Photo by Mark Karlsberg-StudioEleven

The Terrorist on the Page

By Sarah Z. Sleeper
Contributing Writer

A trick-or-treater comes to your door dressed as a terrorist, holding a rope attached to another trick-or-treater who is labeled a “dead American.” Are you terrified? Outraged? Do you call the police? And if you do, what do you report? That you are offended by a Halloween costume?

This shocking scene actually happened in author Elizabeth’s Searle’s Arlington, Mass. neighborhood shortly after 9-11. It not only alarmed her, it got her thinking and writing. Her new novel, Girl Held in Home, starts with that scene and hurtles forward into the lives of two families, one who may or may not be a terrorist cell. It was just published by Moorhead’s own New Rivers Press, the non-profit literary and teaching press at Minnesota State University.

Girl Held in Home takes on a serious and timely subject, but this book is no dead-pan read. It’s full of wit; it’s sexy and it’s creepy all at the same time. Tom Perrotta, author of Little Children, gives it high praise, writing that it “gracefully walks the knife edge between wild satire and ripped-from-the-headlines realism.” Searle herself is no cigar-smoking professorial type; she’s a smart, snarky, contemporary writer who has written a rock opera, film treatments and three other books of fiction. She’s entertaining, energetic and best of all, she’s coming to town. 

Along with two local authors, also award-winners—Alan Davis and Kevin Carollo—Searle will give a reading and participate in a panel discussion, “Literature in the Age of Terror.” The event is at Fargo’s Zandbroz Variety, on Tuesday, October 11. Davis will read from his new book So Bravely Vegetative, and Carollo will read his poetry. Carollo’s poem “Collateral” was a finalist for last year’s Knightville Poetry Prize (in The New Guard) and a Pushcart nominee. Following the readings, the authors will take questions and lead a discussion about literature and terrorism. For instance, it is okay for literature about terrorism to be funny? Also, because of the horrific nature of the subject, does an author have a special responsibility to write with extra compassion? What is the relationship between art and acts of terror?

“I do think that when a writer is dealing with politically charged material then she has an extra responsibility to give the complex material its due,” Searle said. “I see it as a writer’s job—in the higher sense—to engage with the times. If I was writing a terrorist I would try to enter their skin and convey their point of view, however warped their motives might seem to be. As a writer, I think you always try to enter the skins of your characters, be they murderers or saints,” she said.

When asked for his take on the relationship between literature and terror, poet Kevin Carollo offered this provocative comment: “I tend to think that when newspapers, the Internet, and other 24/7-driven, all-news-all-the-time, forms of communication discuss terrorism, they end up undercutting the lived reality of people for whom terror and fear is an unavoidable obstacle to getting to work every day. I find it profoundly revealing that fiction and poetry can speak to this lived reality in ways that don’t cheapen people’s experience the way buzzwords often do. As someone whose birthday happens to be on 9/11, I want to write a poem that connects my personal experience with the world at large. In this sense, the poem in the age of terror is not a ‘speaking for’ anyone, but rather an intense and dynamic reaching out or ‘speaking to’ someone. I am looking to meet that ‘anyone’ I know is lurking on the other side of the poem.”

Clearly, it’s a loaded subject. Twenty years ago many Americans perceived terrorism as a vague threat, whereas today we see is as a huge and possible death blow that could happen at any moment. And Searle is in good company with the many authors who have written about terrorism both post- and pre-9-11. Don DeLillo wrote about it before 9-11 in Mao II, and after 9-11 in Falling Man. Erick Maria Remarque’s All Quiet on the Western Front, Jean Paul Sartre’s No Exit, Albert Camus’ Terrorist, Orhan Pamuk’s Snow, Ian McEwan’s Saturday and a long list of other well-known books tackle the tricky subject in various ways, from grave to grim and yes, to humorous. 

Davis’s fiction also speaks to contemporary life, and like Searle,  has more incisive wit than academic droll. He offered this thoughtful response when asked about the relationship between literature and terrorism: “It’s not essential for writers to write about terrorism; we have no choice, however, but to write with an awareness of terrorism and of 9-11. Serious writers have a responsibility to live in their time, to be adept at sensing the shadows around us…. Writers are like canaries in the coal mine; we can’t force the miners to return to fresh air and sunlight when there’s danger ahead or when the mine owners have ignored our well-being, but we can whistle in the dark, and sometimes even sing, against the dying of the light.”

In addition to So Bravely Vegetative, which won The Prize Americana for Fiction, Davis has published two other story collections, Alone with the Owl, and Rumors from the Lost World. He’s a professor at MSUM and teaches in the low-residency MFA program at Fairfield University in Conn. For ten years he has co-edited American Fiction, a short story anthology chosen by Writer’s Digest as one of America’s top 15 fiction publications. He’s also a Fulbright scholar whose work has appeared in The New York Times Book Review, The Sun and other places.

In addition to Girl Held in Home Searle wrote Tonya & Nancy: The Rock Opera, an acclaimed stage send-up of the Tonya Harding-Nancy Kerrigan debacle. She wrote a novella, Celebrities in Disgrace, which the New York Times Book Review called “a miniature masterpiece,” the novel A Four-Sided Bed, which is set to become a feature film, and My Body to You, a short story collection that won the Iowa Short Fiction Prize.

Carollo has published poems in Conduit, Court Green, Cranky, Lungfull!, Ellipsis, and elsewhere. Arielle Greenberg chose his poem “Gumption and Druthers” to be the winner of Cream City Review’s 2009 Beau Boudreaux Poetry Prize. A regular contributor to Rain Taxi Review of Books, he has also translated two novels from French: Vénus Khoury-Ghata’s La maestra and Patrice Nganang’s The Invention of Renown.

Along with the reading and discussion at Zandbroz, Searle will read at MSUM’s library on October 12, and Davis and Searle will read at Garrison Keillor’s Common Good Books in St. Paul on October 14. What do Searle and Davis say a reader should look forward to if he attends one of the appearances? “Expect energetic performances and smart, engaging interaction.” 

Questions and comments: .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)

If You Go

WHAT:    “Literature in the Age of Terror”
    Reading and Panel Discussion
  With Authors Elizabeth Searle, Alan Davis and Kevin Carollo    
WHERE:    Zandbroz Variety
      420 Broadway, Fargo, ND, 58102
WHEN:    Tuesday, October 11, 7 p.m.
WHO:  This event is free of charge and open to everyone, but not suitable for small children.
CONTACT:  Greg Danz, 701-239-4729, .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address), http://www.zandbroz.com