CANR
WORK TITLE: THE REMOVES
WORK NOTES:
PSEUDONYM(S):
BIRTHDATE: 1966?
WEBSITE: http://www.tatjanasoli.com/
CITY: Tustin
STATE: CA
COUNTRY: United States
NATIONALITY: American
LAST VOLUME: CANR 298
RESEARCHER NOTES:
PERSONAL
Born c. 1966, in Salzburg, Austria; married Gaylord Soli (an artist).
EDUCATION:Graduated from Stanford University; Warren Wilson College, M.F.A. 2006.
ADDRESS
CAREER
Writer and teacher. Gotham Writers’ Workshop, teacher.
AWARDS:Pirate’s Alley Faulkner Prize; Dana Award, 2003; James Tait Black Memorial Prize for Fiction, 2011, for The Lotus Eaters; New York Times Notable Book citation, for The Forgetting Tree; Editor’s Choice citation, New York Times, for The Removes.
WRITINGS
Contributor of short stories to the Quarterly, New York Times Book Review, Sonora Review, North Dakota Quarterly, Sun, StoryQuarterly, Confrontation, Gulf Coast, Other Voices, Nimrod, Third Coast, and Carolina.
SIDELIGHTS
Tatjana Soli’s first novel, The Lotus Eaters, portrays combat photographers reporting on the Vietnam War. The protagonist, Helen Adams, is the first female photojournalist stationed in Vietnam, and she is seen as an outsider by her male peers. However, Sam Darrow, a married Pulitzer Prize winner who has been reporting on the war since its beginning, becomes something of a mentor to Helen. They are attracted to one another, but Helen also finds herself attracted to Sam’s assistant, Linh. Sam’s Vietnamese assistant is the only surviving member of his family; the rest, including his wife, were killed in the war. In the wake of these romantic distractions, Helen attempts to navigate a world where photojournalists seek fame by portraying increasingly horrific images of violence. Discussing her inspiration to write about the Vietnam War in a Seattlest website interview, Soli stated: “I was a little girl when my mom worked for NATO in Naples, Italy, and then transferred to Fort Ord in Monterey, CA. This was in the late 60s. Things were going on that were very traumatic to the adults around me, if little understood by me as a child. I have memories that I would never use in fiction, they are too personal, but they fueled the longing to understand. So in the way memory works, I emotionally connected with that time in a way that was deeper than more current conflicts.” She also noted: “I wanted to write about a character who bears witness to violence. How does a human being decide to live her life when confronted with a fallen world? But I also liked the remove in time from the war, the space that allows one to mythologize the experience.”
In a second interview, Soli told Fiction Writers Review website contributor Tyler McMahon that she was captivated by the Vietnam War because “there are still plenty of novels being written about WWII. But Vietnam is unique in that it made people distrust their own government, totally reject the establishment. People became cynical and disillusioned by the lies they were fed about the necessity of the war, about the sacrifices being made, but there was also this great power in knowing the truth, in agitating for change. The access photojournalists had in that war was one of the reasons the truth came out. That freedom, by the way, no longer exists.” Soli added: “I see many parallels to the situation today in Iraq and Afghanistan, but there is an apathy on the part of the public compared to the 60’s and 70’s.”
Washington Post reviewer Masha Hamilton agreed with Soli’s comparison of the Vietnam War to the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. “The Vietnam conflict has receded into the history books, but The Lotus Eaters feels pulled from today’s headlines,” she observed. Hamilton praised the novel further, finding that “the secondary characters are generously drawn. In Soli’s hands, edgy, frightened soldiers and hardened commanders rise above stock characters. But Helen is at the heart of this story as she, like many journalists, pays a dear personal price for covering violence.” A critic for the Musings of a Bookish Kitty website was also impressed, calling the novel “beautiful, dark, and thought provoking.” The critic noted: “War is cruel and Soli does not hold back from sharing the ugly side of it. Within it too, however, are sparks of humanity and compassion. The author does not leave that out either. In fact, it is often those moments, that help Helen through the darker moments. The Lotus Eaters is an amazing novel: a love story just as much as it is about the Vietnam War and the impact war can have on those touched by it. After having just finished it, I am still hesitant to pick up another book, still caught in its spell.”
Yet another glowing commendation was presented by Danielle Trussoni in the New York Times. “Helen is acutely ambivalent about her moral position as a war journalist. She is intent on pondering whether those who represent war—through reporting or photography—are doing anything but replicating the violence they depict. Does war journalism change public opinion, or does it merely lead, as one photojournalist in The Lotus Eaters asks, to ‘a steady loss of impact until violence becomes meaningless’? Do gruesome images of war foster revulsion and opposition to violence on the part of the public, or do the images simply translate into war porn?” According to Trussoni, “Soli doesn’t offer simple answers to these questions, but leaves her characters in a state of discomfort about their work.” Basil & Spice reviewer Alyce Reese simply wondered: “How do you write a review of a book that has touched you in such a way that each time you think of it you see beauty and pain at the same time, side by side?”
