of age tale but it was the southern aspect that seemed prominent while I wrote it. All the elements are there. The country roads, hot humid summers, the kind of rundown beauty one might imagine of a small southern town. But the one thing I shifted into an alternate reality was the language. I instinctively kept the drawl scaled down even though from an experiential reality, and if anyone has spent time in the rural deep south they know the drawl is thick and it’s real. I think it reflects the “Southerness” in me. Being Korean American, I don’t think that would register immediately. Even the drawl I used to have growing up has faded after many years of living overseas and far away from the American south. But if one listens closely it’s there. After a few beers it becomes even more prominent.

To be honest with you, if one writes southern dialog with a true drawl, it can read like Faulknerian or Mcarthian hieroglyphics for the uninitiated. Something to be occasionally deciphered. Yet, even the dialogue in the most inveterate southern writer belies the drawl that’s found in the rural south. They are all toned down. This of course is because novels are reflections not of the actual world but the inner world of the writer that has been cultivated from the totality of their experiences and their desire to express this. This includes everything they’ve read, whether the bible or the works of Shakespeare. It all influences the writer. And this can be seen in the dialogue of the southern writer. I think if I’d stayed in the south instead of leaving after high school, the dialogue I wrote would have probably contained a much stronger drawl. Again it would have most likely been instinctual.

Being raised in the south is a very specific experience. No doubt even more specific for someone of Asian descent. But the interesting thing about the south is that for all the complexities many of which are dark, at its heart it is welcoming. And for anyone spending their formative years in those welcoming arms it’s impossible not to walk away with an implicit understanding of the southern heart and mind….and tongue.

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I just want to thank Sang Pak again for giving me a chance to read WAIT UNTIL TWILIGHT and for visiting today!

Day 267 - Q&A with Author Sang Pak

Please welcome author Sang Pak to mis(h)takes! His debut novel WAIT UNTIL TWILIGHT was released earlier this month and it was definitely a different experience.

If you haven't already, check out my review.

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A little background info before we go on:

Sang Pak is a Georgia-raised writer with English and Psychology degrees from the University of Georgia. He is currently on hiatus from New York University’s graduate program in Psychology. He divides his time between Georgia, Southern California, and Seoul.

You can visit his website here.

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Me: Can you describe what your novel is about?

Sang: A Sixteen-year-old boy discovers a set of deformed triplets whose mother believes they were immaculately conceived. Soon, the babies have taken hold of his waking and sleeping thoughts, and, unable to escape them, he decides to save them, but their shut-in mother and violent older brother want nothing to do with him. Set in a small Georgia town, this psychologically complex story of survival and self determination explores the dark, often contradictory worlds of young contemporary life, laying bare the ugly truths and secrets that haunt all of us.

Me: WAIT UNTIL TWILIGHT isn’t your average coming-of-age story. What inspired you to write Samuel’s story?



Sang: It’s inspired from a set of dreams I had during a two week period a couple of summers ago.

Me: What do you think the hardest part about writing this novel was for you?

Sang: Keeping fresh eyes as I kept revising it over and over. Everything starts to bleed together and it’s imperative the eyes have a fresh clear view on the material otherwise you can get completely lost.

Me: Have you always wanted to be a writer?

Sang: No. It was the most cost effective artistic endeavor I could come up with. I only needed my laptop to a complete finished project.

Me: If you weren’t a writer, what other career would you pursue and why?

Sang: Can’t imagine another profession. Maybe bartender in a bar in a very far away place. Just because it sounds good.

Me: What are you currently working on?

Sang: I don’t talk about works in progress. Bad luck.

Me: Who are some of your favorite authors?

Sang: Herman Hesse, Jiddu Krishnamurti, Raymond Carver, Tolstoy, Yukio Mishima, Flanner O’connor.

Me: Are you reading anything at the moment?

Sang: Thomas Pynchon’s Gravity’s Rainbow.

Me: Was there an underlying meaning you want your readers to take away from your novel?


Sang: The interplay between Chaos/nihilism versus order/belief and the choice an individual makes between the two. Because of this I see my novel less as a southern gothic or coming of age story but more of a metaphysical fairytale.

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Thank you so much for the opportunity to read your novel and for taking the time out to visit my blog to answer some questions. Be sure to get a copy of WAIT UNTIL TWILIGHT, I promise you an experience. Stay tuned for a guest post by Sang Pak tomorrow!

Day 266 - Wait Until Twilight

Wait Until Twilight

Sang Pak

Series or Stand Alone: Stand Alone

Release Date: August 2009

Publisher: Harper Paperbacks

Pages: 240

Author Site: http://www.sangpak.com/

My Rating: 3.5/5

Synopsis [from harpercollins.com]:

A hauntingly strange and powerfully affecting debut novel that heralds the arrival of a unique and captivating literary voice, Sang Pak's Wait Until Twilight is a coming-of-age story that explores the complex darkness infecting a damaged psyche in a small Southern town.

Not long after his own mother's death, sixteen-year-old Samuel discovers a set of deformed triplets hidden behind closed doors in his sleepy Georgia community. The babies—whose shut-in mother believes they were immaculately conceived and whose menacing brother is a constant threat—take control of Samuel's every waking and sleeping thought. His only escape, he realizes, will be to save the monster children. But to do so, he must rein in his darkest impulses as he undergoes a profound transformation from motherless boy to self-defined man—because sometimes the most terrible monsters are those that live inside us all.

Review:

WAIT UNTIL TWLIGHT sounds so different from what I normally read. I was immediately interested in the novel when I received an email from the author in reference to reviewing it. However, as I started reading and really getting into the book, I knew right away that this wasn't what I was expecting. I had mixed emotions after I turned the last page. Even some days later I still struggle to put my feelings about the book into words.

Let's just say I was certainly affected by WAIT UNTIL TWILIGHT. While I found the characters not as fleshed out as I would have liked, they still gave off a presence that was unmistakable. Even though there wasn't the usual development I go for in characters I still felt like I had a good idea of who these people were. I do remember coming to the end of the novel, with a heart-racing ending I might add, and thinking to myself "I get things now!" I remember really liking the way I felt too.

Samuel is a sixteen-year-old teenager who's dealing with the death of his mother. He's working on getting good grades and just being a normal kid. However, Samuel seems to struggle at being "normal". School is important to him as our his relationships with his friends and father. But it's when he becomes fascinated, if not totally obsessed, with a set of deformed triplets he comes across with his friend in search of the perfect video project.

Samuel's horror is clear, not just from the first scene when he meets them, but in his later thoughts of them as well. It seems the triplets have awakened a part of Samuel he never knew existed, a strong violent streak, that becomes even more apparent when Daryl is around him. Now to be quite honest, Daryl scared the crap out of me. Daryl is certainly sick and twisted and around the triplets too much. Samuel's feelings towards the triplets shift in an interesting way and I enjoyed the ending once I got there.

I must admit it took me a while to become accustomed to the pace of the novel and Sang Pak's writing style. But after more and more reflection, I've come to realize that this is a book I will most likely never forget. Even now, after knowing and saying that this is a coming-of-age story, I found Samuel more adult than I could imagine. It goes to show you (or me I suppose) that situations and events have such a heavy impact on shaping people.

At the end of the day it comes down to this: Sang Pak made me think. I wasn't just reading his words, I was experiencing them. And for a debut author that speaks volumes in my opinion. He took me out of my reading comfort zone and I couldn't put WAIT UNTIL TWLIGHT down. I recommend this to anyone looking for a different kind of coming-of-age tale; a gothic psychological mixture that will certainly grab your attention.