Questions for Erick Setiawan?

[Rachel-K]

Erick Setiawan will join the discussion this week! Please welcome him into our discussion and post your questions for him here!

[Carmenere_lady]

Hi Erick,  Thank you for taking the time to chat with us First Lookers.  Many of us on the boards have mentioned how we like or dislike the fact that we can not pin down a place or time for your story.  As I read OBaM, I get the feeling of not being grounded, that wherever  Meridia and Daniel are is an ephemeral place.  Is this the sort of feeling you wanted to create and if so, is it more or less dificult to write of a place that is possibly many places or perhaps just a place of your imagination. 

[DSaff]

Welcome to the discussion, Erick! Thank you so much for the opportunity to read and discuss your book. What made you decide to have a first look discussion about your book? Is there anything besides word of mouth recommendations that you are hoping to get from us? It is a pleasure to have you with us.

[babzilla41]

Hi Erick, We've been having quite a discussion about the OBaM book cover.  I was wondering if you had any input as to the design or whether the artist had carte blanche after reading the story.  Can you tell us all of the "hidden" symbols - we've found quite a few but wonder if there are more!  Thank you for a great read; I really enjoyed reading OBaM.  It's opened my eyes to a new genre.

[dhaupt]

Erick, first of all welcome to our little family. 

I am enjoying your novel so much and love the fact that it's without constraints of time and age, I'm also enjoying all the characters some I love and some I love to hate.

My question at this time is:

Did you know from the beginning that the novel would be timeless and ageless, and do you think it was easier to include magic to the story because of it.

Thanks again Erick 

[chris227]

Welcome Erick and thank you for allowing us the opportunity to read your book!  First let me say that I am completely captivated by your story so far.  I can't wait to finish it but am afraid I would give something away in the discussions if I did!  You write beautifully and have created amazing characters! 

My question to you is who have been the major influences in your writing?

Thanks,

Christina 

[hookedonbooks09]

Hi and Welcome, Erick!

First off, I have to say I'm enjoying your book, thoroughly! :-)

Just when I think I have it figured out, it takes another lovely turn and that makes me keep turning the pages!  Almost forgot to get dinner on the table last night!

While the time and place does keep me wondering, I think it adds another dimension to the magic or "mistiness" of the book itself.  As if it's only the story that matters, not where and when.

I think you have written a marvelous first book and sincerely hope that there are many more to come---you have a storyteller's gift!

Barb

[AIRKNITTER]

Welcome Erick,

Have you given any thought to the actors you would like to see when this incredible book is made into a film?

Anyone who says sunshine brings happiness has never danced in the rain.

[booksJT]

Hi Erick

Thank you for choosing Barnes and Noble first look to view your book. I saw some of your video. My question for you is, Who were some of your influences when it came to writing?  Do you have any favorite authors?

[Erick_Setiawan]

Hello First Lookers!

I am so excited to start the discussions.  Thank you, first of all, to B&N and to Paul and Rachel for facilitating this.  And though I don't know their names, I heard there was a fleet of carrier pigeons I ought to thank for delivering the ARCs safely into your hands.  Thank you everyone for signing up and for embarking on this journey with me.  I know that to many of you, this is not the kind of book you'd normally read.

Before we start, I'd like to point out that you can find more information about me in the Meet the Writer section on the book page.  Additionally, you can visit my website for updates and announcements.

Let's get down to business, shall we?  I've read every single one of your posts.  I know that some of you were immediately drawn in by the story and were able to lose yourselves in Meridia's world by the first chapter.  Others needed a few more chapters before they got it.  I also know that some of you are still lost and confused, while others are ready to hurl the book against the wall and run screaming from the room.

No worries.  That's why I'm here.

So bring your questions.  I will do my best to help untangle every knot of confusion you might have!

[Sunltcloud]

Hi Erick,

Thanks for the link to your website. I just marked August 11at the San Francisco Library on my calendar. The library is certainly filled with welcoming spirits and promises a splendid beginning for your writing carrier. As Isabel Allende says in her foreword to A Free Library In This City: "it is full of presences; the air vibrates with memories, secret voices, and stories."

 You'll be in the best of company, and I can certainly imagine you on the stairway, parting the mists. But, as inhabitant of the sunnier South Bay I hope you will also come to the Book Group Expo in San Jose in the fall.

Gisela

---

Erick_Setiawan wrote:

Hello First Lookers!

I am so excited to start the discussions.  Thank you, first of all, to B&N and to Paul and Rachel for facilitating this.  And though I don't know their names, I heard there was a fleet of carrier pigeons I ought to thank for delivering the ARCs safely into your hands.  Thank you everyone for signing up and for embarking on this journey with me.  I know that to many of you, this is not the kind of book you'd normally read.

Before we start, I'd like to point out that you can find more information about me in the Meet the Writer section on the book page.  Additionally, you can visit my website for updates and announcements.

