Mortal: Novel and Campbell Bower
INTERVIEW 1
Shacochis' new novel, The Woman Who Lost Her Soul, fuses his narrative versatility and his deep understanding of multiple cultures into what Robert Olen Butler calls hismagnum opus. Its suspense revolves around the murder in Haiti of stunningly beautiful Jackie Scott, but before its far-reaching web of interactions ends, it brilliantly unveils the darker regions of human sexuality, evoked inside a historical build-up of international political deceit—deceit with present-day consequences. They are realistic consequences, in fact, that have arguably landed on the doorstep of America in 2013.
JEFFREY HILLARD: So Grove Atlantic is publishing your first novel since Swimming in a Volcano in '93. How does it feel to be back with your second novel?
BOB SHACOCHIS: I don't know. What is the range of feelings that are available?
HILLARD: You wrote a lot of nonfiction in the past 20 years, with a definitive non-fiction book in 1999, The Immaculate Invasion. How did you juggle the non-fiction and your work on the Woman Who Lost Her Soul?
SHACOCHIS: There was no juggling. When one projected ended, the other one began. Since I started working on this novel in 2002, I turned down most of the non-fiction work that was offered to me—including covering the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, which I guess I would have liked to have done, simply because of the significance of those events. I had already been in two earlier war zones; so going to war was not exactly an original or exotic experience for me. I was devoted to getting the book done and I knew I would never get it done if I kept running around the world. Also, domestic problems kept me at home. Most of my non-fiction involves overseas travel and I couldn't do that because my parents were very ill—terminally ill—and my wife became very sick as well. There were numerous other domestic responsibilities that kept me in my fiction-writing chair.
HILLARD: How does it feel to be back with your second novel?
Shacochis' new novel, The Woman Who Lost Her Soul, fuses his narrative versatility and his deep understanding of multiple cultures into what Robert Olen Butler calls hismagnum opus. Its suspense revolves around the murder in Haiti of stunningly beautiful Jackie Scott, but before its far-reaching web of interactions ends, it brilliantly unveils the darker regions of human sexuality, evoked inside a historical build-up of international political deceit—deceit with present-day consequences. They are realistic consequences, in fact, that have arguably landed on the doorstep of America in 2013.
JEFFREY HILLARD: So Grove Atlantic is publishing your first novel since Swimming in a Volcano in '93. How does it feel to be back with your second novel?
BOB SHACOCHIS: I don't know. What is the range of feelings that are available?
HILLARD: You wrote a lot of nonfiction in the past 20 years, with a definitive non-fiction book in 1999, The Immaculate Invasion. How did you juggle the non-fiction and your work on the Woman Who Lost Her Soul?
SHACOCHIS: There was no juggling. When one projected ended, the other one began. Since I started working on this novel in 2002, I turned down most of the non-fiction work that was offered to me—including covering the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, which I guess I would have liked to have done, simply because of the significance of those events. I had already been in two earlier war zones; so going to war was not exactly an original or exotic experience for me. I was devoted to getting the book done and I knew I would never get it done if I kept running around the world. Also, domestic problems kept me at home. Most of my non-fiction involves overseas travel and I couldn't do that because my parents were very ill—terminally ill—and my wife became very sick as well. There were numerous other domestic responsibilities that kept me in my fiction-writing chair.
HILLARD: How does it feel to be back with your second novel?