The Story Behind the Story - www.laurafitzgerald.com

The Story Behind the Story (written by Laura Fitzgerald, taken from the web site)

In 1988, when I met the man I'd eventually marry, I asked him where he was born. His English was flawless and his mannerisms American. It was only his name that marked him as foreign.

"Persia," he replied.

Now, geography has never been my strong suit. But Persia? Where the hell was that, next to Tunisia? I had no idea. I at least should have known its capital, because I'd memorized the capitals of the world back in elementary school and still remembered most of them. (The capital of Tunisia, by the way, is Tunis.) I'd asked this handsome fella a simple question - now where was my simple answer?

"Where exactly is Persia?" I asked. "I forgot."

His creamy-coffee eyes stayed polite, but I swear he gave a little here-we-go-again sigh. "Well, what was the Persian Empire eventually got divided up into many of the countries of the Middle East, such as Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan."

Mmmm Hmmm. This guy was cute, but quite the tap dancer.
"Well, so what are you?" I asked it pointedly this time.
After a pause: "I was born in Tehran."
A more polite person (or a lesser flirt) would have let him off the hook. But not me. "So that must make you….?"
"Iranian," he finally said. "I'm Iranian."
I grinned, victorious. He smiled back at me graciously.

And so it began.
What I learned that day still holds true: Nothing about Iran is simple.

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I've met several Iranian women during their first few months in this country, and I've had the great pleasure of getting to see the United States through their eyes. It's quite a gift, for a writer to get to see her world through fresh eyes.

"What's the biggest difference between American women and Iranian women?" I asked my new sister-in-law.

Her answer was immediate. "American women have wrinkles around their eyes from laughing so much. The skin of Iranian women is much smoother."

Laugh lines. That's how we're different.

Stories are quests, and writing a story about a woman in search of laugh lines struck me as a great one.

People who've read Veil of Roses have told me they've found Tami Soroush to be a very endearing character. How, they asked, were you able to write from the point of view of an Iranian woman in such a believable manner?

Here's what I did: I took my own life and subtracted from it every facet I'd have to give up if I lived in Iran. I quickly realized how much my world would shrink. My day usually begins with a jog through town with Julie, my running partner. In the hot Arizona summers, we wear the bare minimum of clothing as we can get away with. Couldn't do that in Iran! If some jerks drive by and honk at us, we can flip them the bird if we want to. Couldn't do that in Iran!

You can take it from there. I subtracted all those things from my life, then tried to figure out what I'd add back in, and what qualities would most be needed to create the sort of life I would want if I got to do it all over again. In many ways, I think it's harder to be happy in life than it is to be unhappy, because it takes a constant recommitment to the very concept of happiness. And it takes courage to refuse to settle for anything less.

It's the quest of a lifetime, and that's why I made it Tami's quest as well. She was on a search for happiness (her very name, Soroush, means happiness). She was on a search for laugh lines. I think she was on the noblest of quests.