Stories are predicated on journeys of all kinds, and sometimes, destinations. For the displaced, however, a homecoming is a perpetual state of grief. A relentless wandering of memory with dreams of reuniting with family or perhaps a yearning to return to a land, or for the kindness and grace of a helping hand. How, then, does one find connection or a spark of joy in such challenging times?
Paul Yoon’s work engages with these scenarios and offers respite through sparse, evocative prose and memorable characters. His latest novel, Etna, centers around a dog traversing an unnamed country at war. Each page brims with lucid thoughts, powerful imagery, and surprises for longtime readers of Yoon’s.
As with his previous books, I found myself recontextualizing my own understanding of forced migration, separation, and home. A recognition, or a parallel, between the bordertown I was born and raised in along México and Texas with Korea’s fractured history. A culture split by an arbitrary, imaginary line drawn by nations. The violence I witnessed throughout my childhood and adolescence, and the survivors of conflict. Thankfully, Etna arrives at a moment when there are rising, ongoing tensions around the world and delivers much needed clarity, perspective, and above all, hope.
I spoke with Yoon over Zoom about his process, his body of work, and our shared admiration of John Berger and literature. What a joy it was to find a kindred spirit.
This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
The Rumpus: The novel depicts the devastating effects and aftermaths of war through Etna, the ex-military dog’s perspective. What drew you to write from his point of view?
Paul Yoon: It was the intersection of two things. I felt a little bit exhausted by the human perspective, and at the same time, I felt a deep connection with my dog, Oscar. He’s twelve years old now and has been with me for most of my days. He’s my best friend. This is not uncommon—I’m sure all dog owners feel this—but I was imagining Oscar’s voice, how he would talk; I was imagining us having a conversation, and I wanted to enter that bond or friendship in a creative way, using the skills I’ve been using for a long time now.
Rumpus: That reminds me of an essay you wrote for The Best Dog in the World. It’s a wonderful meditation on your relationship with Oscar and the eventual day he won’t be around. I’m not sure if the essay was written simultaneously, but it touched on several relevant moments in the novel, such as Etna’s fear of losing his memory.
Yoon: Absolutely. Etna is fueled by this unwavering desire to go back home. At the same time, he’s entering an unknown future. I think there’s an awareness, or maybe a recognition, there’s also things he’s starting to forget, too. And yeah, that’s what I’m always thinking about with Oscar, as he’s getting older. How much does he remember of all our days together?
What I find remarkable and magical about my relationship with my dog is I feel like I know him inside out, and yet, I also feel I do not know him at all. There’s a kind of mystery there, right? So, I thought, how can I create a narrative that balances a sort of certainty but also deep mysteries? And can I use those two things to propel the story?
Rumpus: Totally. Were there any challenges in writing from Etna’s perspective?
Yoon: That’s a great question. One big challenge was the voice. I’m aware that I’m anthropomorphizing and bringing a kind of human quality to the dog. But I also wanted to create a distinct point of view that did not feel like a human one.
A lot of that was reimagining point of view. I don’t work at a desk. I work on the couch, and Oscar’s head or paw is on my lap, if I’m writing. It sort of dawned on me that his perspective in the room is completely different from mine, simply because he’s lower to the ground. And when walking Oscar outside, I started to imagine everything kind of closer to the Earth, how that would affect and alter things. Would that create a different creative space to move around in? And for me, it did.
Rumpus: Ah, I wonder if it encouraged you to lean into tenderness, in relation to your story collection, The Mountain (Scribner, 2018), where I feel you were examining violence around the world. Was Etna an opportunity to see violence from a different perspective?
Yoon: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, there’s no one more forgiving and loving than my dog, right? But he’s also the first one who could, in a heartbeat, charge and growl, if he senses a threat to me or to my wife. There are both sides to him that he carries. I think I was aware of that when I was writing or creating Etna (the character). There is tenderness there, as you were saying, but this is also a dog who has experienced national violence as well. That feels in line with the books I’ve been working on. I mean, I have been seriously engaging with global conflicts and writing about war and its aftermath for two decades or more. But one thing I realized I wanted to do this time around was to think more about the environmental impacts and the impacts on animals through these conflicts.
