Authors Interviewing Characters: Iris Mitlin Lav
A Wife in Bangkok by Iris Miltin Lav (September 8, She Writes Press) is a beautiful tale of one woman who dropped everything for a journey across the globe. It’s 1975, and Crystal is doing her best to be a “good wife” for her family. However, when her husband’s job relocates her family to Thailand, she finds betrayal and isolation among the beauty. Fighting intense loneliness and buffeted by a series frightening and shocking events, Crystal struggles to adapt to a new culture while battling depression―and, ultimately, has to decide if her broken relationship is worth saving.
We asked Iris if she would be willing to interview her character Crystal for WWWB!
Character interview from Iris Mitlin Lav, author of A Wife in Bangkok:
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Iris Mitlin Lav and Crystal Carrol are sitting in the coffee shop of the Amarin Hotel in Bangkok, Thailand drinking nam manau (limeade)
Iris: Hi Crystal. As I mentioned when I asked for this meeting, I am doing research on the lives of expatriates in Bangkok. Thank you for agreeing to meet with me.
Crystal: Sure.
Iris: How long have you been here?
Crystal: I’ve just been here six months. My husband’s company sent him here. He came at the beginning of May, and I came with our children at the end of June when their semester finished.
Iris: Where did you come from?
Crystal: Pico City, Oklahoma. I was born and raised there, and Brian and I were raising our family there. It’s a pretty small town. Brian worked for an energy company, and I was assistant news manager at a radio station.
Iris: It sounds like you had a good life back home in Oklahoma.
Crystal: Oh yes, I did. I loved my job, getting to know everything that was happening in the town and interviewing residents. I felt closer to our children there. Here there are maids and a driver that take care of their needs. And I was active in our church in Pico City. In fact, the church was where Brian and I met.
Iris: Interesting. Do you go to church here?
Crystal: No. Our pastor said that there wasn’t one of our denomination here.
Iris: I just heard you speaking what I guess is Thai to the waiter. How did you learn a new language so fast?
Crystal: I wanted to feel comfortable moving around Bangkok, so I took a course that met five mornings a week for 15 weeks. It used an oral method with a language lab. It worked pretty well for me.
Iris: So, do you like living here?
Crystal (sighing): It’s really hard.
Iris: How is it hard?
Crystal: To be truthful, I haven’t been able to make any friends here. I am very lonely. I’ve been teaching my maid to pass the American GED test. I’ve been told that is a bad idea, but she is the only person I have to talk to during the day.
Iris: What about finding other American women as friends or volunteering somewhere? Or asking your husband to introduce you to people he meets at his job?
Crystal: (taking the straw out of her drink and twisting it into a knot) I’ve tried with a group of volunteers for the National Museum that studies art and culture and takes trips around the country. I’ve gone on a few trips that have been interesting. I’ve tried talking to some of the other women. They are casually friendly at the moment but seem to be in their own affinity groups. I haven’t found a way in.
Crystal: (beginning to tear up) As for my husband, I, um, don’t know what to say. He says there is no one to whom he can introduce me because he is the only American in his office. And he stays out most evenings, so I’m alone then too. He says he is meeting with Thai officials to get drilling rights in the Gulf of Thailand for his company. I don’t know if I believe him or not. Actually, I don’t believe him at all!
Iris: I’m sorry. Here, I have a tissue. I seem to have opened up a sensitive subject. Is there anything else you want to say?
Crystal: There are many interesting things to like about Bangkok and the rest of Thailand: the scenery, the temples, learning about the history and culture. But my situation is intolerable – home alone during the day and many evenings with a rarely working telephone and no television, with my children preoccupied with each other and the friends they’ve made at school, and a husband who doesn’t seem to care how I am feeling. I can’t live like this! I should have stayed with the children in Pico City!
To find out what happens to Crystal and her family in 1975 Thailand, read A Wife in Bangkok: A Novel, now available for pre-order.
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Iris Mitlin Lav grew up in the Hyde Park neighborhood of Chicago, Illinois. She moved to Washington, DC, with her husband in 1969, where they raised three children. She is retired from a long, award-winning career of policy analysis and management with an emphasis on improving policies for low- and moderate-income families. She has traveled extensively in the US and abroad, and she lived in Thailand for two years in the 1970s. She and her husband now live in Chevy Chase, Maryland, with Mango, their goldendoodle, and with grandchildren nearby.
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A WIFE IN BANGKOK
When Crystal’s husband, Brian, suddenly announces that his company is sending him to manage its Bangkok office and that he expects her and their children to come along, she reluctantly acquiesces. She doesn’t want to leave the job she loves and everything familiar in their small Oklahoma town; it’s 1975, however, and Crystal, a woman with traditional values, feels she has to be a good wife and follow her husband.
Crystal finds beauty in Thailand, but also isolation and betrayal. Fighting intense loneliness and buffeted by a series frightening and shocking events, she struggles to adapt to a very different culture and battle a severe depression―and, ultimately, decide whether her broken relationship with her husband is worth saving.
“The adept handling of the main character’s conflict and the redeeming nature of love are matched only by the rich descriptions of the land, the people, and the culture. Indeed, Thailand is the other main character in this fascinating novel of a US family in that ‘faraway country’ of 1975.”
BUY THE BOOK HERE
Category: Contemporary Women Writers, Interviews, On Writing
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