The Manor of Dreams

Christina Li

This reading group guide for The Manor of Dreams includes an introduction, discussion questions, ideas for enhancing your book club, and a Q&A with author Christina Li. The suggested questions are intended to help your reading group find new and interesting angles and topics for your discussion. We hope that these ideas will enrich your conversation and increase your enjoyment of the book.

Introduction

Former Hollywood starlet Vivian Yin, whose abrupt reclusion from public life cut her trailblazing success short, has died. She has left her garden estate to her former housekeeper’s family, the Dengs, who arrive at the house to claim the inheritance after decades of estrangement and come face to face with Vivian’s adult daughters and granddaughter, who had expected to receive the inheritance themselves. Suspicious of each other’s motives, both families move into the mansion and—over the course of one strange and terrifying week—begin to excavate long-buried secrets. Set in Los Angeles and shifting between two time periods—one that follows Vivian in the beginning of her career, and another where Vivian’s daughters race to piece together what happened in the last weeks of their mother’s life—The Manor of Dreams by Christina Li unspools a ghost story of revenge, star-crossed lovers, and a sinister shared history.

Topics & Questions for Discussion

1. Brainstorm some adjectives you would use to describe Vivian, Lucille, Rennie, Madeline, Elaine, and Nora. What traits do they have in common? What aspects of their identity create the biggest rifts between then?

2. Why do you think Li chose to begin the story with Nora’s character?

3. How are the relationships between the mother-and-daughter pairings in the novel similar and different?

4. Did you enjoy the chapters from the past more, or the chapters from the present day? How does Li build tension within and between the two timelines?

5. Consider how each character interacts with their cultural and class identity. In what ways are these identities present in the narrative? How do they affect characters like Elaine, Ada, and Vivian differently?

6. During Rennie’s last visit to the house while her mother was alive, Vivian says to her, “I built this up. I endured more than you can imagine. And now you and your sister are just circling me. Like vultures” (page 12). Why does Vivian feel resentment toward her daughters? How is that emotion in conversation with bigger themes in the novel?

7. What were your favorite moments of the budding romances between Ada and Sophie and Madeline and Nora?

8. How does Li depict Richard’s increasingly abusive behaviors? Was there a moment early on where you suspected that he was a violent, controlling person?

9. Li reveals Lucille’s hidden desires and vulnerabilities as the novel progresses. What do you think about the choices Lucille makes throughout the novel? Did you have more sympathy for her by the book’s end?

10. What scenes frightened or disturbed you the most? How does Li create an atmosphere of dread—and how does she curate the house’s haunting for each character?

11. What do you think happens to Madeline and Nora after the book ends?

12. Ultimately, what does the house represent?

Enhance Your Book Club

1. As a group, come up with a list of other novels that incorporate genre elements to tell a story about identity, family, or trauma and discuss how these selections differ from or are similar to The Manor of Dreams.

2. Keeping in mind the plot and themes of the novel, if you could add a haunted house element to Yin Manor, what would you add? How would it contribute to the story?

3. Imagine you are a director adapting this book into a screenplay. Who would you cast in each role? Begin with Vivian and create your dream cast list around her.

A Conversation with Christina Li

How did you come up with the concept for The Manor of Dreams?

There are two distinct kernels of inspiration that came together to form the concept of this book. I remember the first was an article I was reading about this poisonous garden that was a part of a castle estate in England. The idea of a deadly garden fascinated me so much, and then I started wondering if it could be sentient, and haunted, and my imagination just took it from there. The second bit of inspiration came from watching the movie Knives Out, about this family that fights to inherit a house, and I had a moment where I wondered, what if this took place in a haunted house? And thus the haunted house and garden came together to form the origin of The Manor of Dreams.

When did you begin writing The Manor of Dreams? As you were developing it, did you reach for any books or other media for inspiration?

I sat down to write the first draft in January 2022, when I was in grad school. I remember I had some very quiet mornings before classes, and so all I did was write. I was grounded by a lot of media that I feel like I was inspired by or was in conversation with throughout the writing in this book: Mike Flanagan’s show The Haunting of Bly Manor, which I loved because it represents hauntings as a form of grief. Silvia Moreno Garcia’s incredible book Mexican Gothic, which shows how historical traumas can lead to physical horrors. Phoebe Bridgers’ song “I Know the End” was on repeat when I was drafting the book, and so was this song called “The Beginning and the End” by this British indie pop band named Fanfarlo. I also feel like I was speaking loosely to The Great Gatsby and its themes of decadence and the shortcomings of the American Dream.

