Cindy Jiban

Cindy Jiban lives in Minnesota, where she was awarded a 2023 emerging fiction writer fellowship through the Loft Literary Center. Jiban holds a Ph.D. in educational psychology; before writing novels, she was an educator and researcher who published frequently, particularly focusing on how students learn to read.

Like the main character in her debut novel The Probable Son, Jiban has taught in middle schools and is raising two sons. She was born and raised in the Seattle area but has now lived with her family in St. Paul for over twenty years.

My Q&A with the author:

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

I love that my title is essentially a very-distilled elevator pitch. Someone is only probably the main character’s son. The title could refer to the boy Elsa has been mothering for thirteen years, or it could be about the familiar boy who just walked into her life and made her realize she can’t bury her secret suspicions forever.

The title is also a variation on a biblical story about a prodigal son. Elsa is firmly not religious – she teaches math and thinks about probability instead of faith – but the title activates the idea of a long-missing son re-entering a family. That this might occur brings a mixture of hope and dread, and it helps to propel readers into the thick of this story.

What's in a name?

The name Elsa invokes an animated ice princess focused on the need to let it go, and that became intentional. My main character has a lot that she struggles to let go, and her childhood memories circle back to the ice and snow on a Minnesota section of the Mississippi River.

The boy she is raising is called Bird, a nickname that suits the quiet of his personality. But the real and secret reason Elsa calls him this comes from a classic children’s book, from a bird who walks around asking a heartbreaking question.

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

She would not be surprised that the novel exists, that it is contemporary realistic fiction, or that it offers propulsion and a satisfying twist. But I think she would be indignant that it came so late. I am 55 years old as I debut, and I know she would have liked to see me go for it when I was decades younger. I owe her an apology for both my pragmatism (other careers offer health insurance!) and my lack of confidence.

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

Beginnings are by far the hardest for me.

There are two kinds of beginnings, both hard. One is about first setting words on the page in a committed start to a first draft. What makes that hard is the foreclosure on other ideas: can I set aside the others to fully choose this one?

The second beginning is about deciding where and how to start the reader’s experience of the story. Could I start them any closer to the main action, or do I need that central piece of backstory first? Am I making the right promises, if I start with this focus and this tone? So far, I’m someone who needs to write the whole story before I can figure out where it’s telling should begin.

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

Like Elsa, I have taught middle schoolers by choice, and I am raising two amazing sons. But Elsa has at her core a defining experience that I have not had, and that makes her think about decisions very differently than I do. In writing her, I found that asking what I might think or do in a situation she faced was not helpful in finding Elsa’s thinking. Instead, it helped me to remember the gap between most readers’ version of reasonable and Elsa’s.

What non-literary inspirations have influenced your writing?

Looking back, I know what contributed inspiration to the premise of The Probable Son, in particular.

There’s a stunning This American Life episode (#360) where two adult women learn they were accidentally switched at birth and then raised in the wrong families. One of their mothers turns out to have quietly suspected this all along, which…wow.

Second, a 2018 documentary called Three Identical Strangers follows 19-year-old boys who accidentally find one another. The triplets were separated at birth and raised in separate families, none with any idea of the others’ existence. (Parent Trap, anyone?)

Imagine, in either case, learning you have immediate family you never knew about – and how that might affect the family you do know. I remained fascinated with this idea as my own (definite) sons entered their teen years. Those are the years when you begin to wonder whose child this strange kid actually is. But what if I literally weren’t sure he was mine?

Visit Cindy Jiban's website.

My Book, The Movie: The Probable Son.

--Marshal Zeringue