David Guterson is the author of the new novel Evelyn in Transit. His other books include the novel Snow Falling on Cedars. He lives on Bainbridge Island, Washington.
Q: What inspired you to write Evelyn in Transit?
A: As a child I had an accidental proximity to Tibetan Buddhism. This came about because of a friendship I shared with a Tibetan boy of about my age who lived in my neighborhood.
His name was Ani Sakya. He and his family had fled Tibet for India in the late 1950s, and from there had made their way to Seattle, where Ani's father, uncle, and great-uncle were employed by the University of Washington to assist in research.
Ani's great-uncle was Dezhung Rinpoche III, a highly respected scholar and also a tulku, meaning the reincarnation of a prominent lama. The extended family included Dezhung Rinpoche's sister Ane Chime, a nun. Both Ane Chime and Dezhung Rinpoche wore robes.
I was in their house a lot. There were five Sakya sons, and we shared common interests. Sometimes when I showed up, Dezhung Rinpoche would be seated on the floor in the corner, looking out a window while saying mantras and fiddling with prayer beads.
My approach to this circumstance was to creep as quietly as I could along a far wall so as to get out of the room without disturbing him. It never worked. Dezhung Rinpoche always turned and smiled at me. It's hard to explain how penetrating his smile was.
This is going to sound wu-wu, but a few years ago I started seeing him, in my mind's eye, smiling at me from his corner by the window. Call that what you will, but Evelyn in Transit started with it.
I think it's appropriate that there's ambiguity as to whether there's something mystical in that, or whether it's just the result of a penetrating smile, and worth asking how much difference there is between those two things--which is a question Evelyn in Transit asks too, if more expansively.
Neither Dezhung Rinpoche or Ane Chime learned much English, but both made themselves clear in their conduct and manner. I was a child who knew little and was therefore incapable of romanticizing Tibetans in the way they've often been romanticized in the West.
I had no idea who these people in robes were. I only knew that in their conduct and manner was an openness, kindness, generosity, and love that impressed itself on me. Those two monastics set me on the path to writing Evelyn in Transit simply by being who they were.
Q: How did you create your characters Evelyn Bednarz and Tsering Lepka?
A: To create Evelyn I conducted interviews with, and pursued research about, parents of western tulkus, and as well spoke with Tibetan friends who sent their son into monastic life. The interviews were enormously inspirational, as was the research, but in the end Evelyn--and Tsering--are products of my imagination.
Q: How was the novel’s title chosen, and what does it signify for you?
A: A title is a perilous concern, because once you commit to one, you can't take back its implications, and besides, everything that follows will have to be of a piece with it, which means you're probably better off not having one at outset, or having only a working one.
If you invent its title before your book invents itself, you risk wearing it like an albatross, because a book wants to be what a book wants to be, and it can get angry with you for putting a lid down on it by dint of a precious a priori title, and even refuse to show itself for the simple reason that it doesn't identify with the name you gave it before it coalesced.
So, I had no title for this book until it was done. At that point I collaborated with my editor on finding one, and after going back and forth on possibilities, we landed on Evelyn in Transit. I like it for its sense of a journey and of transformation, both of which are central to the book.
Q: The writer Paul Harding said of the book, “What a beautiful, strange, soulful spell David Guterson casts in Evelyn in Transit. . . . The modest, intimate, sometimes heartbreaking, sometimes deadpan funny, always perfectly observed day-to-day details build up and resolve into an inspired portrait that is both cosmic and sacred.” What do you think of that description?
A: This is a generous and beautiful description of the novel and I'm grateful to Paul for it. In a remarkably succinct way, it captures the book perfectly. I particularly like the idea that Evelyn in Transit casts a strange, soulful spell. It's really important to a novel's success that it compels readers to keep turning pages, so I'm happy to know that, for Paul, it worked that way.
Q: Did you know how the novel would end before you started writing it, or did you make many changes along the way?
A: I never know where a novel is going. Every sentence is a surprise to me. I don't think I could do it any other way. Striking into the unknown with every word is critical in my case. I just keep asking myself questions about characters, and never worry about plot, in the belief that character is fate.
Q: What are you working on now?
A: A million different things, as usual! I spent a big part of 2025 engaged as a freelance journalist writing features and op-eds about immigration and agriculture. I just finished a new short story. I'm developing ideas for a children's book. I've completed, but am still tinkering with, a book about writing fiction.
I've put together 50 entries for a free weekly newsletter on fiction writing that lands in your email box if you sign up for it on my website…
Q: Anything else we should know?
A: As a writer I don't have a theory or a method. Each of my works of fiction came into the world differently. Each moment of each presented me with its singular dynamic. There was nothing to anchor to. There were no principles to apply. There was always only here and now.
A good metaphor for fiction writing is Indra's net. This image first appeared in Vedic scriptures--specifically in the Atharva Veda, sometimes called the "Veda of magical formulas."
Indra's net is an infinite web of multi-faceted jewels, each of which reflects the others. It's a hall of mirrors--an endless shimmer. When something happens at a single point there, it happens everywhere.
Which means that, as a fiction writer, you have no choice but to take everything into account before you touch the next word.
--Interview with Deborah Kalb
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