Q&A with Melissa Siebert

Fiona Snyckers recently chatted to author Melissa Siebert about her debut novel, Garden of Dreams. The interview was facilitated by The "Good Book Appreciation Society" on Facebookl

Fiona Snyckers: Garden of Dreams is about the abduction in India of a teenage boy, Eli de Villiers. Eli is half South African and half American. He is abducted into the sex trade in Delhi, although it's not certain if that is the ultimate intention of those who have kidnapped him. We follow him on an epic journey across India as he variously escapes and is recaptured. In a way, the setting is one of the main characters of the novel. I'm interested to know where your familiarity with India comes from. You take us confidently from the brothels of Delhi to the mountains of Katmandu. Tell us a bit about the research that went into the creation of this novel.

Melissa Siebert: I did a lot of research for the book, both on the ground, online, reading humanitarian reports re child trafficking and so on. India is an obsession of mine, and I spent several months there in the mid-eighties, but knew I had to go back, so I did for just over a month, and then on to Nepal in 2011 -- novel research. I spent time trawling GB Road, Delhi's red-light district, interviewing pimps and prostitutes and in Nepal interviewed counter-traffickers, as the book deals with trafficking of kids from Nepal into India, probably the world's biggest hotspot for child trafficking. I also watched videos on Youtube -- testimonies and doccies on child trafficking. And when in India and Nepal, took tons of notes and photos to help me later conjure it all on the page...

Fiona Snyckers: Yes, I could see that your research was immensely thorough. I'd like to unpack the character of Margo - Eli's mother. She is taking him on a trip through India to visit his father Anton who lives in Katmandu. Then one day she decides to return to South Africa for a journalistic assignment, leaving only a note for Eli. Unsurprisingly, the strangers she leaves him with don't lead him safely to his father and he ends up getting kidnapped. You imply in the book that Margo suffered from Post Natal Depression, one that she might not fully have recovered from. Is that a factor in determining the decisions she makes?

Melissa Siebert: Absolutely. Margo, at one point a relatively successful journalist, suffers from recurring depression, and at the start of the book, on holiday with Eli in the magical town of Jaisalmer in Rajasthan, India, Margo is already starting to fall apart, succumb to another bout of depression. Depression recurs in her life, and though she loves her son at the point where the novel begins she also wants to offload him in a way -- onto Anton, her estranged husband, who has been absent in their son's life. In a way it is a classic rite-of-passage, a boy being handed over to his father at the age of 13. But of course not all goes according to plan.

Fiona Snyckers: Margo is also torn by the classic working-mother dilemma. Her career is very important to her and she is good at what she does. And there is no doubt that her family responsibilities are slowing her down. In fact, when she returns to SA she finds that the job has been given away to someone else - a younger, single woman who has no family commitments. Do you see this struggle of the working mother as something that can be resolved any time soon? Will it always be with us?

Melissa Siebert: Not sure I can answer that one! As you probably guessed, the character of Margo is LOOSELY based on me (and Anton and Eli are based on my husband and son, respectively, again loosely)...I am not as deranged, thank heavens, as she is...not yet anyway! But I have basically raised our son Rafe (model for Eli, now 17) on my own since 2002...and had to give up a lot of my career to do so. I really wanted to have a child and it took me seven operations/treatments to get Rafe -- and this is reflected in the book. But also reflected are the tensions and dilemmas, what one has to sacrifice to have a child, particularly if one is raising him/her pretty much single-handedly. And also, I'd like to add...how incredibly life-changing having a child is, in ways one never anticipates, and how much more vulnerable it makes you...

Fiona Snyckers: Eli's dad Anton abdicates parental responsibility to become a mediator in war-torn Katmandu. It is hard to criticise him because he is doing something very important - helping to return child soldiers to their villages. It is also hard to criticise Margo because she is trying to keep her career alive. But ultimately in parenting SOMEONE has to step up to the plate. And Eli is unfortunate in that both his parents are reluctant to do this.

Melissa Siebert: Yes -- this is one of the points of the novel -- it is about abuse of children on many levels. Blatantly in terms of child trafficking -- 1.2 million children are trafficked globally each year, by the way, mainly into the sex trade (and it's happening right in our backyards here in SA) -- and less blatantly in terms of parents who are not there for their children, whose own 'failure' to make it work as a family impacts negatively on the child. Eli is also a victim in this book...not to the extremes of the other children...Margo feels like she's been more or less on the plate for the 13 years of Eli's life, and now it's time for the father, Anton, to jump in and parent...That was one of the big inspirations for the book, this behaviour which became a theme: saving other people's children (in far-flung places) rather than your own child... ie, making the tough choices between the personal and the political, in a sense...

Fiona Snyckers: Let's talk about the character of Auntie Lakshmi - the madam of the brothel or kotha that Eli ends up in. Inspector Gupta (also a major character in the novel) especially despises the madams who run the brothels because they are women and should have a 'mothering instinct' - they should not be exploiting children in this way. But we find out that Auntie Lakshmi herself was a victim of child trafficking and has to cut off all her better feelings to do what she does. Do you share the view that women who exploit children are ‘extra bad’ or is it equally despicable no matter who is doing it?

