Why author Carolyn Huynh loves writing messy and unhinged Asian women

As a reader, I love a good confrontation scene. When characters spend so much time estranged from loved ones, pushing down their feelings and pretending to be okay, or keeping secrets or trying to uncover them, I look forward to the moment when it all comes to a head.

One of my favorite confrontation scenes is from The Fortunes of Jaded Women (2022) by Carolyn Huynh. From flying fruit, to calling out colonizers (there’s a lot going on), it’s possibly the messiest I’ve ever seen Asian Americans depicted in literature—and probably why I love the scene so much (besides the humor).

So when I learned Huynh was coming out with another family drama, I immediately added it to my TBR list. The Family Recipe was released earlier this month and follows the Tran family as patriarch Duc Tran gets ready to retire. As founder of the national Vietnamese sandwich chain, Duc’s Sandwiches, he leaves each of his four daughters their own rundown shop, which they have to renovate within a year, in order to get their inheritance. The only one who doesn’t receive a shop is Duc’s son, who has one year to get married—and if he does, the inheritance goes to him.

Doesn’t this just scream mess and inevitable showdown?

I recently spoke with Huynh about her latest novel, unhinged Asian women, the difficulties of writing historical fiction, and why she, a Vietnamese American, was glad to have (slightly) offended me, a Cambodian American, with her first book.

This interview has been edited for clarity and length.

Samantha Pak: Where did you get the idea for The Family Recipe?
Carolyn Huynh: My husband gave me the idea a long time ago. He grew up in San Jose with the kids of the Lee's Sandwiches family—it’s one of the largest bánh mì chains. When they got older—supposedly, this is all word of mouth, I don't know if it's true or not—when they tried to take over the chain, each kid got their own sandwich shop, and they tried to modernize it to the best of their ability. I thought that was always so interesting, about the changing of old guard to new guard. How do you maintain the authenticity of that as second-generation kids and also as new money?

And then the historical fiction part, I was always fascinated by. I always wanted to set a story in Texas. My friend Dr. Thao Ha, she produced a documentary called Seadrift years ago. It was about what happened between the Vietnamese fishermen and the KKK in the late 70s, early 80s. It was like sandwiches and racism. I don't know, I just found a way to put them together somehow.

SP: One thing I love about your writing is that the characters are so freaking messy. They're so over the top. Sometimes, it's a bit extreme, but it does make for a fun read.
CH: I know. I love such extreme characters because to me, it's a metaphor. I feel like most people in my generation and my parents’ generation, we are unpacking our trauma, right? As we do with each new generation. But I feel like with our parents’ generation, they don't know how to regulate their emotions. And that comes out and in really spastic ways. And I've always thought that was so interesting.

I didn't grow up in a very calm household. I grew up in a very chaotic household. And so as an adult, I tried to maintain peace in my own home. But sometimes those moments pop out of me, and I can catch myself and my reaction is unregulated. It stems from that.

SP: What is going through your mind when you're like, “Okay, this is what this mother-daughter pair is going to do?”
CH: It's almost like a metaphor, or an intrusive thought that I want to see come to fruition. I personally would never do that. I like it when women do bad things, and really unhinged things. And I feel like when I write about it, it's almost cathartic for me. Because I'm sure it must be so freeing. I like unhinged women characters—and in real life.

My most common feedback I get from readers is that the women in my books are super unlikeable. But I actually prefer that. Because most people in general see Asian women as so docile and conforming to what they expect on how we should behave. They instill those characteristics and stereotypes onto us, and so that's why I probably also really like unlikable women characters.

I also really like absurdist comedies: People that are pushed so much to the extreme that their reaction is so over the top.

SP: And what is with your characters throwing food at each other? [Laughs.]
CH: I don't know. I think when I wrote Fortunes, I wanted to convey a sense of childlike whimsy, where you associate food fights with young kids. And in my first book, when these old women and moms were doing it, I wanted to create that parallel.

And with (The Family Recipe)—oh my gosh, you’re right, I didn't think I had done that twice—I wanted to convey again, that childlike whimsy you wouldn't see between older siblings who have lost that magic.

