Q & A

Is this just another Southern novel?

By ‘Southern novel’ do you mean a novel that glamorizes Southern mythology?

I am not sure what you mean by “Southern mythology.”

You know, A Gone with the Wind type novel featuring a quixotic Confederate gentleman who saves the pretty white dame in the ball gown while the plantation home burns to ashes, the slaves throw off their shackles and run free, and in marches the Union Army…

Got it. I was talking more along the lines of Southern Gothic: Faulkner, Welty, O’Connor, Williams, Hannah, Gay, etc.

Then hell yeah it is. Ain’t Whistlin’ Dixie No More attempts to defy all the Gone with the Wind tactics – the phony Antebellum archetypes – and expose the hypocrisies and bigotries that, transcending racial tensions in the South, are vile human attitudes plaguing human beings of all colors around the world, from backwoods Mississippi to the most remote village in China. The Mississippi and the characters I portray in Dixie serve as a metaphor for all societies and so-called snivilization on this great big spinning marble we all inhabit. I am trying to show the rest of the world that in the land of cotton, Mississippi, it should not only be the good times that are not forgotten but also the horror that persists today, in large part as a result of a mythologized “good times” past.

Can you give an example of that horror?

The horror that Mississippi has about the worst public school system in the United States. The horror that, to this day, it is pretty much impossible for a black man to be elected governor in Mississippi despite that the state prides itself and brags, even, about having more elected black officials than any other state in the country. The horror that if you go into a restaurant in Northeast Jackson around lunchtime on the Sabbath, you see all these pretty, preppy whites being served by blacks, and look back in the kitchen and guess who is doing all the cooking? But, like I said, the horror of racism that exists in my novel is not unique to Mississippi but is present all throughout the world. The horror of embarking on a tourist cruise along the Yangtze River in China with a group of Chinese and another group of South Koreans or, even better, Japanese, and between the two groups you feel—and see—the instant animosity. Horrors like that. White and black Mississippians really live in a small world of their own, and I think—I know that both races are disconnected from the rest of the world. Similarly, the rest of the world is disconnected from the South. But the horror of racism and bigotry is by no means only a “Mississippi problem.” No, Mississippi is just one of many sites for the crime of racism—the symptoms are still readily seen—but to really find the cause we have to look deeper into our hearts and minds.

What will it take to end racism?

The end of humanity. Racism and prejudice are instilled, explicitly and subliminally, into our minds at such an early age. As such, I find it difficult to foresee—although I cannot cease to hope for—humanity free of racism.

So you think humans are intrinsically racist?

We are not born racists. Take a look on the playground of any multiracial preschool in America, and you will see children of all different colors playing and getting along. Somewhere along the line, though, these kids are exposed to racism. I consider it more like an inheritance, passed from one generation to another. It comes down to adults in a given generation.

Let’s get back to your book. How do you define a Southern novel?

My definition of a Southern novel—or any novel for that matter—is art that confronts an issue rather than that which serves as a form of entertainment and escapism only. I think that a good Southern novel must contain satire, tragedy, and drama. A lot of Southern works deal with white guilt—you know, the stammering Jimmy Carter or Bill Clinton archetype who feels the need to constantly atone for the sins of his great-grandparents. But what does a given white Southerner born, for example, after 1968 have to apologize for? Should Germans born after 1940 be constantly apologizing and atoning for the sins of their parents and grandparents? I would sooner argue that a lot of young blacks born after 1968 are the ones that should be apologizing.

OK. I am so not following you right now. Can you clarify?

Blacks that challenged the old order in the Southern United States back in the day when the word “Nigger” was thrown around as loosely as the word love is today—back in the 1950s and 1960s when there really were segregated public restrooms and drinking fountains—these blacks are my heroes. Look at all the change they created. They paved the way for every minority living in the United States today, yet they seem to have been forgotten. Yes, racism has always existed in the United States: the Chinese Exclusion Act, the Japanese-American internment camps—it goes on and on. But blacks in the 1960s said, “This is enough: we’ve had enough of this bullshit,” and they did something about it. So, when you have so many young black males today filling the prisons, or just listen to the blatant disrespect in their Rap lyrics—is that paying homage to their parents and grandparents who suffered so much and really did give their lives and dignity for a cause? Gangsta Rap? Give me a break. Would the grandparents of these gangsta rappers really approve? Just 40 years ago the dream for African Americans was equality. Today, for many African Americans, the dream is no longer equality but superiority, you know, who can get the most “bitches and hos to suck on they toes.”

