Lost & Found

What’s something you learned while doing research for Lost & Found?

Because much of this book is a love story, I spent some time revisiting classic texts on love of all kinds. One of these was Strong as Death Is Love, Robert Alter’s gorgeous translation of the Song of Songs and the books of Ruth, Esther, Daniel, and Jonah. From his introduction, I learned that the amount of time that elapsed between the writing of Genesis and the writing of these later biblical passages is equivalent to the amount of time between Shakespeare and John Updike. I love facts like that—ones that shake up our mental timelines and remind us that the past is a truly enormous place.

Tell us about a New Yorker story that was particularly fun to write.

I almost always love my job, but one of the articles I most enjoyed reporting is called “Citizen Khan.” It tells the story of Zarif Khan, better known as Hot Tamale Louie—a young man who emigrated from Afghanistan to Sheridan, Wyoming, in 1909, back when it was still just a frontier town. His got his nickname because he opened what became an outrageously successful hole-in-the-wall restaurant there, selling tamales and hamburgers to the locals for half a century.

I first heard about Khan because he is the patriarch of Wyoming’s tiny and somewhat besieged Muslim population; more than one in five Muslims who live in the state are related to him in one way or another. But what made the story so fun to write is that every time I set out to learn more about him, this one person’s life story opened up into enormous swaths of our shared American history. How had Khan wound up in Wyoming, of all places? Why would an immigrant from the Khyber Pass decide to earn his living by selling tamales? And why on earth did the federal government sue this beloved and upstanding member of his community in order to strip him of his citizenship in the 1920s? Tracking down the answers to these questions was one of the most rewarding reporting experiences I’ve ever had.

What’s your favorite spot on the Eastern Shore of Maryland?

There are almost too many to name, even though I’d never been to the Eastern Shore before I fell in love with what the locals call a “from here.” But to pick just a few: It’s endlessly sweet to me to spend time on the farm where my partner was born and raised, and where her parents and younger sister still live. I also love Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge, which combines incredible natural history with incredible American history; it is where Harriet Tubman liberated herself and so many others from slavery. I also spend a lot of time in a state park not far from our house that’s full of lovely wooded running trails, some of which lead into the local arboretum, which I adore, and which has a little cameo in the book.

And speaking of places with cameos in the book, I’m very fond of a junk shop a few miles from our house, because the first time I ever went in, I found a gorgeous first edition of a volume of poetry, inscribed and signed by—wait for it—Langston Hughes. (It cost one dollar.) But most of all, I just really love our home. It’s nothing grand, but we have a zillion books and a pond out back and a vegetable garden and a patch of wildflowers that blooms all summer long, and I’m very happy just hunkered down here, which turned out to be an awfully good thing during these last few homebound years.

How do you feel about resolutions for a new year?

I feel that I am terrible at keeping them! But I think it’s a lovely tradition, and an important one. I like the optimism at the heart of resolutions, the way they reflect a faith that we can always become better than we are.

What’s the last thing you lost?

Sleep! I have a four-month-old daughter. I shouldn’t complain, because she’s an absolute champion sleeper—she goes to bed at 6:45 every night and doesn’t stir for eleven or more hours—but I am a lifelong night owl, and I can’t seem to shake the habit of staying up until hours that are highly incompatible with waking up full of energy when she does.

The last book you read and loved? And what you’re looking forward to reading next?

I will join the rest of the world in telling everyone that they should read Clint Smith’s How the Word Is Passed, which redraws the map of our country in light of the legacy of slavery. I’m also newly appreciating the joy of excellent children’s books; some friends just gave us Virginia Kahl’s The Duchess Bakes a Cake, and it’s absolutely delightful. As for what comes next: I’m hearing terrific things about Hanya Yanagihara’s new book, To Paradise, and I’m looking forward to reading it.