Throwing food, to me, is ultimately harmless, because you won't feel anything, right? It won't physically hurt you, but it's a way to convey an outlet of emotions that are unregulated. I actually forgot I did that twice. You calling me out! [Laughs.]

SP: You do family dynamics and sibling dynamics really well. Do you have a lot of siblings?
CH: I have an older sister, and I will say, some of our dynamic is not a calm relationship. It's very tumultuous, and how we communicate is not for the faint of heart. Again, it's growing up in that chaotic household, and so that's all I saw. My mom and her brothers, that's how they communicate. And so that's just how I saw a “normal” family dynamic.

It's not a stereotype, because, again, it's unregulated emotions, PTSD, it's everything, right? And so you just have to take it all with a grain of salt and realize that everyone's just doing the best they can.

SP: Seadrift (where part of the book takes place) is a real town. And that dynamic between the Vietnamese refugees and the white population, then eventually the KKK, that happened. How much did you know about it going into writing this? And how was it to write those parts?
CH: It was really difficult for me because it is historical fiction. And I don't really write historical fiction, so that part itself as a craft, was really difficult to figure out. I watched Seadrift. I read this nonfiction book called The Fisherman and the Dragon—it's by Kirk Wallace Johnson—for more information. And then I flew down to Houston, and drove down to Galveston to immerse myself in that time period and that setting. It was difficult.

And I will say, after my debut book, and this book, I will not be writing any more family dramas. This is it for me. Trying to pull up those emotions and recreating what might have happened, and the fear and everything, that chaos at that time, was hard. (The Family Recipe), I don't want to say, killed my love of writing, but it was hard, for sure.

SP: What were your favorite parts to write?
CH: My favorite part was actually the implied romance. My favorite storyline was probably Paulina, and the second chance romance that she gets. I loved writing that because I like showing different sides of a woman's softness and how you have to earn a woman's tenderness.

SP: Your first book was an all-female family—because of the curse. But in The Family Recipe you bring in a brother, Jude. What was it like to bring a boy into the picture as one of the main characters?
CH: I had a much easier time writing (the older male characters) Huey and Duc than Jude, for some reason. I had fun writing Jude's character, but I will say it's a bit harder for me to put myself up in that mindset. But I did want him to have a journey of being able to desire love.

SP: Speaking of your first book, I have a little bit of a bone to pick with you—
CH: Yes, please!

SP: I don't know how offended I should be that the family is cursed because their ancestor broke her engagement to marry another man, and that the man was Cambodian—and the fact that the curse is that they won't have any sons. I was like, “Should I be offended as a Cambodian and as a woman?” [Laughs.]
CH: I wanted to touch on the racism that Vietnamese people had, way back then—even probably now in modern Vietnam—towards Cambodians.

SP: I mean honestly, it kind of goes both ways. We have our issues with each other, I would say.
CH: Yeah. And it's that dynamic that I wanted to break through fiction and comment on that racism. Because if you go to Cambodia today and you go to Vietnam, we share the same food. 

SP: Yeah, we have a lot of similarities.
CH: I had someone, a reader, who was so offended—also Cambodian. She was like, “How could you be racist?” I was like, “That's the truth.” And it’s something we don't talk about enough, that there is racism that exists within neighboring countries in the global south. What does that look like when we also look the same? I want to highlight that, and I think it's important to talk about. I'm glad you picked up on that, and I'm glad you got offended.

SP: What are you working on right now?
CH: I just turned in my third book. It's a near-future dystopian—so very different from what I typically have written. It's about how in the future, trad wives get paid a salary by the government to be female companions for men, and they get paid to have babies.

SP: That kind of sounds like Stepford Wives meets The Handmaid’s Tale.
CH: The pitch for the book was, what if the women in The Handmaid's Tale formed a union? What would that look like if you're asked to be an essential worker in a world that has a declining birth rate? Would you do it if you get paid? I would.

In The Handmaid’s Tale, the women do not get paid. They're womb slaves. But if you change that dynamic a little bit, and you offer a salary that is better than your corporate salary, I probably would take it. It's an interesting discussion, right? What is considered acceptable and not acceptable? I like having the reader think about the morals and ethics of those things.