The Sound of Your Skin

Aims for my novel

I intended this novel to be an exploration of love and secrecy playing out in different types of relationships—familial, platonic, romantic. I also wanted to explore the vibrant, multicultural history of the city I call home.

Though this is a work of fiction, the story was inspired by many of my own experiences. In the same vein as R. G. Collingwood, who writes about the “artist as his own primary audience,” in many ways, the process of writing has helped me unearth and examine some of my own insecurities. However, I still attempted to maintain a layer of distance. It is for this reason that I chose to write in a third-person omniscient point of view, which allowed for a more objective, panoramic exploration of characters’ motivations and relationships. It also allowed me to delve into perspectives that I thought deserved further attention. 

There were, of course, many liberties I needed to take in my fictional story. I was not alive in the 90s, nor 40s, nor 60s or 70s; I did not personally experience many of the events I discuss in this novel, including Japanese internment, the disco era, the peak of the AIDS crisis, and the Rodney King riots. I wrote from the perspectives of a diverse set of American characters, without myself being of Japanese, African, Italian, or Mexican ancestry. This necessitated many months of research and interviews with members of these communities. I recognize that there still are probably details I got wrong, and I am open and receptive to criticism on these grounds. 

Beyond attempting to write from a place of ‘authenticity’ (which is debatably unattainable), I aimed to capture human emotions that transcended nation, gender, sexual identity, race, or class. Central to my writing process was the concept of ‘liminality’ — the state of being in-between.

Liminality

As elucidated by Arnold van Gennep in 1909 and later expanded upon by Victor Turner in 1969, liminality, in anthropological and sociological contexts, refers to a period of transition where normal limits to thought, self-understanding, and behavior are relaxed, leading to new perspectives or ways of being. These periods often occur during rites of passage, crises, or major social upheavals, where individuals or groups find themselves in a threshold state between the old order and a new one yet to be established (Turner, 1969; van Gennep, 1909). The concept of liminality permeates the very fabric of my narrative, present in setting, plot, and characterization.

My story takes place in San Francisco in the early ‘90s, which can be viewed through the lens of liminality as a city in transition. The height of the AIDS crisis placed marginalized individuals and communities in a threshold state, caught between life as it was known before the crisis and an uncertain future. As traditional pharmaceutical R&D processes fell short, LGBT+ organizations advocated for faster processes to get life-saving treatments to patients, challenging old norms against a backdrop of widespread fear, stigma, and loss (Schulman, 2021). Moreover, beginning in Los Angeles, the Rodney King riots stirred national dialogues around racial injustice and police brutality. The acquittal of the police officers involved in the excessive beating of a Black man legitimized racism as reasonable, rational human behavior (Post, 1993); the ensuing violence highlighted the deep divisions and frustrations within American society, particularly between African American and Asian communities (Nägel & Nivette, 2023). These social upheavals disrupted the status quo, propelling San Francisco into a liminal state where society had to confront and re-evaluate its attitudes towards race, sexuality, health, mortality, and justice.

Beyond just the setting, characters in my story also experience liminality through rites of passages—structured events that signify a change in a person’s societal or personal status (Turner, 1969; van Gennep, 1909). These rites occur in three phases: the pre-liminal phase (separation), the liminal phase (transition), and the post-liminal phase (reintegration). Maya's journey is a personal rite of passage, underscored by her quest for independence, understanding, and ultimately, a more authentic connection with those around her. Towards the beginning of the story, Maya turns twenty, marking a transition into adulthood, particularly in the Japanese tradition. She navigates the threshold between dependence and independence, tradition and modernity, self-discovery and familial bonds. The rave spaces she traverses with Pim and Carlos become liminal zones: music and dance offer a temporary escape from societal conventions, blurring the boundaries between self and other, reality and illusion. The liminal space of Maya’s mother, Shizuko, is one of emotional and psychological transition: Shizuko views Maya's actions through the lens of her own unprocessed trauma. Other main characters—Winston, Pim, Emi, Henry, Carlos—also operate within liminal spaces, each dealing with their own struggles between past traumas and future aspirations, where their identities, desires, and realities are in flux.