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This week, Jack is joined by debut novelist Khashayar J. Khabushani.
Khashayar's hotly anticipated first novel, I Will Greet the Sun Again, is a beautiful novel about family, queer adolescence, and the multifaceted nature of identity and while it is a story unafraid to face difficult subject matter, just like the poem from which it takes its title, it is ultimately a novel filled with love.
Purchase I Will Greet the Sun Again
(0:27) Introduction
(6:10) Being your own protagonist
(9:37) Khashayar's early reads
(23:42) Recent Reads
(31:30) Khashayar's most impactful book
(39:27) I Will Greet the Sun Again
Khashayar's hotly anticipated first novel, I Will Greet the Sun Again, is a beautiful novel about family, queer adolescence, and the multifaceted nature of identity and while it is a story unafraid to face difficult subject matter, just like the poem from which it takes its title, it is ultimately a novel filled with love.
Purchase I Will Greet the Sun Again
(0:27) Introduction
(6:10) Being your own protagonist
(9:37) Khashayar's early reads
(23:42) Recent Reads
(31:30) Khashayar's most impactful book
(39:27) I Will Greet the Sun Again
Welcome to Mostly Books Meets, a weekly podcast by the independent award-winning bookshop, Mostly Books. Nestled in the Oxfordshire town of Abingdon-on-Thames, Mostly Books has been spreading the joy of reading for fifteen years. Whether it’s a book, gift, or card you need the Mostly Books team is always on hand to help. Visit our website.
The podcast is produced and presented by Jack Wrighton and the team at Mostly Books. It is edited by Story Ninety-Four. Find us on Twitter @mostlyreading & Instagram @mostlybooks_shop.
Meet the host:
Jack Wrighton is a bookseller and social media manager at Mostly Books. His hobbies include photography and buying books at a quicker rate than he can read them.
Connect with Jack on Instagram
I Will Greet the Sun Again is published in the UK by Viking
Books mentioned in this episode include:
Eileen by Ottessa Moshfegh - ISBN: 9781784701468
The Golden Notebook by Doris Lessing - ISBN: 9780007498772
Amsterdam by Ian McEwan - ISBN: 9780099272779
Fates and Furies by Lauren Groff - ISBN: 9780099592532
Middlemarch by George Elliot - ISBN: 9780141439549
Creators & Guests
What is Mostly Books Meets...?
Welcome to Mostly Books Meets, a podcast by the independent bookshop, Mostly Books. Booksellers from an award-winning indie bookshop chatting books and how they have shaped people's lives, with a whole bunch of people from the world of publishing - authors, poets, journalists and many more. Join us for the journey.
[00:00:00] Jack Wrighton: Welcome to Mostly Books Meets, the weekly incurably bookish. We will be talking to authors and creatives from across the world of publishing and discussing the books they have loved. Looking for a recommendation? Then look no further. Head to your favorite cozy spot and let us pick out your next favorite book.
On the podcast this week, we warmly welcome debut novelist Khashayar J. Khabushani. Khashayar's hotly anticipated first novel, I Will Greet the Sun Again, is published on the 3rd of August. It is a beautiful novel about family, queer adolescence, and the multifaceted nature of identity and while it is a story unafraid to face difficult subject matter, just like the poem from which it takes its title, it is ultimately a novel filled with love. Khashayar, welcome to Mostly Books Meets.
[00:00:56] Khashayar J. Khabushani: Jack, that's such a lovely way to describe the novel. Thank you. It's so lovely to be here.
[00:01:01] Jack Wrighton: My absolute pleasure, thank you for joining us. Now am I right... Mostly Books, we're a small bookshop in a town called Abingdon, which is just south of Oxford, kind of nestled in the middle of, England. It's a rather grim day here, actually. We've had some nice weather, but it's a bit rainy. Now, am I right in saying you're joining us from, is it LA today?
[00:01:18] Khashayar J. Khabushani: I'm actually, born and raised in LA, part of the novel takes place in LA. I live in San Francisco. So I'm joining you from San Francisco from a equally grim and cloudy day.
[00:01:31] Jack Wrighton: Yes, I've heard the weather in San Francisco is notorious for, tourists sort of arrive thinking, oh, California, you know, it's in our imagination, it's, oh, it's going to be gorgeous, but actually it's quite a foggy, wet place.
[00:01:45] Khashayar J. Khabushani: Yes, cold. I, you know, I spent several years. Living in New York and I tell friends, I don't know if it's because of the fog or what it is, but I have been more cold here in San Francisco than the winters of New York. So that goes to show you.
[00:02:03] Jack Wrighton: And I realise now I'm probably being a bit of a stereotype by being British and I've already started by talking about the weather, which is, yeah, which is terribly, terribly boring of me. Because we're here to talk about your novel. Now, this is your first novel, and it's soon to be at the time of recording, it's not out here just yet in the UK. But how long have you been with this story, with this novel? Because it must be such a... An exciting and important time for you to kind of know that it's just on the cusp of kind of entering into the world and finding its readership. How long have you been with this story now?
