Alison Stewart: You're listening to All Of It on WNYC. I'm Alison Stewart. The Get Lit Book Club event for our April pick is less than a week away. Next Tuesday, May 6th, I will be in conversation with author Laila Lalami. We'll discuss her new book, The Dream Hotel, at 6:00 PM at our partner's place, the NYPL. The book follows Sara Hussein-- she's a museum archivist, on her way back from a work trip in London. At the airport, she's pulled into a room by authorities. As a woman of Moroccan descent, it's not the first time she's been made to feel singled out, especially at the airport. But this time, it's different. The authorities inform her that she is being questioned because she is flagged for having possible murderous thoughts about her husband-- Yup, they monitor her dreams. Set in the not-so-distant future, people's thoughts and dreams have as much weight as their actions. Sara is retained for a 21-day hold, which then goes on and on.

The Dream Hotel is Laila's sixth book. She is a Pulitzer Prize finalist, and we're excited to speak with her next week, with a special musical performance from the New-York-based Moroccan band, Imal Gnawa. You still have time to grab a copy and read it before our event next Tuesday, May 6th. It is a fast read. Here's a little incentive: here's a preview of the book with Laila Lalami.

[music]

Alison Stewart: I heard you got the idea for this book from a Google alert that appeared on your phone. What happened?

Laila Lalami: Ah, yes. This happened in 2014. I was struggling to get out of bed. I reached for my phone first thing to look at the time, and I saw a Google notification that said, "If you leave right now, you will make it to--" the name of my yoga studio "--at 7:28." Of course, I had never told Google what day of the week or what time of day, or even that I went to yoga. But over time, obviously, the company had followed my movements and knew that every Tuesday and every Thursday, I went to a location that its software said was a yoga studio. And I guess, quite helpfully, that morning had decided to remind me that I hadn't left yet, that I was running late.

I was understandably disturbed by this. It felt like a rare peak through the curtain of surveillance. I think we all know that our devices collect a lot of data about us, but that data collection is, by design, very seamless and nearly invisible. And so that moment was just sort of a wake-up call. It was very disturbing. I remember I turned to my husband and I said, "You know, pretty soon, the only privacy any of us will have left will be in our dreams." Of course, being a novelist, I thought, "Well, wait, what if someday, the data collection manages to penetrate dreams? What would happen then?"

Alison Stewart: Hence The Dream Hotel, your book. Let's get in touch with our protagonist, what is going on with Sara when we meet her at the airport?

Laila Lalami: Sara is basically somebody whose relationship with technology mirrors my own, and probably yours as well. She's somebody who's sort of made her peace with it. She feels like she uses these tools the way that we all use them. She's a museum archivist. She works for the Getty Museum, and every year, she goes to the same conference. And in this year, she just had twins not too long ago, 13 months before the story starts. She's very eager to be reunited with them and with her husband after a five-day trip to London for this conference. As she's returning home and going through customs, she is pulled aside because the algorithm of the Risk Assessment Agency has decided that she has a very high likelihood of committing a violent crime.

She is pulled aside and she is transferred to what is called a retention center-- Not a detention center, but a retention center. She is supposed to be held there for 21 days, but of course, at the start of the story, we realize that she has been there for far longer than that initial 21-day hold.

Alison Stewart: And she already has a bit of nervousness-- Not nervousness, but something in her soul about traveling.

Laila Lalami: Yes.

Alison Stewart: I'm going to ask you to read a little bit from the book and set this little excerpt up for us.

Laila Lalami: Sure.

"Another time, when they were returning from their yearly trip to Morocco, they were held just long enough at [unintelligible 00:05:16] International to miss their cross-country flight home, then released without explanation. The delay meant that her father couldn't attend the ceremony at which he and three of his Caltech colleagues were to be honored for their work on a new generation of Mars rovers. What made these experiences difficult wasn't that they never turned up anything and were a waste of time for all parties involved, but the gnawing feeling that her family's ability to go about their business was entirely at the discretion of uniformed officers. Though she was only a child, Sara felt a visceral fear every time she was in an airport. But once the government deployed Scout at security checkpoints, the hassle disappeared.

Sara was a sophomore in high school by then, and she noticed the difference during her soccer team's training trip to Mexico. All she had to do was present herself to Scout, and the AI instantly accessed her passenger identification, biometric information, and criminal records. The light turned green, and she was clear through the checkpoint. No more long lines, no more questions. A new era of digital policing had begun, and young Sara, for one, welcomed it. It made transiting through airports fast and straightforward, until today, it seemed."

