WAGaBoD? Part 8: The Observation Effect

In November 2022, "The Mango Tree" needed a new ending. And the electrons could feel it.

Welcome back to the thrill-a-minute series I like to call: WAIT. Annabelle Got a Book Deal?

When last we WAGaBoD-ed, back in November, I had sold the book, signed the contract, and just received my first round of edits on “The Mango Tree’s” manuscript. The ball was now in my court to do what my editor asked: tighten sections, strengthen themes, give more of myself and my perspective.

Oh — and write a whole new ending.

As I mentioned in part 6 of this series, “The Mango Tree” had the good fortune of going to auction, meaning multiple publishing houses were interested in buying these words of mine (still pinching myself). One of the reasons I went with Little, Brown and their brilliant/beautiful editor Vivian Lee is that Vivian saw my bloated 110,000-word manuscript as not something that needed to be entirely torn apart and rebuilt, but as two books masquerading as one giant one.

She saw a strong coming-of-age, mother-daughter memoir in “The Mango Tree,” as well as a potential second book centered on the 15 pseudonymous years I spent writing restaurant reviews as Jean Le Boeuf. I loved this idea, so after I signed with her and LB, we agreed to lop off the last 20,000-some words of my manuscript, which left me in need of a new ending.

The timing of this need happened to coincide with my trip to the Philippines in November 2022. Vivian’s edits came through while I was somewhere over the Pacific Ocean. I remember reading them, bleary eyed and half dreaming, during a layover in Seoul. I remember a few words in specific, her asking me to see “if the Manila trip inspires an entirely new ending.”

It is a wondrous kind of odd to go into a trip knowing it may become part of a book.

This was never my intention. The planning for the 2022 Manila trip started in 2015, when my mom and I talked about traveling back to see family. 2015 is the year that kicks off the opening scene of “The Mango Tree.” It’s the year Mom was arrested, convicted and sentenced to five years probation. This barred her from leaving the state, let alone the country.

Photo by AM FL on Unsplash

Had my mother been capable of showing remorse in front of a judge, her probation could have ended as early as 2017. But “sorry” isn’t a word my mom can bend her tongue around. So, she served all 1,825 days of her probation. This pushed the Manila trip to 2020, and then 2020 laughed in our collective faces. In November 2022, post quarantine/vaccines/Hurricane Ian, the Philippines journey finally got back on track — now with a potential book ending pinned to it.

Back in my pre-med days at UF, my lone takeaway from the two physics classes I almost failed was about the behavior of subatomic particles, and how that behavior changes when those particles are being observed.

Loosely and briefly (because I doubt you came here for a lecture on quantum physics from someone who barely got a C in that class), the idea is that electrons that are known to behave as waves will completely alter their patterns and behave as particles when under observation. While this may very well be explained by the mechanics of the instruments used for observation, philosophers and half-Filipina memoirists love to think of this “Observation Effect” more obliquely.

What we do and how we act CHANGES when we’re being observed.

That is fascinating.

In Manila, the electrons of myself, my mother and my two kids were under my constant observation, even if no one aside from me knew it. And I can’t help but wonder what effects that had on … everything.

When I had to break into the tiny Korean Air bathroom to help my mother who’d gotten stuck on the toilet, was that the Observation Effect? When the kids and I Froggered across six lanes of Makati City traffic, shoving my mom’s wheelchair up and over a concrete median to get to the Glorietta Mall, was that the Observation Effect? What about when my mom woke up screaming in the middle of the night because her blood sugar was so dangerously low from the stress of travel she had, I think, started hallucinating? Would her electrons have behaved differently if Vivian’s edits had come a few days later? Had I not been so keenly observing her?

While the Manila trip took place in November 2022, my new ending wasn’t due until late January 2023. I considered the toilet, the Frogger, the screaming. But what I found in Manila was something much more cyclical, something that had little to do with observation and a lot to do with the spiraling nature of life, of childhood, of motherhood. It is, in the end, an ending I’m proud of.

To read it, you’ll have to wait for April 2. Perhaps you’ve observed that I’ve got books to sell.

In book news

Reviews are coming in!

Speaking of books, the first trade reviews of “The Mango Tree” have come in, and y’all she is doing so, so good. A kind and thoughtful critic at Kirkus Reviews called the book, among other really nice things, “a well-paced, nuanced memoir by a practiced storyteller.”

Just yesterday, the folks at Publishers Weekly called it a, “witty, open-hearted debut” and “a moving account of coming to terms with the forces—good and bad—that shape a person.”

Also yesterday (bc happy Valentine’s Day to me) the lovely writers of Eater named “The Mango Tree” one of “The Best Food Books to Read This Spring,” putting her alongside the likes of Ruth Reichl and Aimee Nezhukumatathil. And wow wow wow, I was thrilled.

AWP 2024

I spent much of last week at AWP, the annual Association of Writers & Writing Programs conference. My first AWP was in 2022. That conference felt huge and overwhelming and what-the-hell-am-I-even-doing-ish.

This one felt — wonderful.

When I started writing the thing that would become “The Mango Tree” in 2019, I knew one traditionally published author. One. I built my literary community slowly and almost entirely online, thanks in large part to the pandemic, when everything went virtual. In 2020 and 2021, I Zoomed my way into Boston-based workshops, NYC-based seminars and Nashville-based classes. I messaged writer after writer to praise them for their work. I collected emails and Instagram/Twitter handles like candy on Halloween.

Last week, those virtually curated connections showed up and showed out. I got to sit on two panels for the conference, alongside friends and literary heroes of mine. I got to chat with readers who had preordered “The Mango Tree” and seemed genuinely excited for it to publish. I got to talk about craft and process while sharing this odd journey of mine.

While this year’s AWP also felt overwhelming, it was a new kind of overwhelming. The kind that wraps you up tight and makes you feel whole.