Q&A with Nicole Haroutunian

Nicole Haroutunian is the author of the new short story collection Speed Dreaming. She is the coeditor of the journal Underwater New York, and she works as a museum educator. She lives in Woodside, Queens.

Q: How did you come up with the title "Speed Dreaming" for one of your stories and for the collection overall, and what does it signify to you?

A: I wrote the title story last, because my editor thought that the linked stories "Pilgrims" and "The Last Unicorn" needed a third story to feel complete.

In order to come up with an arc for the story, I tried to combine three disparate elements: a coyote at a child's birthday party, a death on the subway, and the sleepover game "speed dreaming." Once the game was in the story, the title seemed evocative. My editor is the one who suggested it as the title for the whole collection--it can have so many meanings.

Q: As you mentioned, several of the stories are linked, and there seem to be some slight connections among the characters in other stories too. Did you write all the stories with certain themes and links in mind, or did the collection evolve in a more unplanned way?

A: Besides those three stories I just mentioned, the collection did not start off as linked. But, during the editing process, my editor encouraged me to make the world of the book smaller.

The teenage protagonist of one story became the younger version of Meg, from those three linked stories. Stories set in or featuring Pittsburgh, Poughkeepsie and an unnamed upstate location all moved to Poughkeepsie.

A band mentioned in one story became the same band mentioned in another. A teaching artist in one story became the same teaching artist in another story; even though she's the protagonist of both, I think people miss that link because one story is in the first person and one is in the third.

So, for the most part I wrote the stories with only the logic of that particular story in mind, but eventually, I tried to unite them so they all existed in the same space. 

Q: Many of your stories take place in or somewhat near New York. How important is the setting in your writing?

A: It's very important in that I mostly write from observation rather than imagination. In general, I need to know a place in order to write it, so that limits where I can set my stories.

New York City, Poughkeepsie, suburban New Jersey, a park in the Catskills and rural Wales--I've lived in or been to all of those places, hence the settings for the stories in Speed Dreaming. 

Q: Which authors have influenced you?

A: I look to Lorrie Moore and Jo Ann Beard for dialogue and tone, to Laurie Colwin for character and to remember to be particular and strange, to Alice Munro for everything. I also love Jennifer Egan, Junot Diaz, Justin Torres... the list goes on!

Q: What are you working on now?

A: I am working on what I am thinking of as a novella. I love writing about teenage girls and their mothers, I think because I am right in between them in age (taking my family as an example)--I can identify, in some ways, with both, and in some ways with neither.

Q: Anything else we should know?

A: I'm about to head out to read on the West Coast--your readers should come, if they're in the area! 

--Interview with Deborah Kalb

June 24

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY
June 24, 1937: Anita Desai born.

Q&A with Stephanie Kallos

Stephanie Kallos, photo by Sue Doupe

Stephanie Kallos is the author of the new novel Language Arts. She also has written the novels Broken for You and Sing Them Home. She has worked as a musician, actress, and voice teacher, and she lives in Seattle.

Q: Communication of various kinds plays a big role in this novel. Why did you decide on that as one of the book's themes?

A: Probably because I consider myself to be a lousy communicator, at least as far as intimate relationships go. I don’t think it’s unusual for writers to take on subjects that they’d like to learn more about and/or get better at.

I will say that writing Charles’s and Alison’s fight scenes was very difficult for me; I’m a terrible fighter as well.

Q: One form of communication in the book is handwriting. What interested you about it, and how does it affect your main character, Charles?

A: I’m on a personal mission to combat this prevailing idea that cursive writing is no longer necessary. This saddens me deeply, for so many reasons – not the least of which is that science has proven that significant and unique forms of brain wiring occur through the practice of writing by hand.

Handwriting is something that requires slowing down – another practice that I believe we could all benefit from in these fast-paced, multi-tasking times.

