In “What Happens Next,” Charlie has made a habit of confessing a story about himself to women, but in truth he tells the story to gauge women’s worthiness. That confession becomes a way of controlling what will happen next. But of course the real power lies with the woman — in her evaluation of Charlie’s story. What are you saying about the nature of power in a relationship even in its most intimate moments? Is there really no point at which the power struggle between men and women ceases?
Charlie Yancey, I suspect, is like the rest of us in the way that he can make a confession — which is often thought of as an act of contrition, or at least a responsibly adult means of owning up to your mistakes — into something else altogether. But he retains his vulnerability, I believe, because Charlie — again like the rest of us — is pretty apprehensive about what will happen next, especially in relationships. He’s failed repeatedly at love, and he thinks if he “controls” the narrative, he doesn’t stand to lose as much. But as you point out, the listener has the real power, as she — and the reader, ultimately — understands that Charlie’s storytelling has a purpose, and the selection and distribution of image and detail, the words he puts in his mouth and others’, are carefully considered. She sees what Isaac Babel in one of his stories calls “the secret curves between the straight lines of prose.”
Is there no point at which the power struggle ceases? Yikes! I suspect the most honest answer to this question is, no, probably not. That doesn’t mean that love always has to be contentious. Relationships are narratives, and it’s inevitable that with the merging of two realities, both parties are going to attempt to control the narrative. This tension isn’t deadly (though it can be for people like Charlie, who don’t know when to stop); in fact, it’s the opposite. It’s just life.
In “Everything Was Paid For,” though Clay claims to be avenging the wrongs done to his girlfriend by reminding Neal of them daily, the relationship between Clay and Neal becomes more crucial than between Clay and Linda. As this story illustrates, relationships between the men in a woman’s past can be as intense as the relationship itself. Can the tension between a current lover and an ex-lover ever end?
In a healthy relationship, yes. But even in a healthy relationship there are ghosts. One of the good things about being older is that you just accept that the people you love have been with others before you. You don’t envy the dead and gone so much as you might when you’re Clay’s age, though, true, you hear them rattling around in the attic.
Clay’s relationship with Neal is based on exploitation and revenge. He actually convinces himself that he’s avenging his girlfriend’s honor by extorting goods from this guy who treated her badly in the past. He has a skewed sense of honor, and a lot of this has to do with desperation. He’s just a kid, and he’s made some bad decisions, and now he has bills to pay and what seemed like fun — playacting with Linda, masquerading as adults — has become a terrible burden. Only when he’s truly, physically trapped — in the heating duct beneath the drugstore — does he realize what he’s done, how horribly he’s treated her.
But back to the question: I don’t think it’s only men who carry on an active relationship with their lovers’ ex-lovers. Most of the stories in this book are from a male’s point of view because I happen to know that side of the river better than the far shore. But I don’t think the responses and actions of all the male characters are exclusively male. I don’t know that a woman would go to the lengths that Clay does to “protect” her lover’s honor, but the impulse to manipulate a situation, especially when you’re desperate and confused — I don’t think you have to be a man to think that way.
“Hidden Meanings, Treatment of Time, Supreme Irony, and Life Experiences in the Song ‘Ain’t Gonna Bump No More No Big Fat Woman’” has become one of your most popular stories. Why do you think that is? What is it that people love about this story so much? And what was the process of writing it?
Well, there’s the title of the song, for starters, for which I owe the venerable Joe Tex. And perhaps the form itself is familiar to most readers, who have surely had to write a paper for a teacher whose approach to the topic — not to mention attitude toward the students — annoyed them to no end. But I like to think that if that story touches people, it’s because of its shifts. It moves from comic to seriocomic to tragic, and returns to a lighter, more seriocomic note. Of course, these tonal shifts weren’t in the first draft, which came more quickly than anything I’ve ever written. I heard that song on the radio, and I thought it might be amusing if someone took that song — obviously a novelty song, of no real import except to entertain — as a serious comment on social discourse. Initially I pitched it in the comic vein, but when I looked it over I thought (as I so often do when looking over a first draft) “so what?” It needed more weight, a moment of gravity and, overall, a deeper level of desire. So I added the stuff about the father, and tinkered quite a bit with the sentence rhythms in that section, and the story came together at last.
