Behind The Book With Joanne Leedom-Ackerman 

Last year I did my first Q&A with author & advocate for PEN International Joanne Leedom-Ackerman! I also did an Authors In The Media Q&A discussing her journalism career & her advocacy in being a part of PEN International. Joanne’s new novel The Far Side Of The Desert which came out on March 4^th of this year is available to read now! I promise you, you are in for a treat! 

Q: Joanne, for the readers who haven’t read The Far Side Of The Desert, would you please give a brief description about it and where the idea for the novel came from?

A: The Far Side of the Desert is a family drama and an international political thriller which opens in Santiago de Compostela, Spain where sisters Monte and Samantha Waters have come and are meeting their brother for a short family holiday before each goes off on their professional ways. But a terrorist attack disrupts the festival and, in the chaos, Monte disappears. The first section of the novel is the search for their sister from Samantha’s point of view and the captivity of Monte from her point of view. The story moves from Spain to Washington, to Egypt, to Morocco to Gibraltar and the Sahara Desert. In the process the story unfurls a larger global plot that explores the links of terrorism, crime and financial manipulation.

The novel’s plot unfolded as I researched and wrote but the original question and theme began in Santiago de Compostela. I was at a PEN International Congress where I met Salman Rushdie fairly early in his hiding and protected life after the fatwa against him. I began to contemplate what it would mean to have your life as you knew it suddenly snatched from you.

Q: Joanne, in the Acknowledgements Section, you wrote about how The Far Side Of The Desert has been read by friends and family over many drafts and many years. Did you start writing this novel in 2007 since in the beginning of the book it begins in July 2007?

A:  I began writing The Far Side of the Desert as notes, probably as early as 1993. These evolved into a short story. I was working on another novel at the time, but after I finished, or thought I had finished that novel Burning Distance, I began expanding my notes and my research and realized I was writing this novel. 

Q: What made you want to have the focus of the story be on two sisters? 

A: Perhaps because I have a sister, though the characters in the novel are not related to either of us, but the family relationship is important in the story and is reflected in the larger themes. I liked the dual points of view as the characters find and shape reality and eventually are able to cement their relationship and then “save the world.”

Q: Without spoiling too much, which scenes were your favorites to write? Which scenes were harder to write? 

A: It’s difficult to choose and remember, but perhaps the scene in the caves of Gibraltar, in part because several of the developments there surprised me as I was writing. It is an unusual action scene. I also enjoyed writing and considering the more domestic scenes for Samantha in Cairo. And the final two chapters and resolution of the book I enjoyed as the story came together.

Q: What lessons & emotions do you hope readers learn and feel after reading The Far Side Of The Desert?

A: I don’t really consider what I want the reader to feel. Their feelings are up to them, but the necessity to confront fear, to transcend past hurts and misperceptions in order to embrace life and find a positive trajectory all unfolded as I wrote the book.

Q: If there was a sequel to The Far Side Of The Desert, what would the characters be doing right now? 

A: That will be fun to consider. I set it up so that Monte might be in China …. but that is a non sequitur and may or may not occur. Samantha, I think will still have her insatiable drive, but perhaps with a larger base and responsibilities to people. I don’t want to say too much because I’ll give away the book at hand and limit my imagination going forward which may unfold in some surprising directions. 

Q: If The Far Side Of The Desert ever became a movie, who would be your dream cast to play the characters you created, especially Samantha, Monte, Stephen/Safir, The Elder & Jim?

A: Ah…. the challenge is that movies take a long time to get made so those I might see in the role now could be at a different stage of their careers by then, but hey, let’s fantasize—Julia Roberts as Samantha. She is the only clear name that leaps to mind, but I’ll keep thinking. Who would you see?

Q: As a Catholic, I felt as though it were a love letter to me for the fact that you had the beginning of the story take place at Santiago de Compostela Spain! Since you’ve been to Santiago de Compostela, what was your experience like seeing the city and seeing the festival?

A: My first time in Santiago de Compostela was at a PEN International Congress in 1993 which happened to be held at the same time as the annual Camino, so the place was festive and fun though also rainy if I recall. I didn’t know about the festival at the time, but I have since researched and learned much about the history and about the destination of the Camino in Finisterre, where the ancients thought the world ended. The mythology connected to the place and to Gibraltar was, an added bonus as I researched. I went back many times to all the settings, but only once was the Festival of St. James occurring.

Q: Have you been to Morocco & Gibraltar? Those are also places I would love to see too!

A: Yes, I’ve been to all the locations in the book more than once. I checked details to assure my imagination either fit or was adjacent to the realities of the places. In Gibraltar, which I visited several times, I was surprised in the last visit because the tourist office had changed the whole layout of the caves, which as you know is an important element in the story. When I wrote my novel, one entered the cave at the top and moved downward to the exit, but several years later, the entrance and exit had been switched. But I didn’t change my story because it is set in a particular time and is true to that time.

Q: The Elder who is the main antagonist in the novel, reminds me of someone like Osama Bin Laden or The Ayatollah Khomeni. Did you base The Elder after any of those terrorists?

A:  No, in fact I was not considering any individual, though there are elements in the physical description of the Elder that could relate to Bin Laden. I was trying to come to terms with an individual who had both a western and middle eastern heritage but also with a specific person whose English mother had died when he was eight and whose family was unhappy with her marriage and put the son in boarding school at a young age where he was bullied. He was very bright but bullying and neglect at any age can warp an individual. As the Elder grew, he picked his side which in a way was himself, loyalty to no side. He was the most challenging character for me to come to terms with. I didn’t want the character to just be a cipher.