Harold Rogers, TROPICÁLIA
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[1:03]Harold Rogers is the author of Tropicalia, a novel.
[1:06]Harold Rogers was born in Steubenville, Ohio to an American father and a Brazilian mother
[1:11]and grew up between the United States and Rio de Janeiro.
[1:13]He holds a BA in philosophy from Miami University in Ohio and an MFA from Columbia University.
[1:19]He lives in New York City where he works as a boxing coach and a stand-up comedian.
[1:23]Welcome, Harold.
[1:24]Thank you so much for coming on momstone.
[1:25]Have time to read books to discuss your novel Tropicalia.
[1:29]Tropicalia.
[1:30]Calia.
[1:31]What do you think?
[1:32]Okay.
[1:33]Wonderful.
[1:34]We'll tell listeners about your book.
[1:37]What's it about?
[1:38]Why'd you write it?
[1:39]All the good stuff.
[1:40]All right.
[1:41]Well, really it's about two siblings, Daniel and Lucio are in their 20s and they're
[1:46]living in Rio with their grandparents and their young cousin.
[1:50]And their dad is his dad and their mom left several years ago to marry some guy in
[1:56]the United States and kind of ditch them and they've been estranged for several years.
[2:01]And after their grandpa dies, Lucio calls her mom and kind of invites her back in a town
[2:07]and she comes back with her husband and chaos kind of ensues from there.
[2:12]And so it takes place over the New Year's Eve holiday in Kolkavana, which is kind of a big
[2:16]deal.
[2:17]It's like a huge event like a million people from the beach.
[2:21]It's crazy.
[2:22]Yeah.
[2:23]And it's told mostly from Daniel and Lucio's perspective, but the grandparents have a
[2:27]chapped and the mom has a chapped and the young cousin has a chapped or so it's
[2:31]told in several first person voices.
[2:33]Interesting.
[2:34]And you chose some interesting sort of devices with no quotes and sort of this train
[2:40]of thought, dialogue, style.
[2:43]Very cool.
[2:44]Yeah.
[2:45]And so the no quotes is something that it seems to be really meant to that.
[2:49]I think when I was writing it, I wasn't even thinking about like that.
[2:52]It would have that kind of jarring impact like that.
[2:55]I think with the no quotes, what I was doing, it's like, because there's some chapters
[3:00]that are no quotes and some chapters where the quotations are in M-dash, okay?
[3:06]She's in March.
[3:07]And I think what I was going for was like the chapters with no quotes.
[3:10]I wanted it to seem like everything was being talked like Daniel chapped or all him talking.
[3:16]So there's no quotation marks that it's all him talking like, you know, and in the M-dash,
[3:21]like I think of those chapters as more written and like in Brazil for, there's no quotation
[3:27]marks.
[3:28]It's M-dash dialogue in all the books.
[3:30]So I said, you know, that's why I did that.
[3:32]So you just, it was not intentional at all.
[3:35]I just forgot the quotes and everybody wants to talk about some people are like reading
[3:40]the galleys.
[3:41]Like I think there's an error here.
[3:43]Like there's a typo.
[3:44]There's no quotes.
[3:45]Oh my gosh.
[3:46]Oh my gosh.
[3:47]Okay.
[3:48]So where did this novel come from?
[3:50]Actually before that, where did you come from?
[3:51]So you're from Rio.
[3:53]You're from Rio?
[3:54]No.
[3:55]Yeah.
[3:56]And how old are you?
[3:57]Can I even ask how old are you?
[3:58]I'm 26.
[3:59]Oh my gosh.
[4:00]Okay.
[4:01]26.
[4:02]So my mom is from Rio and my dad is from Ohio, right?
[4:06]So growing up, like I kind of had a strange upbringing where I was born in the United
[4:10]States in Ohio, but what part of Ohio?
[4:14]Cubanville, Ohio.
[4:15]Okay.
[4:16]My mom's family's from Dayton, so.
[4:18]Okay.
[4:19]That's like on the other side.
[4:20]We've been dating, dating school.
[4:22]So my dad was working out of the country a lot when I was young.
