Writing Past the Stereotypes

Not long ago, I read an article on Mulholland Books’ website: a conversation between mystery authors Zoë Ferraris (a past guest on this blog) and David Corbett about “the invisible hero,” the protagonist in fiction who breaks down cultural stereotypes. Both these authors know what they’re talking about: Ferraris writes a series featuring a conservative Muslim man in Saudi Arabia (Finding Nouf and City of Veils), while Corbett’s novel, Do They Know I’m Running?, is about illegal immigrants in California. Their discussion centered around the idea that stereotypes get reinforced by the power of repetition. And so you end up with the grim Muslim fundamentalist, the slick Colombian drug lord, the bigoted redneck.

Or the Iranian terrorist.

I understand where the negative Iranian stereotypes come from, in the United States at least. Images of hostages parading across our TV screens, day after day, for over a year, have left persistently negative pictures engraved in our collective psyche. It’s little wonder that many Iranians would rather refer to themselves as Persians, a word that paints pictures of beautiful carpets and fluffy cats, rather than crowds of angry people yelling “down with America.” It’s that old power of repetition.

I see culture as a series of layers, with the “weird” stuff on the outside. Each time you peel away a layer, you get closer to that core where we are all the same—that place where we fall in love, grapple with insecurities, fret over jobs, money, and our children’s future.

When done well, fiction is ideal for peeling away these layers because it places readers right in the head of a protagonist who may eat unfamiliar food and speak a language we don’t understand, but who also struggle with the same universal emotions we all feel.

If you’ve followed my posts on Novel Adventurers for long, you’ll know that I write fiction set in Persian culture. The protagonist of my series is a female private investigator, born in Tehran, raised in California. In creating her, I wanted to explore the world of a woman who lives in two cultures yet doesn’t feel entirely at home in either one. She feels more American when she’s in Iran and more Iranian in California. This reflects how I’ve felt for much of my life, because I’m not a casual traveler. One week in a foreign city is not enough for me; I need months or even years. Which means that returning home can bring a cultural adjustment I never bargained for.

But I’m not Iranian, so I worried about stereotypes. I write crime fiction, after all, which means that criminals, thugs, and other nasties crop up from time to time. Am I just reinforcing the negative view of Iran?

In writing Bad Hejab, the novel I recently turned in to my agent (and set in Iran), I broke two rules I’d set for myself in writing about Persian culture: no politics and no religion. Both could easily trap me into perpetuating more negative stereotypes. Yet, I had a villain who just wouldn’t quit: a fanatical Basij militiaman who is confident that his powerful political allies will always help cover up his crimes. He had all the makings of an Islamic thug with very little to redeem him. But without this villain, I didn’t just have a weak story. I had no story at all.

For several drafts, I searched high and low for some way to make this man more complex or at least a bit interesting, a task further complicated by the political protests that followed the 2009 Iranian elections. Real-life Basij militiamen wielding clubs, and sometimes Kalashnikovs, were beating up protesters and shooting into crowds of unarmed people. It became even harder to see my villain as anything but a government-approved thug.

Until I looked past the images on my TV screen and remembered the Basijis I’d seen on the streets of Tehran, handing out free pastries and tea on religious holidays. And they are often the first responders in natural disasters, such as earthquakes. Nothing is ever as simplistic as it seems at first glance, and I found ways to make my Basiji complex, conflicted, and something more than a religious fanatic with a heavy baton and hard, cold eyes.

Whether or nor not I’ve accomplished this is for others to say. But I hope I’ve peeled away enough cultural layers for my readers to see past the stereotypes and enjoy a good story at the same time.

Am I in Your Book?

The title of this post is a question I get a lot from Iranian friends and relatives when I tell them I’m writing a novel set in Persian culture. It’s a reasonable question when you consider that writers frequently write what they know, and what I know about Persian culture I’ve learned mainly from these same Iranian friends and relatives.

I’m never sure how to answer this question because the only honest response is yes and no. In a way, every person I have ever known, every situation experienced, and every idea pondered has ended up in my stories. But by the time these elements have passed through the filters of my mind, story premise, and plot, they are utterly unrecognizable.

My stories themselves usually end up as something quite different from the idea I started out with. And that’s how I like it. For me, the whole point of writing a novel is to explore the world and discover something I had never realized before.

Take my Persian P.I. series. The idea came about in response to my annoyance at the negative way in which Iranians were portrayed in American popular culture. Always the villain—the terrorist, the assassin, or the abusive, overbearing husband. I recognized nothing of the friendly,  generous, and fun-loving Iranians I knew. Nothing of their rich and complex culture, art, and history. I wanted to write a story that showed them as they really are.