[00:02:40] Khashayar J. Khabushani: Yeah, Jack, it's so surreal. As you say, we're approaching publication and I'm just thrilled for it to reach readers, if I would be so lucky. To answer your question, I think of it twofold. So there's kind of, to use a boring term, there's like the professional aspect of it, which when I say that, I mean about five years ago when I decided I wanted to move to New York, I wanted to go to graduate school to study writing in order to really give myself, the best chance to write this book and then go through the process of finding an agent and having it sent to editors, et cetera, et cetera. So that's been a process of about five years and, but on a more personal level, I think the story has been with me for as early as my first memories and I say that because I remember, as a very young person, you know, the novel is written in a young person's voice and it all takes place in the immediate present and I remember as a very small child, when certain things were happening in my life, I remember narrating those things to myself as though I was my first reader and it was a way to make sense, but also celebrate the things that were happening, and whether it was being in Iran or being in Los Angeles, falling in love and meeting people, you know, all, all those things that sort of take place in the book. So yeah, in some ways five years and in some ways as a process of 30 years with this book.
[00:04:17] Jack Wrighton: Absolutely. As I'm sure it is for most novelists and for writers that in some way, whether it's their first or whether it's, you know, their 15th, that story has, you know, been a kind of part of them for a long time and I love you describing it sort of being a young person kind of almost internally narrating your life, because I think we all have our own different kind of internal worlds and how we process the world as well how we process what's happening to us, you know the world around us and i'm sure for many that kind of narration is a way of taking control of that and processing that.
[00:04:53] Khashayar J. Khabushani: Yeah. Yeah, Jack, that's, that's absolutely right. I think when I look at my, the younger version of myself, I think there was this insistence to... and again, this was all happening, as you say, internally, but this insistence to make it feel that it, in fact, it was all real. I think often there's this divide between what we observe adults and the way they take in life and it feels that at great odds for us as young people and... but there's a great sense of empowerment to narrate and to claim and to announce to oneself that I am in fact real and these things are in fact real.
[00:05:38] Jack Wrighton: Absolutely. It's kind of like a I suppose an extension of I feel these days you hear a lot of people talk about being the protagonist of like, of, you know, and I think, I think there's so many different elements of that, of, but I think part of that comes from the idea of, if you kind of frame it that way, I don't know, it's sometimes in some situations can be quite helpful to kind of think, you know, no, this is maybe this is happening because it's part of my wider story. It might be, I don't know, it might be good right now, or it might be bad right now, but it's part of the kind of overall narrative as well.
[00:06:10] Khashayar J. Khabushani: Could I ask you about that? So for you, as a reader, what, cause, I'm often curious, when I'm doing my own reading, and certainly when I'm doing my writing, for you, what's that line between being, as you say, to borrow that phrase, the protagonist of one's story, and then, quite frankly, just like slipping into narcissism, you know, I feel like that's a delicate, that's a delicate line.
[00:06:35] Jack Wrighton: Oh, absolutely. I think the conversation around that whole sort of protagonist mentality is, you know, people talk about that some people have that protagonist mentality at a time when being a human means kind of a collective experience and actually, you know, going through life kind of constantly being like, no, everything is kind of gravitating around me, I mean, that's going to. End you up in some, you know, very difficult situations or at least leave you being someone thinking, I'm the protagonist while everyone's thinking, no, you're the antagonist at the moment because we're finding that very hard. But in terms of as a reader as well, is that what you're asking in terms of...
[00:07:16] Khashayar J. Khabushani: Yeah, like how...
[00:07:17] Jack Wrighton: We're reading a book that's from a specific character's point of view. I think, no, I think, obviously, with third person, you can sort of skim across the surface and kind of dip in and out of different viewpoints. But I think from first person, I think it's just very immersive. I don't think it ever stims over, unless the character is being portrayed as a narcissist, I don't think it ever goes in that direction. I think, instead, you're just aware of, you're taking the back seat. and you're kind of observing the driver as they kind of navigate the landscape around them, which is, you know, as a reader, a really wonderful experience.
[00:07:58] Khashayar J. Khabushani: Yeah, I find it to be a miracle that we continue to have and are very fortunate to have these first person narratives and so many writers, their ability to take you into their experience to include you, although it is a first person narrative and it might be very specific to their identity, but I just, anytime I come across these first percent, I'm so amazed how included I feel as a reader, even if they are, as we're saying, like ultimately the protagonist, we're living in their consciousness.
[00:08:34] Jack Wrighton: Absolutely, and you know, as you said, no one character's experience can be true to you. I mean, I think it'd be terrifying if you picked up a novel and you think, wait, is this actually my, you know, life? But, you know, you come across characters that you think that experience can't really speak to anything I've gone through. But I think what's always amazing is that that doesn't mean that you also don't find many points where you think, oh goodness, you know, we're all the same, you know, there's many experiences which aren't unique. You think they are when they're happening to you and there's a great comfort in that. I think it's one of the comforts of reading, is actually realising that it doesn't matter kind of what the experience, you're... we can feel alone sometimes, but actually we're not, what you're experiencing at any given moment is being shared by, you know, many other people, if that makes sense.
[00:09:27] Khashayar J. Khabushani: The gift of literature right there. You just articulated it. Yeah. Yeah. We're not alone.
[00:09:32] Jack Wrighton: And in terms of you as a reader, have you always been attracted to the written word, you know, from a young age or did it come later on for you? What's been your relationship with it?