[4:27]So my mom would take me and my sister to Brazil just like, because her parents were there
[4:31]and just have some support, you know, taking care of us.
[4:34]And then it became like up until high school.
[4:37]She would take us out of school for like several months at a time and just homeschool
[4:41]us in Brazil.
[4:42]So I was really going back and forth from Ohio and Rio back and forth, you know, right?
[4:47]And, you know, in high school too, like I would go, go there twice a year.
[4:51]So I spent a lot of time in Rio and in Ohio, so I really think of myself as Brazilian
[4:55]American, you know.
[4:57]Awesome.
[4:58]I can't imagine.
[4:59]There's a direct flight from Ohio.
[5:00]Yeah.
[5:01]From Pittsburgh, actually Pittsburgh is pretty close to Sumanville, so it's, you know, it worked
[5:06]out like that.
[5:07]You know, there you go.
[5:08]And when did you start writing?
[5:11]Just writing in general.
[5:12]Yeah.
[5:13]Like when did you realize you liked writing, how did you end up with a novel?
[5:16]Why are we even talking?
[5:17]How did it happen?
[5:19]So I started writing like I think in high school, like my senior year, probably was when
[5:24]I got into literature and stuff like that, you know, because I felt unprepared for college.
[5:30]So I just like looked up like 100 best novels and was just trying to read whatever I
[5:34]could.
[5:35]And then I, you know, kind of just liked writing and making stuff up, you know, but it was
[5:40]kind of a secret pursuit for a long time.
[5:43]I had no one in my life even knew I was writing this novel until it was like in galley
[5:49]form, right?
[5:50]And I ended up getting my MFA, you know, kind of as an accident.
[5:54]I applied to one program and I got in and then I was like, maybe I should try this.
[5:58]And the novel came together.
[6:01]It really came together during the pandemic, I think is when, you know, that was the
[6:06]longest time I'd ever been away from Brazil and I kind of had a couple chapters of this.
[6:10]I really was like focusing in and it just felt good to kind of live in those memories
[6:15]live in Rio in that way and I had some family members die in Rio during that time.
[6:22]And so it was just, it was nice to just live in the book for a while.
[6:25]So you didn't do any pandemic time there.
[6:28]You were all in, you were in Ohio the whole time.
[6:30]I was in Ohio all the time, yeah.
[6:33]Did your dad stay back with you or was he traveling?
[6:35]Yeah, he was my dad and my, my parents were both in Ohio at the time.
[6:39]Well, well, you have a scene early in the book where you're coping, a lot of people are
[6:44]coping with all different kinds of loss all at once, right?
[6:47]The grandmother, the parent that people are actually even kind of joking about it because
[6:52]it's so awful that you sometimes just have to laugh type of thing and how loss actually
[6:56]can really bond people together quicker than almost anything, right?
[7:01]Short hand.
[7:02]I lost a parent.
[7:03]I lost a parent.
[7:04]So tell me a bit about like the role of loss in the book and how you chose that.
[7:09]Well, I think, you know, loss plays a enormous role in the book.
[7:13]I think everyone has like someone missing from their life in a big way, like a big
[7:18]hole to fill, you know, my parents are both alive, you know, thankfully, you know.
[7:24]Like while I was writing the book, my grandpa died and my uncle died and I saw how in
[7:30]my uncle had a young daughter at the time and I saw just the impact of that, right?
[7:36]And, you know, there's a lot of people in my life who have lost parents at an early age
[7:40]and I've always just, it's such like, you know, profound impact not having that guidance
[7:48]there, right?
[7:50]And so I think that the book is really about, you know, how to cope with those absences.
[7:58]Like what do you do when, like, you know, Daniel and Lucy's mom left and they don't have
[8:02]a dad, like who do you cling on to, like Lucy does it and I think better ways in
[8:08]Daniel where she's trying to be responsible for like her young cousin who doesn't have
[8:12]either of her parents and she's, you know, responsible for her grandma too and they kind
[8:17]of have a close knit thing and Daniel's just kind of running away from the whole loss the
[8:22]whole time, right?
[8:23]And so she's just, you know, trying to come forward and ramp around and, you know, have
[8:27]fun.
[8:28]Eventually that catches up to him.
