Christal
Cooper 1,663 Words
“When the sun goes down”
“I only
write once the sun has gone down.”
Tony D’Souza
When Tony D’Souza was a child he and
his Uncle Stan gardened, cooked, and hunted together. They also participated in that great
tradition of telling stories – Uncle Stan the storyteller and Tony the
captivated listener. Uncle Stan’s
stories were not the typical stories you told a young child; but rather
detailed stories about the family’s experience in their home country of India
and of migrating to America.
D’Souza remembered his Uncle Stan's stories and
has incorporated some of those stories in his novels: Whiteman, The Konkans, and Mule. Perhaps the most biographical novel to date
is the The Konkans (www.HarcourtBooks.com).
“It
is very close to the actual events of my family, my mother’s service in the
Peace Corps in India, her marriage to my father, and their coming to the United
States and the issues of race they faced in Chicago. It’s also historically accurate about the
political changes that went on in India when the British left.”
The Konkans is told through the eyes
of Francisco D’Sai, and is about three main characters who are searching for
identity: his American mother Denise, who yearns for India; his Indian father Lawrence who yearns to be American and posses the American dream, which is outside his reach; and his Uncle Sam, who is dissatisfied with life, but the most healthy of the bunch. Uncle Sam accepts reality, and finds pleasure in the most minor of things such as cooking, drinking,
and sex. He also finds fulfillment in his relationship with his sister-in-law and lover
Denise (the affair between Francisco’s mother and Francisco’s Uncle Sam is fiction)
and his nephew Francisco.
“We see
how three different people confront life in this book; for Lawrence, working
hard and keeping a stiff upper lip are how he deals with the ups and downs of
life. His approach is not nearly as sensual as the other characters' and he
clearly suffers because of it. He simply doesn't find a way to enjoy life as
they do, even if what they do hurts themselves and those around them. Sam has the least opportunities of anyone in
the book and still finds ways to really have a good time.”
One
could argue that the two brothers are denied the identity they crave due to
racism, which D’Souza himself has experienced.
“I know what racism is. Being mixed race and
being able to pass for white made me acutely aware of how America perceived and
treated the Indian half of my family as opposed to my white mother.”
When
D’Souza started writing The Konkans he was certain of one
thing: he wanted to write in the same
style as March Behr’s The Smell of Apples, which he
credits with giving Francisco’s voice.
“The opening of Behr’s book begins right away with the very strong voice of a child. You feel like you can hear that child talking to you and he becomes such a rich character. That’s the same style I use in The Konkans.”
A long time ago, my uncles bought a pig. I was a few months old at the time. I’d like to say that my uncles bought the pig
to herald my birth, but no, it was instead to celebrate the feast of St.
Francis Xavier, my namesake and our family’s patron saint, the man who had
brought Catholicism and the roots of Konkani, my uncles’ language, to the
western coast of India, where they and my father were from, in the early
sixteenth century.
First
paragraph of The Konkans
Copyright granted by
Tony D’Souza
He
wrote the first 200 pages of the novel in pen and paper while living with his
girlfriend in Phoenix, Arizona.
“I
was a younger writer when I wrote this book and relatively new to the novel
form. Moving in these episodes helped me
pace myself through the book. I started this book with the first lines and no
real plan. I just had these stories and
told them one at a time. They built on
each other and made a timeline. I wrote
everyday during that time, had a messy manuscript and then revised it
relentlessly. The revisions continued through the year long editing process.”
After the 200 pages were written, and 4
½ months had passed, D’Souza moved to London where he rented a small apartment
off the Kensington Gardens. It was in London
that he wrote directly on the laptop due to time constraints.
“I only had six weeks in London and wanted to be finished before I left. I wrote all day and took walks in the park when I needed breaks.”
“I only had six weeks in London and wanted to be finished before I left. I wrote all day and took walks in the park when I needed breaks.”
At first D’Souza was writing seven to
eight hours a day, from 8 p.m. to 3 a.m., but soon The Konkans consumed his
every hour and he was writing all day and night. The writing process took six months.
During the writing of The
Konkans, D’Souza was at his most emotional when he wrote the scene
about an intruder in his mother’s apartment.
“There
is a scene before she goes to India when Francisco’s mother is a young teenager
in her apartment in Chicago and a man breaks in and stands above her in the
dark. She’s terrified. That did happen to my mother when she was 19
years old and she still feels the terror of that keenly, though she’s now 74,
more than 55 years later.”
