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CRASHING AMERICA

 

Even though I'm a third-generation Californian, somehow I had never really understood what it meant to belong to place. I had a romantic idea that I could find something different among the people in the heartland  and traveled to Iowa, South Dakota,  and Nebraska.

 

I met teenagers and farmers and stood alone in the open plains. To my surprise, I didn't feel the deep connection to family and place that I was seeking. Farmers were committing suicide, young people felt stranded, farms were left abandoned. Whole towns, such as Sioux City, reminded me of abandoned blocks in the South Bronx. The meatpacking plants were boarded up, spooky and left for ruins. Native peoples' reservations weren't even on the map, yet I knew of their bloody history. 

 

Cleis Press published an essay I wrote about my trip, and I also wrote short stories about the teenage girls I met. Soon I had the perfect character—a street kid named Huck. Once she tore off into the heartland, I had the beginnings of a novel.

HERE'S AN INTERVIEW

 

A PARTIAL HISTORY OF MY DELUSIONS

is my second novel, a story about a Serbian dissident who becomes enchanted with a New York dancer trapped in Belgrade during the 1999 NATO bombings. The two risk their lives to escape near the Kosovo border where they rescue a stranded American soldier. The trio becomes entangled in a hostage crisis and are flown to New York for media interviews. Only the soldier knows the whole truth about the hostages and struggles to reconcile it with her patriotism. Fighting off the world press while holed up in a midtown hotel, the dissident and dancer help the soldier discover something even deeper than her courage—a new and surprising humanity. 

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