Isn’t that a bit extreme?

Perhaps for a white man to say. But I am pretty sure there are a lot of African Americans out there who would agree with me: Bill Cosby, Ishmael Reed, Henry Louis Gates Jr., Russell Simmons, Stanley Crouch, Eric Michael Dyson, Reverend Al Sharpton, etc.

Wow. That’s a bold assertion; these are heavy hitters. Have you talked to them about the issue directly?

Of course not, but I’ve read their works.

Let’s get back to the tragedy. What, then, is the tragedy in your definition of the Southern novel?

Well, in the 2007-2008 contemporary Southern novel, I think the tragedy is that here we are, 132 years after the War Between the States….

You mean the Civil War, right?

No, I mean the War Between the States. Like my Daddy always says, “What was so Civil about it?” Anyway, I like to work from the Aristotelian definition of a tragedy. Aristotle said that a tragedy is that which “creates a catharsis of fear and pity.” I think I have succeeded at doing this in Dixie. I mean, come on: 1994 and Mississippi still had not ratified the 13th Amendment?

Just so your audience will know, the 13th Amendment abolished slavery, right?

Yes and no. Ratifying the 13th Amendment abolished slavery, but Mississippi, up until 1995, had never ratified it. White land owners in Mississippi were so pissed off after the war—you know, having lost their land and a loathsome means to a lucrative end—that they just never “got around” to ratifying it.

Back to the tragedy.

Yes, Aristotle also defined a tragedy as “action that is whole and complete and of a certain magnitude.” I believe that all 384 pages of Dixie accomplish this.

What about the satire? What are you satirizing?

Racism, both white and black. While much of the novel is satirical, it also examines the tragic racism exhibited by every character in the novel.

Are people in modern Mississippi really as venomous and full of hatred as the characters in Dixie?

Listen: if, in fact, there is a heaven, I am sure there are plenty of folks up there who are no different from the folks in Dixie. It’s just that in Dixie, we get to watch how people behave behind closed doors. All I, as a novelist, am doing is opening that door so everyone else can see what is otherwise done behind closed doors and despite overt attempts at political correctness. Look, what I’m doing here ain’t that different then what, say, Restoration Comedy did in the 1800s, what Oscar Wilde did in the 1900s, and what Seinfeld did in the 1990s—holding up a mirror to society and forcing us to look at ourselves from the most unflattering—if most necessarily examined—angles.

But Carson, this isn’t just any mirror you are holding up—it’s more like a fun-house mirror.

True. I won’t deny that my characters are in fact grotesque, spiteful, reclusive, egregious, racist, bigoted, egotistical, flawed, self-righteous, cartoon-like characters who are morally and spiritually bankrupt. But that should come as no surprise: we live in a world where the institutions we were taught as children to revere have failed us: chiefly, the government, the church, the schools, our parents. The result: self-absorbed human beings with more ‘important’ things to worry about than the universal perpetuation of racism.

Are you worried that the African American community will accuse you of being a racist?

Why? The racism in my novel is balanced. The white racists are just as bad, if not worse, than the black racists. I get so sick and tired of all the black and white, male and female, Southern stereotypes, you know, that I decided to write a book that takes every Southern stereotype, from the politician to the governor to the gold-digging harlot to the maid to the crack mother to the food we Southern folk eat and blow them up larger than life. I took all these characters and for the last eight years have lived with them in a mansion, yes, filled with only fun-house mirrors. I guess you can characterize Dixie as a carnival of the grotesque.

Back to my original question: Are you afraid that the African American community will accuse you of being a racist? Listen to the way the black characters speak.

