Footnotes with Siobhan Fallon
Siobhan Fallon is an American fiction writer. Her first publication, an eight-story collection titled “You Know When the Men Are Gone” (G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 2011), tells of soldiers and families undergoing the ordeal of long, repeated deployments to combat in the post-9/11 era. In terms of its inspiration, “You Know” is not unlike “Fives and Twenty-Fives” by Michael Pitre or “Spoils” by Brian Van Reet. All three books find their muse in the Iraq War. However, Fallon's perspective on this common story makes her writing unique. Unlike other works of fiction involving war, Fallon mines the home front – specifically, what she witnessed of day-to-day life aboard Fort Hood in central Texas – for the characters that enliven her storytelling. “My husband served two Iraq deployments when we lived at Fort Hood [...] I wanted to give voice to many different Army family experiences,” Fallon said in a 2012 interview. Both riveting and heartrending – with “not a loser in the bunch,” according to the New York Times – “You Know” bridges the proverbial “divide” between civilians and service members in the best way: by giving life to characters who laugh, suffer, hope and, most importantly, invite us into their world.
Now, six years on, Fallon has published her first novel. “The Confusion of Languages” (G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 2017) is about two women who join their Foreign Area Officer-husbands for a tour of duty at the U.S. embassy in Amman, Jordan. Before long, Cassie and Margaret find themselves in conflict with the cultural norms of their host country, with their husbands and with one another. Author Phil Klay called it “a gripping, cleverly plotted novel with surprising bite.” RealClearBooks corresponded with Siobhan Fallon about her fiction, life in the military and her favorite place to write.
Q: You are an accomplished fiction writer. You also are a military “dependent.” Is it difficult for you to be creative, critical and independent as a military wife whose profession it is to explore sometimes uncomfortable and emotionally complex lives?
When I was writing my first book, "You Know When the Men Are Gone" (in 2007), our country had a large number of troops in both Iraq and Afghanistan, and I was writing how life at Fort Hood, Texas, the largest military installment in the free world, was impacted by prolonged deployments.
As an Army spouse and active duty officer’s wife, I feared that a gritty portrayal of military life might be seen as unpatriotic, and I didn’t want my husband to face any negative push back. But when we broached the subject with his chain of command, or contacted the Public Affairs office to see if someone needed to ‘approve’ my writing, I was told over and over again that I was a civilian and that my fiction was my own. Ultimately the military community has been tremendously supportive of my work. It made me realize that giving an honest portrayal, of both the inspiring and the difficult sides of our military lives, especially, as you say, the emotionally complex lives of our military and their families, was welcome and needed.
I find it similar with my new book, "The Confusion of Languages," which is set in the U.S. embassy community of Amman, Jordan, during the Arab Spring. I’ve been hearing from both military and Foreign Service folks and they appreciate seeing our little-known ex-pat lifestyle, and our difficulties of living in countries very different than America, fleshed out in a novel.
Q: What, in your opinion, is the most common misconception that American civilians have about military life?
That because our military personnel wear uniforms, they think in a uniform way. A ‘high and tight’ haircut is not necessarily a reflection or indication of the inner workings of the mind that goes on beneath that shorn head. As a part of this community, I’m constantly amazed at the creativity and brilliance, the thinking “outside the box” I come across.
The military is a sampling of America in every way, from faith to skin color to political leanings to parenting techniques, and you’ll find every sort of artist, Jeopardy geek, beer aficionado, baseball nut. You’ll find anything and anyone within its ranks and families. I know military spouses who are authors, poets, painters, dance choreographers, doctors, lawyers, photographers, yoga instructors, you name it.
Q: How do you like to write – is there a specific time, space or routine that gets you writing?
We live in Abu Dhabi, in the United Arab Emirates. The embassy recently moved us from a fifteenth floor apartment to a villa that has a small backyard. My writing desk is in the guest bedroom on the second floor, looking down at that little yard, facing this miraculously massive green tree. A tree! It’s astounding to me to be in the UAE, with so much sand and steel and cranes in the distance building office buildings, and be able to see birds in the leaves of that tree.
Five days a week, once my girls are off to school, I fuel myself with an unhealthy amount of coffee, sit at my desk, stare at that tree, and try to work. Because writing is work for me, it’s my job, my career, it pays for my youngest daughter’s tuition, and while I might be inspired by a snippet of overheard conversation or a glimpse of an Emirati family eating spaghetti at the food court or some bizarre story I read in Abu Dhabi’s newspaper, The National, books and characters just don’t land in my head like a divine message from above.
So I work. I rewrite. I edit. I get frustrated. I throw away 70% of what I have and start again. And I look at that damn tree, growing smack dab in the dessert, how can it create itself from nothing? How do the roots find water, how does it survive on a day like today, 116 degrees Fahrenheit, how does it push out those green leaves and create it’s magnificent shade?
If that tree can grow to such heights, I can do something as simple as sit at my desk, do my job, and write.
Q: If not a writer, what would you be?
I’d be some sort of book junky: an editor at a publishing company, a librarian, or a cashier at an indie book store. I couldn’t live without books. I couldn’t live without that opportunity to understand something through another person’s point of view, to get so completely lifted out of my own life that when I return to it, when I close the book and cut up an apple for my four year old daughter, I’m the tiniest bit different, the tiniest bit better, than the person I was a few minutes earlier.
