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| Available 10/10/03 |
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1. Why did you write this non-fiction satire?
BL: As a middle-aged writer and a lifelong battler of the bulge, it was something I had to do. Although I do "share" my personal, poignant experiences in this book (briefly, please!), I have survived in my life by finding the humor in every situation. The events and circumstances I write about in BGGL are based on things that really happened to me, things that real people did or said, or situations I've observed that struck me as hilarious, or awful. Satire is my first love, I was a Jonathan Swift and Mark Twain fan in high school, so this book almost wrote itself, and was a great deal of fun.
2. What is your prevailing message in Big Girls' Guide?
BL: Every person in the world must come to grips with who she or he is and deal with it. Get over the anger, get over the "stuff." Life is extremely brief and you will have a much better time on the planet if you can like yourself as you journey forward. It took me a very, very long time to accept myself...I'm still evolving, but thankfully can finally now stop beating myself up for my weight, and enjoy life. That doesn't mean I don't want to lose weight, but weight loss is no longer ruling my life or my mindset. I'm trying to replace "weight obsession" with "joy obsession."
3. You touch on several "taboo" subjects in this book but deal with them candidly. Was this difficult?
BL: Not at all. Once I realized I had to write this book, it was pretty much "all or nothing" and I decided there should be no holds barred. It's amazing how many people who have read the galleys or manuscript shared their delight in my openness, and how many people had exactly the same type of experience in their own lives.
4. You mention, quite frequently, that BGGL is a parody, not intended as self-help. Are you concerned that someone may interpret your humor as a flag-waving treatise for the right to be obese?
BL: If someone has a hard time distinguishing satire from reality...well, this book is probably not for them. I'm fully aware of the benefits of a healthy lifestyle, and ultimately I'd love to lose weight, so I'm not at all advocating that fat people stay fat. But I am advocating that fat people, or people with large noses, or people with big ears or people who have virtually no visible defects whatsoever learn to be happy with themselves. This comes from deep within our soul, and personally I've found that happiness has a great deal to do with how spiritually grounded one is. The old saying, "God doesn't make junk" is true for everyone, not just fit people.
5. What is the most important thing you'd like to impart to readers of this book?
BL: Laugh, laugh, laugh at yourself. If you're unhappy, figure out why and fix it. Stop complaining, stop whining, stop making excuses. Be yourself. And if someone forces you to walk in a half-marathon against your will, take as long as you need to plot your revenge, trust me on this. And don't forget to cut your toenails.
6. What's your favorite food?
BL: A hot fudge sundae. A brownie. A Goo Goo cluster. An Almond Joy...can you detect the pattern here?
Copyright 2003, Bunkie Lynn |
| Bunkie on A Comedy of Heirs |
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| Bunkie Holds the Sweet Jesus Sweet Potato! |
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| Thanks to Bowling Green, KY's Bas Bleu Book Club who graciously hosted me, complete with their version of the "Sweet Jesus Sweet Potato," the infamous Pie Angel's Sweet Potato Pie, several diamond tiaras, Confederate paraphernalia, and an artist's rendering of Horry's restaurant, Chez Horatio! Thanks, gals! |
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Book Club Guide to A Comedy of Heirs
- The book contains dozens of characters and an intricate plot with many sub-plots and twists. What in the world were you thinking, and how?
BL: I have an extremely wild imagination; when I write, perhaps from my days in film school and as a photographer, I "see" the events happening in my head. Characters are visually vivid, their nuances and gestures very real. I try to translate this onto paper, but to keep it all straight, I use a chart that describes each character in full. Of course, halfway through the project, sometimes characters take on lives of their own, so the original chart goes out the window. I have to do the same thing with the sub-plots; the more intricate, the better. I loved Dickens and his surprise endings; with Dickens every character, no matter how minor, was key to the protagonist or to the plot, and I enjoy that deep involvement. I hate it when I can figure out endings mid-way through a novel! But plot development is very difficult and it takes a great deal of energy, figuring out who’s who and what’s what and how it’s all going to arrive at a conclusion.
- You use, perhaps to a fault, local dialect and vernacular language. Why?
BL: My characters are vitally real to me; they can express themselves in their own words much better than I could contrive to "fix" them and clean them up to meet a lofty literary standard or so a reader could more quickly scan the dialogue. I know many writers talk about the judicious use of vernacular, and for them, that’s fine. The folks in my books like to let it all hang out and be themselves. And in the South, our language is a very definite part of who we are; when you sanitize it, a lot is lost in translation. I have an ear for languages and dialect and vocal nuance, and it is one of the things of which I cherish most about my writing, like it or not.
