A Love Letter to Parents + New Americans with Author Angie Kim
Show Snapshot:
No one gets to midlife without reinventing. Few do it as markedly (and well) as former lawyer turned novelist Angie Kim, author of best-selling, courtroom drama “Miracle Creek,” which expertly plumbs multiple plot themes ranging from immigration to special needs children, familial ties, and identity.
We cover Angie’s move from Seoul, South Korea to Baltimore at age 11, to Harvard Law, to the multiple career pivots that made her a first-time author at 50.
Plus, the myth of the perfect mom, how parenthood can help reframe your childhood, and what’s next in store for this literary supernova.
In This Episode We Cover:
1. How Angie moved from law to fiction writing – her fifth career evolution.
2. Why “love what you do” became Angie’s mantra.
3. How pop culture gets midlife wrong. Think less “end of the road,” and more “vast potential.”
4. Why an early foray into acting and the practice of law proved to be unlikely steppingstones into fiction.
5. Immigration, forging identity, our polarizing times, and parenthood – all the things.
6. The myth of the perfect mother, raising children with special needs.
7. How parenthood can help reframe your childhood.
8. Angie’s favorite thrillers and mysteries.
9. A sneak peek at Angie’s newest book.
Quotable:
I feel the same amount of potential as I did when I was in my twenties. And it’s funny because when I was younger, I did think that by the time I was 50 or whatever, I would have it all figured out. And that’s not the case at all, which is really exciting… you know, to feel like you’re not set.
Writing a courtroom drama at age 45 allowed me to go back to that time in my twenties when I was all excited about being a litigator and going into the courtroom. That was really the only thing about being a lawyer that I loved. Except that it was so much better because I could completely control what the witnesses said, which you don't have as a real-life lawyer.
More Resources:
Angie’s book:
Follow Angie on social:
A selection of Angie’s other writing:
I’ve experienced anti-Asian harassment and written it into my novels. I’m not ready to move on.
I felt like an incompetent mother. Then I learned how to not feel so alone.
Transcript
Katie Fogarty (00:02):
Welcome to A Certain Age, a show for women on life after 50 who are unafraid to age out loud. I’m your host, Katie Fogarty. If you’ve been listening to A Certain Age any length of time, you know we’re super fans of career evolution; of taking big, bold leaps and looking at midlife as a creative accelerant, not an obstacle.
I am so delighted to introduce you to today’s guest, a woman who shows us we can write new chapters into our life story at any age. Angie Kim moved from Seoul, South Korea, to the suburbs of Baltimore during middle school. Then onto Stanford University and Harvard Law, where she was the editor of the Harvard Law Review before becoming a trial lawyer at a major law firm. Next, came a big, juicy jump into fiction writing, and publishing her first novel, the best-seller, Miracle Creek, at age 50. Welcome, Angie.
Angie Kim (00:52):
Thank you so much for having me. I’m so delighted to be here and I love the topic of this conversation and your podcast in general, so this is a huge honor, thank you.
Katie (01:05):
I’m very, very excited. I first discovered you during the pandemic. My mom, my sister, my sister-in-law, and her mother, have a virtual book club and my sister Jenny is an enormous fan of thrillers and courtroom dramas and she recommended your book. And I’m gonna tell you, it was the first book that we all agreed that we loved. [laughs] Because we had read some—
Angie (01:27):
Oh, I love that.
Katie (01:28):
I’m not gonna name any of the others [Angie laughs] but we had you know, it was always like a split decision but this was universally appreciated and enjoyed. So then I went off to google you, because I wanted to learn more about you. I read all the questions at the end and it made me curious. And when I googled you, I learned about your career pivot and that you wrote this book— published it rather—when you were 50 and I thought, I need to have Angie on my show. So, I’m so delighted you found time.
So I guess my first question, and this is a serious question, is there anything you can’t do? Because I am pretty knocked out by your career. You’ve had so many different strands, right. You went to amazing schools, Harvard law review, you practiced law as a trial attorney and then you made a pivot into fiction writing. But I know that the through-line of both your life and your novel, miracle creek, is that of a young girl who moved from Korea at a very young age and had to make her way in a very unfamiliar world. What was that like?
Angie (02:31):
Well, thank you so much. But before I answer the question about the immigration thread, just so you know, I didn’t go straight from being a trial lawyer to fiction. I actually, fiction writing is actually my fifth career if you can believe it.