[00:09:42] Khashayar J. Khabushani: Yeah. I came to reading. You know, I'm 31, so when I say late in my life, I know that I'm kind of makes me sound like a jackass as if I'm like, you know, in my seventies, but I think as a reader, when I look at other writers or just other friends of mine who, you know, went to university, blah, blah, blah, blah, they grew up around books, maybe their parents were readers, maybe their, you know, other family members were readers and for me, I wonder, I try not to make it too much about class, but I was raised by a single mum and there's a lot of just struggle and so in my mind, there wasn't really the luxury to have books or to read. But when I was in university, and it was really getting a job at a bookstore, which I guess there was some part of me that intuited that I would want to be a reader, want to be a writer.
At the time, I thought, well, it's better than serving, you know, lattes as I was doing or working restaurants as I was doing, it felt more of a comfort to be around books and then when I did it, what ended up happening is I, all the money that I earned went right back to the store to buy the books.
So that's when I came to reading was, at about 21, 22 years old and I really had to, I know this may sound silly and I don't mean it in a literal way. I was literate. I could read, but the practice of reading, choosing what to read, how to read all of the things I had to sort of teach myself and it was painful because the desire I had for literature that clearly was inside of me and wasn't yet explored, that desire was at such odds with my ability to do it, and it's a very uncomfortable place to be in, but it, I didn't give up on it and I'm glad that I did.
[00:11:37] Jack Wrighton: No, absolutely. I think it's its own muscle, really, that needs to be exercised and, you know, I find as someone, you know, I work in a bookshop, but I also regularly go through sort of, periods, fallow periods, where for whatever reason that muscle is, I don't know, maybe a bit exhausted or a bit, you know, and despite the fact that, yes, I can pick up a book and I can read the words, I'm not reading, if that makes sense, it's not It's not the same experience, and I think that's totally fair to bring up class because other authors that we've spoken to, it's very interesting to see the difference, you know, some people are surrounded by books from a very early age and many of themselves say, you know, Oh, actually I was very lucky because I was in a household where books are expensive, you know, even coming from a bookshop, you know, books are, they can be hard to come by in certain circumstances and I think, you know, you mentioned entering the bookshop and that was part of the process is it's that proximity to books, which I think not everyone has from a young age I didn't read until later on. So I think that's a very a very common experience as well.
[00:12:42] Khashayar J. Khabushani: When I was looking at my favorite children's novel, for instance, it got me so emotional because I realised I've never read, it sounds crazy, but I've never read a children's novel and I was talking to some loved ones about this who grew up in a very different class setting than me and they reminded me that part of reading as a young person or even returning to children's novels as an older person, part of that is initiated by being read to, which I can't think of a greater act of empathy and kindness and love than an older person reading to a younger person. I mean, when I think about how warm and sensational that must feel to fall asleep to to stories I'm so glad that that's part of it seems like our world's culture regardless of where you grow up I mean, it's storytelling at its very purest form but I didn't have that and it's fair to say I missed out on a lot because of that and I've missed out on a lot of great children's books, so your question has sort of sparked a desire in me to go out and find books that so many people covet and love and to read them for the first time.
[00:14:05] Jack Wrighton: Yeah, absolutely. It's you know, it's never too... we put these categories on the books of you know, children's literature or you know we put certain age ratings on them, but you know many people I've spoken to and many readers would agree that, you know, that's just a kind of vague guidance, and actually there's a great joy to be had from reading children's books, as an adult, so that world is still there for you, it hasn't moved on, you know, it's, yeah, it's still, it's there waiting for you.
What was one of the first books that you sort of remember reading and, you know, had an impact on you, or you remember thinking, oh, okay, there's something here that really interests me and brings me in?
[00:14:45] Khashayar J. Khabushani: When I realised that words on the page had an ability to really help me become who I felt I wanted to be for me it that was initiated by my studies and in Philosophy and I say that because I it was all this sort of gradual process and so it was like in the university, I was studying philosophy you know reading Descartes and reading Nietzsche and grappling with he's like Big ideas, blah, blah, blah, blah, and then once I got to that, to the bookstore and I realized, okay, maybe it's literary nonfiction that I want to more gravitate towards and around that time, the book that comes to mind, that has really stuck with me and was so instructive and is Just Kids by Patti Smith and the reason I think of that book is because not only is the prose gorgeous, but the story of her as a young person moving to New York City to become an artist, but having no idea, how to, and then meeting other artists and reading Robert Mapplethorpe and creating this relationship and being part of that milieu in the, what was that though? Yeah, late 60s, early 70s. I, as a young person reading that, thought to myself, God bless youthful naivete. I can do exactly that, I'm going to move to New York City, I just have to find a park bench in Central Park and as long as I pray to the gods hard enough, I will find my way as an artist.
[00:16:27] Jack Wrighton: I love that. I love that, particularly because I don't know, you know, if New York is anything like, I don't know, London, but the difference between the 60s and, you know, the 2000s in terms of just the property market and it just the idea that you could just, you know, people talk about that now. So many artists now that, oh, I moved to London in the 60s and I rented a place for you know, 20 pence a week or something.
[00:16:51] Khashayar J. Khabushani: What pay for coffee now, you know? You're doing well, if you could buy coffee, let alone have a apartment in the West village in New York city or the East village.
[00:17:00] Jack Wrighton: Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah. Or, you know, or even worse, like I walked into this, you know, I don't know, big sort of, like, whether a newspaper or, I don't know, the literary supplement or something, oh, and I just asked for a job, and they said, yeah, sure, and...
