E. L. Doctorow Archives - Christi Craig

June 8, 2016June 7, 2016

Q&A (& giveaway!) with Jessamyn Hope, Author of Safekeeping

“We are all pawns of history.” ~ from Safekeeping by Jessamyn Hope

One of my all-time favorite quotes about story comes from E.L. Doctorow in his lecture, “Biography in Fiction” (available as a podcast from CUNY), where he says, “What is the past if not the present and the future?” He’s talking about historical fiction, but his quote speaks to the importance of stories for writers and readers.

As a writer, stories allow me to untangle and reason through life experiences, past and present; as a reader, they offer different or new perspectives to understand the world around me and consider the future. Stories act as a bridge between generations and cultures and the human spirit.

Doctorow’s quote fits well into the heart of Jessamyn Hope’s debut novel, Safekeeping, a book that weaves generations together with an ancient and precious brooch and with themes of loss and survival in the face of recurring physical, mental, or political hardship. The book’s cover reflects the beauty and intricacy of the well-drawn novel, and once you enter the “Fields of Splendor” with one of the protagonists, Adam, you won’t be able to put it down.

I’m honored to host Jessamyn Hope today and am thrilled to offer a giveaway as well. Read her excellent Q&A below, then drop your name in the comment section for a chance to win a copy of her novel. Deadline to enter is Tuesday, June 14th, at noon.

Now, welcome Jessamyn Hope!

Christi (CC): In your interview on Tablet Magazine’s Unorthodox Podcast (readers, click in at 11:57m for Jessamyn’s spotlight), you hint that this book has been years in the works. As a novelist-to-be who has nurtured a story for many moons, I’d love to hear about the beginnings of Safekeeping and how it finally fell into novel form?

Jessamyn (JH): Safekeeping was eight years in the making. Why did it take so long? Party due to outside factors (I had a day job most of that time), but mostly due to the work itself: I am a very slow writer, and Safekeeping is a sweeping book with multiple protagonists, spanning seven centuries and several countries. My advice to aspiring first-time novelists would be keep a sense of urgency, otherwise you won’t write regularly, but not so much urgency that you needlessly suffer. The book is going to take as long as it is going to take. You can lengthen the time frame by not dedicating enough hours each week to the book, but can you hurry the labor of bringing a certain novel into being? I don’t think so.

CC: The brooch, a family heirloom that Adam carries in his pocket, serves a dual purpose in this story as the reason he travels to the kibbutz and (even more important) a symbol of Jewish history and preservation. Even so, Adam is careless with it at times. As the story of the brooch is revealed, what do you hope readers will come to understand about what it truly represents?

JH: There isn’t one thing the brooch truly represents. As you suggest, the heirloom embodies a lot: the burdens of our personal and national histories; the inevitability of loss; our astonishing will to survive. I was particularly interested in the fact that although we sometimes know exactly what happened in the past—to us personally or to our ancestors—that affects our present, often we don’t.

I remember my college professor, novelist Mark Dintenfass, explaining this image from Faulkner’s Absalom, Absalom: a series of pools are connected by a narrow channel so that a stone tossed in one pool sends ripples endlessly into the others. Long after the stone is forgotten, lying on the pool’s floor, its effect is still rippling into the future. In Safekeeping, the reader learns about the brooch’s far-flung past and future, things that happened to it in a medieval Jewish ghetto, in WWII Dresden, in present-day New York City—things the characters holding the brooch in 1994, the novel’s main setting, never find out. And yet, the reader can see, whether the characters know the history or not, it still affects them and the world they live in.

CC: Ziva as a character intrigues me. We know from the beginning that she is quite ill, but we never find out exactly why or how she became sick. After reading your book, I wonder if her resistance to change on the kibbutz is what ails her. I know only a little about life on a kibbutz, but I understand the ones of today are quite different from those in the early 1930’s and ’40’s. Change is inevitable in your book (and in the world at large), but often something lost means something else is gained–a life saved, a future procured, a mind brought back to sanity. Do you think the modern-day kibbutz makes way for a greater future, or does it hint at what Ziva fears: a collapse under the pressures of society and a repeat of history?