Katie (02:54):
Tell me, tell me. [both laugh]
Angie (02:57):
So yes, I’m very much a believer in reinventing yourself every once in a while—very, very quickly— if you don’t love what you’re doing and that’s my whole mantra that I’ve been telling my kids also. You really have to love what you’re doing on a day to day basis as well as when you step back and look at your life, that type of thing. So I have not been shy about just sort of saying, you know what, I’m not loving this, so I’m gonna try something else. So I was a management consultant, I was a Dotcom entrepreneur, I was a stay-at-home mom, and then I actually started writing, doing creative writing, in my forties. And then as you said, I published my first novel the week I turned 50 actually. So, yeah.
Katie (03:51):
What an amazing celebration. And I love that you share that you had all these different experiences too and that you ask yourself the question: am I happy, is this lighting me up? And use that to propel yourself into new experiences.
Do you feel that maybe in some way, that moving from one country to another as a child helped you have that kind of resilience? That ability to say you know what, I can put myself into new circumstances and thrive.
Angie (04:21):
Oh, I love that. You know, I had never thought about that actually. I hadn’t really connected those two, but now that you say it, that seems totally natural. Because, of course, I saw my parents do that with their own lives and careers. And I did it myself of course, with respect to language and you know, having to form new relationships and friendships and basically sort of remake myself in this new environment. And so, of course, that probably did give me that foundation, you know, of sort of saying, all right, well if I’m not happy where I am and doing what I’m doing, I know that I have the freedom to try something different because I saw that in my parents and I’ve experienced it myself. And even though it was painful at the time, it was something that I was able to actually go through and make it out the other end, you know, stronger and happier. So, that’s a really good psychological insight, Katie, I love that.
Katie (05:26):
The reason why it occurred to me as you were sharing your story about all these other pivots that I didn’t know you had made, is that one of the themes of this show, there are a couple; the biggest one is that we’re aging out loud, we’re tired of being told you have to pretend you’re not getting older. That’s number one. That’s the whole premise of this show. But the other themes that have emerged after I launched it is that midlife is a time, it’s very misrepresented. People in pop culture will tell you that midlife is the end of the road, it’s like all downhill from here. But the women that come on this show really see midlife as an accelerant. They’ve got more time, they have more confidence, they have more experience, and they’re able to take all that and turn it into something new, across different things. You have a creative pursuit, others have launched businesses, others have reinvented their careers, gone back to school, done all sorts of new things, but the other theme that’s emerged is that of resilience. Because almost every single woman who has come on my show—I’ve had women come on talking about mental health challenges, who’ve talked about losing spouses, who’ve talked about really profound dislocating traumas that they’ve gone through—and they’ve emerged stronger and that resilience is what is sort of powering their next act. So I feel like we’ve already had so much amazing conversation, what are we gonna talk about for the next 27 minutes? [laughs]
Angie (06:52):
I know, definitely. But you know, I think that’s right, because when you’re young and you’re like a teenager or in your twenties or whatever, and you think about people being in their fifties or older you sort of think, oh they’re old, they already know what they’re doing, they’re already set, they’re actually plateauing, or even going downhill. Right, as far as life evolutions and things like that. But now that I’m here, I really feel like, I mean, I feel the same amount of potential as I did when I was in my twenties. I really feel like there’s so much more yet to come and I’m so excited to discover these new facets of myself that I didn’t even realize were there. And it’s funny because when I was younger, I did think that by the time I was 50 or whatever, I would have it all figured out and that’s not the case at all, which is really exciting, you know, to feel like you’re not set.
Katie (08:01):
No, absolutely. And it is exciting. It’s funny, when I was younger, I don’t think that I felt like I was necessarily gonna have it all figured out at 50 because I had different careers that I enjoyed but I wasn’t gonna stay with. I taught English in Japan, which was an amazing experience for two years; I worked on Capitol Hill which I loved, but I knew I didn’t wanna be a Senate staffer forever, and I didn’t want to run for office, so that career felt like a little bit limited; I went to a PR firm; I went into journalism. I tried a whole bunch of different things on for size and I think I learned a lot from each experience that I took with me that put me exactly where I am today, but I never felt like I had landed anywhere. And I look at your career, if we were to look back, you look at the labels, Stanford, Harvard law, a blue-chip law firm, you sort of had arrived. I think it’s interesting that you had something that I think a lot of people would look at and be like, "Wow she’s made it, that’s incredible.” But you were able to let go of that. Was it hard to leave behind something that probably felt and probably looked very shiny to other people, to try something totally new and different?
