← All Of It with Alison Stewart
All Of It with Alison Stewart
Archive of Unknown Universes' Presents Alternate Versions of History
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- [00:09]
A
This is all of it on wnyc. I'm Alison Stewart. This year we're celebrating Hispanic Heritage Month with conversations with debut novelists. Today we'll hear about a new novel titled Archive of Unknown Universes. The story follows two families in alternate timelines of the Salvadorian civil war. Set in 2018, a machine called the diffractor allows users to sift through alternative versions of themselves, witnessing lives that they could have lived. In the novel, we're introduced to Ana Flores and her boyfriend Luis Guzman, two Harvard students on a joint research trip to Havana, Cuba, and San Salvador, the capital of El Salvador. Anna uses the machine to explore what ifs about her relationship and Luis's family secrets. One in particular is the relationship between two men, Neto and Rafael Raphael, 1970s Revolutionaries who love story is snuffed out by a brutal war and homophobia, the Washington Post states. In his debut novel, the brilliant young writer Ruben Reyes Jr. Turns that art of speculation into a riveting saga of answers. His story collection, There Is no Rio Grande in Heaven was a finalist for the Story prize and long listed for the PEN Faulkner Award for Fiction. And his debut novel is Archive of Unknown Universes. This Thursday, he has an event to celebrate the release of the novel at the Worldsboro Bookstore in Jackson Heights, Queens. It's happening at 7pm he is in studio now. Ruben, welcome.
- [01:38]
B
Hi, I'm thrilled to be here. Thanks for having me.
- [01:41]
A
Your latest novel, Archive of Unknown Universes, follows these two families in alternative timelines of the Salvadorian civil war. You were also the child of true Salvadorian immigrants. What was something that you wanted to explore about the war's effects on Salvadorians in this novel?
- [01:57]
B
Yeah, I was really interested in the kind of intergenerational effects of war before I actually started writing the novel. Probably a whole two years before I read this incredible academic article by a sociologist named Lacia Brego, who basically argues that because the Salvadoran civil war and the US's influence in it was denied by the government, by other actors, Salvadoran children and immigrants grew up without knowing that history. She has a line along the lines of because it was officially denied, people began to deny it in their own lives. And this novel is a way of trying to break those silences and, you know, in some ways reflects my own journey of learning more about the Salvadoran Civil War.
- [02:39]
A
It's really interesting. Early in the book you write, and this set it up so beautifully, you wrote.
- [02:44]
C
Anna's research goals were simple to prove that diaspora existed before 1980, that Salvadorians shaped The world before the war, before their global displacement. Growing up, only people who migrated from El Salvador, like her mother, knew where it was. The country felt unimportant, too small to matter. Our cultural irrelevance. Her research was going to disprove what she spent a lifetime believing. Yeah, that's such a beautiful, beautiful sentence. What are some of the universal themes that come up that we share all as humans? That's a very specific theme. But what are the universal themes that come up in the book?
- [03:21]
B
I think the heart of this book is really the love stories that are here. I grew up reading love stories, loving love stories. I love rom coms. I love sad, sad dramas about unhappy couples. I love it all. And in my first book, I wrote some relationships, but it was often in service of other questions. In this book, I wanted to tackle the question of love and specifically whether people are made for each other really explicitly. And so we have two couples that I think approach that question in kind of opposite ways. We have Neto and Rafael, who, without giving too much away, feel like they're, you know, destined to be together. And then we have Anna and Luis, who. Who are choosing each other every day.
- [04:04]
C
Tell us about the diffractor.
- [04:06]
B
Yes.
- [04:08]
C
How does it work?
- [04:09]
B
Well, you. If you are a student at a university, because that's the rule that I created in the novel, you can go check it out from the desk, attach it to your temple, and ask it a guiding question. And then the device will show you, either visually or textually, other versions of the life you could have been living.
- [04:31]
C
Now, you're only supposed to use it for research, though.
- [04:33]
B
Yes, but some people break the rules. The temptation is a little too strong. And it's this device that people come to for advice, for guidance, even though that's not its official purpose.
- [04:44]
C
Yeah, first of all. But you place it in 2018, not like 2028 or 2058. Why did you put this technology available, you know, seven years ago?
- [04:54]
B
Yeah, I think it was a little bit of write what you know. Right. You know, these students are at Harvard at the time that I was at Harvard, at a time when I was starting to ask these big questions about my family history, about myself, about how to be an adult. All themes that run throughout. And the device was, you know, helps the plot along in many ways. And it was also an interesting way of getting to the universal question of what if? Which is one I asked myself back then, still ask myself now, and I'm sure we'll ask myself a decade from now.
- [05:23]
C
There are ongoing Ethical issues about the diffractor, what are they?
- [05:28]
B
Well, you know, some people are worried about its misuse, this idea that people will become over reliant on it. In the world of the novel, the Catholic Church, which has a big impact especially on Anna's life, has officially said that people shouldn't use a diffractor. You know, I think there was an idea that if we turn to guidance from technology, you know, where do we end up? Which is a question I, you know, think about all the time, especially today.
