Lots of Interesting Sex: The Pagan Spirits Interview with Nomi Eve

In a June 25, 2011 post, I wrote:

"The History of Love is not my favorite Jewish fiction ever. That might be Nomi Eve's The Family Orchard, Markus Zusak's The Book Thief or possibly Mona in the Promised Land by Gish Jen."

The post then deviated from a discussion of fiction, as one might guess from its title, "5 Jewish Dudes I'd Most Like to See Lewd." ("Lewd" was the buzzword of last year's Congressman Anthony Weiner scandal.) At the moment, it's my #7 all-time most viewed post.  

Imagine my surprise when Nomi Eve sent me an e-mail saying she'd read the post and thanking me for mentioning her book. It was a bit of an awkward way to start a literary dialogue, but Nomi Eve agreed to answer a few questions for me and my readers. 

Erin O'Riordan: Some of the reviewers of The Family Orchard criticized the book for its emphasis on the erotic. How did you respond to this criticism?

Nomi Eve: My characters break many taboos.  They steal, lie, and have lots of interesting sex.  Personally I don't like to read about boring people doing ordinary things.  And so I don't write about people doing ordinary things.  I responded to those reviewers by not responding at all.  If someone was offended, I assume they stopped reading after the third or fourth page.  And if they kept reading, well, then they couldn't have been all that offended in the first place. 

Erin O'Riordan: To create your novel, you used your father's research into your family history, but fictionalized that history. Other authors have been caught at passing fictionalized memoirs off as their true stories. In your mind, is there a clear line between a carefully-shaped historical account and fiction? 

Nomi Eve:  Absolutely.  I very consciously blended fact and fiction in The Family Orchard.  I was blatant and upfront about my use of my father's narrative. But my whole point was to show that the line between fact and fiction is naturally blurry.  We tend to think that memoir is devoid of fiction and fiction is devoid of truth.  I have always found otherwise.  Each contains elements of the other.  Now, historians are different.  Historians need to build their narratives out of sturdy fact-based materials, whereas fiction is made of soul, memory and imagination. That doesn't mean that good fiction can't rely upon research and historical veracity.  Only that readers need to be aware that the fiction writer can take them anywhere, and that adhering to a character's truth isn't the same thing as being factually accurate.  

Erin O'Riordan: Did you create the family tree and the glossary of orchard terms before or after completing the novel? I wonder if you used it as a reference as you were writing, or added it afterward for the benefit of readers.

Nomi Eve:  I created both of these things afterwards.  The whole time I was writing I had all the characters floating around in my head, and the same goes for the glossary of orchard terms.  They were two of the last things I did before the book was sold. 

Erin O'Riordan: In an interview for The Jewish Federations of North America, Jodi Werner compared your writing style in The Family Orchard to Latina fiction. Was the work of the Spanish-language magical realists something you had in mind as you were writing the novel?

Nomi Eve:  I have always loved Jorge Luis Borges, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Isabelle Allende, but I also love Isaac Bashevis Singer, Cynthia Ozick and Meir Shalev.  Jewish writers have always been magical realists. The Talmud, and the mystical Jewish texts are nothing if not magically real.  There is tremendous cultural and spiritual overlap between the great Spanish language writers and the great Jewish writers.  

Author: שחר דרורי Creative Commons license

Erin O'Riordan: Why do you think it is that Israelis seem so infatuated with trees? Is it just a consequence of living in a desert area, or is there something more to it?

Nomi Eve:  My Israeli grandfather was of the generation who planted the orchards in the early twentieth century, and then made a livelihood by harvesting the fruit.  That way of life is mostly gone now.  But the history of Israel can certainly be told as a story of the grafting of disparate people, the planting of hearty trees, and the harvesting of the fruit of ancient days on modern soil.  Orchards provide endless metaphors, and for a writer, and the granddaughter of an orchard man, well, they proved irresistible. 

Erin O'Riordan: If I were to visit Brookline, Massachusetts, what would be the one cultural attraction - whether part of the Jewish community or otherwise - I would not want to miss?

Nomi Eve:  I no longer live there.  Now I live with my family in Elkins Park, Pennsylvania.  And the one thing I would recommend not to miss is a construction site.  Our community has come together to build a food co-op on the site of an old abandoned empty grocery store -- which also happens to be located in the heart of our tiny town center.  It is just glorious to see what can happen when people come together to build something out of nothing.  Every day we watch more beams go up.  Our entire community is thrilled by the progress and promise of this one communal undertaking. 

A Word With Brenda Youngerman, Author of 'Skewered Halo'

Writing… reading…. Talking… breathing. These are all adverbs when you take them singularly; but to me they are vital parts of my life. I cannot imagine any facet of me without all of these adverbs interacting. Obviously we all breathe and have done so from the moment of birth.

Talking? Well…I have no idea when that started, but reading I distinctly remember doing from a VERY early age. Trips to the library to check out children’s books (which I later checked out with my own children) and then as my reading level progressed, my walks down the aisle of the library to grab a book that looked interesting.

And writing? Well I’ve definitely been writing since I was in high school with a precise memory of a short story I wrote about love and loss. It started with “Her memory hung in the air like the scent of a rose.” I printed out that short story and put in on my bulletin board. I had no idea then (when I was sixteen) that I would end up writing novels, nor that I would enjoy writing so much.

A Youngerman novel will take you on a journey into a life that you may or may not ever imagine. There are always twists and turns that the reader does not expect, and although life does not necessarily have happy endings, my books try to leave the reader with a bit of hope that things will be better for our star character.

