Laila Lalami: How "The Novel" Became "Secret Son"

Guest blog by Laila Lalami, author of Secret Son
Laila can be found online at lailalalami.com

For the first two years during which I worked on my novel, I didn't have a title for it.  It was simply labeled The Novel, both in my computer and in my head.  Perhaps this was because I really wasn't sure what the book was going to be about.  It started out as a historical novel, following two generations of two Moroccan families after independence; then I cut out the historical part; and eventually I got rid of one of the families.  As my focus narrowed, my story became clearer to me.  The Novel was about Youssef, a student and movie lover, who lives in a slum outside Casablanca.  He discovers that his entire existence has been a lie--his dead and respectably poor father turns out to be a wealthy businessman who is very much alive.  This discovery sets him on a journey to find his father and the truth. 

Because the main story was set against a background of corrupt liberalism and Islamic fundamentalism, I thought that those thematic concerns would be the main driving force in the book.  Soon, however, I came to see that in fact the novel was about belonging--or, rather, about the complications and difficulties thereof.  As the story progresses, Youssef has to negotiate competing allegiances of family, society, and ideology.  So I came up with the title The Place We Call Home and used that for the next three drafts, by which point I grew suspicious of it.  Who is the We who calls a particular place home?  It seemed confusing to use the first-person plural for a story told in the third-person. It was time for something more specific. 

That was when I hit upon The Outsider.  Perfect title, I thought.  I stuck with it for the next three years and the next eight drafts.  Then I turned my book in to my publisher.  Almost right away, my editor called me and asked, "Isn't there another book called The Outsider?""  Now, as a Moroccan, my first thought was of Albert Camus' L'Etranger, for which the American title is The Stranger and the British title is... The Outsider.  My American editor, of course, was rather thinking of S.E. Hinton's The Outsiders.  I told her I would try to think of a new title, though I wasn't sure I could find one that fit so well. 

For weeks, I went around thinking of new titles.  House of Consequence?  Too vague.  The Betrayal?  Too ominous.  Death in Casablanca?  Too crime-novelish.  None seemed to work.  I worried that I'd have to go back to calling the book The Novel.  In the summer of 2008, I went to hear Salman Rushdie read from The Enchantress of Florence at Vroman's Bookstore in Pasadena.  As he was signing my copy, he asked whether I had finished my book and what it was called. 

"Yes, it's finished," I said, "and it's called...well, it's called The Outsider, but my publisher doesn't like the title..."

"You do realize that that title is already taken?"

"Yes," I sighed.  "I know."

"It's like naming a book Heart of Darkness," he laughed. 

Heart of Darkness! I thought.  What didn't I think of that?  Why are all the great titles taken?  But, of course, he was right.  I had to stop dragging my feet and come up with a new title.  I started to play on variations of the word "Son," coming up with different adjectives for it until I hit up on the simplest, and most descriptive one.  And that was how The Novel became Secret Son.

View the book's trailer here.