When my mother was thirteen, her bones
ached from her growth spurt, and she had a terrible time sleeping. So she was awake when a naked man opened the
door and stood in it. He was
backlit. My mother knew her mother was
passed out somewhere. The girls were
asleep in their beds; she could hear their breathing. There was no one in this world that could
save her from this man. He weaved across
the room, kneeled on the bed, licked her neck, squeezed her breasts, laid
heavily on her, and fell asleep. When
she was certain he wouldn’t wake, she inched her way out from under him.
Page
26, The
Konkans
Copyright granted by
Tony D’Souza
“I
had the most fun writing the scene where the Peace Corps Volunteer with an
attitude problems puts the dead Indian cook on the bus. Again, that really
happened and I still shake my head that anyone could have done such a horrible
thing and think he could get away with it.”
Peter
carried the cook’s body up the steps of the idling bus to Mangalore. There was a half hour yet before it departed,
plenty of time for a drunk old man to have a heart attack in his sleep. He arranged the cook’s face against the
window, set the bottle against the wall of the bus beside him, put two
fifty-rupee notes in the pocket of his shirt.
The ticket wallah had that money in his own pocket moments after Peter
left, just as Peter had known he would.
The ticket wallah tilted his hat on his head, smoothed down the creases
of his shirt, and his mustache twitched under his nose as he thought about this
luck. Then he sat back down at his desk
in the office, and his mind went on to other things.
Pages 262 –
263, The
Konkans
Copyright
granted by Tony D’Souza
Both Whiteman and The
Konkans have similarities; both books are in the first person, focus on
the Indian culture, contain individual short stories that can stand on their
own; and focus on characters and their idiosyncrasies.
The
major difference between Whiteman and The Konkans is the setting
or location - Whiteman takes place in a small West African Village, The
Konkans take place in India and Chicago.
There has been criticism about
D’Souza’s book The Konkans - how did
Francisco have first hand knowledge of all of these events especially when some
of the events occurred before his parents even met, and while he was a baby?
“Francisco learns it all
over the years through his mother’s and uncle’s storytelling. This book is a memoir and it is implied that
Francisco is telling these stories through the filters of how they were told to
him and how they have been shaped by his memories. I think that Francisco
serves as a good set of eyes and ears to the adults around him and is a good
narrator since he doesn't understand why his parents are doing what they do,
even if the reader does. It allows the events to happen without much judgement
or commentary. He doesn't enter the events much because he is a child. The structure
of the book is clearly an older Francisco (me) growing
up in a vibrant, immigrant household among people he loved.”
The great question of The
Konkans is this – What determine one’s identity – one’s home country;
educational background; career choice; perceptions of America; religion; or
ancestry?
“I don't have an easy answer and I wouldn't want a book to
offer one. I think that's the goal of a story like this, to leave a reader with
lingering emotions and questions to think about after the reading is done.”
D’Souza is flexible when it comes to
writing – as long as it is nighttime, he has a desk, and is in a quiet
environment.
D’Souza
once placed writer as his number one priority.
Now writer takes backseat to his new identity of father.
“I have two small kids and am a single father so that’s what I do. And sleep when I can. I have a few drawings by my kids taped to the wall. My daughter drew one of me in the middle of her and her brother and she wrote I Love Dad at the top. My son drew me a colorful dragon. I like to look at them and remember how much love has come into my life with them.”
Photo Description And
Copyright Information
Photos 1, 7
Tony D’Souza
Copyright granted by
Tony D’Souza
Photo 2
Alice and Walter
D’Souza’s wedding , June 3, 1968, Top, and Far Left
Bottom right, Tony
D’Souza and his sister Allyson D’Souza in India.
Copyright granted by
Tony D’Souza.
Photo 3
Allyson, Walter, and
Tony D’Souza at Disney “back in the day”.
Copyright granted by
Tony D’Souza
Photo 4
Jacket cover of (1) of The
Konkans
Tony, Walter, and
Photo 5
Jacket cover of The
Smell of Apples
Photo 6
Jacket cover (2) of The
Konkans
Photo 8
Tony D’Souza fishing in
Grand Lake Stream, Maine
Copyright granted by
Tony D’Souza
Photo 9
Jacket cover (3) of The
Konkans
Photo 10
Jacket cover of Whiteman
Photo 11
Tony D’Souza, middle, in
India.
Copyright granted by
Tony D’Souza.
Photo 12
Tony D’Souza, son, and
daughter on May 3, 2014 in Wisconsin
Copyright granted by
Tony D’Souza