Angie (09:17):
Yeah, but at the same time very exciting because I think everybody I knew in my twenties was in a law firm and my husband was in the same law firm for like, twenty years. And no one I knew was actually happy being a lawyer. [both laugh] So, in some ways that made it easy for me to sort of say, okay, it’s not that I’m going through some weird experience that I’m gonna outgrow or whatever, it’s just the kind of thing that seems great when you’re younger, but really when you arrive there, may not be what you thought it was. And I also think that I had a different reason for going into the law. So, in high school, I went to this boarding school, a performing arts boarding school called Interlochen Arts Academy and I did musical theatre and I really wanted to be an actor. I was told by my coaches, by my teachers that it wasn’t a really good career decision to go into that because being an Asian American at that time, there really aren’t any roles. And so, it probably wouldn’t be a good idea.
Katie (10:40):
That must have been so painful to hear.
Angie (10:42):
Right, right? And I also think that you know, now that I look back, they were probably being nice to me, maybe they thought they were being nicer than saying, “Hey, we don’t think you’re all that talented so maybe don’t do that.” [laughs]
Katie (10:55):
I don’t think either things are nice [laughs]
Angie (10:58):
Right, right. No, but I think that’s probably what they thought, this was like thirty years ago or whatever. But now that I look back, I would have much rather them been honest with me than you know, saying something that really doesn’t resonate from a race and diversity types of concerns, which I’m really, really concerned with right now. So anyway, that’s just a side note. So the reason I went into being a trial lawyer is because the performative aspects, I sort of thought it was sort of the next best thing to going into theatre, right.
Katie (11:39):
I love your honesty, that’s very funny and cool. [both laugh] And was it like acting? Angie, tell us.
Angie (11:48):
Yeah, it sort of was. And this relates to my novel, Miracle Creek, in that writing a courtroom drama at age 45 or whatever, allowed me to go back to that time, from my twenties, when I was all excited about being a litigator and going into the courtroom. Because I did love going into the courtroom. That was really the only thing about being a lawyer that I loved. And you know, writing about it twenty years later, it felt a little bit like that, like I was able to go back into the courtroom in my mind and write about it except that it was so much better because I could completely control what the witnesses said in response, which you don’t have as a real-life lawyer.
Katie (12:40):
Yeah, that’s the ideal scenario.
Angie (12:42):
So fun. But unfortunately, when I was in my twenties and actually a lawyer, I learned that even though I loved being in the courtroom, you’re not in the courtroom actually for a lot. Like, maybe 5% of my life as a litigator was filled up actually being in the courtroom and objecting, making arguments, telling stories, and things like that, that I wanted to do. So, I think that’s why I left. Because, I sort of felt like okay, the reason I got in, once I experienced it, it wasn’t exactly what I thought it would be.
Katie (13:22):
I think there are so many jobs like that and if you’re spending the bulk of the work doing things that you’re not into, and the 5% slice that lights you up, the equation is not tilted in the right direction. So, you were a trial lawyer for 5% of the time, we know how you learned about the legal chops and how a courtroom works. How did you learn the rest? How did you learn to become a fiction writer? I know that you’ve written for magazines but when did you take on creative writing? When did you take on novel writing? Was it something that you had to teach yourself? Or did you do classes? What was the process?
Angie (14:02):
Yeah, so I did both. So, when I was in my forties and I had been a stay-at-home mom for a while, I sort of thought that I was going to go back to being an entrepreneur once I had my first child. And he had some medical challenges, and then I had the second and he had some medical challenges, totally different. And then I had my third and he had some medical challenges. So, I have three boys, and they’re all fine now, they’re completely healthy and everything is great now, but all three did have medical issues as babies. They were all different and they were all sort of medical mystery types of things that necessitated so much research and so much fighting with insurance companies, it just became a full time job, like times five or something. So, I was a stay-at-home mom for a long time, and then at some point, because of all these medical issues, I started writing—just as a cathartic, therapy kind of thing. Just to sort of get my feelings out and be able to try to figure out what it was that I was feeling which was just so intense.
