The Tamesis
In the midst of the Taylor Swift effect, BTS craze, and fierce competitionfans are having a moment — it’s the perfect time to delve into Zhang Tinghui’s alternately heartbreaking and exciting new novel, super fan (Flatiron Books).
exist super fanSynopsis: Minnie, a lonely student at the University of Texas at Austin, becomes obsessed with a popular K-pop boy band, HOURGlass, and its mysterious member, Halo (real name Eason). This week, Fashion spoke with Chang about the mysteries of pop idolatry, living and writing in Austin, her own experience falling down the BTS rabbit hole, and the various fandoms that have fascinated her over the years (think: american idol).
Fashion: What prompted you to start writing this novel?
Zhang Tinghui: I’ve always been interested in writing about the intense feelings one gets when being a fan – or, in this case, obsessed with something, so I always knew I wanted to write from a fan’s perspective. Minnie’s character makes a lot of assumptions and creates stories about who this boy band member Halo is, his motivations, his feelings, and who he is on the inside. That was really interesting to me because I thought, well, what if a lot of her assumptions are wrong, or what if a lot of her assumptions are actually dangerous or harmful to the people behind this iconic character? I wanted to bring the Halo characters in because we have a lot of people who assume or think big things, and then we get to see the true side of Ethan’s story and face the reality of this character.
Can you tell me a little about the choice to set Minnie’s story in Austin?
I think that’s a little selfish of me because in my first novel, Four treasures in heaventhat novel takes place in China, takes place in San Francisco, takes place in Idaho, and I did a lot of research to understand not only those places, but the time period in which we were visiting those places, because it takes place in the 1880s. For my second novel, I wanted to set it involving Some Research, but I just didn’t want to be responsible for the amount of research I did for my first novel. Austin is a very familiar and comfortable place for me to write because I’ve lived here since 2000. I really wanted to talk about Austen and bring that into the literary space.
What draws you to telling a fan story now?
I started writing this novel after I sold my first novel in 2021. The idea for this story came from the end of 2019 when I really fell in love with BTS. I just fell hard down that rabbit hole. I saw one of their videos, like the video of Minnie seeing the hourglass at the beginning of the novel; saturday night live Then, two weeks later, I went to Chicago by myself to attend their concert, and I missed my MFA graduation celebration. They had to FaceTime me; I was at the airport and no one understood what I was doing or why. But I can admit my intensity, like, It’s crazy for me, an adult in my late 30s, to still be as passionate about acting like a teenager Lord of the Rings.
