I was privileged with the chance to ask New York Times Critics Best Books of 2016 author Natashia Deón some questions about her new book, The Perishing. The Pershing follows Lou, a young black woman in the 1930’s who wakes up with no memory of her life, name, or family. As Lou begins to create a new future, her story unravels as she starts having strong visions of the past from times in history she shouldn’t have any knowledge about. Lou’s story is coupled with a woman named Sarah living far into the future, who gives the reader insight into what is going on beneath the surface.

I loved this novel! Deón has a poetic and gorgeous way with words that makes the story soothing and engaging to read. So much of this book is quotable; you could make gorgeous wall posters with all the insights Deón has for life and love. As a reader you come to understand Lou in a deep and meaningful way—a way that allows you to see part of yourself in the struggles she faces with identity, love, and pain. This relatability to the character shows how great Deón is as an author. My only critique is that I wanted more of Lou and occasionally Sarah’s portions distracted me from the flow of the narrative. Otherwise, this book is a must read and will get you thinking about your life in a deeper and more meaningful way.

*Natashia Deón, author, attorney, and activist*

Below is my interview with Natashia Deón.

You mentioned in an interview with the Los Angeles Times that you “recklessly love” all of your characters and really dive into what their motive is for their choices. How do you begin the process of creating those characters and making sure the reader has the empathy for the characters that you do?

I love love. It’s something we can’t see. Imaginary, if you will. And at the same time it is felt so deeply. Like love, my characters are imaginary and carry no roses, no chocolates, no lunch dates to prove they exist yet, as a writer, I have to prove they are real and exist in this world I’ve created. So, all my characters begin with the thought of love and reckless love is the only kind worth documenting.

What inspired you to write a story about the rebirth of a soul? Is this idea in any way connected to your spiritual beliefs or was The Perishing inspired by another story?

The Perishing is connected to every part of me. I can’t blame anyone except everybody and everything. :) It’s my legal background of twenty years, motherhood, being a daughter, a descendant of slaves, a student, American, and yes, my spiritual beliefs as a Christ follower, and more. But I’m not supporting a religion in my fiction writing except maybe to ask this question: What is eternal life? Honestly, I don’t know and no pastor, preacher or teacher has ever given me more than their hypothesis. So, for me, what I’m writing about is a feeling. And, these strange dreams I’ve had like the one that sparked The Perishing and became Chapter 35. It scared me. But equally so, The Perishing is about that intoxicating feeling of recognition I’ve had when meeting someone for the first time. Or so it seems. My husband was one of those people and at the time he lived just outside of London, I lived in San Francisco and we had a chance meeting at Heathrow airport. We were engaged within three months of first meeting, married in six and that was almost twenty years ago.

As someone who has studied writing and already written one hit book, what is something that really helped you in your writing process that aspiring writers may not have heard before?

Finish. That’s the only piece of advice worth repeating. There are only so many times you need to revise that chapter. That sentence. Stop asking people to look at your outline. :) Finish the thing. Write it. That’s all.

The Perishing references a lot of important historical events, especially in Los Angeles. How did you begin researching Lou’s world in the 1930’s and attempt to understand what her experience would be like during that time?

I read…a lot. I read dozens of history books, newspapers, personal journals and personal letters from people of that time. A ton of essays and more. I wanted to know what people were thinking about; how they said it. Wikipedia pointed me in the right direction but the most important part is the footnotes. Buy those books from your independent booksellers, read those articles, fact check. I set aside time just for research because the creative brain and research brain are two animals. As a practicing attorney who’s also getting a Master’s in Psychology, I can tell you from writing a brief or diagnosing a client, it just is. And during research you’ll go down some bunny trails you can’t easily come out of without exhausting yourself and feeling like you’ve procrastinated waaay too much, so I try to set aside time. And I've messed up said-time plenty. All this to say, when creative inspiration hits you, drop everything and honor it. Because we can’t often conjure our creativity the way we can sit down and do research. I was fortunate to be a Pamela Krasney Moral Courage Fellow at The Mesa Refuge where I dedicated my entire time to reading and research. A limited bibliography can be found on my website because of that experience and can also be found in the acknowledgments section of The Perishing.

How has your writing process changed, if at all, since you wrote Grace?

Courage. More courage while writing. I found courage to be 100% myself on the page. I didn’t have that before. That being said, I’m proud of GRACE. “She” was also a huge part of me but I remember writing her and being timid. Not the kind of imposter syndrome fear that I may always have but fear that readers would see inside of me or know the secrets I've hid there. Then a teacher once told me, “Write as if no one you know will ever read it.” And that was freeing for me. I needed to hear that. With The Perishing, I wrote it no matter who I know might read it. If it fails, I thought, it fails. This is for me.

A lot of people that have already read The Perishing are begging for storylines involving Sarah’s other lives. Are you currently working on any projects and can we expect a follow-up to The Perishing?

This makes me so happy to read. The original version of The Perishing is probably triple in size and my editor and agent were like, WHAT is this?! Ha! I said, “Well…L.A. wasn’t her only life (lives) and she has an origin story and…” It was and is a lot and when you go to a publisher, they are first thinking, “Can I sell this?” So, together with my editor, we pared it down to what we have today and I trusted my publisher to market it. But none of us are the beginning of our own stories. And when we die, some part of us…even if it’s only that we were alive at all—will affect the on-going story of humanity. That’s only a guess. But, for me, The Perishing was just fiction. In my real life, my brain is always interested in (and tracking) histories. And the lines between real and unreal are sometimes blurred. I’ve seen miracles.

One important aspect of Sarah’s many lives is that, though she’s lived as people of all genders, she is always born black. What made you decide to have her always be born black and is that a message about black experiences throughout history?

There is such a strong narrative in America--not just America, the world--that roots Blackness in something less than admirable. I wanted to show Black people as people who are as diverse and traveled and multi-placed as any people group. Throughout time, we have lived (and live) in Europe and Asia and India, of course Africa, and every continent, and were part of different societies, including what is currently understood as aristocracy and royalty. And through time, Black has meant something different depending on when in time you were. And certainly, being born a woman has been the leading factor in a person’s destiny; certainly longer than the color of skin has been. In America, since around the 1600s, Black people have been pushing back against the dominant narrative that, in sum, requires Black people to overcome heartbreaking assumptions that attach at birth. During American slavery, a child born to a slave was a slave. Today, Blackness even affects how pregnant mothers are treated in this country. In the United States, death rates for Black women in childbirth (and shortly after) are equivalent to third world countries and it’s not because we’re eating junk food. In 2006, I was the mother of an almost 1-year old and a successful Black woman attorney with good insurance and an Ob/Gyn in two countries—as I was living between Los Angeles and London. That year, I gave birth to my son at good hospital in the Los Angeles area…and he was born into the hands of my husband, not a doctor. He works construction. The nurses assigned to my hospital room didn’t believe my pain level or that my baby was coming and soon would be a no-show when I delivered. I was heartbroken for my husband. All that to say, Black means something and it’s not imagined. And it’s also important to say that this “birthright” manifests itself into real negative cycles and systems that, as a people and as a nation, we still have to overcome.