An Interview with Dean Serravalle // Nathaniel G. Moore
Where I Fall, Where She Rises is a novel that follows two women on opposite ends of a terrorist kidnapping. While one woman suffers and falls at the hands of her captors, the other exploits the fame of such a publicized event to secure a future for her unborn child. Lea Ironstone is a Canadian freelance journalist who recalls her time spent in the very dangerous red zone of Baghdad after the 2003 U.S. invasion. A self-destructive addict, she refuses to relegate herself to the safer green zone, where most mainstream news journalists like Paul Shell are protected.
Nathaniel G. Moore: If you were introducing three characters from your book at a cocktail party, how would you do it?
Dean Serravalle: Okay, three people walk into a bar. Lea is a death-inviting freelance journalist in the dangerous red zone of Iraq after the U.S. Invasion; Carol is the wife of celebrity journalist Paul Shell who exploits her husband's kidnapping to manufacture her own celebrity status, and Timothy Abel is a talent agent who ushers these stories between Iraq and New York to promote profit margins based on these real life human commodities.
NGM: Your new novel has elements of international war within the narrative framework. What inspired you to include this contemporary conflict in your latest book?
DS: International war is often distant in perception but infiltrates our domestic safety, and even our everyday routines like invisible radiation. I've always believed that war alters the moral compass of those who are participating in it, as well as those who are spectating from a distance through various mediums. I was further inspired by war crimes as the manifestation of this dichotomy, and in particular, an animated torture journal created by Al Queda to test on kidnapped journalists.
NGM: What was the biggest surprise you discovered while writing Where I Fall?
DS: How much I fell in love with the characters, how real they became to me while I wrote them, even to my senses. I found myself in their company, in their hearts, in this telepathic communicative forum where there was open, honest, and creative dialogue between us. At times, I was writing lines and smiling while I did so as I would in a conversation with someone who I admired and respected. I didn't want to leave this world I had created because it challenged every intelligence I possess.
NGM: Did you find it difficult to write from the perspective of two very different women?
DS: I suppose every character requires a different degree of difficulty when assuming perspectives. However, I focused more on the stakes within their characters as opposed to those linked to their genders and insisted on creating power, strength and vulnerability from their wants and needs as opposed to their physical constructs. I wanted these women to push the envelope of their own expectations of themselves. That was key to me. Two, strong and independent women, who were proving more to themselves than they were to any man, woman, or societal expectation.
NGM: How hard was it to graph William Blake's poem "The Marriage of Heaven and Hell" into the storyline?
DS: It was the driving force from the very beginning, actually. I was obsessed with the poem as a student and it created instant visual connections to my research on the U.S. Invasion of Iraq in 2003. The parallels between the poem/artistic plates were so natural and relevant that I couldn't deny its metaphorical value to the novel. I found the beauty of the poetry infiltrating the subtext in my dialogue, at times, and I was adrenalized by the fusion of similar and conflicting themes.
NGM: What is your writing process like? How do you go about the process of writing a novel? Do you have the story and characters in mind beforehand?
DS: My writing process differs from work to work, depending on the circumstances or the material I elect to devote my time to. In this scenario, I saw a strange, violent, and even sexual connection between William Blake's “The Marriage of Heaven and Hell” and the U.S. invasion of Iraq. The whole notion of "the Beauty of Contraries" stimulated so many connections that allowed me to see the poem in a modern, contemporary war context. When those connections were forged, characters emerged from the situation with so many creative and satiric possibilities at my disposal. The illusory connection between the poem and my own ideas of war crimes dimensionalized my characters further and I took great indulgence in their fascinating complexities.
Dean Serravalle is the author of four novels, Reliving Charley (Oberon Press), Chameleon Days (Now or Never Press), Lock 7 (8th House Publishing), and his latest, Where I Fall, Where She Rises (Inanna Publications) which Halifax author Brad Kelln calls "A difficult journey exploring both the struggle of survival and what it means to be alive." An English professor, Program Chair of the English Department, and freelance journalist, Dean received his M.A. from the University of Windsor, where he apprenticed under renowned poet Di Brandt and the late great author, Alistair Macleod. He has published over 30 stories internationally and garnered nominations for the prestigious National Magazine Award and the Journey Prize in Canada. He currently resides in Niagara Falls, Ontario with his family.
