“Is there anything you’d like to ask me? Are you curious to know what I’ll do with the answers you’ve given me?”
From his award-winning debut novel Edisto in 1984, Padgett Powell’s writing has defied categorization. Lyrical, comical, experimental, heart breaking, strange, southern—Powell’s fiction is all of these things and, of course, more. Author of two story collections and four more novels, including his most recent The Interrogative Mood: A Novel?, Powell has been called “one of the few truly important American writers of our time.” (Sam Lipsyte) On Thursday, November 4th he took a moment away from teaching at the University of Florida, eating mullet (the best river fish since catfish), and warring with raccoons to read to a packed house at Miami University’s Leonard Theatre.
Skipping back and forth between sections of The Interrogative Mood (“at the risk of losing the narrative thread”) Powell’s questions turned with ease from the comic (“If you were to crash fatally in a small plane, does it matter to you whether you shit your pants before the crash, or after?”) to the soul-searching (“If it might fairly be said that you have hopes and fears, would you say you have more hopes than fears, or more fears than hopes?”) to the seemingly banal (“Are you bothered by socks not matching up in subtler respects than color?”) to the awfully tragic (“Have I told you of the time my grandmother escaped the nursing home and I found her a block a way on a door stoop expiring in the sun and she said to me, ‘what took you so long?’”). At times, while paging the book for what to read next, Powell would recite a handful of useful phrases for which to navigate France. Other moments passed in thoughtful silence, as though all gathered were sincere in considering where they stood in relation to the potato.
It was a sporty and fun time for all in attendance. Graciously, Powell did not spoil the book’s ending. ~Matt Weinkam
