A Partial History of Lost Causes (61 page)

But sometimes, sometimes—if he’s honest with himself, which he’s working at, because who else can you expect to be honest with you?—he wonders. He really wonders.

He is asked to participate in a debate at the Institute of Politics at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard, and he stays in a green triangle of a hotel above the water (duller, he thinks, less sleek and dramatic than his Neva). He spends the day in the colorful jumble of Cambridge. In Harvard Square, he watches the chessmen at their amateurish, faltering games and remembers that Irina played one of them. He did not know her well, and he did not know her for long, and it is not for her or for her country that he continues. And yet he thinks about her short life, and her unwillingness to spend the entirety of it as a spectator, and he knows that there is something to learn from that, if only he has the patience.

He turns toward the Charles and feels the uncomplicated joy of existing out in the world, where he probably won’t be found by all the people who are looking. He can believe sometimes that this is actually what Irina came to Russia to find. He can believe sometimes that this is actually a worthy endeavor.

Walking along the river, he is struck again by the nearness of the future. It’s just beyond his vision, but it’s there. He knows it is. Its presence follows him—along the green Charles, back to Boston’s underwhelming airport, up into the star-pocked sky and over the sea. He skims the oil-black Atlantic, the twinkling beacons of continental Europe. The future is with him, he thinks—at least as much as the past and all the people who live there. He can sense it, like the sketchy suggestion of an undiscovered country emerging from the mist, or the shape of an endgame materializing somewhere deep in his psyche. Below him, the lights of Petersburg shine like that future—cold and improbable and galaxy-bright, but closer with every moment of descent.

Maybe he will see it one day. Maybe he will not. It’s a big country. But, if you’re lucky, it’s a long life.

This book was made possible by the generous support of Stanford University and the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. Thanks to all of my brilliant colleagues, in particular intrepid early readers Adam Krause, Chris Leslie-Hynan, and Keija Kaarina Parssinen. Thanks to all of my incredible teachers, especially Sandy Warren at the Smith College Campus School; Lisa Levchuk and Peter Gunn at the Williston Northampton School; Alan Lebowitz and Michael Downing at Tufts University; Ethan Canin, Sam Chang, Charlie D’Ambrosio, Elizabeth McCracken, Jim McPherson, and Marilynne Robinson at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop; and Elizabeth Tallent, Adam Johnson, Tobias Wolff, and John L’Heureux at Stanford. Many thanks also to Connie Brothers, Deb West, Jan Zenisek, Christina Ablaza, and Mary Popek, all of whom have endured a staggering number of confused emails from me over the years.

I am immensely grateful to my terrific editor, David Ebershoff, and my heroic agent, Henry Dunow, who have offered me astounding insight, generosity, and patience. Thanks also to everybody at Random House, including Evan Camfield, Susan Kamil, Jynne Martin, Maria Braeckel, Avideh Bashirrad, Erika Greber, Tom Nevins, Annette Trial-O’Neil, Richard Callison, and Clare Swanson.

Thanks to Lauren Albertini, Kimberly Bastin, Prerna Bhardwaj, Dave Byron, Jennifer Cantelmi, Katie Chase, Kate Egelhofer, Bev and
Emily Fletcher, Morgan Gliedman, Cassie Jeremie, Keetje Kuipers, Matt Lavin, Aislinn O’Keefe, Ilana Panich-Linsman, Justin Race, Kate Sachs, Maggie Shipstead, Luke Snyder, Becca Sripada, Patrice Taddonio, Brian Tuttle, Jeff Van Dreason, and Kirstin Valdez Quade. I feel lucky every day to know you.

Thanks to my tremendous family, the most stubbornly resilient people I have ever known. Thanks to my amazing friends, who are an endless source of hilarity and joy. And thanks to Justin Perry, who is the central wonder of my life.

A PARTIAL HISTORY OF LOST CAUSES

JENNIFER DUBOIS

A READER’S GUIDE

Random House Reader’s Circle:
A Partial History of Lost Causes
is very much a testament to will and courage, in part because it explores the dark depths of illness with such nuance. What prompted you to write a novel that pivoted on Huntington’s disease?

Jennifer duBois:
My father became ill with Alzheimer’s disease when I was twelve, so I grew up against the backdrop of some rather dark questions about the relationship between cognition and personal identity—as well as a lot of questions about what you do and how you live when you’re in a situation that you know will have a bad outcome. I was interested in writing about a character grappling with similar questions. I chose to write about Huntington’s because certain features of the disease—its relatively early onset, and the way that testing can predict not only whether you’ll get the disease but roughly
when
—made it particularly dramatically compelling.

RHRC:
The book is also is a fascinating peek into the world of chess. What inspired you to incorporate chess, both as a narrative engine and as a tool of metaphor?