So, I started doing that and once I started, I don’t think I’ve ever done any creative writing, like really in my life. And so, even though I had been such an avid reader. And it just triggered something in me and I realized how much I loved it. And of course, I had done writing, you know, in an academic sense. I had done legal writing, academic writing, business writing, but that’s so different from creative writing and I just fell in love with it. So, I started taking workshops and I started showing people my writing. And the first piece of writing that I actually got published was about the mommy track in Slate and it was a sort of quasi journalistic but quasi personal essay type thing about my conflicted feelings about being a stay-at-home mom and what that means and how I feel guilty toward my parents that they sacrificed so much to send me to this very expensive law school and had I squandered all of that? So, it was that kind of angst that you know, I think you can probably relate to and that I think a lot of women could relate to. So, I got really good response from it and it was just so wonderful, not only the writing part, but then the sharing afterwards, and really discussing issues with lots of readers who reached out to me afterward. That was just so wonderful and it made me feel like this is fulfilling. Not only the day-to-day of the writing but then the afterward, the sharing and the discussing afterward of readers and feeling like my words actually might be helpful to some other people as they suss out their own feelings about some of these issues.
So, that’s sort of how it started and then I went to fiction because my husband pointed out that writing about our family, especially about our kids’ medical issues, might not be fair to them in a non-fiction sense, just because they can’t really consent meaningfully, because they were so young. And it wasn’t just my story, it was their story too. And he said, “How about fiction?” And I was like, fiction? I don’t know how to write fiction. So I took classes, and I started with short stories and that was even more fulfilling. I just loved it so much. And I think that a lot of the creativity of when I was a teenager and doing acting, that really came through because I really sort of feel like the most effective way of writing fiction is by trying to inhabit the character that you’re writing from, whose point of view you’re writing from and sort of doing this method-writing type thing.
Katie (18:41):
That’s so fascinating, the connection between acting and writing and the idea of inhabiting somebody else’s skin. I’ve never heard anyone make that link before and it makes so much sense, that if you’re able to put yourself into somebody else’s world as an actor, that perhaps that talent is something that you could be used for writing.
You know, Angie, we’re gonna take a very quick break and when we come back I want you to talk to our listeners a little bit about what Miracle Creek is about and also maybe touch upon how the different strands of the Miracle Creek story map or don’t map to the things that happened in your own life. We’ll be back after a quick break.
[Ad break]
Katie (20:29):
Okay, Angie, we’re back from our break and I would love it if you could share with our listeners what Miracle Creek is about.
Angie (20:36):
Sure. So Miracle Creek in a nutshell; it’s a literary courtroom drama about a Korean immigrant family and a young single mother who is on trial for murdering her 8-year-old son who is on the autism spectrum. Do you want me to say more?
Katie (20:55):
Yeah. I mean, don’t give away the ending because we want everyone to buy this book. [Angie laughs] You know, one of the things I love about this book, and I’m sure a lot of listeners can relate; there are so many stories that are woven together, that different characters are kind of taking, sort of center stage at different points. So you really get different perspectives and you see the stories through multiple angles but it’s done so seamlessly that you’re never confused. Because every once in a while you read a book and, you know, it’s hard. You were able to take all of these different strands and put them together into this very cohesive, yet sprawling… I don’t know how to describe it, like a moment…
Angie (21:42):
Oh, thank you.
Katie (21:42):
…or an experience, which I absolutely loved. We touched on this at the beginning, you came from Korea, you had children with health challenges too, so some of those themes come up in the book. How much did you draw on your own life? How much did you let your imagination run? What does that look like?
Angie (22:03):
Yeah, absolutely. So I mean obviously, the story itself is completely fictional so there’s really nothing in there that is from real life in that sense. But the strands and the themes and some of the characters are definitely from, you know, things that I’ve experienced in my own life.
So yeah, there are really three main strands that are in the book that came from my own life. One is the immigrant strand. So there’s a Korean immigrant family with a mom, and dad, and an only child, just like me, Mary. They come over to the US when she’s 11 years old, which was the same age I was when I came over. So, a lot of the dynamics in that family, the Mary character, the daughter who longs to go back to Korea and who feels displaced, who is feeling a lot of angst as she’s having to deal with bullying in middle school and then in high school. That kind of stuff is taken directly from my own life. A lot of those ideas that are in there and about how the characters feel like they have been stripped of their intelligence and competence because they can no longer speak or understand the language that they are forced to inhabit every day. That kind of stuff is stuff that I experienced myself and that I witnessed my parents going through. So that’s definitely a strong strand through the novel.