Finally, I love the way that handwriting is such a specific revelation of character and personality – one that lives well beyond the writer, and that – for me at least – constitutes a very real source of delight and solace. Who isn’t comforted by the sight of a beloved’s handwriting after their loss?

Q: Autism is also a theme throughout the book. Why did you opt to make one of your characters autistic?

A: Because the impetus to write this book came entirely from a desire to create a fictional narrative that could include a child I met over 50 years ago – a child who was what was called in those days retarded – it made a kind of sense to have Charles’s present life (and his challenges with Cody) dovetail with his memories of his best friend in 4th grade: Dana McGucken. That Dana is based (in appearance only) on the Dana of my memory.

I’m also a big believer in taking note of the things that drop into one’s life on a regular basis; I think that’s how the universe (or God, or the Good, or whatever you want to call it) gives us hints about what we’re supposed to be doing on the planet.

Since meeting “my” Dana when I was 7, people with developmental disabilities continued to show up in my life. Most notably: I had a particularly close relationship with a little girl I babysat when I was a teenager, and have strong memories of the struggles involved in caring for her.

Like Cody, she did not speak, and she could be very violent. That experience gave me some small sense of what is involved in parenting a child with autism.

Finally, I’m very interested in the wide-ranging and often divisive attitudes toward “special” children: are they the victims of an illness that can be cured? Or are they representatives of a form of neuro-diversity that isn’t yet fully understood? And thus, in no need of “fixing” or “curing.”

Q: The book takes place in a variety of time periods. Did you write the story in the order in which as it appears now, or did you write it more chronologically and move parts of it around?

A: This book definitely involved a lot of scene shuffling! – and I will say that applying a traditional, Aristotelian arc to the story was difficult.

Over the course of the writing, it finally occurred to me that Memory itself is a character in the book – and because of that, I took some liberties with the structure: in my experience, memories don’t adhere to dramatic templates, but arrive, willy-nilly, inserting themselves – with great insistence! – whenever they need attention.

Q: What are you working on now?

A: I’m in the early stages of work on my fourth novel, The Blue Bench. It’s a loose retelling of the Cyrano de Bergerac story that unfolds over the course of 20 years before, during, and after WWI.

Q: Anything else we should know?

A: I find it so ironic that – before I was in a band that performs book-themed tunes at book events – my first two novels featured lots of music: Broken for You played out against the sounds of bee-bop and tradition jazz, and Sing Them Home had a soundtrack that included The Nebraska Fight Song, Welsh choral music, and Bruce Springsteen.

Language Arts focuses on a man who has virtually no connection to music whatsoever! – other than what he receives through his next-door neighbor’s radio listening habits: an AM station playing The Best Hits of the '60s, '70s, and '80s.

Thus, at Language Arts events, we perform a cover of Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believin.” We also do an old Gershwin tune, “Let’s Call the Whole Thing Off” (You say potato, I say poTAHto…) and a Sweet Honey in the Rock song based on Kahlil Gibran’s poem “On Children,” which underlines so many of the book’s themes: Your children are not your children…and though they are with you they belong not to you…You can try to be like them, but you cannot make them just like you.

--Interview with Deborah Kalb

June 23

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY
June 23, 1889: Anna Akhmatova born.

Q&A with Mary Anna King

Mary Anna King, photo by Braden Moran

Mary Anna King is the author of the new memoir Bastards, which she describes on her website as "the true story of how my six biological siblings and I were adopted by five different families, grew up in homes from Oklahoma City to the Jersey Shore, and eventually found one another again." She lives in Los Angeles.

Q: Why did you decide to write about your family, and how was the book’s title chosen?

A: I started compiling notes for this book when I was 14. Initially, it was a precaution against forgetting who I had been and where I had come from. Also, I wanted to be able to tell my sisters our shared story when they came looking for me. 

So this story was bequeathed to me, and I always felt that it needed to be told. Because the story of my siblings' and my separation and reunion is not as uncommon as one might think. At every single event I have done so far for Bastards people approach to tell me how this is their story, too; they are one of eight children split up by foster care, or one of three siblings split amongst family members.