JD:
I was always casually interested in chess, and reading about Garry Kasparov drew me to the idea of writing about a chess champion turned political dissident—I just thought that sounded like a fascinating character arc. And then chess wound up threading through the book on a lot of other levels beyond plot. For one thing, it provided a vocabulary for the book’s political and philosophical concerns. And structurally, chess emerged as a sort of overarching conceit—the alternating chapters feel a bit like a chess game (Aleksandr moves, Irina moves), and the ending, in particular, has a certain chess logic to it.

RHRC:
Time functions very differently for Irina and Aleksandr within the novel. Aleksandr’s storyline takes place over thirty years, whereas we see Irina in the span of only two years. How did you come to arrange their chronology in this way?

JD:
Because of Irina’s diagnosis, I wanted Irina to move through time more slowly. Her journey, at least initially, is a bit subtler than Aleksandr’s—she’s grappling with mortality, with trying to find meaning and beauty in a finite time span. And as Aleksandr begins to confront those same challenges, time starts to move more slowly for him, too, until the two characters are moving through the novel together side by side.

RHRC:
For all their differences in age and background, Irina and Aleksandr form a strong and unconventional friendship. How do you perceive of their relationship?

JD:
They’re united in part by their mutual fear. But because their circumstances are different, they have different things to teach and learn from each other. Meeting Aleksandr challenges Irina’s solipsism; her diagnosis has long been an excuse for fatalism and apathy. Aleksandr’s campaign draws her out of herself, and forces her to entirely reframe her ideas about what is, and isn’t, worth doing. And meeting Irina shows Aleksandr the liberating flip side of doom. He takes so many precautions for his own safety that he winds up feeling trapped, and he sees that Irina’s situation has been in some ways freeing for her. And in the end, it’s exactly that paradoxical freedom that lets Irina be useful.

RHRC:
Did you find one of the characters easier to write than the other?

JD:
Irina’s voice came pretty naturally for me, so she was probably the easier character to write. And although both characters grow up over the course of the novel, Aleksandr’s journey is much longer and more externally dramatic—he goes from idealist to pragmatist to pragmatic idealist, he goes from prodigy to champion to someone whose best successes are long behind him, he goes from romantic to mercenary to cynic. So following a character through such massive changes, while trying to maintain a certain continuity in his personality, was challenging.

RHRC:
In the scene of Irina’s father’s funeral, you write: “Jonathan regarded everything—the coffin, the grave, the green Astroturf laid out to conceal the exposed dirt—with the expression of a spectator.” Jonathan cannot see the world as Irina sees it, and her relationship with him is particularly heartbreaking. How did you conceive of him, and where do you think he fits in the notion of a lost cause?

JD:
Irina knows that any relationship she could have with Jonathan would be cut short by her disease, so she decides to cut it even shorter, on her own terms. In a way she knows this is cruel and childish and maybe a little vain—she really doesn’t want Jonathan to watch her lose her mind. But it’s also selfless on a certain level, because she knows that Jonathan doesn’t really understand what he’d be signing up for. Irina has failed to invest fully in anything her whole life because of the specter of Huntington’s. Jonathan is the last lost cause that she runs away from; when she reaches Russia, she finds a lost cause to fight for and embrace. And Irina abandoning Jonathan is also the novel abandoning Jonathan, because I liked the idea of writing a female character whose journey doesn’t pivot on romantic love. What Irina needs at the end of the day turns out to be a lot more complicated than a relationship.

RHRC:
A Partial History of Lost Causes
is so completely submersed in the politics and history of the Soviet era. What kind of research did you undertake to write the novel?

JD:
I read a ton of nonfiction—from political analyses to cultural histories to travelogues to chess narratives to the posthumously published diary of Anna Politkovskaya. I also read as much Russian literature as I could, both classic and contemporary, in order to try to find little setting details to use. Everything else I Googled. I tried to get things right, but I was more concerned with telling an interesting story, and sometimes I made a conscious decision to let something be slightly wrong.

RHRC:
The novel has a captivating cast of secondary and tertiary characters. Is there one you most identify with? Or most admire?

JD:
I can’t say I particularly identify with any of them, since pretty much everyone, even the more dubious characters, is much more courageous than I am. Viktor and Ivan are particularly brave, of course, and Misha, who’s kind of nuts, is probably the bravest of them all. I did have quite a lot of fun writing Valentin Gogunov, the former soldier Irina meets with at the club. When you’ve spent years in a character’s head, it’s very satisfying to write a scene where someone mocks her a bit. I also have a certain fondness for Petr Pavlovich, in spite of his career choices. He’s just trying to do his job, and he has to manage Aleksandr at his most petulant (a task no one would envy). And Aleksandr’s self-absorption, just as much as his ideals, prevents him from ever seeing Petr Pavlovich as a real person.