Kevin Kwan, SEX AND VANITY

Kevin Kwan, SEX AND VANITY

Kevin: I think there's a fascination and a revulsion. I get comments on my Instagram. I see some people, they're like, "We love the story, but we wished the people weren’t so wealthy." I'm like, do you really? Would you actually be interested in reading about them if they were just crazy middle-class Asians? [laughter] That's a whole other book. That's very valid, absolutely. Since the beginning of time, people have been fascinated by power and the people who are at the top of the pyramid beginning with stories of the pharaoh that was passed down through gossip, to stories in the bible about the rich and powerful, to Machiavelli, to Shakespeare. Even during the Spanish flu, people were reading Edith Wharton's book and Henry James's books and escaping into these worlds. What also is important is that I think for people who are not in that one percent, it's kind of gratifying to see that these rich people have problems too. There is a universality to the experience. It brings them down, to bring down these characters to have to reckon with the fates and to have to experience the tragedies and the dramas of their lives. I think people are always riveted by that. Certainly in my books, I go to great lengths -- I'm not glorifying the wealth. I'm just portraying it as I see it. I'm also revealing that in these worlds there are decent people who understand and who realize that they're extremely privileged in a world that's completely full of inequality and who are trying to make a difference.