Esteemed author Lucy Ferriss is here with Fresh Fiction's Pasha Carlisle to
discuss Ferriss's latest novel, A SISTER TO
HONOR, which released this week from Berkley
Books.
Thank you for joining us on Fresh Fiction today, and congratulations on
your latest book's release. A SISTER TO HONOR centers around a crisis that occurs when a
young woman from Pakistan falls in love with an American student while studying
at a college in New England. Can you tell us a bit about why you chose to write
this story and why it is relevant to todayโs international struggles?
The story began as a โwhat-ifโ exercise. Not only do I see many international
recruited athletes at the college where I teach, but my son was also a ranked
racquet athlete growing up, so I saw a great deal of the intense competition,
cultural diversity, and sense of honor that thrives in that world. What if? I
wondered. What if one of these young men brought his sister to the United
States? How would her experience be different from his, what would happen
between them, what would happen back home? When I explored where the best squash
players in the world came from, I learned they hailed from the Pashtun area of
Pakistan, the same part of the world that has spawned the Taliban, amid a
culture with strict traditions and ideas of honor, especially concerning women.
I knew my story lay there.
As to the storyโs relevanceโwell, you need only look at Malala Yousafzai and the
recent school massacre in Peshawar, where I did my research. It is important, I
think, that we in the West understand that such incidents of violence are not
due to religion or to some other nationโs inferiority to us. They have their
roots in complicated tribal and family systems that are different from ours. But
love, pain, villainy, sacrifice, hopeโthese things are universal.
At Trinity College, where you are writer-in-residence, there is a high
rate of diversity, particularly among the students on the schoolโs nationally
ranked squash team. How did you use your work environment as inspiration and
research for A SISTER TO HONOR?
The squash teamโs diversity did inspire me. So did a candidate for Athletic
Director one year, a tall, confident woman with spiky blond hair who insisted on
being called
Coach. She reminded me of many coaches Iโve known over the
yearsโindividuals who care a great deal about the young people they mentor but
who are also drawn to the triumph of winning. While my story lies primarily with
the siblings who come to the States and find themselves tangled up between their
lives here and pressures from home, I am not Pakistani and felt I needed an
American point of view to help anchor the story. The coach, who is both in
charge and ignorant, wanting the best for her kids but also wanting something
for herself, came to me out of many encounters in academe and also out of many
recesses of myself.
An estimated 20,000 women are killed each year in the name of family
honor, which is a threat your heroine Afia faces in A SISTER TO
HONOR. What stirred your decision to spread awareness of this tragic reality
through Afiaโs star-crossed romance and ensuing family crisis in your book?
The problem of honor violence is real and is a logical though extreme
consequence of traditions that invest family honor and shame in women as a means
of controlling them. But I donโt want to sensationalize this crime or attribute
it to one particular religion or culture. Instead, I traveled to northern
Pakistan to get to know the people there, and I found they abhorred such
violence even as they struggled to reconcile ancient family systems with
contemporary culture. I also learned that so-called honor killings are often
plain murder, committed out of revenge or a sick mind, just as, in America,
so-called crimes of passion can be misogynist murders. I wanted to put a human
face on Afiaโs dilemma, so people might look past the headlines and not jump to
conclusions.
How did you construct the character of Afia so that western readers
would be able to relate to her and her plight?
Sheโs first and foremost a smart young womanโa sister, a daughter, a student,
someone whoโs shy but also eager and curious, as many previously sheltered young
women are when they step into the wider world at 19 or 20. So I focused on her
close relationshipsโto her brother Shahid especially, but also to her mother and
her younger sisters, and to her roommates at school, her favorite teacher, the
older ladies who befriend her at her part-time job, and of course her
relationship to Gus, her boyfriendโall people who relate to her easily and
intimately. Through her interactions with them and the human connections she
experiences with them, we come to know her and care about her. Gradually, the
dual world she lives in becomes ours as well.
What were some of the challenges you came upon while writing about the
controversial themes of honor killings, patriarchal cultures, and the chasm
between eastern and western worlds?
Two main challenges. First, I had never understood how deeply different life
becomes when marriages are arranged by the family. Things Iโd taken for
grantedโmale-female relationships, family structure, parenting, finding a
vocation, the role of romanceโassumed entirely different meanings. I wavered
between shock and envy at the extensive, supportive, sometimes suffocating
family systems I saw among Pashtun people. In bringing that huge difference to
life, I tried to portray the sense of comfort that exists side-by-side with
repression and fear. The second big challenge was distinguishing the honor
culture that pervades my charactersโ world from what Americans label as Islam.
Yes, these characters are Muslim. But their traditions are more tribally than
religiously based, and basic emotions like desire, envy, fear, and revenge can
beset individuals versed in those traditions and set off a storm.
What are some of the triumphs you hope to see following A SISTER TO
HONORโs release this week?
I donโt know that Iโm looking for triumphs. Iโd like readers to love this story,
love its characters, feel for them in their desires and griefs. If reading
A SISTER TO
HONOR leads people to pay a little more attention to the threat millions of
women are facing in our world today; or if it opens our eyes to see โthe otherโ
as a little more like ourselves, Iโll feel enormously gratified. Fiction
shouldnโt set out to teach. But fiction is in the world, and the world is ours
to discover. I like to think of my book as a small part of that journey.
Thank you again to Lucy Ferriss for joining us. Readers, how are you
discovering the world through fiction? Join the conversation! Leave a comment
below or chat with us on Twitter (@FreshFiction, @PashaCarlisle, @LucyFerriss1).
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