In Marina Budhos’s Watched (Random, Sept., 2016), the future 18-year-old Naeem imagined for himself—graduation, then a local college—is slowly slipping away. The teen would much rather spend time with his sometime friend Ibrahim, who despite his grandiose schemes doesn’t appear to be going anywhere. Naeem realizes he is a disappointment to his immigrant father, who, with his stepmother, struggles to make a living in his small shop in Queens, New York. As a Muslim, he is also keenly aware of the surveillance he and his neighbors face daily. When the police pick Naeem up for a crime he did not commit, the teen suddenly finds himself cast in the role of informant. As much as Watched is a story about the scrutiny and profiling members of the American Muslim communities are confronted with today, it’s also a coming-of-age story about a young adult who is forced to take a look at his life and make decisions about the person he wants to be. I’m so glad you picked up on that idea—that amid all the external political pressure Naeem experiences, this is a coming-of-age story. I’ve always viewed Watched as an odyssey, a story in which a young man must travel far and away from his family and be tested to figure out who he wants to and can be, before he returns home. Naeem is aware of the disappointment, almost defeat, that his Bangladeshi father feels knowing that his son has not seized all the opportunities America has to offer. Is the American dream an impossible dream for the many immigrant teens under “the strain of suspicion?” The American dream is possible for a teen like Naeem—it’s just that there are so many pressures that [prevent him] from making it a reality.  Like many immigrant kids, he’s been fed the dream, but how to get from where he is—a failing senior from a family with limited resources—to [achieving] something solid, such as what the professional man who comes into his parents’ store has achieved—is difficult for him to imagine. So many images and so many illusions bombard him and lure him into believing he can be anything. At the same time, surveillance undermines his confidence and marginalizes him. Naeem’s family loves him and supports him, but the teen is floundering, looking for direction. Particularly poignant is his vulnerability and naiveté after Ibrahim puts stolen goods into his backpack. When questioned by the police Naeem is frightened, but he also finds their attention and subtle flattery appealing, as they convince him to provide them with names of Muslims who worship at mosques, and are just going about their daily business. I see this book as centering on brother-to-brother and father-to-son relationships. Naeem is trying to find his sense of manhood, discovering the kind of young man [and brother] he can be. He needs heroes. His father isn’t an obvious one—he’s worn down from a hard life and he’s an older father, set in his ways. Taylor, the detective, offers the teen a robust image of what can be in America, and that’s why he’s so seductive. He’s the can-do spirit Naeem hasn’t been able to catch. As a reader, it’s especially satisfying that at the end of the novel that it’s something Naeem’s father says to him that helps him make an important decision, to change his course. I think that in the course of the novel the teen discovers some of his own strengths; his father, in his own small way, reminds him of the ballast of wisdom that was always there, within the family. I understand that you grew up in Queens. What research went into writing the book? When I was a teenager, I was full of dreams, and couldn’t wait to take the train across the river to Manhattan, which seemed like an elegant Oz. I felt that I could be someone there, someone in the arts. Queens seemed tantalizingly wide open, like a prairie, but somehow nowhere, a state of suspension, especially for a bored teenager. Like Naeem, I walked and rode my bike all over its streets. As an author, more and more I’ve been writing my way back into this landscape, loving it. Many of the passages about Queens were from my own memory and heart, and they were also about the Queens I’ve rediscovered in writing the book, the borough of immigrants, of true working, middle-class New Yorkers. I live in New Jersey now, but I drove to Queens quite a bit during the writing of this book. I talked to community organizers, walked the streets with friends, and stayed over in Jackson Heights. I loved discovering the new Queens, overlaid with my own deep memories of the place. What message do you hope young readers will take away from your book? First, I want readers to understand the confusions and pressures of being a Muslim teen—and especially a Muslim boy—today: to feel as if you are under constant scrutiny, that you are not to be trusted, that you are a potential threat. And, being confused about the right way to help your community, or what a hero is. But more generally, I want readers—especially teen readers—to think about the ways in which young people can be manipulated by adults. Naeem learns that even if police and detective work has validity, he was used, just as Ibrahim is falling prey online to radical Islam.  For all teenagers, their journey into adulthood is about learning to say no to manipulation, to find their own moral compass. Finally, there’s also a bigger picture. We live in a world of surveillance and overexposure, online and in the physical world.  Our every move and click seems to be monitored. An essential part of coming of age is to flirt with fantasy selves, alternative scenarios. How do teenagers do so when they are barraged with so many choices and opportunities, so much seduction and manipulation?