Q&A with Boris Fishman

 

 

 

Boris Fishman is the author of the new novel The Unwanted. His other books include the novel A Replacement Life. He teaches at the University of Austin.

 

Q: What inspired you to write The Unwanted, and how did you create your characters Susanna, George, and Dina?

 

A: The immediate inspiration is unrelated to what it became. I have a dear friend, Dina Nayeri, a novelist. We went through the same refugee camps in Italy, though we didn’t know each other there.

Dina told me she was going back to Italy to look at the hotel where she was put up. I remembered the hotels, with people from all over the world thrown together—who falls in love with whom. It was such an unusual life circumstance. Such a melting pot—people who were never meant to live next to each other.

 

The phrase “the waiting palace” floated into my mind. These were modest Italian hotels that the government took over and filled with refugees. The term “palace” is ironic. We were waiting for the authorities to decide our fates. We were from humble lives—these were palaces to us.

 

The more I looked at it, it wanted to become something else—the story of a family that has to flee because, in trying to stay safe, they crossed the wrong people. In A Replacement Life, I was also interested in stories of people who were forced to act unethically because of circumstances in their lives. The shifting lines of morality are interesting to me. 

 

So, the story wanted to start earlier, before they got to the “waiting palace.” And I was interested in exploring the story as a child’s perceptions. Dina, my friend, shares my consciousness in many ways. It was a way of exploring my own 8-year-old consciousness, but I have a terrible memory. I ventriloquized the experience through Dina. She has been very gracious.

 

Q: Is your characters’ country based on an actual place, or was it imaginary?

 

A: It’s a stand-in for whatever country you want. The names are generic. I did mean for this to be anywhere. The point is that the country doesn’t matter. The people with power who choose to abuse the people without, even - and now especially - in this country, usually do it in the same exact way. Also, I didn’t want the story to be overdefined by a particular conflict. 

 

Q: Given that immigration and refugee policy is a focus right now, what do you hope readers take away from the novel?

 

A: I would love it if anybody who conveniently comforts themselves thinking they are greater than these people – I mean immigrants, legal or illegal – spent these 300 pages with them. I would love for this imaginary reader to remember that every ancestor of every one of us in America was an illegal immigrant. Every one of them fled for reasons very much like the ones these contemporary migrants have.

 

That’s the value of writing a novel—you make your testimonial. I’m fortunate to have a publisher who believes in me. Some of my relatives think 99 percent of migrants are criminals, whereas 1 percent are. A novel can represent that truth whereas nonfiction, by sometimes merely providing information, struggles to create empathy. It’s easier to create that with fiction. 

 

Q: How was the book’s title chosen, and what does it signify for you?

 

A: Credit goes to my agent, Henry Dunow. It has such an elemental quality. I like slightly more elliptical titles, but it’s hard to deny that it’s elemental, and it’s true, these people are unwanted. It all comes back to dignity and respect.

 

Q: What are you working on now?

 

A: I’m teaching, in Austin, Texas. I teach at the University of Austin, which was founded as a free speech university in reaction to the liberal orthodoxy in most college campuses. It felt like a fresh approach. It’s healthy to be surrounded by people with different views than you. 

 

Q: Anything else we should know about the novel?

 

A: I wrote it to move fast, to be full of plot, which was less true of books two and three. A Replacement Life, my first novel, also had a chugging plot. Then, as now, I was trying to write the smartest book for the broadest audience. 

 

It was very meaningful for me to write a book with no Russians or Jews in it—not because I don’t care for those communities, but because I have said everything I want to say on that and want to move beyond it. The Unwanted is not from another universe thematically, just a broader canvas.

 

--Interview with Deborah Kalb. Here's a previous Q&A with Boris Fishman.