The Forgetting Tree
In The Forgetting Tree, Soli’s second novel, the writer examines questions of racial attitudes and conceptions that still thrive today in the modern world. The protagonist is Claire, who has married into a California citrus-growing family and has come to love the orchard more than her husband’s family does. When a tragedy robs her of her youngest child and then she contracts cancer, Clair retreats to the familiarity of the citrus groves. Her surviving children decide that Claire needs someone to care for her, and they hire Minna, an immigrant from Dominica, to act as a resident maid. Minna has secrets, however, and she is not above taking advantage of Claire to further her own agenda. Soli’s book, wrote a Kirkus Reviews contributor, “aspires to be a multilayered story about class and race distinctions—Soli explores Claire’s white guilt and cultural confusion to better get at the source of emotional divisions.” “The lesson Soli has to teach … is a salient one for the modern world: even a remote citrus ranch can be a crossroads where cultures collide, and those collisions can be life-changing for everyone involved,” declared Jane Smiley in the New York Times Book Review. “Soli writes with patience and wisdom about both sides of this relationship, allowing both of her central female characters the freedom to be eccentric and inconsistent, but also to learn from each other.”
While Soli’s first book took place during the Vietnam War, the second one has a contemporary Southern California setting. “I live surrounded by the old citrus orchards of Southern California so that setting spoke to me,” Soli told Meg Waite Clayton on the Millions website, “or rather how those orchards are disappearing spoke to me. I wanted to write about a character who mourns that change and is angered by it. Although plenty happens from the outside, the second book is more character-driven. My interest in the clash and misunderstandings between cultures definitely comes from where I live, and it’s been a huge influence in both books. I think there is the same concern for how one lives in both books.” “I know some people say the characters come to them first, but for me it was really the setting,” Soli explained to Colleen Oakley in a Publishers Weekly interview. “Claire was created by her surroundings—she’s a character that’s really attached to the land and all this tension develops because what she loves is disappearing.” The Forgetting Tree is, concluded Kristine Huntley in Booklist, “a lush novel with two fascinating, complicated characters at its heart.”
The Last Good Paradise
Soli’s next novel, The Last Good Paradise, is set at a Polynesian island resort. Among the cast of characters is the resort’s proprietor, Loren, who fled his native France years earlier in an effort to save his daughters from their mother’s abusive boyfriend, and who harbors a dark secret about what happened to them. Loren, who won the island in a card game, charges his guests ruinous fees and insists that they cut themselves off from all modern technology. The guests include a couple from Los Angeles, Richard, an aspiring but ultimately unsuccessful restaurateur, and his wife Ann, a lawyer. Thanks to Richard’s inept business partner, a lawsuit threatens to cost the couple their life savings, so Ann, who hates her job and wonders why she ever wanted to become a lawyer, empties their bank account, and the two catch a flight to the island. Their fellow guests include aging rock star Dex Cooper, the front man of the band Prospero, who claims to be inspired by his latest “muse,” twenty-four-year-old Wende. Among the native staff are Cooked, a caretaker who is bent on exposing the French colonial abuses of the island’s people and the genetic damage done by nuclear testing in the South Pacific, and Titi, the housekeeper. The novel explores the intertwined relationships among these characters as they pursue their conflicting jealousies, obsessions, and passions.
Critics had mixed responses to The Last Good Paradise. Referring to the cast of characters, a Kirkus Reviews contributor found that “Soli’s insistence on granting equal voice to every one of these characters results in narrative chaos.” The reviewer concluded: “As progressively less plausible crises proliferate, some very real sharks get jumped. Aside from the exotic setting, Soli’s idiosyncratic prose style is the main attraction here.” Also responding with a lack of enthusiasm was Alex Kuczynski in the New York Times, who characterized the novel as “an ensemble comedy.” Kuczynski explained: “Soli’s attempts to lend gravity to the proceedings with references to The Tempest and [Daniel] Defoe seem out of place when set against a backdrop of bellybutton piercings, drunken tattoo sessions, wine-sodden beach dinners and absinthe binges. And her efforts to incorporate serious issues like the genetic damage suffered by Polynesians after the atom bomb tests of the 1950s don’t hold up because the Polynesian characters aren’t as fully developed, their story simply tacked onto that of the self-indulgent Angelenos.”