[00:17:13] Khashayar J. Khabushani: Yeah.
[00:17:13] Jack Wrighton: You know, all this stuff that you're like, the world doesn't work like that anymore, unfortunately.
[00:17:19] Khashayar J. Khabushani: Yeah.
[00:17:19] Jack Wrighton: I love this idea that you thought. This will be my life, reading that book, you thought, I can do this, yeah, and very quickly, unfortunately, I imagine, found out that that wasn't, that wasn't the case, yeah.
[00:17:32] Khashayar J. Khabushani: What I will tell you though, Jack is so yeah, clearly, Patti Smith, 70s, very different for gosh, you are in 2018. But what did fall into alignment was, I, you know, I rented a shoebox apartment and had and found a job at a restaurant, to work as a waiter and I remember specifically thinking this to myself, particularly because of what you're talking about economics and whatnot.
I remember I felt I was the luckiest person in the world, that I had a roof over my head, and I had work and anything else in between I could do and, and that's, I guess, the draw of these, of these great cities, whether it's London and New York or San Francisco or Paris is like, if you're fortunate enough to have work that allows you to pay your rent, then you can, I remember just taking the train downtown to places that I would never be able to afford to live in, but just sitting there and being amazed by the diversity and having the context to know of the great writers. I mean, I remember walking by a Brownstone where James Baldwin lived in, and he's just a hero of mine. Yeah, and I'm just looking at like, I'm in the same city as this person and as you said, vastly different realities economically, but I was still, I was still there and for me, that was, that was enough.
[00:19:13] Jack Wrighton: Yes. 'cause of course, I think I have got the, yes. James Baldwin is one of your sort of front quotes.
[00:19:20] Khashayar J. Khabushani: Yeah. Yeah. What do we call that in the epigraph? Yeah. He has played a great influence. Not just the work of his that I read, but also. to do it. I think when I listened to his interviews and read his works, there was this beautiful rage that he had and, and brought to the page and also this insistence to, to make meaning of his, of his own experiences and, that was really instrumental for me.
[00:19:52] Jack Wrighton: Yes, and he seems to be one of those writers and thinkers that I feel like it doesn't matter what the subject being discussed is, but this always seems to be a James Baldwin quote, that, you know, kind of aligns for it of any kind of conversation because, you know, as well as a writer, you know, you know, he was a sort of a thinker, a kind of public intellectual, and it never ceases to amaze me, but there always seems to be a, you know, a really beautiful, succinct, straight to the point, you know, no, no kind of messing around james Baldwin quote for most kind of conversations or discussions.
[00:20:30] Khashayar J. Khabushani: Yeah, yeah, exactly.
[00:20:32] Jack Wrighton: Are there any sort of fiction books that you remember in your kind of early explorations of reading that you remember sort of standing out for you?
[00:20:40] Khashayar J. Khabushani: This goes back to your point or our conversation at the very beginning about reading narratives that on the surface or even as the narrative unfolds doesn't align with our as a reader with our personal experiences, but brings great solace and Ottessa Moshfegh debut, no, no, it wasn't her debut, her second of, I believe it would be Eileen and I remember reading that and being so comforted by it and I know it's strange to say because, you know, a lot of grim things happen in the book and the way the narrator describes herself is there's a great element of disgust that's invoked when she, as she sees herself and I mean, on one hand, it was both so entertaining for me and so compelling, as a reader, which I guess is, you know, a part of what we hope to do is, as writers is to entertain our readers, but it was also, it felt so quietly comforting to see a writer depict characters in ways that perhaps others wouldn't be willing to do and it made me, to your point from earlier, feel so much less alone in the way that I saw myself and the way that I saw my own life.
[00:22:00] Jack Wrighton: Yes. Yes. She's a she's an interesting. I haven't read Eileen, but I have read...
[00:22:06] Khashayar J. Khabushani: It's coming the screen so...
[00:22:08] Jack Wrighton: It is, isn't it? So I I need to Yes, I need to, yeah, read it before before it does. But I have read my Year of Rest and Relaxation, which is, you know, another sort of difficult, central character, who, you know, on the surface has basically every privilege imaginable, like independently wealthy, talks about sort of being beautiful all the time.
So very little to almost enamor or kind of make you feel, oh yes, that's like me. But I do know that it's such an interesting read because you find yourself sort of sucked in and again, there's an element of looking at those kind of messier sides of humanity, you know, those crevices in people, those kind of dark corners, that there is just something fascinating and something, yes, even if it doesn't directly relate to you, something incredibly comforting and reassuring in reading those stories.
[00:23:04] Khashayar J. Khabushani: Yeah, and maybe I'm with that title as well, maybe I'm filling in or connecting dots that aren't meant to be connected, but I, it feels like a great act of compassion, when a writer chooses to inhabit those crevices, as you're saying, that are very, I don't know, unappealing to... on the surface level or, you know, don't speak directly to one's experience and Ottessa Moshfegh isn't the only one, I mean, there are, there are several writers who do that and I find great comfort in that.
[00:23:43] Jack Wrighton: And in terms of sort of bringing you forward to the, you know, to the present day, your book is soon to come out in the UK, forgive me, is it out in the US yet? Or...
[00:23:53] Khashayar J. Khabushani: So we're just about a day or two behind the UK. I think we're publishing August 1st.
