Heather’s Bookshelf: Author Interview with Larry Feign

What inspired you to write “The Flower Boat Girl”?

Feign: One day a local friend, who comes from an old Hong Kong fishing family, mentioned his grandmother singing a folk ballad about a fearsome lady pirate based on Lantau Island, where I’ve lived for 30 years. I had to know more. I found countless articles, all telling the same story of a feisty ex-prostitute turned pirate. But something didn’t sit right.

Back in university, my historian mentor trained me to develop my Historical Bullshit Detector. That meter was now shooting off fireworks inside my skull. As I traced the sources of these articles, it became obvious that most of what is “known” about “Zheng Yi Sao” (not even her real name) is based on unreliable sources. Even her Wikipedia page is a tapestry of contradictory facts and baseless speculation. It became my mission to discover the truth.

That truth turns out to be more epic and dramatic than I’d imagined. This illiterate fisherman’s daughter, sold into prostitution as a child and abducted by pirates, ended up dining with royalty and outsmarting the most powerful bandits in China to command the largest pirate fleet the world has ever seen. Why hadn’t anyone ever written a book about her?

The Nobel prize-winning author Toni Morrison famously said: “If there's a book that you want to read, but it hasn't been written yet, then you must write it.” So I did.

How did you come up with the names of your main characters?

Feign: I used their real names. These were all real people, from sea bandits to English captives to Vietnamese royalty and elephant-riding generals, who lived 200 years ago. Only a tiny number of characters in the book were invented, and none of these is given a full name or sometimes any name at all, to distinguish them from the genuine historical figures.

Is there anything that you want readers to know about you, your writing process or your book?

Feign: I wrote this as a novel because a straightforward biography couldn’t do justice to her character. I wanted to explore what motivated her, what she feared, who and how she loved. What did she want? What did she dream about? Did she ever find love? How did she defy everything about traditional women’s roles and get away with it?

As I pieced together the puzzle, the character of this amazing woman came vividly to life, as if I was being visited by her spirit.

This story has been my mission, a daunting one, to enable an extraordinary but misunderstood woman to speak for herself, allowing me—and my readers—to peer into a pirate woman’s soul.

When you encounter writer’s block, what do you do to break yourself out of it?

Feign: I don’t believe in writer’s block. On those days when I’m resistant to writing, I know it’s because I’ve chosen to give in either to overwhelm or to procrastination, which are entirely of my own invention. At such times I turn to a quote from the late author Katherine Dunn, who I knew personally, which is permanently mounted beside my desk:

“Sometimes all that saves me is being willing to make mistakes. There are projects that strike me as so beautiful, important, complicated, or just plain big, that they convince me of my own inadequacy. This awful state of reverence leads to paralyzing brain freeze. At times like that the only way out is for me to decide, ‘To hell with it. I can’t do it right, so I’ll do it wrong. I can’t do it well, but I can do it badly.’ Sometimes, with luck, while I’m sweating to do it wrong, I stumble on the right way.”

This never fails to prompt me into writing mode. Also, a tip for others: I write after lunch until dinner time. During those 5 or 6 hours I turn off my Internet using an app called Freedom, which disables any ability to turn the network back on—not even restarting the computer gets around it. This eliminates 98 percent of potential distractions, leaving me no choice but to write, outline, or make notes, so that’s what I do.

What is your favorite genre, book, and/or author?

Feign: I’ve always loved historical fiction, ever since I was a child. It doesn’t matter what region or time period, if it’s well-written and well-researched, and takes me some place I’ve never been before, I’m sure to love it.

I don’t have a single favorite book or author, but the most awe-inspiring historical novel I’ve ever read is The Weight of Ink by my friend Rachel Kadish.

What are you working on next?

Feign: The sequel, of course. The second half of her career as a pirate is just as colorful and fascinating as the first half. I hope the book will be ready for publication later in 2022.

Learn More About the Author and The Flower Boat Girl here:

https://www.facebook.com/feignbooks
https://piratequeenbook.com

Interested in submitting your book for review? Visit my review page for guidelines and submission requirements.

review