There is nothing racist or derogatory at all about the way my black characters speak. The blacks in my novel speak a legitimate language—Black English Vernacular or, as it is more commonly known, Ebonics. And if a black writer wrote the novel and had his characters speaking with such a dialect, would he be considered a racist? I like to write dialogue as people actually speak. And if you don’t believe me, then watch any newscast in the Southern United States with closed captioning. I did, and I even watched scenes in Crash with closed captioning. I did my research here. My white characters do not use King’s English either.

So you’ve actually researched Black English Vernacular, or did you just pick up the accent—

You mean dialect.

OK. So you just picked up the dialect?

Both. I got really into BEV in Graduate School, and having grown up in Mississippi with many black friends, this is the dialect I grew up around. My white characters also speak with a distinct dialect. Now why didn’t you ask me if the white audience would be offended? Back in Graduate School, I discovered the work of Steven Pinker, a professor in the Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences at MIT. He wrote a great book called The Language Instinct. So in this book, he breaks down the difference between Black English Vernacular (BEV) and Standard American English (SAE). He points out there are several instances when BEV is actually more precise than SAE.

How so?

Well, here’s an example—and there are several examples in my novel. And I got this information from the Pinker book, so it’s not like I’m blowing smoke up your backside. Say you’ve got a black kid named James and he’s in a fight with one of his friends. So the kid he’s in a fight with calls James at his house, and James has his sister answer the phone. Oh, and James has told his sister to tell his friend that if the friend calls, tell the friend James ain’t home. The conversation might go something like this: “James they?” “Naw, he not here.” “Where he at?” “He be working.” Now, in BEV, “he be working” means that he really is at a job working; this story is believable. However, if his sister said “he working,” well, that only means that he is working at the time the sentence is uttered. He could be working at anything: his homework at the kitchen table; washing dishes at the sink; picking fleas off the dog.

You seem to revel in both the sound and the structure of how blacks, atleast in your novel, speak.

Oh, I love it. I mean, “proper English” is so boring. Forget about that whole “Frankly, Scarlett, I don’t give a damn” kind of speak, or “Who is kicking whom.” BEV has soul—honesty to it. See, a lot of folks will make fun of blacks for the way they speak. You hear these jokes all the time. But what they don’t realize—and neither did I until Pinker broke it down for me—is that BEV is not merely laziness and lack of concern for “proper” English. No, BEV allows its speakers the option of deleting copulas (“to be” verbs). This is a systematic rule that is similar to the contraction rule present in SAE that reduces He is to He’s and I am to I’m, or, better yet, You all to Y’all…

You really are a Southerner.

Oh, I fight hard for “Y’all” in my composition classroom: it is a contraction that works! Anyway, if you don’t believe there is an actual system at work in the language my characters speak, call Dr. Pinker up at MIT and take it up with him. I just work here.

So what’s the deal with your Author’s Note?

You mean why I did not dedicate the novel to my wife but instead….

Yes, that’s what I mean. Spike Lee? Lenny Bruce? Richard Pryor? Tupac Shakur!?

So we’ll start with Tupac. I presume you’ve read my novel. You seem to know a lot about it. Now go back and listen to Tupac’s 1995 album Me Against the World, specifically the songs Me Against the World, So Many Tears, and Fuck the World. Now go back and watch Richard Pryor’s Live on the Sunset Strip. Next watch a documentary on Lenny Bruce called Without Tears, and after that Spike Lee’s Do the Right Thing. To complete your education read Ishamel Reed’s Mumbo Jumbo, and anything by James Baldwin.

So you’ll dedicate the next novel to your wife?

The next novel and all those to follow. If it were not for her, I would have never published Dixie. The novel I just finished, Fat Dreams of Pushing Daisies, is the novel I wrote for D.

Let me ask you, then, about the audience. Who is your audience?

This is primarily a black and white novel, and for all those out there who are interested in understanding the racial issues that exist between blacks and whites. My audience is broad—there’s a little bit of everything in this novel: history, music, language, geography, mystery, action, passion, romance, hatred, murder—everything. Ultimately, when I was thinking of audience, I first thought of blacks. I think they are often left out when it comes to literature and film. Besides, I love Hip-Hop, and wanted to create a Hip-Hop type of novel.

