Emiko Jean, who already has a devoted following for her well-crafted ya fiction, released her debut novel for adult audiences, The Return of Ellie Black, this past month to wide acclaim. In the novel, also set in the Pacific Northwest and also featuring an intersectional exploration of Asian-American women’s stories, explores the complex fallout when a long-missing girl is reunited with her community, only to quickly spark as much suspicion as relief.
Jamie Lee Sogn’s novel Salthouse Place was released from Lake Union earlier this year and longlisted for the Center for Fiction First Novel Prize. The debut thriller follows a woman in Washington drawn to investigate the long-ago disappearance of a treasured friend, only to get entangled with the twisty machinations of a dark cult.
Emiko Jean and Jamie Lee Sogn were kind enough to take some time to discuss writing, identity, and setting for CrimeReads.
Jamie Lee Sogn: Emiko, I was so excited when I was asked to collaborate on a Q&A interview with you for Crimereads! I felt an instant affinity with you and your stories, as an Asian American author living in Washington State. The first thing that struck me about your new thriller, The Return of Ellie Black was the setting. It’s set in various locations across Western Washington, including my hometown of Olympia, Washington! What made you decide to set Ellie’s story in the Pacific Northwest? And how did the setting inform the characters?
Emiko Jean: Thanks, Jamie! I’m very excited to be chatting with you as well. I gravitated towards setting The Return of Ellie Black in the Pacific Northwest because of the weather. I love the grey skies, the rain, that slice of sun bursting through clouds—it’s all so mercurial and lent itself so well to the novel’s feel.
In addition, most of the novel takes place in a small town on the Washington coast called Coldwell. Coldwell is inspired by a real Washington coastal town, Long Beach, that I visited often as a child and adult.
Geographically, Long Beach is located on a thin strip of land surrounded by the Pacific Ocean. It is isolated, the weather can be severe, and it lies along the Cascadia Subduction Zone. If a big earthquake ever hit and a tsunami ensued, parts of Long Beach would be entirely under water. I liked this existential threat as a backdrop for The Return of Ellie Black. I thought it paired nicely with the survival theme in the novel.
JLS: One thing that is generally true about the Pacific Northwest is that it’s not a very diverse population. Growing up myself here, as a biracial Filipina, I experienced this firsthand. One of your main characters, Detective Chelsey Calhoun, is a Japanese American woman. However, her story is not about her race. While her race and adoption into the Calhoun family informs who she is and how she sees the world (and certainly how the world see her), you focus much more on her struggles as a woman in a male-dominated professional field. What was behind your thinking in avoiding the traditional, and often expected, racial trauma that can accompany non-white protagonists?
EJ: I’ve tried to be intentional with my characters in casting someone who looks like me in the forefront of the narrative. I’ve explored Japanese American identities in previous novels, and I wanted to do something different in this one. Yes, Chelsey is Japanese American. Yes, she lives in a majority white town. Yes, she’s had experiences with racism and microaggressions. But her journey as a character is not resolving those three things. Instead, it’s about her grief over losing her sister and her complicated relationship with her parents. Her purpose is in law enforcement. Chelsey is a woman who believes other women. I hope I’ve made her into a deeply empathetic character and universal champion.
JLS: One thing that Chelsey and Ellie seem very aware of, is the fact that not every missing girl is treated equally. In fact, Chelsey’s sister, who went missing in high school, benefitted from the fact that she was as Chelsey puts it, “…young, white and well-off”. Her story was one that attracted donors and resources. When Ellie went missing, her case received little to no attention. What does it mean to girls like Ellie, that society deems some girls worth looking for, but not others?
EJ: This is a reality. We’ve seen it play out in the media that certain girls, “young, white and well-off,” as Chelsey states, get more attention. Ellie is white but from a low-income family and doesn’t receive nearly the same media attention as Chelsey’s sister did. There are inequities in our justice system. As Chelsey points out in the book, it is an institution that was not built for women or their interests.
JLS: In that same vein, I loved how you made Ellie imperfect. She was very much a teenage girl and she was rebellious and had boyfriends and fought with her parents. Yet, sometimes these are things that girls are blamed for- because of these actions, they deserve to be victims or were “asking for it” in some way. But rarely do the men who perpetrate the violence get the same scrutiny. What do you hope the reader takes away from this novel when it comes to thinking about how violence against women is framed in society?
EJ: I think Ellie is some version of teenage me. I was rebellious and wayward in high school. I had a tough time. I could have been Ellie. I did things I should not have done. But by whose standards? Who have so many rules for girls—don’t wear this, don’t wear that, don’t jog after sunset, don’t take drinks from strangers. I could go on and on. These have an effect. So when something terrible happens to a woman, the spotlight is almost always focused on her—what was she doing? What was she wearing? I hope this book raises discussions about victim blaming—how it was created and who does it serve?
JLS: The chapters alternate between Chelsey and Ellie’s narratives. They are weaved so seamlessly together! I felt that each point of view revealed something new about another character that made the reader see the story in a different light. How did you create such a careful balance and interplay between the two characters, yet keep us readers guessing?
EJ: Alternating the points of views came later in the book. Initially, the novel was told exclusively from Ellie’s POV. But this stagnated the mystery and suspense elements. It wasn’t until later it crystalized that Chelsey should have her own POV. After that, I drafted the rest of the POVs—Ellie’s dad, mom, psychiatrist, sister, and boyfriend. I think if I had tried to write all of these POVs at the outset, my head would have exploded. Layering them in helped keep each character’s voice clear and distinct.
JLS: Many readers will know you from your young adult novels, Tokyo Dreaming and Tokyo Ever After, or your novel, Mika in Real Life. The Return of Ellie Black is your debut adult thriller, but in fact your very first debut novel was a young adult psychological thriller, We’ll Never Be Apart. What made you want to return to thrillers and how did you navigate the transition between genres and between YA and adult?
EJ: I’ve always intended to write in the adult space. I think having kids gave me the final push. I wanted to explore themes better suited for adults, like but not limited to motherhood and trauma. Currently, I’ve been writing young adult novels in between adult books. Thankfully, this works for me. I think it is because it accesses different parts of my brain and allows me to decompress in some ways. Right after I finished writing Ellie Black, I wrote a young adult contemporary rom-com; it was so much fun and a treat to write something so light.
To finish, I’d like to thank you, Jamie, for such wonderful questions. And thanks to CrimeReads for having us on. I hope readers enjoy The Return of Ellie Black.
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Emiko Jean’s novel The Return of Ellie Black is now available from Simon & Schuster.
Jamie Lee Sogn’s novel Salthouse Place is now available from Lake Union.
