CCBC-Net Archives
Re: Going Home
- Contemporary messages sorted: [ by date ] [ by subject ] [ by author ]
From: Lyn Miller-Lachmann <lynml_at_me.com>
Date: Thu, 18 Jul 2013 10:41:50 -0400
I'd like to offer an author's perspective, as one of my novels, GRINGOLANDIA, deals with a teenager's search for where his home lies. This is a historical novel set during the Pinochet dictatorship in Chile, and Daniel, his mother, and his sister are living in exile in the United States (in Wisconsin!) while his father is in prison in Chile. Daniel is the kind of person who wants to fit in wherever he is, and he has done so successfully in the U.S., even beginning the process to become a U.S. citizen--a fact he has hidden from both his parents.
A lot of people have expressed surprise at where Daniel eventually finds home, though they have found the ending believable and satisfying. Over the course of writing the novel, I changed the ending several times, and the way it turned out was, in fact, a common scenario for Chilean exiles, who retained strong ties to their country of origin and tended not to adapt well to life abroad. After the dictatorship ended, the repatriation rate for Chileans was quite high, and one of the things I learned in researching the novel in Chile and among exile communities in the U.S. and in France was that most people really don't want to have to leave their homes, their families, and their countries (something very enlightening as the U.S. debates immigration reform, by the way). Having to make a new home abroad was a heartbreaking experience--on top of the violence and economic distress that exiles endured--and people embraced with joy the possibility of going home after the fall of the dictatorship. (In many cases, this
was followed by extreme disillusionment, but that's another story.)
These were the realities I tried to capture in GRINGOLANDIA, along with Daniel's desire to have a relationship with a father who was absent for so many years and who returned forever changed, and along with the cultural expectations regarding an individual's role and responsibilities within the family.
Lyn Miller-Lachmann Gringolandia (Curbstone Press/Northwestern University Press, 2009) Rogue (Nancy Paulsen Books/Penguin, 2013)
Received on Thu 18 Jul 2013 10:41:50 AM CDT
Date: Thu, 18 Jul 2013 10:41:50 -0400
I'd like to offer an author's perspective, as one of my novels, GRINGOLANDIA, deals with a teenager's search for where his home lies. This is a historical novel set during the Pinochet dictatorship in Chile, and Daniel, his mother, and his sister are living in exile in the United States (in Wisconsin!) while his father is in prison in Chile. Daniel is the kind of person who wants to fit in wherever he is, and he has done so successfully in the U.S., even beginning the process to become a U.S. citizen--a fact he has hidden from both his parents.
A lot of people have expressed surprise at where Daniel eventually finds home, though they have found the ending believable and satisfying. Over the course of writing the novel, I changed the ending several times, and the way it turned out was, in fact, a common scenario for Chilean exiles, who retained strong ties to their country of origin and tended not to adapt well to life abroad. After the dictatorship ended, the repatriation rate for Chileans was quite high, and one of the things I learned in researching the novel in Chile and among exile communities in the U.S. and in France was that most people really don't want to have to leave their homes, their families, and their countries (something very enlightening as the U.S. debates immigration reform, by the way). Having to make a new home abroad was a heartbreaking experience--on top of the violence and economic distress that exiles endured--and people embraced with joy the possibility of going home after the fall of the dictatorship. (In many cases, this
was followed by extreme disillusionment, but that's another story.)
These were the realities I tried to capture in GRINGOLANDIA, along with Daniel's desire to have a relationship with a father who was absent for so many years and who returned forever changed, and along with the cultural expectations regarding an individual's role and responsibilities within the family.
Lyn Miller-Lachmann Gringolandia (Curbstone Press/Northwestern University Press, 2009) Rogue (Nancy Paulsen Books/Penguin, 2013)
Received on Thu 18 Jul 2013 10:41:50 AM CDT
