Military wife Siobhan Fallon uses stint in Jordan as basis for latest novel

Siobhan Fallon's husband is in the military, and her new novel, 'The Confusion of Languages,” was sparked by the family's time in Jordan in 2011.

'It was right when the Arab Spring was starting to unravel,” Fallon said in a phone interview.

Fallon was keenly aware of her outsider status in Jordan, acknowledging that she was 'that Westerner who hadn't done enough research, to say the least.”

That sense of not knowing the ground rules served as a spark for the book.

'I thought it would be interesting to push it sort of to the limits,” she said, 'to see it unravel to the point to where it was no longer amusing, where it could actually have consequences.”

'The Confusion of Languages” is the story of two military wives in Jordan with very different approaches to life in their new home. As Fallon suggests, they soon find themselves at odds with each other and with the people around them. The situation rapidly deteriorates for both women.

When Fallon first started working on her tale, she thought she was writing a short story. Her first book, 'You Know When the Men Are Gone,” was a collection of stories.

Instead, the story grew into a novel, in large part due to a nudge from her publisher. Fallon has been working on a novel set in Hawaii, but her publisher was far more interested in a book set in Jordan.

'I cried for three days because they didn't like the novel I was working on,” she said with a rueful laugh.

So the short story was 'fattened up” and Fallon found herself with various unsatisfactory drafts she called 'Frankenstein versions.” In the end, her original story offered the best path through the novel.

'This novel is now very close to that original story, which I find annoying,” she said.

'The Confusion of Languages” is focused tightly on its characters, but the plot unfolds with significant international events in the background. Fallon sees a connection between her characters' sometimes hapless floundering in Jordan and the ways international diplomacy and military intervention can go awry.

'I guess I liked that it could stand as a parable in a way,” she said.

Her characters are not merely props in a morality play, however. Each major character is complex, struggling to do the right thing and often failing.

'I was trying to make them as human as possible,” Fallon said. 'And unfortunately, the more flaws they have the more human they come across.”

Those flaws leave readers without a person for whom they can root unconditionally. That's just fine with Fallon.

'I like it being a little murky,” she said.

The military life continues to take Fallon and her family to locations around the world.

'My husband thinks I would be a terrible writer if his work didn't take me all these places,” she joked.

Fallon's next project grows out of her husband's current posting in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates.

'I am really fascinated with the plight of the guest workers in the United Arab Emirates,” she said.

These guest workers have 'incredible insight into this world that is incredibly cloistered and shut off from the rest of us,” Fallon explained.

It remains to be seen whether the new book will be a novel or a collection of short stories. Either way - and if 'The Confusion of Languages” is any indication - the new work is likely to be closely observed and compellingly plotted.