JC: I’m fascinated by the way you structure The Apartment-linked stories revolving around Apartment 2B in one building, the Helena in Miami Beach-over decades, indeed centuries. And for the unwavering (and often unremunerative!) support of my agent, Joy Harris. So grateful for the wonderful editing I received at Counterpoint. I say this in the acknowledgements, but all books are communal projects and this one was no exception. I met the wonderful Dan Smetanka at Counterpoint and the edits were going well and then… I finally came down with Covid in the summer of 2022, which delayed us a bit.īut here we are, at last. But, thanks to the new faculty position, and lots of professional and personal support, I was able to find time and mental space to keep writing.

After the pandemic, we were all in a kind of numb limbo, even those of us who were lucky.Īnd then there was the terrible political situation, the attack on the capital. I had started the book in 2011, but the writing was slow going: first because of a new baby, then a new job (creating a writing program from scratch at Maastricht University), then another new job and a move back to the States, and finally an administrative position at FIU which was wonderful and creative, but which left me with little time for writing. When the pandemic began, I was in-I don’t know-revision number 1,000 or something. We lost neither loved ones nor employment-in fact I began a new faculty position in the middle of lockdown, August 2020. Jane Ciabattari: How have your life and work been during these times of tumult and uncertainty? Where have you been living during the pandemic? At what stage was this new novel when it began? How was the progression, the launch, affected?Īna Menéndez: I’ve been much luckier than most during these times of pandemic and tumult. Menéndez’s career as a fiction writer, as well as her wide ranging journalistic and academic careers, have shaped the global perspective and deep understanding of the craft of writing that shine through The Apartment. Our conversation tilted toward influences (John Cheever, Virginia Woolf, Georges Perec, Alejo Carpentier, Juan Rulfo) and subtleties of process, creating a master class on the page. All are connected through an art deco building in South Miami Beach. The Apartment is an evocative, haunting narrative weaving in multiple voices over a span of decades (even centuries, including the opening pages) and including immigrants from points around the globe. Ana Menéndez’s dazzling new novel-in-stories expands upon her revelatory chronicles of Cubans and Cuban-Americans that started with her first story collection, In Cuba I Was a German Shepherd (with its unforgettable opening line, “Here in America, I may be a short, insignificant mutt, but in Cuba I was a German shepherd.”).

Crafting and building old version