Naeem Murr

Well, you know, I had been working on another book based upon the lives of my Palestinian uncles, my Palestinian family for many years.

And I'd been doing a ton of research and I just needed a break from it.

It was this enormous weight on my life.

I'd never done a book that had required so much work.

And so I took a walk and, you know, I was just taking a walk.

And as I approached my condominium building, outside the building were a couple who were sitting in an old Impala attached to a U-Haul trailer.

there was just something about them.

They seemed incredibly sort of sad in some ways, but very connected.

At the same time, they were sort of leaning against one another.

And I couldn't tell if they had arrived or about to leave.

And for some reason, that just set something off in me.

It sort of prompted me to think about what I thought would be a short story that would end with that scene.

That scene seemed to me the end of the story.

And in fact, you know, the very next day I went for a run

And I could imagine that ending, and I even came up with a final line for what I thought was this story.

And as soon as I started writing the story, it just came to life.

And this has happened to me pretty much with every one of my novels.

There's been some prompt that has set off the novel.

And it was as if this book had been gestating in me for...

you know, years and years and years and years over the whole time that I had been working on this other book.