A Word on Words; 3417; Michael Parker

as our adult hour one john singleton once again welcome to word own words michael parker welcome to word on words about your new book if you want me to shoot it if you want me to stay and that's a provocative title which you wonder what's this book about in this book is about a little boy was an omen for art there here the narrator is forty years old and he's dealing with a lot of family stuff his father's psalm prone to fits of mental instability and when the book opens his certainly have any in the instances sense of a huge crazy is an attack here in his butt is also

known at least in the boy's eyes is really a great man i mean the boy loves him and sees good in him and sees good in him almost everyone inmates so i think that's really important for for me at least because i feel like you know characters in fiction it's not be all good or all bad that need to be mixed amended to have contradictions and they need to have that sort of fond tension between goodness and badness and were to be interesting this is the ultimate dysfunctional family and i would say not fair yeah i would say there's a log on and that's really troubling in baton and sometimes violent but there's also a lot of love i think between the brothers and between the sun the narrator and the father in him for his mother his flat and left them with this father who is pretty crazy home and and also with the music that runs for the book which is classic soul music man the way that debt has been handed down from the father to the son

on hand to all those songs in the way that they cherish as a kind of legacy and rebounded to sustain them in really difficult times you know i wish i could tell our viewers that this is a story with a happy ending where it's not what it is a story that depicts courage innocence heroism or it's a story of brotherly love that we haven't saying no long long time we think of classic boys and stories in all and caulfield in catcher in the rye come from mine this boy needs no therapy he's got it all together and in ways only golf you

would understand and know and ways you wish for talk about him this child this street smart kid written by tragedy where does he come from in your mind or less a tough question time enough to like all characters come out of gong really have language itself or maiming i first heard the rhythm of his voice and there's something in the way that he speaks in the way that he puts words together which is derived from both sides the coastal plan for cholera from another lesser medium there and also found this amusing that he listens to mom that suggests a mason serve from the kind of thing you're talking about i mean courage and wisdom of belief that things like music can sustain you in really difficult times on him in and they have there's really kind of a spirituality and this boy you know it doesn't really derived from traditional worship

or church knowing that you know it transcends a lot of like really hard difficult stuff as to where it came from and monday as in the sky and the question they know you know what you know i had at the data that though that you abandoned the program the party value that subvert them at or below that element of that where there is now only one dumb enough to know where stuff comes no no no no i am but it's a tough question it's a tough question and there were or the shock on front of them think that he's not like them or next door math unless you live next to a family that periodically go for incidents of major disruption even violence violence that would indeed drive a mother away

early on a sister angie he asked for intimate what's wrong what's wrong with him was a follow like this she suggests that well you know more often when the man came back and you know more of the same is true he's too smart for that and he knows it's maybe something buried in the james maybe something buried in the past that his followers deranged were ironically rosie victim will only way i think there's a huge difference between sickness an illegal in iran and i think the sister in particular was to explain things in a very sort of liberal on explainable way mom she wants there to be a reason for the way their father is and she's i'm tired of heaven a deal with him and calm and most to blame him and a master whale an orca much on a judge

her for that i want the reader to but john junior seems to understand tom does because his own psyche assessor a finely tuned and sensibility is so yeah almost overwrought and some wise and i think when the tensions in the book is as he comes in and out of consciousness on hearing because he is is taking his brother away in their triumph on a lover in ago on this two day journey and calm you know he's he suffers a lot during that time said he's exhausted his traumatized his tired and he's his thoughts began to castro a and he goes in and out of you know that pratt past and the present and so i think when the tensions is does he have the same sort of illness that his father to us and i wanted to reread it two to wonder about life certainly did it if i tell myself he got an altogether any cape wind up that way on the other hand his experiences could be debilitating and you know whether it's

in the genes are well and it's an experience or combination of two as any restriction or the street smart mouth really smart he can be a thief and we have absolutely called on to do so and in very clever about it set the tank and little brother when until only thing in a bathroom galloway trying to steal some clothes for you it's the cops getting them one boy in the end even though it costs the truth the news sound like a liar i've come alive ow sound like the true thrive and he has the instinct to know both and i think that comes from his own experience living in a family with a mother that is costly unhappy in and a father that has occasionally crazy yet he's been that that caregiver for those old boys the mainland that when the novel opens you know he's facing them breakfast is getting them ready for the day

he's the one that takes care of everyone in the family so he's very skilled in and survival at the same time that i think is a huge discrepancy between the way that he sees the world and his father and his situation and the way that the reader sees it a memento operators say you know this book just was so brutal for may and i felt so bad for those boys are in almost could not finish it i was glad they said almost always good to hear that they could be alive for this my job to make you read today and what he did to keep it dramatizes carter and clank right he's your junior drive down the bakery like to be joined here but i mean carter is he's a tragic figure we don't know much about and said she gets court in a trap line that med track of violence inflicted by a father

