Lisa Ko & Lisa Hsiao Chen in Conversation
In her new novel, Memory Piece, Lisa Ko, the award-winning author of The Leavers, offers a visionary novel of friendship, art, and ambition that asks: What is the value of a meaningful life? Ko will be in conversation with friend and fellow novelist, Lisa Hsiao Chen, author of Activities of Daily Living.
In the early 1980s, Giselle Chin, Jackie Ong, and Ellen Ng are three teenagers drawn together by their shared sense of alienation and desire for something different. “Allied in the weirdest parts of themselves,” they envision each other as artistic collaborators and embark on a future defined by freedom and creativity.
By the time they are adults, their dreams are murkier. As a performance artist, Giselle must navigate an elite social world she never conceived of. As a coder thrilled by the internet’s early egalitarian promise, Jackie must contend with its more sinister shift toward monetization and surveillance. And as a community activist, Ellen confronts the increasing gentrification and policing overwhelming her New York City neighborhood. Over time their friendship matures and changes, their definitions of success become complicated, and their sense of what matters evolves.
Lisa Hsiao Chen's recent novel Activities of Daily Living asks: How do we take stock of a life—by what means, and by what measure? This is the question that preoccupies Alice, a Taiwanese immigrant in her late thirties. In the off-hours from her day job, Alice struggles to create a project about the enigmatic downtown performance artist Tehching Hsieh and his monumental, yearlong 1980s performance pieces. Meanwhile, she becomes the caretaker for her aging stepfather, a Vietnam vet whose dream of making traditional Chinese furniture dissolved in alcoholism.
Participants
Lisa Hsiao Chen is the author of a book of poems, Mouth, (Kaya Press) and Activities of Daily Living (W.W. Norton), a finalist for the PEN/Hemingway Award for Debut Novel and Gotham Book Prize. It was a New York Times’ Editor’s Choice and selected by The New Yorker, Vogue, and Publishers Weekly as a Best Book of 2022. Her work has received support from the Rona Jaffe Foundation, the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, and Art Omi. Born in Taipei, she now lives in Brooklyn.
Lisa Ko is the author of Memory Piece and the nationally bestselling novel The Leavers, which was a finalist for the National Book Award for Fiction and the PEN/Hemingway Award, and winner of the 2016 PEN/Bellwether Prize for Socially Engaged Fiction. Ko’s short fiction has appeared in The Best American Short Stories and her essays and nonfiction have been published in The Believer. Photo credit Juliana Sohn
BPL Presents programs are made possible by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature.
In her new novel, Memory Piece, Lisa Ko, the award-winning author of The Leavers, offers a visionary novel of friendship, art, and ambition that asks: What is the value of a meaningful life? Ko will be in conversation with friend and fellow novelist, Lisa Hsiao Chen, author of Activities of Daily Living.
In the early 1980s, Giselle Chin, Jackie Ong, and Ellen Ng are three teenagers drawn together by their shared sense of alienation and desire for something different. “Allied in the weirdest parts of themselves,” they envision each other as artistic collaborators and embark on a future defined by freedom and creativity.
By the time they are adults, their dreams are murkier. As a performance artist, Giselle must navigate an elite social world she never conceived of. As a coder thrilled by the internet’s early egalitarian promise, Jackie must contend with its more sinister shift toward monetization and surveillance. And as a community activist, Ellen confronts the increasing gentrification and policing overwhelming her New York City neighborhood. Over time their friendship matures and changes, their definitions of success become complicated, and their sense of what matters evolves.
Lisa Hsiao Chen's recent novel Activities of Daily Living asks: How do we take stock of a life—by what means, and by what measure? This is the question that preoccupies Alice, a Taiwanese immigrant in her late thirties. In the off-hours from her day job, Alice struggles to create a project about the enigmatic downtown performance artist Tehching Hsieh and his monumental, yearlong 1980s performance pieces. Meanwhile, she becomes the caretaker for her aging stepfather, a Vietnam vet whose dream of making traditional Chinese furniture dissolved in alcoholism.
Participants
Lisa Hsiao Chen is the author of a book of poems, Mouth, (Kaya Press) and Activities of Daily Living (W.W. Norton), a finalist for the PEN/Hemingway Award for Debut Novel and Gotham Book Prize. It was a New York Times’ Editor’s Choice and selected by The New Yorker, Vogue, and Publishers Weekly as a Best Book of 2022. Her work has received support from the Rona Jaffe Foundation, the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, and Art Omi. Born in Taipei, she now lives in Brooklyn.
Lisa Ko is the author of Memory Piece and the nationally bestselling novel The Leavers, which was a finalist for the National Book Award for Fiction and the PEN/Hemingway Award, and winner of the 2016 PEN/Bellwether Prize for Socially Engaged Fiction. Ko’s short fiction has appeared in The Best American Short Stories and her essays and nonfiction have been published in The Believer. Photo credit Juliana Sohn