The Crying Tree: Silverton author earns regional recognition for first novel

By Maggie Mertens

Naseem Rakha is a journalist, mother, editorialist, poet and now, due to the success of her debut novel, The Crying Tree, she can add award-winning novelist to that list.

The story of a mother’s emotional journey to forgive her son’s killer has won the 2010 Pacific Northwest Bookseller’s Award. Rakha’s first foray into fiction was the only traditional novel that made the winning list this year.

“It’s very exciting and quite humbling to be a first-time author and receive this award,” Rakha said.

The book made the short list for the award in December,  along with 10 other finalists chosen from more than 200 nominated books. Five books were selected 2010 winners.

For more than 40 years the PNBA award committee, comprised of nine booksellers from Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Montana and Alaska, has chosen up to six winning books by Northwest authors.

Often, the PNBA award foretells further success for the authors on a national level. Past winners include such well-known names as: Chuck Palahniuk, Ursula K. Le Guin, Jon Krakauer and Sherman Alexie.

But Rakha just hopes that the award means more people have the chance to read the book. “The more people this book reaches, the more I’m convinced it’s having a wonderful impact on people’s lives … Getting an award will mean more people will find out about the book,” she said.

Rakha, a former journalist for National Public Radio, considers herself a storyteller, who felt the transition from journalist to novelist was natural – the idea for the novel came from reporting she had done in Oregon prisons.

Just like stories she had reported on in the past, Rakha felt compelled to write The Crying Tree and hoped that if she did it correctly, it would be a story that others would want to read as much as she wanted to tell it.

If this award is any indication, it seems that Rakha has succeeded. Even PNBA’s Executive Director Thom Chambliss, who is not a part of the selection committee, said he was “incredibly happy when [The Crying Tree] won.” It isn’t too often that his personal favorites are also chosen by the committee for the award, but this year was different.

“I cried at the end of my reading of the book. I don’t usually do that,” he said.

There won’t be a formal awards ceremony for all of the PNBA winners this year because of budget cuts in the association.

Instead, the authors will be organizing their own award presentation events at the PNBA member bookstore of their choice.

Rakha will host two events, one was in Seattle on Feb. 16 and a later event, still to be scheduled, in Oregon.

Rakha will be a guest speaker at Silver Falls Library March 16 at 7 p.m. when the library’s book club will discuss her work. She says discussions like this one, when she gets to meet with people who have read her book, are her favorite.

“There are so many layers to the book and so many secrets and readers and reviewers have been very good at keeping them secret,” she said. “So when I talk to groups who have already read the book I get to talk about all of the issues on a different level and see what feelings and issues the book brought up for them.”

Though Rakha says she will always keep “one hand in non-fiction,” she is already at work on her second novel.

She won’t talk about the subject matter just yet, but says that it is another meditation on “the many fascinating questions out there,  about how we treat one another and how we’re going to progress as a society and how to proceed forward.”

Look for Rakha’s second novel to be published in 2011.