Patricia Wood
| A Conversation with Patricia |
Q: What inspired you to write LOTTERY?A: An interconnected and multitudinous array of elements. It was as if my life were shaped and molded to create this novel. Stellar moments include:
Aside from personal experience, my characters Perry and Keith emerged from my subconscious and spoke to me. They made it very clear to me they wanted their story told. Q: You’ve said in previous interviews that we tend to lump together all cognitive disorders and consider all people with mental challenges to be essentially the same. How does Perry’s character challenge this? A: It has always been disconcerting to me how people with cognitive challenges are usually portrayed in film and literature not as complete well-rendered individuals, but more stereotypically – either fearsome and evil (whether intentional or not), or purely inspirational and entirely good. They are also, for the most part, desexualized. I wanted Perry to be a complete human being with all the accompanying angst, desires, and foibles that we all share. This is what makes one character different from another. To have Perry articulate his love for Cherry and have it evolve into desire, jealousy, and pain is one way of showing us his humanity. To have Perry react to these feelings, have him rationalize his slowness and make excuses for his friends, demonstrates how like us he is. “Oh,” the reader says. “Perry is just like me. I've loved someone who has loved another. I know just how he feels.” And we start to see a piece of ourselves in Perry. Q: How did you use your experience studying disability and diversity for your PhD to make LOTTERY accurate? A. Well, this is fiction after all. I did not want to create a dissertation on how society demeans and diminishes people who are termed different, but I did want to be mindful of those issues. There is a fine line between preaching and suggesting. This question is still a reminder that we have a tendency to view those with cognitive challenges as all the same. It also indicates that we feel there is only one genuine portrayal. The key is to remember that the person comes first. Disability is only one facet of what makes us who we are and is not the primary factor that defines us. For example, having Perry listen to customers made him a better salesman than say Keith or Gary, who often did not hear what customers were saying. This shows Perry is capable of excelling in certain areas, even though he was considered slow. Along the same line, my brother-in-law Jeri was unable to fix himself a sandwich or participate actively in a conversation, yet he was able to assemble a ball point pen from scratch. How could he do this? We still do not fully understand the potential of people who have cognitive challenges and, in the past, society has resorted to IQ tests as indicators. It then dismisses people who do not appear to meet certain parameters of ability. Understanding the fallacy of this position is the most important aspect of my studies. There is much we do not know about how to measure any person’s true potential. Q: You lend an air of authenticity to Perry’s narration—what helped you internalize his voice? How were you able to find a balance between Perry’s voice and your own? A: I am so glad that I have given Perry life. This, I think, was the most difficult thing to do. As a writer, I wanted to wow the reader with my prose, amaze them by the choice of my words, create a brilliantly shining phrase, but at every turn, I found myself stymied. Would Perry say that? Would he really think that? What would he do? There is much of Perry that is me – just as commonalities exist between us all. As I have said before, finding these commonalities brings a character to life. It is comical to me, having finished the final edits of LOTTERY, that Perry’s voice is still here with me. I hear it when I look at the list of foreign rights sales and when I read about the readers who are enthused about my book. He whispers in my ear, “This is so totally cool!” Q: Let’s talk about a few of the other characters. Keith is a complex character, at once tortured and tender. Is he modeled after someone you’ve known? And what about Cherry—she’s so young yet falls in love with a man much older than she. Why choose this experience for her? A: Keith is a composite of the many veterans I have known throughout my life. In the Women's Army Corps, during the early seventies, I was stationed at Ft. Belvoir, Virginia, and worked at DeWitt Army Hospital. I experienced first-hand how the Vietnam War devastated so many lives. My ex-husband was an emotional casualty of this war, although the actual date of his death was over thirty years later. My characters determine their own destinies. I originally meant to have Keith facilitate the relationship between Cherry and Perry, but Cherry had her own ideas. She fell hard for Keith. What is it about women that attracts us to flawed and tortured men? We believe we can save them. To Cherry, Perry doesn’t appear to need her, but Keith truly does. It puts Perry in an interesting position – to be considered the one who is less needful. Cherry is obviously looking for a father figure. This is not uncommon in girls who come from abusive situations. It is implied that her father is an alcoholic. She could not save her father, yet the reader feels sure she will save Keith. There is no accounting for love. It comes at a whim with no recourse. It cannot be contrived nor manufactured. It is what it is, and Cherry knows this. Q: A common thread in this story is the threat of someone taking advantage of Perry. How prevalent is this problem among people with mental challenges? A: I have made a habit of compiling newspaper clippings that document these occurrences. It happens often enough: the elderly who are affected by dementia and are divested of their life savings by unscrupulous relatives or “guardians,” and those who have cognitive challenges and are living in group homes that provide substandard care. Just recently, I saw an article about a situation that took place in Washington State. An individual with mental illness was robbed of thousands of dollars by employees of a local business. It happens. We only hear about those cases in which the perpetrators are caught. We hear nothing about people who are successful at stealing the assets of those most vulnerable. We feel we know what is best for those with cognitive challenges, that they need our watchfulness, yet many times this allows unscrupulous individuals to take advantage. Q: In LOTTERY you use a seemingly simplistic voice to convey sophisticated ideas—what do you think this says about the capabilities of individuals with mental challenges? A: Simple is good. Many times thoughts are couched in such complexity they are indecipherable. I am often disappointed in works I have to struggle through making sense of each paragraph. Five-dollar words (as Keith and Gram said) are not the thing. They can be merely a razzle-dazzle sleight of hand to obfuscate meaning. I am an academic, and I have often used this tool myself to give the illusion of competence. The thing is, there are many times when plain speaking and single-syllable words can beautifully portray a feeling, a story, a concept. This is demonstrated in the writings of Paul Coelho in The Alchemist and Voltaire in Candide. Both are simple stories, their complexity found intertwined within, creating magic in our minds. Q: What’s next for Patricia Wood? A: I have several other characters in my head that are vying to have their stories told in my next novel. I may have them flip a coin to see who comes next. |
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