The Enlightenment Show Interview with Barbara Graham

 

Welcome to The Enlightenment Show, Barbara! I’m so excited to have you join us to discuss your upcoming book, What Jonah Knew.

• Can you give the readers a brief synopsis of What Jonah Knew?

          Absolutely. What Jonah Knew is a psychological thriller about the unbreakable bond between mothers and sons, even when it seems that all is lost and the bond is ruptured beyond repair. At the novel's opening, Henry, Helen’s son, has mysteriously disappeared, while a bit later, Lucie’s toddler Jonah shows signs of PTSD, with no known cause. Eventually, the lives of the two families overlap in upstate New York, putting Jonah’s life in grave danger, and forcing all the characters to redefine the very nature of life and death because of what Jonah knows.

        Throughout the novel, trauma and memory are explored through a variety of lenses: Zen, Tibetan Buddhism, inherited family trauma, and decades of research at the University of Virginia on kids who spontaneously recall a previous life.

• Where did the idea about a seven-year-old boy having a connection to a missing person come from? Where did your concept stem?

          As a journalist, I wrote a lot about psychology, including memory and trauma. Some years ago, I was assigned to write an article about past life regression therapy. As part of my research, I had a session with a Jungian psychologist who specialized in that work, and I seemed to have a memory of a previous life during the Holocaust. The session was powerful, but I didn’t know what to make of it. Not long after, a friend gave me a copy of a book by Dr. Ian Stevenson, a psychiatrist at the University of Virginia who for decades had been studying young children with a spontaneous recall of a previous life. That research was very credible and blew me away.

        Around the same time I was pursuing my interest in Buddhist meditation and heard a number of Tibetan Buddhist teachers—who were considered to be reincarnations, including the Dalai Lama—talk about past and future lives as casually as last Thanksgiving or next Christmas. I was fascinated by all of it, and one day the idea for the novel just came to me while walking down the street in New York. A possible link between young Jonah’s distress and a missing person was part of that same download.

•  Your main character, Helen, is searching for her missing son and is determined to find him.  How did you draw on that urgency and feel into her emotions to create the tension within your story?

           As the mother of a grown son, it wasn’t hard to imagine how I’d feel if he went missing. Like Helen, I would be desperate to find him and turn over every rock and follow every lead. Writing about that was painful, but I was also immensely grateful that it wasn’t my story or my son’s. That’s the wonder of fiction: being able to draw on your own gut emotions in imaginary situations.

• Mothers and sons have a special bond. What are the things you loved most about Helen and Henry’s relationship? Lucie and Jonah?

          From the moment my son—and only child—was born, I’ve had the sense that we have a deep karmic connection. I’ve also found that the power of that connection hasn’t diminished over time, even now that he’s grown and has two daughters of his own. I feel very lucky: Our relationship is loving, playful, and respectful—the greatest gift of my life. In the novel, both Helen and Lucie feel the same sort of deep bond with their sons. At one point early in What Jonah Knew, Helen talks about sensing an invisible cord connecting her to her son, Henry, “a sort of phantom umbilicus composed of pure energy.” As for Lucie, “From the moment she set eyes on her baby, she understood that there were now so many more ways she could be mortally wounded by love than she’d ever dreamed possible.” I can’t speak about being the mother of a daughter, but I imagine the feelings are equally profound, though the relationship has its own particular flavor.

• What was your creative process for writing What Jonah Knew?

          I worked from a bunch of different outlines during the course of writing the book, but I never followed any of them for very long. They provided good jumping-off points, but then my characters rebelled. They knew better than me—or my outlines—what needed to happen next. To me, that’s the real joy of writing fiction—not knowing what happens next and then, as if by magic or some mysterious process that you can’t force, it comes to you. When I got stuck, I’d stand up from my desk and take a long walk or do something else until it came to me. The process was like trying as hard as you can to remember someone’s name and coming up blank. But then, as soon as you put it out of your mind, suddenly you remember.

• Do you believe in the supernatural? Why or why not?

        I believe that there’s far more to existence than what can be detected by the five senses and that consciousness is not bookended by birth and death. That’s the understanding inherent in the Buddhist teachings I’ve studied, as well as in various other mystical traditions, including the Kabbalah in Judaism. Some people might consider occurrences that lie outside the conventional materialist view of the universe to be supernatural or paranormal. For others of us, though, who have a different sense of things, phenomena such as reincarnation, which is explored in What Jonah Knew, might just be considered normal.

• How do you think that dogs connect with people?

         As Jonah says, “Dogs know stuff people don’t.” I believe dogs are super sensitive and attuned to much that lies outside the limits of human perception. Dogs are also highly empathic and can provide enormous comfort to humans in times of distress, as Charlie does in the novel.

• How are writing a play and writing a novel similar? How are they different in the creative process?

       That’s a great question. Both plays and novels are works of imagination and call for the same kind of creative vision. And both depend heavily on dialogue. But the similarities end there. In novels, the author must create the entire universe in which the story takes place—characters, setting, all the external circumstances, as well as the dialogue and the thoughts occupying the minds of the characters. In a sense, plays are like composing a musical score. But instead of writing notes for musicians to play and a conductor to orchestrate, playwrights write dialogue and stage directions, and the rest is brought to life by actors, the director, and a whole team of designers—sets, lighting, costumes. Plays and novels are two very distinct forms.

 

                                          INNER CHILD SEGMENT

·       What things did you like to do when you were seven?

      I read voraciously and acted out stories that I made up. By the time I was eight, I was writing the stories down, and at nine, I wrote, directed, and starred in my first play, which was performed in a friend’s attic. Our mothers were a very appreciative audience.

·       Who’s your favorite character in Lion King? Why?

      Simba, for his independence, pluck, and, ultimately, the guts to follow his destiny.

·       What would you make and sell at a bakery?

      Well, since I love very good bread, croissants, brioche, and morning buns—just like Helen bakes in the novel—I would make and eat those. And if any were left over, I’d sell them.

·       What advice can you share with our readers about living a joyful life?

     Don’t fight your life circumstances or argue with reality. That’s the recipe for suffering, not joy. Be grateful for what you have. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t aspire to realize your goals, but rather try to focus on the process, not the outcome, and trust your intuition to guide you. You’ll be happiest and do your best work that way. And take time every day to simply be present and savor the life inside you and around you—the trees, the birds and other animals, the people you pass on the street. When you think about it, it’s pretty remarkable that we’re all here. Right here, right now.

 ·       Where can the readers connect with you? Where can they find your book?

My website, www.barbaragrahamauthor.com 

Thank you so much for being with us, Barbara. Congratulations on the release of What Jonah Knew!! It’s been an absolute pleasure getting to know you.