Never Be Ordinary

The Body, Brain, and Books: Eleven Questions with writer and bookseller Jess Pan

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Jessica Pan ( Jess Pan) is a memoirist, essayist, screenwriter and a bookseller. She is the author of two memoirs, most recently, Sorry I'm Late, I Didn't Want to Come: One Introvert's Year of Saying Yes. She has also written for the Guardian Weekend Magazine, New York Magazine, The Cut, The Daily Telegraph, ELLE, Lenny Letter and VICE. Today she writes the newsletter It'll Be Fun, They Saidabout musings on life and love while working in a tiny indie London bookshop.  

She has a BA in Psychology and Literary Arts from Brown University and a Masters in Journalism from RMIT. Jessica also co-authored Graduates in Wonderland, an epistolary memoir about living in Beijing and Paris, which was published by Penguin in 2014.

She previously worked as a TV reporter and magazine editor in Beijing and now lives in London. Find her on Instagram at @jessypanpan.

1. What are you reading now?

I read five books at once. I don’t want to be this chaotic, but I am.

I’m currently reading Greta and Valdin by Rebecca K Reilly – a new funny book about two siblings navigating heartache in New Zealand who are half-Maori and half-Russian. I’m also reading Big Swiss by Jen Beagin but then someone told me a weird sex thing happens in it that ruined it for them, and now I read it braced for the weird sex thing to happen and have stopped enjoying it. It’s like waiting for the Jack to pop out of Jack-in-the-box.

The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde for my book club and also because I’m seeing Sarah Snook in it later this year. Somehow I haven’t read this??? And How Not to Die by Michael Greger because it is FASCINATING – omigod. It’s a science/health/food book but it is mind-blowing. You will be drinking matcha and eating broccoli within days.

This morning, I drank a very strong coffee in the café next to the bookshop where I work and I ate only the chocolate out of pain au chocolat (my version of healthy-eating when I ignore Michael Greger’s advice) while reading the new memoir Grief is For People by Sloane Crosley. I’m really enjoying it. Memoir is my absolute favorite genre. Those are the books that stick with me the most.

I will read anything by Sloane Crosley. I’ve met a few other women who feel exactly the same way about her, and I always love these women.

2. What are your most beloved books from your youth? Did you ever hide any from your parents?

The house I grew up in was (and is still) full of books. My dad has a study that is basically a library. A stack of books by each of my parents’ bedside tables. We were always going to bookstores, and I was allowed to get any books I wanted. That was the very best thing about my parents and childhood – reading was really big in our house.

When I was 13 (I think I was 13 because I remember having braces on that trip), I was reading Summer Sisters by Judy Blume during a road trip through Canada with my family – my parents, my two older brothers and my grandparents all in this mini-van. During it, I yelled to the front of the van to my dad, who was driving, “What does ‘fell-a-tio’ and ‘cunni-lingus’ mean?” in front of everybody. The book mentioned them and I genuinely did not know, which is why I thought it was fine to pose this question. My grandparents died laughing (metaphorically. I did not kill them. They lived into their 90s). This anecdote has lived on in infamy ever since. So, in short, no: there was no censorship or hiding of books in our house.

I read The Little Princess and Little Women over and over again. I read Pride and Prejudice when I was 10 because it’s my mom’s favourite book. I also read the Babysitter Club books, even though I could not have less of an interest in children or babysitting. I just loved their friendship and their wholesome lives. The Alice books by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor – so wholesome and lovely. Harriet the Spy. Everything by Roald Dahl. I would and did read everything, with no real discernment.

In my teens, I read Me Talk Pretty One Day by David Sedaris and it’s probably the reason I write today. I didn’t know you could write like that. It was one of the first times I saw what I wanted to do in a book. I try to see him at his readings when he comes to London.

I once received a piece of paper in the mail that said, “Jessica, I’m so sorry I missed you.” I had no idea where or who it was from, but it was sent from France.  It turned out that my best friend Rachel had gone to a David Sedaris signing in Paris and he had written that for me, and she’d sent me his note.

Another time, my friend Nicky in London went to see him and had him sign a book for me.  He inscribed, “To Jessica – still a whore.” Perfect.

3. What’s your favorite book to reread? Any that helped you through a dark time? 

I Capture the Castle. Me Talk Pretty One Day. Heartburn. Anything by Nora Ephron. My biggest pet peeve is when someone is described as “the modern-day Nora Ephron” or the “next Nora Ephron” or “she writes just like Nora Ephron.” False. There is only one Nora Ephron.

4. What’s an article of clothing that makes you feel most like you?

A navy blue jumper with a giant green pickle on it that says Mensch in red letters. It’s just the perfect fit. That is a very Hackney idiot hipster answer, and I’m sorry for that. It’s merch from a London deli that went bust, and I like that it doesn’t exist anywhere else.  

I’ll wear the same thing all season. In autumn, it’s a plaid shirt and jeans. In winter, it’s this jumper and jeans and maybe two other jumpers on rotation. In summer, it’s cut-offs and a black t-shirt. I’m like Obama and Mark Zuckerberg (stay with me) in that in an ideal world, I’d wear the same thing every day. I want to like what I’m wearing, but I don’t want to think about my clothes.

