With her 24th novel out, “America’s Jane Austen” says she never intended to become a writer. She talks with Sarah Baxter. | Sunday Life
This story is part of the June 19 edition of Sunday Life, which is a special reading issue.
“We rented a home in a stodgy neighbourhood where old ladies lived in six-bedroom houses,” she explains. “One neighbour would lean out of the window and yell, ‘Iranians go home!’ I didn’t have any friends until my daughters went to school. Her novels explore families with big secrets and small lies. Parents and children rub along irritably, awkwardly and tenderly. “I am fascinated by endurance,” she says. “Human beings really do lead lives of quiet desperation.
“You wouldn’t believe how much the existence of cell phones has changed plots. You can’t lose touch with somebody as easily as you used to.” “No, there is none of me in my novels. We all have private, negative feelings we don’t talk about but I don’t think I have secrets.”She is close to her daughters, who live on opposite sides of America – Tezh, her eldest, in Philadelphia, and Mitra in San Francisco. Her marriage was extremely happy, even though it began with a casual “Why not?” when Taghi unexpectedly proposed. She was 21. He was “just perfect for me”, but died of lymphoma in 1997.
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