Vancouver writer Sarah Suk's new book explores memory and Korean Canadian identity

In The Space Between Here & Now, Vancouver-based novelist Sarah Suk looks at a teenager's search for answers exploring time and memory.

The young adult book, released this fall, is Suk's second novel after Made in Korea, which was named one of the best Canadian books for kids and young adults of 2022 by CBC Books.

The Space Between Here & Now looks at the life of 17-year-old Aimee Roh, a Korean Canadian girl who has "sensory time warp syndrome" — a condition that makes her time travel to a moment in her life when she smells something linked to that memory. 

When she travels to a memory of her estranged mother that doesn't match up with the story she was told, she travels to Korea to unravel the mystery behind her memories.

Suk spoke to North by Northwest host Margaret Gallagher about putting elements of herself in her book, and the desire to live in the present. 

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Where does the title come from?

I think so much of this book is about the character, Aimee, learning to fight for her present.

In the story, she's always travelling back to her past and back to her memories physically. And she's kind of trying to figure out a way to stop time travelling so much so that she can fully live in her present.

I kind of felt like she was existing in this space that was neither here or now, and it's kind of about her feeling in between in a sense, and trying to find her footing more in the present moment.

That works well, and she's kind of physically being caught between the past and the present. But she's also, in an emotional sense, she's kind of caught between places as well.

I think I wanted her emotional journey to really parallel that physical journey. 

I actually first had the idea for this book many years ago when I was in university. I first learned then that of all of our five senses, scent is the one that's most connected to our memories.

I remember learning that fact and thinking, oh, like that's so interesting. What if we actually physically went back to our memories through scent?

I had that idea, but I just didn't really know what to do with it. 

But it wasn't until many years later that I was kind of going through my own mental health struggles — figuring out how to resolve things that had happened in the past, or feeling like I was always living with one foot in the past. In a sense, not quite really living in the present.

I wanted [Aimee's] emotional journey to also encapsulate that feeling of being stuck somewhere. It was kind of when I learned her emotional core that I understood ... why the physical time travel was significant.

I wanted to capture that kind of teen feeling of firsts, I guess, and also of kind of growing into your own skin and of navigating the relationships in your life. 

It's interesting too, because you've got the concept of memory and Aimee is able to look back on some childhood memories through more mature eyes. 

I do wonder that about myself too.

Like, if I were to ever go back to my past and see it from a different perspective — both from age but also like a different physical perspective — I think you would just notice a lot more things that maybe you didn't back then when you're living in it. 

[The book is] very much is a journey of her also questioning what she thought she knew and also coming to terms with what she knows now.

Language is an important aspect of this as well. The fact that Aimee is able to speak Korean. 

I grew up speaking Korean with my parents, and I still speak Korean pretty fluently now.

As a kid, I had to go to Korean school every Saturday. Absolutely hated it. But now looking back, I'm just really grateful that I did grow up speaking Korean and that I can speak it now.

I think that language is something that can really bridge our understanding of culture and our sense of belonging as well. 

How has writing this book changed your perspective?

Getting to know Aimee, in some sense, helped me to get to know myself.

I'm not a super autobiographical author ... but there's definitely elements that I put in of myself — of my life or my experiences — into my books.

I think just seeing Aimee go through her process of untangling her past and kind of learning to live in the present really made me appreciate that aspect more of my life.

Writing her, and getting to know her journey, has helped me to pause more to do that ... because that is so much of what she longs for.

I felt also very surprised by how inspired I felt by her by the end. Of just her, just her desire to really live. And I think that makes me want to live more in the present moment myself.