I hope you give it a try…. Check out my latest book: Skewered Halo. You can buy it directly from me and I will autograph it for you! Come on by my blog or my website.

Brenda Youngerman, Author
Fiction with a Purpose
One person can make a difference
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Check out all my books with Strategic Publishing:
http://sbpra.com/BrendaYoungerman/

The Care and Feeding of a Mystery Novel by Guest Blogger Kate George

Award winning writer, Kate George, is the author of Moonlighting in Vermont and California Schemin’ (due out March 1, 2011). She lives in Vermont with Dogs, kids, and currently, snow. You can reach her at www.kategeorge.com. Her books are available at www.mainlymurderpress.com, amazon.com or can be ordered from any bookstore.

Pagan Spirits is proud to have Kate George here with a special guest post, "The Care and Feeding of a Mystery Novel."

This probably won’t come as a surprise to my regular readers, but I’m not a plotter. I made a stab at plotting for Moonlighting in Vermont, because I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to figure out how to get from point A to point B without some kind of outline. But I couldn’t stick with it. Half the fun of writing is seeing what will happen next. That’s also the hell of writing, but we’ll ignore that for the time being.

I love the discovery process. I’ll be typing along and something will appear on the page and I’ll think, Oh, that’s what happens! Then there are the times I’m driving down the road thinking about my characters, and what’s happened so far, and a crucial scene will occur to me. Sometimes whole blocks of dialog will come to me. Or I’ll get a glimpse into a character’s motivation. It’s kind of like magic.

That’s unless I write myself into a corner. It happens. In fact it happened recently. I went somewhere and when I got there I realized it wasn’t where I wanted to be. Another story maybe, but not the one I was currently working on. Maybe that can happen to writers who meticulously plot as well, but I’m guessing it’s not often. Come to think of it, I don’t write myself into a corner that often, but I hate it when I do. Now I’m going to have to toss at least a chapter.

Remember I said the surprise of what happens next wasn’t just the fun of writing but also the hell? I hate tossing work, I really do. But not as much as I hate trying to make a scene work that clearly doesn’t.

So how do you go about writing a mystery if you aren’t plotting the whole thing out? Well often I know a few key points. Maybe I’ll start with who died and who my protagonist is. If it’s romantic suspense then the hero will probably figure into my initial idea. But then sometimes the guy I thought was the hero turns out not to be. It’s someone else altogether. So I start with what I think I know.

I tend not to set things up ahead of time but jump right into where the action is. The unearthing of the body or in the case of California Schemin’ the un-skying of the body. Yes I said un-sky-ing. The body falls out of the sky. Sort of. Anyway, you know what I mean. I start where the action is and let it carry me along, and before I know it I’ve written an entire mystery. How fun is that?

Andie Lee Eames: The Pagan Spirits Interview

Q. Andie, when did you write your first book? How did you get it published? How long did it take?

A. I wrote my first book 10 years ago but didn't publish it due to content. I was told I didn't have the name to publish this type of book. It was called Daddy's Little Girl. It dealt with the first black American President embroiled in an incestuous relationship with his daughter. She killed him by poisoning him with nicotine; the man smoked three packs a day. She developed Multiple Personality Disorder, which led her to kill.

Abstract Murder is my first book to be published. I published it myself through Authorhouse, which isn't a vanity press, September 2008. With editing it took about a year to complete that aspect of publishing.

Q. Which do you find leads you to your best writing: your triumphs or your tragedies? Do you write from joy or pain?

A. Hmm, that's an excellent and difficult question but I'll take a stab at it. My writings depend on what's going on in my life which is usually hectic and chaotic. I write from pain then turn it around and show the joy that comes from certain types of pain. Life is a journey and every once in a while we're going to hit pot holes that make child birth feel like a bad case of cramps. Not to sound cliché, but sometimes there is no growth or gain without pain…though I wish there were.

Q. Who has been the biggest influence on your writing?

A. My biggest influence that's a tough one but thinking back it had to be J.D. Salinger’s Catcher in the Rye. For me it was the first book that let you know the world isn't exactly what it appears and neither are the people. But Edgar Allan Poe also influenced me via his personal struggles and losses that so eloquently appear on the pages he wrote.

Q. Do you read for pleasure? If so, what kind of books do you like to read?

A. I'm severely dyslexic so, I don't read a lot. I've been asked "How can you write if your dyslexia is so severe?" The only thing that I can tell you is it's less difficult to write than it is to read! My trouble is inverting words that create real words, so spell check doesn't pick up on them. I have to be extra diligent. If there is a book that catches my attention then I'll listen to them on audio. Thomas Harris and James Patterson have had influences on me.

Q. What has been the most significant book you've read (or listened to) in your life?

A. Again I'd have to say Catcher in the Rye is pretty significant though I've never seen myself as "Holden Caulfield." Growing up through my teens and early adult years I could understand why he did some of the things that he did, though.

Q. What project are you currently working on?

A. I'm currently working on a graphic novel with my cousin in Ireland, Sarah McCartney. It's called Carpe Ominous: The Rise of Aliens. The basis of this story is that the first human mistook the first aliens who came to Earth as Gods when they're just a superior species of aliens and that God and Satan are the same being but different aspects. The Alpha (God) The Omega (Satan) have started battling over who should have dominion over the human race. This time instead of having a celestial war, they're bringing it to earth to help rip away the blinders from the eyes of the human species that is on the brink of being wiped out. You can visit my website to view the origins of the book.