Poets & Writers – July-August 2019

JULY AUGUST 2019 46

I

n her debut novel, T he Tra vel e r s, a

remarkable intergenerational and

international saga, Regina Porter ex-

plores the lives of two characters—

James Samuel Vincent, who escapes

his parents’ volatile marriage and

modest Irish American background,

and Agnes Miller Christie, an African

American woman from Buckner

County, Georgia—and their extended,

connected families. The book sparkles

with brilliant dialogue, and it casts an

unflinching gaze at complicated issues

of race, history, and love. Regina was

born in Savannah, Georgia, and lives

in Brooklyn, New York. She has been a

Tin House Summer Workshop Scholar

and is a recent graduate of the Iowa

Writers’ Workshop, which awarded her

an Iowa Arts Fellowship.

Many writers say their art is in conversa-

tion with the art of other writers. Which

writers do you think your debut—in its

scope, ambition, and subject matter—is

talking to, and what is the nature of the

conversation?

I’ve spent a great deal of time think-

ing about Edward P. Jones, who breaks

the rules of the “well-crafted” story. I

believe he has fully engaged the con-

nective tissue of his life. There is some

truth pertinent to his experience that

allows his characters to walk off the

page without his stories feeling incom-

plete. He has taught me to think about

connective tissue. Is a story connected

by loss, or music, or history, or family?

I’ve also read W. G. Sebald, who is in

conversation with history—an ugly his-

tory. By the end of writing T he Tra vel e r s,

I realized that history was happening

An ad trying to

get the attention

of someone who

might be interested

in oatmilk.

LOOK!

FIRST FICTION 2019

Jamel

Brinkley

author of the

story collection

A Lucky Man,

published by

Graywolf Press

in 2018.

INTRODUCED BY

Regina Porter

whose debut novel, The Travelers,

was published by Hogarth in June.

porter: liz lazarus; brinkley: arash saedinia