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Elizabeth Acevedo’s New Novel Explores the Fullness of Grief
‘Clap When You Land’ explores grief and its taboo in Latinx culture
Lately, the New York Times bestselling author and National Book Award winner Elizabeth Acevedo has been thinking a lot about grief and life in the Dominican Republic. It’s not only because her recently released novel, Clap When You Land, centers around these topics but because we’re conducting this interview in the midst of a global pandemic.
In Clap When You Land, Acevedo creates a raw portrait of two grieving Latinx teens. Camino lives in the Dominican Republic and dreams of attending Columbia University while Yahaira lives in Morningside Heights. The two have nothing in common until they lose their father in a plane crash. His passing exposes painful family secrets and they’re forced to work through their grief together. Acevedo carves a space that’s often ignored in the discourse around grief and the LGBTQ+ community in Latinx culture. Her brutally honest portrayal is bound to hit close to home, especially for readers familiar with the experiences she depicts. ZORA spoke with Acevedo about her process and the gray areas of grief.
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
ZORA: You’re known for working across genres in your fiction, and I want to revisit The Poet X, your debut. What did writing a young adult novel through a multitude of genres and narrative constraints make possible?
Elizabeth Acevedo: Because of the expectations people have of The Poet X, I knew what my verse could sound like; the options were leaning into what people will think or go in a completely different direction to capture two points of view. One of the girls speaks in couplets. The other one speaks in three-line stanzas, and I had a different restriction that I had to work with. Clap When You Land is me trying to figure out ways to keep my writing feeling different and attempting something new.
Clap When You Land marks your return to writing in verse. Something striking about it is the level of detail that went into creating this dual narrative. How would you say poetry seeps into your daily thinking?