JH: I am so happy Ziva intrigued you! Her character—her fortitude and single-mindedness—intrigue me too.

I don’t think Ziva’s failure to adapt makes her physically sick. She is simply growing old, something even the most adaptable of us cannot avoid. But you are right: I was exploring Ziva’s inflexibility, the pros and cons of it. I am fascinated by the type of person who is so dedicated to a cause that she is willing to relinquish everything to achieve it—her personal relationships, her comfortable life, perhaps even life itself. Although it must be painful to be the child or spouse of such a person, I believe without these dedicated people we would have far less medical breakthroughs, great works of art, advances in human rights, and groundbreaking, if at first unpopular, ideas.

So although evolution teaches us that adaptability is important to survival, I wonder if human beings need to have in our ranks a few uncompromising idealists, even if, like Ziva, they can be difficult to be around. Maybe we wouldn’t have the theory of evolution if Darwin had been more chill about his studies.

CC: Pieces of ourselves sometimes weave their way into our fiction. Is there a character in Safekeeping with whom you relate most?

JH: I do not relate to one character more than any other. A dimension of me lives in each of them. Sometimes the battles between the characters dramatizes a tension within me: for instance, the tension between Ziva and Franz that complicates their love affair, her dedication to the community versus his strong individualism, reflects a tension that exists in me. As an artist who has suffered through many a day job, I relate to Ofir’s frustration at having to be in the army rather than working on his music; and as someone who has suffered from severe OCD, I identify with Claudette’s struggles. I have felt the way drug-addict Adam does: racked with guilt, afraid I am too weak to be as good a person as I want to be. Sometimes people tell me how much they hate Ulya, the Soviet émigrée, which means they hate something that exists in me: the part I drew on to bring to life her selfish survivalism, as well as her fondness for dramatic eyeliner.

CC: What are you reading these days that most feeds your writerly self?

JH: I almost exclusively read novels. Right now I am halfway through A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, which most Americans read in their youth, but that I didn’t hear much about growing up in Montreal. Now every day I walk down the exact streets whose previous incarnations the novel describes in such lively and heartbreaking detail.

Jessamyn Hope is the author of the novel Safekeeping—a recommended read for summer 2015 by The Boston Globe; acclaimed by The Globe and Mail, Tablet Magazine, The Montreal Gazette, The Jerusalem Post, and Booklist; a New York Public Library Staff Pick; a finalist for the 2016 Paterson Fiction Prize; and found at number two on BuzzFeed’s “53 Books You Won’t Be Able to Put Down.” Her short fiction and memoirs have appeared in Ploughshares, Five Points, Descant, PRISM International, Colorado Review, and other literary magazines. Recent accolades include two Pushcart Prize honorable mentions, in 2015 and 2016, and selection for Best Canadian Essays 2015. She was the Susannah McCorkle Scholar in Fiction at the 2012 Sewanee Writers’ Conference and has an MFA in creative writing from Sarah Lawrence College.

Born and raised in Montreal, she lived in Israel before moving to New York City.

Don’t forget: drop your name in the comments for a chance to win a copy of Safekeeping!

June 26, 2013June 25, 2013

Q&A with Julie Kibler, Author of Calling Me Home

The heart is a demanding tenant; it frequently makes a strong argument against common sense. ~ from Calling Me Home by Julie Kibler

A favorite quote of mine comes from E. L. Doctorow in a lecture he gave on Historical Fiction at the City University of New York (CUNY). In this lecture, he says, “What is the past if not the present and the future?” I thought of this quote as I read Julie Kibler’s debut novel and historical fiction, Calling Me Home. Kibler’s novel ties past and present together, seamlessly, within the framework of an unlikely friendship between elderly Isabelle McAllister and young Dorrie Curtis.

