“So in the novel I’m driving at the idea that justice and freedom don’t wait. It’s not, well, you need to suffer just a little more and then things are going to be peachy in fifty years. No. That was the rationale for colonialism and you can see the wreckage that left behind.”
“I was feeling quite self-satisfied when I showed [Dean Bakopoulos, friend and novelist] the passage that described Carolyn. I showed it to him because I thought, ‘Oh, he’s going to get a kick out of this; it’s pretty funny.’ And he comes back with, ‘Yes, it is funny, you’re right. But you can’t do this to her. She needs to have some dimension.’ I get those reminders in real life, too.” Mindy Misener chats with Michael Perry about his new novel, The Jesus Cow, and his transition from non-fiction to fiction.
