Setting as character + How to help the author in your life
Author Abroad S2 E8
Does anyone else feel like summer passed by at warp speed? After a brief hiatus, I’m happy to say that Author Abroad is back! This month’s edition looks at the role of setting in a life abroad, how to help the author in your life, and some books I recommend.
Reflections from abroad
In preparation for a recent book talk, I’ve been thinking about how my time abroad is reflected in my fiction. Setting is the most obvious manifestation of this. So far, every story I’ve written has been set in one of the countries where I’ve lived. In fact, setting plays such a large role in my writing that I think of it in the same way that I view my characters, with all the same requisites of nuance and contradiction.
That’s because setting has been a character in my own life. Every major milestone in my life has had a different backdrop—I met my husband in Angola, decided to get married in Mozambique, and started a family in Rome. We raised our kids in Malawi, navigated their teenage years in Myanmar, and became empty-nesters in Bangladesh. Writing about the places I’ve lived is my way of preserving them in my memory, capturing the sights, smells, and feel of that particular place and time in my life.
But there’s more to it than that. Writing is how I sort through the many differences in culture, landscape, and language that I’ve experienced over the years. I write in an attempt to understand and articulate these differences, to make sense of this big messy world with all its fascinating connections and contradictions, and to figure out how and where I fit into that world.
Setting, culture, identity, belonging. Each is inextricably linked to the next. Who am I? Who are you? Where do we come from? What culture do we belong to? Beginning with my first year abroad, as a student at the University of Dar es Salaam in Tanzania in 1988, I’ve wondered how friends from each subsequent host country perceived our respective cultures—what part of my personality is attributed to my American-ness and what part of their personalities can be explained by their culture.
What does our culture mean to us, which parts are nonnegotiable and which parts dispensable? The answer is different for each of us, of course, and varies in relation to time and place. We embrace what we need and discard what is no longer useful—as in this heartwarming NYT story about young Myanmar women exiled in Thailand, who have discovered the unexpected freedom of playing soccer: Forced From Home by War, They Found Solace in Soccer. Just as a place continues to evolve and change, so too does culture, and so do we.
Writing
With the relaunch of The Golden Land earlier this month, I’m reminded once again about the importance of community for writers—not just writing community, which I’ve talked about in previous editions of this newsletter, but all the people in a writer’s life who help them survive and hopefully thrive throughout the ups and downs of publishing a book.
For those of you with authors in your life, here are six ways to help your friend/family member/colleague get their newly published book into the hands of readers:
Read the book! Few authors are looking for fame or fortune; what we want is for people to read and connect with our work. Buying it from your local independent bookstore is preferred, but borrowing it from your local library is also helpful. If neither carries your friend’s book, ask them to add it to their collection. Booksellers and librarians can’t possibly keep track of all the excellent books released each year, which means you’ll be doing them a favor, while at the same time helping to get the word out about your friend’s book.
Recommend the book to others. Word of mouth is how many readers discover new books. Readers want to know in advance if a given book is worth the investment of time it takes to read 300+ pages. So, assuming you liked the book, tell everyone you know—your friends, family, co-workers, grocery store clerk, etc. They will thank you. A book recommendation from someone you know and trust is valuable beyond measure.
Review the book on retailer sites. Whether we like it or not, a book is a product, and consumers use ratings and reviews to decide which products to buy. For online book retailers, the number of positive ratings also determines how much exposure the book gets on the site. Given this, why not leave a review or a rating on Amazon, Goodreads, Barnes & Noble, etc.? If you’re not comfortable leaving a review, another way to help the author in your life is to like the positive reviews that others have left. This helps boost the good reviews to the top of the page and give less visibility to those pesky negative reviews. (For the same reason, it’s important never to engage in any way with negative reviews.)
Share the book on social media. Most authors dread self-promotion. We’re told by publicity gurus that we should be posting on social media everyday, but it feels icky to be promoting your own book all the time. That’s why it’s so refreshing when your friends and family supplement your efforts! If you’re on social media, take a photo of your friend’s new book and share it with your own friends and followers. You can add a few words about the book if you feel like it. Or you could just say, “My friend, Joe, wrote a book!” or “So proud of my cousin, Jane, for publishing her first book!”
Suggest the book to your book club. I’m a big fan of book clubs and have belonged to many all over the world. They’re a great way to discover new books and to reflect more deeply about the ones we’ve already read. For the author in your life, book clubs can help access a wider network of readers. Many authors are also happy to meet with book clubs and answer readers’ questions about the book, whether in person, virtually, or via email.
Show up for their events. A lot of effort goes into pitching, organizing, and planning a book talk. Trust me, I just did one! It’s a bummer when people don’t show up, yet also surprisingly common. So common that when new author Chelsea Banning tweeted about only two people showing up to her book launch in 2022, the post went viral with such high profile authors as Margaret Atwood, Stephen King, Jodi Piccoult, and Neil Gaiman chiming in with similar stories. Help your friend avoid this fate but attending their events. Besides, book talks are usually very interesting. Don’t you want to know how and why your friend wrote that book?
My September book talk at the Vineyard Haven Library
Reading
Over the summer, I put together these two reading lists, which you can peruse online:
Ten Books That Reveal Myanmar for the Complex Mosaic It Is (Literary Fiction, September 12, 2024)
The best novels that immerse you in the history and culture of another part of the world (Shepherd, September 3, 2024)
And here’s a new one (to me, anyway!) from this month:
The Hidden Life of Trees: What They Feel, How They Communicate―Discoveries from A Secret World by Peter Wohlleben, translated by Jane Billinghurst, audiobook narrated by Mike Grady (Greystone Books, 2016)
Trees have always been a refuge for me. Some of my fondest childhood memories revolve around an old Copper Beech in the neighborhood where I grew up. I spent whole summers in that tree, coming down only when the streetlights came on. Reading The Hidden Life of Trees this month, I finally understand why trees make me feel so at peace. In this slim volume, author Peter Wohlleben describes the many ways trees communicate with each other, including scent, sound, chemical alerts, and electrical signals. Drawing on his own experience as a forester, as well as the research of experts in the field, he goes on to explain how trees honor their ancestors, discipline their young, follow strict forms of etiquette, feed each other during difficult times, send warning signals to others when under threat, and possibly even learn and think! I was enchanted with the way Wohlleben illustrates his case, comparing tree behavior to that of humans to ensure we understand. Highly recommended!
That’s it for this month.
💕 Liz