RY: What was the biggest challenge you encountered with this book, either while drafting or revising or even after it was done?

 

JD: One of the biggest challenges was trying to capture Aleksandr’s moral development in a nuanced and convincing way. Earlier drafts of the book dealt mostly with Aleksandr’s years as a dissident in Leningrad in the 70s and then his years as a dissident in St. Petersburg during the Putin era—referencing his years as a Communist-regime-backed chess champion, and using it as a motivation for his political campaign, but not exploring that time very thoroughly. My editor at Random House wisely felt that seeing Aleksandr during his more morally fallible moments was very, very important. Retroactively inserting an account of an entire decade of Aleksandr’s life was pretty tricky, but I’m very glad I did it.

 

RY: What did you know after writing this novel that you didn’t know before? What was most surprising in your process of writing?

 

JD: I think writing a novel is similar to many other really challenging things in that there’s a lot you gain from the experience of having done it once, as well as a few things you lose. You know you can write a novel, but you also know how long that takes. You know you can sell a novel, but you also know what’s difficult and frightening about having it out in the world. Though there were a lot of really fun elements of the publishing process and I had a few strokes of very good luck, ultimately the process only reconfirmed for me the reality that writing really, really must be its own consolation. And for better or worse—and probably it’s both—I haven’t been able to recreate the sense of freedom I had when I was writing my first book.

 

The novel I’m working on now has involved much more outlining and planning. It’s been a more intellectual, less emotional, process. And there are a lot of ways in which I can see very clearly that the experience of having written a novel once is making the writing this time around much better.