David Remnick: In 2018, The New Yorker published an essay about reckoning with the death of a mother. It was called Crying in H Mart, and its author was Michelle Zauner, the musician who fronts the band Japanese Breakfast. It was a lovely essay, and she kept writing and writing and expanded the essay into a book finally. A memoir about culture and family and loss and food, a lot of food. People say they got hungry reading her descriptions of cooking Korean dishes with her mother. Crying in H Mart, the book spent over a year on the bestseller list.

Michelle Zauner: H Mart is Freedom from the single-aisle “ethnic” section in regular grocery stores. They don’t prop Goya beans next to bottles of sriracha here. Instead, you’ll likely find me crying by the banchan refrigerators, remembering the taste of my mom’s soy sauce eggs and cold radish soup. Or in the freezer section, holding a stack of dumpling skins, thinking of all the hours that mom and I spent at the kitchen table folding minced pork and chives into the thin dough. Sobbing near the dry goods, asking myself, “Am I even Korean anymore if there’s no one left to call and ask which brand of seaweed we used to buy?”

David Remnick: That's Michelle Zauner reading from Crying in H Mart. At The New Yorker Festival recently, Zauner sat down to talk with The New Yorker's Hua Hsu. It was really a meeting of minds because Hua also wrote a memoir called Stay True, which won the Pulitzer Prize last year, both extraordinary books. Here's Hua Hsu speaking with Michelle Zauner.

Hua Hsu: Michelle, how are you doing?

Michelle Zauner: I'm doing great. How are you?

Hua Hsu: I'm very nervous.

Michelle Zauner: No, you're not.

Hua Hsu: I am. Yes.

Michelle Zauner: He was eating a Rice Krispie Treat right before we went on. I was like, "Wow, you're so chill." Walking up the stairs with a Rice Krispie Treat.

Hua Hsu: I can't believe you told everyone that I did that. The book, which I'm sure everyone here has read, Crying in H Mart. I guess I'm contractually obliged to ask you whether people recognize you at H Mart.

Michelle Zauner: Oh, yes. I don't get recognized in H Mart very often, and actually, the only time I've wanted to bust out any celebrity cred is when the security guard at the East Village location was really mean to me. I couldn't figure out how to put the basket in the cart and he was really mean about it. I wanted to be like, "Do you know who I am?"

Hua Hsu: You should have pointed to the monitor because they have that video of you, right?

Michelle Zauner: Yes, they don't have them there. That's probably why. They didn't have it. Even when I did that though, I was checking out a register and I was like, "Oh, that's me." The [unintelligible 00:02:49] really looked like, "I don't care." "Take your rice and go."

[laughter]

Hua Hsu: The book grew out of an essay you wrote for The New Yorker. Thank you, and you're also welcome. I'm just curious, when you finished the book and the book comes out, how did you change over the course of writing it if you feel like you did?

Michelle Zauner: I don't know if you had this experience. I think that writing memoir really forces you to have some radical compassion for people that you may or may not feel ready to have or want to have. There is a first version of this book that was so angry at my dad and at myself and at every person in my life. One really beautiful thing about writing a book is that it takes so much time and it forces you to have so much perspective.

When I submitted the rough draft I didn't get it back for three or four months. When I reread it, I think I didn't realize I was so angry and how much I was holding in, and how much I really needed to let go if I wanted to tell this story honestly and fairly. I think I was able to see other perspectives a bit more clearly and find a lot of forgiveness for myself and the people that were involved in this very difficult time in all of our lives.

Hua Hsu: I'm wondering, how did your relationship to your mother change after you finished writing this?

Michelle Zauner: I feel like I have a deeper understanding of her. I know you don't want to talk about Stay True. I'm talking to a Pulitzer-winning writer right now, who has an amazing memoir called Stay True. I read it this week and enjoyed it so much. It's impossible to not think about how very similar they are and also how very different. One thing I thought was interesting was the first line of my book is ever since my mom died, Crying in H Mart, so much of your book-- it's really not mentioned.

It's a discovery that happens that your friend has died and it's towards the end of-- I don't think that's spoiling anything. Towards the end of the book and it's interesting to see how differently we handled grief and sharing the story of loss. For me personally, it was such a joy to try to see things from my mother's side and share parts of her. I think part of the joy of being a writer is being a detective and unraveling parts of their person. I think I learned so much more about-- I feel like I had to be deeper understanding and I felt much closer to her after writing the book.

