[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 158 (2012), Part 9]
[Senate]
[Pages 11966-11967]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                            CHRIS BOHJALIAN

  Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, Vermont boasts many talented artists, 
creators, composers and authors. Not least among them is Chris 
Bohjalian of Lincoln, an accomplished writer whose recent novel, The 
Sandcastle Girls, is drawing the praise and accolades of critics and 
readers alike. Marcelle and I were inspired by the story Chris has 
committed to the printed page; it is a novel that I believe will secure 
his place among the most accomplished writers of the 21st Century.
  I read with interest an interview with Chris published in Vermont's 
Burlington Free Press on July 15. Like many artists and authors, Chris 
drew from his own heritage in his case, Armenian--to pen a moving story 
of compassion and perseverance amid horror and tragedy. Perhaps this is 
why he has called The Sandcastle Girls the ``most important book'' he 
will ever write.
  Chris is a longtime friend, and I have always enjoyed reading his 
works. The Sandcastle Girls is an achievement that stands apart and 
will deeply affect its readers.
  I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record the article, 
``The Most Important Book I Will Ever Write.''
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

            [From the Burlington Free Press, July 15, 2012]

 ``The most important book I will ever write''--Bohjalian talks about 
                         `The Sandcastle Girls'

                           (By Sally Pollak)

       Chris Bohjalian is a novelist who lives in Lincoln. 
     Bohjalian, 51, writes a Sunday column for the Burlington Free 
     Press. ``The Sandcastle Girls,'' his 14th novel, comes out 
     Tuesday. In a recent conversation with Free Press reporter 
     Sally Pollak, Bohjalian said ``The Sandcastle Girls'' is the 
     most important novel he will ever write. He said, as well, he 
     thinks it's the best book he's ever written.
       ``The Sandcastle Girls'' is set in Aleppo, Syria, during 
     the Armenian genocide, nearly a century in the past. The 
     story centers around a young American woman, Elizabeth 
     Endicott, who travels to the Middle East to assist Armenian 
     refugees. She befriends (and aids) a group of interesting 
     people, and falls in love with an Armenian engineer who has 
     suffered devastating losses.
       The book is narrated by a contemporary American novelist of 
     Armenian heritage, Laura Petrosian. Bohjalian says Petrosian 
     is a female version of himself.
        BFP: What compelled you to write this book?
       CB: This is the second time I've tried to write about the 
     Armenian genocide. I tried to write about it when I finished 
     ``Water Witches,'' prior to writing ``Midwives.'' I wrote an 
     entire novel called ``Sugar Daddy.'' Terrible book, never 
     published.
       Not only was it a terrible, terrible book, but about this 
     time Carol Edgarian wrote ``Rise the Euphrates'' about the 
     Armenian genocide.
       And I remember thinking to myself, Why does the world need 
     my book when it has ``Rise the Euphrates?''
       Rather than try to save the novel I went onto my next 
     project, a novel about a midwife who dies in childbirth, and 
     wrote that book instead.
       I was about 100 pages into the manuscript about the 
     Sandcastle girls when Mark Mustian published his interesting 
     and marvelous novel about the genocide, ``The Gendarme.'' 
     Once again I thought the world doesn't need my novel.
       But I was so emotionally invested in these characters, I 
     cared so much about the story, that I soldiered on and 
     finished it. I'm really glad I did. I love this novel. 
     Elizabeth Endicott, Nevart and Hatoun are my three favorite 
     female characters, along with Sibyl Danfroth in ``Midwives,'' 
     that I've ever written.
       BFP: ``The Sandcastle Girls'' is a mystery, a love story 
     and a narrative of war. How do you approach writing a novel 
     that weaves together these themes?
       CB: Those elements are woven together through the 
     characters. I know when I read a novel, I'm interested in 
     characters I care about. And so when I began this book I 
     began with the people, I began with the characters. And I do 
     care so deeply about the characters in this book, especially 
     those women.
       BFP: How did you come up with ``the compound'' in your 
     novel, the setting for much of the action and the place where 
     many of your characters live?
       CB: Partly, I was simply after historical authenticity: 
     Where would Elizabeth Endicott, an American, be living? Then, 
     however, I saw the importance of the juxtaposition of where 
     Elizabeth lays her head at night compared to where the 
     refugees who are coming from the desert are sleeping. The 
     square of the citadel is an innermost ring of Dante's 
     inferno, compared to the compound.
       BFP: Did you know when you started writing the book how you 
     were going to resolve it?
       CB: I never know where my books are going when I begin 
     them. I depend upon my characters to take me by the hand and 
     lead me through the dark of the story. I didn't know this 
     novel was even going to have a component that was mysterious 
     when I began it. All I knew was that I wanted to examine what 
     my narrator calls the ``Slaughter You Know Next to Nothing 
     About.''
       BFP: Can you describe the sense of responsibility or 
     obligation you might have felt writing a novel that would 
     tell people something about this mass killing, now a century 
     in the past?
       CB: I know in my heart this is the most important book I'm 
     ever going to write. I'm telling a story that is not known 
     but was precedent-setting for some of the most horrific 
     tragedies and crimes of the last century. There's a direct 
     line between the Armenian genocide, the Holocaust, the 
     killing fields of Cambodia, Bosnia, Rwanda. It's a long list.
       In 1915, there were roughly two million Armenians living in 
     the Ottoman empire. By the end of the First World War, 1.5 
     million would be dead, three out of every four of them. In 
     1915, I had four Armenian great-grandparents. By the end of 
     that year, at least one would be dead. Both of my Armenian 
     grandparents are genocide survivors.
       My family history is a part of that horrific global 
     narrative. So when I started this book, I began with the 
     personal. My narrator, Laura Petrosian, is a female version 
     of me. That's my grandparents' house in the novel.
       Elizabeth Endicott and Armen Petrosian (central characters 
     in the book) are not my grandparents. They are completely 
     fictional.
       BFP: When did your grandparents, Leo and Haigoohi 
     Bohjalian, come to this country?
       CB: There were two points of arrival. I believe my 
     grandfather, Leo, first arrived here in 1920 but he didn't 
     stay. He went back to get my grandmother and they lived in 
     Paris until late 1927, or very early 1928.
       BFP: What do you know about your own Armenian ancestors? 
     And how does your family's history figure into this work?
       CB: I know almost nothing about my Armenian ancestry; I 
     know even less about my (maternal) Swedish ancestry.
       I don't know what demons dogged my mother and father, but 
     they never talked to me about their childhoods. That's why 
     perhaps ``The Sandcastle Girls'' is a novel and not a memoir. 
     I couldn't tell you enough about my Armenian and Swedish 
     ancestors to write a memoir. I have wondered if I am going to 
     learn a lot about my (Armenian) ancestors when this book 
     comes out, which would be great.
       My aunt believes that Haigoohi's father (Bohjalian's great-
     grandfather) was murdered by Turkish soldiers because he 
     supplied horses to the army. They killed the Armenian and 
     took the horses.
       The history of ``The Sandcastle Girls'' is accurate. I did 
     my research and I did my homework. I believe that Aleppo of 
     1915 (where the novel is set) is the real thing.
       I knew so little about the Armenian genocide as a child, 
     and what my grandparents must have endured, that I saw no 
     irony in the fact that my first serious girlfriend when I was 
     13 and 14 years old was Turkish. I understood as a child that 
     my grandparents were from Armenia and were magnificently 
     exotic, by the standards of both grandparents. My mother 
     really did call their house the Ottoman Annex of the 
     Metropolitan Museum of Art. Their English, up to as late as 
     1970, was heavily accented.
       BFP: Your father, Aram Bohjalian, died last summer, about a 
     year before the publication of ``The Sandcastle Girls.'' Did 
     you get a chance to talk to him about the book? What were his 
     feelings about the novel?
       CB: My father's eyesight had been diminished by macular 
     degeneration for so long, he was not able to read even large-
     print books. That photograph (of Bohjalian's father and 
     grandparents) is one of many photographs that my dad and I 
     pored over the last two years of his life. Because he was so 
     ill, I was visiting him a lot. The way I would try to take 
     his mind off the pain he was in was to get out family photo 
     albums and ask him to tell me stories, ask him to tell me 
     about the different people in the photographs. A lot of it he 
     didn't know.
       My father, as a first generation son of immigrants, in many 
     ways distanced himself as much as he could from his Armenian 
     ancestry. He grew up in a house in Westchester County in 
     which everyone spoke Armenian or Turkish. When he started 
     kindergarten, he spoke not a single word of English. He 
     didn't even know how to ask where the bathroom was. In terms 
     of distancing himself from his Armenain ancestry, he became 
     as American as possible.
       He was not as handsome as Don Draper in ``Mad Men'' but he 
     was a Mad Man. He was an advertising executive at large New 
     York City ad agencies.