How is your novel Hip-Hop?

How is it not? Like Hip-Hop, my novel circulates ideas, images, sounds, and style. Now that I think about it, perhaps Dixie is more like Rap. I mean, what I aimed to do with Dixie was create a novel that dealt with African American anger, rebellion, cultural style, and their modern-day experience through satire.

What about the white audience?

Hey, who do you think is buying Hip-Hop and Rap albums? I tell you who: white kids from the suburbs. If you don’t believe me, read Why White Kids Love Hip Hop by Bakari Kitwana. It really does take two to tango. Are there a lot of white racists out there? You bet. Are there a lot of black racists out there? Of course there are. But a lot more whites and blacks out there are not racist. Yet folks love to rely on stereotypes much more than they strive to seek the truth. And since folks love stereotypes so much, well, I figured I would write a 385 Aristotelian tragedy filled with every stereotype you can imagine. Instead of trying to find Waldo, hey, try and find the stereotype. And once you find the stereotype, test it out and see if it’s true or not.

Do you hate Mississippi, and if so is writing this novel a way for you to strike back?

No, I do not hate Mississippi. I will say this: Mississippi is a great place to be from, but it’s a shitty place to live.

Do you think Mississippians will embrace or reject this novel?

Mississippians, black and white, are a proud people. Hard to say. I think they’ll love it. Nobody from Mississippi has ever written a book like this. Really, though, I’m not trying to speak for any particular race, but, rather, against racism.

When did you leave Mississippi?

I think I was 18.

Did you go to public schools there?

Yes, I went to Casey Elementary. That is where I really got my first taste of racism.

Can you explain?

Sure, in the third grade I had a birthday party and invited black kids into my neighborhood. The neighbors were furious. End of story.

Where did you go to high school?

Murrah.

That’s the same high school in the novel, right?

Right.

What kind of student were you?

The kind that never studied. I hated high school. I got picked on a lot till my senior year. Before that I went to a private Baptist academy for grades 7-9, and got kicked out for a number of reasons.

Name one.

Well, this dumb-jock coach of mine, who prided himself on his paddle, called me into his office to discuss the length of my hair: it touched my collar. The school had a policy that hair could not touch the collar. So behind the coach was this huge portrait of Jesus (you know, the one you see in Sunday schools across America, the white smiling Jesus with the long brown hair). I said, “Coach, but he had long hair.” Coach turned around and looked, said something ridiculous, and I called him a fraud or a phony or something like that. I was entrenched in my “Holden Caulfield” phase at the time.

Is it true you studied at Ole Miss?

Let’s just say I attended Ole Miss for a year and pretended to be a student.

What was your GPA?

Put it this way. The only two classes I passed were English Composition (like Holden Caulfield) and Military Science. I got kicked out. I was pretty miserable. I ditched my finals to spend a weekend in Louisville, Kentucky: boat races and the Derby.

So you get kicked out of Ole Miss, but end up graduating from Berkeley—as the commencement speaker, no less—and went on to get two graduate degrees. And you now teach? How did that happen?

I guess Jesus really does love me.

How long did it take you to write Ain’t Whistlin’ Dixie No More?

I started working on it eight years ago. But I guess the novel really began back when I was a kid in Mississippi and just couldn’t figure out why people there acted as they did. I always wondered if the rest of the world was like Mississippi, and it really depressed me to think about it.

In terms of writing, how important is an editor?

Ask Robert Plant how important Jimmy Page was, or ask Michael Jordan how important Scottie Pippen was. Hey, if Fitzgerald, Hemingway, and Wolfe were alive, you could ask them how important Maxwell Perkins (also dead) was. A writer is nothing without a good editor.

Do you have an editor?