- No one escapes your barbed pen…you poke fun at nearly every Southern stereotype…are you embarrassed by the South?
BL: Absolutely NOT! If anything, just the opposite! My dad used to say, "They wouldn’t tease ya if they didn’t like ya!" The people in my novel are people you might meet walking down any street in any town in the South, or any place in the USA, for that matter. Some characteristics and some characters are exaggerated on purpose to drive home a point in a short amount of page space. My main goal is to create characters that strike a nerve with all of us, whether we’re from Birmingham, Alabama or Birmingham, England. There’s just so much good stuff to observe down here in the South! But everyone in the world has character flaws and we all do things that other people might perceive as "strange" or outside the norm. In our society, we constantly shift the norm to fit our current trends or financial desires. Just like Comedy’s Rev. Cameron Culpepper…he wants to boost his church membership, so he relaxes the church "rules" a little bit, and it works, much to the consternation of Corny Poe. And despite Corny’s insistence on maintaining the church’s strict lifestyle policies, deep in his soul he’s really only concerned with getting his name on the Senior Elder plaque inside the church! Both of these men claim to be men of God, yet their actions consistently go against that grain. Here in the South we’re famous for our revival-style preachers and holier-than-thou fanatics, and whether you like them or not, they’re an integral part of our culture. I’ve known beauty queens with truly bitchy personalities, and I’ve known beauty queens who are also beautiful on the inside; as I say in the Author’s Note, my research lab for this novel was human nature. We have all acted terribly to others at one time or another; what is the result of those actions, not only today, but fifty years from today? My novel is set in the South because that’s my home; if I still lived in Aspen, Colorado, as I did when I was fresh out of college, believe me, there’s a ton of stuff I could write about those good people as easily as my Southern friends, and yet in a manner that celebrates their quirks. We all have regionally-inspired baggage, but the common thread is that every individual must try like crazy to figure out what to do in this world.
- Are you a "Champion of the Underdog?" Henry Bailey certainly comes out a winner, as do several other perennial "losers."
BL: You bet. Doesn’t everybody love it when the so-called "losers" win big? It’s the classic cross-cultural story, going back thousands of years. The thing I love about Henry is his heart: he’s lazy, he brags about working his "big fleet deals," but his heart is in the right place. Aside from peddling an El Camino as "the mother of all SUVs," he’s not trying to swindle anybody for his own gain; he’s just doing what he must in order to survive. Same goes with Leonard Festrunk…a mental simpleton with a big heart who silently helps people in need, content to live in a hospital room next to his elderly sisters! And Amelia Festrunk and Nell Graham…they’re written off as senile by society, but they emerge as graceful heroines, late in life. I like that concept the older I get!
- How did the Pie Angel come about?
BL: That was one of those things that just happened during the writing process! I believe in angels, and miracles. But recently, our society has just about done angels to death for a little TV time! Henry’s Bathroom Angel and the Pie Angel were my jab at all the "angel stuff" that gets everybody so riled up…I mean, books about angel sightings, angel sayings, angel TV shows, angel calendars…it strikes me as humorous that we humans think we’re angel authorities. I know for a fact that my "guardian angels" have rescued me several times, but I never had a conversation with them, and I sure wouldn’t tell a talk show host about it if I did! Angels need their privacy, too.
- The women in your novel seem to fall into either the "steel magnolia" or "bitch" categories. Why?
BL: As a woman, I have personal experience with both types! I mean, either you are a fixer/caregiver/miracle worker, or you wear heavy jewelry, shop at the mall a lot, and let someone else take care of your family. There’s not really any middle ground from my experience base, anyway. I’ve personally been a career woman, traveling around the world, and I’ve been a stay-at-home mom. Both roles are challenging, but by far the most frustrating yet rewarding path is the "mommy track." The way I see it, there are people who screw things up, and there are fixers who fix them. And this doesn’t just apply to women! I used to say I was a feminist; but anyone, male or female, can do anything they set their mind to. The playing field for women has been more restrictive throughout history; we had to scream and cause a commotion to get men to take us seriously, but then we’re accused of "breaking the glass ceiling" or being a feminist. Who cares? Just do it, like the ad says! And sometimes it’s fun to be a bitch! Look at all the fun Margaret McArdle-Graham has!