it is that back since carter i'm sorry but since you're doing away with today in search of there is a scene in which his mother of a dumpster moon cakes into wrote his house for ayer as he walks across a strange she said the war like that in and he says what a great line like a puppet on a broken string and that's her way of saying fan of footnoted shows biden and she says it's a terrible war he think she's coming back sunday but maybe he knows she's not witches well i think it's worth it now may i think he always knows that he always expects the best armed and then when he's disappointed by people's better particularly as parents and the authority figures and it's not terribly surprised here on but again to set mix of hopefulness in on the street smarts that i think makes him an

interesting character in that to my mind and make you like a preening because that there has to be that time neither terry and that trust and that faith and that her spirit and in his character for him to be interesting to me from nato to write the book and i never i see written a first person novel before always got to place thirty and thought i can't suffer through with this person where else they sound too much like me in and that's not interesting to me that this was this and this is not a really long novel either only a hundred at hunter nine pages arm i fell like that for a person to tell a story it has to be really really interesting to me and i'm in to the reader and there's no surprises for me as i ride into misrata been surprises for the reader so there's a lot in the book that really was surprising to me i mean i did not know where oh where it was going you talk about his ambivalence about by jordan is ambivalence

there a few votes everywhere in bulk when he and tank flee when in a fall a stroke then he's looking at is follow the laws that brought karl urban you see as the hero more than delays going to find his mother and sister many miles away in a rare in terms of you know the fall when this way before corner of your eye on the other hand he hasn't really seen it fall of this way before and something tells them maybe it's not going to be open and the and that i'm sure is holding him throughout this brief two day journey before it fell back by the fed tragic reality but in the process there is even more

tragedy because at the end of the line he finds energy in but also finds that his mother has died the fire in n g talk about energy who says there have you ever known just like if you are was there ever a sister i think i've gone out of la girls aged so i can't say if you know on this life where i have my mind psy you know i mean she's a foul mouth bossy extremely independent girl has just on the best you can and that's the way it deals with it in nfl likewise trying to do is to show that you know in our own way and mangy sort of turn her back on the family and can be seen as having betrayed her little brothers but she does have some love for them stale and so she's she just deal with that the way she deals with it which has to run off and hang out with

boys in smog it was a serious and party and just try to get through it and in english it can or greeting when my father and i remember a nation but for them in her own way she makes an effort maybe the best ever jay goodwin to help them are not much help in and it doesn't do much good and she doesn't know what happened to her mother the promised land for are not the promise land but surely we find out that hope she may be in a promised land that accident of mother on now this is something that george to the cause he said that what happens i think is is that the policeman says you know we tried to contact her and was a street close by while joe jews counter that and a police station the police contact are instances oh that's right yeah don't wanna say well that's exactly right and so they split and

he tells the right street clothes and when those proper eye on the first audience odd angle a uniformed policeman turned a wall street clothes the troops riot those are huge right say my set up and that's something that runs throughout the book i mean he makes up the stories about his mother ann about his father really intense really you know the only way he can survive his coming out was some scenario in some version of his reality that allows him to go on and then that gun in the house fire thing is this something that he makes up in order to not have to do a perfect at the mother doesn't want to see him and that the mother tells the police you know i can't take a man i can write so it is you know and in her why does the sign say meaty taste hangars at once a word she thinks tank his foundation's executive humility adamantly so they're still songs or familial loyal to after think an angel she is not as far gone in some other perhaps

in the mother i mean it's a it's a hard thing for the mother to the top with a hard thing to write about tonight and i felt like in some ways i should've had this scene with the mother when they go to find her in and have that same debt than without that same you know to mayonnaise the more powerful for it for georgia nugent may come up with a scenario it so badly foreign fighter i wanted it to him and i worried about what they were going to fine when they don't drive you want that i know you want to read it to worry about what they're going to find when they go there and an end and that nobody read this book boom won't worry about what how does the media say we've blown to just sitting in i'm talking with michael farber about his new book if you want me to stay and you talk about music and if you want me to say that title when i know you got that area that still from the rich and gave to the poor as mama and so on the families and the family stone and

an and there's a little there's a little old there's little american music that runs through this book give the ad time has virtual lived in cincinnati ryan but i said you want to you want us to or you want to speculate on what he'd find when he goes home and if he goes home you will have us all as he's going no to war the trauma find themselves to bother you want us to hopeful every i do this and i think that you know you started you're not alone if you know no you know i don't really specialize in happy endings mms are really my thing as a standard in north carolina and they gather at my previous books and said you know really sugarcoat do notice that neither side really viable jim lovell we have an appeal which is really good well many outstanding and then they'll go and raise

us a little note to you know to bring people in damages to like fiction is about you know both the good things in life and i'm not hard difficult things and i say that only thing that's interesting to write about really has trouble you know in that peaceful time for be a terrific beautiful life is not of much interest to readers and certainly not of much interest to writers so you have to have that tension always another hand you know i did want people to think of things are going to come out or i am in some ways in my mind even though they name is violet and is on traumatic and as taft there's some sense i mean just listening to talk about joe jr an as a survivor and is a wise time kid is really common adult i mean i think that's that's a measure of of his some transcendence of his situation in some ways

