“I had no money,” the 25-year-old said. “I didn’t have many choices. But of the places that I could afford, I…
By Alexander Dworkowitz
When Jonathan Safran Foer came to Jackson Heights as a recent college graduate in 1999, he had no set career path and little in his pockets.
“I had no money,” the 25-year-old said. “I didn’t have many choices. But of the places that I could afford, I really really liked Jackson Heights.”
Three years later, Foer finds himself in somewhat of a different situation. The author of the New York Times bestseller “Everything is Illuminated,” Foer has received many phenomenal reviews of his book and has been called a prodigy.
But at a recent interview at the Jackson Diner, the native of Washington D.C. said the success spurred in him no interest in leaving his adopted home of Queens.
“I feel very much part of the neighborhood now,” Foer said over a plate of Indian food, adding that he had no intention of leaving the borough. “I know people, I know where to find what… [There’s] all kinds of different restaurants, all kinds of different markets. You’re just exposed to more things. And that’s exciting, particularly with writing.”
Foer’s novel juggles several narratives. One is from the perspective of a 20-year-old college student with the author’s own name who travels to the Ukraine in search of his grandfather’s birthplace, which was ransacked by the Nazis. The series of events is told from the perspective of Alex Perchov, one of the protagonist’s tour guides, who writes letters to Foer’s character in his working English that is “not so premium.”
“Everything is Illuminated” also recounts the tragic and comic loves in the history of Trachimbrod, a shtetl dating back to 1791.
The story was inspired by Foer’s own trip to the Ukraine, where, just as his protagonist does, he searched for the town of Trachimbrod.
Foer said he decided to make the trip almost on a whim.
“I just did it,” he said. “I think sometimes you’re not exactly sure why, you know? We’re very often wrong about who we think we are, and I don’t just think of myself as being somebody whose interested in Judaism or in my family history, or genealogy or war, and yet I made the trip, so I guess I was.”
Foer, however, did not find Trachimbrod, nor any signs of his grandfather, admitting he had not done enough research. He felt an urge to write about his experience, but struggled to find a way to express the importance of a place that could not be found.
“I didn’t know if it was okay to write fiction about what I had seen,” he said. “It was very hard to figure out what my responsibilities were to write the truth, and also to think about what it means to be true.”
Foer composed a draft in two months, and the Princeton philosophy major spent the next several years editing what he had written.
His favorite passage of the novel, Foer said, describes “the disgraced usurer Yankel D” taking home a baby girl found in the Brod River and wrapping her in a bedpan of crumpled newspaper:
“When he pulled her out to feed or just hold her, her body was tattooed with the newsprint. TIME OF DYED HANDS IS FINALLY OVER! Or, SOFIOWKA ACCUSED OF RAPE, PLEADS POSSESSED BY PENIS PERSUASION, BECAME “OUT OF HAND.”[…] Sometimes he would rock her to sleep in his arms, and read her left to right, and know everything he needed to know about the world. If it wasn’t written on her, it wasn’t important to him.”
Foer explained he was worried about parts of his success. Having taken book tours across the United States and England, he was unable to find time to work on his second novel, much of which takes place in Jackson Heights.
Moreover, Foer was wary of thinking of himself as a successful novelist. He described his ambition as simply “being a person.”
“If I were to think about it, I think it would make me unhappy in a way,” he said of his recognition. “It would just be too weird for me to know how to begin to deal with it. So I just don’t think about it. When I do an interview, it’s almost like it’s a different person doing it.
“It’s funny, normally in life you don’t talk about it, what you do. You just do it.”
What’s the best part of his recent success?
“That people read the book,” Foer replied. “It’s really exciting. I’m having conversations with the world… I’m not even sure it’s what I thought I wanted, but now that it’s here it’s really kind of beautiful.”
Reach reporter Alexander Dworkowitz by e-mail at Timesledger@aol.com or call 229-0300 Ext. 141.
