By Millicent Borges Accardi
The novel, The Undiscovered Island, chronicles the adventures of Julia Castro, who journeys to The Azores after her father goes missing. On the islands, she is introduced to incredible tales of sirens, ghost ships and rumors of a brand new island emerging from the sea, as sort of a sleight-of-hand trick.
A beloved and best-selling book The Undiscovered Island has shockingly been out of print, but happily, it has been re-released by Tagus Press, in an updated version, with a gorgeous new cover by Azorean artist Carlos Adolfo Amaral (from Povoação, São Miguel, who lives in New Bedford, Massachusetts).
The new version features a glowing introduction by award-winning author Katherine Vaz who offers this praise, “Kastin entertains us and lashes his story onto its loom with beautifully embroidered expansions of two main legends: The star-crossed fate of Inês de Castro and Dom Pedro (more or less Portugal’s Romeo and Juliet), and the folly of Dom Sebastião, the young king who, by virtue of his body never being found on the battlefield after leading his troops into annihilation against the Moors, is deemed the ‘Hidden One.’ ”
Novelist Richard Zimler states that The Undiscovered Island is “a lyrical and exuberantly detailed tale of mystery and mythology intimately linked to the unique history and natural beauty of the Azores,” and Peter S Beagle, brilliant author of The Last Unicorn, says the book is a “mystical mystery, rich with the people, the folklore, and the ambiance of the Azores.”
Born in Los Angeles, writer Darrel Kastin grew up in Southern California, and currently lives in the New Bedford area with his lovely wife Elisabeth (a former librarian at the famed Casa da Saudade branch library). Through the years, Kastin has spent a lot of time in the Azores, even living there for extended periods before Covid. The author is also an accomplished musician and composer, with two albums to his name: Mar Português and Lullabies for Sinners.
Kastin’s other books include The Conjurer & Other Azorean Tales (Tagus Press 2012), Shadowboxing With Bukowski (Formite Books, 2016).
In this interview for the Portuguese American Journal, Darrell Kastin speaks of how his sold-out first novel ‘Undiscovered Island’ came about and how and why a reprint of the best-selling book has been re-released by Tagus Press, in an updated version now available to new readers while offering an enhanced experience to those familiar with the original.
Q: Back in 2009, what made you decide on The Undiscovered Island as your first book?
A: Ah, well, yes, it is the first novel I published, but I’d already written a few novels before this one which hadn’t found a publisher. I would work on this one, then put it aside for a while, while I did research or worked on other books, and would then come back to it. I’d been mainly working on my short stories, most of them set in Portugal, and I read in a newspaper that a new island was rising between Terceira and São Miguel, in the Azores; that it had risen above the sea in the past and was named for one of our ancestors, Dom João de Castro. I told my cousin about the new island and he joked that we should go claim it for the family.
A writer friend suggested I come up with a novel, and so with just the vaguest notion of a family member sailing to the new island and claiming it for the family, the mirroring of Portuguese history with my own family’s history, in which I began at the end, where the island sinks, I started work on this book. Someone said that the book was primarily concerned with the narrator’s family. I suggest that this person missed the point. The family was an instrument, with branches on the Castilian side, and branches on the Portuguese side, with all the connections to Columbus, to Vasco da Gama, Afonso de Albuquerque, to Brazil’s official discoverer, Pedro Álvares Cabral, the Azores and Corte-Reais family, etc., which, as I’ve already said, mirrors Portugal’s incredible history, the rise and fall, and suggests the Portuguese saying that every Portuguese is a cousin and a descendant of King Dom Dinis.
Q: I believe that the 2009 version of The Undiscovered Island sold out (and is currently out of print), was that the main reason why you were interested in re-releasing the book? To make it available to readers again?
A: Since the novel was first published in 2009, I’ve hoped the text would be cleaned up. I also wanted the original cover to be used, as well as the ancient map of the islands and the family tree. With all that and the changes I made to the text polishing and tightening it, I believed it was an improved book that deserved to be back in print.
Q: Any idea why the book went out of print? It seems strange for a best-selling book not to be re-released? It is collected in over 50 different libraries and sales were excellent.
A: It went out of print because after the print run sold out I told the press that I had made a good number of changes to the text, and at first they didn’t want to have to do the work of setting up the text for reprinting it. I worked on it and worked on it, and they finally came around to publishing it again.
Q: It must have been a great opportunity to be able to update the text and (potentially) correct any mistakes from the previous release. Can you share with us a few of the changes or areas you modified? And why? What areas were MOST important to you to update?
A: First and foremost, there were a number of typos. After that, I went through the text and eliminated redundancies and found better ways to phrase certain passages. I edited the book about 8 times on my own and also had the editor who worked on my short story collection edit it, then the editor at UMASS Press did some edits, and I went over the manuscript again. After that, some 4 times. That’s a lot of editing.
