Welcome, friend! Aida Zilelian’s upcoming novel, All the Ways We Lied is slotted for release in January 2024. This book is centred around an American-Armenian family. This is something I haven’t read about nor have I seen on my Goodreads and book community feeds. Thus, it is a pleasure to highlight this work before its release and host Aida today.
Get to know the author: Aida Zilelian
Hi Aida! Welcome to Armed with A Book. Tell me and my readers a bit about yourself!
Hi Kriti! First, thank you hosting a book blog about my novel All the Ways We Lied. About me….. I’m a writer and educator, as you know. I’ve been teaching in New York City high school classrooms for twenty years. One of the more recent adventures I’ve become engrossed in is live storytelling performances. It’s been an exciting way to tell stories. Writing is my first and foremost love, and I’m so glad to be here to talk about my new novel.
What inspired you to write this book?
All the Ways We Lied is about a family on the brink of unravelling. It’s not just any family, it’s an American-Armenian family. When I was growing up, most all my peers came from families of parents who stayed together, presenting themselves as a happy and cohesive unit. No one ever spoke about unhealthy family dynamics or sibling dissonance. No one spoke about the cultural pressure of inheriting the same family choices and lifestyle that were pressed upon my generation of Armenians. I thought it was very important to create a family that was flawed in its relationships as well as the individuals themselves. And I wanted to show how cultural expectations can influence and shape the choices we make.
How long did it take you to write this book, from the first idea to the last edit?
It took me four years to write this book. Like all novels, there were many drafts, revisions, editors, before I was able to send it out in the world.
What makes your story unique?
My story is unique in that there aren’t many novels written about modern-day Armenian families. It examines the complicated aspects of sisterhood, destructive mother-daughter relationships. There is also the taboo of mental illness, which was largely overlooked until recent decades in the Armenian culture. This is common in many cultures. My novel approaches these themes in ways that may make people uncomfortable. But I find them important.
Who would enjoy reading your book?
Those who are interested in family relationships and novels rooted in a strong culture, as well as readers who would like to read about how deeply mental illness can have long-lasting effects on families.
What’s something you hope readers would take away from it?
That all of us have our idea of contentment and happiness, and that although broken relationships feel hopelessly doomed, some can be salvaged.
Do you have a favourite quote or scene in the book that you find yourself going back to?
One of my favorite scenes (and I’ve read this excerpt at various readings), is when the youngest sister Azad is dating an Armenian guy. He invites her over to his family’s house for dinner, and she ends up sitting with the guy’s grandmother after dinner, because the old woman insists on reading Azad’s coffee cup. It’s a kind of fortune-telling tradition in Armenian culture. Azad is sitting there, feeling completely out of place and exposed having this woman peer into her life.
What’s the best piece of advice you have received related to writing?
I wouldn’t say it’s advice I’ve received from an actual person. But something James Baldwin said once and it stayed with me: “You want to write a sentence as clean as a bone. That is the goal.” It has helped me tremendously in my writing.
If you could give a shout out to someone(s) who has helped in your writer journey, please feel free to mention them below!
My husband Brian. I honestly don’t think I would have progressed as a writer without him. He’s not just my partner in life. There’s no word in the English language to describe what and who he is to me. He has listened to and read most all of my writing, given me encouragement and direction, pointed out aspects of my work that I had not considered. He told me time and time again, when the doubt managed to creep in: ‘You’re great. What you’re doing is great. Don’t stop.’
Where can readers find you on the Internet?
Learn more on my website: www.aidazilelian.com, Facebook, Instagram and X.
All the Ways We Lied
Literary fiction/Family fiction/Cultural Fiction
Publishing Date: January 9th, 2024
Set in Queens, New York, meet the Manoukians—a dysfunctional Armenian family and the fraying rope that binds them. While a father deteriorates from terminal illness, three sisters contend with one another, their self-destructive pasts, and their indomitable mother as they face the loss of the one person holding their unstable family together.
Kohar, the oldest sister, is happily married, yet grapples with fertility issues and, in turn, her own self-worth. Lucine, the middle child, is trapped in a loveless marriage and haunted by memories of her estranged father. Azad, the beloved youngest child, is burdened by an inescapable cycle of failed relationships.
By turns heartfelt and heart wrenching, All the Ways We Lied introduces a cast of tragically flawed but lovable characters on the brink of unraveling. With humor and compassion, this spellbinding tale explores the fraught and contradictory landscape of sisterhood, introducing four unforgettable women who have nothing in common, and are bound by blood and history.
