Q&A with author Beverly Gologorsky

Beverly Gologorsky, photo by Marion EttlingerBeverly Gologorsky is the author of the new novel Stop Here. She also wrote the novel The Things We Do To Make It Home. She was the editor of Viet-Report and Leviathan, and her work has appeared in publications including Newsweek and The Nation. She is based in the New York City area.

Q: War and its aftermath have played a big role in both of your novels. Why have you chosen this theme?

A: I don’t even know it as something I would focus on. I grew up in the South Bronx, where everyone was a soldier. To me, these are the people I knew. Growing up in a society where war is present—it’s always there….

[It’s more a question of] why isn’t war the background [in more books]. My characters breathe the air; I can’t ignore it.

I never go to a foreign land in my books.

Q: It’s more the impact of the war at home.

A: The impact at home, and the lives we lead—it informs the politics, it informs individual lives, it informs the people who go to war.

Q: Should more novels include war, or are you just surprised that more don’t?

A: I guess I’m surprised. You look at Nadine Gordimer’s books, you know that apartheid is there, but she just locates you in a place. You’d never say to her, why are you writing about apartheid; it’s just a background to her wonderful characters.

Q: Why did you decide to tell the story in Stop Here from the perspective of a variety of characters?

A: I have a problem with having a lot of voices in my head! There’s so much I feel I have to say, and want to say, and I can’t narrow it as much as other writers can. Because of how and where I grew up, I want to give voice to many women with whom I grew up.

Q: Are there any writers who have been role models or inspirations?

A: I’m a voracious reader; I read fiction from all over the world. Nadine Gordimer, Russell Banks. There are so many writers from whom I have learned so much—the classics, the Russian writers—that could be where I get so many characters!

Q: Did you feel especially sympathetic toward any of your characters, and were there any that you particularly disliked?

A: I’m very sympathetic to Rosalyn. She represents so many women in our society who struggle to do and be something, and then get struck down that way. Her personality and outlook are one to be emulated. She’s a very strong woman.

Murray, to me, is the antithesis. He’s sluggish. But he interested me—he exists for me in people I know.

Q: Did you intend to write from both male and female perspectives?

A: I didn’t plan it, but once a character was alive in me, I began to write it. Nick was alive in me, and I found it really easy to be him. It’s like when Flaubert was asked about Madame Bovary, he said, “C’est moi.”

Q: When you started Stop Here, did you know how it would end?

A: It evolved. I never know how it’s going to end. I think I’d lose interest if I knew. For me, the process of writing is one of depth and discovery.

Q: Did the characters surprise you as you went along?

A: Yes. Not so much in Stop Here, but in The Things We Do To Make It Home. The characters would elude me. I’d stop and go to another document, and write another biography of the character that never appears in the book [to move ahead].

Q: The Things We Do To Make It Home focused on the impact of the Vietnam War on a group of veterans and their families. What do you see as the continuing effect of that war on this country?

A: The Vietnam War alerted the country and the world to another kind of fighting altogether: liberation struggle. The idea of going into Vietnam—there was a lack of understanding [in that situation] as well as in Iraq. In Vietnam, the veterans when they came back—the soldiers were taught to kill, to hate the enemy, and that’s the only way human beings can kill. These kids believed they would meet up with monsters. They lost their belief system, and when they came back, they felt like murderers.

Q: What are you working on now?

A: The title is "Every Body Has a Story." That is sort of where it’s going—it changes as I work on it.

Q: Anything else we should know?

A: I have an essay in The Huffington Post, “In the Shadow of War,” that links to a review of the book. 

--Interview with Deborah Kalb. This Q&A also appears on deborahkalbbooks.blogspot.com.

Q&A with author Harriet Scott Chessman

Harriet Scott Chessman is the author of the new novel The Beauty of Ordinary Things. Her other books include Someone Not Really Her Mother, Lydia Cassatt Reading the Morning Paper, and Ohio Angels. She lives in the San Francisco Bay area.

Q: Why did you decide to make one of your main characters a Vietnam veteran?

A: Benny Finn came to me from the start as someone who had suffered -- someone who had great sensitivity, and who couldn't shut out his suffering, or that of people around him. I also knew, from the first, that he was the oldest child in a large Irish Catholic family, in a suburb of Boston, in the early 1970s.  

