Jonathan Safran Foer talks to Mark Medley about Here I Am at Toronto Public Library

With his first novel in eleven years hitting the shelves, Jonathan Safran Foer appeared at Toronto Public Library this week to talk about Here I Am.

Less of a paperback and more of a best friend, his first novel Everything is Illuminated has been my favourite book ever since my teenage years. I’ve been through numerous copies after losing a few along the way to loose book binding glue and lending it out to (read: forcing it upon) friends with the promise that the friendship would be over if they didn’t both finish and enjoy it.

Safran Foer spoke to the crowded room about the long hard slog to get Here I Am written, how the book feels like it’s his debut, and the pursuit of happiness in the modern era.

He said: “It only look me two or three years to write Here I Am, but it took me a long time to get to the beginning of it. It took extreme will.” Touching on the experience he had with Everything is Illuminated, Safran Foer described how he printed out the 400 pages he had written in a dank university computer lab room and was astonished to see how much he had written. However, with Here I Am he felt far more appreciation for the process of writing; the book did not pour out of him as his previous work had.

“There are so many incentives to stop writing. Writing a good sentence is something anyone could do- it’s hard and it takes care but anyone could do it. The hardest part is to maintain that care over a period of time. The only secret is to keep going back and doing it.

“It’s similar to parenting or relationships. You sometimes think ‘I don’t want to go back into it, but I have to’. It’s hard knowing that if there’s something that’s not good or captivating about what I’ve written, it’s only because of me.”

Here I Am tells the story of the last few weeks of a long marriage and the collapse of a Jewish American family, while a nation crumbles around them. Jasper and Julia Bloch reflect on the regrets and things left unsaid that have led to the breakdown of their relationship, and how their separation will affect their three boys. In the background, two major earthquakes hit Israel and the country is devastated. The story explores how the minutiae of our day to day lives become overwhelming and all consuming, and in the face of a global disaster it can be almost impossible to find a sense of perspective.

Safran Foer said: “We are all familiar with the experience of being appalled by a tragedy, and not responding to it. What is big and what is small? What means a lot even though we don’t see it, and what doesn’t matter at all even though we obsess over it?

At the heart of the book is the 21st Century malaise created by the idea that true happiness is always just out of reach. With a large number of calls on our time, it explores how being ‘here’ for so many other people; as an employee, a partner, a parent, a friend, means you cannot truly say ‘here I am’ to any one of those people, or to yourself.

Safran Foer said: “I think most people feel a distance between themselves and the happiness they imagine experiencing. Do I reel myself towards that idea, or do I reel that experience towards myself? Do I go and buy that BMW, or have an affair, or stop being an accountant and become a sculptor, or do I redefine what is important?”

Jasper and Julia’s story very nearly became a television series rather than a book. Safran Foer spent two years writing the series ‘All Talk’ for HBO, but pulled the plug at the last moment, fearing that devoting all his time to directing a television show was not the right thing for him.

“I was in the office for three hours a day for two years creating it. We had cast it and were ready to start shooting,” he said. “There was a whole situation that wasn’t for me, and HBO, to their credit, only want to make things with people who will want the project to be their whole life.”

Describing how Here I Am feels like it’s his debut novel, Safran Foer said: “It’s like having children, then much later in life having another child. That parent is fully aware in a way that they weren’t before.

“The first time, you are so engrossed in the experience that you don’t actually experience it. You are just grateful for the end of each day. You get older and you have more knowledge and experience and maturity. I felt with this book.”