Helene’s Comments (group member since Dec 17, 2013)

Helene’s comments from the Ask Helene Wecker - Tuesday, January 14th group.

Unfortunately that's all the time I have! Apologies if I missed your question; I wish I could talk to everyone. Maybe next time we can ask Goodreads to take us out for coffee and muffins, and we'll sit and chat together in person. :-)

Thanks to everyone for your comments and your questions. I read them all, and I appreciate each and every one. And of course, many thanks for reading THE GOLEM AND THE JINNI. I'm thrilled every time I hear that someone's picked up my book; I'm still flabbergasted that it's out there in the world, being read by people I don't even know. (I.e., people who aren't my mother.)

All my best, and keep on reading!

Helene

Susan wrote: "Hi Helene,thank you for discussing your novel with us. Everyone that I have spoken to in the Jewish community love it. As you know our Jewish community read is coming up in March.

I so want you t..."

Hi Susan! Great to talk to you again! I'm running out of time, so I'll answer your questions as quickly as I can...

I certainly had the current Middle East troubles in mind when I came up with the idea for the book. My main impetus for writing the book came from the similarities in my husband's family and my own family's histories, especially around coming to America. They really seemed to mirror each other, even though my family's Jewish and his is Arab American. It struck me that there's this whole shared history around immigration to America, that doesn't get talked about very often. Jewish and Arab/Muslim cultures are so often (almost always, these days?) presented as "opposing" each other, but my own small-scale observations suggested that something quite different was not only possible, but already existed. So I wanted to write the book to bring out those parallels.

To answer your question about the Golem and baking, I really didn't have it in mind when I was writing it, but you're not the first reader to see the connection! Seems like my readers are smarter than I am. I had someone tell me at a reading that the Golem baking bread felt almost like she was duplicating the act of her own creation. My mouth fell open! It was such an apt observation, and I'd never even considered it. I think that sometimes it really does take a little distance from the text to see this stuff, and I lost that distance a long time ago.

Looking forward to talking to you and the group, Susan!

Becky wrote: "Hello Helen,

I listened to your book on audible. I am really picky about my readers and this recording of your book puts it on the top of my list to tell others about. I wondered if you had any in..."

Hi Becky! I didn't have any input at all into the choice of reader, I just happened to luck out and get the fantastic Mr. Guidall. I've talked to authors who did have input, though -- either choosing among readers, or suggesting a specific type of voice (male vs. female, what sort of accent, etc.). It seems to be the sort of thing that varies from publisher to publisher.

Sofen wrote: "I loved your book. Being Muslim, I've heard a lot of Bedouin tales and stories from the desert, even though they were more religiously centered. This book was beautiful and rich in culture and myth..."

Hi Sofen! "One tried too hard while the other didn't particularly care at all..." What a great description of their characters! Do you mind if I borrow it? :-)

I've answered most of your questions elsewhere in the chat, so I'm going to focus on your last one, whether I'm a feminist. The answer is an unequivocal yes, although I'm not always the best feminist I could be. I'm constantly amazed by how ingrained some of my gendered responses are: thinking men's voices are more authoritative than women's, lending more weight to men's opinions, and so on. I have to catch myself quite often. And I need to be better at speaking up when I see it happening elsewhere. Like a lot of women (if not most), I tend to err on the side of being polite. Don't be the shrill muckracker in the room, etc. But ingrained cultural change won't happen until and unless more of us do just that.

I'm lucky, in that I'm in a profession that's culturally acceptable for women. (I know a number of female physicists and engineers who could tell you some hair-curling, blood-boiling tales.) But I also struggle with issues around being a working mom (read: guilt guilt guilt), and all the "having it all"/"trying too hard" baggage that goes along with it. It's all a work in process, and sometimes problematic, but always very very necessary.

Brooke wrote: "In my copy of the book, I read an interview transcript in which you said it took 7 years to write The Golem and the Jinni. As a former English teacher, I often told my students good writing takes t..."

Hi Brooke! Thanks so much for your lovely comments, and for asking about Michael too. I feel like he gets overlooked sometimes. He's sort of the shy unsung hero of the book, in a way.

(MAJOR SPOILER ALERT)

In the first version of the ending, Michael was injured badly, but didn't die. There was a scene at the very end that showed him walking with the Golem in Central Park, and they discuss getting a divorce. I was afraid that if I killed him, the Golem would blame herself for his death and never recover from it. But then, while I was rewriting the ending, I decided to do it anyway. Like you said, it's as much about Schaalman's anger as it is about Michael's character. But Michael does stand up to Schaalman, knowing that he's causing his own death, because he's incapable of lying or begging or dissembling, even to save himself. There's a line in the book about Michael, something like, "He'd never learned to deceive himself." I decided was the key to his character, and I followed it as closely as I could.

John wrote: "Afternoon, Ms. Wecker.

