Jennifer Lang is the author of the memoir Places We Left Behind: a memoir-in-miniature and the forthcoming memoir Landed: a yogi's memoir in pieces & poses. She lives in Tel Aviv.
Q: What inspired you to write Places We Left Behind?
A: Like many memoirists, I’d been writing around and around, spinning in circles for years. The main theme of “home”—plus every prefix and suffix usable with that word—beset me.
Whenever anyone asked me where home was, I hemmed and hawed. And I wrote. I wrote about the four-letter noun in longform essays and micro memoirs until finding my way into and through it, until exhausting it, until reaching an end, which, ironically, ended up my beginning.
Places We Left Behind: a memoir-in-miniature is a love story about two people from two different countries and cultures who met and married in a third country and culture and, over the next two decades, moved in search of home, first with one baby and then with three children. I wrote it to the nth degree as succinctly and sparsely as possible: 14,000 words.
But please don’t misunderstand; I didn’t start succinct and sparse. My initial stab at a memoir was long and ghastly with 95,000+ words. Years later, after understanding it needed a massive overhaul, I chopped it into bite-sized pieces and cast aside the early chapters to focus on the more recent years in a manuscript-cum-book, Landed: A yogi’s memoir in pieces & poses (October 15, 2024).
In 2022, while submitting Landed, a fellow flash writer encouraged me to link together thematically my shorter pieces and enter creative nonfiction prose chapbook competitions. I returned to the early chapters in the overwritten manuscript and sawed/skimped/sculpted the story into Places, without realizing the two together are like Part I and Part II, in the right order.
Q: In a review in Hippocampus Magazine, Lisa Ellison wrote of the book, “Lang’s skill and artistry didn’t just make Places We Left Behind worth the effort; her playful and exacting approach gave me a new appreciation for what stories can accomplish when we break free of traditional forms.” What do you think of that description, and how would you describe the book's form?
A: I cherish Lisa Ellison’s words in Hippocampus. Her appreciation of the playful and exacting approach, my break from traditional form. When I read her review, I felt like she saw me and wholly understood my vision and intention.
My initial manuscript of Places We Left Behind was traditional: cookie-cutter prose and linear storytelling. But during the submission stage, I noticed new words in certain publishers’ guidelines—open to experimental prose—wondering what they meant.
I recalled an early reader wishing I’d included the pro-con list mentioned in the overwritten manuscript. I reconfigured a chapterette about zigzagging through the Old City in Jerusalem to mirror our meandering.
One recollection and reconfiguration led to another, leading me down a rabbit hole from recreating said list—making a horizontal line at the top and vertical one in the middle, a + and – signs on either side—to re-visioning each chapterette, each time challenging myself to make it look and sound and read differently.
I ended with a flow chart, strikethrough, footnotes, images and graphics and more off-the-beaten-prose-path prose.
Q: How was the memoir’s title chosen, and what does it signify for you?
A: I strived for something lyrical, less concrete (my tendency) and knew it was probably within the text. I scoured my story, paying close attention to every line/sentence/word.
On page 73, halfway through the story, I came across what felt like the essence of our struggle in a chapter called “Places left behind”; the last sentences read:
Our nonstop negotiations and mobile marriage continue. When Philippe had the jitters after our wedding a decade ago, he predicted our intractable conflict like a prophet.
No matter where we reside, one of us will always rue the loss of the place we left behind.
Q: What impact did it have on you to write the book, and what do you hope readers take away from it?
A: Writing this book and sending it into the world and discussing it with readers has made me understand it serves two purposes: a love letter to one character and a letter of apology to another.
The first was obvious, but the latter only became clear thanks to some of the conversations I’ve done and questions I’ve answered. That revelation made my eyes well.
But that’s not all. Writing this book and sending it into the world and discussing it with readers has served as the second-to-last chapter on writing about identity and marriage, voice and home.
Now, four months before the launch date of my second book, Landed: A yogi’s memoir in pieces & poses, feels like the last (chapter). As if I’ve ticked off all the right answers, filled in every bubble on an unnamed exam. I’ve put all the pieces of the puzzle together and can finally answer the basic question: where’s home?
Q: What are you working on now?
A: As my own book publicist, I am neck-high in keeping my first book afloat amid a war and promoting my forthcoming Landed: A yogi’s memoir in pieces & poses.
It’s a full-time job with oodles of Excel spreadsheets and details, favors and follow-up emails and phone calls. It’s a never-ending learning curve that keeps me at my desk, away from writing, making me wonder if I’ll ever find my way back to the words, sentences, and story.
Q: Anything else we should know?
A: One day, in the future, I hope to write historical fiction, San Francisco, circa 1920s, ‘30s, ‘40s. Perhaps in a few years. When the world feels right again.
--Interview with Deborah Kalb
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