A Conversation With PEN America Best Debut Short Stories 2018 Author Celeste Mohammed

“My focus was on the character and emotions of the immigrant: the loneliness, the sense of loss and disconnection.”

On August 21, Catapult will publish PEN America Best Debut Short Stories 2018, the second edition of an anthology celebrating outstanding new fiction writers published by literary magazines around the world. In the upcoming weeks, we’ll feature Q&As with the contributors, whose stories were selected for PEN’s Robert J. Dau Short Story Prize for Emerging Writers and for the anthology by judges Jodi Angel, Lesley Nneka Arimah, and Alexandra Kleeman. Submissions for the 2019 awards are open now. “Six Months” is written from the perspective of Luther Archibald Junior from Trinidad, who, after running out of options at home to support his partner and two sons, moves to New York to work at a supermarket.

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Celeste Mohammed is a lawyer and mother. She holds an MFA in creative writing from Lesley University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and lives on the Caribbean island of Trinidad.

When oil drop to 9US$ a barrel, man, you know you getting lay off. The only question is when. Like everybody else in the industry, you wait.

It come like the worst thing that could happen, when they announce people going “in tranches” every month.

At first, every time you don’t get a envelope, you breathe a sigh of relief. After a while, though, you start feeling like a death row inmate in a cell near the gallows; like these bitches want you to witness everybody else execution. Soon, the fact you still working come like a noose swinging in front your face, grazing your nose. You start to wish they just get it over with.

And when it happen, you rush home to Judith, your common-law wife, mother of your two children, and give her the news. She put her hand on her heart and say, “We could breathe easy now, Junior. We could move on.”

You and Judith cling to each other there in the kitchen. You feel your prick resurrecting like Lazarus. Is months since the last time. You know Judith feeling it too. She pulling away? No, she gripping on tighter.

You’s a trembling schoolboy again, mouth watering over hers as you grab deep inside that housedress like is a bran tub. You find her panty-crotch and rake it aside. Right there on the counter, next to the toaster, it happen. Two jook and a tremble and everything done. But Judith don’t seem to mind. She patting your back, stroking your hair, till your breathing slow down. Then she whisper she going for the boys.

You swagger to the bedroom. Dive on the bed, hug the pillow, and smile. You not too worried. The severance pay was a good chunk—it’ll hold you for a while. Besides, you tell yourself, it don’t matter how low oil go; Trinidad need man like me. They can’t shut down every rig, every factory. Nah! METs will always find work.

Catapult Books: Where did you find the idea for this story?

Celeste Mohammed: On a plane, actually. I had already boarded and was sitting there, in Miami, eager to get home to Trinidad. Luggage was being loaded onto an adjacent plane when a bag fell off the conveyor belt. For a while, no one seemed to notice. I sat there panicking on behalf of the owner of that bag. Was it a flight to the Caribbean? Did these airline workers know how important that suitcase was to its Caribbean owner? That its contents were like life and death to his family back home? I decided right there that I wanted to write a story about that bag. After a few months and a few attempts, though, I had to admit the story I was trying to tell was not about a suitcase—at least not that kind of baggage. It was about the emotional burdens illegal immigrants carry back and forth from the Caribbean to America; the personal trade-offs they make in pursuit of green money and a Green Card. I knew so many families—mine included—who, since the mid-1980s, had been through that trauma of losing a loved one to the enchantments of America. That’s when the idea of a kind of cautionary tale was born.

The voice in this story is so particular—something Carolyn Kuebler also makes note of in her introduction to the story. Where did it come from, and what was it like to write?

I struggled with voice in this story. It wasn’t so much a technical, craft struggle, but rather a personal struggle. I had only ever written in Standard English before this. In fact, for my whole life—at home, in school, in my legal career—I had been taught that written communication should always be in formal English. But the story wasn’t flowing well in that mode. It only began to flow when I forgot myself (and my ingrained prejudices) and stopped censoring Luther’s Trinidadian-ness. I stopped trying to be his translator, and instead, took the risk of letting him speak for himself.

However, the choice of the second person “You” was a technical, craft decision. I had been told, during my MFA studies, that second person is a wildcard. It can come across as didactic, or even accusatory, so a writer should use it sparingly and keep the story very short, otherwise there’s risk of offending the reader. But face-to-face communication in Trinidad often employs that second-person “You,” as an intimate, confidential voice for personal storytelling. So I took the risk, in this lengthy story, to be true to that oral tradition. I think that’s why the story feels heard, rather than read.

If you wrote this story before Trump was elected, has the story changed for you, or taken on a different kind of meaning since he’s been president? If so, how so?

No, the story’s meaning hasn’t changed for me since President Trump’s ascension. It was never meant to be a story about the character of the “host country”—whether hospitable or inhospitable. My focus was on the character and emotions of the immigrant: the loneliness, the sense of loss and disconnection, the work ethic, the compromises, and the slow but persistent transformation of his identity. Presidents and policies come and go, human nature remains.

How long did it take you to write this story?

There was a lot of lead time, probably a year between the idea for the story and finding the right voice for it. Mind you, this took place during the MFA program at Lesley University, Cambridge, Mass. I was new to writing and struggling to develop confidence in myself and in the idea that anyone would want to read the Trinidadian stuff I was writing. Once I got the story out, though, I worked with my editor for a month or so. Based on her glowing praise, I crossed my fingers and sent it out to literary journals.

How has the Robert J. Dau Prize affected you?

When the story was published in the New England Review, I assumed that was the apex of its journey. Great, I said, it has found a good home with a few people who appreciate it. But the Dau Prize is an even higher level of recognition. Winning it has answered several questions I’ve had in my head about whether there is a wider audience for my work. I feel unfettered, really, and encouraged to write about Trinidad in an authentic way.

Also, the Dau Prize is not just a monetary prize. It involves publication in a reputable anthology. My story’s inclusion in that anthology has allowed me to glimpse, first-hand, the process of book publication.

What are you working on now?

The story which won the Dau Prize is part of a linked short story collection called Pleasantview. Soon after winning the Dau, I submitted the collection to publishing houses and, although none of them said yes, their comments on the work were quite instructive. I’ve been working on using that constructive criticism to make improvements to the collection. Once that’s done, I’m going back to the novel I’ve been writing—a story about a different, more uppity class of Trinis than the people mentioned in Pleasantview.

Finally, where do you discover new writing?

I work closely with two experienced writing mentors. I rely on their recommendations for books or authors I should read. It may sound odd, but I love reading the author interviews at LitHub—the articles, too. If an author or work is discussed there in an intriguing way, I’ll go find the work.