[00:24:00] Jack Wrighton: Right, okay, so also on that, I know sometimes it can either be pretty much spot on or sometimes there can be a sort of couple of months difference between the two. So yes, your book is soon to kind of enter the world and become its own thing and for you today, as you know, the writer, do you still have time for reading? Do you still find yourself reading, you know, as you were writing? Or as the publication process is coming up.
[00:24:28] Khashayar J. Khabushani: Jack, I don't stand a chance as a writer if I'm not reading. I know when I listen to other. Interviews with writers, especially writers who have been doing it for quite some time, I remember hearing, for instance, Zadie Smith say that she looks forward to finishing a manuscript because she knows she'll then return back to, to reading or, or catch up on titles that she's been wanting to read and I admire that because I imagine you're really, focused in and, and locked in in your own work. But for me, I'm kind of a leech. I need to borrow, from other people in order to gain momentum for what I'm working on myself and so I'm, you know, there are some periods when I, where I'm of course reading more, but I, yeah, ever since that book, so I haven't really looked back. I've just keep my, keep my face between covers.
[00:25:23] Jack Wrighton: And in terms of the, you know, last maybe six months, let's say, what books have really, really stood out for you?
[00:25:31] Khashayar J. Khabushani: Look at my stack here. I also, I should say, poetry is incredibly important to me, but in most contemporary, or so I never read Doris Lessing's The Golden Notebook. So that's something that I picked up that I've been reading in the last months, J. M. Coetzee is that how to say his last name?
[00:25:54] Jack Wrighton: I must confess, this is terrible to admit, I love that, because you're a former bookseller, and I'm a current bookseller, and neither of us know, that's how I would say it, but whether that's, yeah. We'll go with that.
[00:26:07] Khashayar J. Khabushani: His work was really, and has been really important because he writes, I guess we would call it a trilogy. I mean, he's written many titles, but, writes about boyhood, and about coming of age, discovered Ian McEwan for the first time as of late, read the title of Amsterdam, which....
[00:26:29] Jack Wrighton: Oh, yes, yeah, yeah.
[00:26:31] Khashayar J. Khabushani: Extraordinary writer, and the last I'll say is, Lauren Groff, who's an American writer. Her novel Fates and Furies, which I love cause it also, a lot of it took place in New York city. I, so I, when I'm looking for new things to read for me, what like initially pulls me in is the voice on the page and then, if there is subject matter that's similar to what I'm interested in writing about, that's kind of a perfect marriage for me.
[00:27:02] Jack Wrighton: That's what sort of initially draws you in. It sounds like you've got a great, I don't know, a great collection there, and how are you finding the Doris Lessing
[00:27:11] Khashayar J. Khabushani: It is outside of my pay grade, I will say. So I felt this with, and this might, I hope this isn't a controversial point, but I think Middlemarch is probably the best book ever written, like, I can't think, by George Eliott.
[00:27:28] Jack Wrighton: George Elliott? Yeah.
[00:27:29] Khashayar J. Khabushani: Just on a sentence level, I couldn't believe how decadent, the sentences are and the reason I thought of Middlemarch when you asked me about Doris Lessing is because I feel when it comes to the level of craft that Lessing and, for instance, George Eliott were working with is so above my abilities and this goes back to what I was saying of have building that muscle to teach myself how to read and so there's a part of me with Middlemarch or with the gold that wants to just sit and you hear people talk about like for two weeks, I didn't move off the sofa and I was swept away. I wish I could do that, but I take in a paragraph or so of some of these sort of classic titles and then I'm like, I am so satiated, I don't know what to do. I need to go for a walk or something and come back to this. So that's, that's been my journey with, with the Golden Notebook.
[00:28:27] Jack Wrighton: Yeah, and it's Middlemarch, bringing up Middlemarch, that's interesting because, not too long ago, I bought a copy of Middlemarch because I thought, oh, I should read some more of the kind of the classics, you know, just to, you know, just try them out and Middlemarch, for some reason, I thought, That seemed like the one for me and I'm, in a similar story to you, I'm reading it quite slowly. I'm sort of digesting it bit by bit. But I must agree from the early parts that I've read, it really just, yes, stands out as, again, very human, very humorous. I was really struck by how funny it is.
[00:29:04] Khashayar J. Khabushani: Hysterical and like the commentary on the mores and the social norms and marriage and why sort of this devotion to, to higher thinking and spiritual thought and the criticisms of, yeah, it's, that's what I'm saying, like, to use a canned phrase, like, George Elliott holds no punches, like, she's going for them all, you know, and I just admire that so much.
[00:29:34] Jack Wrighton: I think, yeah, and I think it's not, it's not controversial to say. I mean, I think it was, yeah, Virginia Woolf who said, you know, I think she called it the only serious novel that's been written in English, her opinion was that before her contemporaries, that was the only thing that was worth reading was Middlemarch.
[00:29:51] Khashayar J. Khabushani: Gave me chills. Wow. I mean, what a compliment to receive.
[00:29:57] Jack Wrighton: Yeah, absolutely. So yeah, you share that opinion with Virginia Woolf, so you're in good company. You're in, yeah, absolutely good company, and if you want, apologies if you have seen this, but every time I hear Doris Lessing's name. I always have to recommend, if people haven't seen it, the video of her learning that she's won the Nobel Prize, because it's very funny.
