6/26/2023 0 Comments Happy Talk by Richard Melo![]() ![]() With that in mind, my writing technique is quite a bit like practicing voodoo. I’m on the opposite end of the spectrum, though, and lean more heavily on my imagination than personal experience. Tom Wolfe believes that novel writing should be like journalism and rely on in-person reporting, and I see value in that kind of work. I’m not a scholar or an academic, but I can write a novel, so that’s the direction I took. ![]() These were not works that I could just read and put away on a shelf. ![]() ![]() I was inspired mostly by Maya Deren's study of Haitian voodoo and dance in The Divine Horseman, as well as William Gaddis' brilliant, dialogue-driven novel, The Recognitions, which was published in 1955. I'm always on the lookout for material that might flourish in a novel, and idea of unwitting Americans channeling voodoo spirits seemed to have limitless dramatic (and comic) (and cosmic) possibilities. My own tendency is to want to create emotional connections to the characters as much as possible, which might just make me a lousy postmodernist. I drew the book from 1960s postmodern novels that featured characters who were often more alienating than endearing. Happy Talk is a novel full of minor characters playing major parts. Where did the idea for this novel come from? ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |