I first saw Padma Viswanathan’s novel, The Toss of a Lemon, on a shelf in Borders and was immediately taken by the title. It’s an interesting phrase. One I’d never heard, yet it sounds like something someone could have said a hundred times, a hundred someones. The phrase refers to a character in her novel, a Brahmin astrologer who has someone toss a lemon out the window the very moment each of his children are born. It’s the precision of the moment that helps him create their astrological charts, which will not only interpret each of his children’s futures, but those of his and his wife.
After reading the novel, I found Padma on Facebook and made a strange request. I asked her if she’d sign my hard bound copy of her book if I sent it to her and promised to pay for the return postage. Not only did she agree (graciously), she also paid for the return postage. And this after the book had just been reviewed in the New York Times, a time I imagine friends and admirers must come out of the woodwork. Again, she couldn’t have been more approachable.
When we were looking for someone to interview for our next issue, she was the first author who came to mind. She’s kind, well-traveled, thoughtful: a great writer at the (relative) beginning of what will surely be a long and illustrious career. I approached her again, and again she accepted.
We talked, as we always do at Terrain.org, about place. This led to further questions about novels vs. plays, about Brahmins, about Elizabeth Bishop, and about the role of failure in art.
I can’t wait for it to come out, but in the meantime–if you’d like to sample some of Padma’s work–here’s a short story she wrote a couple of years ago that won the Boston Review’s annual short story contest. The work, “Transitory Cities,” has a very different tone from her novel. It’s more experimental, more a work of magical realism–though many authors might reject this term. Either way, it’s a great story and should more than get you warmed up for the interview.
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