- In your novel, Chestnut Ridge is founded by Confederate deserters from the Battle of Murfreesboro. Chestnut Ridge is a fictitious town, but did this really take place?
BL: I researched the Battle of Murfreesboro and Stones River to get correct locations and dates; it was a very cold December day, a very bloody battle and now there is a beautiful memorial park on the battlefield site, to commemorate the tragedy. The military company in my novel, the 44th Regiment of the Tennessee Riders, its officers, and the fact that they chose not to fight at the Battle of Murfreesboro…all of this was a product of my imagination. And I did not choose to have these men desert to desecrate the honor of the Confederacy, so all you Sons of the Confederacy, hush up. I am a history NUT; I read and study a great deal, and I know for a fact that men in both the Union and Confederate armies often just up and decided to return home…particularly if they weren’t getting paid or fed or if they were "in the neighborhood." Things were just different back then, and deserting wasn’t all that unusual because the entire country was in turmoil, there was no central postal system, no way to track a man down for the most part, at least until the fighting ended, and everybody was starving. So when my Riders learn that their comrades at Stones River have been butchered, there are Yankees crawling everywhere, and it’s freezing cold outside, they have a choice: do they die at the hands of the enemy, or take an offer of shelter and plentiful food from hopeful citizens of a dying town? My original draft contained almost 200 pages of events surrounding the Battle, the journey of the Riders from Mississippi to Tennessee and the murder of Colonel Gray. But it just didn’t fit with the rest of the book, so I axed it and reworked it as Hardy Bailey’s narrative to young Amelia Festrunk.
- How long did it take you to write A Comedy of Heirs? What are your writing habits? Do you have another book in the works?
BL: I started the book in November 1993, on my husband’s laptop. I made notes on business trips to Europe to flesh out the plot and characters, but didn’t really work on the novel seriously until I left my career in 1996. I wrote solidly for several months, but then was blessed with a son, so I took a couple years off. After doing an overseas project in 1998, and missing my family like crazy, I swore off consulting and devoted myself to completing the novel, and did so in about 4 months’ time, but it was almost like starting over after ditching the first section and I had to get back into the characters’ heads. Then I sent it around, got lots of rejections, and put it away, until February 2001 when a friend who is also an author encouraged me to join his exhibit at Nashville’s Southern Festival of Books. It gave me a tangible deadline to complete the novel, find a publisher, and market it, which worked (thanks, Cameron!).
As to my writing habits: wish I could say I have some! When you’re actively involved with your family and your church and your community, setting aside writing time requires a discipline that I often don’t have. My next book will be in the same humorous vein, because that’s the writing style that’s "me" and has been "me" since I was in high school and wrote a humorous column for my school newspaper. The new novel is set in Louisiana’s Cajun country, where I lived during my youth, and is another big Southern tale about wacky misadventures in a small town, only this one will feature lots of crawfish and accordion music! I’ve got a long way to go and a lot of writing to do…but I’ll get there eventually.
- Do you write to a particular audience?
BL: Oh, most definitely; my audience must be able to read, no doubt about it! Seriously, there are lots "wacky Southern fiction" genre lovers, à la the works by Jan Karon, Carl Hiaasen, etc. And for every person who loves it, there’s a critic who rolls his eyes and classifies works of this type as "popular junk." I don’t care what you call it, as long as you buy it, and brother, a truckload of "junk" has been sold through the years! If I had to categorize my audience, I’d probably say that Women 25+ would most likely enjoy my work, however I’ve got some ardent male fans who told me they laughed out loud at Comedy like nothing they’d ever read, so who knows? I don’t try to tailor my work to a specific audience, I just say what I have to say and hope for the best.
- Who are your favorite authors/sources of inspiration?
BL: From an early age I enjoyed humor; I remember laughing out loud at the Ramona and Beezus books by Beverly Cleary. As a teenager, I enjoyed Mark Twain, Jonathan Swift, and Ken Kesey. In college I first read Dave Barry and the world stopped turning for me! I finally found a writer who saw the world the way I did, and I became a Dave Barry addict, and then discovered Carl Hiaasen…the bottom fell out. I enjoy the same "wacky Southern fiction" that I write; I like Barbara Kingsolver’s The Bean Trees because her humor is so subtle and her characters so gently humble. I don’t like dark, dreary books; there’s so much darkness in our society, I need escape! I need laughter! That’s my main goal, to make people laugh and enjoy life through words on a page. My grandmother and my dad inspire me to this day; they both had terrible childhoods yet laughed through tragedy and they taught me to defy anguish with comedy. And people in general inspire me on a daily basis…it’s amazing how foolish we can all be! I also enjoy music, and my favorite musician, James Taylor, often uses humor in his lyrics. He’s one living legend I’d like to meet and thank for the joy his work has brought into my life…and now my son’s life…I have to take a 5-yr old to a James Taylor concert or he’ll say I’m a bad mommy!