Q: With the book’s plot “Julia Castro travels to her family’s ancestral home in the Azores, after her father’s disappearance, to find the islands abuzz with tales of ghost ships, seductive sirens, and a new island emerging from the sea,” it seems ripe to be made into a movie. Have you considered writing a screenplay for it? What actors would be in your cast?
A: I always thought of the novel in terms of a film, even as I wrote it. I visualized the events as they took place. I don’t know the first thing about writing a screenplay, however, so I wouldn’t really feel up to doing that. But I would love for somebody to do it, someone who would do the book justice. I don’t have any specific actors in mind. Hopefully, some real Portuguese-American actors.
Q: Would you consider your book to be a coming-of-age novel?
A: Not really coming-of-age, given the age of the main character, but more a coming-of-self novel. She travels back to the home of her ancestors and discovers her family’s history as well as Portugal’s history––the two run parallel––and in doing so she discovers how her life is connected to the islands and the people there.
Q: Can you talk about the updated book cover?
A. Yes, the artist who painted the cover is Portuguese. Carlos Amaral, who was born on São Miguel. He lives with his wife in New Bedford. I had told him my thoughts about the cover, what I envisioned, and Carlos painted 4 or 5 paintings. We selected the one we thought best captured the essence of the book. It features a ghost ship, a new island rising from the sea, and a village on one of the islands in the Azores. It was the cover I had intended to use for the novel when it was first published, but for some reason it didn’t work out.
Q: Some have claimed the book, in the 3rd part, is confusing. Would you agree? What do you think about the claim? Is this a difficult book?
A: Not confusing, but challenging, especially if a reader is expecting a straight linear narrative. It’s a place where the past, present, and future collide, so it does keep a reader on their toes. The reader needs to trust the author, and go along with the ride. We live in a post James Joyce, Faulkner, John Barth, Ursula Le Guin, Barthelme, John Fowles, Calvino, Silvina Ocampo, Brautigan, Angela Carter, Eco, Zora Neale Hurston, Borges, Vonnegut, Virginia Woolf, David Foster Wallace, Richard Powers, etc., so while not comparing myself or my work to those writers or their books, we needn’t act as if modern fiction hasn’t had a large number of experimental writers. I hate to say it but fiction really is the most conservative of the arts.
It’s okay once you’re accepted by the literary establishment, but until then people balk and shower you with a lot of comments like, “Oh, you can’t do that!” “There are rules.” Some of the most satisfying comments I heard were from readers who normally don’t read fiction, but picked up the book and enjoyed it. I thought it was very telling. These people had no preconceived notions of how a novel should be written. They merely got aboard and enjoyed the ride, which is all I could ask of anyone.
Q: Here are a few more questions to ponder–I cannot believe this (what a nightmare!) but during the peak of Covid, you relocated your family cross-country from Sacramento to New Bedford. What Portuguese places or activities are you enjoying?
A: We’ve been making use of the Portuguese restaurants, bakeries and markets that sell Portuguese products: sumo de Maracujá, queijo de São Jorge, natas, pão, etc. While there are Portuguese in the Sacramento area, it isn’t like New Bedford, which I call Little Portugal.
There’s just a much higher concentration of Portuguese people here, and in Fall River, which is nice. I go to the doctor’s office, a coffee shop or the bank and I see people with Portuguese names, and hear people speaking Portuguese.
Q: You purchased a cottage in The Azores a few years ago. Can you share with PAJ readers the joys and pitfalls of buying property on the islands?
A: Well, it’s been difficult since because of Covid we’ve lost 2 ½ years that we could have spent there. I still haven’t made it back there, though I aim to make it this summer. We had some work done on the place while we were there and will have more done when we go back. It was fun while we were there. It felt like we were camping. The place is so small, just a tiny triangle of a cottage with a number of fruit trees.
Q: What are you MOST looking forward to updating/polishing for the new edition?
A: Just having the book with the new cover, the family tree, the intro by Katherine Vaz, and the ancient map of the island, plus a cleaner, more polished version of the book.
Q: Who is your ideal reader?
A: Anyone who loves reading literature, history, certainly anyone interested in the Azores.
Q: When will The Undiscovered Island’s new edition be available?
A: The book is already available to the public. I haven’t heard about any promotional events or Zoom readings, but I’m sure there will be something.
Q: Are you working on a new manuscript?
A: Yes, a sequel to The Undiscovered Island. It’s titled A Tale of the Azorean Nights, and takes place some five years after the events of The Undiscovered Island. That, and writing songs.
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Millicent Borges Accardi, a Portuguese-American writer, is the author of four poetry collections, including Through Grainy Landscape, 2021 (inspired by Portuguese writings) and Quarantine Highway. Her awards include fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, Fulbright, CantoMundo, Creative Capacity, California Arts Council, Foundation for Contemporary Arts (Covid grant, and Fundação Luso-Americana (Portugal. She curates the popular Kale Soup for the Soul reading series.
