Her Bum Is on Fire: Jessica Hagedorn debuts with her latest novel
September 26, 2003
After years of chatting on the phone and sending various e-mails back and forth, I finally got the chance to meet writer extraordinaire Jessica Hagedorn. With her classic coming-of-age debut novel, Dogeaters, her compilation of Asian Pacific American writings, Charlie Chan Is Dead: An Anthology of Contemporary Asian American Fiction, which she edited, her various plays and her multimedia performance pieces — not to mention her inspiring politics — Hagedorn has long been recognized as both a leader and a mentor at the forefront of Asian Pacific America.
On that recent Sunday morning in New York City, we finally came face-to-face in front of a closed bubble tea salon. She greets me with open arms, and she’s as warm, energetic, passionate and downright entertaining as I expected. No bubble green tea just yet. (A few months back, she actually sent me an entire list of the best bubble tea salons throughout lower Manhattan). Instead, we settled on a nearby Japanese restaurant.
“The cast and crew hung out here almost every day when we were doing Dogeaters at the Public [Theater],” Hagedorn comments, referring to the much-lauded stage production of her classic novel, directed by Michael Greif, he of Rent fame. In between bites, I grilled her about her much anticipated new novel, Dream Jungle, which debuts this week.
In Dream Jungle, Hagedorn uses part history — she intertwines the alleged discovery of an ancient “lost tribe” in the remote hills of the Philippines with the problematic filming of Apocalypse Now — intermixed with memories from her own life to create a tense, taut work of fiction that encompasses everything from the legacy of colonialism, class struggles, family relationships and responsibilities to the inevitable love story (of sorts).
AsianWeek: So where did find your initial inspiration for Dream Jungle?
Jessica Hagedorn: It was the death of a man. I don’t read the paper every day, but on one particular day, I happened to be come across an article in The New York Times about the death of Manuel Elizalde Jr., who was a very colorful figure I remembered from my childhood in the Philippines. Our families knew each other. I actually just wrote about this for a recent issue of Time Asia [www.time.com/time/asia/2003/journey/philippines.html]. The scene in the book in which Paz [a Filipino American journalist who returns to her native Philippines to cover a story for an American publication] goes to talk to Zamora [Dream Jungle’s fictionalized version of Elizalde] is actually autobiographical. I was at my mother’s house in San Francisco decades ago, and at the time, Elizalde was on The Dick Cavett Show, I think. My mother said to me, “Do you believe this? He’s still being looked at as a heroic man!” Reading the Times article, I remembered all that, and eventually wrote a pitch for Dream Jungle.
AW: And how did the book finally come about?
Hagedorn: I sold the idea for the book in 1997. I actually wrote the ending first — which is so typical of me. I knew from the start how it was going to end, I just didn’t know how it was going to get there. By 1998, I had a first draft, but the book got derailed [for two years] by the play version of Dogeaters [which premiered first at La Jolla Playhouse in California, then at the Public Theater in New York].
That’s why it takes me so long to write my books — I do all this other stuff in between. In 2001, I got a Guggenheim grant, and I could afford to concentrate on just the book. I went to the Philippines. I did all the necessary research and just wrote. The luxury of that grant helped me finish the final draft.
AW: And once it was finished, what was your reaction?
Hagedorn: Oh, Jesus, have I done these people justice? The characters were so vivid, so rich, so compelling to me. I tend to fall in love with my characters. I want to be able to capture all that richness in the writing. Even the despicable characters are written with love. I don’t want them to be cartoons.
AW: There’s a very fine line between fiction and non-fiction in this book. How did you ultimately choose to go the novel route?
Hagedorn: I considered writing it as a memoir, but decided that wouldn’t work because then I would be too constrained in telling the story. Also, I was always interested in the story of the filming of Apocalypse Now. It has such legend even still back home. Although I also have to say that the Apocalypse Now story was too good to change. So why even try to pretend?
AW: Just now you said “home,” referring to the Philippines. I thought New York was home, no?
Hagedorn: I have two homes. I think as immigrants, we all grapple with that. Home is something inside you. Yes, this [New York] is definitely home. But I also have a spiritual home that is not one thing or the other. I carry both [New York and Manila as home] around all the time. I can’t dismiss either. This is something I’m constantly writing about. The Philippines has been a sort of muse.
AW: So now that the novel is done, is there another play on the way?
Hagedorn: Actually, I’m currently working on a musical piece with composer Mark Bennett that’s set in Miami and San Diego. It’s a dark musical, and it’s currently at the first draft stage. It’s supposed to be workshopped in New York next March. It’s the first musical I’ve ever done. It’s a totally new challenge. We’re working with all different forms of musical expression. I’m really loving the music.
AW: And I heard that Charlie Chan has a sequel coming out.
Hagedorn: Yes, it’s called Charlie Chan Is Dead 2: At Home in the World and it’s coming out next February. There are 42 Asian [Pacific] American writers included; the original had 48. This volume features some new writers, and includes some of the pioneer writers with new works. But I wonder if there’s even the need anymore to separate writers by ethnocentric, gender-specific classifications. That kind of separation was useful as a teaching tool, but in the end, it’s really a limited way of looking at these players. At some point, we need to look at them as American writers.
AW: My mother always tells me my bum’s on fire because I’m doing too many things at the same time. Which means I’m going to burn out and die young … I might say that your bum seems to be on fire, too.
Hagedorn: I like that. Put that in: My bum’s on fire.
I admit that I thought I would die young, too. But it’s all turned out fine. I had nurturing people who took care of me along the way. … By the way, that urge — to have your bum on fire — it never ends. That fire never goes out.
Comments
Got something to say?