I've read your book and loved it thoroughly. I was particularly drawn to the character of Chava the golem; to her vulnerability, her curiosity, and her unique way that she i..."

Hi John! The Golem's character evolved quite a bit over time. At first she was much more robot-like, but that made her hard to identify with, and it meant that she couldn't interact very well with the people around her. Eventually I rewrote her character and added her ability to feel the fears and desires of people around her. That gave her more of a window into humanity; it meant she could comprehend what was going on around her, even if she didn't understand what it all meant. The rest of her character sort of fell out from there. (And to be honest, there's a little of me in her too, though she certainly isn't based on me. I tend towards the cautious, anxious end of the personality spectrum, just as she does.)

Angela wrote: "Helene, Hello!
I just wanted to tell you how amazing your book is. I loved the characters you created and enjoyed every page.
I hope to see this on the big screen someday (Naveen Andrews as the Ji..."

Thanks, Angela! (Naveen Andrews? Hmmm...)

I'm glad someone asked about the cover! I love it too, even more so because it came as a complete surprise. I had no idea what they were going to do for the cover; and I'd never been able to envision what I wanted the cover to look like, either. So when they sent me the mockup PDF and opened it, I had no idea what to expect. But instantly I thought, "How could it be anything else?" It just fit the book so perfectly. I'll be forever indebted to that cover designer.

As for the blue edges, I got a call from my editor a few weeks after I first saw the cover, saying, "We're going to put blue edges on the book! We've never done that before!" I was totally shocked. I doubt they would've done it if the cover wasn't so gorgeous -- they just seem to fit together. They only did the blue edges on the first printing, alas. When I see hardcovers without the blue edges, they look a little naked.

Karen wrote: "Hi Helene,

Thank you for writing such a fascinating and engaging book! I simply loved it. I rarely give a book five stars here on Goodreads, but I did for this one. Thank you also for taking the t..."

Hi Karen! Thanks for your lovely comments!

I get asked about a movie version quite often. For the record, I'd love to see a version of THE GOLEM AND THE JINNI on the big screen, but I'm certainly not counting on it. I know that Hollywood is a strange and fickle place, and I've heard a lot of stories of rights to a book being bought by a production company, only to sit on a shelf for the next decade. So even if someone buys the rights, that's no guarantee that a movie will ever get made. In the meantime, I've decided to live in blissful ignorance of the whole Hollywood process, until such time as I have reason to do otherwise. :-)

Lorraine wrote: "Hello Helene,
Your tale of the immigrant experience in New York was incredibly inventive, with a strong sense of place and time. I'd like to know if you chose these very odd mythical creatures as y..."

Hi Lorraine! I definitely had the oddness of the immigrant experience in mind when I chose these mythical creatures. (The specific creatures themselves came from my personal cultural connections.) They're sort of the ultimate immigrants, in a sense. They aren't just new to America, or life in New York, but to humanity in general. Using them let me blow up the immigrant experience into something larger than life, and make it truly alien.

Ralph wrote: "Helene,

Congrats on the success of The Golem and the Jinni! I enjoyed it and so did my book club.

I'm curious about your experience getting the book published. I'..."

Hi Ralph! Thanks so much, and I'm glad your book club enjoyed the book.

I had a very atypical publishing experience, as far as debut authors go. I met my future agent while I was at Columbia, and we kept in touch for a number of years while I worked on the book. When, about five years into the process, he decided there was enough of the book to sell it as a partial, I signed with him formally as his client. At that point we spent about a year polishing up what I'd written and planning out the rest of the book. (The plan eventually changed, of course.) During that process, he was working behind the scenes in NY, mentioning the book to editors he knew. That way, when the time came to pitch the book, he had a number of interested parties already lined up. The book went to auction, and I chose to go with HarperCollins from the publishers who came out on top. It was, in the end, a very low-friction way to get a first book published. Meanwhile, all of my writer friends are busting themselves pitching agents, and biting their nails waiting to hear back from people. So I've got a bit of guilt about the whole thing. :-)

OK everyone, I'm back, and I've got about an hour left to answer as many questions as I can. Major apologies to anyone I miss! Here we go...

Gonna take another break, but I'll be back one more time today, to answer as many of your questions as I can. Stay tuned.

Henry wrote: "Hi Helene,
I've skimmed through the questions you've received so far, looking for a different wording or complimentary take on what I'm interested in. There are so many! I know you've got your work..."

Hi Henry! To answer your question about building the relationships in the book, I used all these methods and more. Certainly I used my own experience in a long-term relationship at times, especially when I was writing the dynamic between the Golem and the Jinni. (Which is not to say that their relationship is based on my marriage -- far from it!) There were times when I planned for a character to react in a particular way to an event, and then got to the event itself and realized there was no way they'd do that! So I had to either change their reaction, or go back and change the situation itself. And I spent a *lot* of time writing extraneous or out-of-character relationship stuff that ended up on the cutting-room floor. I shudder to think about it now.

