The power of representation does more than impact those who are sidelined. It reinforces a sense of superiority among the people who are seen and see their experiences reflected back to them in books and popular culture. One wonders: doesn’t the cream always rise to the top? If not, whose responsibility is it to change that? If the taste-makers and institutions that imbue them with that power don’t include people from your community, why don’t you get it together and create your own? These are real questions and ones I asked myself continually as I was writing Too Soon, my novel about three generations of Palestinian American antiheroines.
After September 11, I asked for a meeting with a woman who ran a cultural institution to talk about racism in American arts and letters. As she halfheartedly listened to my spiel, often breaking eye contact with me to stare distractedly of out the window, I got that sense that she, a white person, was having a hard time relating to my experiences as a Palestinian. I shifted to trying to “speak her language” and talk about sexism in the hopes we could at least connect on how the body you are born into shapes your destiny as a starting point. Perking up, she informed me she personally never felt her career was hampered by sexism.
“That might be true,” I mused. “It might also be true that, if you were raised as a man who was born with your same leadership abilities and professional skill set, you might not have aspired to run an important national institution. You might have aspired to be president.”
It was only then that I could see the penny drop for her, to understand how her own dreams for herself might have been limited by what her world told her that people like her could be. It was also only then that I got her to agree to arrange a panel discussion on the challenges facing Palestinian American artists, which had been my objective in reaching out to her in the first place.
I didn’t know of any Palestinian American playwrights or novelists when I started my writing journey. I looked to the works by trailblazing writers from other communities for inspiration and to gleam how they managed to have the confidence and the cheek to try to change the rules on who gets to tell America’s story. Happily, my list continued to grow, even as I was putting the final touches on Too Soon.
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The Message by Ta-Nehisi Coates
This collection of interwoven essays in which Coates explores, among other things, his first trip to Palestine feels like a primer on writing and ode to the importance of storytelling. The Message came out at a time when I was finishing my final round of proofs for Too Soon. Like most of the Palestinian American community, I have found it difficult to function normally in the midst so much unfathomable carnage in Gaza. The Message gave me the burst of energy that I desperately needed to summon the courage to finish my novel. It lowered the volume on the mocking voice of despair, which told me writing a Palestinian American tale was both too little and too late to help my people in any real way, just long enough for me to do it. I keep The Message on my desk as a reminder I am not as alone as I often feel.
The Color Purple by Alice Walker
The Color Purple struck me like a thunderbolt when I read it at a young age. As much as I loved the narrator of Celie in this timeless story of a girl’s self-discovery and resilience against the backdrop of racial and gender oppression in rural Georgia, it was the character of the lover of Celie’s husband, Shug, that captivated me completely. In Shug, I saw a reflection of the kind of women I knew growing up that were lovable, despite not always being entirely likable. I also identified deeply with Sofia, a character whose inability to stomach injustice costs her dearly. It was the first book by a female-identifying BIPOC writer that I knew of that hit the zeitgeist, emboldening me to begin to imagine a world where women like the ones I knew might have a chance to be center stage.
The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan
This rich intergenerational novel, which explores the ties between Chinese American women and their immigrant mothers, deeply influenced me when I read it as a teen. It was a time in our culture where Chinese Americans seemed largely invisible before this novel exploded on the scene. I did not set out to write Too Soon as an intergenerational novel, but found that I couldn’t tell a story about a modern Palestinian American woman trying to make her home in the world without exploring how her mother and grandmother coped with the loss of theirs. I find it hard for me to imagine Too Soon existing without the work of BIPOC writers like Amy Tan paving the way.
There There by Tommy Orange
As a Palestinian American, I feel a deep connection to the Native American community. As I tried to convey in Too Soon, my community is aware of the complexity inherent in our immigration to America with its own history of systemic displacement and mass slaughter of indigenous people. I was floored by the power of the multilayered narrative in There There that coheres into a brilliant portrait of contemporary Native American life.
A Boy and His Soul by Colman Domingo
A humorous and deeply touching meditation on family told through the lens of 1970s soul music, Domingo’s text is a reflection on the Black gay experience that is not often seen or celebrated. Its story of how Domingo came out to his loving clan in Philadelphia is one that directly inspired the character of King Tut in Too Soon, one of the only truly and unadulteratedly heroic characters in my novel, whose clarity and kindness helps the Palestinian American family survive in more ways than one.
Bad Mother by Ayelet Waldman
The work of this Israeli American writer is always provocative in the grandest sense of the word. In it, she turns her powerful lens inward in a way that makes lesser writers flinch. As I was writing Too Soon, while juggling the challenges of becoming a new mother, I returned to this wonderfully incisive book of essays that illuminates the complexity of modern motherhood with a vulnerability that I deeply admire.
Drown by Junot Díaz
I was completely enamored with this groundbreaking collection of short stories that delves into the experience of Dominican immigrants, particularly because of Diaz’s unorthodox mix of heightened and salty language. I felt freed by the poetic vernacular of Drown, which allowed me to let loose enough to give one of my narrator’s voices in Too Soon the muscularity of how theater folks talk among ourselves.
We the Animals by Justin Torres
In this coming-of-age story, We the Animals captures a child’s fear of being stigmatized for their sexuality. As I was writing my own family story, I was very moved by the complicated and fierce bonds between the brothers in this book.
I listened to this memoir that delves into the themes of race and belonging in America as an audiobook, which I highly recommend. The conversations in this book on identity and motherhood resonated with me. I was enamored by Jacob’s exploration of the challenges of creating a mixed race family as I was writing about characters who were contemplating (and romanticizing) the idea of making families with partners from other backgrounds and what it would mean for future generations.
The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri
When I first stumbled upon a short story by Lahiri in a magazine, I knew I would make it a point to read everything I could from this author. The Namesake follows a young man as he navigates the complexity of family and heritage in a way that I attempt to in my work. I love how she illuminates the experience of being Indian American with a sparsity of language and elegance that feels entirely her own.
The Sympathizer by Viet Thanh Nguyen
This spy thriller from the perspective of a Vietnamese double agent feels like a uniquely American story. Though not all of us are spies, many immigrants have connections to countries that have been decimated by American foreign policy and wars, a history that make being a part of “melting pot” complicated at best. I found the sly humor and unrelenting self-excavation by an antihero to be startling. I was very moved when I heard Nguyen speaking about his family’s history in San Jose, in particular their experience of losing the family business, which partially inspired the story of the character of the Vietnamese American young man that one of the narrators in Too Soon encounters in a bookstore.