Having been a college student myself in 1968-72, I will never forget the centrality of the Vietnam War in all our lives then. The draft was an ever-present reality, quite frightening, as were the images and news stories coming out of Vietnam each day.  

Pretty soon in my writing about Benny, I realized that this character's sense of suffering and despair could arise in part out of his experience as a soldier in that incredibly difficult War.    

Q: How did you choose the title, The Beauty of Ordinary Things?

A: This may sound ridiculous, but I first discovered this phrase in a Chinese restaurant's fortune cookie: "You appreciate the beauty of ordinary things." (!!) I loved that! and held onto that little white piece of paper, and the idea of ordinary things as shining with an inherent beauty, for a long time.  

The first title I chose, seven years ago, was actually Benny Finn Writes to God, yet once I started adding in additional voices (at first, my character Isabel's, and then Sister Clare's), I wasn't sure this title fit 100%.  

The letter Benny writes to Sister Clare, about how ordinary things help him stay in the world, inspired me to choose The Beauty of Ordinary Things as my new title.  

I felt confirmed in this choice when I came upon the concept of "Ordinary Time," in the Catholic liturgical calendar. Benny and Sister Clare tell their stories over the course of the summer of 1974, primarily in Ordinary Time (from the Monday after Pentecost to the Saturday before the First Sunday of Advent).  

I also discovered that Thomas Merton has written powerfully about the importance of remaining open to the sacred within each moment and object and person. In No Man Is An Island, he writes about "the value and the beauty in ordinary things." I have yet to study Merton's work, and hope to do this soon!    

In a larger sense, I wanted to write a book that honored the ordinary and the modest. Like Benny, I wanted to do what I could to tell the truth, without bells or whistles.

I felt that it was only in that effort that I would be able to come anywhere near the hem of the garment of the sacred. The sacred is IN the ordinary -- this is something I deeply believe. Yet I don't think it can be written about easily or directly -- at least, I couldn't figure out how to do this.  

By focusing on my characters and their choices, the daily nature of their lives, I hoped to gesture toward something sacred, something deeper, threading through. 

Q: What do you see as the role of Sister Clare's convent, and what impact does it have on the various characters?

A: I think this story depends on Our Lady of the Meadow, the Benedictine Abbey I imagine here. I didn't realize this in earlier versions of the novel; it was something I gradually came to understand.  

For Benny Finn, as for Isabel Howell (the young woman with whom Benny falls in love -- his younger brother Liam's girlfriend), the Abbey is a place of stability and growth. As Benedictines, the members of this Community vow stability (literally, to remain in place), conversatio morum (to change one's ways, and also to be constantly open to change), and obedience.  

In the chaotic, brutal experience of war, and even in the difficulty and chaos of ordinary life, Benny especially is missing all of these elements. He is missing the sense of this world -- our world -- as filled with significance, love, and meaning. His family is loving, of course, yet I felt it to be important that he find a new place where he could at last, in a sense, lie down and weep, just totally let it all go, before he could start to rise up again and get to work at the business of living, within a new framework.  

Sister Clare offers him a model of a life focused on something greater than oneself -- something that requires devotion, labor, and grace. Accepting a form (the hours of the office, the Benedictine Rule) helps her rise out of the confines of her own self, as she strives to live with greater freedom.  

It's a paradox, I know, but I do believe this can happen -- to accept a kind of architecture to one's life, a sense of parameters, and to dedicate yourself to this form of life, can actually free you and open you to growth. I feel that, in my own life, writing has been like an Abbey.         

Q: What kind of research did you do to write this novel?

A: Our Lady of the Meadow, in my novel, is inspired by a wonderful Community I have known for thirty-five years: The Abbey of Regina Laudis, in Bethelehem, Connecticut. A beloved friend, Mother Lucia Kuppens, O.S.B., entered this Abbey in 1979, after gaining her PhD in English with me at Yale University, and I have always honored and been amazed by her choice.  

In a sense, I think I wrote this novel toward her, trying to understand at least some fraction of her life. She is one of the kindest, wisest, and most compassionate people I have ever known, and also one of the most modest, private, and contemplative. Through her I came to know many of the vibrant nuns in this Abbey.  