Then just like you said, the second one is my experience being the mom of kids with health challenges. So, the novel Miracle Creek takes place around a medical treatment facility called Miracle Submarine which is owned by the Korean family and it’s a hyperbaric oxygen therapy chamber. And for those of you who have never heard of it, it’s a real thing, it’s probably in all of your hospitals. It’s a pressurized chamber that you enter, it’s a medical chamber, and then they sort of increase the pressure and then you breathe in 100% pure oxygen for about an hour. And so the oxygen is supposed to be healing; it’s supposed to heal wounds and encourage new growth and all that kind of stuff. And this is a real thing that I actually did in real life with one of my kids, who when he was 4 years old he had ulcerative colitis, and just nothing, none of the traditional treatments were working and this was an experimental treatment at that time. We were so desperate to try anything to help him because yeah, he was throwing up after every meal, he wasn’t growing, he was saying that it hurt—
Katie (25:30):
Ugh, so hard.
Angie (25:30):
And when that happened, I mean he was 4 and it was so horrible and so we decided to go ahead and try it. I remember the first time we saw it, he pointed to it and he was like, “Look it’s the submarine because we had just watched The Yellow Submarine—
Katie (25:48):
Oh my gosh, that’s so cute.
Angie (25:49):
—of The Beatles for family movie night and it looked just like that.
Katie (25:53):
And it’s so friendly, it’s such like a friendly way of looking. Otherwise, you could be like, “Oh my gosh, what is that thing?”
Angie (26:00):
Right, because it’s really claustrophobic when you have to crawl inside, it’s like a tube, you know. But we did a group one where you go in there with three other families and so you’re basically in there every day for an hour. So you get to know these other families really, really well and the atmosphere inside is so intense because it is claustrophobic and the kids are trying to deal with not having electronics in there for an hour at a time because you know the pure oxygen is a fire hazard so you can’t have any paper or electronics or anything like that inside. So you become really close, or at least in my experience, you become really close with each other. And so, I put four families in my novel, Miracle Creek, into the submarine, called Miracle Submarine and they go through a similar experience.
Katie (27:08):
With a very different ending. [laughs]
Angie (27:11):
Yes, well it’s a very different beginning. So what happens at the beginning of the novel is someone, we think deliberately, sets a fire by the oxygen tanks outside, resulting in an explosion and starting an uncontrollable fire and several people die, and that’s why we have this murder trial. So, the novel is a four-day murder trial, and the reader sort of becomes like the jury, right?
Katie (27:39):
Yes.
Angie (27:40):
You’ve read the book so you can, that was what I was hoping to recreate; this experience of really learning what’s happening just like a juror might. And then, we also do, from chapter to chapter, go to the different people who are involved in different ways. Seven different people and take turns telling us what happened that day, what’s happening now as they’re going through the trial. And little by little, through both their thoughts and actions as well as what’s happening in the courtroom, we get to figure out the whodunit, of you know, who set the fire. But more importantly, the whydunit, and the howdunit elements. So, it was really fun to write.
Katie (28:36):
And it was really fun to read. It also taught me that I would be a terrible detective [Angie laughs] because I was like, wait a minute I am so wrong. [laughs]
Angie (28:47):
I love that.
Katie (28:48):
It was great. I enjoyed it so much and I thought it was a wonderful courtroom drama, a wonderful thriller, but I loved all the other aspects that you wove into the story too. You know, I have friends who have children who have profound…they’re on the autistic spectrum or are struggling with health challenges. The characters felt really real and very fully realized and very human and in ways that I’ve seen people in my own life struggle. And the theme of being, you know, a foreigner in a new country and immigration and what makes you an American, maybe the judgments that are brought, how your language skills or your lack of them in this new language serve against you in ways. It was so resonant because I was reading at the time that there was so much talk about the immigrant experience in our country because of what’s been going on politically and the hate crimes against the AAPI community and all the stress that was going on that my friends who are Asian American were experiencing. I just felt like it was such a timely piece. You wrote this book before that period of time. Could you have imagined that when the book came out that this would be going on in the news?