“The Right to Remain” is told from the point of view of Sanderson, who is stalking his ex-girlfriend. Yet we never hear a word from her and she is never even given a name, obviously conscious choices on your part.
Surely she has a story, and no doubt it’s an interesting and vital one. It would be easier to tell the story of the person who has been victimized, as opposed to the person who is doing the victimizing. I guess I took the same approach in “Everything Was Paid For.” These guys are making huge mistakes; they’re committing crimes, really, but they’re not completely evil people. Sure, they’re unlikable, but they act out of some notion which is often referred to as “pride.” Sanderson feels like he’s been disrespected both by his ex and her new lover, so he is able to justify his actions by avenging his wounded pride. Clay, too, feels like his pride has been compromised, even though what happened to Linda before he met her has nothing at all to do with him. You hear people say, of themselves and of others whose actions they seek to defend, that they “have a lot of pride.” It seems to me that this idea of pride gives them license to be clueless as to the effects of their actions on other people. At least in these two cases, pride instigates acts that are selfish and self-destructive. I’m not judging them, though nor am I cutting them any slack. Both characters, to my mind, begin to understand how low they’ve sunk.
Most of these stories, with the exception of “What Happens Next” and “Everything Was Paid For,” begin after a relationship has ended. Why do your stories often begin after the end? What is it about that point that makes this the critical beginning of things? Is there something that the men see, or think they see, that they didn’t before?
That’s an interesting observation, one I wasn’t aware of. I did hear someone say, quoting from a self-help book, that men grieve for dying relationships after they’re over, while women go through the stages during the actual death. Do all men suffer from delayed onset of the bleeding heart? I doubt it, though a good number of these guys seem to finally take stock of things after they’re well over.
I think I was interested in the idea of a relationship as narrative, and the ways in which the narrative is constantly being rewritten after it’s over, which is not, as is commonly thought, a “lie,” but rather a part of the process of healing, and of learning to love more responsibly.
Music seems to run through all of your stories, either explicitly or implicitly, so much so that you were able to construct a kind of dream soundtrack for this collection.
To me, one of the most valuable and vulnerable human artifacts of our day and age is the Breakup Tape. I don’t know how they got through heartbreak before the age of recording devices. No, I take that back, because I predate recording devices, and I know how we did it — we either played the same 45 endlessly on our record players until our siblings beat on the walls of our ranch houses, or we called up the same unfortunate late night DJ and begged him to play, just one more time, I swear I won’t ask again tonight, “She’s Not There,
” by the Zombies.
Every case of heartbreak seems to have its own distinctive and vibrant soundtrack. I borrowed the title of this collection from Otis Redding’s song “I’ve Been Loving You Too Long (to Stop Now).” And yes, actual songs feature prominently in three or four of these stories. What characterizes love, or the end of it, at least for me, is that terrifying discrepancy between what you feel and what you can articulate. I love music because it expresses the inexpressible, and it does it so swiftly, with such force and accuracy.
What do you like least about being a writer?
I wish you would ask me what I love about it, so I could tell you how much time I spend in my pajamas, which is my uniform, though I confess I used to work at a place where my name was stitched in red thread above my breast pocket and I wish I could find some writing pajamas that allowed me to identify myself similarly.
I’m not real crazy about those panels they put you on at literary conferences. I did one a few years ago titled Violence in Contemporary Southern Literature. I believe they put me on that panel because someone died violently in one of my books, or something like that. Anyway, I got to the panel and met the other two panelists, who seemed nice enough. One was a soft-spoken professor type, and the other was this mild-mannered librarian. The panel started with me, and I got up, read an excerpt from my book, sat down and shut up. When it was time for the other guys to read, they both pulled out knives. We aren’t talking pocketknives, either. I confess I felt real dumb, because all I had to prove myself with was a dang pencil.
Michael Parker is the author of four previous novels and two books of short stories. He teaches in the MFA Writing Program at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro.
Also by MICHAEL PARKER
Hello Down There
The Geographical Cure
Towns Without Rivers
Virginia Lovers
If You Want Me to Stay
The Watery Part of the World
Don't Make Me Stop Now Page 19