As Dorrie drives Isabelle from Texas to Cincinnati for a funeral, Isabelle reveals how, as a young woman, she fell in love with Robert, a young black man and the son of her family’s housekeeper. Robert is Isabelle’s first and greatest love, and in 1930’s Kentucky–in a town where blacks were not allowed after dark–they struggle against racism of the times to stay together.

Julie Kibler’s Calling Me Home has taken off with great success because, I believe, fiction based in history often unfolds into stories that could just as easily happen today. Likely, there are still families who would make it more than difficult for couples of different races to be together. After all, racism isn’t dead. It’s all over the news.

I’m honored to host Julie here for a quick Q&A, where she talks a bit about the book and the people who helped shape the story. I’m also offering a book giveaway. Leave your name in the comments for a chance to win a copy of her novel. Random.org will choose the winner on Tuesday, July 2nd.

Now welcome, Julie Kibler.

CC: In the Acknowledgements and the book’s dedication, you mention your grandmother. Can you tell us a little more about the role she played in bringing your novel to fruition?

JK: While I was growing up, my grandmother puzzled me. She wasn’t always very “grandmotherly” and seemed unhappy a large part of the time. Long after she died, my father shared with me that she had fallen in love with a black man when she was a young woman in Northern Kentucky, and that she wasn’t allowed to be with him. It seemed to provide an explanation of sorts for why she was the way she was. The way I figure it, this young man must have been her one true love, and her life must not have turned out the way she hoped it would. I thought about this a lot and for a long time, and eventually decided to write a novel—not her story, as I don’t know the specific details, but the story of a young woman in a similar time, place, and situation. I like to think she guided me in a way, almost as if she sat at my shoulder whispering to me of how it felt to be in love with someone when that relationship was forbidden for bad reasons.

CC: Much of CALLING ME HOME takes place in Shalerville, a Sundown town in which Robert and his family–and any other African-Americans–are not allowed after dark, a threat made clear by a sign posted at the edge of town. Though Shalerville may be a made up place, Sundown towns are an ugly reality of our American past. Was it difficult to research the existence of such place; did you find people hesitant to discuss them?

JK: Shalerville is made up, but it’s a composite of the small Northern Kentucky towns where my father and grandmother grew up—all sundown towns—and most like my father’s hometown. I didn’t know about sundown towns until I started questioning my dad about where he grew up. I’d visited his hometown and others over the years, and I knew them from from a child’s eye view or a more modern perspective, but I was really surprised to learn about the signs and the rules. My dad graciously shared the details he could remember of his childhood in a sundown town. While I was growing up, my parents were very open to people of all races and religions, and I think he, too, felt it was important that others knew what happened. There are few visible records, such as photographs. And yet there are still many, many towns in our country that are not open to people of other races. The signs are simply missing now. I’ve had conversations while meeting with book clubs where people relate stories of people excluded from small towns because of race in recent years.

CC: In this interview with Natalia Sylvester, you write about doubt, saying we worry too much about whether or not we should write a certain story or if we have the “right” to tell it from the perspective of a character whose experience is so different from our own. How do you know when you’ve not only conquered a bit of that doubt, but that you are indeed meant to tell the story?

JK: I think when a story haunts you so much that you can’t possibly NOT write it, when the characters are loud and clear in your mind, and in a way, demanding to be heard, you just have to sit down and write. Write it for yourself if for nobody else. And then, maybe you’ll be brave enough to show it to someone else. And when people read it and tell you it’s a story that needs to be seen, you send it out and see what happens. Sounds easy, huh? Maybe not that easy, but that’s kind of how it goes.

CC: What are you reading these days?

JK: I’m about to finish up Me Before You by JoJo Moyes. I’m really loving it, and I can tell it’s going to make me cry before it’s all over. I am not an extremely emotional person outwardly, but I have a strange love affair with books that push me there. I like movies and music and books that lead me to an emotional catharsis. I think it’s healthy to have a good cry now and then.

CC: What advice might you offer other writers on the road to publication?