Like my character Isabel, I have often picked apples or gooseberries, beans or potatoes; I've had the chance to walk through the pastures to greet the cows; I've listened to the Gregorian chant and heard the prayers and homilies; I've celebrated magnificent occasions and anniversaries; I've tasted delicious Abbey meals.  

Still, I have been woefully aware of my ignorance.  I grew up Baptist, not Catholic, and I did have to do quite a bit of research into both Catholicism and Benedictine life.

I also read books and essays about the Vietnam War.  One of the books that has meant the most to me is Tim O'Brien's The Things They Carried.      

Q: What are you working on now?

A: I am actually writing the libretto for an opera being composed by my friend Jonathan Berger, a magnificent composer who teaches at Stanford University.

This opera, in Jonathan's vision, is about Hugh Thompson, the helicopter pilot who intervened in the massacre at My Lai on the morning of March 16, 1968. It has been fascinating and thrilling to have the chance to work with Jonathan in this quite different form.

Hugh Thompson was an extraordinary person -- heroic in the way he courageously and passionately followed his heart and conscience that day, not the orders of his superiors -- and it's a great joy to be able to contribute to a work in his honor.  

I also have short stories in the works, and I may go back to wrestling with a novel, located in 19th century New Orleans.

Q: Anything else we should know?

A: I feel incredibly lucky to have the chance to write, and even luckier to have found a publisher -- Mark Cunningham of Atelier26 Books -- willing and eager to accept a novel this compact and literary, within such a daunting publishing climate.

Mark is a publisher with great vision and humanity. I would love to see the rest of the book world follow his lead, as he focuses on genuinely literary work, in beautiful editions (real paper and gorgeous design!). He is devoted to independent bookstores, and has created an inspiring website honoring literature and these special indies, so important to our cultural life.  

I hope your readers will enjoy looking into this beautiful website of Atelier26 Books. For more information about my writing, readers are also welcome to look into my own website. I am also on Facebook, and welcome fellow readers and writers.

--Interview with Deborah Kalb. This interview also appears on deborahkalbbooks.blogspot.com.

Q&A with author Laura Jean McKay

Laura Jean McKay, a writer and performer, is the author of the new short story collection Holiday in Cambodia. Her writing has appeared in a variety of publications, including The Best Australian Stories and The Big Issue. She is based in Melbourne, Australia.

Q: Why did you end up setting your stories in Cambodia?

A: I was working as an aid worker and doing a lot of writing on the side and I was sent to Phnom Penh by my organisation. I had never been anywhere like Cambodia, and haven't since. I loved and feared it – which is a pretty good place to write from. I got offered a contract to work in Ratanakiri, in the remote north, which was even more astonishing than Phnom Penh.

I didn't really mean to write about Cambodia but because I'm a writer I just started to. Originally I was going to work on a novel but I was around all these amazing Khmer writers, who worked on short fiction, poems and essays and I was influenced by them. 

Q: Why did you choose "Holiday in Cambodia" as your title?

A: “Holiday in Cambodia” is the name of a song by The Dead Kennedys, written in 1980. I've always loved the song and the lyric “A holiday in Cambodia / Where the slums got so much soul” seemed to sum up my collection – about people, often tourists, searching for something in a country that has been decimated by war. I wanted the collection to question how you can possibly have a holiday in Cambodia …

Q: Your stories are set in various time periods over the past 60 years. Why is that, and did you have a time period that especially interested you?

A: The novel that I started out writing (which became the story “Breakfast”) was set in ‘60s Cambodia, in the middle of the country's modern cultural revolution. There was an amazing music, art and literary scene, but also a lot of political turmoil internally and through the war in Vietnam.

I am fascinated by that era, but also by the end of French colonialism, the Khmer Rouge period, and the ‘80s and ‘90s. Cambodia has arguably one of the most tumultuous revolutionary histories of recent times – a history that goes beyond Angkor and the Khmer Rouge – and I wanted to reflect some of that, so that the stories set in modern day Cambodia would have a background and a meaning beyond the usual tourist tale.

Q: Are there particular themes you hope your readers get from your stories?

A: Like most stories, the themes here are sex and death. That sounds a little strange to say it like that but most stories are about one, the other, or both. Love, birth, death and all that comes in between.

Arriving in Cambodia for the first time in 2007, I felt that sex and death were very present – from the astonishing amount of brothels, to the inappropriate expat parties, to the horrific road toll, to the short life expectancy … I felt that this was a country dealing with the very raw elements of survival and recovery and I was shocked and fascinated by that, especially coming from Australia where everything happens inside! 

