(2020), Love Love (2015), and Everything Asian (2009), which won the 2010 Asian Pacific American Librarians Association Literature Award. In 2022, his Modern Love essay from The New York Times was adapted by Amazon Studios for episodic television. A graduate of Cornell University with an MFA from New York University, he lives in Washington, New Jersey.
[The Page 69 Test: Everything Asian; My Book, The Movie: Skin Deep; Q&A with Sung J. Woo; The Page 69 Test: Skin Deep; My Book, The Movie: Deep Roots; The Page 69 Test: Deep Roots; Writers Read: Sung J. Woo (September 2023); Coffee with a Canine: Sung J. Woo & Koda]
At Shepherd Woo tagged five favorite mysterious classic novels that take place in a grand manor house, including:
Rebecca by Daphne du MaurierRead about the other entries on the list.
Why did I love this book?
“Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again.” That first line of Rebecca may be as famous as “Call me Ishmael.”And as soon as you come to the end of the very short first chapter, you realize what a haunting line it is, because Manderley is gone, burnt up in smoke.
Does anyone not like Rebecca? I’ve not met a single person who hasn’t liked the book. I know it’s cliché to say a place is like a character, but that’s exactly what Manderley is, a house suffused with the death of the previous wife, Rebecca. When I was writing my book, I wanted my own Manderley, a beautiful mansion that’s also a beautiful prison.
Rebecca appears on Stacey Halls's list of six novels about power, deception, and control, Veronica Bond's list of six great Gothic castles from literature, L.C. Shaw's list of nine of the most memorable antagonists in fiction, Eliane Glaser's list of six of the best books on leadership, Penelope Lively’s list of five of her favorite gardens in literature, Xan Brooks's top ten list of terrible houses in fiction, Tom Easton's top ten list of fictional "houses which themselves seem to have a personality which affects the story," Martine Bailey's list of six of the best marriage plots in novels, Stella Gonet's six best books list, John Mullan's list of ten of the best conflagrations in literature, Tess Gerritsen's list of five favorite thrillers, Mary Horlock's list of the five best psychos in literature, and Derwent May's critic's chart of top country house books.
--Marshal Zeringue
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