NASEEM RAKHA TALKS ABOUT THE CRYING TREE TOMORROW IN OLYMPIA >>>

Too often in America we fall victim to our inflated sense of self, the better self delayed by the hater self, the squeaky voiced youth of self doubt long ago formed, wringing your hair in a hand of doom, cursing the snickering moustache and its wheezy canine sidekick.  We like to think we know ourselves best, waiting to talk when we should be listening.

Sometimes, it takes something like a 10 minute phone call with someone you've never met to discuss their book - a book you haven't finished reading - to humbly remind you to shut your yapper and truly listen - because wisdom happened by on chance's wings and is trying to tell you something.

Naseem Rakha's debut novel, The Crying Tree, catapulted her into a category of new literary icons that very few writers achieve - even less on their first novel.

"The second agent that we shopped it to said 'This is an important book'," says Rakha. "They picked it up immediately."

That is something rarely heard of in the publishing industry. The Crying Tree launched a bidding war between several major publishers. Broadway, an imprint of Random House, eventually emerged victorious - but there's a great reason for it.

The story is very intense, and reading it can change a person's perception of emotional responsibility in life.

The Stanley family is from rural south Illinois and relocates to eastern Oregon, much to the chagrin of everyone but the father, who has taken a job as a deputy sheriff. He believes it will provide a fresh start and new life for all, despite the fact it means leaving the town the family grew up in, and everything they have known. 

Soon after, Shep, the 15-year-old son, is murdered in a home-invasion robbery - shattering the fraying tensions between husband and wife.  The murderer is caught and sentenced to death, and each family member battles to cope with this turn of events in their own way.  An unlikely bond is forged between Irene, the mother, and Daniel Robbins, the murderer - as they correspond in secret, trying to come to terms with what happened over the course of 20 years. When Robbins stops the appeal process and an execution date is set, the secrets come out on all sides, forcing the family to confront many demons.

The Crying Tree is everything that great fiction stands for.  It is an immense tale of sadness, of incredible loss - perhaps the greatest loss, losing a child. It's also about the arduous, soul-shattering journey of trying to pick up the pieces, make sense of the world, and eventually move forward. It's a tale of redemption in overcoming the loss of faith in life itself. 

Above all though, it is a tale of forgiveness. Of forgiving life, self, and the circumstances and people that destroyed both.

Rakha, herself an Oregonian transplant from Illinois, is an award-winning correspondent for NPR, and first got the idea for The Crying Tree while covering an execution in Oregon in 1996.

"It's not telling the news so much, but rather telling the stories," explains Rakha of her work. "(It's the) the ability to engage people, it helps us see the issues more broadly that we may not always see. It's a way to use fiction to build empathy."

Believing that not just reporting the facts, but being able to actually tell the story and explain the characters involved in a way that invokes an emotional response is an essential step in truly understanding the whole story.  This is the crux of Rakha's workshop "Writing For Change," which she is presenting tomorrow at the Olympia Library.

For anyone interested in writing, reading, or just learning to understand better, I highly recommend coming to hear Naseem Rakha's articulated eloquence in person.

[Olympia Timberland Library, Naseem Rakha's "Writing For Change," Tuesday, Feb. 23, 6 p.m., free, 313 Eighth Ave. SE, Olympia, 360.352.0595]