JK: First things first. First, write the book. THEN worry about all the details getting it to publication. Without a finished book, your chances of publication as a debut author drop about 99.9%, by my purely unscientific calculations. And speaking of finished … I think aspiring writers too often send out things that are unpolished, and kind of … unRIPE. (Believe me, I have done it myself in the past! I speak from experience!) They haven’t done the work it takes to learn their craft. They are in a hurry to send out a rough draft the minute they type THE END. This isn’t smart. You lose a lot of chances—especially with literary agents—by doing this. Agents are looking for stories that aren’t just unique ideas, but are nearly ready to submit to publishers. As an aspiring writer, your competition is too tough to risk sending something that isn’t quite ready. Be patient with yourself and your writing, and that will more likely pay off. Try to think of writing as a marathon, not a race.

Next? Don’t assume that just because you write one book, the next one will be easy. I’ve learned that each manuscript I’ve completed has been written in a completely new way. There is no secret formula, as far as I can tell. Allow yourself to be open to new methods with each new story. This isn’t so easy for a writer with OCD tendencies, trust me, but it’s the honest truth.

Julie Kibler began writing Calling Me Home after learning a bit of family lore: As a young woman, her grandmother fell in love with a young black man in an era and locale that made the relationship impossible. When not writing, she enjoys travel, independent films, music, photography, and corralling her teenagers and rescue dogs. She lives in Arlington, Texas. Calling Me Home is her debut. Visit her website for more on the book, like her page on Facebook, or follow her on Twitter.

Don’t forget to leave your name in the comments for a chance to win a copy of Calling Me Home!

May 1, 2013April 30, 2013

The Importance of Memoir and a Prompt

When I first set out to write seriously, I cranked out essay after essay, believing I could never make up an entire story from scratch, much less a novel, but I had plenty of life experience to share. Now, I write mostly fiction, more confident in my imagination and much less so in my own memory (and the amount of intrigue in my oh-so-exciting experiences). But, since I started my once-a-month creative writing class with Seniors, I’ve been diving back into memoir, flash nonfiction to be exact, and I’ve learned a couple of pertinent lessons.

Writing short memoir is damn hard.

Hard, not only because of the compact aspect of the genre, as the story must fit nicely within a small word count, but because every time I sit down to write a bit of my own self onto the page, it comes out clunky, dramatic, or flat. Or, maybe just dramatically flat. When I read my simple stories out loud to the Senior citizens at the table, I wonder what they must think; I can never match the extent of their tales from lives more rich in history. My gut reaction is to fall back on fiction, where I can dress up my experiences with more exciting details. But, here’s the other thing….

Writing memoir, in short or long form, is critical.

One of my favorite quotes right now comes from E. L. Doctorow in a lecture he gave on Historical Fiction at the City University of New York (CUNY) :

What is the past if not the present and the future?

Sure, he’s talking fiction, but this particular message rings true for memoir as well. I don’t need to tell you the importance of listening to the stories from an older generation. We learn much by studying and honoring people and events rooted in our past, more than revelations as to how much we’ve changed (or not, as the case may be). Bruce Feiler, in this New York Times essay, writes about the effects of family narratives on children, pulling from research by psychologists, Marshall Duke and Robin Fivush:

[C]hildren who have the most self-confidence have what [is called] a strong ‘intergenerational self.’ they know they belong to something bigger than themselves.

As humans, we need the stories from our past, from a family member’s struggle with mental health, to the birth of a first child, to the discovery of a father’s short stint in a band when you’ve never know him to be musical. Ever. Those histories belong to us. They teach us how to live life on life’s terms, how to embrace the unknown, and how to see others in new ways.

We, that is I, must take the time to unwind these memories, however difficult, however banal, and turn them into stories to share.

The Prompt

Long car rides. Pit stops. Getting lost.

This prompt comes from Hippocampus Online Literary Magazine and goes on to read:

There are many types of travel, but this wanderlust-filled issue will feature those that have one thing in common about getting from point A to pint B: Four wheels. Five, if you count the steering wheel.

If, once you write this piece, you’re interested in submitting, the guidelines are here, and the deadline May 31st.

* Photo credit: [Man on beach] Shelling, by veggiegretz on Morguefile.com