what leads him to go back and i guess he got nowhere else to go he does not want to come as he finds out he well mine does not want a child of state custody grier he's in a struggle and almost won a sequel parallels want you to tell me what's the lesson of the georgian well i think it's a question of guilt nation go back i mean he makes a really tragic mistake and certainly in this way the book is set up in a very sort of classic on time honored way in that they are the quote unquote hero makes a very tragic mistake early on in this song and in the concert to say why he does it because he needs to protect his younger brother but you can also in some ways blame him for it because he raises his the middle brother behind in and he didn't start in la in a situation that you

know well right the tragic that that child going to be that we can't leave them emotionally honest not physically harm than is not until much later two days ms ryan well i know i'm just a lot of the more right than a father's never exhibited into any kind of violence before prior to the books and became a book has always been just like crazy the house the dead dogs he says cuts of the mattress and mugs for money he has voiced he hears voices and when he's you know he's either all for his crazy when he's on his own sweet loving extremely giving father who takes care of his kids and takes him to a record storm by the records and plays music form in the unit cooks form and takes him to the state fair and takes him to a flea market and does all the things that quote unquote normal father's day so i think joe jr system walston these to believe that everything is going to be ok time but yet he knows that there's a possibility that that will be the case and said that's that's

what drives them away and what makes him that well let's talk about his father let's talk about the show leads him to do what they did and so when i'm a wooden would not a riyadh are you know i've never where'd you get a lot of never named i mean i wouldn't call it schizophrenia or you know manic depression or anything wrong and some people that's you know is it what is it is it schizophrenia and manic depressive and in one didn't want the book today about an issue he now no one is an illness to just pay a confidant a manifestation of what's wrong with all of us of much more severe example of just that the way that we can do but really loving and sometimes really self it's self absorbed and cruel so did you doing research a little as well i mean i've known people who have had

hiv exhibited this kind of these kinds of symptoms and yeah i mean i know the people in my family also have tom i'm much more problems and psychiatric problems and we'll we'll know people here to live here and i think it's very important to understand her as i said before this is that this man is sick that he's not a bad man in there you know in some ways he just an islamic cultures and probably understood where you can just go down to the cvs and get a prescription for lithium and are your promise will be solved mean this is hard scrabble world eastern north carolina the father's job is that sixteen people which is a keyhole the job he doesn't have health insurance you know he doesn't he's not he is as as joe davis is an assistant there is an assistant carpenter an assistant by for the ride as the employer madison the roofer and enjoy says you know and he could've been something had not been real as

andy what about all the huge working for him of assistance arrived exactly are and i'm a little smiley the father grade potential is cinnamon is is a smart man and sunrise and got a great taste in music well i i don't know whether the flu as george jr goes whoa i don't know whether i had knew that color and unlocking the kilton i know where he would file in and out of a window when he encounters a full moon except the bloody shirt which could've been wrongly year prior i don't really know what's going to happen how soon did you know as the writer of the storied fascinated you know that carter was going to be

slain the imam or writing their last sane and i remember getting to the page before the mountain the page and they can follow i really think i would have to do this now i mean i really i don't really dislike on to sing when you're working like very work you images your common sense is you're working with is pushing through today and then you you know i mean ryan also once once described as i travel across the country and it can you know your headlights i mean you can only see as far as the headlights die so the darkness so i just a little bit ahead and i just got to the point last fall in name and i knew that there was one it can happen and in some ways i thought i came in the book it's racist to modest button on an event that was that the integrity of the book to my mind would be a violent violent if i did not because it's really an inevitable force and what the book is about his inevitability i mean you know there's that says it's a

huge force in fiction it's a huge animal magnetism you know this week we have to deal with the allies and serve not to pull away from mass and to try to veer off and have everything turn our i would be dishonest i think that for me to have done even though the push for with it was a risk because i think people generally walt thanks to end well i do and i certainly understand that you know there's there's certain situations where you just have to tell the truth and that seemed to be the truth for this book there was a store it's a powerful story and show how gut wrenching story not a heart wrenching story turns your stomach a pardon when you think about it and then you have to think what would happen in a juncture long way if the sheriff that the effective different rice mother had acted differently it his sister had acted before those are good questions of her and i'm glad you're

asking them cause i think that you know this the tragedy could have been averted on and yet you know the us yes mostly kong i think that joe jr that survives i really do think oh i could write a sequel really because i feel like if there's enough pheromones found pages and in the music and in the way that he responds to the world and then his incredibly inimitable way of seeing the world that says that suggests he's going on transcend all the stuff we'll have not only what your next pick which are alleged i have a book of stories called armed don't make me stop now which is i stole from iris read an advanced though for marriage and go to the poorer less coming out next year from the press well we'll be here all at the new bureau thank you so much for being with us sir thank that quality of water and johnson and overlord own words he read it