Maxine Mei-Fung Chung is the author of the new novel The Eighth Girl. She is a psychotherapist, and she's based in London.
Q: How did you come up with the idea for The Eighth Girl,
and for your characters Alexa and Daniel?
A: I was becoming interested by the increased number of
patients I was working with who had survived traumatic life events, and who
were exhibiting symptoms of Dissociative Identity Disorder.
In following Alexa Wú’s story, I wanted to create a
character who had agency—a damaged, self-aware yet brilliant
and resilient heroine who is not the usual serial killer, sociopath and
lunatic trope that has been used previously.
I also wanted to create a narrative between a psychiatrist
and his patient rather than a one-sided point of view. I thought that by
offering up an opportunity for readers to see how two people can experience the
therapeutic process from entirely different perspectives would be interesting.
Q: Can you say more about how your background as a
psychotherapist factored into your writing the novel?
A: The Eighth Girl is a work of fiction and I wanted to draw
on my experience, learning and understanding as a psychoanalytic
psychotherapist to write a story about the fracturing weights young women are
continually forced to carry.
Something I was keen to explore was how one’s inner life and
past life experiences shape the way we respond to one another, and how as
psychotherapists we can only take our patients as far as we’ve gone
ourselves—in terms of self-reflection.
Therapy is a two-way conversation. I wanted to challenge the
stereotyped portrait of the remote, passive psychotherapist and also create a
story where we see and listen to the workings from both patient and
psychiatrist.
Often, and especially with a more classical approach,
readers tend to just hear from the psychotherapist—but I wanted to create a
story where we see and listen to the workings from both sides of the room.
Whilst writing The Eighth Girl I embarked on the idea of “lingering
shock,” and having both Daniel and Alexa as unreliable narrators offered a
great vehicle for this!
Q: As you’ve noted, you tell the story from alternating
perspectives. Did you focus more on one character before turning to the other,
or did you write the novel in the order in which it appears?
A: Alexa was always my main concern, but as the story
unfolded I began to write the novel in the order in which it reads.
Q: Did you know how the novel would end before you started
writing it, or did you make many changes along the way?
A: I really allowed my characters to show me the way. I’m
not someone who plots heavily, with thriller beats etc., although I’m
interested in this way of writing. Mine was more along the lines of letting the
characters live and occupy the page and the narrative eventually fell into
place.
However, there were still MANY changes along the way…!
Q: What are you working on now?
A: I’m currently working on my second novel, which I’m super
excited about, and without giving too much away my new protagonist is an
actress. It covers themes that I’m naturally drawn to such as identity, female
desire, friendship, betrayal, and lingering shock!
Q: Anything else we should know?
A: I’m currently thinking a lot about the importance to have
authors of color and diversity publishing in fiction. It’s so great to see so
many AOC debuting this year and I feel privileged to be published
alongside them.
--Interview with Deborah Kalb
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