[8:29]But I think I toward the end he finds like that connection with Lucy and I think they both
[8:35]need for each other.
[8:37]Where did the characters come from when you just said, like, how did this, where did
[8:41]the book start?
[8:42]Was it the idea of Rio, was it, and this time of year, like, when you started working
[8:46]on it, what was the sort of driving force, like, what did you, I know you said, you were
[8:50]missing Rio and, you know, far apart and lost and all of that.
[8:53]But where did the characters themselves come from?
[8:55]And like which one came first or was it all just like a messy thing?
[8:59]Well, Daniel Lucia, they came first because I was like, I had, I was down where I was
[9:06]some stories that involved them, you know, but I didn't really know, I knew they were siblings
[9:12]and I knew.
[9:13]And then I decided like, it's kind of like silhouettes of my own family in a certain extent
[9:18]that, you know, took life on a life of their own, like, Daniel Lucia lived in the building
[9:24]where I grew up in Rio, the same exact address, right?
[9:27]But they live on a different floor, which I think is a metaphor that holds for the whole
[9:32]relationship to my life, right?
[9:34]And I have a, I have a twin sister, is younger, you know, so I was kind of thinking
[9:40]in counterfactual with my own life, like, what if, you know, I didn't have a twin sister,
[9:44]or the younger sister and her paternity is in question, like, Lucia's is, right?
[9:50]And what if, you know, instead of my dad sticking around and being a good man, right?
[9:55]And what if he just ditched my mom and left her to deal with, you know, because there's
[10:00]An economic disparity right when an American man marries a Brazilian woman like that's you know and like the dad in the book just
[10:08]He wasn't interested in
[10:10]Being a support to his Brazilian family, right?
[10:13]And and that creates a whole different set of circumstances and so I think I it just I started with these little silhouettes and just started thinking through
[10:23]Like how my life could have been different in different respects and the book came together out of that
[10:30]That's a really I mean, it's it's smart. I feel like I just finished this novel and I was like, oh, I'm just gonna model this after this person
[10:36]But I'm just gonna change this little thing and I wonder if I'm gonna notice
[10:41]Oh my goodness. I have boy girl twins actually so tell me. Oh really? Yes, there's 16. Oh cool. I know there's like closer
[10:49]Need to you than I am but how is your relationship with your twin and how has that been as you've gotten to the stage?
[10:54]Well, you know, we had what we're really close now. We're really good friends. We work together
[11:00]Right, and you know, so we're really good friends and
[11:03]But growing up there were there were certainly some some strife
[11:07]There and you know, it's a complicated
[11:09]relationship. I you know, I have a twin sister like that and I I really think that the brother the sibling relationships are like
[11:18]The core of the book Daniel loses. I think let me know the main two and I think that that is and you know like
[11:25]Their mom's relationship with their with her sister is a huge part of the book and how they
[11:31]Never got along at all
[11:33]And it was always strife and they ended up, you know, it became a tragedy for them because they were
[11:40]Just separate like that and I so I was kind of you know, hoping the arc was like
[11:47]Daniel and Lucy would end up
[11:49]You know, it's tight and then choose that family relationship in a way that their mother and
[11:55]You know her sister didn't right. Yes. Amazing. Okay, so you go to your MFA program
[12:01]You work on this book. Tell me about the whole publishing journey. How did this become a book seal? Like just was it just tell me the story?
[12:08]So I had this was the only thing I worked on throughout the whole MFA and you know, I thought I was done done with it like one year in the MFA
[12:18]Leave here
[12:20]I mean, I'm so glad I stayed because the book was not ready at all
[12:25]You know and and then so I finished and I had you know this book
[12:31]It was my thesis and
[12:33]I was trying to query agents and it was not the book wasn't ready
[12:36]I thought it was ready a lot sooner than I mean if I had known how many drafts it would take
[12:41]I
[12:43]Would have continued really
[12:46]So I had one professor
[12:48]Rifka Galgian who really was you know knew the work really well and she
[12:53]She was a real supporter of and after a long time querying people and not getting anything
[12:58]You know, I hit her up and she kind of connected me with somebody and
[13:03]He read it and he liked that he really got the book and he became by agent, right?
