My Debut Has Debuted

Today is the official publication day for Another Kind of Symmetry, my debut novel.

The story behind this story

When I first put fingers to keys, I wrote a total of 300 words. And like most of my work, this novel began with a first line. Here’s that first line within the first paragraph.

My grandmother died the day after we dug up my grandfather’s bones. Today, five years later, we will dig up hers. I dress in black, I don’t dress in black. I dress in black on top, but not underneath.

And here’s the first paragraph that appears in print.

My grandmother died a year and a day after my grandfather. Now, five years later, it was time to take up her bones. I knew what she would look like—like my grandfather but with bones sticking out of a dress instead of a suit.

When you compare these two beginnings, it looks as if not much has changed. But originally, the narrator was half Greek like me. And my reason for breaking the silence (as my MFA thesis advisor used to say) was to write about how much a small village in Greece had changed over time. This idea had come to me as I stood at my own grandmother’s grave, reflecting on how different the experience was from when we had taken up my grandfather’s bones eighteen years prior.

But I’m not a planner or a plotter, and soon my narrator was 100 percent Greek. Then at some point she had a sister, and then at another point the sister became a twin. And the novel became about their diverging paths—but it is bookended by the taking up of their grandmother’s bones.

Want to read more? You can buy (or order) a copy anywhere books are sold. Thank you in advance for supporting this debut novel(ist) and the University of Alaska Press, a small indie!