- [05:57]
A
It's funny. Anna goes to defractor and she. She. It's after Alanis Morissette is the voice she uses. What is she searching for?
- [06:06]
B
Well, really specifically, she's looking for answers in the first chapter. I feel comfortable saying this because in the first chapter. But she finds this portrait, this idea of a man she doesn't know hiding amongst her mother's things. And she really wants to know, who is this man? But the underlying thing is that she wants to know what her mother went through. The Salvadoran civil war. Like I mentioned earlier, a lot of immigrants who live through that kind of trauma are unable to talk about it. It's too hard to look back at that moment in one's. And so she really, you know, Anna knows her mother's an immigrant, knows that there was a war, but doesn't know much more. And the novel is, you know, partially about her trying to, you know, break these silences in her past while she's using the diffractor.
- [06:51]
A
Anna's boyfriend, this other world, is a student named.
- [06:55]
C
Sorry.
- [06:55]
A
Her boyfriend is a student named Louise Gazman. But the technology shows her in life with another man.
- [07:00]
B
Yes, a mystery man who is also very handsome. That's a very important detail.
- [07:06]
A
What is that sight of her with another man? What does it make her feel?
- [07:12]
B
I mean, she feels really confused. And I think when she sees that, she sees or projects maybe what she's not getting out of her current relationship, which I think is really just again, another one of these universal things of the grass is always greener, whether it's where you're living or who you're dating or any number of things.
- [07:31]
A
A new novel takes place in a world where one machine allows users to easily sift through alternative timelines. Author Ruben Reyes Jr. Joins us to discuss his book Archive of the Unknown Universe. He has an event to celebrate the Release this Thursday, September 25th, at the Worldsboro Bookstore in Jackson Heights, Queens. You're gonna read a little bit of the book for us. Set this up for us, yes.
- [07:53]
B
So, as I mentioned earlier, there is this kind of sweeping love story set in the late 70s between two men. And I'm going to read just a couple of paragraphs that I think captures both their love story and the kind of political context happening around them. 1979. They track their love in deaths. When Neto visits Managua for the first time, the government murders 11 students at a protest in broad daylight. Rafael lands in Ilopango in 1977. And just 25 miles away, a nightmare descends on Aguilares. A church is shot up and three Jesuit priests are kidnapped, then disappeared. Every couple of months, with every letter Neto and Raphael send, a new death squad pops up. Finally, when they're in Havana in 1978, no one they know dies. They take it as a blessing, a good omen. At last, death, Rafael prays, will not trail them this time. He waits outside the airport until a red truck appears, the passenger door forced open. He half expects a rifle pointed right at his chest. But no, it's far less deadly than facing a gunman. But just as thrilling, there he is, full of life, aglow with the grin. Raphael knows well, Neto.
- [09:10]
C
That's Ruben Reyes reading from his book Archive of the Unknown Universes. Let's talk about writing about multiverses. As a writer, first of all, how did you keep track of all the different realities?
- [09:25]
B
Oh, my gosh. That was one of the major challenges of this book. The structure specifically is something I worked on pretty much to the last minute till I had to go to the printer. Really?
- [09:35]
C
Really?
- [09:35]
B
Yeah, pretty close to it. And my editor was really helpful in that way. But, you know, there were no cards. There were timelines I had written down. And I also had to set limitations on myself. You know, when you're writing about multiverses, that goes out infinitely. I could have written 10 different timelines, but I chose to focus basically on three. Yeah, it was tricky, and it was a big challenge, but I think it really came together towards the end.
- [10:03]
C
As you said, you go in so many different directions talking about multiverses. How often did you start exploring one reality and then, nah, I'm gonna go to something else.
- [10:13]
B
Yeah, well, eventually I wanted to focus on how the relationships or the timelines played off of each other. Interesting. So Anna is kind of a consistent between two alternate versions of 2018. But I wanted her to have different relationships, different struggles, even though she was the same character in them. And so once I had that kind of constriction of these two timelines are in conversation with each other, it was a little bit easier to navigate.
- [10:39]
C
You jump from 2018 back to 1978, from the United States to Cuba to El Salvador to Nicaragua. Why was it important to you to try to establish a place of time and sense for the reader when you have so many different places that you were taking us?
- [10:59]
B
Yeah, I mean, I think the first thing is that you want to, you know, as a writer, you want a reader to be in scene as much as possible. You don't want to confuse them because it's really hard to get to the character and to the plot if someone's confused about the basics. And it was really important that I take a white span, because, as you mentioned earlier in the quote, I was really interested in this idea of Salvadorans as a global people. Right. People know. Some people know that the Salvadoran civil war is what displaced a lot of us. But there was a lot of movement before the war officially kicked off. You know, there was a lot of movement within Latin America and even some to the States, even in smaller numbers. And so I think the book tries to honor that with the scope.
- [11:44]
C
There's an alternate timeline in which the rebels in the civil war were successful, transforming the nations that citizens. Citizens. Fought for or fled. Tell us about the rebels in your book.
