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Not long after he at last made it to America with a group of Sudanese who came to be known as the Lost Boys, he heard from Dave Eggers, the best-selling memoirist (A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius) and founder of McSweeney's, the publishing house and journal and sponsoring arm of writing labs like 826 Valencia. Eggers had been tipped off to Valentino's story by an activist in Atlanta. "My attitude was, it can't hurt at all to hear his story," says Eggers, sitting on the bed in the tiny hotel room.
That was four years ago, and since then they have worked to tell Valentino's story in Eggers' words. The result, What Is the What, is the first major "nonfiction novel" since Norman Mailer's The Executioner's Song. The two authors explained what the journey was like for them.
What does it feel like to hold your story in your hand?
Valentino Achak Deng: Wow, it feels good! Every time I come in here, I pick up [the book] and hold it [he clutches it to himself]. The first time I saw it, on Sunday night, I was like, awesome!
One of the conclusions of this book is that you were born to tell your story. Did it help to have someone take the burden for you?
VAD: It did. I met Dave when he started to write the book. Dave called me and said, "Valentino, what happened there? Can you remember what happened? Can you recall what your hometown was like, who were the people there?" And then he began asking questions that had never been asked before, even by journalists. There is no way I would reach thousands of Americans and have them sit for hours to listen to the story if this didn't happen. And maybe some of those will wonder, did this happen?
Dave, did you have to come up with different ways to approach Valentino to shake these memories loose?
Dave Eggers: I had to guess. I had to say, "On this day, you probably thought about this"—and I started writing episodes from scratch without even asking, and then I'd show it to him and ask, "Is this anywhere near the truth?"
Does it sound to you like your voice?
VAD: Yep, in most cases it does. Let's say 99 percent of the cases.
Is it the voice you think in, or the voice you speak in, or a bit of both?
VAD: Both. There are times when I would pause when Dave sent a [section] and I wondered, how is he able to imagine this? And I'd ask him, "How do you manage to put yourself in my place?" I came to realize we had been together a long time, and we went to Sudan together, and it probably helped him compare how things would have been before war and the images of the environment where the different events took place. How did you decide what to leave out?
DE: That was the thing—we had to cut back. It was just too much. In the book, Valentino was dealing with leaving to America, he was dealing with the death of a friend; the fact is, once we decided to make it a novel, some of the most unbelievable stuff we actually had to cut back on, as it seemed we were just heaping it on. In other words, some of the most unbelievable stuff is true; like on 9/11, he was on a plane in Nairobi to leave. One of the most popular things to mention in the media is the fact that the Lost Boys were attacked by lions. So I put one attack in there—but there were many more.
Dave, after writing this book, will it be hard to go back to writing straight literary fiction?
DE: No, actually, it won't be that hard, in part because we have a few other projects like this going. For instance, when we were in Marial Bay in 2003, we met three women who had just been returned to Marial Bay via Save the Children. These three women were taken when they were little girls, and they were made to be servants and later on concubines to northern generals and officers in the army. Some of the proceeds from Valentino's book will go a book that will deal with telling the story of these former abductees, which haven't been told at all. We hear sort of rumors—vague news reports about slavery in Sudan. But I don't think there has been anything comprehensive.
I don't know what I am going to write next—but I do look forward to writing some pure fiction where I don't have to bother Valentino 20 times a day with questions.