I came across the author online a few months ago, during some recent literary detective work, when I discovered that Zapata had written a novel titled “The Lost Book of Adana Moreau.”
Wanting to know more about his family background and the novel itself, I got in touch
with Michael by email and asked him a few questions. He replied in internet time, that is to say, right away, within the same day, from his home in Chicago to my home overseas.
with Michael by email and asked him a few questions. He replied in internet time, that is to say, right away, within the same day, from his home in Chicago to my home overseas.
“To answer your questions, yes, my new novel does deal directly with the Jewish experience pre and post Russian Revolution, in Chicago during the Great Depression, and through the lens of an Israeli-American raised in Chicago decades later,” Zapata told me. “My mother’s family is Ashkenazi, originally from Lithuania, and my father’s family is from Ecuador.”
”My parents met in 1975 in Quito, Ecuador, when my Jewish-American mother was living there as a foreign exchange student studying Spanish. They met outside my mother’s university and, even though neither knew too much of the other’s language, they hit it off and were engaged three months later during Carnival in Santa Fe, the small Andean farming village where my father grew up. Their engagement and subsequent marriage in a courthouse in Quito was seen — for both of their families – an act of rebellion.”
Like many Jews in America and Europe these days, Zapata told me he is drawn more to Jewish culture than to the Jewish religion and is himself secular, and his novel explores these interlocking identities, too.
“As the whole known story goes, my paternal and maternal great-grandparents fled one of those unspeakable pogroms at the turn of the 20th century in the Russian Pale of Settlement and emigrated to the United States. With them, of course, came both rich religious and secular traditions, which, in part, replicated themselves as, yes, interlocking identities, but also occasional fissures in my own family in Chicago,” Zapata said.
”In my novel, I was interested in questioning those fissures, also viscerally and politically evident in the history of the Pale, the February and October Russian Revolutions, Israel, and Jewish immigration to the United States. Still, what binds us to thousands of years (and to each other) is a culture that advocates — and is anchored by — books and questioning, profound Saul Bellow or Cynthia Ozick-like lines of questioning of existence or endlessly mundane questioning such as the one thousand and one ways to best make a brisket. After all, questioning leads to possibility, to parallel worlds and survival.”
“My great-grandmother, who I knew for some time as a child, was fond of calling people, including myself, luftmensch, a Yiddish term of insult loosely meaning “someone with his head in the clouds,” or more tenderly, for the novelist in me at least, as “someone who exists in a cloud of possibility.”
By the way, Zapata’s beloved grandfather in Ecuador is 100 now, and the author visits him there on occasional trips south.
In Zapata’s recently-published novel “The Lost Book of Adana Moreau,” the mystery surrounding a lost science fiction manuscript from 1930 is revealed in the near-apocalyptic devastation of post- Hurricane Katrina New Orleans.
When asked about his Ecuadorian roots from his dad and his Jewish roots from his mom, Mike told me: “My parents met in Ecuador, and, shortly after their marriage, they left for Chicago. My sisters and I spent our childhoods navigating the construction of a new type of identity and reality, half Jewish, half first-generation Latino, a bifurcated reality, and a new type of language: Spanglish. We existed in a liminal space between continents and languages, a noisy, messy, lonely, and often beautiful space.”
Zapata is a graduate of the University of Iowa and currently lives in Chicago with his wife and two children.
His novel is being talked about now in literary circles as one of the most important books of 2020, according to publishing sources in New York.
“By the way,” Zapata told this blogger,” my novel does deal with the history of science fiction and the writing of science fiction, but the novel is not science fiction itself. Generally, although I’m not a science fiction writer, I love the experiment and challenge of pulling together disparate genres (historical fiction, science fiction and autofiction) and traditions.”
The novel? It goes like this:
It’s the year 1929 in New Orleans, and a Dominican immigrant named Adana Moreau writes a science fiction novel titled ”Lost City.” Decades later in Chicago, Saul Drower is cleaning out his dead grandfather’s home when he discovers a mysterious package containing a manuscript titled ”A Model Earth” written by none other than Adana Moreau.