2) The professional editing process was really hard in some ways, and a total relief in others. Sometimes it takes having an agent or editor (or good friend) pointing out all your missteps and extra junk and everything else that tends to accumulate in a book as you write it. At one point, going on my agent's advice, I cut the book by about 15%, and it felt like a good spring cleaning.

As for that balcony scene, I kept it deliberately PG-13 partly because I was mindful of younger readers, but mostly because I wanted to concentrate on what was going on in Sophia's mind at the time. (That's also why you see it from her viewpoint, and not the Jinni's.) I'll also admit that I'm totally intimidated by sex scenes, and I have a very hard time with them. They're nearly impossible to get right -- either they're too explicit, or too vague, or just plain laughable. Maybe I'll tackle a few in my next project -- or maybe I'll just wimp out like usual. :-)

Christine wrote: "hi Helene! I loved how the story of Chava and Ahmad mirrors that of any immigrant at that time in America. I especially liked how you infused your characters with elemental traits..eg Chava is lite..."

Hi Christine! Thanks so much for your comments -- and that's a great question about the elements. I knew a little bit about elemental symbolism before I started, but I also think there's a lot of elemental symbolism and lore already "baked into" the old golem and jinni tales. Clay, especially, has a lot of religious symbolism already in it, as it's what Adam and Eve were fashioned from in the Abrahamic tradition. So it's another signifier that humans are "playing God" in creating golems, and going beyond the bounds of what's allowed. Meanwhile, fire is both an aid and a destroyer, dangerous to handle, and hard to control -- and that's certainly what the Jinni is too.

Becky wrote: "Helene, it was a pleasure reading your book. I have a quirky question for you. Both the Jinni and the Golem are multi-(pan?)-lingual, as we've seen that they each understand whatever language the..."

Hi Becky, what a great question! I think they're using a combination of Yiddish and Arabic to talk to each other, and maybe a little English from time to time. I can imagine them in ten years' time or so, having picked up all sorts of interesting vocabulary from different languages, and talking to each other in a crazy pan-lingual code that no one else would possibly understand...

Claire wrote: "Helene, thank you so much for this wonderful gift of a book that presents aspects of Arab and Jewish cultures with love and respect together. I was amazed at how your writing drew me in and kept me..."

Hi Claire! Thanks so much for your wonderful comments! I'm glad you felt pulled into the book -- I think that was my goal, even if it wasn't always a conscious one. I tried to use a lot of visual elements, especially since the setting plays such a strong role in the book. It helped that the Golem and Jinni are looking through New York with new eyes, so everything is noteworthy to them. But at the same time I didn't want to bore the reader with too much detail. My agent and editor helped me to pare things back whenever I got too wordy and descriptive, which was often.

(I just wanted to add that if I appear to skip over your question, it's probably because I've answered it, or a question very much like it, elsewhere in the chat. But I'm reading everyone's questions, and really enjoying them.)

Hollie wrote: "Helene,

I absolutely adored your book. It was so beautifully written, I couldn't wait to commute to and from work for an hour so I could lose myself in Chava and Ahmed's story.
I would just like t..."

Thanks, Hollie!

It's a really good question, and a hard one too. Part of me wants them to have a good and happy life together. But the larger part of me knows that any measure of happiness would be really hard to come by, for both of them. There's so many differences between them, and so many hurdles to overcome (and that may not be in their nature to overcome). In the end, I don't know what would happen! I suppose if I write a sequel, we'll all find out together.

Monica wrote: "Hello Helene,

Thank you for writing a great novel that transforms the reading experience beyond the paper (or screen) to the imagination. The world you created was both realistic and fantastic. Di..."

Hello, Monica! Thanks so much for your comments, I really do appreciate them.

From the very beginning, the New York setting presented itself to me as the perfect location for the story. I figured that if I wanted a golem and a jinni to bump into each other somewhere in the U.S. in 1899, then New York was one of the few places that made sense. I suppose I could have set it in Detroit or Cincinnati, but I wasn't as enamored of them as I was of New York, which has such a fairytale feel built into itself already -- all those layers of dreams and stories and hopes and new beginnings. (Of course, I'm sure it helped that I was living there at the time!)

Yasir wrote: "Hello Helene. I just loves your book. There are a couple of questions u wanted to ask. 1) Don't Jinns exist in different countries? How come our jinni didn't meet others of his kind in New York?
2)..."

Hi Yasir! Yep, jinn exist in many countries in the Middle East and Muslim world, but I decided that for the purposes of this book, the Jinni was the only one of his kind in New York. In a way it makes sense, since immigration to the U.S. from the Middle East was still getting underway in the late 1800s. I figure he's a pioneer of his kind, just like the first Syrian émigrées who came over in the 1860s or so. But yes, I wouldn't be surprised if he started meeting more of his fellow jinn in NYC!