What happens when writers lose control of their own story? That happens in Kevin Chong's latest novel
The Vancouver writer discusses his novel The Double Life of Benson Yu
Kevin Chong is on the longlist for the 2023 Scotiabank Giller Prize for his novel The Double Life of Benson Yu. The $100,000 award annually recognizes the best in Canadian fiction. The shortlist will be revealed on Oct. 11.
In Chong's The Double Life of Benson Yu, the titular narrator recounts and writes about his difficult adolescence living in a housing project in 1980s Chinatown.
The story takes a metafictional twist, when Yu's grip on the story loosens as what he wanted to have happened growing up and what actually happened are at odds with one another. The unique structure provides a layered and poignant look into how we come to terms with who we are, what happened to us as children, and that finding hope and healing lies in whether we choose to suppress or process our experiences.
Chong is a Vancouver-based writer and associate professor at the University of British Columbia Okanagan. His other books include the nonfiction book Northern Dancer and fiction titles like The Plague and Beauty Plus Pity. He was longlisted for the 2020 CBC Nonfiction Prize for White Space.
Chong spoke to Ryan B. Patrick about The Double Life of Benson Yu on The Next Chapter.
I've been following and enjoying your written fiction and nonfiction for years. But this book, your seventh, feels like your most intimate work to date. How personal is this novel for you?
In many ways, it's very personal. It's probably the darkest book I've ever written. It was written during the lockdown period of the pandemic, so spring of 2020. In the months preceding, I saw my grandmother pass away, the woman who partially raised me. I think in that time of uncertainty, I was looking for some sort of mechanism to control things.
But as I wrote this story, I wrote about isolation and losing control. I also wrote about things that have been on my mind for awhile, like masculinity and male fragility and the way a lot of us are reconsidering our relationships that we've had with mentor figures in the past.
The book takes a metafictional twist — the middle-aged Benson Yu is writing the book. He literally loses the plot and finds himself face-to-face with the young Benson Yu, who's the star of the book that he's writing. What was the biggest challenge in terms of writing metafiction, a story within a story?
The biggest challenge was that I, literally as the author, lost control of the narrative. I thought I was writing a very straight up coming-of-age novel. But halfway through it, I had a flash of inspiration where I thought, "What if Benson, instead of being sent to his despicable father, was actually sent to an adult version of himself?"
I think it makes sense thematically in terms of what I'm talking about — reconsidering narratives and how trauma and abuse can warp the story you tell about yourself.
I didn't know how to set that up for over a year, I kept trying to figure out a way where I could introduce this twist without giving it away too much. Ultimately, I decided to have the adult Benson interject in the story, comment on things, so you're prepared for the kind of story that's being told.
Both Bensons in the book are grappling with the lasting effects of abuse and trauma. Unspeakable things transpired. Their response to this trauma leads them to some dark places and some demons that they have to face. What was your approach in terms of tone, in writing about the lived experience of trauma and abuse?
I wanted to write about it in a way that made it feel real without necessarily mucking around in it. I added a content warning at the beginning, an author's note, which I've never done in any of my books previously.
Honestly, that kind of material was the hardest part of writing this book. I tried to minimize it and suggest it, and write around the harm that was caused, without graphically describing that harm.
We're looking at the loss of agency in control. For the older Benson, it's the literal loss of the narrative. For the fictive Benson, he's thrust into this world and he's trying to figure out where he truly belongs. What are they looking for? What do they need?
I think both of them need to be able to tell their story in an honest way. The adult Benson keeps skirting it and as a result, the story warps. The story turns back on him because the story has its own integrity that he isn't honouring.
With young Benny, we see him dealing with all these experiences and trying to process them. The book leaves them with the opportunity to either process the story, and tell it in a way that allows him to be a whole person, or for him to suppress those feelings like the adult Benson did, and in some ways, never addressed the real story.
So for both Bennys — the younger and older one, what does hope look like in this scenario?
In terms of what hope is for these characters, I think it's the possibility of being able to process your experiences, to know that you can be abused or suffer trauma, but it doesn't make you less of a person, it doesn't make you less of a man.
The ability to be honest about the feelings that you experienced and be able to tell your story in a full way. I think that for me is the potential that I think the [younger] Benny has. It's something I think that the [older] Benny ultimately misses out on.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
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