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In a wrenching but ultimately uplifting novel, mother and daughter are estranged, yet unconditionally bound together.
Really, home has to be within myself.
Your first novel focused on Jamaica.
Yes, we have more opportunities, but the issues are the same.
Was the transition from Jamaica to Cornell tough for you?It was mostly the weather the cold.
The library became my haven.
I worked in the library as work-study.
I felt so misunderstood in college, but reading was such a comfort for me.
Race played a much bigger role than it had ever before played in my life.
Were you writing before you went to college?It was always something I did.
I didnt take any classes.
I had no exposure to writers who looked like me.
Most of what I was feeling, I would write down in journals.
It was poetry at first and somehow the poems became really, really long and they became stories.
I did that in graduate school at the University of Michigan for public health as well.
Again, this was a school with a strong writing program, but I didnt know.
It was only upon meeting Emma, my wife, that I realized there was a track.
Thats where I was heading, thinking that would be my gateway into acceptance.
How did meeting Emma change that?You know, I feel love is synonymous with home.
When I met Emma, I felt at home in myself.
Weve been married seven years now.
For a long time, I was running away from who I am.
So I used to go on open-mic nights and I read these horrible poems.
I just wanted to share something.
At the time, it felt like a nice pastime.
When did you realize you wanted more?I always wanted more.
That really appealed to me, but I couldnt see myself on that level.
I thought I would be wearing a white coat, doing my research.
But when I met my wife, she challenged me.
She said, I think you are a writer.
And what made her suggestion real was that she knew the avenues I could take to get there.
She asked me, Have you heard of an MFA program?
When I applied to Sarah Lawrence, I never looked back, because it felt right.
I had the privilege of going straight to college, but shes arriving as this undocumented immigrant.
Her dream is more far-fetched.
What immigration stories influencedPatsy?I started really getting into Jamaica Kincaids work five years ago.
Before then, I was devouring Jhumpa Lahiri and Edwidge Danticat.
I would stop and ask myself that.
The people who kept me going were Audre Lorde, Danticat, Paule Marshall, Toni Morrison.
Who stood out for you in the queer canon?Definitely Audre Lorde, Alice Walker.
That was my first glimpse of women writing so boldly about loving other women.
It just made me realize that we do exist!
It was a self-published book by an Asian-American woman.
You have given talks on queer writers in high schools like Brooklyn Tech.
I am slowly but surely getting back to that freedom of thought.
This interview has been condensed and edited for clarity.