Did you always know you wanted to tell this story from a rotating close third perspective?

Yes. I wanted this book to operate like a jigsaw puzzle because not one person or POV is capable of telling the full story—each character knows different things and has different motivations. It is only through experiencing all those POVs that we know truly what happened to the house in the past to lead to this point and what happens in the present timeline regarding Vivian’s death. I also wanted those different POVs to form unique perspectives on generational silence and trauma. I knew it was an ensemble POV cast from the start.

Is there a scene or sentence about which you are especially proud?

I think one of the lines that I am proud of writing is, “She would not die a good wife.” There is so much one could unpack in that sentence, but I hope that it really speaks for itself.

Which of the characters in The Manor of Dreams did you find easiest to write? If you could return to any in the form of a short story or novella, who would you want to explore?

Vivian’s two present-day narrating daughters in the book—Lucille and Rennie—were the easiest to write because their characters, their personalities, and their motivations came to me first. I would love to explore the life of Rennie. She was an aspiring actress because she wanted to be like her mother Vivian, but then failed at doing so. She has subsequently led this very hopeful, magnanimous, lost, lonely life up until the point where the book begins. There is so much potential to explore in that past.

Your previous books were young adult and middle grade fiction. How was the experience of writing your first adult novel similar or different in approach and execution?

I think that what differentiates a children’s book vs. a YA vs. an adult novel is the voice of the characters. My previous books feature protagonists who are 12, or 13, or 18, and so the way that they view the world around them is informed by where they are at in their coming-of-age experience. With Manor, I was writing a cast that was entirely adult, and so it was less about the exploratory coming of age process and more about understanding and interacting with their realities from the adult perspective. The most significant distinction for me, though, was not necessarily age but the genre—I had previously written either contemporary books or historical, and so this is my first gothic book with supernatural elements. I feel very lucky to get to explore all these genres.

Did you do any research into seventies and eighties Hollywood to create Vivian’s story?

Yes—and the research process was very fun! I really tried to immerse myself in that world—I read books, perused photography archives, got very immersed in vintage clothing resale groups, and watched documentaries. I wanted specifically to capture what it was like to be a Chinese actress in seventies and eighties Hollywood, though, and so a resource that was particularly important and informative to me was Arthur Dong’s book, Hollywood Chinese. This book specifically focuses on the life of Chinese America actors and actresses in Hollywood throughout the twentieth century, with the careers they were able to pursue as well as the industry barriers they faced, such as limited opportunities and also harmful typecasting. I wanted to write about life in seventies and eighties Hollywood, but more specifically from a certain perspective that I believe has not been featured enough.

Why was it important to you to feature queer Chinese perspectives in the novel?

I always write aim to write stories that are in part influenced by my identity and the place I occupy in the world, so it felt natural to me that the book would feature several queer Chinese America characters whose narratives are informed by and inextricably linked to their identity. I wanted to give these characters expansive and detailed narratives—I wanted them to be able to fall in love, to experience loss and grief, to deal with complicated familial histories. Similarly to the discussion of representation above, I always think about questions of marginalized stories, and what types of narratives have historically been allowed to exist, but at the same time I also want to acknowledge that a lot of existing gothic literature inherently involves themes of queerness. I’m grateful to be in conversation with the genre and also explore the themes of my cultural background in a way that feels new and exciting to me.

How did you choose the epigraph?

One of the distant inspirations for this book was also The Dream of the Red Chamber saga, which is this epic Chinese classic text that details a star-crossed romance amid the rise and fall of a wealthy family dynasty, examining love and fate and traversing between the real and surreal, themes which very much echoed through Manor. The Dream of the Red Chamber was referenced all throughout my childhood, and when I came across this quote later on I knew immediately it would become my epigraph, because the two lines of poetry said it all: to contain the hope of a beautiful garden in a vase, while knowing that it will turn to inevitable decay.

Did you always know you wanted Rennie’s fate to be tied to the house? Do you have any personal hopes for the future of Nora and Madeline?

Yes! Even in my first drafts, Rennie’s final scene in the novel plays out almost exactly as it does in the finished book. As for Nora and Madeline, I wanted to end their narrative on an optimistic note, as a nod to the future and to the potential of breaking cycles of familial and historical trauma. I really like where that sets them up for the future. They deserve happiness with each other. They’ve been through enough.