A more favorable response to the novel came from Christine DeZelar-Tiedman, who commented in Library Journal: “Though the characters seem somewhat stereotypical at first, Soli takes this story into unexpected places, with each character revealing hidden dimensions as the plot progresses. … The novel has smart things to say about the frailty of human relationships, the importance of responsibility to others, and whether it’s possible to be truly ‘off the grid’ in modern society.” Linda Sappenfield, who also reviewed the novel for Library Journal, lauded it for “arresting prose” that “depicts emotional landscapes as vividly as physical ones,” although she objected that “lengthy backstories and a couple of entertaining but distracting schemes nearly sink the main narrative.” Booklist writer Kristine Huntley, however, praised the novel for “wise, piercing insights into human nature” that “ground the novel and make it a rewarding read.”
The Removes
The narrators of Soli’s 2018 novel, The Removes, are real historical figures, General George “Autie” and Libbie Custer and Anne Cummins. Anne lives with her family in rural Kansas. One day, members of the Cheyenne tribe attack her community, killing her entire family and abducting her. Libbie’s story begins in Michigan, where Autie proposes to her. Autie, known for his valor during the Civil War, is assigned to control the Native American populations in the West, and Libbie travels with him. Meanwhile, Anne assimilates into Cheyenne culture.
Sophie Haigney, contributor to the San Francisco Chronicle website, suggested: “The Removes, a new novel by Tatjana Soli, promises so much: a narrative of the American West centered on women, a kind of remaking of the classic Western myth. … The resulting novel is sadly stilted. Soli, who has written three novels, employs an awkward prose style in The Removes, a stark departure from the voices in her earlier work. Her sentences borrow constructions from the time period she’s writing about, but they work oddly, as though she’s trying on shoes that are a bit too small.” Other assessments of the book were more favorable. A Publishers Weekly reviewer asserted: “Soli … unleashes a thrilling novel set in the violent Wild West just as the Civil War ends.” Huntley, the writer in Booklist, commented: “With visceral, vibrant language, Soli paints a stark portrait of the violence, hardship, and struggles that characterized the American West.” Huntley described the book as “an absorbing read.” A Kirkus Reviews critic called it “a sober and memorable take on the American West.”
BIOCRIT
PERIODICALS
Booklist, September 1, 2012, Kristine Huntley, review of The Forgetting Tree, p. 42; December 15, 2014, Kristine Huntley, review of The Last Good Paradise, p. 26; May 1, 2018, Kristine Huntley, review of The Removes, p. 65.
Kirkus Reviews, February 15, 2010, review of The Lotus Eaters; August 15, 2012, review of The Forgetting Tree; December 1, 2014, review of The Last Good Paradise; April 1, 2018, review of The Removes.
Library Journal, February 15, 2010, review of The Lotus Eaters, p. 91; August 1, 2012, Gwen Vredevoogd, review of The Forgetting Tree, p. 89; December 1, 2014, Christine DeZelar-Tiedman, review of The Last Good Paradise, p. 97; May 1, 2015, Linda Sappenfield, review of The Last Good Paradise, p. 41.
New York Times, April 1, 2010, Danielle Trussoni, review of The Lotus Eaters.
New York Times Book Review, September 16, 2012, Jane Smiley, “California Gothic,” p. 11.
Publishers Weekly, February 1, 2010, review of The Lotus Eaters, p. 32; August 13, 2012, Colleen Oakley, “PW Talks with Tatjana Soli: Culture Clash,” p. 35; May 7, 2018, review of The Removes, p. 44.
Washington Post, April 3, 2010, Masha Hamilton, review of The Lotus Eaters.
ONLINE
Basil & Spice, http://basilandspice.com/ (May 2, 2010), Alyce Reese, review of The Lotus Eaters.
Fiction Writers Review, http://fictionwritersreview.com/ (September 24, 2010), Tyler McMahon, author interview.
Millions, http://www.themillions.com/ (September 5, 2012), Meg Waite Clayton, “Going Back to the Page: An Interview with Tatjana Soli.”
Musings of a Bookish Kitty, http://www.literaryfeline.com/ (March 19, 2010), The Lotus Eaters.
New York Times Online, http://www.nytimes.com/ (March 6, 2015), Alex Kuczynski, review of The Last Good Paradise.
San Francisco Chronicle Online, https://www.sfchronicle.com/ (June 21, 2018), Sophie Haigney, review of The Removes.
Seattlest, http://seattlest.com/ (July 30, 2010), author interview.
Tatjana Soli website, http://www.tatjanasoli.com (November 9, 2018).
Tatjana Soli
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Tatjana Soli is an American novelist and short-story writer. Her first novel, The Lotus Eaters (2010), won the James Tait Black Memorial Prize, was a finalist for the Los Angeles Book Prize, was a New York Times Bestseller, and a New York Times 2010 Notable Book. Her second novel, The Forgetting Tree (2012) was a New York Times Notable Book. Soli's third novel, The Last Good Paradise, was among The Millions "Most Anticipated" Books of 2015. Her fourth novel, The Removes, was published by Sarah Crichton Books in June, 2018 and has been named a New York Times Editor's Choice. Her work has appeared in a variety of publications including The New York Times Book Review.
