SCOTT DETROW, HOST:
Cincinnati, 1983; a video game played in 2090; the mid-Atlantic Ocean in spring 2586 - these are the places and times woven together in a new novel "Homebound." Author Portia Elan explains that...
PORTIA ELAN: At its heart, "Homebound" is about a group of characters across time and space, all of whom are trying to answer the question of, who am I and where do I belong?
DETROW: And it's the universality of figuring out those answers that makes the book tick.
ELAN: It starts in the 1980s with a young woman named Becks, whose beloved uncle has just died, and he leaves her an unfinished computer game. And her choice to finish that game ends up echoing 600 years into the future.
DETROW: I read that you started with this early '80s timeline and Becks, who's such a relatable character - and as we get farther and farther out, characters are still relatable, but the worlds are more and more different from ours. Tell me how that grew in your mind, how you thought that this story that you started with could end up 500-plus years in the future.
ELAN: I sensed from the very beginning that the question that was really animating Becks and her vulnerability - that sense of being an outsider who didn't belong - was also a question that I shared. And I just understood at, like, a very deep level, there wasn't a singular answer to that question. And so I was going to have to make this story bigger than just the 1980s. I was going to have to chase down answers to those questions, you know, reaching out into the future. I think those feelings of being an outsider, that's a timeless feeling. There are going be people 500 years from now feeling it. There are people 500 years in the past who are feeling it, too.
DETROW: Somebody who's realizing she's gay and that her uncle's gay in the early '80s, when that's something we didn't say out loud that much, can share something in common with somebody on a flooded world, you know, steering around a ship 500 years later?
ELAN: Yes. That question of, who are the people who see me the way that I want to be seen? Who are the people who can be trusted with my vulnerable parts? - I think that's a question that, really, I think all of us have asked at some point.
DETROW: Tell us about Yesiko, this character in the future that we spent a lot of time with in the book. She's almost like - like, we were talking about her almost like this Han Solo character, the kind of crusty person who picks up a passenger and, you know, slowly build a relationship with them despite the fact that that's the last thing in the world that they want.
ELAN: I love the Han Solo echoes. Yes. Yesiko is really a survivor, but she lives in a world in which that act of survival has also meant that she can't be vulnerable or doesn't feel like she can be vulnerable. And so a lot of the trip that she takes beyond just the physical trip is about expanding her idea of what does it mean to have a crew and to have people with whom she can feel safe.
DETROW: I'm wondering how you think about the future. Because this book, at times, feels pessimistic. It's a dystopian flooded world where all remnants of the civilization we live in now are gone, and you get little clues of, are they talking about this? Are they talking about that? But it's by and large, we've been erased. And yet, at the same time, a lot in this book feels optimistic, feels hopeful. How do you think about the future?
ELAN: I definitely feel a little scared sometimes when I think about the future, when I see some of the big institutional forces that are moving in the world that I feel sometimes often powerless to address. But I feel much more hopeful when I think about the people in my communities. I was a public librarian and, before that, I was a high school teacher. And in both of those places, I really saw the ways in which people are capable of great care, even for strangers, even for people to whom they don't have any formal bond. And I think that act of care, that being able to be in community with one another, that gives me a lot of hope for the future.
DETROW: Yeah. I like that answer. I won't give away too much, but there's specific moments in the book where big, powerful people, billionaires, snap things up and kind of bend them to their own whims, but at the same time, people within those structures are doing what they can to still make sure the right thing happens. I mean, to that end, how does religion fit into this future world you created? Because it is an important part of life on the ship for Yesiko and her crewmates. They have this future form of Judaism that's really important to them.
ELAN: I'm interested in, generally, stories and how stories can allow us to feel a part of something bigger than ourselves, whether that's connection to ancestors or people who came before us, connections to the communities that are around us right now, or a sense of legacy, what we're leaving for the people who come after us. And I think religion is a really powerful repository of story and keeper of story for many people. And so that felt important to me as a touchstone for Yesiko, that this is how she accesses story and the ritual of some of her sort of future Jewish life is also what keeps her grounded in her relationships to other people.
DETROW: And it seems like the way you describe it, at least in your mind, that's - the main driver of that religion has become person to person storytelling over the centuries...
ELAN: Yes.
DETROW: ...As people become more nomadic and more endangered. Which brings us to an important character in the book, who's not a human, and that's Chaya the robot, a sentient - right? - well, I was going to say sentient, but we had some disagreement - the team that worked on this from NPR - of is Chaya clearly sentient, or is that just what people around it are imposing on it?
ELAN: That's a great question. I don't have an answer for that. I think that's up to the reader.
DETROW: (Laughter) OK.
ELAN: (Laughter).
DETROW: All right. That's the best answer sometimes. But it's really kind of a lonely character who kind of watches the world fall apart slowly and everyone around it coming and going and coming and going over the centuries.
ELAN: Yeah, Chaya was a really, actually, fun character to write. Their voice is very folkloric, I think, sort of choral. And I'm just interested in that outsider character. Because, I mean, Becks is an outsider because of her sexuality. Yesiko is an outsider because sort of how she's positioned herself and her own independence. And Chaya is an outsider because they are one of one.
DETROW: The last thing I want to ask is that - you mentioned that you worked for a while as a librarian. Have you thought, as you finished up this book and released it into the world, have you thought about how a librarian might recommend this book of yours to a reader, what that conversation might be like?
ELAN: I hadn't until this moment, but that's a fun thing to think about.
DETROW: What do you think?
ELAN: I really hope that a librarian can give this to a reader and just say, this is going to take you on a really big journey, and you're going to feel cared for at the end of it, and that readers will trust their librarians enough to pick it up.
DETROW: That is Portia Elan, author of the new novel "Homebound." Thank you so much for talking to us.
ELAN: Thank you so much for having me. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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