Our Research Notes series invites authors to describe their process for a recent book, with “research” defined as broadly as they like. This week, Gian Sardar writes about Take What You Can Carry from Lake Union Publishing.

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He hid in a tank. He saved his family during a raid. Once, he even arrived at school to find that his best friends had been killed the night before. For years, my father’s stories of growing up in Kurdistan of Iraq were repeated to friends and family; incredible, heartbreaking accounts that often returned to me in moments of reflection, challenging me to learn from his example. We told the stories to share what we knew of the Kurds, and what they were up against, such as the Iraqi government that wanted them gone, but we also told the stories to pay tribute to my father, a man who’d been through so much yet always had a smile to give.

I knew that one day I’d twist the tales into fiction. But when finally I sat down to write, I had one problem: the setting. Kurdistan was on the other side of the world, separated by long flights and an ocean and seas, and has been plagued by political strife and threats, the most recent being ISIS. From my home in Los Angeles, I felt a heart-racing spike of doubt. What was I thinking? I needed to be able to describe trees and streets, the way mountains looked and how the markets smelled. Our only journey there was in 1979, when my father took myself, my brother, and my Minnesota-born mother, back home to meet his family, a trip that involved a bomb threat on the plane, my father being taken by the secret police, my family held at gunpoint at a picnic, and a restaurant that exploded mere minutes after we’d left. Another visit never happened.

But in crafting the story, I started with that year, 1979. After all, I had photos and experiences I could draw upon. And while my childhood memories were vague, I was able to get an adult American woman’s take on that trip from my mother, a view that was crucial as the main character I was forming would be in her 20s and from Los Angeles. Then I spent the bulk of my time interviewing my father and his siblings about their lives and childhood. I YouTubed videos of picnics in Kurdistan, markets, and weddings, and read about plants and geography and history. Any research I could do from a distance, I did.

Writing about a different time period throws in its own challenges, but writing about a country I’d not visited since I was a child meant even small details had to be questioned. At one point I sent my uncle what I’d written, and got a note back that I’d not expected: “We don’t have hummingbirds.” Writers don’t realize how much they take for granted until they’re reminded that nothing can be assumed.

But I plowed ahead based on research from a distance, and told myself that later I could visit — hopefully when ISIS wasn’t such a threat — and make any necessary adjustments. When finally I had a solid draft, my uncle happened to be planning a trip there, and invited me to tag along. At last, it was time.

Right off the bat, I saw the benefit to my backwards researching: I knew exactly what I was looking for. Hiking in the mountains, I thought of my long ago trip with my family and the picnics we took, but also of my book, and the outing where things go horribly wrong. I lived not just as a daughter finding her father in the streets of his hometown, or her mother experiencing this world for the first time, but as my character, Olivia, an aspiring photographer.

And since the story had already been written, I approached locations with specific questions and scenes in mind. We visited the Bekhal waterfall, for instance, because I’d written it into the story, and once there I saw what I’d glimpsed on-line, how the water seemingly sprang from the middle of the mountain, but as well noted that the falls were so loud you heard them inside a car parked far away. Like Olivia in the markets, I was entranced by the spices and rugs, my eyes drawn to details I’d seen in videos and photos. I took everything in, verifying and amending. In many ways, what I wrote informed the trip and focused my vision.

And the landscape. Growing up on my father’s stories of snow and fields of flowers, I knew Kurdistan was contrary to what most people imagined for the Middle East. When there, even seeing a hollyhock was an experience layered with importance. First, there was my own experience of being a child in my grandparent’s Kurdish garden. Then my father’s tales of pollen that was found in Neanderthal graves discovered in local caves. And lastly, I thought of Olivia, who sees the flowers and hears the story and thinks of the bones that could be beneath her feet.

Of course, the trip also shaped the book. I’d never known about kinger, the thistle-like plant that grows on the mountains, whose stems get fried with eggs, and never thought of wild red tulips growing from cracks in chunks of white marble — but once I saw it all, so did Olivia. Most importantly though, researching, even in depth, can’t prepare one for moments of unexpected emotion. Standing before a Medes burial chamber carved into a cliff-face, I turned and saw a green, lush valley, one that most likely looked just as it did thousands and thousands of years ago. At that moment, I was hit with a feeling I’d not anticipated; one of belonging, not only to my heritage and the family who’d come before me, but to civilization in general. All that grew from where I was standing. Whether it’s from our own life, or a world that came long before us, the past can feel amazingly present. That day, I could sense it. And later, my character would as well. Somehow they’re still here. Those worlds. Ghost worlds that exist just beneath what can be seen.

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