Contents
1
Education
2
Work
3
Personal life
4
Awards
5
Works
5.1
Anthology
6
References
7
External links
Education[edit]
Soli graduated from Stanford University, and later the Warren Wilson College with an MFA.[1][2] She received scholarships to the Sewanee Writers' Conference and the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference.
Work[edit]
Soli’s debut novel, The Lotus Eaters, tells the story of a female photojournalist who goes to Vietnam to cover the war and falls in love with the country even as it is being torn apart. It was published in 2010, and featured on the front page of the New York Times Book Review. In the review, Danielle Trussoni wrote: "Helen’s restlessness and grappling, her realization that 'a woman sees war differently,' provide a new and fascinating perspective on Vietnam. Vivid battle scenes, sensual romantic entanglements and elegant writing add to the pleasures of The Lotus Eaters."
The Lotus Eaters uses a bookend structure that Janet Maslin in Books of The Times noted: "Soli’s haunting debut novel begins where it ought to end… This quick shift in time frames proves to be much more seductive than a simple introduction to the older, tougher Helen would be."
The novel went on to become New York Times bestseller. In 2011, the novel won the James Tait Black Memorial Prize, the oldest literary prize in the United Kingdom. In addition it was a Finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize and named a NYT Notable Book. It has been optioned to become a feature film.
Her second novel, The Forgetting Tree (2012) was a New York Times Notable Book and NYT Editors' Choice. The book centers around a California ranching woman who runs her family's citrus farm and the Caribbean-born caretaker she hires to take help her through an illness. Jane Smiley, in the New York Times, wrote: “Daring… haunting… The lesson Soli has to teach… is a salient one for the modern world: even a remote citrus ranch can be a crossroads where cultures collide, and those collisions can be life-changing for everyone involved."
Soli's third novel, The Last Good Paradise, was among The Millions "Most Anticipated" Books of 2015. It is the story of an LA power couple who run away to a South Sea Eco Resort to try to escape their problems. The Michigan Daily wrote of it: “With elegant prose that can swell into poetic intervals or sharp commentary, Soli presents a book that courses with flawed, colorful characters, lavish food descriptions (courtesy of a chef protagonist) and political intrigue. But beneath its lovely veneer is a book that confronts the American urge to escape.”
Her fourth novel, The Removes, was published by Sarah Crichton Books, Farrar, Straus, & Giroux, in June 2018 and has been named a New York Times Editors' Choice.
Her writing has appeared in a variety of publications including The New York Times Book Review. Her short stories have appeared in Zyzzyva, Boulevard, Five Chapters, The Normal School, The Sun,[3] StoryQuarterly,[4] Confrontation,[5] Gulf Coast, Other Voices, Inkwell Journal,[6] Nimrod,[7] Third Coast, Carolina Quarterly, Sonora Review,[8] North Dakota Quarterly,[9] Washington Square Review,[10] and Web del Sol.[11]
Personal life[edit]
She lives on the Monterey Peninsula, California.[12]
Awards[edit]
2018 New York Times Editors' Choice for The Removes
2012 New York Times Notable Book for The Forgetting Tree
2012 New York Times Editors' Choice for The Forgetting Tree
Winner of the 2010 James Tait Black Award for fiction[13] for The Lotus Eaters
2011 American Library Association Notable Book[14] for The Lotus Eaters
2010 Finalist, Los Angeles Times Book Prize Award for First Fiction[15] for The Lotus Eaters
2010 New York Times Notable Book[16] for The Lotus Eaters
2010 New York Times Editors' Choice for The Lotus Eaters
2006 Finalist, Bellwether Prize
2003 Dana Award for The Lotus Eaters
2002 William Faulkner – William Wisdom Creative Writing Competition Prize
Works[edit]
The Removes. New York: Sarah Crichton Books, FSG. 2018. ISBN 978-0-374-24931-1.
The Last Good Paradise. New York: St. Martin's Press. 2015. ISBN 978-1-250-04396-2.
The Forgetting Tree. New York: St. Martin's Press. 2012. ISBN 978-1-250-00104-7.
The Lotus Eaters. New York: St. Martin's Press. 2010. ISBN 978-0-312-61157-6.
Anthology[edit]
M Marie Hayes, ed. (2003). StoryQuarterly. 39. Storyquarterly Inc. ISBN 978-0-9722444-1-1.
The Short Version…
Tatjana Soli is a novelist and short story writer. Her bestselling debut novel, The Lotus Eaters, winner of the James Tait Black Prize, was a New York Times Notable Book for 2010, and finalist for the LA Times Book Award among other honors. Her second book, The Forgetting Tree, was a New York TimesNotable Book for 2012. Her third novel, The Last Good Paradise, was a Millions Most Anticipated Book for 2015. Her stories have appeared in Zyzzyva, Boulevard, and The Sun. Her work has been twice listed in the 100 Distinguished Stories in Best American Short Stories. She lives on the Monterey Peninsula.