Right before I seriously began this project, there was this incredible article on this group in Ukraine. They were returning to areas that had been devastated because there were so many animals left behind, trying to save as many as possible. I remember reading that a few years ago, and I think something in me just broke. Thinking about the heroism of these people, but also, about all the animals left behind, caught up in these conflicts, as we continue to kill each other. So it sort of feels like I’m very much in communication with my previous books, especially The Mountain. Hopefully using a different lens, so to speak, or a different angle.
Rumpus: Definitely. Was that event the spark that inspired Etna?
Yoon: I hadn’t actually started writing it, but I think that 100 percent lit a fire in me, reading about those early days in Ukraine.
But John Berger’s King, you know, is a book I read when I was like twenty-one years old in a tiny apartment in New York City. It was one of the first books that felt like it was engaging in a kind of a new perspective, in both a very serious and creative way. He’s one of my favorite writers who has ever existed, but that book, in particular, always stayed with me.
Rumpus: Same. I feel John Berger’s work is quite grounded. It really immerses you in the experience of what labor actually feels like.
Yoon: Yeah, something I love about Berger is there’s a love of life everywhere. Even in the most painful, heartbreaking moments. There’s these small moments of joy that are fleeting, but they’re there. That felt very human, universal, and beautiful to me. But also, very animalistic, too. I definitely wanted to bring that into Etna. I was very mindful of wanting to find pockets of joy, community, and love—even if it’s fleeting. It felt really important to me and gave me hope.
Rumpus: Absolutely. How do you see the novel in conversation with Berger’s work and legacy, amidst current conflicts and tensions?
Yoon: My hope with this book is that if I can engage with these sorts of topics—our inability to avoid or stop wars—using a different perspective, maybe there’s a chance that it can connect with others in a broader way.
And I think part of that is how pets become kind of like a bridge, or a connector, for us to communicate and bond. You’re able to actually have conversations with people. I think I was very much aware of that working on this project, and Etna as a connector or a bridge. That felt very possible, because it’s true in real life. I have so many neighbors who have pets, and we all talk to each other. It’s lovely. We have shared experiences and a bond, no matter how diverse we are. And part of it was, can I bring that into the fictional form on the page?
Rumpus: Definitely. There’s a parallel thought in the novel where Etna mentions dogs having private names. I love that. It’s a thread found throughout all your work. How sometimes you lean into the mystery and always leave room for space, or how you’ll have unnamed narrators. Sometimes, the names are revealed halfway through a story.
Yoon: [laughs]
Rumpus: It feels very open to mystery, yet also, very specific and rooted in character and detail. How do you decide what to withhold on the page?
Yoon: I think each project dictates its own rules. For me, mystery feels so true and important. That’s true with people we love, also, where there are moments they surprise you; or there’s a split second you have no idea what’s going on in their mind. It’s kind of beautiful that we all have space in our existence to have communities and families to connect with each other, but also have these kinds of private spaces that are ours and make us who we are.
Rumpus: I love that.
Yoon: I find it really important to honor that and to celebrate it with my characters. There are moments, whether it’s a short story, character, or a novel, where I have no idea what they’re thinking about. Or, another character they’re interacting with has no idea why the other person did what they did. And I love it. It feels like it’s celebrating and honoring the layers of our lives and also in terms of the way I think about and compose fiction. (The characters) move forward—on an event, time, or plot level—but I also think of fiction vertically. I want fiction to not only go from point A to point B, but I want to go up and down, if that makes sense. I think one way to do that is to make sure you’re creating layers of character. And maybe, some of those layers aren’t accessible, and that’s okay, you know?
Rumpus: That’s interesting. I admire how you give that to all the supporting characters, too, such as Fuji or the donkey. How Etna holds onto the memories and feels the weight of their absences. It’s a recurring theme throughout all your work. Can you share some thoughts about the importance of your characters bearing memory and trauma?
Yoon: Yeah. I think it’s because I grew up hearing stories of trauma my family went through during the Korean War. Maybe even before then. It’s deeply ingrained in me, tackling the idea of memory and coping with trauma or engaging with it. It’s also the idea of just honoring storytelling.