Angie (30:19):
I mean, in some ways, yes. There’s a cynical part of me that says “Yes” because this is the kind of thing that I think it goes up and down in waves and we sort of think, maybe, hopefully things are getting better. But I think that especially with everything that was going on in the sort of pre-2016 elections, which was when I was really doing a lot of the revisions and things like that, that was really kind of worrisome and it did make me worry about that. And you know, there is a lot of racial prejudice and bias as well as some of the sexualized fetishization against Asian American women that are in my novel that I sort of baked in, that I suspected was not an experience that had gone away fully, if that makes sense.
Katie (31:31):
Totally makes sense. I think that the last four years laid bare that we thought maybe that things were changing. Things have changed and there is more open-mindedness and there is more acceptance, but some of the uglier undercurrents that we hoped were gone, were laid bare. And it was clear that not only were they there, but they were also thriving in many ways, which was just so…was one of the many upsetting things that have happened over the last few years.
Angie (32:02):
Absolutely.
Katie (32:03):
I think the book does such a good job of touching on all of those in different ways. When I was doing my research and I read an article about you, I think in it you were having a conversation about how while there are some themes that hue to your own life—Korea, immigration, children with health challenges—you’re very clear that all of this is fiction and that the characters are not mapped to your own. But you did share at one point that it was hard for your mom to read it because there is that tension between the mother in the story and the young girl, who feels abandoned a little bit because her parents are so busy working. Your mom was sad because she felt that perhaps that was based a little bit on your own experience because your parents were very busy making a life for themselves in their new country. It just was, I thought, such a beating heart of this story because I think that as a mother you’re always sacrificing for your kids, no matter what your social-economic background is, no matter what’s going on in your life. And it’s just so painful to watch those characters struggle, where the girl feels sort of abandoned and the mother feels, I dunno, I don’t want to use the word misunderstood, but you know—
Angie (33:27):
No, I think that is true. I mean, I think in many ways the novel, Miracle Creek, is about parenting sacrifices at their extremes, you know.
Katie (33:41):
Yes.
Angie (33:41):
Because I think for both the immigrant experience as well as the special needs parenting experience, I think that there are similarities in those and that you feel so isolated and you do feel so misunderstood and it’s because of your amazing, intense love for your children that you go through huge changes in your life. But at the same time, that can cause some very human emotions like, you know, moments of regret maybe and moments of resentment. Which sounds horrible to say, but I think it’s something that’s real and that’s human and very understandable. And now that I’m a mother myself, I totally understood everything that my parents were going through. And it’s not like my parents were, you know, doing anything fun that they wanted to—
Katie (34:52):
Right, they weren’t off clubbing.
Angie (34:54):
It’s not like they were going out to parties every night. The reason that I could never see them in my own experience is my parents started a grocery store in the really, really dangerous part of Baltimore and their hours were like 6 AM to midnight so they had to basically live at the store, not to mention that it was really dangerous for them to step outside the store at all. And they didn’t want me coming to the store because it was such a dangerous neighborhood. So, I basically lived with my aunt and uncle who were amazing people and you know, that was an amazing experience but at the same time, I did really lose touch with my parents during those years when we were transitioning from, you know, being in Korea to really getting established in America. And I did resent my parents for that and I acted out and I was horrible as you know, I think teenage girls in middle school can be anyway.
Katie (36:08):
That’s a very universal experience.
Angie (36:10):
Right, exactly. So, in a way, I think actually writing this book was really helpful because my parents and I never really discussed it, and writing this in a way was sort of a love letter to my mom and to my dad too, but especially my mom, and I think she recognized that and I think that’s why it was so hard for her to read, but at the same time, she re-reads it all the time now because I think it’s comforting as well to know that I understand, you know?
Katie (36:45):
And if she’s reading and looking at the sacrifices that the mother has made, hopefully, she feels seen.
Angie (36:54):
Oh, absolutely.
Katie (36:56):
Could you have written this book at a younger age? Or did you have to get to be a parent and to midlife to be able to have this sort of perspective that you just shared, that your parents were doing their best?
Angie (37:08):
Yeah. I mean, I think I knew intellectually. Even when I was 15, if you had asked me, I would have said, well of course my parents sacrificed everything to bring me here. And I probably would have said, even though I’m not sure that I would have understood fully that I didn’t blame them or anything like that. But I do think that there are things that you can’t really, or that I myself couldn’t understand until I went through the parenting experience myself, and until I went through this huge period where I did sacrifice everything for my kids and I did feel some of these mixed feelings and realized that this is kind of what being a mother is all about and that the societal sort of, the myth of the Good Mother, capital G, capital M, is not really real, you know.