More…
Her debut novel, The Lotus Eaters, was published in 2010 and was reviewed on the cover of The New York Times Book Review. It went on to become a NYT Bestseller, win awards and has a still-growing readership. It tells the story of an American female combat photographer in the Vietnam war. Tim O’Brien, National Book Award-winning author of The Things They Carried, wrote of it: “Set amid the twin infernos of Cambodia and Vietnam in the early 1970’s The Lotus Eaters draws the reader into a haunting world of war, betrayal, courage, obsession, and love.” Robert Stone, NBA-winning author of Dog Soldiers, wrote “…a vivid and memorable evocation of wartime Vietnam.” Selected as a New York Times Notable Book, it went on to win the James Tait Black Prize, the oldest award in the UK, and also was a finalist for the LA Times Book Award.
Soli’s second, The Forgetting Tree, was published in 2012. Jane Smiley, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of A Thousand Acres, reviewing it in the New York Times, wrote The Forgetting Tree was “Daring… haunting… even a remote citrus ranch can be a crossroads where cultures collide, and those collisions can be life-changing for everyone involved.” The story centers around Claire Baumsarg, who refuses to leave her beloved citrus ranch even after tragedy strikes, and her relationship to Minna, the beautiful, mysterious girl who cares for her. The Daily Beast wrote, “Soli’s prose is reminiscent of Eudora Welty’s. Like that writer, Soli’s sentences are tied to the land.” The Forgetting Tree also had the honor to be named a New York Times Notable Book.
Soli’s third novel, The Last Good Paradise, was published in 2015. A Millions Most Anticipated Book, the Michigan Daily writes, “With elegant prose that can swell into poetic intervals or sharp commentary, Soli presents a book that courses with flawed, colorful characters, lavish food descriptions (courtesy of a chef protagonist) and political intrigue. But beneath its lovely veneer is a book that confronts the American urge to escape.” It is the story of an LA power couple whose version of the American Dream is crumbling. They run away to a South Seas island in the remote Tuamotu Archipelago, and there meet an assorted group of self-exiled characters. Library Journal wrote, “The Novel has smart things to say about the frailty human relationships, the importance of responsibility to others, and whether its possible to be truly “off the grid” in modern society.”
The Removes was published by Sarah Crichton Books, Farrar Strauss Giroux in 2018. In a starred review, Booklist wrote: “Epic, enthralling… With visceral, vibrant language, Soli paints a stark portrait of the violence, hardship, and struggles that characterized the American West.” Spanning the years of the first great settlement of the West, The Removes tells the intertwining stories of fifteen-year-old Anne Cummins, frontierswoman Libbie Custer, and Libbie’s husband, the Civil War hero George Armstrong Custer. When Anne survives a surprise attack on her family’s homestead, she is thrust into a difficult life she never anticipated―living among the Cheyenne as both a captive and, eventually, a member of the tribe. Libbie, too, is thrown into a brutal, unexpected life when she marries Custer. They move to the territories with the U.S. Army, where Libbie is challenged daily and her worldview expanded: the pampered daughter of a small-town judge, she transforms into a daring camp follower. But when what Anne and Libbie have come to know―self-reliance, freedom, danger―is suddenly altered through tragedy and loss, they realize how indelibly shaped they are by life on the treacherous, extraordinary American plains. Publisher’s Weekly wrote: The clash of cultures is Soli’s grand theme, and here she drives home her message that the winners are no more worthy than the losers, and that “not even brotherhood was enough to safeguard people who had what others coveted.”
Q & A with Tatjana Soli on The Removes
Why are you drawn to the historical novel? The Western?
I am drawn to certain ideas, and sometimes these ideas seem to be embodied best in a particular time and setting in the past. I was struck in the writings of Richard Slotkin by his idea that the mythology of the frontier could be used as a way of “imagining and speaking truth.” He writes about the dark undercurrents of American culture through violence, both on the land and its people. This didn’t start with today’s headlines — there’s a long history that led us to the place we are today.
As far as writing a Western, it is a genre almost entirely dominated with male characters, and so it really appealed to me to focus on the female experience. It was important to me to not have the false ethical clarity usually associated with Westerns. All of the characters in the book are in a state of contradiction with themselves in a way not usually associated with the genre.
So how did you come to the story?
I was reading about the 7th Cavalry during the Vietnam War, and there was an aside that it had started in 1866 at Fort Riley, Kansas, commanded by none other than the infamous G. A. Custer. Custer became a kind of cipher for me to understand the mentality of manifest destiny at the time, the nation’s justification of expansion and conquest. We think of him now as a glory-hunter, an Indian killer, but at the time he was a national hero. I wanted to reconcile the cognitive dissonance of those two sides of his image. Of course the more I read, the more complex and flawed I found the man compared to our stereotyped images, the cartoonish versions in most portrayals.
