Valerie Hsiung’s The pedestrian is a hybrid novel, a contaminated lullaby, and a distorted detective story that encircles a mother, a child, a house, a body. Through its maze of uncanny repetitions and ritual self-estrangements, the book outlines the shadows of a haunted childhood, among which the reader becomes a perpetual wanderer. In this conversation, we discuss environmental criminology, language as incantation, and throwing a blanket over a ghost. —Lucia Kan-Sperling Lucia Kan-Sperling: Could you tell me about how this book came to be? Valerie Hsiung: Well, it was like a ghost entered the room, a ghost that I had known as…

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