How did it feel to have your debut novel chosen for the Seattle Reads program?
I was stunned, to be honest! A first novel gets written in a void — it’s hard to imagine anyone reading your book, let alone a whole city discussing it. It’s an honor to be part of such a pioneering program, and to join such a distinguished lineage of writers.
Your background is in journalism. Was it hard to write a novel? Did you approach the writing process differently?
At first the switch to fiction seemed easy — none of those pesky facts to chase down, just the freedom to invent them. Over time I began to see the challenges, including the terror of the blank page. The biggest difference took me some time to discover: In journalism, you assemble your facts, then write. In fiction, I wrote best when I discovered the facts as I wrote — it was deadening to both the process and the prose to map out everything in advance.
What advantages do you think fiction has over nonfiction?
Nonfiction aims to convey facts, which suggests certainty. The best fiction is about uncertainty — whether the unreliability of reality, or the internal confusion that’s an inescapable aspect of being alive. Non-fiction tells us about our world; hopefully fiction can make us see it differently, or with more clarity. I think sometimes readers approach fiction with a more open heart and mind than they do non-fiction — they are more willing to be taken into the heads and lives of people with whom they disagree, or perhaps whom they even dislike, if those people aren’t real.
What inspired or compelled you to write a political novel like The Submission?
I’ve always been a fairly political animal, and after September 11, 2001, I was preoccupied, like many Americans, with how these attacks would change — were changing — the meaning and identity of America, even as I was also trying to figure out the meanings and nature of Islam. I hadn’t plan to write a book about those questions, but when I had this particular idea, it seemed an interesting way to explore them. Maybe one day I’ll write an intimate love story, but for now I am more interested in writing fiction that connects to the time we are living in.
What message do you hope readers will take away from The Submission?
I’m not going to answer this question only because I don’t want to be prescriptive, and don’t want to color how readers experience the book. Every reader I’ve encountered has read the novel slightly differently, responded to it differently, and I want to preserve that freedom.
You came up with two very different memorial designs in your book—The Garden and the Void. How did you come up with the two designs?
As I began thinking about Mo’s design, I realized I wanted the design — and not just his identity — to be a source of controversy. I’d become interested in Islamic gardens while reporting in South Asia, and so decided that by having his design match many of their elements, I could open up the question of what Mo intended, what his design meant — and the broader question of how we decide, and who gets to decide, what symbols mean. At the same time a garden — framed by the names of the dead — seemed so natural for a memorial, given our desire for regeneration.
I wanted the Void to be in obvious contrast to the Garden — not just to allow for enough of a debate about their respective merits, but also to get at some of the interesting questions and tensions about how we think about memorials, what they should do. And the Void is so obviously influenced by/derivative of Maya Lin — I wanted to nod to the way every memorial since hers (for Vietnam) exists in its shadow.
The story is told from several different viewpoints and each of your characters also represents a different segment of society. What research did you do in order to present each character accurately/fairly?
In a way accuracy and fairness are two different things. For accuracy I relied both on my memory from reporting in different communities, and a lot of reading. For fairness, I kept pushing myself to truly inhabit each character’s worldview, to try to think more deeply about how a particular moment or situation would feel for them. In a way research was less important than imagination, and empathy.
How did being a New Yorker affect your approach to the characters and subject of the novel? How have your fellow New Yorkers reacted to the book?
I am not a native New Yorker — I’m from Los Angeles originally. But I’ve lived there off and on since 1997, and I had reported on New York for the four years leading up to 9/11, which gave me a sense of — and deep interest in — how the city works, how its different communities co-exist and intersect, how decisions get made, power allotted, and so on. And how class and race shape urban life and its inhabitants’ perception of the city. I drew on all of this in writing The Submission. It’s a novel about a city as much as it is about a controversy. The New Yorkers I’ve heard from seem to appreciate this.
How do you think feelings and tensions about 9/11 have changed in America in the past 10 years?
I think we’ve gone through cycles of less and more tension, some of it an organic reaction to 9/11, some of it manufactured for political reasons. There are days I feel we’re still in the grip of that moment — and other times as if we’ve moved on completely, maybe too much so, especially given that we’re still embroiled both abroad and at home in our response to 9/11.
Why did you follow up with the characters 20 years in the future?
So much of the book takes place in this very compressed frame of time, with everyone thinking very short-term, almost as if the characters are trapped in a canyon they can’t see out of. I was interested in seeing what time would do not just to the characters, but to their perspective on the controversy. For so much of the book, everyone is so dug in to their positions, at least externally. Projecting forward in time allowed for regret, or ruefulness, to also seep in. And I wanted to see where everyone ended up.
What are you working on now?
A new novel that’s partly about the war in Afghanistan and partly about the power of books.A huge thank you to Amy Waldman for giving us more insight into her work. You can see Amy at the following Seattle Reads events:
Today at noon: Seattle Central Community College
Tonight at 7 p.m.: Northeast Branch
Tomorrow at 7 p.m. Central Library, downtown
Saturday at 11 a.m.: Ballard Branch
Saturday at 4 p.m.: Columbia Branch
*Interview questions by Misha Stone, Tina Mat and Jen Baker
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