Rachel Robbins

Rachel Robbins received her MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. She is a tenured assistant professor at Malcolm X College, one of the City Colleges of Chicago. A visual artist and two-time Pushcart Prize-nominated writer, her paintings have materialized on public transit, children’s daycare centers, and Chicago’s Magnificent Mile. Robbins is the author of In Lieu of Flowers and The Sound of a Thousand Stars. She lives in Chicago with her husband, children, and Portuguese Water dog.

My Q&A with the author:

How much work does your title do to take readers into the story?

My original working title was actually Enola Spelled Backwards, which was a nod to the Enola Gay. I thought it was fascinating that Paul Tibbets, the pilot who flew the aircraft that dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima, named the plane after his mother Enola, who was named for the titular character in the novel Enola: Or Her Fatal Mistake, by Mary Young Ridenbaugh. I loved the self-fulfilling prophecy in that name; when it was reflected in the water over the Pacific, the nose of the plane would spell out the word alone. That’s why I also wrote the storyline of my Japanese character, a Hibakusha who has survived the bomb and must suffer its consequences, in reverse. Through his eyes, we time travel backwards, beginning with the toll the bomb has taken on his world by the end of his life, all the way back to its horrific inception.

In the end, we landed on the title, The Sound of a Thousand Stars, because it connected thematically. I liked that it was a nod to Fred J. Olivi’s famous words on the evening news after the bombing of Nagasaki: “Suddenly, the light of a thousand suns illuminated the cockpit.” It’s also apt because it’s a nod to understanding the world through numbers, and the book is inspired by my grandfather, who was always solving math riddles and quizzing us on square roots. Finally, it’s a paradox. Because there’s no sound in space, so stars don’t make sound. These scientists were driven to explore beyond the known universe—to hear things that had never been heard before.

What's in a name?

I named my protagonist Alice initially because it just felt right. Early on, there’s a character in the novel who scoffs: “I feel like Alice in Quantum Land.” And the puzzle pieces fell into place. What was Los Alamos if not a rabbit hole? I also needed to change surnames to protect my family’s privacy since in early drafts, I had used our family names. I updated Kahn to Katz, which felt appropriately erudite for a Jewish heiress to the de Young fortune. The other character is Caleb Blum, who began as Caleb Fisher. I chose Blum because I loved that it was the Yiddish word for flower since there is so much in the book about toxic oleander blooming in Hiroshima in the aftermath of the bomb. In the novel, Caleb explains that his last name was given to his family at the Romanian border by a Border Patrol Agent who had an affinity for gardening. This story is actually true. My paternal great-grandfather did not have a surname when they emigrated. They were too poor. We became the Fisher family because a Border Patrol Agent asked my great-grandfather whether he liked to fish, and not speaking a word of English, he responded in Yiddish, “Yo.” In the end, flowers seemed more poetic than fish.

How surprised would your teenage reader self be by your novel?

My teenage self was largely oblivious to my grandfather’s lived history and the plight of his work in defense. To me, he was my grandfather with twinkling eyes. I loved him so much. He was larger than life—a flawless being. So, the most shocking part of my book for my teenage self would be the removal of those rose-colored glasses and seeing my grandfather for who he really was—a person with ego, fear, flaws and all, who got caught up in something. I would have to reckon with his inherent faults—the same misgivings that make us human.

Do you find it harder to write beginnings or endings? Which do you change more?

I wrote a whole storyline in reverse, so I suppose I have to say endings are my thing. Starting at the end and working backwards is kind of my process. I started writing the book itself on the flight home from my grandfather’s funeral, so that’s kind of the ultimate ending because the book began with a death. For me, it was a way of processing the loss and keeping my grandfather present. I also got to know him as a young person through archival documents and interviews, and that was a bit like meeting a ghost. I started having dreams about him as a young man. That’s a beginning I could never have written from the get-go.

Do you see much of yourself in your characters? Do they have any connection to your personality, or are they a world apart?

My grandmother is the inspiration for my Alice character, and my grandfather is the inspiration for Caleb. But I spent so much time researching these amazing Herculean women scientists. They were called that, of course, because the term scientist was presumed to be male. And I was so taken with them—from stories about being restricted from experiments for fear of what the radiation would do to their reproductive organs, to proving useful in the end because their small hands could more effectively manipulate machine parts. So, my main character morphed from my grandmother—a philanthropist who wrote a book about the bomb and spent her life vying for a peaceful future—into a steminist scientist inspired by these lived histories. I suppose I’m in there a bit too because how could I not be? Every character is an iteration of the author, right? But I was able to maintain a distance from my own identity in the writing. It was primarily my grandparents that I envisioned coming to life on the page.

What non-literary inspirations have influenced your writing?

Mostly, I’m influenced by visual art since I’m also a painter. I paint large-scale murals and work with collage, so I’m inspired by enormous stories walking across buildings, like the kinds done by Vhils (a Portuguese street artist who uses a jackhammer to chip away at walls), or Blu, an Italian painter who turns whole abandoned city blocks into paintings that he then animates. Both are extremely narrative in their work. Vhils tells the story of displaced people, celebrating the portraiture of those who have been removed from their homes, be it from railway construction or gentrification. And Blu tells stories that take on everything from evolution and gun violence to corporate greed.

Another of my favorites is Mickalene Thomas. Her collage work is so maximalist and fabulous. It’s a celebration of seeing. I love that she refuses the male gaze and depicts female subjects who possess their own sexuality and relish being seen. In many ways, my book started with similar visuals since I spent so much time painting my grandmother over and over, collaging in her letters and her fabrics, inspired by Thomas, and searching for answers as I always do in the beginning, through paint.

Visit Rachel Robbins's website.

The Page 69 Test: The Sound of a Thousand Stars.

--Marshal Zeringue