Victoria Redel is the author of The Border of Truth (Counterpoint, 2007). She's also the author of two books of poems: Swoon (University of Chicago Press, 2003) and Already the World (Kent State University Press, 1995) and two books of fiction: Loverboy (Harcourt, 2002) and Where the Road Bottoms Out (Knopf, 1995). She teaches at Sarah Lawrence College and Columbia University.

Aaron Hamburger: How did you get started as a writer?

Victoria Redel: The truth is that I never expected to be a fiction writer. I started as a poet. That said, my first book published was a collection of short fiction. That was a surprise. After the stories were done, I went back and finished a manuscript of poems, which wound up coming out the same year as the stories. Since then I've pretty well alternated a book of fiction and a book of poems. I don't write both at the same time. Although, there are always bits of poems, lines, starts, a word that wants to get used that nag at me while I've worked on fiction. But really seriously working on one or the other seems to happen that way--one or the other.

AH: What inspired you to write The Border of Truth?

VR: There are two answers (at least) here. The questions that engage first generation children of immigrants interest me and threads of that curiosity and experience have always been stitched through my short fiction and poems. How do we hold on to the myths/stories/syntax of our families in their homelands? In my case, that's the Jewish Diaspora. My grandfather (on my mother's side) was Egyptian born. My grandmother: Bessarabian. My mother: Romanian. My mother's grandfather was a composer and flautist that lived in Persia. My father is Belgian born and his family is Polish. Egypt to Poland, these were stories that filtered to me, that sang me to sleep at night as I was, (by day) trying to maneuver my way around suburban Westchester.

But the more specific answer is that the path of Itzak [the protagonist of The Border of Truth] from Brussels to America was my father's path out of Europe. His family arrived in 1940 on a ship called the Quanza. This ship’s story—for personal and historical reasons—was interesting to me. Over time I kept playing around, trying to compose something about boats, refugees, and luck.

AH: What kind of research did you do to write this book? Was there anything you uncovered that surprised you?

VR: The most wonderful form of research came in the form of talking with my father. There was so much texture in our conversations; it was a gift that I'd not planned when I set about writing. For example, speaking of texture, we'd be talking about schooling for a Jewish boy in Brussels and I'd say, “Dad, tell me about those knee-high socks you wore with your schoolboy uniform.” And I'd watch my father as he began the process of feeling his way back into the body of the boy in those socks. “Itchy,” he'd say. “What do you mean itchy?” I'd say. “They were woolen and you know they really itched,” he'd say. It was beautiful watching his eyes then, seeing a man peering back through more than 60 years. My asking gave him the chance to remember the smells and sounds, specific details he hadn’t recalled for years. It was nothing I would have thought of talking about with my father if I hadn't been writing the book.

As for surprises! I can't even begin to list these. There were times I thought the book was like being in a magnetic field of coincidence. But actually I think maybe all writers feel that when they're in the middle of something.

Here's an example: I'd decided early on in writing that the boy, Itzak, should be a fan of the movies. For me it was a way of beginning to explore his wanting to have a bigger world than Brussels. His adoration of movie stars was also a way of talking about his fascination with girls and women. It also satisfied my interest in learning about something in which I didn't have much knowledge base. One day I'm talking with my dad and he says, “Have I told you Marcel Dalio was on the ship?” I had no clue who Dalio was. When he told me Dalio was a major French actor in many of Renoir's films, I felt like a pig in shit. It was almost too good to be true. My Itzak loves the movies and I have the occasion to have a famous actor stuck with him aboard the ship. These kinds of surprises kept coming at me. In a certain way Sara's section of the novel was born out of my own pleasure, surprise and sense of the unexpected.

AH: There have been a lot of books written on the Holocaust. Were you at all concerned when you started out about how to make this one different? Did you read other works of Holocaust literature for comparison?

VR: I didn't either worry or set about reading anything for comparison. I didn't really even think about it as a Holocaust novel though of course I do think about it partly as a novel about the effects of war. Actually. I really think more about all of the writers writing right now who are first-generation American- Chinese, Arab, Indian, Central American. Whatever the specific differences of culture are here, there is a way in which many of us (first generation writers) have needed to play with, invent, imagine our way into homelands and experiences that shaped our childhoods despite being raised in the United States often in families that were trying hard to assimilate.

