How did you come to write this book?
I started it about seven years ago, in the most mundane way-in a fiction class,
not a burst of inspiration. For this class I was in, we were asked to take a
sort of professorial, distant tone and write a page or two, and, thus, Jerome was
born. The first page of the novel is pretty much a description of the campus
of Hawken, the day school I went to in Cleveland. Hawken, though it is
a day school, not a boarding school, differs from New York City private schools
greatly in the lavishness of its grounds. It's on about 150 rolling-green acres
of someone's former estate in an exurb of Cleveland called Gates Mills.
It was a boys' school until 1978, when 20 other girls and I attended. My
experience there definitely laid the groundwork for me to come up with a
story like The Fall of Rome.
Anyway, out of my description of the campus, this character suddenly started
speaking. There was definitely no one at Hawken like Jerome. I grew interested
in him because he was so odd, and my interest in him kept me going for
a long time. Obviously, the novel also came out of some my own experience
at this prep school. I strongly identify with both Jerome and Rashid's
feeling of discomfort with themselves. While at Hawken, I went
through the final stages of a real sort of transition in terms of race and
class. I really came face-to-face with race issues there. My family was
educated, largely through their own efforts, but my father was a teacher
and then a public-school librarian and didn't make that much money. I
lived in an all-black neighborhood. Hawken was composed of mostly white, mostly wealthier
families in the Cleveland area. I came to it from the gifted program at
my inner-city middle school and it was just quite a change.
The characters of Jerome and Jana are written in first person,
while Rashid's sections are written in third person. Why did
you choose to write them this way?
I had somebody say to me that they thought that I had chosen to write Rashid in
third person because he's more objectified that way and in fact, that's an interesting
and I think, valid, reading-but I can't take credit for having thought
it up. In fact, writing the book the way I did was largely a technical choice
for me. I found that Rashid's story was richer and easier to tell if he wasn't
telling it directly. Jerome was the first voice and always the most consistent
voice — I never questioned whether to write him in first or third person,
he just kept talking. Jana was initially in third person and I went back and
rewrote her in first person because it helped her to become a fuller character.
The whole process was very trial and error. The only one I didn't mess
around with was Jerome.
What is the significance of the relationship between Jerome
and Jana?
I guess on one level, it was an opportunity for both of them to step out of bounds.
He had been wrapped really tight for a really long time, and she touches
him emotionally so deeply that he begins to lose control in many
areas of his life. For her, too, her relationship with him is a way to step beyond
the bounds of her life, post-divorce, which she feels is getting sort of narrow
and entrenched.
Who were your greatest literary influences in writing this
book?
I thought all the time of Kazuo Ishiguro's The Remains of the Day,
while I was writing this book. His skill in creating the character of
Stevens was very influential for me. I also greatly admire Michael Cunningham's The
Hours, and Martha Cooley's The Archivist, for their skill
in handling multiple points of view. Some of my other favorite writers
are Toni Morrison, Jane Smiley, William Faulkner, and Junot Diaz.
What do you hope readers will come away with after reading The
Fall of Rome?
I hope that they will have enjoyed reading it, have been engaged by the characters.
I hope that they will get the sense of the difficulty inherent in stepping
beyond the boundaries that are set up in this country around race or class
or gender. Going beyond those boundaries isn't all bad but it can be difficult.
Rashid is forced to change a great deal and to some extent sever his ties
with his home, but I don't see it as something he will regret in the future. I
guess I'd like people to be aware of both the big and little things — the
mundane difficulties, such as Kofi not being able to get his hair cut by any barbers
near his school because there aren't barbers that know how to cut kinky
hair — and the big difficulties that lead someone like Jerome to warp
his
personality to try to conform. I would like people to come away from the book,
thinking about that situation, especially those who might never have experienced
it. I hope that the book awakens people to their own lives — to what
might be lost and what might be gained by stepping out of the situation in
which society has placed them.