The author and editor Jen Sookfong Lee discusses her new memoir Superfan: How Pop Culture Broke My Heart (McClelland & Stewart, 2023), with Joseph Planta.

Superfan: How Pop Culture Broke My Heart by Jen Sookfong Lee (McClelland & Stewart, 2023). Click to buy this book from Amazon.ca: Superfan

Text of introduction by Joseph Planta:

I am Planta: On the Line, in Vancouver, British Columbia, at TheCommentary.ca.

Jen Sookfong Lee joins me again. She’s just published a memoir, Superfan: How Pop Culture Broke My Heart. It’s a thoroughly engaging, fun and funny book, where we get to know Jen in her formative years through the popular culture she consumes and loves. And as she gets older, or better yet, grows, we see how that relationship to certain books, music, film and television might evolve or change altogether. The book is also urgent, wise, and necessary as it addresses important subjects, such as violence, cultural identity, mental health, grief, racism, and abuse. It will often be enlightening for the reader, just as it will induce rage when one thinks of the nonsense that continues around us. I’ll ask Jen about writing this book, and the topics therein that she addresses. I’ll ask her about her upbringing in East Vancouver, where she was born, and not far where she lives today. I’ll ask her about the Chinese Canadian household that she grew up in, her four sisters, and her father and mother. Jen divides her childhood between the time before her father had cancer, and his death when she was twelve years old. I’ll ask her about how his death affected her, her family, especially her mother, who is a character throughout the book, one that is complicated, who amongst us isn’t, and one who Jen seeks to understand and accept in childhood, and now adulthood, and especially in the years since she became a mother herself. Some of the cultural touchstones that Jen reflects on the book include: Anne of Green Gables, Evelyn Lau, Bob Ross, Kris Jenner, Rhianna, The Joy Luck Club, Justin Bieber, and Princess Diana, among many others. Jen Sookfong Lee acquires and edits for ECW Press, and co-hosts the literary podcast Can’t Lit. She is the author of the acclaimed books The Conjoined, The Better Mother, The End of East, The Shadow List, and Finding Home. She was on this program last year to discuss the collection Good Mom on Paper: Writers on Creativity and Motherhood. The website for more is at www.sookfong.com. This new book is published by McClelland & Stewart. Please welcome to the Planta: On the Line program, Jen Sookfong Lee; Ms. Lee, good morning.

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