Let's get down to business, shall we?  I've read every single one of your posts.  I know that some of you were immediately drawn in by the story and were able to lose yourselves in Meridia's world by the first chapter.  Others needed a few more chapters before they got it.  I also know that some of you are still lost and confused, while others are ready to hurl the book against the wall and run screaming from the room.

No worries.  That's why I'm here.

So bring your questions.  I will do my best to help untangle every knot of confusion you might have!

---

[DSaff]

Erick, I love your sense of humor. You will go far in your career. Thanks again for being here and for taking the time to read our posts! I have bookmarked the OBAM page and am a follower of your FaceBook page.

---

Erick_Setiawan wrote:

Hello First Lookers!

I am so excited to start the discussions.  Thank you, first of all, to B&N and to Paul and Rachel for facilitating this.  And though I don't know their names, I heard there was a fleet of carrier pigeons I ought to thank for delivering the ARCs safely into your hands.  Thank you everyone for signing up and for embarking on this journey with me.  I know that to many of you, this is not the kind of book you'd normally read.

Before we start, I'd like to point out that you can find more information about me in the Meet the Writer section on the book page.  Additionally, you can visit my website for updates and announcements.

Let's get down to business, shall we?  I've read every single one of your posts.  I know that some of you were immediately drawn in by the story and were able to lose yourselves in Meridia's world by the first chapter.  Others needed a few more chapters before they got it.  I also know that some of you are still lost and confused, while others are ready to hurl the book against the wall and run screaming from the room.

No worries.  That's why I'm here.

So bring your questions.  I will do my best to help untangle every knot of confusion you might have!

---

[Erick_Setiawan]

---

Carmenere_lady wrote:
Hi Erick,  Thank you for taking the time to chat with us First Lookers.  Many of us on the boards have mentioned how we like or dislike the fact that we can not pin down a place or time for your story.  As I read OBaM, I get the feeling of not being grounded, that wherever  Meridia and Daniel are is an ephemeral place.  Is this the sort of feeling you wanted to create and if so, is it more or less dificult to write of a place that is possibly many places or perhaps just a place of your imagination. 

---

Hi Carmenere_lady,

Excellent question!  Let me tackle the issue of place first.

I'm a product of at least three different cultures: born in Indonesia to Chinese parents, and moved to the US when I was 16. By default, I am a minority three or four times over (I think most people lose count when you hit two). When I set out to write the book, I wanted a world where characters of diverse origins like myself would feel at home and not be branded as foreigners.  But immediately I ran into a problem: there isn't a physical place in the world where Chinese culture and Indonesian superstition and American ideology coexist seamlessly side by side.  I knew I couldn't set it in a real city or a real country, so I decided to create my own.  The customs and descriptions in the book were a result of this--some Chinese, some Indonesian, some unapologetically American, and some I borrowed from other cultures (I can elaborate more on these if anyone is interested).

That was how it started.  But the more I got deeper into the writing, the more I saw that the lack of locale also allowed me to challenge a few notions.  I think as a society we are very category-driven and eager to apply labels to the things and people we encounter. And when we can't readily put something or someone in a box, we feel unsettled and disoriented.  Why is that?  Why are we so fixated with branding and labeling everything? My answer to this was the mythical town in the book, where nothing is labeled, names are kept to a minimum (if you notice, no last names), and you judge a character by his or her action, not by your own preconceived notions.  I want my readers to rely only on their own imagination and the words I provided as they navigate through this world, and not on their previous biases.  When you read the first sentence, I want all bets to be off.  I want you to feel disoriented, I want you to feel the plunge into something not quite solid, and I want you to negotiate your way to a comfortable footing.  Only you and nobody else can decide where that footing might be.

This is one of the best reactions I've received for the book so far: A reader, a Caucasian woman, pictured Meridia as a Chinese woman.  Another reader, an Asian-American man, saw her as a black woman.  I love it!  I think this is how the world should be.

The question of time follows from this.  If the place isn't pinned down, why should the time be? I believe it was our brilliant moderator Paul who suggested that the story takes place in the past, present, and future all at once, and I can't agree with him more.  I think time is another label, useful for remembering things and meeting deadlines, but why can't it be fluid as well? What if memories and knowledge and premonitions all blend together and you can't tell which is which?

Back to your question, I found it much harder to write this way.  On the one hand, it gave me unlimited poetic license to do as I pleased. On the other hand, I couldn't rely on shorthands to do my job.  For example, when you set a book during the Holocaust, the mere mention of the name itself already brings up a whole host of associations in the readers' mind.  As a writer, you don't have to do the work yourself.  But for this book, I had to describe everything and build that world from scratch.  More work on my part, but it was certainly worth it.

