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The last story I wrote for #TheTrojanWarMuseum was "The Dead" out now in @BOMBmagazine. I first read about AJ Arapian in Joy Williams's famous Florida Keys guidebook (yes, that Joy Williams) where she referenced the home of a Turkish sponger
I made some casual attempts to figure out who this was, basically reading the sponge histories that dot Key West tourist shops and museums but never could. Only when I spent a month in residence at The Studios of Key West did I go to the brick house referenced by Williams, learn
the address and then look through an old Key West phone book online until I found the owner's name: A.J. Arapian. I knew then, when I realized the "Turk" was surely Armenian, that I had more of a story. Eventually I found Arapian's grave and that he'd married into a Key West
"founding" family, the Kemps. Still I didn't write the story until my agent wanted one more story before submitting the ms to publishers. I was wary of writing an Armenian story, given that I'm not Armenian, and I was struggling to think of a plot. But eventually I learned the
tragic stories of the Greek sponge divers and I started reading more and more about the genocide. At which point I found the story of Aurora Mardiganian, which is pretty remarkable. I decided I wanted to write a story set in Arapian's brick house, and Key West is such a party
town, a party story made sense. So I read the classic party stories ("The Dead" and "The Garden Party") and I decided to take one on. But I wanted my fictional version of Mardiganian to also have a voice, so I added her oral narrative, heavily influenced by VOICES FROM CHERNOBYL
My dear agent and my dear editor each raised a respective eyebrow at the title but I was all in for taking on Joyce and so they let me do it.