[00:30:17] Khashayar J. Khabushani: Okay, I'm gonna make sure to remember to watch it.
[00:30:20] Jack Wrighton: It's on YouTube. Yeah, she's getting out of a taxi with, I think, her son. They've just gone to get food somewhere in London, and It's not the reaction the reporters were expecting at all. She had no time for, yeah, so it's, yeah, a good, I won't spoil it, but yeah, it's a funny video. She was a bit of a character, I feel and yes, so in terms of reading then, also, yeah, it seems quite broad. It seems like, you know, some people kind of stick to an area in terms of reading, but it sounds like you're a sort of an omnivore in terms of what you read and one final question, which is a bit, I always find it's a bit of a mean one but is there one book that you feel and maybe it's the Patti Smith that you've already mentioned, but is there one book for you that you feel really impacted you in ways that you know any other book hasn't or maybe it's Middlemarch. I mean, you've already yeah attested to your love of Middlemarch.
[00:31:20] Khashayar J. Khabushani: I will, I'm so glad you returned to this question because I think when I discovered, Caleb Azuba Nelson and work and when Open Water came out again, I feel like I've belabored this point about, how much sort of lyricism and language that's done well, what that does to me, but also, you know, this story and particularly in Open Water that I guess growing, up, even though I wasn't a reader, I had friends who were readers and when I would see what they were carrying in their book bags or I never came across somebody that, looked like the characters that are in Open Water, I didn't come across that kind of so I think, almost like in a spiritual sense, that book let me know that there is no, like, parameter. I'm sure in the publishing world, this might continue to be the case still, for many, but I think the way Caleb writes and what that book means for readers, it's a great, for me, continues to be something to return to anytime I'm feeling timid about the things that I want to write about. I think there's an importance to tell stories that even if you haven't seen them reflected back to you in as we call it, the literary canon.
[00:32:51] Jack Wrighton: Absolutely, and I think I can imagine maybe as a writer, it's tempting to, you know, the publishing industry, you know, whether we like it or not is a market and so therefore we'll have certain behaviors or certain patterns it will fall into and I can imagine it's tempting to go, well, because I haven't seen anything like this yet, there's no room for that, but I think what many writers prove is that there is room, you just have to make it, and some stories kind of pierce through that pattern, and they can have that impact of suddenly you're seeing that represented there, or that story being reflected back.
[00:33:29] Khashayar J. Khabushani: Yeah, I was actually just thinking about this yesterday. I was admiring and appreciating both what the, you know, the publisher, my editors have allowed for, and I was also marveling at my willingness. I remember there was a point where, you know, part of I Will Greet the Sun Again takes place in Iran and Esfahan in particular and I remember at one point thinking, there's no way they'll let me get away with this. Like a young person telling a story about, you know, present, you know, kind of contemporary Iran. Usually the narrative is about, you know, it's either a historical text or somebody quite older looking back and writing about the revolution or, but for a young person to be plopped in Iran and then to just describe what that's like, yeah, to the, like I said, just yesterday I was marveling that. I was allowed to do that and I'm so grateful for that because it obviously means, it means the world to me to just to be able to share what it's like to be in Iran as a young person, you know, in the contemporary day.
[00:34:42] Jack Wrighton: Yes, and actually that links to, you know, something I wanted to talk about, because I feel, you know, with those scenes, you know, set in Iran, which are, you know, so beautifully done and I think something that really struck me with your writing is I get a real sense of the kind of atmospheres, the climate, the kind of, I say the natural world, but I also mean the built world as well in terms of buildings and things like that, but the landscape of both the American settings, but also the Iranian ones as well. But something that really struck me is I feel Iran is a country that I've read about, you know, for instance, in a couple of nonfiction books and things like that, but in terms of, you know, a literary introduction to it, this felt like a first for me, but obviously, I mean, from my limited experience, I'm aware that there's a great history of Persian literature. But just in terms of, you know, the kind of literary landscape, that felt like a first for me and it felt very refreshing to see a firsthand kind of depiction of that.
[00:35:41] Khashayar J. Khabushani: Yeah. Well, thank you, thank you for saying that, cause in a way, and you raise an interesting point, there is so much, I guess we'll call it like classical literature or poetry in Hafez and, We call him Milana, but, Rumi, you know, there's all, of course, there's like, there's no shortage. So I'm going to sit here and say I'm the first, you know, but it, there was this great kind of sense of taboo to insert myself into so much context. Again, whether we're talking about classical poetry or we're talking about even all the headlines on media or yeah, nonfiction books about the Shah or the regime or you know, CIA's involvement in Iran in the forties and fifties. But to come into it, and of course, as the writer, I have that context, but K, the narrator, outside of things he picks up on, you know, he's very sensitive, of course, and perceptive, but outside of that, to him, it's just that it's just another playground, or, you know, another city that he's with, you know, that he's in with his brothers and his father and has a lot of value and meaningful, but that's where the kind of taboo for me, came in because it's to describe a place when it's so politically fraught, but to do it from a child's point of view, to me, felt really like subversive in a beautiful way.
