Writer’s life as journalist has shaped her novels
Author Masha Hamilton has been living and working on the top floor of James Thurber’s historic Downtown house for weeks.
“I got through Halloween night,” Hamilton said of the home where Thurber famously saw a ghost.
“I just wanted a boring night, and that’s what I got,” the Brooklyn, New York, resident said.
Hamilton is working on her next novel as part of the Thurber House’s John E. Nance Writer-in-Residence program, which also is funded by Ohio State University.
She previously lived and worked in Kabul, Afghanistan, as the director of communications and public diplomacy at the U.S. Embassy in 2012 and 2013.
Before that, Hamilton worked as a journalist in the Middle East, Russia, Kenya and Afghanistan, and founded two literacy projects for women, the Camel Book Drive and the Afghan Women’s Writing Project.
Hamilton, 55, will talk about her fifth and most recent novel, “What Changes Everything,” tonight at the Columbus Museum of Art during a Thurber House Evenings with Authors program.
An intriguingly complicated tapestry set a few years ago in Kabul, the book shifts among a varied cast of characters: the real-life deposed president of Afghanistan, a kidnapped aid worker and his wife, a graffiti artist in Brooklyn, an immigrant who owns a used bookstore in Cleveland and others.
They are connected by threads both subtle and obvious, and when one thread moves, the others are all tugged as well.
It’s an intricately constructed novel. Did you have it all mapped out ahead of time?
I teach novel writing, and one of the most interesting discussions I have in every class setting is about outlining. I don’t outline in advance, I just try to follow the thread that interests me. I don’t want to know what’s going to happen with the story or I’m afraid I wouldn’t write it.
What was most challenging about writing a novel set partially in Afghanistan?
This novel was driven by the passion to
understand the impact of war, far beyond the front lines. Certainly the soldiers are impacted, but it’s not just them. It’s their families that are here, it’s the communities that they come from, it’s their high-school friends. I wanted to look at that. But I also wanted to have Afghan characters, including (former President) Mohammad Najibullah. And maybe the biggest challenge was figuring out how to put the Najibullah sections in the novel and make them relevant ... and having them historically based and yet, they’re fiction.
He had three daughters, and I actually was able to communicate with one. She shared material with me that I don’t know if ever has been made public. That helped me in feeling that although I was fictionalizing him and these moments, I was doing it in a way that was acceptable somehow.
How is the residency at Thurber House going?
It’s great. I feel unbelievably fortunate to be here. I’m getting a lot done. They trust that I am up here writing. Especially in the first-draft stage of a novel, where you are trying to listen really hard to what story is coming through, to have the time and space to do that, to allow it to evolve that way, is an amazing gift.
Do you want to talk about what you’re working on now?
I’m working on my seventh novel — I have five published novels and a novel in a drawer. I’m surprised by how late in the game things can still change. And when you share it with people, you put it into stone. When you don’t, it’s still just a thought. And I like to keep it just a thought for as long as I can.
How did you get involved in working in the embassy in Afghanistan?
My oldest son was turning 21, and I said to him, “I’m not going to get you a car, but if there’s something you want, tell me, and maybe we can do it.” A couple days later he came to me and said, “What I want is to go with you to Afghanistan.” We went, and we did a lot. And while we were there, the ambassador ... to my surprise, offered me this job. It’s not something I applied for.
What’s happening with the literacy programs you started?
So many books were collected from the Camel Book Drive that the Camel Library was able to expand to a second location even closer to Somalia, and then slowly that petered out. The Afghan Women’s Writing Project has morphed into something slightly different. When it started, there were very few outlets for Afghan women to get their writing out, and the project filled a need. Now, there are more places for Afghan women writers. And, at the same time, there’s more need in this country to understand one another. So it’s morphed into a project where the Afghan women’s words and poetry are used by students to create songs, and then performances are being put on. That’s being run by my good friend Shevy Smith.
What do you think shaped you most as a novelist?
I think right after school becoming a journalist, and then going overseas and covering conflict. Although the novels are literary, they’re also contemporary and written about issues I’m thinking about, and a lot of those through the years have had to do with conflict in one way or another.