I did not till about five months ago, but if it were not for him, Michael Hobbs, you would not be badgering me right now. He was able to help me cut Dixie down from 542 pages to 380 pages in just six weeks. He even convinced me to get rid of the only moral character, save Kim, and first-person narrator of the story. Hobbs is my Maxwell Perkins. He is my American Express card: I will never write another book without him. He is a genius.

Do you currently have an agent?

Nope.

Isn’t that kind of like being accused of murder and choosing to represent yourself in court?

You mean suicide?

Something like that.

Listen, I spent seven years collecting bills and making deals for dot.com companies, collecting millions in delinquent accounts receivables from phantom contracts; they called me the bulldawg. I know how to handle my business. Besides, I am the son of a Vietnam Veteran and badass lawyer. Dad taught me a thing or two about handling business.

But what if Hollywood or the big publishers come calling?

Two of my best friends are lawyers. They can handle that. Listen, there was a time when folks needed stockbrokers and then on-line trading came long. Of course every agent out there wants writers to think they can’t make it without them, but do you really think publishing houses like dealing with them? Do you really think NBA owners like dealing with sports agents? I had an agent once. She was a Hollywood agent, from the talent-agent side—a New Yorker. A real pushy fast-talker. Who needs that? Besides, so many literary agents I have talked with seem to be quite illiterate. Many literary agents I’ve dealt with have not even read the authors I most adore, so how can I ever expect them to understand or appreciate my work? All they give a shit about is making their 10 percent off your work, and, in the process, a name for themselves. I think they all secretly wanted to be writers but lacked the talent or discipline to write every day. They kind of remind me of sports agents, you know, the kids who sucked at sports in high school but nevertheless were obsessed with college and professional sports.

So if the right agent came along, you wouldn’t hire him or her?

It all depends. I like to keep my business in the family. Not literally, of course, but I think you know what I mean—someone I can trust with my life’s work like a mother or sister, a father or brother. These are the kind of relationships I seek. The trick, though, is to find an agent like this who is also ambitious and will not take no for an answer—without being pushy but always polite and courteous: bad manners kill me. There is one lady I want to represent me, Anne Hawkins of John Hawkins Literary Agency. Maybe now she will.

Many fiction writers out there roll their eyes whenever Oprah Winfrey endorses a novel and puts it in her book club. What would you do if Oprah came calling?

I would roll out the red carpet and kiss Oprah on the cheek. I will never forget when Oprah wanted to put her stamp on Franzen’s The Corrections, and he made a big stink about it. What a loser. A writer writes to be read, and if Oprah can encourage folks to read your book, well, the writer should be thankful. Besides, his book wasn’t all that—a real bummer if you ask me. I hear folks all the time griping about how nobody reads anymore, yet when Oprah endorses a novel and gets people to read, folks start hating on her. I think novelists should thank Oprah. She has done more to save the world of fiction in popular culture than anyone.

Oprah is from Mississippi. How do you think she will like the book?

I think she’ll like it. Tell you the truth, Oprah’s childhood, in part, inspired me to create the character, Kim Wallace.

A few more questions. Is is true that you were the paperboy of one of the South’s most famous female writers, Eudora Welty?

It’s true.

There seems to be a stigma attached to self-published novels, almost as if the author is unworthy. Why did you decide to self-publish Ain’t Whistlin’ Dixie No More?

I was sitting in a café, about a year ago, listening to this really terrible guitarist playing a God-awful version of Blackbird. Man, his voice was like the sound of a drill sawing off a dental bridge. And there were all these really shitty paintings from a local artist hanging on the wall. They were paintings of cowboys and rodeo clowns. I got really depressed, because here I was with a few really good novels rotting beneath my bed, collecting spider poop, wanting to be read, yet homeboy up there with his guitar, bastardizing Blackbird, and the rodeo clown artist who must have been dosed on three bottle of cough syrup, had an audience. So I said to hell with it. Who cares if some smarmy intern at Penguin doesn’t think my query letter is worthy of showing the boss. Hell, if you ask me, I think the reason big publishing houses weren’t as interested in Dixie is because they thought it was an “African American” novel, and there really wasn’t an audience. Oh, I guess they never realized that the same folks who purchase all those Hip-Hop and Rap albums, like their kids and interns, might really like Ain’t Whistlin’ Dixie No More. So I feel a lot like Cassius Clay back in 1964 when folks said he didn’t have a snowball’s chance in hell of defeating Sonny Liston, but he did and went on to “shock the world.” And that’s what I intend to do.