Q: What are you working on now?

A: I have started writing a novel and, because I love the short story form, I am writing stories on the side. 

Q: Anything else we should know?

A: There are some great stories by Cambodian writers. You can find them in Nou Hach Literary Journal, in Just a human being and other stories and in Under the Shadow of Angkor. You can also read more of my writing or find out more about my book at laurajeanmckay.com.

--Interview with Deborah Kalb. This Q&A also appears on deborahkalbbooks.blogspot.com.

Q&A with Professor Thomas Bass

Thomas Bass is Professor of English and Journalism at the University at Albany, State University of New York. His books include The Spy Who Loved Us: The Vietnam War and Pham Xuan An's Dangerous Game, Vietnamerica: The War Comes Home, and The Eudaemonic Pie. He lives in New York.

Q: Why did you decide to write a book about the Vietnamese journalist/spy Pham Xuan An?

A: He was incredibly charming and intelligent. On our first meeting, I knew right away that I wanted to write about him. I spent 14 years interviewing him.

What sealed the deal was a contract with The New Yorker to write an article, and that led to something larger.

I spent hour after hour in his living room. He was an astounding raconteur. It took a long time to discover that he was a spy with not only one cover, but also a second cover. He ranks as one of the greatest spies in history.

This is one of the subjects you find, you spend years pursuing, and you are still mystified at the end.

Q: How did you select the title, The Spy Who Loved Us?

A: The idea came from Pham Xuan An. It was part of his cover, and part of his truth. He valued the First Amendment and the journalistic principles and practices of the United States. He loved the United States, as well as being its archenemy.

Q: You write, “When my inquiries became too pointed, he turned from assisting my book project to trying to block it.” Why did he do that?

A: This had to do with his second cover as a spy. He was always an intelligence agent reporting back to headquarters. When my questions got too close to the truth, it made him nervous.

Neither I nor any other American knew how many military medals he had won—each for a successful military mission or invaluable piece of intelligence; he hid that fact.

Q: What did you find out about Pham Xuan An that surprised you most?

A: The number of military engagements where his advance information and intelligence were crucial to North Vietnamese victories. The disastrous invasion of Laos by the South Vietnamese army in 1971--Pham Xuan An was all over that; he wiped them out. He was a key figure in that North Vietnamese victory.

Q: You’ve also written Vietnamerica, about Vietnamese Amerasians. How did you end up writing that book?

A: All of these books begin with a germ of an idea. I noticed there were 20 million, 30 million, 40 million refugees around the world. I began to write a book about refugees.

I was living outside of Utica, New York, and I drove downtown to find the nearest refugee center. I saw a tall redheaded kid walking down the street. He looked at me, I looked at him; I asked him for directions to the refugee center, and then I realized that he didn’t speak a word of English. He was Amerasian. Utica was the major resettlement site in the U.S. for Amerasians.

This particular refugee story had in microcosm everything I was looking for—children left behind on the battlefield, children at the bottom of the social hierarchy, children bought and sold into fake families, and then when the families arrived in the United States, the kids would be thrown out on the street while the refugee benefits and services went to the “families.”

Q: What has happened to the Amerasian community in the United States since that book was published?

A: I testify in a lot of court cases. We have draconian statutes stating that any refugee who runs afoul of the law must be returned to his or her home country, but Vietnam doesn’t accept Amerasians, so they spend the rest of their lives in prison, unless pro bono lawyers and other do-gooders intercede.

It has not gone well for Vietnamese Amerasians. They expected to be reunited with their fathers, and they weren’t. They expected to go to school. But they’re still at the bottom of the social ladder. I stay in touch with them. Every book makes a claim on the author. I get a couple of requests a month for help from a father or a child.

Q: Given that today is Veterans Day, what is your sense of how veterans of the Vietnam War are thought of today?

A: They were treated badly when they returned from the war. Thousands of them are homeless. They have mental health issues, PTSD, drug addictions, you name it. The United States has turned into a military fortress, bunkered into a terrifying and terrified solitude. We attempt to include Vietnam vets in our flag-draped propaganda, but these vets are still held at arm’s length. They embarrass us. They’re losers, and we don’t like losers.

Q: What are you working on now?

