Milwaukee on the Pa
Alum’s debut no Zhanna Slor’s debut novel is a fun mix of genres – a bit of memoir, a bit of mystery, and a lot of love for Milwaukee. “At the End of the World, Turn Left” is set not only in the city, but partially near the UWM campus. Slor, a 2008 graduate who majored in English, is set to release her novel on April 20. The book is available locally through Lion’s Tooth bookstore and also available through commercial retailers. Before its release, Slor sat down to talk about her work, her relationship with Milwaukee, and the stories from her childhood that shaped her characters. Tell me about the book. It’s a literary mystery that takes place mostly in Riverwest and some on the East Side. It’s about two sisters who get tangled up in their father’s shady USSR past. The father asks the older sister, Masha, to come back from living abroad in Israel to help him find the younger sister, Anna, who goes missing in Riverwest. As Masha looks for Anna, it brings up old demons that she’s been avoiding. You also see Anna, six months prior, and what brings about her drop off the face of the earth. Why set the book in Milwaukee? I started the book when I was in my 20s and I was living in Chicago. I was trying to work through my childhood and through my experiences in Milwaukee. When I was in college, I found the first community I ever really felt comfortable with in Riverwest. It’s very unique. I’ve always wanted to set something in Riverwest. What’s your favorite thing about Riverwest? Fuel Café, although it’s closed now, which is so sad. It’s almost like a character in my book. I spent like every day studying at Fuel.
8 • IN FOCUS • April, 2021
And some of your book is set right here at UWM, right? Anna is a student at UWM, so she lives on the East Side on Oakland and Prospect, based on the house I first lived in when I attended UWM. It’s very present in the book – UWM, and the area around it. I understand this book started out as a very different piece of work. It took such a journey. It was (originally) an essay collection. Then I turned it into a memoir because (my editor at the time) said it needed more of a plot arc to sell it. The problem was, when we put it in a memoir, my life story was not that interesting. I was like, what if we turned it into a novel? That’s where I started the younger sister’s storyline, Anna, the one who is a college student.