Now for those of you who simply must have a specific time and place in mind, do so by all means.  You can set the story anywhere, any time--Ancient Greece, Elizabethan England, 19th century China--but when you run into anachronisms (and you will, since the book wasn't designed that way), accept them as an integral part of that world.  Anybody remember the movie Moulin Rouge?  It was set in Paris in the late 1800s but they were singing songs by Madonna and The Police.  Think of the book this way if you must, although I prefer you make up your own world.  After all, that is one of the greatest joys of reading.

[Erick_Setiawan]

---

DSaff wrote:

Welcome to the discussion, Erick! Thank you so much for the opportunity to read and discuss your book. What made you decide to have a first look discussion about your book? Is there anything besides word of mouth recommendations that you are hoping to get from us? It is a pleasure to have you with us.

---

Hi DSaff,

Thank you for that warm welcome!  Yes, glowing word of mouth recommendations would be fantastic (let me repeat that again--glowing word of mouth recommendations), but more than that, I just couldn't wait to share the book with readers and I can't think of a better way to do this than through First Look.  I believe in the book so much, and I believe that if people just hear about it, they'll be intrigued enough to read it.  As to what I'm hoping to get from all of you . . . I want you to sit back, enjoy the story, and maybe have one or two of your opinons challenged along the way. If I can make you question something that you thought was simply beyond doubt, or make you look at the world in a different way, I think I will have done my job.

It is a pleasure to have you on this adventure!

[Erick_Setiawan]

---

babzilla41 wrote:
Hi Erick, We've been having quite a discussion about the OBaM book cover.  I was wondering if you had any input as to the design or whether the artist had carte blanche after reading the story.  Can you tell us all of the "hidden" symbols - we've found quite a few but wonder if there are more!  Thank you for a great read; I really enjoyed reading OBaM.  It's opened my eyes to a new genre.

---

Hi babzilla41,

Thank you so much for raising this question!  I know the message boards were abuzz about the book cover, and people were speculating if there was a ghost, a staircase, an upside-down ghost, or even a pair of glasses.

Let me tell you what happened . . . The art director at Simon & Schuster, Jackie, read the book and loved it.  She went ahead and designed the cover (or commisioned somebody to do it), and sent it to Kerri, my editor, who in turn sent it to me for feedback.  I just about died when I saw it.  It was absolutely beautiful and it captured everything I wanted to say in the book--the mood, the timelessness, the ambiguity of place, the magical essence of the story.  So I said yes.  But funnily enough, I didn't notice any of the hidden items until Kerri pointed them out to me!  Now I see the obvious things (the fawn, the baby, the diamond ring, the necklace, the shovel, the bee, the bird), but as far as the ghost and the upside-down ghost . . . you should ask Kerri.  I'm not saying they don't exist, but it's fascinating that this is becoming some kind of a Rorschach Test!

I feel incredibly lucky because we found the perfect cover on the first try.  This rarely happens.  Sometimes it takes several rounds of revisions, and even then, the agent or author may still be unhappy with the cover.  Hats off to Kerri and Jackie!

[vivico1]

Erick,

Thank you so much for sharing your time with us here and your talent with us too! I have been in many of the First Look book clubs in here, and as I have said, of all of them, this is probably the book that has held my attention the most and that I have enjoyed the most. I am one of those who have posted that this is not my normal kind of read but the story you are telling, in this style, is very intriguing to me. Stories of relationships are. I was just wondering, did you set out at first to write a book involving magic and mystical things, or did you have a story of families in your head, that as you thought it out, this was the best way to tell it? (If you have answered this by the time you get to my post here, I will find it when I check again, or you can just say yes or no and see previous posts )

You know there will be questions to come about certain specific mystical things in the book and what they mean or do they have real origins, but I will leave those for others to post, a few at a time.

I did notice something tho, that I did want to ask you about and I don't think it has been discussed yet at all, unless on one of the threads I couldn't keep up with, I have had to kind of chose a few threads to concentrate on, to stay with the discussion as I want to. What I was wondering, and it will be no spoiler to anyone this week is, I would like to know about the names used. One of the things I noticed was that the men's names are all bible names! Stong bible names with stories behind them, such as Daniel, Gabriel, Samuel, Elias and Noah. All of the men's names are. Is there a reason for this? A few of the women's are too. Such as Hannah and then you have Rebecca and Leah together even. But a few of the women are not bible names (that I know of) Such as Ravenna and Permony. It just really started to stand out to me about the men and I found myself trying to compare the story of these men in the bible to the makeup of the characters in your book.

Thanks in advance and again, welcome and thanks for coming!

Vivian

Message Edited by vivico1 on 06-08-2009 02:17 PM

Message Edited by vivico1 on 06-08-2009 02:18 PM

[vivico1]

OK, now that is funny that you didn't even know about the symbols and pictures on the cover and loved it for your book!! I love that! lol. And yes, you hit the nail on the head, it HAS nearly become a Rorschach test lolol. I don't see the ghosts tho, I think we are all looking too hard now hehe, its almost like "Where's Waldo", oh well he is among the Bees and Mist don't you know! Cute.