TW: Suicide attempt
Book Excerpt from
All the Ways We Lied
Context: Takouhi is the mother of three girls, respectively: Kohar (she is pregnant and married to Jonathan), Lucine (the middle child) and Azad (the youngest). Gabriel is the stepfather of the two eldest, father of the youngest.
Several hours later the abrupt buzzing of the bell startled the house. Gabriel had been sleeping through his favorite Scrooge movie featuring Alastair Sim, something he would have stayed up late watching during the Christmas season. Takouhi and Azad had just settled themselves on the couch and turned on the television; they had just lined the sheet pans with the last lehmajouns and her mother had set the timer. She was explaining to Azad about the chickpeas in the pressure cooker when they both jumped at the bell.
“Who is this?” Takouhi rose with agitation. “Who is it?” she yelled into the intercom.
“Santa Claus.” The voice reverberated from the entrance of the building.
“Who is it?” Azad called out.
Takouhi didn’t bother answering her—one of many of Azad’s pet peeves—and went to the door. She heard Takouhi gasp with surprise. Azad loved the foyer for this reason; it was obscured by the living room wall and it was a mysterious thing to hear the voices of people being greeted at the door and then having them materialize.
“So early!” Takouhi exclaimed. It echoed through walls of the building. “Oh! You’re here too!—Azad!” Her volume would have carried across the courtyard. “Come help with the bags!”
She could hear Jonathan and Kohar explaining the contents of each bag, but there was the mystery of the third person.
“What’s up, asshole.”
Azad literally jumped in her seat. If her mother’s jolting early wakeup call and the sudden buzzer hadn’t jangled her nerves, Lucine’s astonishing presence in the apartment was downright unnerving. Like an oil stain on a new shirt. All hope of having a happy Christmas was ruined.
Utterly dispirited, Azad offered a smile she would have given to the mailman. She nodded. “Hey.”
“Don’t look so happy to see me.”
Now with her back to her, Lucine left the room leaving her words behind her. The back of her T-shirt read “I’d give a fuck, but I already gave it to your mother last night.”
Azad wanted to laugh, but she couldn’t. Depending on Lucine’s mood this was either going to be a day of excruciating ball-busting and passive-aggressive comments, which would send Azad into her mother’s bedroom inevitably crying and her mother chastising Lucine for, well, for everything, or a more subdued experience punctuated by Lucine’s long, drawn-out silences alternated with sarcastic comments that were meant for no one and everyone.
“Jonathan, I need you to get the Christmas tree. Maybe Lucine can go with you.” She heard her mother in the kitchen amidst the thud of grocery bags and the clatter of dishes being taken out of the cupboard.
“I’ll go with him!” Azad hollered from her seat.
Kohar drifted in and settled herself next to her on the couch. “Hey.”
Azad regarded Kohar’s small belly with amusement. “The baby’s already cute the way it’s poking out.” She leaned over and hugged Kohar, then rested her hand lightly on her stomach.
“It’s a girl,” Kohar said.
Azad looked at her brightly. “It is? When did you find out?”
“A while ago,” Kohar said. Her entire body seemed to exhale. “Jonathan’s delighted.” Which meant, Azad could assume, that Kohar was not.
“Do you know I used to change your diapers?” asked Kohar. “All the time. This is going to be a breeze. Remember that picture of you? Your entire body covered in talcum powder?”
“Does Mom know?” asked Azad.
“What?”
“That it’s a girl.”
Kohar shook her head. “Not only will she pick out the name, but she’ll start knitting and embroidering clothes with the initials. No thanks. Keep it to yourself.” She thought of the white booties her mother had knitted at the beginning of her first pregnancy and felt guilty. Now four months pregnant, her mother all but ignored Kohar’s growing stomach.
“Does Lucine know?”
“No. She has enough going on. Listen, go easy on her today, okay? She’s having a tough time.”
“Me go easy on her? Are you kidding me?”
“Don’t go running to Mom.”
“I never run to Mom.”
“You run, and Mom runs to you. Either way. Just don’t run.”
The delicate dynamic among them—Azad had the capacity to understand, but couldn’t. Or wouldn’t. There was too much at stake for her to see the divide of teams: Kohar and Lucine, their mother and Azad. Takouhi had been the unwitting, or premeditated, wielder of this segregation based solely, in Kohar’s theory, on Takouhi’s hatred towards their father and her intense adoration of Gabriel. Perhaps it was also that she resembled her father, his almond-shaped eyes and imperfect nose, and Lucine’s crabby and berating temperament was seemingly a hereditary disposition, though Kohar understood otherwise.
Interested?
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