I have so many family members I’ve never met and never will, only through remembered stories. But as you keep telling stories, things evolve, shift, and become slightly exaggerated. There’s a question of how much of the story, if you keep telling it, is the original, right? And yet, the core power of it still remains. So in a lot of ways, I’m aware of the importance of these characters creating memories and questioning what they might forget down the road. What’s held on. But, I think, it’s also making sure that these characters value stories and the act of telling them.
Rumpus: Absolutely. It’s a powerful element found throughout your books, from Once the Shore (Sarabande Books, 2009) to the present. I love the scene in Etna where Hong tells a story to his partner and how it might later on carry a different weight.
Yoon: That was really hard to pull off, actually. [laughs]
Rumpus: How so?
Yoon: Hong is in the clinic at night telling his partner what went on throughout the day, the memories at field hospitals and people they interacted with during the war; at the same time, he’s relating to her a fable someone else told him. So there were just so many levels of storytelling. And, of course, the bigger frame is Etna is listening to all of this, right?
Rumpus: Right.
Yoon: It remains one of my favorite sections of the book, because of what we were just talking about, which is celebrating storytelling. But also, this moment where, even though not all the players are interacting, there’s a connection between Etna, Hong, the doctor and the people Hong interacted with during the day and in the far past. It felt like a moment where time was collapsing, and I was able to connect a lot of the characters together and have them overlap and interact. I found that to be a rewarding experience, especially for a book where a lot of it is a dog by himself traversing landscapes.
Rumpus: It’s really powerful. These moments open doors for more storytelling and cement a feeling, right? A connection that everybody shares.
Yoon: I’m so glad you feel that way because I want even small moments that are just in one sentence to carry the power of our lives. I want to build these worlds that feel alive with many, many timelines and stories. No matter how spare and short my books are, my hope is that they still feel very layered.
Rumpus: Definitely. I mean, when Faye from The Mountain is briefly mentioned in Etna, my mouth was wide open.
Yoon: I think you’re sweetly the only person who will ever get the Faye reference.
Rumpus: And there are also many wonderful references to your early work, such as an umbrella from Snow Hunters (Scribner, 2014), a piano from Run Me to Earth (Scribner, 2021), and the wings of an airplane from the ground (The Mountain).
Yoon: Oh yeah.
Rumpus: Recognizing these images felt like looking at a painting by Pieter Bruegel. There’s depth, scenes within scenes and characters interacting with one another. Do you consider your work as a canvas telling a collective, single story?
Yoon: Absolutely I do. Or like a Hieronymus Bosch painting, where all these full lives exist in one canvas. When I’m starting off, I’m just back to that very big canvas. I’m exploring a corner I’ve yet to paint.
Rumpus: It’s nice to see how a recurring image or character isn’t treading the same water, but there’s a nod to the previous work—very spiritual and similar to Wong Kar-Wai’s films.
Yoon: That’s exactly what I was thinking about! If you watch three Wong Kar-Wai films in a row, there’s always this recurring motif, image, or object, right? His films meant so much to me: In The Mood For Love, Happy Together, Chungking Express, mostly. The way those stories are structured were amazing to me the first time I watched them. I learned so much.
Rumpus: Yes, me too! How then do you decide which elements live from one work to the next?
Yoon: I think there’s something comforting about imagining my books as one kind of canvas. Where there are these buoys I can look to, or a lighthouse beam when I’m feeling lost and alone.
The weird thing is I actually never read my stuff after I finish and publish it. So when I say I’m revisiting parts of the canvas, it’s all this kind of interesting experiment. What is it that I remember about these past projects? In other words, you’re just kind of reaching towards the memory itself.
Rumpus: I feel there have been a few threads that evolved from The Mountain. Is it a sort of anchor point for all your projects?
Yoon: I think that’s a great way to put it. It’s personally one of my favorite books I’ve ever written and the one that I hold dearest to my heart, I think because it was a case where I felt I was doing something ambitious. It’s a short book, and yet covers so much ground, in terms of time and geography. Sometimes, as a writer, you have a vision of a project, but then when you finish something, it’s actually quite different to what you imagined. I think The Mountain was the closest, where my imagination of the book was very similar to how it came out.
