This post was originally published on Audible.com.
Sublimation is one of the most anticipated debuts of the season, drawing comparisons to Severance. In the world of this novel, immigrants can split into two "instances"—two versions of themselves—one who leaves their home country, and one who stays. The two can communicate, meet, even touch, but each leads their own separate life. Isabel J. Kim drew on her own experience living between Korea and America throughout her life. I was thrilled to talk with her about the inspiration behind this twisty, thought-provoking story.
Sam Danis: In the world you’ve crafted, those who immigrate leave not a piece of themselves behind but a whole separate self—they leave an instance, or a copy of themselves, behind—and each goes on to live their separate lives. What were your inspirations for the book? Why might a person want to do this?
Isabel J. Kim: I drew heavily upon my own experiences growing up between Korea and America—I was born in the States, but my family moved back to Korea while I was attending elementary school—in creating the concept of “instancing.” When I was visiting Korea again as an adult, I started thinking about what my life would have been like had I stayed. We live in a world where it is possible to travel from New York to Seoul in under 16 hours, but it’s still a world where it takes a lifetime to acclimate to a culture and to feel like you belong somewhere, and that was something I wanted to talk about through the phenomenon of "instancing."
I don’t know that instancing is based on want, in the way you’re suggesting here! Wanting to leave and knowing you’re leaving are different things, and instancing is more intimately attached to the latter than the former. There is, however, a heavily seductive appeal to the idea of knowing how your life could have turned out if you had made different choices, and I think that drives people to interact with their instances.
This is your debut novel, but you’re already quite an accomplished short story writer. What about this story felt like more of a novel for you?
I try to end my short fiction at about the quarter mark of a novel—the point at which larger questions about the universe of the story have been opened but not fully answered. With the short story that became Sublimation (“Homecoming Is Just Another Word for the Sublimation of the Self," published in Clarkesworld in 2021), I felt that the world I had sketched had so much more going on than I got to explore in the short story. I wanted to address more complex questions about immigration, border control, the use of technology in mediating our relationship with our selves, that I hadn’t had the space to really dig into in the short fiction. I also felt that the main character’s story hadn’t been fully explored—she was a really interesting person, and I couldn’t see her taking the end of the short story lying down.
The novel is drawing comparisons to Severance, which also explores themes of the multifaceted “selves” we all contain. Why do you think this type of story resonates so much right now?
There’s a real timeless human curiosity around the question of “what might have been” in our lives. And in this specific era, we’re living in a world that both feels inundated with choice and yet fairly constrained at the same time, and I think that dichotomy leads people to think about “what might have been” had they made different choices. The world is filled with uncertainty, especially at this moment, and I think there’s a tremendous appeal to knowing for sure what would have happened, had you made different choices.
You studied creative writing in undergrad, but also went to law school and now work as an attorney. I’m curious if the lives of lawyer and science fiction writer intersect in any unexpected ways.
Part of what interested me about law was that it is a set of systems that governs human behavior, and how these systems are an externally generated, artificial, semi-flexible framework within with human beings then act. In a way, this is analogous to setting up the rules of a magic system or sci-fi technology or alternate universe—although when writing, you’re the judge, jury, and also every lawmaker. You build the system, and then see how people within it act. So there are parallels like this. There’s also the way that dealmaking can be a really interesting fishbowl for human interactions and emotions, especially depending on the size or complexity of the deal. People can become the most extreme versions of themselves sometimes when they want something badly enough.
That being said, I’m now a full-time author, though we shall see how long it lasts! Regardless of my eventual career decisions, I do want to write a novel set in a law firm someday.