[[Page 11967]]

       I think my father knew more than he wanted to share with 
     me. He had mixed emotions about it. On the one hand, he was 
     always really proud of me; even when his eyesight was gone, 
     he loved listening to my books on audio, even the bad ones.
       But I think he also felt that this story was too painful 
     for a novel. I remember once reminding him when we talked 
     about this that I had written novels about a woman dying in 
     childbirth, a couple who had their twin daughters washed away 
     in a flood, the Holocaust, and a domestic abuse murder-
     suicide. And I also told him that as an Armenian-American, I 
     felt an incredible desire to write this story because it 
     feels so much a part of me.
       BFP: Can you tell us something about your recent trip to 
     Armenia and Lebanon?
       CB: The principal driving force that led me to Armenia was 
     the death of my father, and not simply his death but his 
     illness. The more time I spent looking at old family 
     photographs, the more time I spent seeing images of Leo and 
     Haigoohi, the more I felt this profound desire to see Mount 
     Ararat.
       I have never in my life been outside Vermont and felt less 
     like a stranger in a strange land, than when I was in 
     Yerevan, Armenia. I was so happy there in ways I hadn't 
     expected.
       BFP: ``The Sandcastle Girls'' will be released Tuesday. Are 
     you nervous as publication approaches?
       CB: I've never been as emotionally invested in how people 
     respond to a book as I am with this one. Because this is the 
     most important book I will ever write. And I think it's the 
     best book I've ever written. And the reason why it's the most 
     important book is pure and simple: because it's about the 
     ``Slaughter You Know Next to Nothing About.''

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