[13:08]And then at long process of revision again
[13:11]And then send it out to publishers and when I sent it out
[13:15]It was it was it was ready, but like, you know, I get it got a lot of rejections only one
[13:22]House wanted it right at your zone that wanted it and so after I sold it
[13:27]I rewrote every single word of the book like from from zero and
[13:32]Which I really needed to do it. I finally turned into to what I wanted
[13:36]You know, so it was a lot of a lot of rewriting. So you basically never want to see this book again
[13:44]That's amazing by the way only one. I mean you don't need more than one. No, they exactly
[13:49]I mean, yeah, why is it's just what an embarrassment of riches? Yeah
[13:54]I mean, I think it's good because all the publishers really are looking for different slightly different things
[13:59]So if you I don't know having some I don't you know, I'm not even I think that's great
[14:05]so
[14:06]What happened tell me the story of
[14:09]Like when you found out that it sold were you over the moon excited where you like was there some sort of
[14:15]Do you even remember like was it a whole thing?
[14:16]I remember because because the week before I was in the pits of despair. I was like
[14:22]I was like if I can't sell this one. I don't like
[14:27]I'm after right another one and so it was
[14:30]And then I mean, I was really low
[14:32]And the next week it sold, you know, it was just a huge relief. It was you know, it was it was really I was really happy about it
[14:41]Are you working on another novel or are you like I never want to do this again? No, I like this is this is what I like to do
[14:47]I love novels, you know, I'm I'm working on one now. I don't I don't like to talk about it too much till it's like
[14:53]No, I don't want to like jinx it, you know, so it's it's pretty
[14:57]But but I am working on another novel. Hopefully, you know, continue to do that for a long time. You'll be read it 57 times
[15:05]Yeah
[15:07]And you said you work with your sister. What do you do when you're not boxing coach?
[15:11]You're a boxing coach. Yeah, that's that's my day job and the church tree boxing gym in Manhattan. Oh, no way. Yeah
[15:20]No, but I used to do like I used to I used to go to punch
[15:23]Do you know where that okay? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I actually I remember this is a while ago
[15:28]But I used to work out a lot when I wasn't working at a job
[15:31]And I was my kids that was my one escape and I remember I accidentally got this black eye because my daughter like
[15:38]slipped or headed at this weird angle and just happened to catch my eye and I had this horrific black eye
[15:43]And I remember going into the gym and all the guys like swarmed around me. They're like, no, you gotta get like a cold spoon
[15:48]And yeah
[15:50]All these tricks for making my face. Yeah
[15:54]That's funny boxing is fun. Yeah, and how did you get into boxing? That was you know, I was a kid and I was getting bullied
[16:03]You know, and there was a gym across the street in Rio where I was living and you know
[16:09]My parents were like you should drive boxing
[16:11]Maybe and then I tried it and I loved it and uh, you know, I ended up fighting in college. I thought I had 16 amateur fights
[16:19]You know, and then actually my my when I was boxing my sister was like my train and she would quarter me for my fight
[16:26]And she ended up getting a job at this gym while a while was in school and then she got me the job
[16:33]Which was good
[16:35]Wow, that's so great. So you could really just have you know people who rejected your manuscript come into the ring and just you know
[16:41]They want to beat to me. Yeah
[16:45]Wow funny. What an interesting whole background in story. It's so cool. What do you like to read in your spare time?
[16:52]I like to read a lot of different stuff. You know, I try to I try to balance the reading in English and Portuguese
[16:58]Like I'll go one month here and then another month there and then you know, there's I'm trying to
[17:04]You know, there's a whole backlog of
[17:06]old books that you know, I'm still trying to get it worked through, you know
[17:11]Baldur's of the world and the more since right and and you know balance now with with more contemporary
[17:17]Stuff, you know, but a lot of different things and then when I'm when I'm writing I did some people say they can't read
[17:24]Like novels with stuff while they're writing because of the fact. I don't that doesn't trouble
[17:29]I like like reading something and then
[17:32]You get that energy from that person especially if it's something good and you you've you see it in
[17:37]You know come out in your own writing. Maybe you're writing a little like them
[17:40]And then later on you iron it out
[17:43]Right and make it more yourself
[17:44]But I think that that energy is good like taking that
[17:48]Yeah
[17:49]I like that very cool. So what advice do you have for aspiring authors?
