An Interview with Rebecca Pawel

Rebecca: Stuy wasn't particularly formative to my career as a whole, since I'd started writing way before I entered high school and continued writing through high school pretty steadily regardless of the pesky interference of things like homework and afterschool activities.

Stuy's relationship with the Tejada books is sort of subterranean. While I was there I took Spanish, and between my junior and senior year I (along with about 30 others) took part in Sr. Mendez and Sra. Ubieta's annual study trip to Spain. We stayed in dorms near the ciudad universitaria in Madrid for three weeks. Anyone checking a map of Madrid for the "Colegio San Juan Evangelisti" may notice that it's very near the anonymous dormitory converted into a barracks in Death of a Nationalist. (While I was in Madrid that summer I tried to track down flamenco lessons at a dance studio called "Amor de Dios" that was formerly located IN the Calle Amor de Dios. Tejada's experiences trying to FIND the Calle Amor de Dios and its environs are based on memories of asking people for directions in my -- at the time -- rudimentary Spanish.)

I fell in love with Spain that summer, and I took AP Spanish literature my senior year at Stuy, which earned me 3 credits in Spanish, which was one of the things that tipped me toward majoring in Spanish in college. And that led directly to the Tejada books, so I guess you could say that Stuy started my love affair with Spain, which started the series.

My editor accused me of trying to do a tour-de-force in making Tejada likable after his first murder, but I honestly didn't see it that way. That's who he IS, and if he doesn't start out that way, there's no evolution possible. No redemption possible without sin, if you want to put it in terms that Tejada himself would be comfortable with. (I remember being terrifically annoyed to discover that of necessity the first book took place during Holy Week since Easter fell very early in 1939. I worked around it as best I could, and tried to make a virtue of necessity by working it into the story.)

As to making Tejada difficult to like....YES, of course I wanted to make him difficult. I don't want my books to be an apology for Fascism, although I've noticed that a fair number of right-wing readers seem to like them. I wanted to try to understand Tejada's motivations, and the motivations of people like him, because fascism in its various forms and guises obviously has a terrific seductive appeal, and we do ourselves no service to paint all fascists as gleefully cackling maniacs. Basically, the books were an attempt to understand how (as my grandfather once put it) "a conscientious family man and father of two can bayonet a three year old, throw her body into a ditch, and go home thinking he has done his duty to God and country."

There are plenty of people who think that Tejada is a "good" man, because his enemies are "bad." Plenty of people who would give up their seats on the subway to an elderly person or a pregnant woman and who give generously to worthy charities think that the torture camps in Guantanamo are perfectly justified because the people imprisoned there are terrorists who are not covered by the Geneva convention. I don't think Tejada is a good man, but I don't think people like him are that uncommon (nor -- in spite of the complaints of some left wing friends - do I think he is that idealized).

My editor tried to get me to change the murder of an innocent person that you refer to, so that Tejada was not the one who pulled the trigger, because that would make him "too unsympathetic" and that is the scene that everyone who reads the book mentions and remembers. But (interestingly, in light of current controversies over Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib) the fact that Tejada coolly AND CONTINUOUSLY either actively participates or colludes in torture throughout all four books is hardly noticed. In entertainment (if not in real life) we accept that the end justifies the means as long as a "good" person (i.e. the person we're rooting for) is doing it. This scares me.

Short answer: No, it wasn't planned.
Long answer: I originally tried to write Death of a Nationalist in imitation of Chandler's classic noir. (This worked until page 2 when I got up to Ramos' shaky desk.) I originally decided that little Alejandra's teacher would appear as one of those "good" women who appear for two lines in Chandler and then disappear unless they're (a)dead or (b)about to turn out to be very bad indeed. Elena wasn't supposed to show up for more than one chapter.

Then I discovered that I'd painted myself into a corner plotwise, and needed Elena to show up again to get me out of it. So her appearance was extended, and by that point I decided that logically, if I was writing a photo-negative of noir, where the hero was actually the villain, the treacherous femme fatale would have to turn out to be on the good side, so of course Elena became seductress as well.

Then the first book ended, and the friend who had been reading it said she wanted to know more about Elena. Thus, the second book came into existence. By the end of the second book, I had painted myself into a corner with their relationship, so the third and fourth books were an exploration of where they went from there. (The cool thing about painting yourself into a corner with a novel is that it's like having Harold's purple crayon....you can always draw a window or back door....or a line of newspapers to walk across.)

Usually my idea for a story starts with a cool setting (first place and then time). I do a fair amount of research before I write about general stuff, so I have basic timelines and geography straight. But I also do a lot of thinking out of the story -- on the subway, on long walks, pacing up and down in my living room and so on. Once I have definite characters and an opening scene I'll start actually writing it on the computer. Since Death of a Nationalist I've been lucky enough to have computers with high speed internet connections, so I go along writing and when I need to do a bit of research about a specific thing (or when I'm stuck or procrastinating) I go online and look it up. If I hit a definite snag, I'll usually go back to doing more research, so that I have a sense of where the characters are living and what their options are.

I tend to write with an idea of what the ending of the story will be, but no sense of the middle. In the past I've ended up making a rough chapter-by-chapter outline somewhere between chapters 4 and 10, usually to cheer myself on.

I usually need a solid block of time to get into a book. Once I'm into it, I'm more likely to stay up late than get up early. (Actually, I'm more likely to stay up late than to get up early, period. I'm not a morning person.)

I've heard the nasty rumor that Book Four is the end of the road, but that can't beeee!!!!! I love these people. There has to be more. Unless you're planning to fill the shelves with other works. What's coming next, when, from what publisher? Come on, spill the beans! I hope and pray that there will be more books. At the same time, if you say you're writing a series set in Puerto Rico, I give up. While you're at it, what about short stories? Ever thought of writing in that genre?

I've written a few short stories about the characters in Death of a Nationalist, and my editor is bugging me to write a few more so that they can get put together into a book, but other than that I'm giving the series a rest, probably a permanent one. I love the Tejadas too, but there are only so many adventures one couple can have, and I think I've credibly developed both of them as far as I can.

As a matter of fact, one of the short stories that functions as a "sequel" to Death of a Nationalist is set in San Juan. Another one, featuring the same character, is set in El Barrio (on East 116th St. close to where I live). But no plans for a full project about Puerto Rico, although every time I visit El Morro I wonder why.

At the moment I'm working on a historical novel, about the Spanish in Flanders (modern-day Belgium), in the 16th Century. Like Death of a Nationalist, it takes place against the backdrop of an ill-fated Republic (in this case, the Republic of Ghent - 1577-1584), with the movement of Spanish generals in the shadows (the Duke of Alba in the background, Alejandro Farnese Duke of Parma still to come). Also like the Tejada books, it deals with the lives of regular people (especially women and children) in times of large-scale ideological conflict. Unlike the earlier novels, it's not really a mystery, and it seems to be getting written very slowly!