What hooked me, though, was mention of his wife, Libbie, and their twelve-year marriage where she followed him into the field during the Civil War, and lived on military posts on the frontier during the Indian Wars. As I read about the two of them the time period became more and more compelling, and that was when I stumbled on the captivity narratives, when the whole project took shape. Although captivity narratives did exist previously in England, North American narratives had an ideological purpose. They were used to get public opinion on the side of stigmatizing the “other” culture, in this case making a case for removing Native Americans to reservations. Mine starts at that point and then continues on.
What interested me was history from a ground level viewpoint — one filled with unimaginable crime, cultural genocide, violence, and racism — from angles that we aren’t used to seeing, namely, women’s. One viewpoint from that of a white, privileged woman, who had been taught to be afraid of it all, and one from a captive, who has been forced into a foreign culture through an act of violence.
The setting in this book is distinct. Can you talk about that?
I always view setting as another character, and it is especially true in Westerns in terms of the characters’ interactions with their environment. The sheer distances and the time it took to cover them were daunting. There is no such comparable experience to be had in the world today in terms of isolation. As a country we have nostalgia for the cowboy period of the Old West, and I wanted to offer a kind of hyper-realism in its place.
Can you talk about the violence in the book?
Yes, part of the mythology of the land was the freedom it offered. Yet it was a dangerous freedom. Violence was routine, and I felt it was necessary to include it in graphic specificity because this weighed on the minds of the characters and colored their actions. It was real and everyday, banal and terrifying all at the same time.
Can you explain the meaning of the title?
I took the idea of numbered removes for chapter headings from the Narrative of the Captivity and Restoration of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson. I felt its meaning was mysterious and never explicitly told, and this was perfect for the state of mind that all the characters go through in the course of the book. Each has the props that we all depend on taken from them — family, faith, culture, the myriad comforts of civilization that make us who we are. So through time, they become this hybrid thing, one foot in each place, and that is a very modern dilemma.
This book is dissimilar to your previous ones. How do you go about picking subject matter?
Part of the joy of being a writer is letting one’s imagination roam widely. I write about what obsesses me, but of course I can only write about it from my own point of view. The similarities in my books usually center around the problem of violence, the clash of cultures, which occurs during the big movements of history, and the innocents that get hurt in the process, so those are the common elements.
Last question: What’s next?
I have one hundred pages of a novel I wrote last summer during a break. I haven’t looked at the pages since then, but I’m preparing to read and hopefully fall in love with that story again. It’s contemporary and takes place during the Iraq war. That’s all I’ll say for now. War is tending to be a recurrent theme in my work. I hadn’t really thought why until I recently read an essay of William James that helped me to understand the reason: “War… is a great revealer of what men and women are able to do and bear.” I think that’s a subject I will never get to the end of.
Tatjana Soli is an American novelist and short-story writer. Her first novel, The Lotus Eaters (2010), won the James Tait Black Memorial Prize, was a finalist for the Los Angeles Book Prize, was a New York Times Bestseller, and a New York Times 2010 Notable Book. Her second novel, The Forgetting Tree (2012) was a New York Times Notable Book. Soli's third novel, The Last Good Paradise, was among The Millions "Most Anticipated" Books of 2015. Her fourth novel will be published by Sarah Crichton Books in 2017. Her work has appeared in a variety of publications including The New York Times Book Review.
QUOTED: "Soli ... unleashes a thrilling novel set in the violent Wild West just as the Civil War ends."
The Removes
Publishers Weekly. 265.19 (May 7, 2018): p44.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2018 PWxyz, LLC
http://www.publishersweekly.com/
Full Text:
The Removes
Tatjana Soli. FSG/Crichton, $27 (384p) ISBN 978-0-374-24931-1
Soli (The Lotus Eaters) unleashes a thrilling novel set in the violent Wild West just as the Civil War ends, when a newly formed United States set its sights on Native American territory. Onto the larger canvas of the lives of George Armstrong Custer, the soldier tasked with defeating and corralling the Natives, and his spirited wife, Libbie, is painted the horrific tale of Anne, a young daughter of settlers in the Kansas Territory. The story opens with unimaginable violence as Anne is captured and her family slaughtered by the Cheyenne, then jumps from her travails to the lives of Libbie and Custer, nicknamed "Autie." Soli depicts Custer flailing to find a purpose after the war; his love of battle and the open prairie make him more kin to his Native "enemies" than to his own people. The Custers forge an unbreakable bond, the story swinging from Libbies perspective to Autie's, and to Anne's, who is battling simply to stay alive. Anne survives starvation, rape, and childbirth, only to eventually be brutalized by one of her own. The clash of cultures is Soli's grand theme, and here she drives home her message that the winners are no more worthy than the losers, and that "not even brotherhood was enough to safeguard people who had what others coveted." (June)
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
"The Removes." Publishers Weekly, 7 May 2018, p. 44. General OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A538858655/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=7f1937ff. Accessed 3 Nov. 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A538858655
QUOTED: "With visceral, vibrant language, Soli paints a stark portrait of the violence, hardship, and struggles that characterized the American West."