I was interested in family secrets. In this case how someone who’s lived through the extremity of war and displacement manages that story as he moves forward in his life. This isn’t exclusive to the Holocaust. War makes terrible demands on people; it puts people in untenable situations that they have to survive. How those impossible situations translate through generations, how they impact even when they’re withheld.

AH: Where did you get the idea to structure part of the book as a series of letters from a Jewish refugee to Eleanor Roosevelt?

VR: Eleanor Roosevelt was historically a person who interceded on behalf of the Quanza, getting the 86 persons refused entry into the United States or Mexico off the ship. Her importance loomed over the story, though I'd initially started the book differently. I'd written my way into the novel and then one day wandering around, the sentence, Dear Eleanor Roosevelt, do you like stories? entered my head. So I tried a letter or two. Suddenly the book had the tone I liked. I liked the chance for my character to have an American mother, to have an audience to whom he could address his longing.

AH: Why this story now? Do you see any connection between the refugee situation in the 1940s and current events?

VR: Yes, of course. In 1940 there was huge resistance to allowing refugees into the country. Long and Hull advised Roosevelt against admitting the passengers. That resistance, well, still exists and the implementation of barriers--legal and physical--continues. This is an important thread for the character Sara who has political awareness (some) but less personal awareness. As she begins looking around she begins grasping what has been at stake personally for men and women who have survived war. She begins to see that this remarkable city houses so many men and women who have made their way through the most exorbitant and horrifying circumstances. Itzak’s story is a way into thinking about the challenges, choice, and effects of a person who manages to get out alive. Also, as I said earlier, there’s the aspect of luck and making luck and what price one winds up paying to survive. The connections to our world now, if I’ve done my job halfway decently, are woven inextricably through the book.

AH: You're a teacher of writing as well as a writer. What are some important lessons about writing you try to communicate to your students?

VR: The main thing is that I encourage my students to slow down, to think about sentences. To craft their work sentence by sentence.

AH: One of your books, Loverboy, was turned into a film. What was that process like for you? Was it strange to see your characters on the big screen?

VR: It was great. Kevin Bacon was generous and inclusive with me when he made the film. I read the script in draft, was allowed to visit the set and watch filming and I saw the film while it was being edited. I think that was wonderful since he chanced having a writer who couldn't bear letting go. I loved seeing the characters on screen. Kyra Sedgwick is remarkable. Dominic Scott Kay, who plays the son, is perfect. And then there's some pure fun. For instance my character Mrs. Pomeroy became Mr. Pomeroy for the screen, and was played by Oliver Platt. He's perfect and really just what I was imagining.

AH: What have you read recently that you really loved?

VR: I'm teaching a graduate seminar right now at Columbia that is essentially an elements of craft seminar, so I'm having a great time rereading stories and novels: Outer Dark by Cormac McCarthy, Dusk by James Salter, Enormous Changes at the Last Minute by Grace Paley, Stanley Elkin’s stories. Christine Schutt’s stories, Lydia Davis’s stories. Harold Brodkey’s stories, Amy Hempel's stories. The list goes on and on--I'm a nut; I can't stop xeroxing things for this class to read.

As for new books, I've just read the galleys for a story collection by Katherine Arnoldi called All Things Are Labor. It comes out in August and should be read. She is the author of a wonderful graphic novel called The Amazing True Stories of a Teenage Single Mom. Cormac McCarthy's new novel is great. And also some wonderful new books of poems: Ralph Angel's Exceptions and Melancholies (New and Selected) and his translation of Lorca. And The Stray Dog Cabaret, a translation by Paul Schmidt of Russian poets.

AH: What are you working on next?

VR: I'm writing poems. Or I should say trying to and feeling like a clod. But that's how it goes for a while. I'm also trying to feel my way into another thing but so far, it's just not worth too much talking about.

SSN's Interview with Victoria Redel, 2003
Pre-order Victoria's Book!

Aaron Hamburger is the author of the short-story collection The View from Stalin’s Head, for which he was awarded the Rome Prize by The American Academy of Arts and Letters. He was awarded a fellowship from the Edward F. Albee Foundation and won first prize in the David Dornstein Memorial Creative Writing Contest for Young Adult Writers. His writing has appeared in The Village Voice, Out, Nerve, and Time Out New York. He teaches writing at Columbia University and lives in New York City. His latest book, the novel Faith for Beginners, was nominated for a Lambda Literary Award. Visit Aaron's Web site.

Check out Aaron's Other Interviews:
Chat with Maxine Swann
Aaron's Interview with Emily Barton