INTERVIEW: The Distance Between Stars
Q: It took you over ten years to write this novel. Why so long?
JE: I would have liked that it had taken much less time to finish. I’ve always been one to revise a lot. Anything I write starts out pretty rough. It takes me several attempts to get the syntax of a sentence or the arrangement of a paragraph into the rhythm or pattern that feels best. I also start out using many more words than I need. My first several drafts of this novel were over 150,000 words in length. The published text was only 108,000. In addition, I first wrote this story from the third person point of view. What I and other readers discovered was that the narrator was too far removed from the characters for the reader to care about them. To get closer, I switched everything to the point of view of the main character in the story. The adjustment helped, but it literally added a few years to the writing process.
Q: The novel is set in a fictional African country, even though you have lived in or been to a number of actual countries there. Why did you decide to create a new place (Umbika), with new tribes (Umbiks, Tologs), instead of setting the story in an existing place?
JE: My plot focused on the interactions of two Americans in a foreign location. I didn’t want specific historical events and personalities to overshadow those characters and their story. Instead, I created a country that reflected political realities common throughout much of Africa during the colonial and post-colonial eras.
Q: Evidence within the novel suggests that the story does not take place today. When, specifically, is it set?
JE: I had no exact year in mind for the story, but I saw it taking place sometime in the mid to late 1980s, certainly before cell phones became ubiquitous across the continent. The time frame is not intended to align with any specific American Presidential election.
Q: Are any of the events described in the novel things that actually happened to you or are they all invented?
JE: The majority of events or actions that take place in the novel with Kellerman or Hightower are based on things that either happened to someone I knew, that happened to me, or that happened to someone I heard about.
Q: The challenges of understanding race is central to the novel, and the challenges of discussing race are a central focus in America today. Can you comment on those points?
JE: Serious issues related to the color of our skin live at the core of the collective American Experience, as much as anything in our country’s history, and rarely in a good way. The legacy of slavery continues to haunt us. Racism, discrimination, injustice, and white supremacy are the focus of local and national news stories on an almost daily basis in the U.S. (except when the coronavirus pandemic occupied all news content). I would be very happy if this novel sparked even one additional conversation about racism or bigotry in the U.S. But these problems are not solely American problems, of course. Bigotry and racism have found a way to infect every society on the planet. The larger question is how they relate to human nature.
Q: Why wrestle with a subject matter that is so fraught with controversy?
JE: During the first several drafts of the book, as details about the plot were getting ironed out, I asked myself what the story was really about. I hadn’t started out writing a novel with racism or bigotry as one of its major themes. I started out writing a missing person story. But I have always wanted to write about subjects that matter, questions that don’t have simple or easy answers. So, as the point of view of my novel changed to first person and the characters evolved and began to reveal themselves more and more, the themes I wanted to write about became clearer to me.
I grew up in a working-class neighborhood of a mid-sized Midwestern city. I understood from an early age to be wary of anyone coming into our neighborhood who didn’t look like me. What I didn’t understand, but do remember wondering about, was why I was supposed to think like that. I believe we have a tendency to assume that most people who look like us share our life experiences, can be trusted to some degree, and need not be immediately feared. People who don’t look like us probably don’t share our life experiences, and therefore could pose a threat. The most immediately noticeable physical feature we see about someone is skin color (or, perhaps, gender). From 200 feet away, you can tell if someone looks like you or not. Skin color is the fastest filter many of us use regularly to judge (correctly or incorrectly) what may or may not happen in the next few moments. But does our world have to function like that?
I have no magic bullet to offer that could end the pain and suffering that racism and bigotry bring. All I know is that, as a start, every adult on the planet could do a better job of respecting those who are different from them.
Q: What books are currently on your nightstand?
JE: Recently finished books: the Slow Horses series by Mick Herron and I Am Pilgrim by Terry Hayes. Reading now, Louise Gluck, Poems 1962-2012, The Hypnotist by Lars Kepler, and Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan.
Book Release Date: June 2, 2020
Click here for more info about The Distance Between Stars