Felicia van Bork, 2014Alan Michael Parker is the author of two previous novels and seven collections of poems. His awards include three Pushcart Prizes and the 2012 North Carolina Book Award. Douglas C. Houchens Professor of English at Davidson College, he also teaches in the University of Tampa low-residency M.F.A. program. He lives in Davidson, North Carolina.
An excerpt from his novel, The Committee on Town Happiness, appeared in Issue Sixty-One of The Collagist.
Here, he answers questions "in the form of excerpts"—with further excerpts from The Committee on Town Happiness. Enjoy!
What is writing like?
How to measure loneliness? Is the wind lonelier than the bee? Is a flower lonely all the time? And what about an empty pocket—what does an empty pocket miss? Or a two-story store with floors of dust? These were our questions, we, the Committee on Town Happiness. (The Committee on Town Happiness, 173)
What isn’t writing like?
Really, until the air’s gone, one never knows where it’s been or why. The air’s not like a person. The air apparently has nothing to do with us—unless or until the air disappears, for only then does the prior air seem real. “Breathless,” “panic,” “choke”: only then do certain words apply. But air that disappears—come now. We might as well try to make a field of purple flowers out of air. Not that we are able. (The Committee on Town Happiness, 120)
When you do it, why?
Our town was like a messy drawer. Or bigger, like a shed where all the whatnots and thingamabobs have been dumped. The whosiwhatsies. So we organized in a good way, with pegboards and little hooks, the floors swept out. Not that your innocent passerby would want to help. Happiness requires a little extra giving, a tad more organizing of our feelings to make our feelings everyone’s, unanimity a goal, like love. Even if the same people were occasionally out-loved. (The Committee on Town Happiness, 133)
When you don’t, why?
Who has the time? Who has the inclination, the energy, the easily suspended morals, the back-up garments, the identically re-tied shoes, the managed hair, the fantastic glimmer, the inter-personal savvy? Priorities, everyone. Happiness first. (The Committee on Town Happiness, 173)