"an absorbing read."
The Removes
Kristine Huntley
Booklist. 114.17 (May 1, 2018): p65.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2018 American Library Association
http://www.ala.org/aboutala/offices/publishing/booklist/
Full Text:
* The Removes.
By Tatjana Soli.
June 2018. 384p. Farrar/Sarah Crichton, $27 (9780374900311).
Soli's (The Last Good Paradise, 2015) fourth novel is an epic, enthralling look at the American West in the mid-1800s, told through the eyes of General George Armstrong Custer, his wife Libbie, and Anne Cummins, a 15-year-old girl abducted by the Cheyenne in Kansas. While Anne witnesses the massacre of her whole family and almost everyone she knows before being taken by Cheyenne warriors, along with several other women and children, lovely Libbie Bacon is courted by handsome Civil War hero "Autie" Custer. Libbie chooses to marry Autie despite his continued flirtations with other women, a decision that ultimately takes her far away from the relative comforts of her Michigan home to frontier forts in the west as Autie is sent out on campaign after campaign to hunt down various Native American tribes. While Custer pursues his quests, Anne gradually acclimates to nomadic life with the Cheyenne, bearing two children and earning a grudging respect and even friendship from some members of the tribe. The two stories ultimately converge in the last third of the book, when all three main characters have been indelibly changed by their experiences. With visceral, vibrant language, Soli paints a stark portrait of the violence, hardship, and struggles that characterized the American West.--Kristine Huntley
YA/M: Though the graphic violence warrants caution, sophisticated readers with an interest in American history will likely find this an absorbing read that brings the Old West to life. KH.
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
Huntley, Kristine. "The Removes." Booklist, 1 May 2018, p. 65. General OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A539647396/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=27f1eaef. Accessed 3 Nov. 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A539647396
QUOTED: "a sober and memorable take on the American West."
Soli, Tatjana: THE REMOVES
Kirkus Reviews. (Apr. 1, 2018):
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2018 Kirkus Media LLC
http://www.kirkusreviews.com/
Full Text:
Soli, Tatjana THE REMOVES Sarah Crichton/Farrar, Straus and Giroux (Adult Fiction) $27.00 6, 12 ISBN: 978-0-374-24931-1
The lives of Gen. George Armstrong Custer, his wife, Libbie, and a 15-year-old Kansas farmer's daughter converge in this historical novel about the American frontier.
Soli (The Last Good Paradise, 2016, etc.) writes of an angsty Gen. "Autie" Custer pushing into the American West in the post-Civil War era, looking to retain his glory in a new kind of battle. Soli's braided narrative includes the historical figures of Custer and Libbie and opens with Anne, a fictional 15-year-old who was captured in an Indian raid on her Kansas homestead, where "it was necessary to work the fields with hoe in one hand and rifle in the other." The frontier is rough, especially for women. Anne's family is murdered, and she is held for years by the Cheyenne; Soli's writing is unsentimental about life in captivity, where Anne is starved and raped. The book is written in alternating chapters told from the third-person perspectives of Anne, Libbie, and Autie. Both Anne's and Libbie's lives are harmed by the ambitions and passions of men on both sides of the American/Indian conflict. Anne suffers at the hands of the Cheyenne, but as she bears children, she comes to identify with the Indian way of life. Early in her marriage, Libbie gets an "inkling that her savior might also be her tormentor," but she's drawn to him. The Custers' is a marriage fraught with doubt and long periods of absence while Autie leads campaigns on the American frontier, and Libbie is filled with "constant, rational dread." Autie is unquestioning of his duty but a man of impulses: "During the war he could have just as well fought for the Confederate cause; he had as many friends on both sides. Now he did not know why he fought the Indians, some of whom he also counted as friends, except that he was told to do so." Anne prays for rescue, but when it comes, it brings more heartache and men who want to use her.
A sober and memorable take on the American West: its opportunities for men to wage war against each other and the land and the devastation the men's ambition wrought upon women's lives.
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
"Soli, Tatjana: THE REMOVES." Kirkus Reviews, 1 Apr. 2018. General OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A532700554/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=988adf1d. Accessed 3 Nov. 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A532700554
QUOTED: "The Removes, a new novel by Tatjana Soli, promises so much: a narrative of the American West centered on women, a kind of remaking of the classic Western myth. ... The resulting novel is sadly stilted. Soli, who has written three novels, employs an awkward prose style in “The Removes,” a stark departure from the voices in her earlier work. Her sentences borrow constructions from the time period she’s writing about, but they work oddly, as though she’s trying on shoes that are a bit too small."
