![]() Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at for further information. Thanks so much for having me.Ĭopyright © 2021 NPR. SIMON: Cherie Jones - her novel, "How The One-Armed Sister Sweeps Her House" - thank you so much for being with us. But I think the ability to ask the right question is something that really helps me when I'm trying to develop characters in my writing. Why would they have made this or that choice? And I think that really comes from my legal training. ![]() So I want to find out what the motivation for a particular action is. But when I'm crafting this story, what I'm doing generally is asking lots of questions. And that perspective, I think, also helps me in my writing because what happens is what - you know, there's the initial stage of just trying to write everything down, what I'm hearing from the characters that speak to me. That's something that was drummed into me from, you know, my days at law school. SIMON: Do you think your career as an attorney helps you understand as a novelist that everybody, even those we might consider to be reprehensible, is entitled to a vigorous defense? SIMON: Look you're a true novelist, but please permit me one more lawyer-novelist question. Unfortunately, I can't pin that to my being an attorney. SIMON: That comes from being an attorney? SIMON: I got to tell you, you get the cop stuff so well. While he does engage in some lawbreaking and some of the choices that he makes are not choices that we would typically regard as good, I do think that at heart he's a - he is a lovely person. And he's had some, you know, some awful experiences. Tone is my absolute favorite character in the novel. And I got to tell you, I rather like Tone, who is a hustler, but if I might put it this way, an honest hustler. And then I also imagined that because of her circumstances and what she endures at the hands of her husband, I think that it's also a very comforting practice for her. So I think for Lala, it's something that she's passionate about. But I think it's just - it's much more than just braiding. And I think that it's an exchange of sorts. It's very calming, both for the person who's doing the braiding as well as the person whose hair is being braided. It's a very serious form of self-expression. JONES: I think for women of Afro descent, braiding hair is much more than simply what's on our heads. What does she find in that tactile, artful braiding of human hair? She braids hair on the beach and loves it. SIMON: We meet her - when we meet her, she's about to give birth. SIMON: I want to ask you about Lala, the major character. So the study of law, I think, this is something that good art students do here. I just - it wasn't a viable - or at least I didn't think it was a viable career option for me when the time came to make a choice. It's something that I've been doing since, you know, as long as I can remember, really. Are you a novelist who got sidetracked into law or a lawyer who saw literary possibilities? SIMON: I have to begin with the question that I assure you John Grisham and Scott Turow still get. Thanks so much for being with us.ĬHERIE JONES: Thank you so much for having me. "How The One-Armed Sister Sweeps Her House" is a debut novel from Cherie Jones, who's an attorney in Barbados and has already won awards for her short fiction. It's the name of a neighborhood in Baxter's Beach, Barbados, where one night, the labor pains of a baby being born and lost on the beach lead to a burglary, which winds up killing a visitor from London, who's married to a former local, and sends two men, friends on different paths, into the tunnels below the beautiful, blue beachfront. "How The One-Armed Sister Sweeps Her House" is a story set in Paradise and lives plunged into hell. ![]()
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