I will be giving a reading with my colleague Reza Aslan (No god but God) tomorrow in Rancho Mirage. Here are the details:
February 14, 2008
Reza Aslan and Laila Lalami
1:30 – 3:30 PM
Reading & Discussion
Writing from the Desert Series
Rancho Mirage Public Library
Rancho Mirage, California
If you live in the desert, come on by and say hello.
Last week, while I was in the middle of rewriting a scene in which one of my characters falls to his death, my husband walked into my office, phone in hand, and said that he had just learned that one of his cousins fell from a ladder onto the marble floor of his bathroom and died. Life changes in the instant. How do you cope with something like that? How do you recover from it? Even though we went to a memorial for Alex’s cousin, even though we grieved for him, I still have not been able to accept his death as I did his life–which is to say, without question.
Today I am waiting to have a desk delivered to the house. I know what you’re thinking: “What? You don’t already have one?” I do indeed have a desk, but this what it looked like earlier today, and I need the extra space for my novel. I am expecting to get my manuscript back from Antonia Fusco, my editor at Algonquin, this week, and I want to have the space for it, without the piles of books waiting to be read, the files, the papers, the laptop, etc. I want to lay out my chapters, my time line, my character bios, my maps, and everything else. I felt a little silly ordering a whole desk just so I can have some extra space for my novel until I remembered an old, old interview with Joan Didion I’d read in the Paris Review. Here’s the excerpt I’m thinking of:
INTERVIEWER
Do you have any writing rituals?
DIDION
The most important is that I need an hour alone before dinner, with a drink, to go over what I’ve done that day. I can’t do it late in the afternoon because I’m too close to it. Also, the drink helps. It removes me from the pages. . . . Another thing I need to do, when I’m near the end of the book, is sleep in the same room with it. That’s one reason I go home to Sacramento to finish things. Somehow the book doesn’t leave you when you’re asleep right next to it. In Sacramento nobody cares if I appear or not. I can just get up and start typing.
One ought to do whatever works-sleep with the manuscript if one needs to, even. This is the last stretch for me, so I might as well give my novel all the space it needs.
I have a new short story in the fiction issue of the Italian weekly magazine Internazionale. It is titled “Il destino nelle onde,” and it is illustrated by Guido Scarabottolo which is very, very cool. (Thanks to Italian reader Patrizia for the info about the illustration!) Other writers in the fiction issue include Elif Shafak, Zadie Smith, Miranda July, and a few others. The English-language version of this story should be coming out in the spring, but more on that once details have been firmed up.
I spent the last couple of weeks reading fiction; finishing two pieces that are due to appear in January; preparing syllabi for the two classes I am teaching at UCR this winter; corresponding with friends via email and letters; opening holiday cards and wishing I had the time to write some myself; being mystified at the re-casting of corrupt former Pakistani PM Benazir Bhutto as a martyr of democracy; meeting my friend C. at a Japanese restaurant that we spent a half an hour trying to find, a place that had no apparent sign or light (my husband began to wonder, as finally we pulled up in front, if a secret handshake would be necessary in order for us to gain admittance); discovering, much to my surprise, a photo of me in an advertisement in the New Yorker; discussing Morocco with a professor of anthropology; catching up on movies (Atonement, Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead, etc.), cleaning my study and filing away the mountain of papers on my desk; and enjoying a homemade Cuban meal for New Year’s Eve. Happy New Year, everyone.
Guess what? I’m traveling again; I’m going to Portland to visit my sister. I’m also trying to finish a new piece before I start teaching in January, so things are a bit hectic at the moment. Posting is likely to be light over the next few days.