Virtually every student of fiction is admonished: “Write what you know.” This does not mean that every short story or novel should track the author’s life in exquisite detail, although some successful writers have taken that road. What it means is that fiction can seem more “real” if the writer speaks with authority born of experience.
Thus, it’s not much of a stretch for me to write a scene where my protagonist is an attorney who has to drive in rush-hour traffic on the 101 from West Hills to his downtown office in the Ronald Reagan State Building on Spring Street.
However, I would have to do a lot of research to create a comparable scene that takes place in Miami, Fla., since I’ve never set foot there. It’s certainly not impossible, and many talented writers do exactly that every day. But if I attempt this, how real will my writing feel to a Miami resident? I promise you, if I fail, a reader from that city will track me down to explain in six different ways what a failure I am as a writer. It would not be pretty.
So it’s not surprising that I often draw upon my life for material and inspiration. Thus many of my characters are Chicano or Mexican, who live in Los Angeles, either near downtown (where I grew up) or in the West Valley (where I now live with my family). I spent my childhood in a working-class neighborhood and attended 12 years of Catholic school. After high school, I left Los Angeles for Stanford University, where I majored in English, and then back to my hometown to attend law school at UCLA. By day, I’m a government lawyer. I have drawn upon all of these elements of my life to populate my fiction.
I also fell in love with my law school sweetheart, Sue, in 1981, and started my Jewish journey. The granddaughter of Russian Jewish immigrants, she introduced me to wonderful books about Judaism, which became part of my informal studies toward conversion. We married in 1986 in a Jewish ceremony; I converted two years later. Our son was born in 1990, attended a Jewish day school for eight years and became a bar mitzvah at 13. We also suffered through that horrific hot August day 11 years ago at the North Valley Jewish Community Center when Buford O. Furrow Jr. entered the campus, where our son played in the back field with his friends.
All of these Jewish experiences have ended up in my fiction, not to mention becoming themes for my poetry, essays and book reviews. At first, I hesitated to draw from this part of my life because, as a convert, I have often felt a bit insecure about my Jewish identity. But I eventually got over that. Indeed, my children’s book, “Benjamin and the Word/Benjamín y la Palabra” (Arte Público Press, 2005), is about a Chicano Jewish boy who encounters bigotry on the schoolyard. The book received praise from various quarters, including Anti-Defamation League National Director Abraham Foxman, who said that it “helps us understand the effect name calling has on young people and how parents can effectively talk to their children about hate.” Foxman’s approval of this particular work of fiction meant more to me than any other praise.
But I have another test of authenticity, and so far so good. My most recent short-story collection, “Anywhere but L.A.” (Bilingual Press/Arizona State University), includes my first attempt at Holocaust fiction. As a convert, how could I even think of tackling the subject? Well, I’m stubborn. I’d find a way.
The path I decided to take was that of an observer. My story is titled “The Jew of Dos Cuentos” and it concerns a Mexican-born writer who squanders, through alcohol and womanizing, a promising literary career in New York during the Kennedy years. After his marriage disintegrates, he moves to a small Mexican town, where he carves out a hermit’s life translating his books from English into Spanish. A stranger visits one day, stating that he has admired the writer’s books for many years. This stranger, who speaks Spanish with a slight accent, makes a request: Would the writer translate his late wife’s memoir from Spanish into English? The stranger explains that he has already translated the original German into Spanish, but it was an exhausting effort and he desires the help of the writer to do the next translation. Intrigued, the writer reads the manuscript, which, as it turns out, is a Holocaust memoir.
I don’t want to give away any more of my story, but I will say that its theme is that we can, through literature, make certain that we never forget the evil perpetrated by the Nazis and their sympathizers.
If you read my story, I hope it will feel “authentic” to you. If not, I am willing to read your e-mails explaining how I missed the mark. But please, be gentle.
Daniel A. Olivas is the author of six books of fiction, including his first full-length novel, “The Book of Want,” which will be published by the University of Arizona Press in 2011. An attorney with the California Department of Justice since 1990, Olivas and his family make their home in West Hills. Visit him online at danielolivas.com.
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