[00:37:12] Jack Wrighton: No, absolutely, I would agree. I would say, depending on the narrative attached to a place, some places are sort of almost denied beauty. They're denied the ability to talk about, you know, every country will have its kind of beautiful landscapes, and places to see and because you're seeing it through a child's eyes, we share with them in the swimming or the viewing of the bridge at sundown, we share those experiences with them and, yes, I don't know, maybe that's not fair to say, but I feel, yes, we're seeing, you know, a place depicting it's kind of it's beauty and that felt, yeah, that felt very important and very refreshing.
[00:37:52] Khashayar J. Khabushani: And I really, I really believe this. I think as you said, like when there's a place that's so, or even any group of individuals, any part of a certain class, a certain race, I think when there's, so much narrative that's been drilled into us, to your point, we're not able to see the beauty, we also aren't afforded to see the ugliness, because it's, there's just so much, we're told how we're supposed to think and feel, and I bring that up because there is, you know, this Khaju Bridge, as you said, in Isfahan, there's the boys getting to be with their challah, and get to go to Northern Iran, which... but then there's also, you know, the pollution in the air, the boys are disgruntled and irritated by the fact that everybody seems to just want to pray and then take a nap, you know, the elders and I think that was also really important to me, to give the narrator the privilege to see things and describe things that are unsettling to him, in addition to the things that are inspiring and moving.
[00:39:03] Jack Wrighton: Absolutely, and in terms of, you know, earlier we talked on, you saying that in some way, the story's been with you for sort of a few years, but really, it's kind of been there, you know, very early on. But in terms of your approach, you have this first person narrative, and you have this journey to Iran and back again, all of these elements, they're decisions, and when approaching this, you know, did you have kind of the novel as we see it now, there in that shape, or were there things that surprised you, or things that came about during the process?
[00:39:37] Khashayar J. Khabushani: Oh, that's a great question. There's so much that happens in the book, right, Jack? Or maybe not so much that happens, but there's just like these pivotal moments and, and both in the lives of the characters internally, but then externally as far as world events. And I think I wanted to... It sort of started with this voice of this narrator, and as I, as a writer gained confidence and courage, I guess an interesting note to share is that, the book started off as nonfiction, that's what I had gone to study, but there was this moment where the narrator was describing something that hadn't happened in my life and so I was, I paused because that's not, that's not nonfiction, you don't make things up in nonfiction and I don't know where this thought came from, but I thought to myself, well, what if I just let him tell me or show me what he wants, which was a terrifying prospect because I wasn't sure what it even means to write a novel, how to structure a novel, what ingredients are needed to make a novel, what a novel is and, but I trusted to go where he wanted to go and that's where the book really expanded and became much more elliptical, I think, in the sense that it was no longer quote, unquote, my story, I was just the person penning it, you know, I was just the laborer, so to speak, which was a very thrilling and as I said, terrifying prospect, but I'm glad that that's the way it all ultimately worked out.
[00:41:20] Jack Wrighton: Absolutely, and what an exciting, I don't know, what an exciting and sort of beautiful moment to kind of think that you're going down, you know, one way going down the kind of nonfiction route and you've, you know, you can basically see the kind of, the journey ahead of you.
[00:41:36] Khashayar J. Khabushani: That's exactly it. You have it all mapped out.
[00:41:38] Jack Wrighton: Yeah, and then someone grabs your hand and go, actually, no, we're going off this track and we're going down here and you have no idea where that will lead.
[00:41:47] Khashayar J. Khabushani: To this very day, like, I don't, yeah, maybe I need to make that part of my gratitude prayers every morning, cause, there's no, like, with, with my bio, it's like very evident, you know, this is a very heavily autobiographical novel and pulls from my lived experiences and yet the narrator K gets to experience things and makes choices in his young life that at that age I would have never, I didn't have the opportunity to experience and so when I say it's unbelievable that that happened is like I got to remake the past, you know, rather than sit there and rewrite it, you know, and that there's, there's a lot of value in that, of course, and a lot of great memoirs. But for me, ultimately, I think what needed to happen was for me to go where he wanted to go.
[00:42:39] Jack Wrighton: And you know, what's interesting about that as well is I feel I can actually think of another novelist that we've had on the podcast this season of a very similar experience, started writing. what they thought would be nonfiction and then found themselves going into the realms of fiction, which I really love hearing about because I think we have, because we think in terms of when you walk into a bookshop, you have the nonfiction section over here and you have fiction over here.
We think of a kind of hard line between them, almost like the divide of a bookshelf itself. But of course, as with anything creative, that's not how it works. It's a kind of a spectrum as you, you know, attest to, you can find yourself having wandered into that ground without realizing that you even passed a threshold, really, or once you have, you know, you're already on that side.
I'm aware as well for our listeners, we've sort of talked around I Will Greet the Sun again, but let's say you're back in the bookshop that you're working in, that you've got the very hard task of the book that you've pulled off the shelf to recommend to someone or to tell someone about is your own book to that customer, what would you say to them? What are you telling them?
[00:43:47] Khashayar J. Khabushani: That's cruel, Jack!
[00:43:49] Jack Wrighton: It's mean of me, isn't it? It's a really, really horrible task.