- Who is your favorite character in A Comedy of Heirs and why?
BL: Definitely Aunt Pearl Parker. She is such a hoot, and I’ve known so many beautiful, strong Southern women just like her! She doesn’t take any hooey from anybody, she rules the roost, tells it like it is, and she makes the most of the opportunities in her path. Some of the most fun I had writing this book was working on the Aunt Pearl sections; they still make me laugh. A lot of people who know me will call and say, "Oh, I know who you based the character so-and-so on!!" But none of my characters represent one single person; they're compilations of people I've known and observed my entire life, so if you know me, don't take it personally if you think you're in my books!
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Aunt Pearl’s nephew, Dr. Avery Parker Jr., is very frustrated with his fellow citizens and revises the annual Founding pageant to include stereotyped persons of color, despite the fact that the town annals say there were no such persons living there at the time. Dr. Parker then casts Hispanics and a Jamaican woman into roles of suffering slaves, wearing exaggerated African tribal garb. But the Parkers are traumatized when the tables are turned and their son wears a Confederate flag t-shirt; they try to insulate him from local culture. What was your motive here? BL: The Parkers, as well as the Rodriguezes and Bessie Thibodeaux, are intelligent, successful persons of color who should be very frustrated! The citizens of Chestnut Ridge don’t know how to take the Parkers, and although the town welcomes them on the fringe, they don’t want their nicely-boxed version of the town pageant to be revised by perceived Yankee revisionist scholars…even though the Parkers aren’t necessarily that at all. Avery Parker the scholar is proven to be correct in his theories about the town founding, but no one gives him credence until the Pie Angel arrives; perhaps that’s my metaphor for Evil White Supremacy, although we never learn enough about Ellen Gray, the Pie Angel, to know her inclination toward or against racial prejudice. But in Chestnut Ridge, as in our society, if often and unfortunately takes a white person to validate what a person of color has claimed all along. And although Avery’s intentions are justifiably within the scope of undoing the wrongs to his people and presenting the whole, ugly truth, his new pageant is so hell-bent on revision for revision’s sake, it insults not only the descendants of the town fathers, but also the people of color who are forced to play exaggerated roles to make his hammered point. We can’t change history; I do agree with the statement, "the winners of the wars write the history books" and I think that we must always search for truths and as many facts about a situation as possible. But we also don’t live in the shoes or the bare feet of people who died hundreds or thousands of years ago; as much as we may learn, we can never fully comprehend what they felt as they lived in their world, or understand their mindset, except to recognize injustice, hatred and prejudice…racial, as well as religious, economic and cultural. We can only guess, and sometimes that’s prejudicial as well. I’m not on any "side" of a war that was fought 136+ years ago…many people died horrible deaths in slavery and in the Civil War, and thank God it’s over and slavery ended, at least in this country. But so many Southerners are still fighting that war…and a durn lot of Yankees are still fighting it, too, to be honest, through re-enactments and by behaving as if every Southerner endorsed slavery and owned a huge cotton plantation. I’ve spent time in the Northeast, and believe me, the prejudice there is often more blatant than in the South, and is more pervasive than bias against skin color. And as empathetic as I believe I am to the horrors of slavery, whether those slaves were Jews in Egypt, Africans in America, Irish in England, or Muslims in Bosnia, I don’t think the pursuit of truth includes an apology in the form of financial compensation for events that occurred centuries ago. It was important for me to state my personal frustration with all sides of difficult prejudicial issues; I developed Rex Parker, an innocent child who just wants to have friends and fit in, to be my voice for this frustration. His best friend is the ultimate redneck’s son, Billy Gooch. They get along like ticks on a dog, until adults start to interfere. Rex’s parents are so caught up in their scholarly anti-prejudice pursuits, they fail to notice his loneliness or teach him the basic tenets of their mission. Corny Poe brands Dr. Parker and his research as ‘uppity’ revenge for the Confederate efforts, and he embarrasses himself in public because he is color blind and refuses to accept the fact that a black man might know more than he. As the pageant, revised by Dr. Parker, increases its persons of color, it decreases key historical facts despite tangible evidence to the contrary. Dr. and Diana Parker adamantly defend their cause, wishing to accurately portray suffering, whether or not it took place in Chestnut Ridge. As Ruby Quigley eloquently states, even if her ancestors were deserters and thieves, or slaveholders, they’re