Sex and Vanity is Kwan’s first book outside of the Crazy Rich Asians universe.

In his first extensive interview about the book, he spoke about all that and more with EW.

ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: I feel like, since your last book, a lot has changed for you.

KEVIN KWAN: Um, yeah.

So how did that inform the way you approached your next book?

Not at all, really.

This is a book that has been brewing in my mind for at least 10 years now.

It was always this fantasy book that I wanted to write.

Ultimately, every time I write a book, I’m really just trying to create joy.

That’s always the underlying spirit that guides me.

You must have thought about what would come next.

Why a fresh take onA Room With a View?

Pretty obviously, this book is an homage.

But in many ways I’m equally influenced by the moviea beautiful adaptation.

This could have been [brewing] more than 10 years.

I first read the book when I was 15 years old.

Loved the book instantly, probably saw the movie two or three years later.

It’s been several decades now.

But it’s especially complicated when you’re biracial, American and Asian at the same time.

Growing up, I had many cousins who are half-Asian: half-British, half-American.

That’s something I really did want to explore in telling this story.

I’d imagine the process of writing a successful trilogy would inform the way you approach writing going forward.

What did you learn about yourself as a writer that you brought to this book?

For me, practice makes perfect.

I feel like that has continued.

Which is totally different than my voice as a poet, as a nonfiction writer.

And I wanted to innovate.

This is notCrazy Rich Asianspart four.

This is a whole different beast.

It was important to me to flex my muscles and try something new with language.

I just had fun with it and let myself play in this world.

What kinds of choices did you make?

I gave myself license to play.

Maybe that’s influenced by all the writing I’ve been doing on TV projects.

The first part of the book is much more Conde Nast Traveler.

I was able to put on my travel-writing hat.

I used to do travel writing.

I did some longer pieces for magazines.

I really wanted to make this fun, juicy travel porn.

Right, I have to ask you about the controls in this book.

Just how decadent can you get?

All the stuff in Capri is real.

In the Capri section, at least, every place you go is based on an actual place.

I have disguised names at some points here and there.

Most of them are real places, real restaurants, real historical sites to visit while you’re there.

In New York, the same holds true.

All the private clubs that we go to are the real deal.

The only fictional space is Cecil’s apartment.

But that also is influenced by all of these other audacious spaces I have seen or know about.

His house to me is a mishmash of all the latest trends, in really decadent homes.

I wanted to have fun satirizing that world.

You’re attracted to classic romantic structures.

What’s the secret sauce there, for you?

It’s something that’s just gathered from observation and experience.

It’s really imagining scenarios of what would happen if you put this character in this situation.

They start speaking and they start dictating their perspectives.

Did their journeys surprise you?

I know where they’re going to end up.

[Laughs] That’s just what comes from it being homage.

I can’t tell you how that happens, the great mystery of the creative process.

Things just happen in the most unexpected ways.

Is that something you’re more comfortable with now?

It’s always the batshit crazy stuff that happens so spontaneously and so quickly.

Some chapters, I literally spent weeks [stressing] over.

They’re always the most mundane chapters.

Then any time I have to write about nasty characters, they just come flying out so quickly.