Alison Stewart: That was Laila Lalami reading from The Dream Hotel. Can I tell you, I read this on a plane coming back from Morocco, and--

[laughter]

Laila Lalami: I hope you didn't get pulled aside.

Alison Stewart: I didn't, but I had a thought, let me tell you.

Laila Lalami: Yes, I think the novel does tap into those fears that many people have in going through airports. Now, of course for me, given that I'm from Morocco and I have had these experiences of being pulled into secondary and being asked questions, so it was an anxiety that I was able to tap into for this scene.

Alison Stewart: It's interesting, Sara, she's tried to assimilate somewhat. She changed her last name. But at this point, she's been pulled aside by authorities, she gets mad and she accuses the guard of profiling her. I'm so curious, why does she get mad? Why does she let the guard get to her?

Laila Lalami: Sara is an American citizen-- Her parents are from Morocco, and her father, when he naturalized as a citizen, decided to simplify his name, which is [unintelligible 00:08:08] Hussein, and made it Hussein, just to make it easier on himself. She has inherited that sort of ease, and so she thinks, as she's going through this interview with the officer, she feels that she has been patient, she has answered all of his questions. It has been an hour, there is nothing in her record to suggest that she should be held back, and so she starts to lose her temper.

In other words, her big sort of flaw in this book is that she assumed that surveillance was universal, but she didn't realize that universal does not mean neutral. She thought that because she had done nothing wrong and because she's answered all their questions forthrightly, that that meant that she could just go on about her day. It's at that point that she realizes that they are pulling her aside because her last name is Hussein, and so she loses her temper. Even though it is only that moment, it's very short, and she quickly tries to make up for it, she does then attract their attention. Then they decide they really are going to look very closely at her and at her risk score.

Alison Stewart: Without giving too much away, what does she discover about these retention centers, which she's sent to for, at first, 21 days?

Laila Lalami: The idea is that there is a national-- it's a federal-level agency, and it basically assigns a crime risk score to each individual. Now, because Sara has been pulled aside because of her dreams, which suggest that she's going to commit a crime, she is sent to a retention center. When she arrives, she obviously feels herself to be innocent of this future crime, and so she doesn't really feel that she is the same as everybody else in that facility who are also there for suspected crimes. And so she holds herself a little bit apart from them. As the novel opens, we see that it's been some time now, and so she has developed friendships with some of them. She has developed relationships with some of them. She's pretty close with her roommate, for example. She basically discovers a community that, in a way, is separate from the rest of society, but also reflects that society as well.

Alison Stewart: This is set in the near future, and it cracked me up, because you talked about the aging playwright, Lynn Nottage. Hi, Lynn, if you're listening.

[laughter]

Laila Lalami: She's wonderful, and I'm a fan. I want her to know that in the book, she continues to produce the most wonderful plays.

Alison Stewart: Why did you set it in the near future?

Laila Lalami: It is unusual, isn't it? Because my previous novels, or some of my previous work had been historical and contemporary. I think I was just enamored with the idea and with the character. I have had long-standing concerns about the technological surveillance system that we all are living under, all of us. I don't just mean in the United States, but globally. 70% of the world's population owns smartphones, and I feel that this relationship between big tech companies and the government is an unholy alliance. It really threatens everything. Not just about our democratic governance and everything you can name, but also just about our sense of selves, who we are.

We know from research that being subjected to surveillance modifies people's behavior. People begin to change their behaviors because they're afraid of attracting the attention of the people surveilling them. And so since we are continually under technological surveillance, we are in a sense conforming and modifying our behaviors in order not to attract attention. These are very, very big ideas. They go to the heart of what it means to be human in the 21st century, and it was something that I felt that a speculative novel would be just the perfect canvas for exploring it.

Alison Stewart: We ask all of our authors, is there an Easter egg or something in the book that you would really like our readers to look out for?

Laila Lalami: Oh-- Well, I think you mentioned the one about Lynn Nottage. [chuckles] That is a great question. Ask me again when we meet in person, and I'll be sure to have an answer for you.

Alison Stewart: That's a deal. My guest has been author Laila Lalami. We are talking about The Dream Hotel. We can't wait to talk to you.

Laila Lalami: Likewise. Thanks so much for having me.

Alison Stewart: New Yorkers, you can get an e-copy of The Dream Hotel thanks to our partners at the New York Public Library. Go to wnyc.org/get-lit, and then join us on May 6th.