They, like us, have difficulty navigating some basic first-date questions, like "how many siblings do you have? What is your family like?"

Over the years when I've chosen to share this part of my life with friends and acquaintances a funny thing happens; people's reflex is to identify for me who my "real" family is. Depending on the audience, my "real mother" is the one who gave birth to me, or the one who adopted me; my "real sister" is the one I grew up with and the rest must be "more like friends."

They are not being malicious--it's an attempt to distill something complex into a clearer narrative--but claiming that one person is "real" suggests that another person is not. Initially it makes me giggle, because if my mothers or my sisters aren't "real" what are they? Unicorns?

But in the end, the implication is that if someone isn't real, she doesn't matter. She is a ghost, a shadow. Since shadows can never be injured, can never feel sorrow or loss, there is no need to make room for a shadow to exist, to acknowledge its humanity.

The title sprang from the constant suggestion that one or more members of my complicated family are knock-offs, counterfeit; the bastard version of a sister, brother, father, or mother.

The truth is that everyone is real; that is what makes adoption complicated. The couples bringing children into the world are as real as the couples longing for children; the struggle of one is as real as the fierce desire of the other.

The children gain one real family while losing a real family. Everyone and everything is real, and no single claim is strong enough to erase the others.

So, the title is a bit in-your-face, but I felt that it needed to be.

Q: How much of the book came from your own memories, and how much did you need to research?

A: My family members had already told me so many sides of our story that when I sat down to write there were few things that needed true research. I dug into the journals I had kept since high school to confirm some timelines and also remind myself of my true emotional states at certain key points.

I was surprised to recall how much I had feared my adoptive father in my adolescence; that was a state in our relationship that we have moved so far past that I had completely forgotten about it. But to preserve the truth of our journey of becoming a father and daughter to one another, it was an important element to remember.

I did speak with my sisters, my brother, and my birthmother when I needed to confirm some fuzzy details. Especially ones from my early childhood.

For example, I had this very vivid memory of sitting in my birthfather's Oldsmobile when I couldn't have been older than two and a half. It's the earliest memory I have. My mother, father, brother and I were all wearing coats, but it was still freezing.

I ran this image past my birthmom, and she reminded me that yes, we did wear our coats in the car and yes it was still cold because the heater didn't work and there were rusted-out holes in the sides.

I wondered why some part of my brain had preserved this memory, and my mom reminded me that this was the day we met my first (then unborn) sister's adoptive parents. This was truly a day when my life changed irreversibly, forever.

Q: You write, “Love was a word that confused things.” How do you think you viewed love during your childhood, and how do you see it today?

A: As a child I understood love as deep, surprising, unprovoked affection. The sort of emotion that fills you without you encouraging it, that fills you even when you attempt to discourage it.

My birthmom's love for me played on her like she was merely an instrument for it; it was written all over her body. Her hands always open, her face always relaxed, her voice always softer with me and my brother than they were with other people.

While that is certainly a type of love, perhaps the primary definition of it, it is not the only kind. I say it so often that it has become a personal mantra—Love is showing up for people. Love is showing up even when you don't know what to say, even when you know there is absolutely nothing you can do but show up.

What made the word love so confusing during my own adoption was that I knew what love looked like. I had seen it and felt with my birthmother.

My adoptive parents and I did not share that same connection. They did not spark like a campfire when I walked into a room. But they nurtured me in ways that were not discernible to a child.

Our connection was like converting soil into a garden. Before you can have beautiful rose bushes, you have a long period of muddy, mucky business to deal with. You have to show up every day with the water, with the sunlight, with the "Miracle Gro" and trust that it will pay off in the end.

While I have been lucky to experience that first type of love—the effervescent, effortless adventure—I make every attempt to always show up for the people I care about. Especially in those times—illness, deaths, after tragedies or arguments—where showing up is the only concrete thing I can do.

