Emerging Author: Cecily Wong, DIAMOND HEAD

Crafting a multigenerational Chinese-Hawaiian family saga isn't the usual first novel undertaken by a new writer. Yet that's exactly what debut author Cecily Wong accomplished in her critically acclaimed novel DIAMOND HEAD.

"When I started writing DIAMOND HEAD, it was a contemporary story of a Chinese family living on Oahu, deeply rooted in my own family’s stories," Wong said. "As the story expanded and I realized it was taking the shape of a novel, I decided, for everyone’s good, that the contemporary storyline needed to go. There was too much truth in it; my intention was always to write fiction and my book was starting to read more like an exposé."

The novel follows Frank Leong, a wealthy shipping industrialist, who moves his family from China to the island of Oahu at the turn of the twentieth century. But something ancient follows the Leong family to Hawaii, haunting them. The parable of the red string of fate, the cord that binds one intended beloved to her perfect match, also punishes mistakes in love, a destructive knot down the family line.

An epic tale not far from stories Wong discovered through her mother.

"In my family, my mom is the primary storyteller, and I very much cultivated my voice by listening to hers. She’s incredibly emotive and has a keen understanding of relationships and the way they work," she said. "I think it’s so important for mothers and daughters to understand each other as individuals with distinct experiences in the world—not just within the context of being mother and daughter— which was something I wanted to explore in DIAMOND HEAD."

That close relationship with her mother influenced her deeply personal novel. It also served as one of the main challenges during the writing.

"I made the decision to trace the story backward in time, with the hope that in 1900s China, there would be little family history for me to latch on to. I set out to wipe the truth from the story I was building, and it was one of the most challenging parts of the process, hanging on to the heritage while reshaping the characters and their circumstances. But it was vitally important to me that I not just borrow from my family’s experience, and that I crafted a story of my own," said Wong, a New York resident. "When my mom read DIAMOND HEAD in its final version, she said she didn’t recognize a single character as a family member, which was the greatest compliment I could have asked for."

Praise for Wong's award-winning novel has included comparisons to the writing of authors Amy Tan, Lisa See, Gail Tsukiyama and Kaui Hart Hemmings. Fans have not heard the last from this debut author.

"I am indeed embarking on a new project. I’m about ankle-deep; it’s all very new but the story is slowly starting to take shape," she said. "I learned a lot about my process from writing the first novel. I’m taking more time to simply think about what I want to say, what I’m trying to say, instead of stubbornly trying to write as a means of stumbling upon the answers. Everyone writes differently, everyone has their own process, and while I’m still developing mine, the hope is that I’m better prepared this second time around."

About Cecily Wong

Cecily Wong is the author of the novel, DIAMOND HEAD (Harper, April 14, 2015). Chinese-Hawaiian herself, she was born on Oahu, where most of her family still lives, and raised on the West Coast in Eugene, Oregon. She is a graduate of Barnard College, where she studied under Mary Gordon and David Plante.

The first pages of DIAMOND HEAD won the Peter S. Prescott Award, judged by Elizabeth Strout, Caryl Philipps, and Malena Watrous. Cecily lives and writes in New York City.

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About DIAMOND HEAD

A sweeping debut spanning from China to Hawaii that follows four generations of a wealthy shipping family whose rise and decline is riddled with secrets and tragic love—from a young, powerful new voice in fiction.

At the turn of the nineteenth century, Frank Leong, a fabulously wealthy shipping industrialist, moves his family from China to the island of Oahu. But something ancient follows the Leongs to Hawaii, haunting them. The parable of the red string of fate, the cord that binds one intended beloved to her perfect match, also punishes for mistakes in love, passing a destructive knot down the family line.

When Frank Leong is murdered, his family is thrown into a perilous downward spiral. Left to rebuild in their patriarch’s shadow, the surviving members of the Leong family try their hand at a new, ordinary life, vowing to bury their gilded past. Still, the island continues to whisper— fragmented pieces of truth and chatter, until a letter arrives two decades later, carrying a confession that shatters the family even further.

Now the Leongs’ survival rests with young Theresa, Frank Leong’s only grandchild, eighteen and pregnant, the heir apparent to her ancestors’ punishing knots.

Told through the eyes of the Leong’s secret-keeping daughters and wives and spanning The Boxer Rebellion to Pearl Harbor to 1960s Hawaii, DIAMOND HEAD is a breathtakingly powerful tale of tragic love, shocking lies, poignant compromise, aching loss, heroic acts of sacrifice and, miraculous hope.