Suzan-Lori Parks

I like that there is music for the songs in Getting Mother's Body. And not just music that someone wrote so that they could sing them, but music that the songs were originally meant for. It was such a joy to hear Suzan-Lori Parks sing; it brought Willa Mae more to life. And it was an even greater joy to hear Suzan-Lori Parks speak. I loved her sense of humor, and the casual way in which she described her writing and the writing process. I'm not surprised that she talks to her characters as though they were real people. That must be how she was able to tell the story of Getting Mother's Body from the perspective of so many different characters: They were telling her their stories. And she didn't extract those stories from them in a formal, stilted interview--except perhaps for the more ornery characters she spoke of, the ones that wouldn't talk to her--she just talked to them as ordinary people. I admire her imagination in bringing so many people so much to life, but I also wonder what she left out. What pronouns does she use for Dill? How does Billy feel about Laz, or about her mother, or about being a mother? And what do Parks's characters think of her? Do they like talking to her? (Who wouldn't?) Is she a friend, or a nuisance?

I'm glad, though, that we didn't ask her many questions about the book. It always makes me a little uncomfortable when an author is asked about their works, because they have already put their writing out for people to read and make of it what they will; it is not the author's job to interpret their work for the readers, and in my opinion, this can ruin a text. I prefer to wonder, and to maybe listen to others' thoughts on it, but not to know what the author meant. A work of literature on its own is full of possibilities, but as soon as its author tells us how to read it, it becomes narrow, with all the possibilities eliminated except for one.