What do you mean by “shocking the world?”

I know the odds are against me. Not unlike Dave Matthews who went out and assembled the best talent he could, that’s what I had to do with Ain’t Whistlin’ Dixie No More. Joanna Jones edited the novel as an internship while earning her Technical Writing certificate at Cal Poly. My second editor, Michael Hobbs, graduated with his BA from the Cal Poly English program about a year ago, and I paid him $15 an hour. I took a photo of a tombstone back in Mississippi and had a local graphic artist in town, Brian Christopher, turn the photo into the design for the cover of the novel. I paid him around $300. My student, Ryan Erbstoesser, designed my website for $200. My neighbor, E. Funston-Timms and close friend Jason Greco took all the author photos you see on the website. I paid them in beer. Larry Inchausti, English professor at Cal Poly—truly the most intelligent and the funniest man I’ve met—provided me with endless comic relief and invaluable advice throughout the publishing process. Think I bought him a few cups of coffee. Steve Kane, psychologist and professor in the Counseling and Guidance program at Cal Poly, lent me his ear and friendship over many a cold yellow at Spikes and McCarthy’s, my favorite watering holes, in SLO. My wife, Danell, allowed me to cry on her shoulder and listened while I cursed the publishing gods and also lived with all these crazy characters in Dixie for the last eight years; I wanted to give this project up many times over the years but she would never let me. I have no marketing team, let alone a marketing budget. And I have no agent. Oh, and I did all the organizing for my book while teaching English Composition full time. But I’ll tell you this: I would much rather have this grassroots effort than a bunch of strangers working for me who could give a rat’s fart whether or not I succeed or fail.

What are some of the pitfalls and drawbacks from self-publishing?

I think I just covered most of these. Really, though, the biggest drawback, I would say, is annoyance. The first thing someone asks you when you tell him or her you are a writer is where have you published? The second question they ask is who your publisher is? Does it really matter? Would they have heard of the publisher if you told them? I doubt it. And then there’s the other writers out there who will look down their nose at you, and in the circle of their other friends who all seem to suffer from chronic writer’s block, will, out of jealously, remind one another that “she self-published.” If you ask me, really serious writers out there will self-publish their work. I mean, who better to vouch for their own writing than one who puts their own money into it. Oh, and here’s really the worst aspect: editing. You are all on your own. So, if you see few misplaced commas and periods in Dixie, well, have a little mercy. Mr. Hobbs and I were the only editors on this one, which, as you can imagine from the difficult dialogue, was no easy task.

What do you think about MFA programs?

Oh, Lord. Don’t get me started. Perhaps a better question would be what I think about Richard Simmons.

What?

Some folks need personal trainers to cheer them on to weight loss, and others just do it on their own.

Sounds like you have a chip on your shoulder.

The size of an old Ford motor.

Why?

Maybe it’s the writers I respect most, you know, Bukowski, Miller, Exley, Faulkner, Hemingway, Salinger, Wolfe, Twain, etc. Can you imagine what they would say about MFA programs? I can’t imagine paying, what is it, $20,000 a year to sit around in a circle with a bunch of other writers and “talk their novels” away. What, do they pass around tissue and dab their eyes the whole time? Writing is about living. Go live life and write about it. Better yet, save $40,000 and buy the following: The Elements of Style by Stunk and White; The Rhetoric of Fiction by Wayne Booth; the Bible; a Shakespeare anthology; In Our Time by Ernest Hemingway; and read and reread over and over again the work of your favorite author. Oh, and read any of my Top 99 reads on my website.

So if and when Ain’t Whistlin’ Dixie hits, you would not teach at an MFA program?

Of course I would! I said I would not pay to attend an MFA program. And I would tell my students the first day of class what I just told you: save your money and just go write.

