Robert Lopez is the author of two novels, Part of the World and Kamby Bolongo Mean River and a story collection, Asunder.
His story, "A Good Percentage," appeared in Issue Forty-Nine of The Collagist.
Here, he talks with interviewer Elizabeth Deanna Morris about babies, aloofness, and a subway encounter.
How did you go about writing “A Good Percentage?
This one started on the subway. Something like what happened in the story happened that night on the subway. Perhaps not exactly like in the story, but close enough. I went home after seeing what I saw and finished the story that night or maybe it was the next day.
I love how you repeat baby so many times in this story. I feel like it really builds up the baby into an ideal or an icon, something like the “form” of baby. Could you talk about your decision use the word “baby” over and over instead of “child,” “infant,” etc.?
Baby is a great word. Child is good, but this was a baby, not a child. The baby was indeed an infant, but that word didn’t occur to me while putting this together. Baby seemed right at the time.
Though we know the speaker is first person (the “I” is used early on), the speaker feels almost third person until nearer to the end, because s/he only observes what’s going on with the baby and the reactions of the seven women. At the end, when the speaker admits his or her own weaknesses and that s/he plans on calling Esperanza, it’s refreshing, as if the speaker has made the decision to try to realign something amiss in his or her life. I found this reading especially interesting when I found out that Esperanza means “hope” in Spanish. Could you talk about writing such a short piece with such an aloof speaker?
Seems that aloof narrators are the only ones that speak to me. Again, this might not be altogether true. But the use of Esperanza was deliberate. I think there might have been another name at some point, but then Esperanza occurred to me and the piece was finished.
What reading suggestions can you give us?
Pedro Paramo by Juan Rulfo.
What have you been writing recently?
I started a new story last night. Perhaps it’s a story. Seems like it could be, like it has that potential. This has been the only writing I’ve done since June, which again, isn’t altogether true.