Author Interview: Cynthia Salaysay
There is no shortage of wonderful, powerful debuts coming out in 2020. This year, we’re seeing the #MeToo movement at the center of various novels, including YA literature. Teens have #MeToo stories to tell, and Cynthia Salaysay’s novel Private Lessons is one such story, and it ensures that teens are not left out of the conversation happening in corporate boardrooms and Hollywood institutions. We had the pleasure of speaking with Cynthia about Private Lessons, which comes out in May! You can preorder it here.
What is Private Lessons about, and can you pitch it using pop culture references?
Private Lessons is a coming-of-age story about a Filipino-American teen who wants to become a competitive pianist to get into college. As she explores the elite world of classical music with her new, charismatic piano teacher, she struggles to win his approval and love. Ultimately she finds herself needing to find her own strength and her own voice in the face of a powerful, manipulative teacher. It has a pinch of Lolita in it, a glug of Black Swan, and a good spoonful of The Perks of Being a Wallflower.
What was the writing process like for the novel? Are you a plotter or a pantser?
The idea behind Private Lessons came from a friend who suggested I write a story about a teacher who leads their student astray. I’d never written a novel and it was a lovely feeling to realize I had a novel inside me. I had so much to learn – I made a lot of deep rewrites to the book as I went because I would develop more as a writer, and then go back to earlier chapters and tell myself, “none of this is good anymore!”
Private Lessons is described as “a standout debut for the #MeToo era.” Did the #MeToo movement inspire this book?
I started the book eleven years ago, long before the #MeToo movement began. I actually wanted to write a coming-of-age novel because I love the bittersweetness in those stories. Growth always comes at a price, even the best kinds of growth. The sexual abuse came from looking hard at my characters and deciding to take them to that level of darkness. By the time I finished the book, I felt passionately about sharing this story with young people. So much sexual abuse occurs in teenage years, and I wanted to be honest and direct with teens, and for those who have experienced it, I wanted them to feel they weren’t alone.
Private Lessons deals with class, racism, and cultural differences. How much of your own personal experiences went into crafting that narrative?
So, so much. In some ways this was the hardest for me to examine because when I was younger, I didn’t want to feel different or be treated unequally due to where I came from, or the color of my skin – I still don’t! I grew up in a California suburb with a large minority population, so I didn’t experience a lot of racism – or at least I didn’t understand that it had always affected my life, in subtle and unsubtle ways, all the time – until I went into the larger world.
If your readers were to walk away with one thing from this book, what do you want that one thing to be?
My main character Claire grows so much and becomes such a strong person, and it would be lovely for some of those feelings of strength and self-love to be imparted to readers too.
You’ve published your first YA novel! What’s next for you in the world of YA?
I would love to write a novel set in the Philippines. I have some ideas, they just need to get cooking.
Visit Cynthia at https://cynthiasalaysay.com/ and on Twitter @cyntaur!