---

Erick_Setiawan wrote:

---

---

Hi babzilla41,

Thank you so much for raising this question! I know the message boards were abuzz about the book cover, and people were speculating if there was a ghost, a staircase, an upside-down ghost, or even a pair of glasses.

Let me tell you what happened . . . The art director at Simon & Schuster, Jackie, read the book and loved it. She went ahead and designed the cover (or commisioned somebody to do it), and sent it to Kerri, my editor, who in turn sent it to me for feedback. I just about died when I saw it. It was absolutely beautiful and it captured everything I wanted to say in the book--the mood, the timelessness, the ambiguity of place, the magical essence of the story. So I said yes. But funnily enough, I didn't notice any of the hidden items until Kerri pointed them out to me! Now I see the obvious things (the fawn, the baby, the diamond ring, the necklace, the shovel, the bee, the bird), but as far as the ghost and the upside-down ghost . . . you should ask Kerri. I'm not saying they don't exist, but it's fascinating that this is becoming some kind of a Rorschach Test!

I feel incredibly lucky because we found the perfect cover on the first try. This rarely happens. Sometimes it takes several rounds of revisions, and even then, the agent or author may still be unhappy with the cover. Hats off to Kerri and Jackie!

---

[Erick_Setiawan]

---

dhaupt wrote:

Erick, first of all welcome to our little family. 

I am enjoying your novel so much and love the fact that it's without constraints of time and age, I'm also enjoying all the characters some I love and some I love to hate.

My question at this time is:

Did you know from the beginning that the novel would be timeless and ageless, and do you think it was easier to include magic to the story because of it.

Thanks again Erick 

---

Hi dhaupt,

I'm so glad you're enjoying the novel! I know there are some characters in it that you just love to hate, but they might surprise you yet!

I knew from the beginning that I wanted the book to be timeless and ageless (see my earlier post entitled Time and Place -- why ambiguous?), but I didn't set out to write a book with magical or fantastical elements in it.  I'm not much of a reader of fantasy or ghost stories, and unless you count Brave New World and The Time Traveler's Wife, I don't read much science fiction either.  But I do love Toni Morrison and Gabriel García Márquez--and their writing is ripe with magical realism (simply defined, it's a way of telling an extraordinary story in an otherwise realistic setting). When I started writing the book, I thought it would just be a straightforward chronicle of these two families, but a couple of chapters in, I realized that something was lacking.  I think I'd gotten to the part where Eva was complaining for the first time, and it just sounded so dull and mundane.  A lot of people complain every single day--why should this one woman's griping be unique and special?  I didn't know how to fix it, until my dad, who was visiting from Indonesia at the time, told me a story about a friend of his who was often kept up at nights by bees.  I was confused, and asked him if his friend was a beekeeper.  My dad laughed, and said that it was actually the friend's wife who was keeping him up at nights with her endless grievances, which sounded exactly like bees buzzing.  The idea hit me like a bolt of lightnight.  I went back to those chapters and rewrote them.

So the answer to your question is yes, the timeless and ageless aspect of the novel made it easier to include the magic.  But to me, it's not the woo-woo/wicked-witch/haunted-house/spooky-cemetery kind of magic.  In fact, the fantastical elements expand the characters' thoughts and emotions, and they become a fitting physicial manifestation of the characters' inner turmoils.  Metaphors, if you'd like, brought to life by the dynamics between the characters.  I'd be happy to discuss this more if anyone's interested!

Message Edited by Erick_Setiawan on 06-08-2009 02:44 PM

[dclement04]

Hi Erick,

I am enjoying this book so much and this book is of a different kind. It has made me challenge the way I think and I love that! So thank you very much for your genius insights.

My question to you is...now that this book will be coming out soon are you working on any other kind of novel that we should look for in the future? Have you thought about turning this book in a series? And do you think that you will keep the same writing style or try a different path?

Thanks and good luck!

Danielle

[PiperMurphy]

Hi Erick,

Thank you for joining us and taking our questions. And, congratulations on your book. I absolutely love it. I am in awe of the detailed world that you have created. I was wondering about some of the people that Meridia found at the market like the man who grew herbs on his body, the one with the radishes, and the woman who sold her perfumed sweat. Were they based in folklore? Or, were they your imagination? If you made them up, you really have a good imagination!

Also, you were talking about metaphors. You use a lot of symbology, and I realize that is what you intend, but I see Eva really spewing great swarms of bees, the marigolds and roses are really at war, and the staircases move. Is that what you were seeing when you wrote the book? I don't think I've read another book that paints mental pictures quite like this one which makes it fun, by the way.