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The Author on Her Work
The preoccupation with an idealized Edenic place must have begun very early in my life. My parents were
Brooklynites who moved to a small town in rural New Jersey before I was born. My father had been
crippled by polio at an early age, and it was felt that life would be easier for him in the country. As
Jews and Democrats, we were an alien species, set apart from the local population. I was raised with
the notion that we were in exile. My parents might be tethered to this provincial outpost, my father
literally trapped in his body, but my brother and I would return one day to civilization. When I was in
the fourth grade I began to write stories—the first intimations of the little Edens that would
follow.
Years later I read Genesis for the first time, not as a dry Sunday school lesson but as a series of
stories. What fascinated me about the creation narrative was its simplicity: three figures in an
enclosed garden, pent-up as atoms, programmed to explode into the world we know. At an artist’s
colony in New Mexico I began a novel about Adam and Eve, writing from within their heads as the
primal drama unfolded. For twenty years I toted the manuscript around with me, through marriage and
child raising and several moves. I got as far as the Fall before discovering that these weighty
archetypes could be recast in contemporary stories populated by characters of flesh and blood. A
move to southern California, that perfect model of the flawed paradise, proved fertile for my
work. Several of the stories in Little Edens grew from haunting images that I carried back to
the East Coast three years later.
People often ask whether I’ve found my own little Eden. I tell them that for me paradise is no
longer a place but a process. Like Ebrahim in “Rug Weaver,” I find it in the worlds I can weave out
of my imagination. As any writer knows, this disciplined dreaming is hard labor, but when the work
goes well, I am as close to the Garden as I will get in this life.
Discussion
Questions
1. The stories in Little Edens are concerned with the idealized worlds that people create for
themselves. How do you see the creation myth playing out in these stories?
2. There is a snake in the Eden of the stories—inevitably, each paradise is flawed, and the
characters are left to grapple with the loss of paradise. In what ways do the characters find and lose
their Edens?
3. In the Biblical Eden, Adam and Eve are expelled when they taste the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge.
Does knowledge undermine the Edens in these stories? What kinds of knowledge?
4. Most of the stories involve, in some way, the making of art, from rug weaving to storytelling to music
making. Do you see this as a reference to the creation myth, or the author’s own commentary on the art
of writing?
5. Moss has called southern California "the perfect model of the flawed paradise," and several of her
characters struggle to find deep happiness in the superficial land of sun and fun. In what ways do the
"serpents" of California appear in these stories?
6. In “Rug Weaver” Ebrahim uses the strategy of weaving an idealized rug to cope with his imprisonment
in Iran and his subsequent isolation in California. How are physical and psychological prisons linked in
these stories? Is Eden in the mind or in the world?
7. Eden is a religious construct, while a number of people in these stories live secular lives. How do
contemporary Americans find solace in their Edens if they don’t seek out religious comfort? How do you
think the author’s religious background influenced the stories?
8. Jewish characters and themes, including the Kabbalah, influence these stories. How does Jewish
mysticism affect the characters? And what are the tensions, if any, between Jewish and Christian life
here?
9. The author began writing at a young age, but she only studied writing and was published after the age
of fifty. Do you think that an older debut writer approaches her work differently than a younger
first-time author? Where do you see possible differences illustrated in the book?
10. In “The Palm Tree of Dilys Cathcart” the butcher Krakauer and the piano teacher Dilys create a
strangely sensual relationship in which they are never entirely alone together or permitted to touch.
How does sexuality in this story and in the others influence the creation of an Eden? Is it a slice of
heaven, or a path to hell?
11. Characters in the book are enmeshed in many kinds of relationships: young friendship in
“Villaclaudia,” mother and wife in “Little Edens,” newlyweds in “Interpreters,” employers in “Camping
In” and “The Consolations of Art.” Do these people try to find paradise in one another? Or would you
agree with Jean-Paul Sartre’s sentiment that “hell is other people”?
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