- [11:55]
B
Yeah, so they're, you know, based on historical figures. In 2018, I actually got a grant from Harvard. Thank you. To go to El Salvador and do some independent research.
- [12:08]
C
Oh, that must be so interesting.
- [12:09]
B
Yeah. And I actually met, you know, people who were involved in the guerrilla and through a family collection connection that I really didn't know I had. Basically, my godfather's brother was involved in the conflict, and so spent some time not really knowing what I was looking for, but just gathering stories, and a lot of those details formed the basis of these characters.
- [12:31]
A
What changed for you as the result of all of that research?
- [12:35]
B
Well, it made me really think about the people at the heart of this history. Right. I think when we talk about civil conflict or history or these kind of big political movements in the present, we think, we look back and we're like, here are the big factors, and here's how you know the context, and here's how it played out in the moment. People don't have that perspective yet. Right. And they're just people living through it. They're people, you know, trying to put food on the table, people who are falling in love despite the war going on around them. And I think that trip, and especially doing those oral histories helped me remember to put the characters at the heart.
- [13:10]
A
Of this book, who was the toughest character for you to write?
- [13:14]
B
Oh, my God. Such a good question. I think Luis was probably the hardest. And I think it's because Luis shares a lot of similarities. And I often find that writing the character that is most like you can be hard because knowing yourself honestly and with perspective is a really hard thing to do as a fiction writer.
- [13:33]
C
In a substack post last year, you wrote death is almost impossible to write about. So I wrote pages and pages about what a life might be like after narrowly escaping death under a repressive government.
- [13:47]
A
In a big picture. Why was death so difficult to write about?
- [13:51]
B
In my experience of grief, you know, it is the kind of thing that escapes language, both because it's so particular to you and the relationship of the loved one you've lost, but also because it just feels all encompassing. And, you know, it's one of the many emotions, to me, maybe the most difficult emotion to write. And so when I was writing this novel, I was reflecting on my own relationship with grief and grieving. But I also wanted to try to imagine or understand what it feels like to live in a country that's going through grief on A, you know, 75,000 people died during the Salvador Born civil war. And so, you know, I don't. I still don't know if I'll be able to ever really write into that grief. But this novel is an attempt to at least start to do that.
- [14:44]
C
What was your thought process for bringing this novel to a close? We won't give it away, but how did you know?
- [14:53]
B
It's a great question. Well, I think pretty early on in the drafting process, I realized that these guerrilla soldiers who were in love, Neto and Raphael, were such a central part of the novel. You know, I love all the characters and I love everything that's in this novel, but I think there's something about their relationship that is really passionate and just moving to me even as I was writing. So without saying too much more, I'll say that it ends with them. And yeah, I think pretty early on I knew that they were the beating heart in some ways.
- [15:27]
C
This is your debut novel. When did you start to work on it? What was challenging about writing a novel? You'd written love stories before, different stories. But what was challenging about the novel? When did you start it and what was challenging?
- [15:40]
B
Yeah, I started it in earnest in 2018 when I was in an MFA program. Up to that point, I was really idealistic, I think. And I told myself, I love short stories. I still do. And I told myself, you know, I've read a lot of novels that are a little bit too long and could have been short stories. I don't want to fall into that trap. And so when I had this idea of the multiverse of the Salvadoran civil war, of multiple timelines, I was like, that's not a short story. There's just too much to handle. And that's when in earnest, I tried, you know, allowing myself to be like, okay, I can write a novel. This is an idea that deserves a novel. And I think the scope is really the hardest thing. You can kind of barrel through drafting a short story because it's, you know, between 5,000 and 80,000 words. When you're looking to write something that's 70,000 words or more, you can't approach it in the same way. So it was definitely a challenge. I learned a lot from it. And hopefully I'll write another someday. But we'll see how that people who.
- [16:44]
A
Are listening and thinking, I really want to write this, a fiction novel. What advice would you give to writers who are considering becoming authors?
- [16:53]
B
Yeah, I mean, I think the number one tip that a lot of writers give that I think is true, is to read and to read widely. So read the kinds of books that you think your book will resemble, whether it's that's in the genre, but also read things that are totally different. One of the greatest gifts in my life is reading poetry because poets have such an attention to language that is really inspiring to me and helps me think about my own relationship to language. And so, you know, this is a novel. It's a really specific kind of novel, but it's informed by all the different genres that I've read. And so I tell writers, you know, even if you don't think you like that genre, give it a shot because you might learn something from it.
- [17:33]
A
We've been speaking to author Ruben Reyes Jr. About his debut novel, Archive of the Unknown. This Thursday is an event to celebrate the release of his new novel at the Worldsboro Bookshop in Jackson Heights, Queens. It's happening at 7pm thank you so much for coming in.
- [17:50]
B
Thank you so much for having me.
- [17:52]
A
Tomorrow marks the opening of a sweeping new exhibit at the Whitney Museum. Titled Sixties Surreal, it displays the work of more than 100American artists from 1958 to 1972. We'll talk about it. I'm Alison Stewart. I appreciate you listening and I appreciate you. And I will be back here sometime.
- [18:16]
C
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