I know that’s so boring. I don’t know why I am this way. I actually do love beautiful clothes and wearing them, but I have so little use or occasion for them and so just look like Luke from Gilmore Girls 95 percent of the time. I blame it on having two older brothers and being the only girl. And maybe a little bit on decision fatigue. I don’t want another thing to have to choose.

Look, if someone wanted to personally style and dress me, I wouldn’t say no.

Whenever I wear my faded baseball cap, cut-offs and pickle jumper, I keep thinking the What Not to Wear TV hosts are going ambush me from behind every corner. As they should.

5. What’s the best piece of wisdom you've encountered recently?

“Trust in the timing of your life.” I always feel behind or that I need to be working on ten projects at once. Or reading five books at once. I like to write this down a few times to calm down about where I am at in my life.

Things will happen when they happen, and we actually have very little control over that.

Freya and her best friend

6. Tell me about any special relationship you’ve had with an animal, domestic or wild?

I fell in love with chocolate Labrador named Freya on a remote coast of Iceland. I mean, he fell in love with me, too. It was instant.  He followed me to my cabin door with a giant stick and would wait outside whenever I went in my room.

Each day when my husband and I would go hiking towards the cliffs, Freya happily accompanied us, sniffing everything in sight, so full of energy and life. He was so soft and lovely.

At night, we would sit in front of the fire and Freya would come and rest his chin on my thigh and stare at me with big sad brown eyes, utterly besotted. I’d gently stroke his neck and he’d immediately roll onto his back and howl in sheer pleasure. At night, he’d sleep in a big dog bed and he would snore so loudly, his lips cartoonishly billowing out air with each breath. 

I just loved him. I can't bear to ever go back there or get in touch with the owners of the hotel because if something happened to Freya, I would die. The softest, sweetest, chocolatiest dog in the world. 

7. What's one thing you are happy worked out differently than you expected?

I really didn’t think I’d get married as young as I did. And I was (and am) in love, but I always thought I’d meet my “person” in my late thirties, not my early twenties. I wrote a bit about this in my piece about falling in love too young.

I’m happy I did now. I’m grateful for all that we’ve been through together and instead of holding me back creatively, I think he’s helped me a lot. He gives me great notes on my projects.

8. Singing in the shower or dancing in the kitchen? Or another favorite way your body expresses itself?

Neither because in London you’re never alone! I’d be too mortified to be overheard by my neighbors.

The best singing experience is car singing, windows down, summer evening, big Texas sky.

That’s the thing I miss most about living in the US. Not driving, per se, but having a fun space to listen to music and sing alone or with a best friend. Music sounds best in a car stereo with your best friend and nowhere to go.

I also think singing is also better when you’re in motion – like running.

9. What are your hopes for yourself?

To relax. People touch my jaw or back muscles and scream in horror. I’m so tight. Why? I don’t know. I have a tendency to “white knuckle” through every experience. I need to “soften” apparently.

My word of the year is “nourish.” That’s how I find working in the bookshop. It’s this soothing place of coffee, music, books and easy conversation.

10. What’s a kindness that changed your life?

Given that this is on Substack, I’m going to say a recent one: Substacker Emma Gannon has been so kind to me.

She read my book, Sorry I’m Late, I Didn’t Want to Come and she asked me to be on her podcast to discuss it. We didn’t know each other at all but she’s always been so supportive of my writing.

Last autumn, I was in a rut and hadn’t written anything for YEARS when she told me, over lunch, “You really need to start a Substack. You were made for Substack.” Leyla Kazim was there, too and also convinced me.

I would never have started a Substack without that encouragement over lunch. It’s a certain kind of person who knows what is best for you before you do, and shares that with you. And Emma IS as nice as she seems. I was laughing comparing how few Instagram followers I have compared to her tens of thousands and she said, seriously, “No, but it’s very chic to not have many followers.” I love that she tried to make it a positive.

She’s always supporting other writers and she’s an incredible writer and a new friend and I’m just very grateful for her.

11. What’s a guiding force in your life?

Back to “Summer Sisters” by Judy Blume. There’s this bit where the two best friends, Vix and Caitlin, "clasped hands, closed their eyes and vowed they would never be ordinary." NBO. Never Be Ordinary. 

My childhood best friend Jori and I used to write this on all of our letters to each other. NBO. Never be ordinary.

Of course, I am so basic. I wear jeans and a navy jumper every day. You would never pass me on the street and think anything but “ordinary.”

I don’t know exactly how to interpret NBO. Maybe “Try harder?” Try a different way. Make your own path.

My dad really wanted me to be a doctor but I refused. My parents don’t really understand a job that isn’t: lawyer or doctor or something of that ilk. In fact, my dad asked me not to be a writer. He’s really, really supportive of me now, but it took years.

I’ve never compromised on that kind of thing – even when I had really bad, boring jobs, I was always secretly working on creative projects that were my way out. I was listening to writing podcasts on the commute, I was reading on my lunch break, I was writing at a coffeeshop the hour before work began.

I feel very lucky to write books and scripts and work in a bookshop and live in London, which is full of other writers. I think I did get here partly because of that mantra: never be ordinary.

Even when stuck at bad jobs, there were always ways to be sneakily creative, either with tiny pranks or funny notes or new ideas  – I would always just try to insert silly things into life. Tiny secret ways to be creative and fun.

It can mean anything. I just like it. NBO. Never be ordinary.

Thank you for being here, dear Beyonders! ❤️ Your comments (and hearts) mean so much to me. I read each and every one.