A: I just finished a long piece on Vietnam. I can’t seem to stay away from the subject. I have a grant to work in Tunisia. My first book, The Eudaemonic Pie, about breaking the bank in Las Vegas with toe-operated computers—is being turned into a movie and re-released as an e-book.

Q: Anything else we should know?

A: About the op-ed on Vietnam that I wrote recently in The Washington Post, what fascinates me is how ignorant we were about Vietnam and its people, and how ignorant we remain today about Vietnam and its people. But until the Vietnamese open their archives—which will not be any time soon—we are not going to get the answers.

--Interview with Deborah Kalb. This Q&A also appears on deborahkalbbooks.blogspot.com.

Q&A with author Karen Coates and photographer Jerry Redfern

Writer Karen Coates and her husband, photographer Jerry Redfern, have collaborated on the forthcoming book Eternal Harvest: The Legacy of American Bombs in Laos. Their other work together includes the book This Way More Better: Stories and Photos from Asia's Back Roads. They are based in New Mexico and travel frequently to Asia. Many of their projects have focused on the issues of food and the environment.

Q: How did the two of you end up working on Eternal Harvest?

A: This grew out of a story on the archaeological work around the Plain of Jars that we did in 2005 for Archaeology Magazine. We had traveled to Laos before and knew the general history of the bombings, but it wasn’t until that reporting trip that we saw first-hand just how devastating the effects remain today.

We had heard about several unexploded ordnance (UXO) accidents that happened during the few weeks we were in Xieng Khouang province in 2005. We went to visit a boy in the local hospital who was severely injured by an explosion while working in his family field. We interviewed his mother who said that the family knew of the dangers in the ground, but they had to farm to eat, so what could they do? After this and a couple of other interviews, we realized the story of UXO in Laos needed more attention than one article could give. The project began there.

Photo by Jerry RedfernQ: Why did you title the book "Eternal Harvest"?

A: It became clear early on in our reporting that the people most affected by the UXO problem are farmers, and that, year after year, they find bombs while tending their fields. There is also a scrap metal trade in which people go out digging for metal, as though harvesting a crop. The U.S. bombing campaign sowed large parts of the country with high-quality steel and aluminum that people use whenever they find it.

Q: You write that you began work on the project in 2005. Did you think when you started that it would be an eight-year effort?

Photo by Jerry RedfernA: Um, no. We both thought it would be a big project, but the scope of the bombing was immense, and the reporting grew to match.

Q: What did you learn in the course of your research that most surprised you?

Jerry – The astounding breadth of the bombing, in terms of how much was dropped and the vast stretches of the country left contaminated to this day. When you travel along the eastern border of the country realizing that everything you see for days was targeted and remains potentially dangerous – well, I’m still at a loss to describe it in words.

Photo by Jerry RedfernKaren – For me, it’s a matter of context and history: to learn about the enormous scale of the bombings, and to see how it is possible to travel through Laos today – as many people do – without ever realizing that this bombing happened, much less that bombs still kill and injure people all across the country. The after–effects of the bombing war in Laos are mind–boggling. It has made me think hard about Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria and the U.S.’s role in those conflicts – and how easy it is to forget that wars continue long after the bombing stops.

Q: Do you think the impact on Laos from the Vietnam War has been given enough attention?

Photo by Jerry RedfernA: No. Not at all. The American bombing campaign was largely carried out in secret (an amazing story in itself) as a sideshow to the better-known conflict in Vietnam. In many ways, it has remained unknown and unacknowledged, if not exactly secret.

Even with this book, we find people want to hear about the American side and how American veterans feel. Not many people ask us how Lao people feel, which is the real point of the project.

Q: What are you working on now?

A: We are finishing stories from a reporting trip this summer to the Kelabit Highlands of Malaysian Borneo, where large-scale commercial logging is changing the way people have lived and eaten for centuries. We are also laying the groundwork for our annual Asian multi-story reporting trip early next year.

Q: Anything else we should know?

A: Laos barely shows up in international reporting, only occasionally making brief appearances. It seems about once a year a UXO accident kills or injures several children at once, and that makes a news story. But for the people of Laos, UXO is a daily threat that doesn’t diminish when attention turns away.

--Interview with Deborah Kalb. This Q&A also appears on deborahkalbbooks.blogspot.com.