When I opened the Zoom, I was juggling feeding my toddler her yogurt pancakes and apologizing to Siang Lu for the chaos. We can reschedule, he said. I refused—just a few more bites and we’d be settled. He laughed and reminisced about the time his own children were that age, when he was trying to finish a book.

“Which book,” I asked. “Your debut?”

He smiled ruefully. His debut novel was The Whitewash , but the book he’d written first was actually Ghost Cities , which would go on to win the Miles Franklin Award, Australia’s highest literary honor. Back then, no one wanted it. This August, it finally gets its US debut.

I first encountered Siang when he slid into my Instagram DMs to ask whether I’d let him include my debut novel in his long-running #sillybookstagram project, where he “defaces” book covers by inserting his own name. I didn’t know who he was, but the concept was so delightful that I readily agreed. Love Can’t Feed You became Siang Can’t Feed You .…