still her ancestors, and she has to reconcile herself to that, no matter how painful or politically incorrect; her ancestors are her bloodline connection to her world. The Bailey family was also held hostage, although not forced to work at an overseer’s whip; their lives and fortunes were taken from them and Hardy Bailey’s descendants felt the repercussions for generations. Henry is offered a miraculous financial windfall and has a choice…with the help of lawyers, he can calculate to the penny what is owed to him, and try to obtain it through the courts, making the lawyers wealthy and a lot of his neighbors bankrupt, miserable, and increasing the hatred of his family name. Or he can accept a lesser amount, an apology every bit as valid despite its lower monetary value, and put the past behind him. He opts for putting the past behind him and moving on, and the whole town breathes a sigh of relief…if only it were that easy on a global scale! Of course his cool million doesn’t hurt either, but Henry never expected to receive any money in the first place; he didn’t seek financial compensation. He only wished to gain the respect of his neighbors, which he ultimately achieves in the end. To take it to another level, there is prejudice against the elderly; Amelia and Nell fight it and thankfully win, but many do not. In summary, we are all God’s children, so let’s all play nice!
- What is your advice to aspiring writers?
BL: I have difficulty with this question; I have always been told that I was an excellent writer, since second grade. Writing is as easy for me as walking, however I did take more than the average bear’s share of English grammar and literature classes, and as part of my film school requirements, I learned to write screenplays, build plots and develop characters. I am a movie FANATIC and even admit to enjoying foreign films! (My dream after meeting James Taylor is to attend the Cannes Film Festival…or maybe I could just meet James Taylor at the Cannes Film Festival….) ok, back to the question. How to help aspiring writers….
I’ve always known I would be a writer; before I became a novelist, I wrote ads and brochures and technical stuff, and marketing proposals and lots of boring stuff. I sought out advice from published authors, and they were very reluctant to tell me much of anything…the writing and publishing industry likes to wear a cloak of mystique, and they can have it!
For people who are comfortable writing, and who already think they write fairly well, as in, they can avoid run-on sentences and they know how to format dialogue, etc., they should seek an objective person they trust, whose writing they respect, and get a critique of their work. I’m not talking a dressing-down of plot, here, either, but an honest assessment of their ability to write the English language so it makes sense and implores the reader to continue, or invites a return to grade school!
For people who aren’t comfortable in their writing skin, they should seek out writer’s workshops or classes at community colleges, or fiction writing clinics, to learn technique and experiment to find their style, their voice. But remember that what you should take from those classes are methods, techniques, and tools; not a personal critique of the topic you’ve selected for your Great American Novel. The adage, those who teach can’t do is often true…if the professor was a successful novelist, would he still be teaching your class? Ok, maybe that’s not very fair, but…
I’m not a big advocate of writer’s groups; my experience is that writer’s groups are comprised of a lot of people who have talked about becoming a writer for an infinitely long period of time. They do write, but they grouse about it, and they sometimes vent their frustration with themselves by harshly critiquing the work of innocent "newbies" to the group. They are familiar with just enough industry terms or connections via a brother-in-law to be dangerous, but they never take the big leap and put their work out there. Maybe I’m a snob, but I don’t really want the help of twenty other writers in developing my plot or characters…it’s a personal journey I like taking solo. It’s a risk I’m happy to take, because it’s my butt on the line, not theirs.
However, writer’s groups come in handy when you seek common goals, such as bonding together to get publicity, or to attend festivals in a shared space, or seek clout with printing vendors for marketing tools, etc. I do belong to a writer’s group, but we rarely discuss each other’s work; instead we talk about the successes or failures we’ve experienced in our respective writing careers, to educate each other and lift each other up; it’s hard to stay motivated between books, and my writer’s group always helps out.
Now I’m probably going to get a bizillion emails from writer’s groups that work! Sorry! You asked my opinion!
The publishing industry is changing, and it’s much like the rest of the entertainment industry…connections and timing are everything. Take stock of everyone you know, and if you have a seventh cousin who works at Random House, hit him up, hard. If not, figure out another avenue and in the wise words of Winston Churchill, never give up!
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