It feels like a central project of mind, when I look back on my books and my career. I also think it’s kind of what you were talking about, in terms of memory. How does memory function, in terms of the creative process? How is my memory of my own work being kept alive in my brain?
Rumpus: That makes sense. How do you approach the editing process?
Yoon: It’s changed slightly over the years. I’m doing this weird thing for the past few books where I write a lot in my head. By the time something is getting on the page, I’m farther along on a draft than I would have been earlier in my career. I’m forming, shaping, and adding things in my head before I even start writing.
I also have really great readers; my wife; my best friend and novelist, Ethan Rutherford; and my agent. Those are my three people who have been reading my drafts. They know me and my work so well.
I find revising and editing my favorite part of writing. The first draft is the most grueling, horrible part for me; I don’t know what I’m doing and just trust something’s there. But then, once you’ve got something with a border of some kind, no matter how messy it is, that’s when the real joy begins where you can actually shape something, play, and take chances.
Rumpus: Absolutely. Do you think we’ll see some of the characters from Etna again?
Yoon: I don’t know. That’d be great. We’ll see. I think they’ll come again when I’m least expecting it. I remember finishing the story The Mountain and being like, “Oh, I really want to return to this world one day.” But I had no idea I would return to it many, many, many years later.
Rumpus: Right. I can see that. There’s always an allure, a mystery at the heart of your work. One great example, as in Etna, is “Willow and the Moon” from The Mountain. I didn’t quite know where that story would take me, in a thrilling way.
Yoon: Oh no, I definitely felt like I was sort of leaning more into mystery. Also, a kind of open space and silence. Letting sentences have breath between each other. “Willow and the Moon” was maybe one of the first stories I wrote for that project. It really did feel like I was trying something new. I kind of wanted to be in this space for a long time as a writer.
And with Etna, I think on an emotional level, I was absolutely thinking about Nadeem Aslam; Anuk Arugpragasm’s The Story of a Brief Marriage; John Berger; my dear friend, Andrew Krivak; and William Maxwell’s So Long, See You Tomorrow.
Rumpus: Yes! I was thinking about the scene with the dog from Maxwell’s novel while reading Etna.
Yoon: Exactly, right. Near the end, there’s an extended scene with a dog, and it was so surprising to me. I’m always haunted by that. It felt so natural for the book to do that because of the way it is structured and sort of hopping around, moving through floors and rooms. It was like, of course it’s going to go to the dog. I was so moved by that, and I’m often thinking about that book.
Rumpus: Same, honestly.
Yoon: I’m a reader, first and foremost. And there is a part of starting projects where you get inspired by what you’re reading and the writers that have been in your creative life for a long time. Part of writing is responding to them, right? You want to be in dialogue with them. That’s very important to me as an artist. It’s a way for the books to stay alive. I carry them in my heart, and my hope is that there are things I can engage with as a writer for a long time.
Rumpus: I know your work will always be something I carry with me. And Etna is such a perfect entry point for new readers. The novel is analogous to So Long, See You Tomorrow, acting as a bridge to unlock and understand your body of work, from Etna’s perspective.
Yoon: Thank you so much. I love that. I hope it opens up new doors, new ways of thinking, and new ways of experiencing stories, too.
Rumpus: I hope so, too. I’m curious if you’re working on a new project.
Yoon: I can happily say I’m not working on a single thing, and that’s totally fine by me. I go through these sorts of periods where I’m working, and then, I’m not. That’s kind of how it’s always been. A lot of that is just trusting there will be a time when I’m thinking about another book project. For now, I’m just really enjoying not being in that space.
Rumpus: That’s wonderful. It’s as if the writing process reflects your own life. You allow the project to surprise you, the way it does on the page.
Yoon: Yeah, 100 percent. I think part of it is that I really like my life. I have this amazing dog and wife, and I live in an amazing town. Once I’m in a project, some of that living needs to go away. And as I’ve gotten older, I found I like the balance of both. It’s important for me to have seasons where I live and seasons where I put on the writing hat and work.
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