We chat with author Ann Liang about A Song To Drown Rivers, which is an epic novel steeped in myth about womanhood, war, sacrifice and love against all odds, PLUS we have an excerpt to share with you at the end of the interview!
Hi, Ann! Can you tell our readers a bit about yourself?
Hi! Thank you so much for having me! I’m the author of A Song to Drown Rivers and YA contemporary novels such as I Hope This Doesn’t Find You and If You Could See the Sun. I grew up travelling back and forth between Melbourne and Beijing, and I’m based in Melbourne right now.
When did you first discover your love for writing and stories?
I actually started reading as a way to teach myself English when I first moved to Australia—I didn’t know a single word of the language so books were my way of trying to catch up, but the more I read, the more I fell in love with stories. I think they also provided a kind of escape and a sense of comfort while I was moving around a lot. And then, after reading all these books, it seemed only natural to me to try writing my own stories—I believe I was around nine when I finished my first short story, and I’ve been writing ever since.
Quick lightning round! Tell us:
- The first book you ever remember reading: Emily Eyefinger!
- The one that made you want to become an author: The Shatter Me series
- The one that you can’t stop thinking about: Yellowface
Your latest novel, A Song to Drown Rivers, is out now! If you could only describe it in five words, what would they be?
Epic. Tragic. Not a Romantasy.
What can readers expect?
A Song to Drown Rivers is very different from anything I’ve written before, so readers who might have found me through my happier, fluffier rom-coms should probably go into this book knowing that it has a darker tone and that it wasn’t written as a traditional romance.
Where did the inspiration for A Song to Drown Rivers come from?
Like with all my books, I draw inspiration from many different places and let them simmer in my head for a while before they start to merge into something book-shaped. So this book was inspired by my love for C-dramas, the legends my mom told me as a child about the Four Beauties, random history documentaries the algorithm recommended to me, and the songs ‘My Tears Ricochet’ and ‘Exile’.
Were there any moments or characters you really enjoyed writing or exploring?
I don’t want to spoil anything, and this may sound sadistic, but I absolutely loved writing the final chapters of this book—truly, I think it was the most fun I’ve ever had drafting a book. I felt like I’d been waiting the entire book just to write those scenes, because I knew from the beginning what I wanted the ending to look like and everything was building up those moments, and so it was almost like a reward for reaching that point in the story.
What was your process for outlining and writing A Song to Drown Rivers?
Lots of intensive research in the beginning, followed by a detailed chapter outline and a running list of scenes and quotes that popped into my head, and then a surprisingly fast period of intensive drafting. I wrote this book between the months of January and February in 2022, then I sent it to my agent and we worked on editing it together.
This is your fourth published novel! What are some of the key lessons you’ve learned as a writer and about the publishing world since your debut?
That there are so many things outside of your control in this industry—the only thing you really can control is the writing itself. It’s what I try to remind myself when it all feels very loud and uncertain and I’m over-thinking and over-planning everything: that it always comes back to the story. It needs to. I sometimes feel almost protective of it—the drafting process, I mean, those moments when it’s just you and the words you’re trying to put down on paper.
What’s next for you?
It won’t be long until my next book comes out in January 2025! It’s called I Am Not Jessica Chen and it’s kind of got dark academia and magical realism elements and it’s a very special book to me. I’ve been pitching it as ‘this is me trying’ meets The Picture of Dorian Gray. I’ve also been working on some other fun projects across a range of genres that I can’t wait to share more about!
Lastly, what books have you enjoyed so far this year and are there any that you can’t wait to get your hands on?
Oh, so many. To name a few, I loved Immortal Dark, Vilest Things, A Crane Among Wolves, and Strike the Zither. And I’ve been VERY eagerly anticipating the new releases from Zoulfa Katouh and Chloe Gong, as well as Intermezzo.
EXCERPT
They say that when I was born, all the wild geese flew down from the sky, and the fish sank beneath the waves, having forgotten how to swim. Even the lotus flowers in our gardens quivered and turned their heads away, so ashamed they were of their own diminished allure in my presence. I have always found such stories to be laughably exaggerated, but they prove the same thing: that my beauty was something unnatural, transcending nature itself. And that beauty is not so different from destruction.
This was why my mother insisted I cover my face before leaving the house.
“Do not draw unwanted attention to yourself, Xishi,” she cautioned, holding up the veil. It rippled and gleamed in the midday light, the edges glowing white. “It is dangerous, for a girl like you.”
A girl like me.
There were a thousand meanings tucked in those words, and I tried not to dwell on them, even as the old memories boiled up in response. The clucking, red-cheeked village aunties, who once came over to visit and marveled at the sight of me. She is so pretty, one of them had murmured. Someone of such exquisite loveliness— she has the power to topple kingdoms and overturn cities. She had meant it as a compliment. Another had sought to introduce me to her son, who was thrice my age, worked as a woodcutter like my father, and had a face that reminded me of a bitter gourd.
“Come here,” Mother said.
I stepped forward and let her wrap the veil around my head, feeling her thin, calloused fingers—worn from scrubbing raw silk in the day and scrubbing rusted woks in the evening—fiddle with the strings. The fabric fell gently over my nose, my lips, my chin, cool against the sticky summer heat. I supposed I ought to be thankful for her desire to shield me from outside eyes. Zhengdan’s mother all but dragged her out onto the streets and paraded her good looks for everyone to see. And it worked. Already, seven of the men in our village had shown up on their doorstep, bearing lavish gifts and begging for her hand in marriage. It was Zhengdan who told me this late at night, her mouth puckered in disgust, her hand clenched into a fist beneath mine.
“I’ll return before it’s dark,” I promised Mother, who I knew would start worrying long before that, even though the river was not far from our western corner of the village, and I had walked the same route countless times.
But girls like me sometimes went missing. Though missing was too soft a word for it. The truth was uglier: stolen, slaughtered, sold. Traded between men like rare porcelains. It was especially true these days, with the wounds of war still running fresh in our kingdom, the Wu breathing down our people’s necks, and our remaining soldiers too jaded and thinly spread to be bothered by trivial matters like dead girls.
“Return as soon as you can,” Mother urged, and pressed a rough-woven bamboo basket into my arms, bolts of silk piled inside it.
Extract from A Song to Drown Rivers by Ann Liang, published by Pan Macmillan, RRP $34.99, out today (Tuesday 8 October 2024)
