Seattle author Daniel Tam-Claiborne on belonging, empathy in the time of Covid-19

This is the KUOW Book Club, and we just finished reading "Transplants" by Daniel Tam-Claiborne. I'm your reading guide Katie Campbell, and Tam-Claiborne joined me at the KUOW studios recently to talk about his debut novel. Listen to our full conversation by hitting the play button above.

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n this the year 2025, the Covid-19 pandemic can feel simultaneously so long ago and just yesterday; having just got my Covid booster, I know we're still living with the virus. Now, though, it seems we've had enough separation from the thick of it that the pandemic is appearing in more media, especially novels. It's a thing, if you're writing about the period from 2020 onward, that kind of has to be addressed.

So, I don't really know why I was surprised when Covid struck in Tam-Claiborne's novel, "Transplants." I think that's partially because his two main characters, Lin and Liz, were already dealing with quite a lot, and so far from home. But that was the reality of the pandemic for most people, wasn't it? Life was happening. Then, it all just screeched to a halt.

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"To me, it felt so novel, in fact, that I thought that this would be a great plot point to use in a novel that was about expat, foreign interpersonal relationships," Tam-Claiborne told me. "I was just trying to react to what we were experiencing every day, and trying to bring that to bear on Liz and Lin."

Covid-19 arrives on the scene in "Transplants" at a time when Liz and Lin are already experiencing displacement to a degree. Lin is in the U.S., and Liz remains in China, though she's left the university where they met for what she believes will be a short break. They've swapped places, essentially; Liz is from the U.S., while Lin has always lived in China. They are abundantly aware of their perceived otherness long before the pandemic exacerbates it.

"The interest in wanting to portray these two characters was actually accentuated by the pandemic, and seeing the ways in which there are all these fissures within what I had assumed, wrongfully assumed, to be a relatively cohesive... culture, which was the Chinese diaspora," Tam-Claiborne said. "[In 2020] I began to see this great generational divide in the sense that older immigrants who had been in this country for a long time began to feel as though these newer arrivals were actually the ones who were doing things the wrong way... and, of course, because of this virus that 'they had brought over.'"

Tam-Claiborne was raised by a Chinese immigrant, his mother, and had grown up in the community. Yet he said he still had a lot of questions about the divides hidden within, questions he wanted to explore in the book.

"Some of the themes in the book are really intentionally, pointedly trying to provoke ideas around the patriarchy, the expat-local divide, the idea of equality or equity across borders, and the way that nationalism, in some ways, can subvert ethnicity and race and gender relations," he said.

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That's also why he chose to write the book from the perspective of two college-age women, rather than adopting a male point of view, he said.

"I thought adding in a strong male perspective would, in some ways subvert or kind of make light of some of the themes that I was really interested in probing," he said. "Part of it was the desire to want to explore these things in a little bit more depth and with more clarity."

Through Lin and Liz, Tam-Claiborne wrote about not only identity but also finding one's identity in a patriarchal world that puts up barriers and expectations.

Liz grapples with those expectations as she literally runs away from a man from her past and, metaphorically, from how his actions have shaped her life.

To be clear, "Transplants" is not an excoriation of China or Chinese culture. Both Liz and Lin struggle with the pressures put on women there, but they also find joy and security amid a sense of collective responsibility. Similarly, they find freedom in the U.S. as well as the isolation that can bring.

Then, there's the anti-Asian hate inspired by the pandemic. Lin finds herself in a foreign country at a time when foreigners who look like her were being violently attacked.

"[That passage is about] the degree to which individuals have to turn themselves inside out to feel the sense of belonging, and the idea that belonging is not this static destination but is this dynamic process," Tam-Claiborne said. "You can feel like, 'I'm doing the thing right, like I'm exactly where I need to be. I feel accepted, and I'm with community who understands me innately. I feel safe.' And something like the pandemic can turn all that upside down."

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I won't spoil the ending of "Transplants" here and tell you whether Lin and Liz are able to turn their worlds right-side up again. In some ways, that's not entirely clear anyway.

There's an artful ambiguity at the end of "Transplants." In a way, Tam-Claiborne seems to be challenging the reader, testing to make sure the empathy he's been encouraging has settled in, stuck.

"I think [Lin and Liz] reach a kind of understanding about themselves and their situations," he said. "But I often think about, if the book had ended in 2022 or 2023 or if it went all the way up until today, would they still make those same decisions? And part of me feels like they probably wouldn't, and that saddens me a little bit."

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Spoiler alert: For those of you who like to plan ahead, I've got October's book lined up for us. We'll be reading "Elita" by Kirsten Sundberg Lunstrum.

I think this will be just the thing to set a vibe for spooky season, with a healthy dose of moody Pacific Northwest atmosphere. Maybe more than a health dose, actually.

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The novel takes places at a penitentiary on a remote island in Puget Sound. In the 1950s. In the middle of winter. I have goosebumps already. And there are more to come as Bernadette Baston goes to the penitentiary to meet the feral girl discovered living alone in the nearby woods. Why won't she speak? Could she protecting someone? You'll have to read along with us to find out.