Who was Adana Moreau? How did Saul Drower’s grandfather, a Jewish immigrant born on a
steamship to parents fleeing the aftershocks of the Russian Revolution, come across this
unpublished, lost manuscript? Where is Adana Moreau’s mysterious son, Maxwell, a theoretical physicist, and why did Saul’s grandfather send him the manuscript as his final act in life. You’ll have to read the book to find out.
steamship to parents fleeing the aftershocks of the Russian Revolution, come across this
unpublished, lost manuscript? Where is Adana Moreau’s mysterious son, Maxwell, a theoretical physicist, and why did Saul’s grandfather send him the manuscript as his final act in life. You’ll have to read the book to find out.
Zapata’s debut novel shines a light on the experiences of displacement
and exile in a page-turner of a story that is an example of brilliantly-layered storytelling.
and exile in a page-turner of a story that is an example of brilliantly-layered storytelling.
Could there be a Hollywood movie in the book’s future? Time will tell.
A few more notes and out-takes from our informal chat:
Mike told me: "I wrote THE LOST BOOK OF ADANA MOREAU with one person in mind, my dear friend
Matt Davis who passed away in 2003, vocalist and guitarist for the band Ten Grand and one of
the founders of the Afro-Punk movement, who passed away tragically in 2003. He was one of
the most passionate, kind, and brilliant people I’ve ever known. My inspiration and intention was
to write a novel he would enjoy. I think I’ve been able to do that.''
Matt Davis who passed away in 2003, vocalist and guitarist for the band Ten Grand and one of
the founders of the Afro-Punk movement, who passed away tragically in 2003. He was one of
the most passionate, kind, and brilliant people I’ve ever known. My inspiration and intention was
to write a novel he would enjoy. I think I’ve been able to do that.''
Michael Zapata: I’m 40. I was born in Chicago and raised in both Chicago and Roselle. After
writing for the stage and failed, if exceptionally fun, attempts at TV and film in my twenties, I
started writing fiction more seriously at the age of 29.
DO YOU visit Ecuador at time to see relatives?
Michael Zapata: Yes, I do! I’m fortunate to be close to my grandfather, who is 100, and visit
him in Santa Fe in addition my family in Guayaquil and Quito when I get the chance.
What kind of book tour will you do to promote your book?
Michael Zapata: HarperCollins/Hanover Square Press have been extraordinary in their support.
A national book tour, including festivals, will take me to Oxford, Jackson, New Orleans,
Milwaukee, Iowa City, Charlottesville, Boston, Manchester, with lots of great readings and
events, of course, in Chicago, including one with the Chicago Council on Science and
Technology in conversation with a physicist from FermiLab! More to come!
Interested readers
can find updated info at: michaelzapata.com
Radio intervews, NPR? TV interviews? Chicago stations? Print newspaper interviews?
Michael Zapata: Very excited for print, podcast and radio interviews including the following:
Lit Hub, Thacker Mountain Radio at Off Square Books (on Mississippi Public Broadcasting and
Alabama Public Radio), The Other Stories Podcast, Biblio Happy Hour Podcast, Writers’ Voices
Podcast, NPR’s A Reading Life with Susan Larson, Writer’s Voice, with more to come!
Any nibbles YET for translations to foreign languges like France or Germany or Spanish?
Michael Zapata: I’m not currently aware of any; however, it’s always been a dream of mine to
publish a novel translated into Spanish.
Any nibbles yet from MOVIE producers for options on the book?
Michael Zapata: So very mad fortunate to have film/tv agent Michael Cendejas at Lynn
Pleshette Agency in my corner for this. Fingers and neurons crossed!
Michael Zapata: THE LOST BOOK OF ADANA MOREAU was released in hardcover, e-
book, and audiobook formats (with the magnificent actress Coral Peña reading)
book, and audiobook formats (with the magnificent actress Coral Peña reading)
DAN: ''Thank you, Mike, for taking the timeto answer my questions for this informal interview. I appreciate it. ''-- Dan
MIKE: " Thank you so much Dan! I really appreciate your time and interest. Cli-fi is
such a luminary genre/theme in literature today!''
such a luminary genre/theme in literature today!''
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