Naeem Murr

you know, which is, I should say right now, because I love Chicago.

It is not a dangerous city.

I don't want to give that impression.

But, you know, there is a real racial divide.

It's one of the most racially divided cities still in America.

So it's about this porousness.

It's about the evil that is in all of us.

It's really about the predicament of all of us and how this leads to, you know, how we begin with utter connectedness.

I mean, this whole book is really about people trying to connect and the

Macrocosm, which is the Israeli Palestinian situation is a situation of complete disconnectedness right where people just cannot see the humanity of each other on both sides.

The book makes that struggle to connect sort of intimate it refracted in through this sort of manageable setting of a condominium association and through people trying to work their way through through conflict.

No, not with this novel.

Thank goodness.

This is the first time.

And the experience is so different when you have the same editor.

Luckily, you know, I have Elaine Mason at Norton and she's just wonderful.

She's a wonderful editor and she's such an advocate for the book.

She's constantly, you know, sort of working with me.

I'm getting...

You know, I get emails from Norton, you know, almost on a daily basis, you know, just their engagement.