Q: Have your family members read the book, and what do they think of it?

A: My birthmom, my brother and my sisters have all read the book. My sister Becca has read four or five drafts of it, actually!

I have offered many times to send a copy to my adoptive father, but he wants to read it after it is published. He knows what it is covered in the book; he knows that his character has some tough scenes, but he knows that this is my story and my perspective. I have been absolutely overwhelmed by the support my family has given me so far in this journey.

There was a key moment in the story where I wrote about my own nervous breakdown at the age of 23. In talking about that dark chapter of my life, I revealed some darker turns in the lives of my siblings.

My editor and I had several conversations about whether it was necessary (or fair) to include my siblings' related struggles. My editor worried that they would feel violated.

So I appealed to my siblings directly. And to a person they not only allowed me to tell those parts of their stories, they wanted me to. We all thought it was important to show how a journey of separation and reunion can tear at the threads of a person's identity.

The struggle was not simply mine, it was a struggle that we all felt, universally. And if seven of us, separated, adopted, and raised apart all felt similar aftershocks, then perhaps this difficulty is something commonly felt by many adopted people, and something we needed to share to help others feel less alone.

Getting that level of commitment from my sisters and brother was incredibly humbling. 

Q: What are you working on now?

A: My siblings and I are actively working to bring all six of them to Los Angeles for the book launch...We have actually never all been in the same place at the same time. Not once. Not ever. So for the past couple weeks I have been in a whirlwind of e-mails and flight itineraries and skulking around the Air BnB website into the wee small hours of the morning!

As for writing, I am nearing completion on a play about two sisters dealing with the aftermath of a disrupted adoption that I am very excited about. Also in the preliminary stages of a second memoir set in the hospitality industry.

Q: Anything else we should know?

A: If there is one thing that I wish people would take away from Bastards, it is the idea that adoption is complicated. If there is a second, it would be that people stop telling anyone who their "real" families are. Now more than ever families are built in complex ways. No matter what they look like, they are all real people, in real families. 

--Interview with Deborah Kalb

June 22

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY
June 22, 1898: Erich Maria Remarque born.

Q&A with William C. Davis

William C. Davis is the author of the new biography Crucible of Command: Ulysses S. Grant and Robert E. Lee--The War They Fought, the Peace They Forged. His many other books include The Pirates Laffite and Lone Star Rising. A retired professor of history who taught at Virginia Tech, he lives in Blacksburg, Virginia.

Q: Why did you decide to write a joint biography of Grant and Lee?

A: After 40 years as a Civil War historian I naturally had studied both a fair bit, but a few years ago I was suddenly struck by what I saw as similarities they shared--similar instincts, in some degree comparable management styles, consonant attitudes toward war itself, and more. 

There had been several combined biographies before but I did not recall any of them addressing the inner men--their ethical and moral worlds, the development of their personalities, interpersonal relations with families, political orientation--all of the things that went into informing their decisions when they became commanders. So that is what I set out to do.

Q: You write, “The myths long ago replaced the men.” What are some of the most common perceptions and misperceptions about both men?

A: Misperceptions are numerous.  One of the most resilient is the notion that Lee never hated the Yankees during the war, the cliche being that he never referred to them as "the enemy" but always as "those people" and the like. 

It is nonsense. He used the word "enemy" innumerable times and it is clear from his personal letters to family that by 1863 he had come to detest Northerners, feeling that they had an almost personal goal to destroy his family. 

He described them as "malignant" insane, vengeful, and almost came to regard them as a separate race, which of course had been a longtime Southern attitude among extremists, of which Lee had never been one. 

As for Grant, the most persistent--indeed the only thing most Americans think they know about him--is that he was a drunkard. He showed not one of the typical symptoms of alcoholism. He did not have a high tolerance for liquor, and a couple of drinks could make him tipsy. 