[17:56]Just just do it keep keep working
[18:00]That that's it, right? Like you might have to rewrite it a million times, but it'll be worthwhile
[18:05]You know, eventually don't don't think about how much you'll have to do it just just keep doing it
[18:09]Think it's wonderful after everyone
[18:13]I mean persistence is the biggest thing with this, right?
[18:18]And I'm just curious from your
[18:20]Take on entering into this industry, right?
[18:23]What has it been and I know the book has not come out of it
[18:25]We'll have been out by the time this airs, but what have your impressions been of this industry and how it's all working
[18:32]And is this kind of what you thought of publishing and all that?
[18:36]It's been interesting. It's been interesting to see because you know
[18:41]It's like my agent my editor are so smart and they I think I'm surprised at how much they would get the book and like
[18:49]Understand the things I was trying to do and
[18:53]You know be able to even give me good ideas on what I should do
[18:56]Like I didn't think I was gonna get good editorial notes like that
[19:01]But I mean, I think I I didn't know anything about publishing at all like anything at all
[19:07]Even coming out of MFA, you know, I didn't so I was I think I was
[19:13]surprised that like the long silence
[19:16]Before you know, I didn't get connected with the people and then you know, there could be a lot of silence
[19:22]And it but when you find some people that
[19:25]There's a lot of smart people on the industry that you know, no books and they love books and they're they're good at what they do and I
[19:31]I was
[19:33]Impressed by that. Awesome. Have you met other authors like do no other authors? Oh, yeah, I know a few you know
[19:39]I have some some friends
[19:41]from from school
[19:43]And you know
[19:45]I've met some people that that my agent works with too, but
[19:49]Like someone's asked me about sharing my work with other people like the like a writing community
[19:54]So I think I'm so shy about my writing that that I don't I don't like
[20:00]to share it with, like, when we have workshops and school,
[20:04]that would make me so I hated that.
[20:07]Oh, so many people reading it like that.
[20:10]I'm like, don't give me any changes.
[20:12]Just tell me it's correct.
[20:13]Exactly, that's all you need to do.
[20:15]That's what I want you there for.
[20:19]Or else this has to magically change itself.
[20:21]Yeah.
[20:22]Like staring at it and being like, ah, what now?
[20:26]Oh my goodness.
[20:27]OK, great.
[20:28]Well, congratulations.
[20:30]It's exciting to welcome.
[20:32]I feel like I should be this, like, you know,
[20:34]welcome to the world of publishing.
[20:36]You're welcome.
[20:36]Thank you for the welcome.
[20:39]No, it's so fun to have someone young.
[20:41]I want to, like, I'm going to take your book
[20:42]and give it to my son upstairs.
[20:44]It's like, you know, practicing his driving and just
[20:46]being like, all right, read this book.
[20:48]You could do this in just a couple of years, so nice.
[20:51]But it's inspiring to, you know, for younger people,
[20:55]for not younger people, that it can be done, right?
[20:57]You can just do it and definitely be done.
[20:59]That's happened.
[21:00]I was surprised that by that, that it could be done.
[21:02]Yeah.
[21:04]Great.
[21:06]Living to tell it, living to tell.
[21:07]So there you go.
[21:08]Well, good luck with your launch and congratulations.
[21:11]Well, thank you so much for having me on.
[21:13]I'm really, all right.
[21:14]Take care.
[21:15]Bye.
[21:15]Bye-bye.
[21:17]Thanks for listening to this episode of Moms Don't
[21:19]Have Time to Read Books.
[21:20]Don't forget to follow me on Instagram, at the Beowans,
[21:24]and at Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books.
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[21:30]and meet lots of authors on Zoom every other week.
[21:32]Thanks so much to Steve and Ryan in fact,
[21:34]Texture Sound for the Sound Editing.
[21:36]And thank you to Morning Moon Productions
[21:38]for providing this fantastic intro and outro music.