Jesse Q Sutanto in conversation about her latest YA rom-com and exploring her Chinese-Indonesian heritage

Earlier in her career, Jesse Q Sutanto tried writing a book set in her home country but was told by publishers that Indonesia was “just too foreign”. But after several years passed, and with a big prize for comic writing under her belt, the author has delved into her Chinese-Indonesian heritage to create a hilarious YA rom-com about two teenagers who are catfished by their own parents.

Described as “outrageously funny” by the publisher Farshore, Well, That Was Unexpected is about California girl Sharlot Citra who, after being caught in a compromising position with her boyfriend, is whisked to her mother’s native Indonesia to learn about her cultural heritage. At the same time the brilliantly named George Clooney Tanuwijaya, the only boy in his generation in one of the country’s richest Chinese-Indonesian families, is caught in an embarrassing situation by his dad and younger sister (cue masturbation jokes). George’s dad and sister (Eleanor Roosevelt Tanuwijaya) decide George needs a girlfriend, so sign him up to an online dating website. Sharlot’s mother also signs her daughter up, and the catfishing begins. George and Sharlot both think the “teenager” on the other side of the messages is a bit weird, but they agree to meet and because this is a rom-com they do, of course, eventually fall in love.

Families are very much involved in everyone’s dating life. My husband said ‘Oh gosh, this is so different, you should write about this

“I really wanted to write something lighthearted and fun, and it was an excuse for me to take readers on a journey around places like Jakarta and Bali,” says Sutanto, who moved back to Indonesia with her British husband eight years ago. Much of the fun in the story comes from the way the American-raised Sharlot experiences the delights of the country, even though, like Sutanto’s husband, she initially thinks it’s a bit of a dump.

A family affair

“He admitted to me when we first started dating that most people in the West have no idea what Indonesia is like. He was kind of dreading it when he first came because all he had seen were images from the BBC or CNN of shanty towns, places that are just mired in poverty… So when my husband first came, I saw the city through his eyes. He was really surprised.”

Sutanto’s husband urged her to write about beautiful things in Indonesian culture—its restaurants, coffee bars and architecture—but also the Chinese-Indonesian attitude to dating. “The community is really quite conservative and a lot hinges on [questions like]: are they approved of by the family? Families are very much involved in everyone’s dating life. My husband said ‘Oh gosh, this is so different, you should write about this’,” she laughs. “It’s very handy having him around.”

Sutanto grew up between Jakarta and Singapore, and decided she would like to be a writer as a teenager. The only subject she was good at was English literature, she says, and she went on to do a masters in creative writing at the University of Oxford. Her first book to be published, the fifth she had written, was Obsession, a YA about a stalker. For the “longest time” she wrote only thrillers but she began writing funny books when a publisher approached her agent asking if they had any writers on their books who were interested in doing middle-grade.

“I find that for middle-grade you need quite a bit of humour and then I realised I was having fun with this.”

I ask her about the ongoing debate in the UK around funny children’s books getting the respect they deserve, and she admits that she is one of those people who once thought comedy would be easier to write.

“That was before I tried writing a funny book,” she smiles. “Then I was like, this is so hard. So much harder. If you don’t do it well the humour is cringeworthy and painfully awkward.”

Luckily for readers Sutanto is very good at comedy, and last year she won the 2021 Comedy Women in Print Prize for her brilliant adult novel Dial A for Aunties (HQ), which, like Well, That Was Unexpected, involves meddling Chinese-Indonesian relatives, but this time there is a dead body thrown in, too.

“I find it refreshing to be able to switch back and forth between darker books and funnier ones. After writing my dark adult suspense

Sutanto is very modest about her achievements so far, and says that even though winning the prize was an “amazing moment” it is hard to think of it being more than just a fluke. She worries that most of her humour comes from personal anecdotes, so if those run out she won’t have any more authentic material.

But as well as writing funny jokes based on family relationships, Sutanto maintains the reader’s interest in a love story even though they know, because it is a rom-com, that the protagonists will end up together. That is really hard to do, and as well as the humour, there are many delightful, escapist episodes in the book that involve fabulous dates, lavish parties or luxurious holidays (which is why the PR blurb is comparing the book to the film “Crazy Rich Asians”) and a secondary LGBTQ+ love story, which gives the storyline of one of the adult character’s a satisfying conclusion. All in all, it’s a really rich narrative.