[00:43:53] Khashayar J. Khabushani: Yeah, because there's like... as earlier, as I said, there's so many events and moments, critical moments. So, you know, it's hard to sort of describe the book in the kind of traditional way we, you know, some of us do as far as like pointing to plot. But if I was in a bookstore, if I was back at that bookstore where I work and somebody came in and said, I'm looking for a book that you've read that you really enjoyed, do you have any recommendations? And if I were to pull, I Will Greet the Sun Again from the shelf, I think I would describe it in the way that I've described these other books that have meant a lot to me, which is that it may be outside of your lived experience, but there's an authenticity and a warmth and a longing from not only the narrator, but also the other characters that could be very comforting. If nothing else, you'll get to live in a world that is perhaps very different from yours and I think there's a lot of value in that.
[00:44:59] Jack Wrighton: Lovely.
[00:45:00] Khashayar J. Khabushani: That would be my elevator pitch.
[00:45:01] Jack Wrighton: That would be an elevator pitch, yeah.
[00:45:04] Khashayar J. Khabushani: You'll get to live in a world other than yours.
[00:45:06] Jack Wrighton: Yeah, but...
[00:45:07] Khashayar J. Khabushani: That's what we all want.
[00:45:08] Jack Wrighton: Yeah, that would work. That would work on me, yeah, if I was, in the bookshop, one thing I want to talk about, actually, is you mentioned earlier that poetry is a, a big love of yours as well, and that you, you read poetry and one thing that really struck me about the novel is a lot, as you said yourself earlier, a lot happens in it, it's a novel that's well sort of populated and many sort of major events happen in it, but you know, it's a slim volume, and yet so much happens in it, and yet the prose is not rushed, you know, we're not rushed through the story, it sort of gently flows while at the same time, you know, we experience so much in it, you know, your attitude to language, would you say is influenced by poetry, which I feel is kind of sparse, but always very, very powerful.
[00:45:57] Khashayar J. Khabushani: Yeah, especially when I had gone, to do the MFA and study writing and had taken a few poetry classes and was introduced to different working poets, to your point, I don't want to say all poets do this, but certainly the ones that I have read and gravitated towards, there seems to be this desire and insistence to deal with, to confront and to inhabit life's biggest themes, and yet to do it on the page as economically and gracefully and beautifully and uniquely as possible, which is an undertaking that I have immense admiration for and that affects me very deeply. I mean, we talked about the sentences in Middlemarch and how I have to take a pause as I, you know, even between paragraphs that I, and I feel that with, with poetry as well as I'll read a poem and I'll really sit with it, and it will, in a way, haunt me, for days, and I actually feel like I'm a closeted poet, as I've been describing myself as of late and I think that's what I tried to bring to the novels is dealing with very big themes, but doing it in a way that honors the language of the narrator.
[00:47:26] Jack Wrighton: Wonderful, and for our listeners, would you mind sharing a segment from I Will Greet the Sun again?
[00:47:34] Khashayar J. Khabushani: I think, San Francisco was listening to us because the sun has just emerged from beneath the clouds.
[00:47:41] Jack Wrighton: Wonderful. Okay.
[00:47:42] Khashayar J. Khabushani: Call me grim, you asshole. So the sun has arrived, so this is just a very short portion. It's, K and his best friend, and his closest friend, Johnny. It's too hot to be inside, and we're too lazy to move, so Johnny and me sit outside in the shade, leaning back and cracking up, doing nothing at all. Still, unlike in class, where time feels stuck, with Johnny it goes by so fast. Before we know it, the day is over, the sun long gone, and we still haven't eaten. So we go searching for loose change in the cushions of his mom's sofa. Coming up with just enough to get ourselves an order of KFC's best new thing.
One side of barbecue sauce, one ranch. Passing between us the tiny paper box of popcorn chicken, taking our time, savoring each bite. But tonight, after we eat, instead of going inside, I tell Johnny we should walk over to the wash. It's been years since we've gone back. Two days straight and there's been all this rain. So while it's still full, I tell him, I want to sit by the river. He knows I don't own a jacket, never have, and he pretends he doesn't have one either. Just in our t shirts and jeans, and we walk to Bassett Street, a few blocks down, then crawl underneath the fence. We sit together on the cracked concrete slope of the LA river, sitting alone with the moon as it lights up the stream below us. The water dark green, almost black, the highest and deepest I've ever seen it. High enough for us to dive in head first, if we wanted to. John is sitting close enough so that our shoulders are touching, far enough for there to be enough space so it can happen and all it'd take is for me to tilt my face toward his, tilted just the tiniest bit. He's older and he knows how this is supposed to go. But I don't, instead, just imagining how it'd feel. The hairs above his lip prickling against mine. His hot breath.
[00:49:58] Jack Wrighton: Thank you so much for that beautiful reading. That unfortunately brings us to the end of our conversation, but Khashayar, thank you so much for joining us. I Will Greet the Sun Again, it will be available at Mostly Books in our shop, or online, or from wherever you source your books from. Thank you so much for joining us.
[00:50:17] Khashayar J. Khabushani: Jack, this was so much fun. Thank you.
[00:50:20] Jack Wrighton: Our absolute pleasure, thank you so much, and thank you to everyone who has been listening in on this season of Mostly Books Meets. Unfortunately, that is the last episode for this season and for 2023, but be sure to keep a lookout next year for the next season. Thank you so much.
Mostly Books Meets is presented and produced by the bookselling team at Mostly Books, an award winning bookshop located in Abingdon, Oxfordshire. All of the titles mentioned in this episode are available through our shop or your preferred local independent. If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to check out our previous guests which includes some of the most exciting voices in the world of books. Thanks for listening and happy reading.