Katie (38:14):
And it does such a disservice to not talk about it because when I went through different phases and I didn’t have the same challenges that you did, but everyone who has been a mother or a parent has gone through some kind of challenges.
Angie (38:26):
Absolutely.
Katie (38:26):
And when you’re having those days when you’re like, I’m not really sure I like anyone I’m living with. [laughs]
Angie (38:32):
Right, exactly, exactly.
Katie (38:35):
You feel terrible, but it’s so human. And we’ve put this sort of false construct, I don’t even know what it’s based on, because I don’t think there’s a single mother in humanity who is this perfect idealized creature that just loves endlessly and gives selflessly.
Angie (38:54):
Right, and never resents and never regrets. All of those things, it’s like you’re supposed to enjoy every single moment of your child and that’s just not real. But you know, I think that it’s really taboo to sort of say anything about that.
Katie (39:18):
I agree.
Angie (39:20):
Yeah, I’m really glad that that has become like a focal point for a lot of book clubs and things like that that I talk to. Whenever I do interviews, people feel freer I think, to talk about it. In my book itself, there’s a scene, a very painful scene where two characters are really being honest with each other about how they feel about being the mom of kids who really require a lot of hand-holding and what that’s done to their lives. And in some ways, I think it’s a really shameful kind of conversation to have, but also very powerful and liberating for them in many ways, that they can share it with each other.
Katie (40:12):
Absolutely. And we have to normalize all of those types of conversations and even, normalize the idea of…like what this show does, getting older, acknowledging it, aging out loud. If we don’t have these conversations, you’re leaving people to feel maybe shame, or regret, or fear. It’s very taboo. People even come on this show, the whole premise is, “We’re aging out loud," and sometimes people are still like, "I don’t wanna tell you how old I am." [Angie laughs] Sometimes you sense, it’s that built-in, you have to check yourself and say, "Oh right, I’m allowed to be 55, I’m allowed to be 65, I’m allowed to be an imperfect mother because I’m an imperfect human. I’m allowed to be all these things and we have to show people that and then it makes it easier. "
This I think is why Variety magazine named you to their inaugural "10 Storytellers to Watch” list, which I learned when I Googled you because I do my homework [Angie laughs] which I thought is a very cool list to be on and I’m wondering…you were saying earlier in the show that you wanted to be in acting, you were dissuaded perhaps because it was positioned as not a lot of opportunity. But if you were to be looking at people telling stories in the AAPI space, or if you were to look at people you’d wanna see cast in Miracle Creek if it were a show or a movie, who is on your radar? Who should we be watching?
Angie (41:51):
Ooo, that’s such a cool question. I just listened to a podcast interview of Sandra Oh just like, two days ago. So, she comes foremost, completely front and center to my mind just because of that experience, and plus I just think she’s completely badass in so many ways. I would probably have to say her because I just completely love her. But when I was writing this novel, Miracle Creek, the mother figure of Young, who is the Korean mother, opens and closes the novel. So even though there are seven point-of-view characters, she’s sort of the main character in my mind, the main protagonist, because she does close and open the book. And she probably has more word count, more chapters devoted to her than any of the other characters. The person, the actress that I was thinking of in my mind for her, was Ruthie Ann Miles.
Katie (43:04):
I don’t know her.
Angie (43:05):
I don’t know if you know her. She was a Broadway actor, she was in, I think she won a Tony for The King and I and she was in if you ever watched The Americans, she was in that show, she was the Korean immigrant character in Season 3 or something like that. Young-Hee, I think was her name. But she was amazing. So, she was the woman that I had in mind for that role.
Katie (43:37):
Well, let’s put it out into the universe and manifest it. I know you’re working on a new book. What can you tell us about that?
Angie (43:43):
Oh yes. So it’s called Happiness Quotient, for now. Who knows what it’ll end up being. Miracle Creek was actually called “Miracle Submarine” for the longest time until like, 5 months before publication date when it was abruptly changed. But anyway, for Happiness Quotient, is a story set for now in the pandemic, in June of 2020 and it’s about a biracial family outside DC. And a 13-year-old boy who is non-speaking, who has something called Angelman syndrome which is kind of like nonverbal autism. And he goes on a walk at the beginning of the book with his father, who is a stay-at-home dad, and only the boy returns home. And because he’s non-speaking, he can’t talk, you know…
Katie (44:41):
We’re left to wonder.
