She stumbles out of her basement apartment and reports to work at a hotel, late and unkempt. Since her last relationship ended, she pines for love but pushes people away. In writing Blob , Maggie Su takes a canny approach to examining the pressures that cause people to double down on their bad behaviors. Funny, original, and charming, Blob ponders the shape-shifting potential of love. Earlier this year, Su and I met over Zoom to discuss first loves, transforming in relationships, and the canon of significant blobs.
SU: It was spring of and I had just finished my exams, so I had been reading a hundred books for a year. I lived in a basement apartment much like Vi, and I was very isolated. I was always really interested in blending speculative elements in fiction with realism, and using that to get at things from a sideways point of view. And a year earlier I had written a short story and then a minute play that was very silly, Bob the Blob. Are you familiar with that movie?
SU: Yes. I did watch E. COLBERT: Well, in many ways, it feels to me like an extremely honest love story in that it examines how people in love look to transform either personally or to transform their partners.
I do think that this book has a lot of sweetness to it, and I think it ultimately comes from a very optimistic point of view in terms of people changing and learning to love themselves. SU: I was really interested in digging into a flawed, unlikable character. I wanted there to be humor in the book, but also not shy away from the dirtiness and the grime and how uncomfortable she feels with herself.
How do you understand her feelings of pride and shame evolving through the novel? And Vi, in particular, her depression and anxiety has made her so self-focused. So her feelings around sex and romance are very influenced by the media, which is really funny, because you see that in Bob, right? And I think in many ways, Vi is really watching these rom-coms, reading these romance novels, and creating these ideas.