Melissa Siebert: I do find it abhorrent when women treat children badly. For instance, those mothers who actually murder their children (not sure it's such a phenomenon here -- maybe more abandonment in some cases?) -- but in the US there has been a spate of moms murdering kids. Maybe everywhere. Yes, I do find this particularly despicable and hard to fathom. I suppose if women feel so desperate, with no support system/network of people, they just snap. And children are a burden (I mean to them, at that point). It happens in the animal world, doesn't it?! I remember my brother's gerbil (sort of like a hamster) ate her babies because she was sick herself and couldn't care for them! We were all shocked -- and hard to explain to a 5 year-old boy! Also, because Lakshmi was abused herself, and prostituted as a child, she knows no other world (well, has a vague recollection of her girlhood before she became a prostitute)...and she passes on the abuse (the abused child syndrome)...

Fiona Snyckers: Yes,indeed. And when Eli is kidnapped Margo lasts for one week in Delhi before she takes herself off to a coastal resort to 'get away from it all'. There she gets drawn into an abusive relationship and a flirtation with drugs that becomes ever more serious. She switches off her phone and Eli is unable to reach her even when he does escape. I found that hard to fathom and harder to forgive but ultimately I figured she was being driven by her depression into this self-destructive cycle. Would you agree with that interpretation?

Melissa Siebert: Yes...she has actually given up on him being alive, though from time to time there are flickers of hope. Margo returns to the Malabar Coast in southern India, where as a young woman in her prime she had had quite a hedonistic few weeks 20 years ago-- she is trying to obliterate the present, the horror of her son's disappearance and her guilt around it, and submerges herself in this abusive relationship (to punish herself, in part) and gets further and further unhinged, losing touch with reality, losing hope and becoming more self-destructive.

Fiona Snyckers: I loved the character of Inspector Gupta. He is that rare creature - an honest cop. Driven by his own personal demons, he is on a crusade to stamp out child tracking in Delhi. No one knows better that he does what a hopeless task this is but he does it anyway. I thought he would have more of a role to play in Eli's fate, but he ends up being quite incidental to what happens to Eli. Eli is the agent of his own destiny. Will we see more of Inspector Gupta in future novels? He seems too good a character to abandon after one book!

Melissa Siebert: Thanks, Fiona -- others have asked for 'more Gupta'! Who knows where he'll go. I loved writing his character, it was the easiest character in the book to write, and the most fun. I guess that comes across. I don't have any plans to 'use' him again, but he may insist! And yes, I wanted Eli to be the agent of his own destiny. To a large degree. So am glad that came across!

Fiona Snyckers: In a way this novel is a bildungsroman about Eli. He has to seize his fate in both hands and learn to rely on no one but himself when he is left alone in India. This isn't easy because he is in the throes of teenage selfishness and rebellion, but he grows tremendously in this novel doesn't he?

Melissa Siebert: Yes, the way I describe the book in a nutshell is 'a coming-of-age saga collides with the underworlds of child trafficking in India and Nepal'....it is very much Eli's story, on one level, how though he yearns for his own little world to be reunited and healed at the start of the book, through his journey/experiences he becomes much wiser, more empathetic, more courageous and more capable of dealing with life's vicissitudes. The title of the book, Garden of Dreams, is based on a real, 19th-century neoclassical garden in Kathmandu, an oasis in the seedy Thamel section -- where there are dance bars (and trafficked kids) lining the streets. The Garden represents beauty in life, and Eli's journey culminates in this capacity to embrace life's beauty but to deal with its hideousness as well.

Fiona Snyckers: I was initially uneasy with the idea of Eli - the white boy - as the leader of the gang of children who escape from the kotha. Then I realised I was looking at it in a simplistic manner. Eli is able to take charge because he has only been there for a short while. He has not become institutionalised as the others have. And also, when they get into the jungles of Nepal it is Sanjana who becomes the leader because this is her territory. How did you interpret Eli's role as leader of the children?

Melissa Siebert: I was very cautious about making Eli the 'white knight' of the band of children. Yes, absolutely, Sanjana takes over in the jungles; as I say, Eli is also a victim, and vulnerable.

Fiona Snyckers: To me there are many fascinating parallels between your book and The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt. Both deal with a young boy who is forced into premature adulthood by disastrous circumstances and some less-than-ideal parenting. I know you finished this book before The Goldfinch even came out. Have you read Tartt's book? Were you struck by the parallels in any way? In some ways I think your book is better because it is not flawed as Tartt's is.

Melissa Siebert: Yes, I've read The Goldfinch and loved it, but thought it needed a huge edit! Wow, better than The Goldfinch, not sure about THAT, but thanks! Maybe I just didn't have all those pages to hang myself! I loved the middle of that book the most, the two teenage boys hanging out in Vegas together. It resonated with me, I thought it was great characterisation of teens and maybe, now that you mention it, there is some closer connection....of 'lost boys' and what they get up to if not parented well, or at all…

An award-winning journalist, American-born Melissa Siebert has covered a vast mix of stories in South Africa and abroad. She’s been based in Cape Town for most of the last twenty-five years, working for various local publications; co-running Ubuntu Productions, a documentary company; and co-directing the Media Peace Centre, an NGO that develops media projects to help manage and transform conflict. She has also taught journalism at UCT and writing at Harvard. Garden of Dreams is her first novel. 

Fiona Snyckers is a former journalist. She was educated at Hyde Park High School, Rhodes University, and the University of the Witwatersrand. She lives in Johannesburg with her husband and three children.