Author Evy Journey chats with me today about her new women’s literary fiction, The Shade Under the Mango Tree.
Bio:
Evy Journey writes. Stories and blog posts. Novels that tend to cross genres. She’s also a wannabe artist, and a flâneuse.
Evy studied psychology (M.A., University of Hawaii; Ph.D. University of Illinois). So her fiction spins tales about nuanced characters dealing with contemporary life issues and problems. She believes in love and its many faces.
Welcome, Evy. Please tell us about your current release.
Strictly speaking this isn’t my current release. The Shade Under the Mango Tree is about a young multiracial woman who breaks away from her sheltered life to travel to a country with an ancient culture and a deadly history. What she finds there defies everything she has ever imagined. It’s an epistolary tale; that is, much of the narrative is presented as journals.
What inspired you to write this book?
The book is one of a series of standalone novels, so I had some general idea of what it was going to be about. The series, Between Two Worlds, features characters who navigate different cultures. These novels are what you would dump in the class we now call Diversity Literature.
The protagonists in the last three of the six-book series are all multiracial. Each book has a theme: Food for Book 4, Travel for Book 5 (this book), and Art for Book 6.
Excerpt from The Shade Under the Mango Tree:
Prologue
Ov’s thin upper body is slumped over his crossed legs, his forehead resting on the platform. His brown, wiry arms lie limp, the right one extended forward, hand dangling over the edge of the platform. Dried blood is splattered on his head, and on the collar, right shoulder, and back of his old short-sleeved white shirt.
It seems fitting that he died where he used to spend most of his time when he wasn’t on the rice fields—sitting on a corner of the bamboo platform in the ceiling-high open space under the house. It’s where you get refreshing breezes most afternoons, after a long day of work.
The policeman looks down at Ov’s body as if he’s unsure what to do next. He lays down his camera and the gun in a plastic bag at one end of the platform untainted by splatters of gelled blood.
He steps closer to the body, anchors himself with one knee on top of the platform, and bends over the body. Hooking his arms underneath Ov’s shoulders and upper arms, he pulls the body up, and carefully lays it on its back. He straightens the legs.
He steps off the platform. Stands still for a few seconds to catch his breath. He turns to us and says, “It’s clear what has happened. I have all the pictures I need.”
He points to his camera, maybe to make sure we understand. We have watched him in silence, three zombies still in shock. Me, standing across the bamboo platform from him. Mae and Jorani sitting, tense and quiet, on the hammock to my left.
Is that it? Done already? I want to ask him: Will he have the body taken away for an autopsy? I suppose that’s what is routinely done everywhere in cases like this. But I don’t know enough Khmer.
What exciting project are you working on next?
After Book 5, I wrote The Golden Manuscripts: A Novel. It’s out this April.
When did you first consider yourself a writer?
We take it for granted that people who’ve `written short stories, novels, or all kinds of nonfiction books are writers. But I believe most of us are writers in one form or another. If you’ve written term papers, masters’ theses, dissertations, you’re a writer. I was probably ten when I wrote my first essay. Before writing fiction, I did research that required written research proposals and research reports. My official title wasn’t “Writer,” but writing ate up at least 50% of my duties and it’s what was contained in the written material that I was evaluated on. Writing to me is as basic as spoken language.
Do you write full-time? If so, what’s your workday like? If not, what do you do other than write and how do you find time to write?
Nowadays, I write when I can and feel like it because my time is my own. Sometimes I write for two hours, at other times, I write for ten. When I was working for one institution or another as a social science researcher and program developer, I had to be a lot more disciplined, but the nature of my work didn’t dictate exactly when or for how long I should write. When I’m not writing, I live. That includes all that it takes to fashion a life, from washing dishes and doing taxes to traveling and doing art.
What would you say is your interesting writing quirk?
I honestly can’t think of one. But I might have some compulsive tendencies that color everything I do; so, I find it hard to stop tweaking what I’ve written.
As a child, what did you want to be when you grew up?
A journalist.
Links:
Website | Artsy Rambler (art/travel/food blog) | Escape Into Reality (book and film reviews) | Goodreads | Facebook | Amazon | Barnes and Noble | iBooks | Kobo
