How did you answer her? It does seem that your books always have an element of tragedy to them. I was especially sad that Sally and Joseph didn’t get to spend the post-war years together in Jackal’s Mistress.
After 25 books (26 if you count The Amateur), has your motivation for continuing to put books out changed at all over the years? Does it ever seem like “just a job,” or do you still get a thrill from the process? Has your intended audience shifted over time?
It varies. I write faster than it makes sense to publish a book, sometimes. (After all, who REALLY wants to read one of my books every 12 months?) But, usually, it’s about 12 to 15 from the time I turn in a final draft and when the book is published.
Well, like me, my audience has gotten older. (Okay, all you readers between the ages of 18 and 34, please take a look at Midwives or Hour of the Witch!)
Ah, grief. I answered Miwa by talking about how trauma is in my DNA as a grandson of two survivors of the Armenian Genocide, but also how grief is a part of the soul of the world. People much smarter than me have observed that all of living is but saying goodbye, and we live in a state of anticipatory grief.
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Such as the time on a book tour that a hotel returned to me NOT my laundry, but a woman’s – and their laundry was closed now and I was checking out at 5 in the morning? Or the time I vomited on my third flight of the day, a turbo prop into Steamboat Springs, with book groups on the plane coming to meet me and Andre Dubus III and Sena Jeter Naslund? I just finished my 35th book tour: I have the material for a Netflix comedy special.
Actually, I think I would like to read one of your books every 12 months, LOL. Not to suck up, but you’re one of my favorite authors. One of the things I appreciate about your books is how varied they are. Granted, I haven’t read everything you’ve written, but each is set in a different era or country (or both) so they’re each entertaining in their own way.
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… and that would be why travel isn’t my thing. I’m quite happy doing it virtually through books such as yours.
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Awwwwww, thank you. I’m honored. I find I am most entertained when I am working when I am writing something very different from what I wrote last. It feels a LOT less like work if the material is new to me and I am surprised by what I’m learning as I write.
I’ve read that grief and grieving is the last expression of love for those who have passed. Memories and reminiscing continues; also an undercurrent of grief but with less intensity and often laughter.
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I just can’t image what it’s like to have one’s job be writing books. It seems like it would take a lot of discipline to consistently spend hours creating a novel. Do you write every day?
Isn’t this the nature of personal growth? We humans must take time to dwell for a bit on our successes. You’ve experienced the “wow” moment when something you wrote was, well, just truly swell and gave you that confident smile. Not a poser then!!
I’ve read most of your books and have enjoyed them all! The first one I read was “Trans-Sister Radio” and the copy I read did not give me any indication in the accompanying information that “Chris” was not a woman. When I subsequently learned you are male, I was amazed about your ability in this book—and the others I subsequently read—to so expertly represent women’s experiences! Any comment on this?
Thank you. You are way too patient with me.
I writer every day that I am not on tour or traveling. Even Easter and Christmas mornings.
Well, I’m honored. Thank you. And a little humbled. One review of my novel, Midwives, ended, “An added benefit of this novel is the candor and honesty with which Bohjalian writes about her experiences in labor, and what must have been like for her to give birth.”
I don’t necessarily plan to write a novel from a woman’s point of view. When I do – and, in all likelihood, I have as many male points of view in my work as I do female – it’s because it seems to me that a woman would be more likely than a man to go on this particular emotional journey. Or that’s the voice I hear in my head when I imagine the premise.
And, of course, any point of view that is rendered in the third person (or, in one of my books, the second) is experienced differently from the first. Compare my narrator in Midwives, Connie Danforth, for instance, with the omniscient narrator in Skeletons at the Feast (who moves among easily a dozen different characters).
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… and I especially thank you for writing so many STRONG women. Libby, Sally and Jubilee in The Jackal’s Mistress were all so competent, even when they were scared, and when I think back on your other heroines it seems they’re at least as courageous as the men, if not more so.
Just reading Mr. Bohjalian’s responses to these questions makes me want to read his books! He has a great sense of humor and chose some fascinating points of view for his characters.
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I love the reviewer’s quote! Thanks for your reply and I can see that your application of first, second, third person and omniscient narrators is another skill for me to admire!
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Thank you, Kim. I hope so.