During the war there are about four documented instances of him having too much to drink, but all at times when the battlefield was quiet. Meanwhile, he could go months without a drink, he could have just one and no more, and he was aware that he did not metabolize it well and took precautions to have one of his staff remind him not to have a second drink.

Q: In the book, you write, “Each man embraced instinctive feelings about what it meant to be an American and what his country ought to be.” How did their views on these issues affect their actions leading up to and during the Civil War?

A: Grant is easy. He regarded the Constitution as paramount to all else, and the Union as a single unit, not a partnership from which dissatisfied members could withdraw. He was a Whig in his early principles, a believer in a strong central government, just as Lee had been before the war. 

As Grant's political makeup evolved he would seek an America that abandoned its isolationism and became a world leader, one that reformed itself within, extending education to all, affording fair treatment to the native peoples, equal rights for the freed slaves, and more. 

Lee on the other hand had a divided allegiance, and faced a choice that Grant and other Northern commanders never had to face. If he stayed in the union and accepted command of the army that was offered to him in April 1861, he would have to lead across his native Virginia and undoubtedly fight battles against fellow Virginians, some of them his own family. 

Unlike Grant, while he thought secession was revolution and a terrible mistake in 1861, in time he came to believe that the South could not preserve its rights in the Union. 

As for the cause of it all, slavery, neither was much interested in the subject before the war. Lee did not like it in the abstract, but he also did not like or trust blacks, free or slave, and thought that slavery was the only way they could live among whites peacefully. 

As for Grant, he was utterly silent on the subject before 1861, but in the course of the war he became committed to emancipation, and after the war to equal rights, including pushing the 15th amendment to ratification when he was president.

Q: You write, “Grant and Lee became commanders not by blood or accident of birth, or by favoritism and politics.” What were the circumstances or attributes that led each of them to become commanders?

A: Grant was very lucky, taking nothing away from his transcendent capabilities. He was in exactly the right place at the right time, in Southern Illinois in the summer of 1861, a backwater where he could learn how to handle first a regiment and later a brigade. 

Moreover, most of the Union forces growing in that area were commanded by Illinois politicians, making Grant the only West Point-trained professional, which naturally gave him some standing over the rest. 

When it came time to move against Confederates controlling access to the Tennessee and Cumberland Rivers, he happened to be in command on the spot. Then once he achieved his first success, he was able to build on that. 

As for Lee, he was one of the senior old U.S. Army officers to come over to the Confederacy at the beginning, son of a Revolutionary War hero, a hero of the Mexican War himself, and had a distinguished name and universal respect. 

It was just assumed that he would hold a high position for the South, which he did, but unfortunately it was as an adviser to President Jefferson Davis. Only the wounding of army commander Joseph E. Johnston at Seven Pines in 1862 gave Lee the chance to show what he could do in army command.  But then, like Grant, he showed everyone.

Q: What are you working on now?

A: I've just finished something that for me, at least, is certainly unique, a biography of a woman whose name no one knows. She is known to history as Loreta Janeta Velasquez, author of an 1876 memoir in which she detailed her supposed adventures in the Civil War masquerading as a soldier to fight in several battles, then acting as a spy for the Confederacy. 

It is almost all invention, despite the fact that historians still very much want to believe her because she suits a number of constituencies--the women warrior students, Cuban and Hispanic historians (she falsely claimed to be Cuban), feminists, those studying transvestism, cross-dressing, and the like. 

In fact she was a lifelong fraud, almost certainly a prostitute in New Orleans when young, and after the war a compulsive confidence artist of amazing ambition, including trying to capitalize a railroad across Mexico for $50 million. 

She genuinely was a pioneer among female confidence artists, something of a pioneering journalist, occasionally a social reformer, as well as a two-time bigamist, and an absolute master at press manipulation. She made herself the first and I think only "media celebrity" in the Confederacy during the war, a sort of Confederate Kardashian.

--Interview with Deborah Kalb