‘The Removes,’ by Tatjana Soli
Sophie Haigney June 21, 2018
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“The Removes”Photo: Sarah Crichton Books / FSG
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Tatjana SoliPhoto: Marion Ettlinger
“The Removes,” a new novel by Tatjana Soli, promises so much: a narrative of the American West centered on women, a kind of remaking of the classic Western myth.
The book tells the interlocking stories of the marriage between Libbie Custer and her husband, Civil War hero George Armstrong Custer, and the captivity of a white woman named Anne Cummins after an Indian massacre at her family’s homestead. It’s a deeply researched historical novel, mostly faithful to the arc of known events, that moves chronologically but across perspectives. The books sweeps across the years between the Civil War and Custer’s famous Last Stand.
The women’s perspectives are central to the novel. Libbie Custer is a compelling character, a fierce woman devoted to an unfaithful but passionate husband, who loves battle above all else. Their romance, with its ups and downs and pushes and pulls, is a constant as the story moves across time and space. Anne, the captive, is a great endurer of unimaginable losses. The women in the book are constantly waiting, suffering, losing, hardening.
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“The Removes” is fundamentally about violence of all kinds. There is violence by Indian to settler, violence by soldier to Indian, violence by the frontier to those who live on it, violence by man to woman. It is this last kind of violence, which crosses racial lines, that Soli’s novel is most concerned with: what the West does to the women, and what the men in the West do to them.
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The Removes
By Tatjana Soli
(Sarah Crichton Books/FSG; 370 pages; $27)
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The resulting novel is sadly stilted. Soli, who has written three novels, employs an awkward prose style in “The Removes,” a stark departure from the voices in her earlier work. Her sentences borrow constructions from the time period she’s writing about, but they work oddly, as though she’s trying on shoes that are a bit too small. “They remained in the winter camp for more than a week, but even such rest did not recuperate Anne from her fallen condition,” she writes. The novel is heavy on exposition and foreshadowing, also perhaps relics best left behind.
The book is laden with references — to “Blood Meridian,” “Gone With the Wind,” “Macbeth,” “The Last of the Mohicans,” “Little House on the Prairie,” Mary Rowlandson’s famous captivity narrative. Throughout, Soli also sprinkles in historical sources: letters from George Custer, frontier photos, battle casualty estimates, a map. Yet it is hard to know what to do with all of this, as the novel doesn’t quite stand on its own.
It drags. The book moves in and out of battle, then back to the waiting Libbie, then back to the suffering Anne. It moves almost cyclically through unimaginable weather, through slaughter, through joyful reunions, through painful betrayals. It provides a harsh picture of frontier life that loses momentum and becomes repetitive. Certainly this repetition may be accurate to the experience of a soldier’s wife, of a captive, of a soldier, of frontier existence, but it can be a chore to read.
There are of moments of wonderful description. Soli paints pictures that will stick in my head: a snowstorm that nearly kills, soldiers happening upon a patch of berries and eating themselves into bliss, Libbie planting trees in Dakota territory that bloom and wither.
“Domesticity was doomed by great clouds of dust that dimmed the sun, shortened the horizon, and eddied great sheets of tan, adhering to doors and windows, dusting furniture and floors, so thoroughly coating them that even the hue of their clothes took on the tint of sepia,” she writes. It is often in descriptions of place that Soli hits her stride, and this breaks up the monotony.
In a note at the end of the book, Soli writes, perhaps defensively, that she is interested in “the pendulum swing from simplistic descriptions of Indian warfare in the old Hollywood westerns to the opposite but equally false ones in more current books and films. … We honor the past most when we depict it as accurately as possible without contorting it to contemporary mores.” It is not clear exactly which current books or films Soli means, but I imagine she is defending against a charge that may be leveled against “The Removes”: that her narrative isn’t a useful contribution to the dialogue about colonialism, genocide and race relations in early America.
It seems fair to ask: On the heels of centuries of overwrought racist captivity narratives, why center a large part of a novel on a white woman taken captive and raped repeatedly? What does a writer like Soli owe, if anything, to the general balance of history? I don’t think there are simple answers. I also don’t think her novel is simplistic in its portrayals of race relations; she grapples, to an extent, with the complexities. But in the end, it was the prose more than the politics that felt like a disappointment.
The Removes
By Tatjana Soli
(Sarah Crichton Books/FSG; 370 pages; $27)
Sophie Haigney is a freelance writer. Her pieces have appeared in the New York Times, the Boston Globe and the Paris Review. Email: books@sfchronicle.com