Hua Hsu: That's beautiful. I think that you are a detective. You're also a time traveler. You can go back and relive things that you may not have appreciated the first time around.

Michelle Zauner: I also think it was proof that I really loved this person because my mom and I had such a tumultuous relationship. I almost felt like I needed to get the facts straight, that we really loved each other. It was just complicated and I felt this need to prove that. I feel like towards the end of the book, you also confront that where were we really as close as I thought we were.

You're convincing yourself and exploring this relationship and all of its complexities and validating that for yourself of like, "Yes, we did really love each other. We were really connected and close." I think that was a part of that writing process as well.

Hua Hsu: One thing that I talked to you about a year and a half ago, I think, and at the time you were working on adapting your memoir for the screen. Is there anything you can share about your approach or how you're going to think about doing it?

Michelle Zauner: Yes. One thing I didn't write very much about in the book was my musical life. That was such a big part of my teenage years was that discovery. I think also towards the end of the book I began to realize, I didn't want anyone to get confused that this is how it became Michelle Zauner of Japanese Breakfast. I'm not like Keith Richards or something. I think I really avoided writing too much about it until I realized that was a really big part of my major rift with my mother, was a really big part of our relationship.

When we started to argue with one another was this calling I felt I had and this real passion that she was so confused by and so against. It's just such a different craft. It's really funny. I started compiling a list of adverbs because you have to describe leaving a room or smiling or looking at someone in so many different ways. You have to be really smart and short about it. It's almost like there's this kind of ad agency lingo. It's quite different.

Hua Hsu: There was this moment, I don't know if it was-- I've lost complete track of the last two years. There was this moment where you performed with Karen O and also The Linda Lindas. You posted this incredibly moving note, where you talked about Karen O's role in being able to understand yourself and see yourself. I do feel like it is a generational thing where it does seem like a lot of younger artists, particularly in this AAPI space are looking out for each other in a way that might not have been as obvious in the '80s or '90s when there was more competition.

Michelle Zauner: I was really lucky and so much of my career was assisted by Mitski who took me on tour in 2016. It was really cool to have, at the time, she was the hot Asian girl in Indie and she could have really coveted that position and not wanted to share. I feel like one thing that's really cool about our generation is that we've really started to dissect that, internalized misogyny and racism and try to lend a helping hand.

Whereas maybe even in the '90s they would pit women against each other and it would be hard not to believe that. It's really nice now I feel like we have such a wonderful community where we're really helping each other and are trying to push for bringing each other on tour and sharing each other's work and supportive, having a supportive network with one another. I try to take part in that.

Hua Hsu: That's awesome. You're moving soon.

Michelle Zauner: I'm moving to Korea to live for a year and work on my second book where I am going to study the language and document that process. I think it was such a natural response to writing a book that was so rooted in the past and so much of what was hard about it was like it was so obviously emotional but also, it was hard to remember all of that. I'm really looking forward to writing about the day-to-day experience of living in another country and learning a language.

I guess the thing I'm most worried about is just being too dumb to learn because I've gone to Korea. I never cared enough about it until you get older and you start paying for school and tutors yourself. I'm really curious how it will go to be fully immersed and have my one job to be a student. I'm most excited to just be completely consumed by one thing. I just want to do one thing and to go to school and focus on one skill.

Hua Hsu: Wait, you're going to be an actual student.

Michelle Zauner: Student. Yes, I'm going to go to classes and I'm most excited to live in a city where people have manners because I think that our country is getting out of hand. I'm so looking forward to everyone standing to one side of the escalator. That is what I'm most excited about. The idea of someone not watching a video on their phone on the subway without headphones. There's no way anyone in Korea is doing that. I'm looking forward to never being around that for a full year.

Hua Hsu: That does sound great. That's all we have time for. Thank you, Michelle.

Michelle Zauner: Thank you. Thank you, everyone.

[applause]

David Remnick: Michelle Zauner is the author of Crying in H Mart and leads the band Japanese Breakfast. She spoke with Hua Hsu. Hua's memoir is called Stay True and you can read him on all matters of things at newyorker.com.

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