In the novelist’s The Redemption Center Is Closed on Sundays, a multiverse-traveling dog and a diverse group of humans confront a serial killer.
The mysterious eponymous building, which connects the multiverse, stands adjacent to an unnamed state forest. What inspired the setting?
When I’m writing a book, I often bike to the woods to think better. I spend a lot of time among the trees. So I wanted to combine my appreciation of trees with this multiverse hub, where the Redemption Center is. All of these people go to the Redemption Center every week to be in a place where you’re not in the built world. You’re in this world that was made by the trees and the animals and the storms. Forests are places of magic for the brain.
Why did you make your lead character, Oona, a St. Berdoodle?
Oona was actually my next-door neighbor’s dog. I met her as a puppy and we became friends. So I decided to focus on a St. Berdoodle, but I modeled the character on all of the dogs that I’ve been friends with—and I thanked them all in the acknowledgments.
How did you develop the backgrounds of the human cast?
They’re all modeled on people that I know. Stereotypes would have us think of Black people as a monolith, but I want to get into the specifics of everyone’s humanity and the range of humanity that is possible. I think you can do that even if all or most of the characters are African American. That includes exploring class, ethnicity, age, political views, what they do. It’s bad writing if you rely on what a friend of mine calls “the character warehouse.” I wanted to show my community in my story. The whole book is about how we think that we’re in one world, but we’re actually in a multiverse. So diversity is a characteristic of the multiverse that I wanted to represent.
One of the human leads, Paula, finds inspiration in the historical figure of Jigonhsasee, cofounder of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy. What inspired her inclusion?
Paula is picking ancestors to honor as she tries to find her way to peace and out of despair. I’m an Afrofuturist in league with Indigenous futurists. I want to get the ancestors talking to the future. I want to pour libations to all the ancestors who had something really significant that we need right now. In the history of the Haudenosaunee people, Jigonhsasee said, We’re all at war, y’all, but not in my house. When all of these warriors from warring tribes get to her house, there’s peace. No one’s gonna get killed, there’s good food and people can have deep, connected conversations. That, to me, is a very powerful being who says, Not in my house.
