A new novel by Kristin Vuković explores identity, longing, reconciliation and the power of going home again.
One of the benefits of attending a writing conference is the chance to meet, well, writers. Fellow travelers, birds of a feather, people who unapologetically live some of their deepest moments in a room alone. When we get together, we have a lot to talk about! So, when I attended the Sirenland Writers Conference in Italy, I got to meet a number of wonderful writers, including Kristin Vuković.
As we got talking she shared that she had a novel coming out. Set on a Croatian island called Pag, The Cheesemaker’s Daughter tells the story of Marina, a 34-year-old woman at a crossroads. Born in Yugoslavia, her family sent her to live in New York during the war that tore the country apart in the 1990s. Returning years later to Croatia, a country she doesn't really know, Marina seems to have only a failing marriage to show for her time abroad. She takes refuge in the family business, a cheese factory from the old Soviet-block era that has fallen on hard times. Its ancient machinery is failing, the cheese is kind of meh, and a well funded competitor has opened up on the other side of the island – founded by her father’s former friend and colleague.
The Cheesemaker’s Daughter a beautiful book, with a heroine you will root for, set in a complex, fascinating place. This is not the Croatia of holiday brochures. It is a hard land, buffeted by strong winds, scorched by searing heat, where to survive is to be strong. Kristin’s descriptions of Pag reminded me of my own home in the Peloponnese, with its small villages and long memories. Though it takes on some big questions, The Cheesemaker's Daughter is also just a really fun read. I appreciated how Kristin lightly wove in historical detail and the nuance of a place trying to heal from a brutal conflict but always remained true to the story. The book offers many pleasures: a smart, resourceful heroine, sensual descriptions of the land, heartfelt longing, reconciliation – and, of course, cheese. One of my favroite subjects! So I was eager to probe deeper into these themes. Here, then, is my interview with Kristin Vuković, discussing her new novel, The Cheesemaker’s Daughter.
JF: What is your connection to Pag island, the setting of the story?
KV: I don’t have a personal connection to the island, since my family was largely from Karlovac—a city southwest of Croatia’s capital, Zagreb—where my grandfather was born. My obsession with Pag began in 2011 while reporting on a cheese festival for the now-defunct Croatian Chronicle, a bilingual newspaper out of New York City, where I live. I became obsessed with Pag’s barren, moonscape terrain and people’s connection to the land, sheep and cheese, and I knew I wanted to write about it. Over the years, I went on to write articles for publications including BBC Travel, Culture (a magazine devoted to cheese) and Roads & Kingdoms where I learned more about cheesemaking on the island and the fascinating history of how Pag got divided centuries ago when a king split the island between two bishops.
JF: You write beautifully about the nuances of taste, smell and the cheesemaking process. Do you come by that knowledge through personal experience or was that part of your research for the book? And how much cheese did you “have to” try in order to write the book?
KV: My favorite type of research is going out into the field, observing and talking with locals, which initially drew me to travel writing. During reporting for various magazine and online assignments, I visited the island’s cheesemaking factories many times and also became acquainted with some small producers. And I ate a lot of Pag cheese! (I am sure by this point that I’ve eaten my weight in cheese.) I learned a lot about aspects of cheesemaking over multiple visits to Pag, including a month-long stay during the off-season where I went out with shepherds at some ungodly hour (I am not a morning person). It surprised me that the same sheep’s milk from the same island could produce such different cheeses, depending on the seasonality of the milk, whether the milk was pasteurized, the aging conditions, etc. There are a couple fictional cheeses in the story which are purely products of my imagination, but there are also aspects of the cheesemaking process in the novel that (I hope!) are factually accurate. I also did some online research to supplement what I’d witnessed firsthand.
JF: The main character, Marina, leaves Croatia, while her father and brother stay and fight in Operation Storm in 1995—which signals the end of the war in Croatia. What do you wish American readers knew about this war, and how did it inform the writing of the book?
KV: It’s very complicated! I have collected many oral histories and heard diverse experiences over more than two dozen visits to Croatia spanning nearly a quarter century. I started going back in 2000, when the war was still fresh—and nearby, Kosovo's ethnic Albanians fought Serbs to gain independence as recently as 1999. I wish people knew that there were not such clean lines of delineation between neighbors, and a lot of people have hyphenated ethnic and/or religious identities. For example, a friend who grew up in Dubrovnik, Croatia, was born in Serbia. Another friend was born in Sarajevo, Bosnia, to a Bosnian Muslim father and an Orthodox mother; during the war, they received aid, but because they were a “mixed” family, they only received partial aid depending on whether it was coming from Orthodox or Muslim aid organizations. It got me thinking: How does someone possibly choose sides when those “sides” exist within themselves? How do you choose which part of your identity to identify with? Where is “home”—is it the place where you were born, or the place where you live? What if those two countries are at war? Marina leaves Yugoslavia and returns to an independent country called Croatia after spending half her life in America, so I always had geography on my mind when I was writing. How do borders define us? What did it mean for Marina to be Yugoslavian, and what does it mean for her to be Croatian when she returns to her native island? How has a divided island shaped her identity?
JF: This book arrives, sadly, at a time of divisiveness in the US and elsewhere. Maybe that’s why the theme of reconciliation jumped out at me. Marina, the main character, reconciles with herself, her family, her past and her future. Then there is reconciliation within her larger family and community of Pag – and it seems to point to larger possibilities as well. Do you think reconciliation is truly possible, and what conditions help foster it?
KV: I recently read a New York Times article about the incredible 102-year-old Holocaust survivor Margot Friedländer. She told Vogue Germany that, since the start of the Israel-Hamas war, she has been asked by many young people whether she supports Israel or Palestine. Her answer is not to take sides. “Don’t look at the things that separate you,” she tells them. “Think of the things that bind you, that bring you together.” Those are such wise words, from a wise woman who has seen a lot of life. I think so often it is easy to focus on emphasizing our differences rather than our similarities. I feel like that kind of generosity of spirit is crucial for reconciliation, healing our divisions both within and without. In The Cheesemaker’s Daughter, Marina talks about embracing the past as a way to move forward—not forgetting it, but finding a way to come to peace with it. Marina’s attitude towards Ivan, the rival cheesemaker, only changes when she listens to her father, whose attitude is changing despite old grudges and a complicated past. Open dialogue is crucial for fostering change, and it’s a key component on the road to reconciliation.
JF: I noticed in your acknowledgements at the end of the book that one of your thank yous was for “making the story more hopeful.” Could you share what it took for you to find hope in the story?
KV: I didn’t want the ending to have a bow; in other words, I didn’t want all the threads to neatly tie up. But I wanted the reader to be satisfied, and I think no matter the times, we all need hope—especially now. For me, hope is possibility, and, without giving away the ending, I wanted to give readers a sense of possibility.
JF: Final question: Which Croatian cheese is your favorite?
KV: Oh, that’s easy. Paški sir—Pag cheese!
Jean Shields Fleming is founder and editor of Certain Age.
This interview was conducted in July 2024.
Images:
Sheep on Pag: Kat von Wood
Kristin Vuković photo: Sylvie Rosokof
The Cheesemaker's Daughter cover art, courtesty of the publisher
Just finished the book - a wonderful read. I love what she says about not wanting to tie everything up with a bow, but the reconciliations were powerful and the characters were so much stronger at the end - that was all the bow I needed.