Angie (44:42):
…he can’t communicate to the family or to the authorities what happened to the dad. So, it’s really the story of the family trying to struggle through and figure out what happened to the dad and also to protect the young boy and try to find a way of communicating with him and helping him to find his voice.
Katie (45:07):
This sounds amazing. When does this book? [both laugh] How long do we have to wait for this book? When is it coming out?
Angie (45:13):
Well, yes so I am halfway through writing it. So, my deadline from my publisher is I think September of 2022. So, I’m guessing it’ll be out in 2023, like late 2023 or early 2024, something like that, who knows.
Katie (45:35):
Well, I hope you’re gonna come back on the show when it does because I intend to be around. And I also want to ask you Angie to close the show with me with a speed round. I’ve been doing it this season and I absolutely love it, it’s a lot of fun.
Angie (45:46):
Love it.
Katie (45:47):
All right, let’s do it, okay. Book in your beach bag this summer?
Angie (45:52):
Ooo, book in my…this is supposed to be speed round? Oh no.
Katie (45:56):
Yes, we gotta go, we gotta ba-da-bing, ba-da-bang.
Angie (46:00):
Okay well, I’m gonna say the one that I’m looking at right now called The Husbands by Chandler Baker.
Katie (46:05):
All right. Favorite mystery or thriller ever.
Angie (46:10):
Book? Or movie?
Katie (46:11):
Ooo, let’s do both
Angie (46:13):
Okay, so the book would have to be Mystic River by Dennis Lehane. And movie, I dunno. Maybe The Americans, yeah.
Katie (46:24):
Perfect.
Angie (46:24):
Oh no no, Mare of East Town.
Katie (46:27):
Oh my god, yes, I’m with you on that one. So good.
Angie (46:30):
So amazing, okay yeah.
Katie (46:32):
Writing in longhand or typing?
Angie (46:35):
Typing.
Katie (46:36):
Editing as you go or doing it at the end?
Angie (46:40):
Both. Always edit, both.
Katie (46:43):
Always edit got it. Accepting editor feedback or thinking to yourself, “Nahhh." [laughs]
Angie (46:52):
Both…both. [Katie laughs] Totally both.
Katie (46:54):
You’re being honest.
Angie (46:55):
Yup, I have to do both, yup.
Katie (46:57):
Okay. And the coolest language Miracle Creek has been translated into because I did my homework and I know it’s 19.
Angie (47:04):
Oooh, coolest. Maybe Croatian because I just received it.
Katie (47:12):
Very nice. These are all different books, so they must be all different book covers?
Angie (47:16):
Yeah, they’re all different book covers, they’re so fun to get. They’re completely different from each other, so weird. I think the Romanian one has a really cool painting, you know like a museum piece in the front, and then there’s some that are just all fire. It’s so funny to see all the different covers.
Katie (47:39):
So fun, so fun. Angie, this has been a total blast. I’m so happy that my sister picked Miracle Creek for our virtual book club because she put you on my radar, I did my Googling, I learned about your creative pivot, and I love the fact that when I reached out to you and said would you be on this show, you were a yes. Thank you for being a yes, and thank you for joining me today.
Angie (48:00):
Thank you so much for having me, yay!
Katie (48:04):
And how can our listeners keep following you and your work?
Angie (48:07):
Oh okay. So you can go to my website, angiekimbooks.com and you can sign up for my newsletter, despite the fact that I haven’t sent out even one yet, I do plan to in the future at some point. And I’m also on social media @angiekimwriter on Twitter and @angiekimask on Instagram. And I am sort of on a social media hiatus for right now because I’m trying to finish this novel but I hope to be on soon.
Katie (48:44):
Thank you so much, Angie. This wraps A Certain Age, a show for women over 50 who are aging without apology. Join me next week when I sit down with foodie and cookbook author Jenny Rosenstrach of the OG cult-favorite food blog, Dinner, A Love Story. We’ll be dishing on summer recipes and being part-time vegetarian.
Special thanks to Michael Mancini who composed and produced our theme music. See you next time and until then: age boldly, beauties.