Any advice to other writers?

Experience as much in life as you can and write your ass off every day. I am serious. Sit there for one hour each day, seven days a week, and see what happens. Hey, if you write a page a day, at the end of a year you got yourself a novel. Also, be nosey and curious. Hang out in places where you will hear interesting conversations—you know, bars, airports, hotel lounges, public transportation, emergency rooms. Always keep your eyes and ears open, and let others do the talking; you have to do the listening.

The number of times the “N” word is said in Dixie is a distant second only to Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn and Pulp Fiction. Are you prejudiced or racist?

No, I am not racist, and yes I am prejudiced. I am also honest. We all have tinges of racism. The world forces this upon us. By the way, did you count the number of times my characters said nigga or did you confine your tally to nigger?

Once is enough, isn’t it? Or else isn’t once too many?

Maybe that’s my point. If you hear it once then rage begins. But if you hear it over and over then it loses its power.

So you’re saying it’s OK to tell a child that he is stupid over and over?

No, that’s what you are saying.

What gives you the right to use the “N” word?

I use the word responsibly.

How does one use a word that stirs so many emotions responsibly?

How does one drink responsibly? How does one eat meat responsibly? How does one play video games responsibly?

That seems to be a leap in logic.

Maybe. But look at kids who grow their hair long or get tattoos and piercings all over their body. I bet the reason a lot of them do this is because someone down the line told them not to. And what makes you want to do something more than when someone tells you you can’t? Similarly, as long as blacks keep getting riled up when someone who is not black calls them a nigger, folks will keep using that word to hurt them, to incite their rage. Yes, I carry an instilled, if often invisible, sense of white privilege: I realize that. But if I were black, and I really mean this, and someone called me a nigger, I would respond with pride. Why give someone else the power to control my emotions? I think this is what the gay community has done, embraced the words “queer” and “faggot”—at least members of the gay community I knew in San Francisco.

So you would be OK with someone calling your wife a chink?

Hell no I’m not OK with it. My blood is boiling as we speak. But by publicly getting upset, the user of hate speech wins. How? Because they get a rise out of you. Go home and cry and beat the walls until your knuckles bleed, but don’t give someone else that satisfaction of being able to incite you to emotions by name-calling.

What, then, is the most offensive word to you?

Either motherfucker or son of a bitch.

You have assembled quite an eclectic and egregious cast of characters in Dixie. Are they weak and inferior?

Of course they are, but you are strong and superior for recognizing their weaknesses.

I heard that many of the stock characters in Dixie are actually people that you know in real life?

That is true.

So it is true that you assigned small roles to persons you knew growing up, and other persons you now know or hang out with?

Yes, that is my homage to all the interesting friends and acquaintances I have been blessed with knowing over the years. It is from these interesting friends, and I only hang out with interesting folk, that I pull from and create my own characters.

Do they know, and will they be surprised?

Some do, yes, but they have no idea what role they play. They will be surprised.

You have been exiled to an island and can only take five books with you. What are they?

Easy. 1. Hamlet 2. Bible 3. A Fan’s Notes by Fred Exley 4. Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger 5. Moby Dick by Herman Melville. Oh, for a more extensive list, take a look on my website. I have my top 100, though not necessarily in that order.

Better yet, you get one companion on the island for the rest of your life.

Does my wife count?

You can bring her with you. But what other companion?

Mark Twain.

What literary characters would you most like to meet in Heaven?

Hamlet, Holden, Stuart Little, Huck, Captain Ahab, Gatsby, Moses, and King David.

Is writing your main occupation?

No, teaching is.

What do you teach?

I teach English Composition and Rhetoric at Cal Poly and Cuesta College.

If your novel takes off, as I know it will, will you continue to teach?

God, yes. Writing is what I do to stay sane and make sense of the world, but teaching is my true calling. I love what I do, and I love the connections I make with my students. And if I can turn someone on to reading and writing, the two most important things to me in the world besides my wife and family, well, what a truly blessed man I am.

Carson, where do you see yourself in a year?

On the Oprah show then a trip to Disneyland.