Yesterday I had the revelatory experience of participating in analyzing my novels with a group of psychiatrists and writers: the Humanities faculty working group at the Global South Center at UNC in Chapel Hill. The topic was Far Away and Deep Within: how the far away past, with its traumas and imprints, lies deep within the psyches of transplanted novelists like me and is expressed in their writing. In preparing for the presentation, I realized the parallels between two chapters, one in The Cairo House, and one, "Muslims in the Cul-de-sac" in Love is Like Water, that represent the Egyptian past and the American present respectively. Also how guilt runs like a leitmotif in both books...Fascinating group of people, I'm looking forward to attending future sessions where someone else's inner working are laid bare.