Fortunately, the idea didn’t stop there. If I’d written a book as an emotional reaction to negative press, the story would have been insufferable to read, shouting righteous indignation from every page. It would have been propaganda, not fiction.

When I created my protagonist, an Iranian-American P.I. named Leila Shirazi, I soon realized that what interested me the most about her was not her Iranian identity—or her American one. But her dual cultures. She was a person who appeared to move back and forth between two nationalities with ease, thoroughly familiar with the modes of behavior acceptable in each culture.

But how does she really feel? Is anyone equally at home in two worlds? I had a linguistics professor once who claimed that true bilingualism was a misconception. Even bilingual people are most at ease with the language they use the most, the one of the dominant culture in which they live. And that comfort can shift to the other language in a different environment.

Maybe biculturalism follows the same pattern, I thought. So with Leila, I created a woman who was born in Tehran and raised in Northern California from the age of twelve, yet feels somewhere in between these two places. She embraces the personal independence valued by Americans, while her Iranian culture demands that everyone, especially women, put family first. But her olive complexion, Middle Eastern features, and foreign name set her apart from the mainstream. When people ask the question “where are you from?” they don’t expect the name of a city, but that of a country.

When she visits Tehran, the city of her birth, as she does in Bad Hejab, the opposite happens. Everyone treats her like she belongs, based on her appearance, familiar name, and local accent. And on the surface she fits in; Leila can speak the language and haggle prices like a native. But when it comes to sorting out the complexities of Tehran society, where nothing is ever precisely what it seems, she feels as though she’s visiting her native city for the first time.

Moving the story lines back and forth between two countries and cultures gives me the chance to explore how Leila learns to bring her two identities closer together and become a more integrated person. Will she achieve this goal in the end? Beats me. I’ll have to continue writing the books to find out.

First Lines and Heidi's Story

Welcome to Novel Adventurers, the blog that celebrates the great cultural diversity of our planet. We are four suspense novelists whose books and stories are set in locations around the world, from Turkey, Iran, and South America to Russia, India, and New York. In the coming weeks and months, join us for lively discussions of the cross-cultural adventures and misadventures that inspire our books. We will showcase our favorite travel destinations and review international movies, books, and plays. And don’t miss Fridays, when we invite guest bloggers to tell us about their own journeys off the beaten path.

All this week, you will meet each of us in turn as we talk about ourselves and our books. Because it’s Monday, I get to go first.

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My idea of a dream vacation never included lying on a sunny beach in Cancun with a frosty Margarita in hand. You’d be far more likely to find me hiking alpine trails in Switzerland, climbing the steps to the ruins of Persepolis, once the residence of ancient Persian kings, or quizzing bazaaris at the Tehran spice market on the best ways to use his fragrant wares.

I’ve lived in Salzburg, Austria, where I subsisted on big rounds of sourdough bread purchased from monks in the cellar bakery of a Franciscan monastery. Studied linguistics in Leipzig, East Germany, during the height of the Cold War. Later, I taught English in a Mexican public school whose custodian locked the doors at nine sharp (tough luck if you were five minutes late to class). Until one day, the students went on strike, occupied the building and shut the teachers out.

These days, my travels usually take me to Iran, where I have a special pass to the very heart of the culture: my husband’s extended family. Twenty years ago, I married a Tehran native and have been studying the culture, cuisine, history, and language ever since. I’ve heard it said that the only way to fully understand this intensely private culture is from inside the family. Maybe that’s true. Maybe not. It’s the only vantage point I have ever had. And my explorations of Persian culture have inevitably found their way into my novels and stories.

Currently, I’m writing a mystery/suspense series featuring Leila Shirazi, an Iranian-American P.I., who struggles to reconcile her independent spirit with the traditional values of her conservative Muslim family. Her story begins in Frayed Silk, where she’s hot on the trail of a rare seventeenth-century Persian carpet until the bodies start piling up. Returning to her native Tehran in Bad Hejab, Leila is immediately caught in the web of her journalist cousin’s murder investigation. When the killer, protected by a powerful government ally, goes free, Leila seeks a way to bring him to justice.

Museums filled with a country’s art treasures are fine for a start. But afterwards, I want to sit in an outdoor café, pen and notebook at the ready, recording sights, sounds, smells, snippets of conversation, and the imagined stories of people moving in and out of my line of vision. It’s the routine of ordinary life in extraordinary places that sparks my imagination.

In the weeks and months to come, we will be sharing our thoughts and observations about all things cross-cultural. We hope you will stop by often and tell us about your own adventures.