We are thrilled to share the exciting news that Jen Sookfong Lee’s sharply observant memoir SUPERFAN: HOW POP CULTURE BROKE MY HEART has been featured on the Today Show’s 5 Books to Read Next Segment!
Fashion editor Danielle Prescod said about SUPERFAN, “The best thing books can do is give us a window into someone else’s experience and in this memoir of essays, Jen Sookfong Lee mirrors her upbringing as an anxious first generation Chinese-Canadian with some of the most iconic moments of pop culture.”
To read the full list, follow the link here: https://www.today.com/popculture/danielle-prescod-book-recommendations-2023-t278864
About the book:
For most of Jen Sookfong Lee’s life, pop culture was an escape from family tragedy and a means of fitting in with the larger culture around her. Anne of Green Gables promised her that, despite losing her father at the age of twelve, one day she might still have the loving family of her dreams, and Princess Diana was proof that maybe there was more to being a good girl after all. And yet as Jen grew up, she began to recognize the ways in which pop culture was not made for someone like her–the child of Chinese immigrant parents who looked for safety in the invisibility afforded by embracing model minority myths.
Ranging from the unattainable perfection of Gwyneth Paltrow and the father-figure familiarity of Bob Ross, to the long shadow cast by The Joy Luck Club and the life lessons she has learned from Rihanna, Jen weaves together key moments in pop culture with stories of her own failings, longings, and struggles as she navigates the minefields that come with carving her own path as an Asian woman, single mother, and writer. And with great wit, bracing honesty, and a deep appreciation for the ways culture shapes us, she draws direct lines between the spectacle of the popular, the intimacy of our personal bonds, and the social foundations of our collective obsessions.
About the author:
Jen Sookfong Lee was born and raised in Vancouver’s East Side, and she now lives with her son in North Burnaby. Her books include The Conjoined, nominated for International Dublin Literary Award and a finalist for the Ethel Wilson Fiction Prize, The Better Mother, a finalist for the City of Vancouver Book Award, The End of East, The Shadow List, and Finding Home. Jen acquires and edits for ECW Press and co-hosts the literary podcast Can’t Lit.
Jen is represented by Samantha Haywood.