Nina Revoyr Issue #36

The author of Age of Dreaming talks about overcoming racism, fighting her writing demons, and why she loves LA

By Kate Rockwood
Published: June 1st, 2008 | 1:07pm

The stories that Nina Revoyr spins seem wildly divergent — at least at first. Her debut novel, A Necessary Hunger is a lesbian love story starring high school basketball players, while her follow-up, the acclaimed Southland is a murder mystery surrounding the 1965 Watts riot. The Age of Dreaming, Revoyr’s most recent novel is first-person narrative of a silent film star Jun Nakayama, who leaves the screen at the age of 30.

In this latest effort, Revoyr’s fans will also find common elements that run through much of her writing: precise but subtle prose, a gritty Los Angeles backdrop, Japanese-American characters navigating emotional cross-racial relationships, and an intricately woven structure that explores the collision of past secrets and present repercussions. It’s a deeply satisfying read.

When we spoke to Revoyr by phone, she offered more insight. Despite getting only four hours of sleep the night before (and the background noise of her dog barking loudly at squirrels in the backyard of her LA home), she filled us in on why she can’t get enough of LA, what she thinks of her “chronicler” label, and why The Age of Dreaming is her most autobiographical work to date.

You’ve described the character Jun Nakayama as the most autobiographical character to date. What’s the similarity?
The real emotional center of the book came from me having such a hard time selling my second book. I had published my first book The Necessary Hunger at 27, and had an article in Time. I felt quite positive about the prospects of my writing career.

Then my second book was rejected by twenty-some publishers over the course of two years, and I stopped writing. Dealing with that sense of failure was huge for me, and it was also something I was never going to admit, even to myself.

That’s really where I found the heart of Jun. I just sat down and thought: “What if this is it? What am I going to feel like in my sixties and seventies, not so much if I only publish that one book, but if I let this stop me from writing?” So it’s no mistake that Jun’s career comes to a close when he’s 30, which is how old I was when I was going through all this rejection. To me, his real failure is not that he stops being a movie star, but that he stops working when he’s first hit with these obstacles.

One thread you return to again and again in your work is the dynamic between Asian-Americans and African-Americans. What drew you to that theme?
I was born in Japan. When I moved to the Wisconsin, I faced really intense racism. My appearance made the newspaper. A lot of people had never seen an Asian or a mixed-race person before. I was five and people literally would not let their kids play with me because a lot of people were veterans and they thought of Japs as the enemy from World War II.

There was no one that I was living with in my family that I could talk to about it, because my mom was in Japan and I was living with my white grandparents. I didn’t really have the language to understand or describe what was happening to me. It wasn’t until I moved to California that I found myself around other people of color, particularly black friends and their parents, who were able to articulate things about race. There was an instant connection there. They were the ones who took me in, in a way.

Do you remember your first impressions of Los Angeles?
This is such a cliché, but when I was nine, the two things I most remember were the weather and suddenly feeling like I didn’t stick out like a sore thumb. That was a great joy, to move from Wisconsin, where I really was unusual, to California where no one stared or threw things or called me names.

There were a lot of Japanese people here, obviously, and my dad, who’s my white parent, managed a Japanese restaurant, so I had an instant Japanese group. But I think even bigger than that, I was no longer a freak. For that alone I was just instantly in love with and grateful to the place.

You’re often described as a chronicler of life in LA? Do you think that’s an accurate way to describe your work?
I’m flattered by it because the Los Angeles that I describe in all three of my books is a different Los Angeles than what people normally think of. They’re set in areas where there is this cross-racial dynamic, which a lot of people even in Los Angeles don’t know about. All that being said, my next book is not set in Los Angeles. [laughs]